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At least 1,261 records · Page 70

SU-E-T-26: A Study On the Influence of Photonuclear Reactions On the Biological Effectiveness of Therapeutic High Energy X-Ray Beam

Purpose: Photons from a modern high-energy therapeutic linear accelerator used in X-ray radiotherapy causes photonuclear reactions in an accelerator or patient's body. The aim of this study is to evaluate the biological effectiveness including these particles by Microdosimetric Kinetic Model (MKM) based on microdosimetry. Methods: A linear accelerator operating at 15 MV was used. CR-39 was used to obtain LET spectra of secondary ions selectively, as CR-39 is regarded insensitive to photons. CR-39 was put on the central axis of the X-ray beam at depths of 0, 5 and 10 cm in plastic phantom at a source to detector distance of 100 cm. Pits formed by the traversal of ions were etched then analyzed to obtain restricted LET distribution. Frequency-mean and dose-mean lineal energy was evaluated from the relationship between the restricted LET and the lineal energy required to evaluate the biological effectiveness by MKM. The relationship was calculated by Monte Carlo simulations with GEANT4. Results: Restricted LET distributions of secondary particles showed broad distributions that decreases exponentially with increasing LET. Frequency-mean and dose-mean lineal energy were determined uniquely within the scope of the energies of secondary particles generated from photons of 15 MeV. The frequency-mean lineal energies at the depth of 0, 5 and 10 cm were 15.1, 16.0 and 19.7 keV/μm respectively, and the dose-mean lineal energies were 18.6, 20.5 and 19.6 keV/μm, respectively. RBE of secondary particles for HSG cell evaluated by MKM was about 2.0 at all depths, and RBE of all particles including photons was evaluated 1.0. Conclusion: We investigated the biological effectiveness of secondary particles by photonuclear reactions. The method to evaluate RBE by MKM was established with measurements and simulations. However, the influence of these secondary ions on RBE was found negligible in the entire biological effectiveness of the high-energy X-ray. This study has been supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Number 25861144.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗

Quantification of initial-data uncertainty on a shock-accelerated gas cylinder

We quantify initial-data uncertainties on a shock accelerated heavy-gas cylinder by two-dimensional well-resolved direct numerical simulations. A high-resolution compressible multicomponent flow simulation model is coupled with a polynomial chaos expansion to propagate the initial-data uncertainties to the output quantities of interest. The initial flow configuration follows previous experimental and numerical works of the shock accelerated heavy-gas cylinder. We investigate three main initial-data uncertainties, (i) shock Mach number, (ii) contamination of SF{sub 6} with acetone, and (iii) initial deviations of the heavy-gas region from a perfect cylindrical shape. The impact of initial-data uncertainties on the mixing process is examined. The results suggest that the mixing process is highly sensitive to input variations of shock Mach number and acetone contamination. Additionally, our results indicate that the measured shock Mach number in the experiment of Tomkins et al. [“An experimental investigation of mixing mechanisms in shock-accelerated flow,” J. Fluid. Mech. 611, 131 (2008)] and the estimated contamination of the SF{sub 6} region with acetone [S. K. Shankar, S. Kawai, and S. K. Lele, “Two-dimensional viscous flow simulation of a shock accelerated heavy gas cylinder,” Phys. Fluids 23, 024102 (2011)] exhibit deviations from those that lead to best agreement between our simulations and the experiment in terms of overall flow evolution.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

Utilizing IBM Spectrum LSF Simulator to Understand the Impacts of Adding AI Workloads to Capability Supercomputing

Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence has been identified as an emerging priority science area within the Department of Energy. Large scale accelerator based supercomputers like Summit, while traditionally employed for modeling and simulation, provide architectures that are suitable for accelerating the ML/AI workloads at scale. With the release of Summit in 2018, there was an increase in the number of ML/AI based projects seeking time on the machine. It quickly became apparent that the allocations and job runtimes for this workload deviated from traditional large scale modeling and simulation. Accommodating this new workload requires understanding the impacts to traditional large scale modeling and simulation.

96 KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT AND PRESERVATION↗

Oxygen transport properties estimation by DSMC-CT simulations

Coupling DSMC simulations with classical trajectories calculations is emerging as a powerful tool to improve predictive capabilities of computational rarefied gas dynamics. The considerable increase of computational effort outlined in the early application of the method (Koura,1997) can be compensated by running simulations on massively parallel computers. In particular, GPU acceleration has been found quite effective in reducing computing time (Ferrigni,2012; Norman et al.,2013) of DSMC-CT simulations. The aim of the present work is to study rarefied Oxygen flows by modeling binary collisions through an accurate potential energy surface, obtained by molecular beams scattering (Aquilanti, et al.,1999). The accuracy of the method is assessed by calculating molecular Oxygen shear viscosity and heat conductivity following three different DSMC-CT simulation methods. In the first one, transport properties are obtained from DSMC-CT simulations of spontaneous fluctuation of an equilibrium state (Bruno et al, Phys. Fluids, 23, 093104, 2011). In the second method, the collision trajectory calculation is incorporated in a Monte Carlo integration procedure to evaluate the Taxman’s expressions for the transport properties of polyatomic gases (Taxman,1959). In the third, non-equilibrium zero and one-dimensional rarefied gas dynamic simulations are adopted and the transport properties are computed from the non-equilibrium fluxes of momentum and energy. The three methods provide close values of the transport properties, their estimated statistical error not exceeding 3%. The experimental values are slightly underestimated, the percentage deviation being, again, few percent.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

RADIO AND X-RAY SHOCKS IN CLUSTERS OF GALAXIES

Radio relics detected in the outskirts of galaxy clusters are thought to trace radio-emitting relativistic electrons accelerated at cosmological shocks. In this study, using the cosmological hydrodynamic simulation data for the large-scale structure formation and adopting a diffusive shock acceleration (DSA) model for the production of cosmic-ray (CR) electrons, we construct mock radio and X-ray maps of simulated galaxy clusters that are projected in the sky plane. Various properties of shocks and radio relics, including the shock Mach number, radio spectral index, and luminosity, are extracted from the synthetic maps and compared with observations. A substantial fraction of radio and X-ray shocks identified in these maps involve multiple shock surfaces along lines of sight (LOSs), and the morphology of shock distributions in the maps depends on the projection direction. Among multiple shocks in a given LOS, radio observations tend to pick up stronger shocks with flatter radio spectra, while X-ray observations preferentially select weaker shocks with larger kinetic energy flux. As a result, in some cases the shock Mach numbers and locations derived from radio and X-ray observations could differ from each other. We also find that the distributions of the spectral index and radio power of the synthetic radio relics are somewhat inconsistent with those of observed real relics; a bit more radio relics have been observed closer to the cluster core and with steeper spectral indices. We suggest that the inconsistency could be explained if very weak shocks with M{sub s} ≲ 2 accelerate CR electrons more efficiently, compared with the DSA model adopted here.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Unconventional ideas for ionization cooling of muons

Small muon beams increase the luminosity of a muon collider. Reducing the momentum and position spreads of muons reduces emittance and leads to small, cool beams. Ionization cooling has been observed at the Muon Ionization Cooling Experiment. 6D emittance reduction by a factor of 100, 000 has been achieved in simulation. Another factor of 5 in cooling would meet the basic requirements of a high luminosity muon collider. In this paper we compare, for the first time, the amount of RF needed in a cooling channel to previous linacs. Here, we also outline three methods aimed to help achieve a final factor of 5 in 6D cooling.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗

Extension of Virtual Test Bed Advanced Modeling and Simulation Capabilities for Fusion Energy

The National Reactor Innovation Center (NRIC) was established to accelerate the deployment of novel reactor concepts. This is achieved by providing physical and virtual spaces for building and testing reactor experiments. The Virtual Test Bed (VTB) represents the virtual counterpart to the physical test beds. It is a collaboration with the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) program with the mission to accelerate the deployment of advanced reactors by facilitating the adoption of advanced modeling and simulation (M&S) tools developed by the DOE. This mission has been carried out by the VTB since 2020 by hosting and featuring dozens of advanced fission nuclear reactor models developed by national laboratories and academia. The charter of the NRIC’s definition of advanced reactors also includes fusion nuclear reactors. As the tools developed by the NEAMS program are increasingly used for modeling fusion energy devices, there is an increasing need to host fusion reactor models on the VTB repository. The VTB will be extended in 2024 to support fusion energy modeling and simulation.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

Multiscale and multidimensional modeling of particle acceleration and transport in solar flares

Multi-messenger, multi-viewpoint, and time-resolved observations of solar flares are now providing unprecedented constraints on particle acceleration sites, energy conversion, and energy transport. The interpretation of current observations, including microwave imaging spectroscopy from EOVSA, hard x-ray (HXR) imaging from Solar Orbiter/STIX, gamma-ray diagnostics from Fermi, and in situ measurements from Parker Solar Probe and Solar Orbiter, collectively demands modeling frameworks that go beyond traditional spatially unresolved, one-zone models or single-mechanism descriptions. This review surveys multiscale and multidimensional modeling approaches, including kinetic, magnetohydrodynamic (MHD), and macroscopic particle models, that are being developed to meet the need. Kinetic simulations reveal that three-dimensional (3D) effects, including field-line chaos and self-generated turbulence, are essential for sustained power-law particle acceleration. MHD simulations now capture flux-rope eruptions, plasmoid-unstable current sheets, and turbulent flare regions in realistic magnetic topologies. Macroscopic models coupling MHD with energetic-particle models produce spatially resolved electron distributions and synthetic HXR and microwave emissions for direct comparison with observations. Despite these advances, outstanding challenges remain in bridging kinetic and global scales, improving MHD simulations and macroscopic particle models, and achieving quantitative model-observation closure.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

System-size Convergence of Nonthermal Particle Acceleration in Relativistic Plasma Turbulence

We apply collisionless particle-in-cell simulations of relativistic pair plasmas to explore whether driven turbulence is a viable high-energy astrophysical particle accelerator. We characterize nonthermal particle distributions for varying system sizes up to L/2πρ e0 = 163, where L/2π is the driving scale and ρ e0 is the initial characteristic Larmor radius. We show that turbulent particle acceleration produces power-law energy distributions that, when compared at a fixed number of large-scale dynamical times, slowly steepen with increasing system size. We demonstrate, however, that convergence is obtained by comparing the distributions at different times that increase with system size (approximately logarithmically). We suggest that the system-size dependence arises from the time required for particles to reach the highest accessible energies via Fermi acceleration. The converged power-law index of the energy distribution, α ≈ 3.0 for magnetization σ = 3/8, makes turbulence a possible explanation for nonthermal spectra observed in systems such as the Crab Nebula.

Zhdankin, Vladimir↗

DeepMC: a deep learning method for efficient Monte Carlo beamlet dose calculation by predictive denoising in magnetic resonance-guided radiotherapy

Abstract Emerging magnetic resonance (MR) guided radiotherapy affords significantly improved anatomy visualization and, subsequently, more effective personalized treatment. The new therapy paradigm imposes significant demands on radiation dose calculation quality and speed, creating an unmet need for the acceleration of Monte Carlo (MC) dose calculation. Existing deep learning approaches to denoise the final plan MC dose fail to achieve the accuracy and speed requirements of large-scale beamlet dose calculation in the presence of a strong magnetic field for online adaptive radiotherapy planning. Our deep learning dose calculation method, DeepMC, addresses these needs by predicting low-noise dose from extremely noisy (but fast) MC-simulated dose and anatomical inputs, thus enabling significant acceleration. DeepMC simultaneously reduces MC sampling noise and predicts corrupted dose buildup at tissue-air material interfaces resulting from MR-field induced electron return effects. Here we demonstrate our model’s ability to accelerate dose calculation for daily treatment planning by a factor of 38 over traditional low-noise MC simulation with clinically meaningful accuracy in deliverable dose and treatment delivery parameters. As a post-processing approach, DeepMC provides compounded acceleration of large-scale dose calculation when used alongside established MC acceleration techniques in variance reduction and graphics processing unit-based MC simulation.

Engineering↗

Influence of voltage rise time on microwave generation in relativistic backward wave oscillator

In relativistic backward wave oscillators (RBWOs), although the slow wave structure (SWS) and electron beam determine the main characteristics of beam-wave interaction, many other factors can also significantly affect the microwave generation process. This paper investigates the influence of voltage rise time on beam-wave interaction in RBWOs. Preliminary analysis and PIC simulations demonstrate if the voltage rise time is moderately long, the microwave frequency will gradually increase during the startup process until the voltage reaches its amplitude, which can be explained by the dispersion relation. However, if the voltage rise time is long enough, the longitudinal resonance of the finitely-long SWS will force the RBWO to work with unwanted longitudinal modes for a while and then gradually hop to the wanted longitudinal mode, and this will lead to an impure microwave frequency spectrum. Besides, a longer voltage rise time will delay the startup process and thus lead to a longer microwave saturation time. And if unwanted longitudinal modes are excited due to long voltage rise time, the microwave saturation time will be further lengthened. Therefore, the voltage rise time of accelerators adopted in high power microwave technology should not be too long in case unwanted longitudinal modes are excited.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

Energy Spectrum and Mass Composition of Ultra-high-energy Cosmic Rays Originating from Relativistic Jets of Nearby Radio Galaxies

Relativistic jets of radio galaxies (RGs) are possible sources of ultra-high-energy cosmic rays (UHECRs). Recent studies combining relativistic hydrodynamic simulations with Monte Carlo particle transport have demonstrated that UHECRs can be accelerated to energies beyond 10 20 eV through shocks, turbulence, and relativistic shear in jet-induced flows of Fanaroff–Riley type RGs. The resulting time-asymptotic UHECR spectrum is well modeled by a double power law with an “extended” exponential cutoff, primarily shaped by relativistic shear acceleration. In this study, we adopt this novel source spectrum and simulate the propagation of UHECRs from nearby RGs using the CRPropa code. We focus on Virgo A (Vir A), Centaurus A (Cen A), Fornax A (For A), and Cygnus A (Cyg A), expected to be the most prominent UHECR sources among RGs. We then analyze the energy spectrum and mass composition of UHECRs arriving at Earth. We find that, due to the extended high-energy tail in the source spectrum, UHECRs from Vir A, which has a higher Lorentz factor, exhibit a higher flux at the highest energies and a lighter mass composition at Earth compared to those from Cen A and For A with lower Lorentz factors. Despite Cyg A having an even higher Lorentz factor, the large distance limits its contribution. With a small number of nearby prominent RGs, our findings suggest that if RGs are the major sources of UHECRs, the energy spectrum and mass composition of observed UHECRs would exhibit hemispheric differences between the Northern and Southern skies at the highest energies.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Fluid simulation of the bias effect in inductive/capacitive discharges

Computer simulations are performed for an argon inductively coupled plasma (ICP) with a capacitive radio-frequency bias power, to investigate the bias effect on the discharge mode transition and on the plasma characteristics at various ICP currents, bias voltages, and bias frequencies. When the bias frequency is fixed at 13.56 MHz and the ICP current is low, e.g., 6 A, the spatiotemporal averaged plasma density increases monotonically with bias voltage, and the bias effect is already prominent at a bias voltage of 90 V. The maximum of the ionization rate moves toward the bottom electrode, which indicates clearly the discharge mode transition in inductive/capacitive discharges. At higher ICP currents, i.e., 11 and 13 A, the plasma density decreases first and then increases with bias voltage, due to the competing mechanisms between the ion acceleration power dissipation and the capacitive power deposition. At 11 A, the bias effect is still important, but it is noticeable only at higher bias voltages. At 13 A, the ionization rate is characterized by a maximum at the reactor center near the dielectric window at all selected bias voltages, which indicates that the ICP power, instead of the bias power, plays a dominant role under this condition, and no mode transition is observed. Indeed, the ratio of the bias power to the total power is lower than 0.4 over a wide range of bias voltages, i.e., 0–300 V. Besides the effect of ICP current, also the effect of various bias frequencies is investigated. It is found that the modulation of the bias power to the spatiotemporal distributions of the ionization rate at 2 MHz is strikingly different from the behavior observed at higher bias frequencies. Furthermore, the minimum of the plasma density appears at different bias voltages, i.e., 120 V at 2 MHz and 90 V at 27.12 MHz.

42 ENGINEERING↗

Time-dependent modeling of gamma-ray flares in blazar PKS1510–089

Here we present a new approach for constraining luminous blazars, incorporating fully time-dependent and self-consistent modeling of bright γ-ray flares of PKS 1510–089, resolved with Fermi-LAT, in the framework of the internal shock scenario. The results of our modeling imply the location of the γ-ray flaring zone to be outside of the broad-line region, namely around ≃0.3 pc from the core for a free-expanding jet with the opening angle Γ θ{sub jet}≃1 (where Γ is the jet bulk Lorentz factor), up to ≃3 pc for a collimated outflow with Γ θ{sub jet}≃0.1. Moreover, under the Γ θ{sub jet}≃1 condition, our modeling indicates the maximum efficiency of the jet production during the flares, with the total jet energy flux strongly dominated by protons and exceeding the available accretion power in the source. This is in contrast to the quiescence states of the blazar, characterized by lower jet kinetic power and an approximate energy equipartition between different plasma constituents. We demostrate how strictly simultaneous observations of flaring PKS 1510–089 at optical, X-ray, and GeV photon energies, on hourly timescales, augmented by extensive simulations as presented in this paper, may help to impose further precise constraints on the magnetization and opening angle of the emitting region. In addition, our detailed modeling implies that a non-uniformity of the Doppler factor across the jet, caused by the radial expansion of the outflow, may lead to a pronounced time distortion in the observed γ-ray light curves, resulting, in particular, in asymmetric flux profiles with substantially extended decay phases.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Monte Carlo computer simulation of sedimentation of charged hard spherocylinders

In this article we present a NVT Monte Carlo computer simulation study of sedimentation of an electroneutral mixture of oppositely charged hard spherocylinders (CHSC) with aspect ratio L/σ = 5, where L and σ are the length and diameter of the cylinder and hemispherical caps, respectively, for each particle. This system is an extension of the restricted primitive model for spherical particles, where L/σ = 0, and it is assumed that the ions are immersed in an structureless solvent, i.e., a continuum with dielectric constant D. The system consisted of N = 2000 particles and the Wolf method was implemented to handle the coulombic interactions of the inhomogeneous system. Results are presented for different values of the strength ratio between the gravitational and electrostatic interactions, Γ = (mgσ)/(e{sup 2}/Dσ), where m is the mass per particle, e is the electron's charge and g is the gravitational acceleration value. A semi-infinite simulation cell was used with dimensions L{sub x} ≈ L{sub y} and L{sub z} = 5L{sub x}, where L{sub x}, L{sub y}, and L{sub z} are the box dimensions in Cartesian coordinates, and the gravitational force acts along the z-direction. Sedimentation effects were studied by looking at every layer formed by the CHSC along the gravitational field. By increasing Γ, particles tend to get more packed at each layer and to arrange in local domains with an orientational ordering along two perpendicular axis, a feature not observed in the uncharged system with the same hard-body geometry. This type of arrangement, known as tetratic phase, has been observed in two-dimensional systems of hard-rectangles and rounded hard-squares. In this way, the coupling of gravitational and electric interactions in the CHSC system induces the arrangement of particles in layers, with the formation of quasi-two dimensional tetratic phases near the surface.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

Beam dynamic simulation and optimization of the CLIC positron source and the capture linac

The CLIC Positron Source is based on the hybrid target composed of a crystal and an amorphous target. Simulations have been performed from the exit of the amorphous target to the end of pre-injector linac which captures and accelerates the positrons to an energy of 200 MeV. Simulations are performed by the particle tracking code PARMELA. The magnetic field of the AMD is represented in PARMELA by simple coils. Two modes are applied in this study. The first one is accelerating mode based on acceleration after the AMD. The second one is decelerating mode based on deceleration in the first accelerating structure. It is shown that the decelerating mode gives a higher yield for the e{sup +} beam in the end of the Pre-Injector Linac.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

EFFECT OF CORONAL TEMPERATURE ON THE SCALE OF SOLAR CHROMOSPHERIC JETS

We investigate the effect of coronal temperature on the formation process of solar chromospheric jets using two-dimensional magnetohydrodynamic simulations of the region from the upper convection zone to the lower corona. We develop a new radiative magnetohydrodynamic code for the dynamic modeling of the solar atmosphere, employing an LTE equation of state, optically thick radiative loss in the photosphere, optically thin radiative loss in the chromosphere and the corona, and thermal conduction along the magnetic field lines. Many chromospheric jets are produced in the simulations by shock waves passing through the transition region. We find that these jets are projected farther outward when the coronal temperature is lower (similar to that in coronal holes) and shorter when the coronal temperature is higher (similar to that in active regions). When the coronal temperature is high, the deceleration of the chromospheric jets is consistent with the model in which deceleration is determined by the periodic chromospheric shock waves. However, when the coronal temperature is low, the gravitational deceleration becomes more important and the chromospheric jets approach ballistic motion.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Superfluid condensate fraction and pairing wave function of the unitary Fermi gas

The unitary Fermi gas is a many-body system of two-component fermions with zero-range interactions tuned to infinite scattering length. Despite much activity and interest in unitary Fermi gas and its universal properties, there have been great difficulties in performing accurate calculations of the superfluid condensate fraction and pairing wave function. In this paper, we present auxiliary-field lattice Monte Carlo simulations using a lattice interaction which accelerates the approach to the continuum limit, thereby allowing for robust calculations of these difficult observables. As a benchmark test, we compute the ground-state energy of 33 spin-up and 33 spin-down particles. As a fraction of the free Fermi gas energy $E_{\text{FG}}$, we find $E_0/E_{\text{FG}}$ = 0.369(2), 0.372(2), using two different definitions of the finite-system energy ratio, in agreement with the latest theoretical and experimental results. We then determine the condensate fraction by measuring off-diagonal long-range order in the two-body density matrix. We find that the fraction of condensed pairs is α = 0.43(2). Further, we also extract the pairing wave function and find the pair correlation length to be $ζ_pk_F$ = 1.8(3)ℏ, where $k_F$ is the Fermi momentum. Provided that the simulations can be performed without severe sign oscillations, the methods we present here can be applied to superfluid neutron matter as well as more exotic $\textit{P}$-wave and $\textit{D}$-wave superfluids.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗