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At least 991 records · Page 55

Mortality among Tennessee Eastman Corporation (TEC) uranium processing workers, 1943–2019

Background: There are few occupational studies of women exposed to ionizing radiation. During World War II, the Tennessee Eastman Corporation (TEC) operated an electromagnetic field separation facility of 1152 calutrons to obtain enriched uranium (235U) used for the Hiroshima atomic bomb. Thousands of women were involved in these operations. Materials and methods: We report a new study was conducted of 13,951 women and 12,699 men employed at TEC between 1943 and 1947 for at least 90 days. Comprehensive dose reconstruction techniques were used to estimate lung doses from the inhalation of uranium dust based on airborne measurements. Vital status through 2018/2019 was obtained from the National Death Index, Social Security Death Index, Tennessee death records and online public record databases. Analyses included standardized mortality ratios (SMRs) and Cox proportional hazards models. Results: Most workers were hourly (77.7%), white (95.6%), born before 1920 (58.3%), worked in dusty environments (57.0%), and had died (94.9%). Vital status was confirmed for 97.4% of the workers. Women were younger than men when first employed: mean ages 25.0 years and 33.0 years, respectively. The estimated mean absorbed dose to the lung was 32.7 mGy (max 1048 mGy) for women and 18.9 mGy (max 501 mGy) for men. The mean dose to thoracic lymph nodes (TLNs) was 127 mGy. Statistically significant SMRs were observed for lung cancer (SMR 1.25; 95% CI 1.19, 1.31; n = 1654), nonmalignant respiratory diseases (NMRDs) (1.23; 95% CI 1.19, 1.28; n = 2585), and cerebrovascular disease (CeVD) (1.13; 95% CI 1.08, 1.18; n = 1945). For lung cancer, the excess relative rate (ERR) at 100 mGy (95% CI) was 0.01 (–0.10, 0.12; n = 652) among women, and –0.15 (–0.38, 0.07; n = 1002) among men based on a preferred model for men with lung doses <300 mGy. NMRD and non-Hodgkin lymphoma were not associated with estimated absorbed dose to the lung or TLN. Conclusions: There was little evidence that radiation increased the risk of lung cancer, suggesting that inhalation of uranium dust and the associated high-LET alpha particle exposure to lung tissue experienced over a few years is less effective in causing lung cancer than other types of exposures. There was no statistically significant difference in the lung cancer risk estimates between men and women. The elevation of certain causes of death such as CeVD is unexplained and will require additional scrutiny of workplace or lifestyle factors given that radiation is an unlikely contributor since only the lung and lymph nodes received appreciable dose.

63 RADIATION, THERMAL, AND OTHER ENVIRON. POLLUTAN↗

Time-resolved K α spectroscopy measurements of hot-electron equilibration dynamics in thin-foil solid targets: Collisional and collective effects

Time-resolved K α spectroscopy measurements from high-intensity laser interactions with thin-foil solid targets are reviewed. Thin Cu foils were irradiated with 1- to 10-J, 1-ps pulses at focused intensities from 10 18 to 10 19 W/cm 2 . The experimental data show K α -emission pulse widths from 3 to 6 ps, increasing with laser intensity. The time-resolved K α -emission data are compared to a hot-electron transport and K α -production model that includes collisional electron-energy coupling, resistive heating, and electromagnetic field effects. The experimental data show good agreement with the model when a reduced ponderomotive scaling is used to describe the initial mean hot-electron energy over the relevant intensity range.

74 ATOMIC AND MOLECULAR PHYSICS↗

Kinetic physics in ICF: present understanding and future directions

Kinetic physics has the potential to impact the performance of indirect-drive inertial confinement fusion (ICF) experiments. Systematic anomalies in the National Ignition Facility implosion dataset have been identified in which kinetic physics may play a role, including inferred missing energy in the hohlraum, drive asymmetry in near-vacuum hohlraums, low areal density and high burn-averaged ion temperatures (T i ) compared with mainline simulations, and low ratios of the DD-neutron and DT-neutron yields and inferred T i . Several components of ICF implosions are likely to be influenced or dominated by kinetic physics: laser-plasma interactions in the LEH and hohlraum interior; the hohlraum wall blowoff, blowoff/gas and blowoff/ablator interfaces; the ablator and ablator/ice interface; and the DT fuel all present conditions in which kinetic physics can significantly affect the dynamics. This review presents the assembled experimental data and simulation results to date, which indicate that the effects of long mean-free-path plasma phenomena and self-generated electromagnetic fields may have a significant impact in ICF targets. Finally, simulation and experimental efforts are proposed to definitively quantify the importance of these effects at ignition-relevant conditions, including priorities for ongoing study.

42 ENGINEERING↗

Attosecond transient absorption of argon atoms in the vacuum ultraviolet region: line energy shifts versus coherent population transfer

Using attosecond transient absorption, the dipole response of an argon atom in the vacuum ultraviolet (VUV) region is studied when an external electromagnetic field is present. An isolated attosecond VUV pulse populates Rydberg states lying 15 eV above the argon ground state. A synchronized few-cycle near infrared (NIR) pulse modifies the oscillating dipoles of argon impulsively, leading to alterations in the VUV absorption spectra. As the NIR pulse is delayed with respect to the VUV pulse, multiple features in the absorption profile emerge simultaneously including line broadening, sideband structure, sub-cycle fast modulations, and 5-10 fs slow modulations. These features indicate the coexistence of two general processes of the light-matter interaction: the energy shift of individual atomic levels and coherent population transfer between atomic eigenstates, revealing coherent superpositions. Finally, an intuitive formula is derived to treat both effects in a unifying framework, allowing one to identify and quantify the two processes in a single absorption spectrogram.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

Locust: C++ software for simulation of RF detection

The Locust simulation package is the new C++ software tool developed to simulate the measurement of time-varying electromagnetic fields using RF detection techniques. Modularity and flexibility allow for arbitrary input signals, while concurrently supporting tight integration with physics-based simulations as input. External signals driven by the Kassiopeia particle tracking package are discussed, demonstrating conditional feedback between Locust and Kassiopeia during software execution. An application of the simulation to the Project 8 experiment is described. Locust is publicly available at https://github.com/project8/locust_mc

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

2020 roadmap on plasma accelerators

Abstract Plasma-based accelerators use the strong electromagnetic fields that can be supported by plasmas to accelerate charged particles to high energies. Accelerating field structures in plasma can be generated by powerful laser pulses or charged particle beams. This research field has recently transitioned from involving a few small-scale efforts to the development of national and international networks of scientists supported by substantial investment in large-scale research infrastructure. In this New Journal of Physics 2020 Plasma Accelerator Roadmap, perspectives from experts in this field provide a summary overview of the field and insights into the research needs and developments for an international audience of scientists, including graduate students and researchers entering the field.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗

Ultracold neutron storage simulation using the Kassiopeia software package

The Kassiopeia software package was originally developed to simulate electromagnetic fields and charged particle trajectories for neutrino mass measurement experiments. Recent additions to Kassiopeia also allow it to simulate neutral particle trajectories in magnetic fields based on their magnetic moments. Two different methods were implemented: an exact method that can work for arbitrary fields and an adiabatic method that is limited to slowly-varying fields but is much faster for large precession frequencies. Additional interactions to simulate reflection of ultracold neutrons (UCNs) from material walls and to allow spin–flip pulses were also added. These tools were used to simulate neutron precession in a room temperature neutron electric dipole moment experiment and predict the values of the longitudinal and transverse relaxation times as well as the trapping lifetime. All three parameters are found to closely match the experimentally determined values when simulated with both the exact and adiabatic methods, confirming that Kassiopeia is able to accurately simulate neutral particles. This opens the door for future uses of Kassiopeia to prototype the next generation of atomic traps and UCN experiments.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

Quantum vacuum processes in the extremely intense light of relativistic plasma mirror sources

Abstract The advent of petawatt-class laser systems allows generating electromagnetic fields of unprecedented strength in a controlled environment, driving increasingly more efforts to probe yet unobserved processes through their interaction with the quantum vacuum. Still, the lowest intensity scale governing these effects lies orders of magnitude beyond foreseen capabilities, so that such endeavor is expected to remain extremely challenging. In recent years, however, plasma mirrors have emerged as a promising bridge across this gap, by enabling the conversion of intense infrared laser pulses into coherently focused Doppler harmonic beams lying in the X-UV range. In this work, we present predictions on the quantum vacuum signatures produced when such beams are focused to intensities between 10 24 and 10 28 W cm −2 , specifically photon–photon scattering and electron–positron pair creation. These signatures are computed via the stimulated vacuum formalism, combined with a model of perfectly focused beam built from PIC-generated harmonics spectra, and implemented on state-of-the-art massively parallel numerical tools. In view of identifying experimentally favorable configurations, we also consider the coupling of the focused harmonic beam with an auxiliary optical beam, and provide comparison with other established schemes. Our results show that a single coherently focused harmonic beam can produce as much scattered photons as two infrared pulses in head-on collision, and confirm that the coupling of the harmonic beam to an auxiliary beam gives rise to significant levels of inelastic scattering, and hence holds the potential to strongly improve the attainable signal to noise ratios in experiments.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

MeV dark matter complementarity and the dark photon portal

Here we discuss the phenomenology of an MeV-scale Dirac fermion coupled to the Standard Model through a dark photon with kinetic mixing with the electromagnetic field. We compute the dark matter relic density and explore the interplay of direct detection and accelerator searches for dark photons. We show that precise measurements of the temperature and polarization power spectra of the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation lead to stringent constraints, leaving a small window for the thermal production of this MeV dark matter candidate. The forthcoming MeV gamma-ray telescope e-ASTROGAM will offer important and complementary opportunities to discover dark matter particles with masses below ~ 10 MeV . Lastly, we discuss how a late-time inflation episode and freeze-in production could conspire to yield the correct relic density while being consistent with existing and future constraints.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

Photons from dark photon solitons via parametric resonance

Wave-like dark matter made of spin-1 particles (dark photons) is expected to form ground state clumps called "vector solitons", which can have different polarizations. Here, in this work, we consider the interaction of dark photons with photons, expressed as dimension-6 operators, and study the electromagnetic radiation that arises from an isolated vector soliton due to parametric resonant amplification of the ambient electromagnetic field. We characterize the directional dependence and polarization of the outgoing radiation, which depends on the operator as well as the polarization state of the underlying vector soliton. We discuss the implications of this radiation for the stability of solitons and as a possible channel for detecting mergers of vector solitons through astrophysical observations.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Benchmark of gyrokinetic, kinetic MHD and gyrofluid codes for the linear calculation of fast particle driven TAE dynamics

Fast particles in fusion plasmas may drive Alfvén modes unstable leading to fluctuations of the internal electromagnetic fields and potential loss of particles. Such instabilities can have an impact on the performance and the wall-load of machines with burning plasmas such as ITER. A linear benchmark for a toroidal Alfvén eigenmode (TAE) is done with 11 participating codes with a broad variation in the physical as well as the numerical models. A reasonable agreement of around 20% has been found for the growth rates. Furthermore, the agreement of the eigenfunctions and mode frequencies is satisfying. However, they are found to depend strongly on the complexity of the used model.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

Progress towards a laser produced relativistic electron-positron pair plasma

Here, a set of experiments has been performed exploring unique characteristics of pair jets and plasmas at several energetic short-pulse laser facilities including Titan at Livermore and OMEGA EP in Rochester, as well as the Osaka LFEX and AWE Orion lasers. New results are summarized, including positron beam emittance, scaling of pair production vs. laser energy, and initial results on the pair jet collimation using electromagnetic fields.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

Development of a WDM platform for charged-particle stopping experiments

A platform has been developed for generating large and relatively quiescent plasmas in the warm-dense matter (WDM) regime on the OMEGA laser facility. A cylindrical geometry is used to allow charged-particle probing along the axis. The plasma heating is radiative by L-shell emission generated on the outside of the cylinder. The cylinder drive is characterized with x-ray diagnostics. Possibilities for direct characterization of the plasma temperature are discussed. Lastly, the unimportance of electromagnetic fields around the target is demonstrated with proton radiography. We expect this platform to be used extensively in future experiments studying charged-particle stopping in this regime.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

The Faraday room of the CUORE experiment

The paper describes the Faraday room that shields the CUORE experiment against electromagnetic fields, from 50 Hz up to high frequency. Practical constraints led to choose panels made of light shielding materials. The seams between panels were optimized with simulations to minimize leakage. Measurements of shielding performance show attenuation of a factor 15–20 at 50 Hz, and a factor 1000 above 1 kHz up to about 100 MHz.

Bucci, C.↗

Prediction of the Lorentz Force Detuning and pressure sensitivity for a Pillbox cavity

The Lorentz Force Detuning (LFD) and the pressure sensitivity are two critical concerns during the design of a Superconducting Radio Frequency (SRF) cavity resonator. The mechanical deformation of the bare Niobium cavity walls, due to the electromagnetic fields and fluctuation of the external pressure in the Helium bath, can dynamically and statically detune the frequency of the cavity and can cause beam phase errors. The frequency shift can be compensated by additional RF power, that is required to maintain the accelerating gradient, or by sophisticated tuning mechanisms and control-compensation algorithms. Passive stiffening is one of the simplest and most effective tools that can be used during the early design phase, capable of satisfying the Radio Frequency (RF) requisites. This approach requires several multiphysics simulations as well as a deep mechanical and RF knowledge of the phenomena involved. In this paper, is presented a new numerical model for a pillbox cavity that can predict the frequency shifts caused by the LFD and external pressure. This method allows to greatly reduce the computational effort, which is necessary to meet the RF requirements and to keep track of the frequency shifts without using the time consuming multiphysics simulations.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗

Modelling general-relativistic plasmas with collisionless moments and dissipative two-fluid magnetohydrodynamics

ABSTRACT Relativistic plasmas are central to the study of black hole accretion, jet physics, neutron star mergers, and compact object magnetospheres. Despite the need to accurately capture the dynamics of these plasmas and the implications for relativistic transients, their fluid modelling is typically done using a number of (overly) simplifying assumptions, which do not hold in general. This is especially true when the mean free path in the plasma is large compared to the system size, and kinetic effects start to become important. Going beyond common approaches used in the literature, we describe a fully relativistic covariant 14-moment based two-fluid system appropriate for the study of electron–ion or electron–positron plasmas. This generalized Israel-Stewart-like system of equations of motion is obtained directly from the relativistic Boltzmann–Vlasov equation. This new formulation can account for non-ideal effects, such as anisotropic pressures and heat fluxes, not present in previous formulations of two-fluid magnetohydrodynamics. We show that a relativistic two-fluid plasma can be recast as a single fluid coupled to electromagnetic fields with (potentially large) out-of-equilibrium corrections. We keep all electron degrees of freedom, which provide self-consistent evolution equations for electron temperature and momentum. The out-of-equilibrium corrections take the form of a collisional 14-moment closure previously described in the context of viscous single fluids. The equations outlined in this paper are able to capture the full two-fluid character of collisionless plasmas found in black hole accretion and flaring processes around compact objects, as well Braginskii-like two-fluid magnetohydrodynamics applicable to weakly collisional plasmas inside accretion discs.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

The role of plasma instabilities in relativistic radiation-mediated shocks: stability analysis and particle-in-cell simulations

ABSTRACT Relativistic radiation-mediated shocks are likely formed in prodigious cosmic explosions. The structure and emission of such shocks are regulated by copious production of electron–positron pairs inside the shock-transition layer. It has been pointed out recently that substantial abundance of positrons inside the shock leads to a velocity separation of the different plasma constituents, which is expected to induce a rapid growth of plasma instabilities. In this paper, we study the hierarchy of plasma microinstabilities growing in an electron-ion plasma loaded with pairs and subject to a radiation force. Linear stability analysis indicates that such a system is unstable to the growth of various plasma modes which ultimately become dominated by a current filamentation instability driven by the relative drift between the ions and the pairs. These results are validated by particle-in-cell simulations that further probe the non-linear regime of the instabilities, and the pair-ion coupling in the microturbulent electromagnetic field. Based on this analysis, we derive a reduced-transport equation for the particles via pitch-angle scattering in the microturbulence and demonstrate that it can couple the different species and lead to non-adiabatic compression via a Joule-like heating. The heating of the pairs and, conceivably, the formation of non-thermal distributions, arising from the microturbulence, can affect the observed shock-breakout signal in ways unaccounted for by current single-fluid models.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Towards modelling AR Sco: generalized particle dynamics and strong radiation-reaction regimes

Numerical simulations of relativistic plasmas have become more feasible, popular, and crucial for various astrophysical sources with the availability of computational resources. The necessity for high-accuracy particle dynamics is especially highlighted in pulsar modelling due to the extreme associated electromagnetic fields and particle Lorentz factors. Including the radiation-reaction force in the particle dynamics adds even more complexity to the problem, but is crucial for such extreme astrophysical sources. We have also realized the need for such modelling concerning magnetic mirroring and particle injection models proposed for AR Sco, the first white dwarf pulsar. This paper demonstrates the benefits of using higher-order explicit numerical integrators with adaptive time-step methods to solve the full particle dynamics with radiation-reaction forces included. We show that for standard test scenarios, namely various combinations of uniform E- and B-fields and a static dipole B-field, the schemes we use are equivalent to and in extreme field cases outperform standard symplectic integrators in accuracy. We show that the higher-order schemes have massive computational time improvements due to the adaptive time-steps we implement, especially in non-uniform field scenarios and included radiation reaction where the particle gyro-radius rapidly changes. When balancing accuracy and computational time, we identified the adaptive Dormand–Prince eighth-order scheme to be ideal for our use cases. The schemes we use maintain accuracy and stability in describing the particle dynamics and we indicate how a charged particle enters radiation-reaction equilibrium and conforms to the analytical Aristotelian Electrodynamics expectations.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗