Abstract: Proton therapy is a precise cancer treatment that requires meticulous planning to deliver the prescribed dose to the target volume, while sparing healthy tissues. Compton cameras have emerged as a promising technology for in-vivo proton range verification through prompt-gamma detection, given their compactness and compatibility with the treatment gantry. This study evaluates the performance of the MACACOp Compton camera prototype, developed by the IRIS group at IFIC-Valencia, under progressively challenging conditions across several proton therapy facilities. The MACACOp camera, featuring monolithic LaBr3:Ce crystals and SiPM arrays, was tested at the Centro Nacional de Aceleradores, Cyclotron Center Bronowice, and Centro de Protonterapia Quir & oacute;nsalud. Under controlled conditions, the prototype was able to detect changes in photon emission distribution with high precision, resolving 1 mm displacements of a graphite target irradiated with a 8 nA proton beam, with the camera at 200 mm from the target. Additionally, the camera's enhanced timing resolution of 1.5 ns facilitates background rejection, an essential feature for proton therapy monitoring. Building on these results, the FALCON prototype was evaluated, demonstrating improved efficiency and the ability to reconstruct spots even under more challenging accelerator conditions. These findings underscore the potential of Compton cameras for real-time proton range verification, advancing their integration into clinical proton therapy systems.

Abstract: The simulation of strongly correlated fermionic systems remains a significant challenge in computational physics due to the exponential growth of the Hilbert space and the fermionic sign problem. In this work, we report a quantum computing demonstration exploring the unified physics of the Fermi polaron and the Bose-Einstein condensate to Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer crossover. We develop an effective Hamiltonian formalism that bridges pairing superfluidity and impurity physics, mapping the system onto a gate-based quantum processor via the Jordan-Wigner transformation. By utilizing a first-order Trotter-Suzuki decomposition, we implement an ancilla-controlled Ramsey interferometry protocol to resolve the system's spectral response. Our implementation captures the smooth transition from a dressed quasiparticle (polaron) regime to a stable molecular bound state, characterized by a linear energy renormalization in the strong-coupling limit. We benchmark the quantum protocol against exact diagonalization and demonstrate its execution on the Barcelona Supercomputing Center quantum hardware. To ensure reproducibility, we provide comprehensive device calibration metrics, including qubit coherence times and gate fidelities at the time of execution. Despite inherent hardware noise, the hybrid variational approach qualitatively observes the bifurcation of the spectral density.

Abstract: Solid-state plasma wakefield acceleration has recently attracted attention as a novel method for achieving unprecedented ultrahigh acceleration gradients on the order of 1 TeV/m or beyond. In this context, recent advancements in nanofabrication techniques have opened up the possibility of creating structured plasmas with tailored properties. For instance, the utilization of carbon nanotube (CNT) bundles holds great potential for generating stable plasmas with electron densities reaching as high as 1022 cm-3 , i.e., orders of magnitude higher than conventional gaseous plasmas. As part of a new collaborative effort called NanoAc, we have conducted particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations to investigate laser wakefield acceleration in nanostructured solid-state plasmas based on CNT arrays. Our results confirm the attainment of wakefields at the TV/m scale. Additionally, we observed self-injection, sub-femtosecond bunch formation, and electron acceleration in micrometer-scale targets, yielding kinetic energies on the order of a few tens of MeV. These findings open up promising possibilities to design novel ultracompact accelerators and radiation sources. In this paper, we report recent simulation results from the NanoAc collaboration and describe ongoing efforts toward future experimental tests at available laser facilities.