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Marco-Hernandez, R., Alves, D., Angoletta, M. E., Marqversen, O., Molendijk, J., Oponowicz, E., et al. (2017). The AD and ELENA orbit, trajectory and intensity measurement systems. J. Instrum., 12, P07024–24pp.
Abstract: This paper describes the new Antiproton Decelerator (AD) orbit measurement system and the Extra Low ENergy Antiproton ring (ELENA) orbit, trajectory and intensity measurement system. The AD machine at European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) is presently being used to decelerate antiprotons from 3.57 GeV/c to 100 MeV/c for matter vs anti-matter comparative studies. The ELENA machine, presently under commissioning, has been designed to provide an extra deceleration stage down to 13.7 MeV/c. The AD orbit system is based on 32 horizontal and 27 vertical electrostatic Beam Position Monitor (BPM) fitted with existing low noise front-end amplifiers while the ELENA system consists of 24 BPMs equipped with new low-noise head amplifiers. In both systems the front-end amplifiers generate a difference (delta) and a sum (sigma) signal which are sent to the digital acquisition system, placed tens of meters away from the AD or ELENA rings, where they are digitized and further processed. The beam position is calculated by dividing the difference signal by the sum signal either using directly the raw digitized data for measuring the turn-by-turn trajectory in the ELENA system or after down-mixing the signals to baseband for the orbit measurement in both machines. The digitized sigma signal will be used in the ELENA system to calculate the bunched beam intensity and the Schottky parameters with coasting beam after passing through different signal processing chain. The digital acquisition arrangement for both systems is based on the same hardware, also used in the ELENA Low Level Radio Frequency (LLRF) system, which follows the VME Switched Serial (VXS) enhancement of the Versa Module Eurocard 64x extension (VME64x) standard and includes VITA 57 standard Field Programmable Gate Array Mezzanine Card (FMC). The digital acquisition Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) andDigital Signal Processor (DSP) firmware sharesmany common functionalities with the LLRF system but has been tailored for this measurement application in particular. Specific control and acquisition software has been developed for these systems. Both systems are installed in AD and ELENA. The AD orbit system currently measures the orbit in AD while the ELENA system is being used in the commissioning of the ELENA ring.
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Ma, Y. Z., Vijande, J., Ballester, F., Tedgren, A. C., Granero, D., Haworth, A., et al. (2017). A generic TG-186 shielded applicator for commissioning model-based dose calculation algorithms for high-dose-rate Ir-192 brachytherapy. Med. Phys., 44(11), 5961–5976.
Abstract: PurposeA joint working group was created by the American Association of Physicists in Medicine (AAPM), the European Society for Radiotherapy and Oncology (ESTRO), and the Australasian Brachytherapy Group (ABG) with the charge, among others, to develop a set of well-defined test case plans and perform calculations and comparisons with model-based dose calculation algorithms (MBDCAs). Its main goal is to facilitate a smooth transition from the AAPM Task Group No. 43 (TG-43) dose calculation formalism, widely being used in clinical practice for brachytherapy, to the one proposed by Task Group No. 186 (TG-186) for MBDCAs. To do so, in this work a hypothetical, generic high-dose rate (HDR) Ir-192 shielded applicator has been designed and benchmarked. MethodsA generic HDR Ir-192 shielded applicator was designed based on three commercially available gynecological applicators as well as a virtual cubic water phantom that can be imported into any DICOM-RT compatible treatment planning system (TPS). The absorbed dose distribution around the applicator with the TG-186 Ir-192 source located at one dwell position at its center was computed using two commercial TPSs incorporating MBDCAs (Oncentra((R)) Brachy with Advanced Collapsed-cone Engine, ACE, and BrachyVision ACUROS) and state-of-the-art Monte Carlo (MC) codes, including ALGEBRA, BrachyDose, egs_brachy, Geant4, MCNP6, and Penelope2008. TPS-based volumetric dose distributions for the previously reported source centered in water and source displaced test cases, and the new source centered in applicator test case, were analyzed here using the MCNP6 dose distribution as a reference. Volumetric dose comparisons of TPS results against results for the other MC codes were also performed. Distributions of local and global dose difference ratios are reported. ResultsThe local dose differences among MC codes are comparable to the statistical uncertainties of the reference datasets for the source centered in water and source displaced test cases and for the clinically relevant part of the unshielded volume in the source centered in applicator case. Larger local differences appear in the shielded volume or at large distances. Considering clinically relevant regions, global dose differences are smaller than the local ones. The most disadvantageous case for the MBDCAs is the one including the shielded applicator. In this case, ACUROS agrees with MC within [-4.2%, +4.2%] for the majority of voxels (95%) while presenting dose differences within [-0.12%, +0.12%] of the dose at a clinically relevant reference point. For ACE, 95% of the total volume presents differences with respect to MC in the range [-1.7%, +0.4%] of the dose at the reference point. ConclusionsThe combination of the generic source and generic shielded applicator, together with the previously developed test cases and reference datasets (available in the Brachytherapy Source Registry), lay a solid foundation in supporting uniform commissioning procedures and direct comparisons among treatment planning systems for HDR Ir-192 brachytherapy.
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LUX-ZEPLIN Collaboration(Akerib, D. S. et al), & Bailey, A. J. (2017). Identification of radiopure titanium for the LZ dark matter experiment and future rare event searches. Astropart Phys., 96, 1–10.
Abstract: The LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) experiment will search for dark matter particle interactions with a detector containing a total of 10 tonnes of liquid xenon within a double -vessel cryostat. The large mass and proximity of the cryostat to the active detector volume demand the use of material with extremely low intrinsic radioactivity. We report on the radioassay campaign conducted to identify suitable metals, the determination of factors limiting radiopure production, and the selection of titanium for construction of the LZ cryostat and other detector components. This titanium has been measured with activities of U-238(e) < 1.6 mBq/kg, U-238(I) < 0.09 mBq/kg, Th-232(e) = 0.28 +/- 0.03 mBq/kg, Th-232(I) = 0.25 +/- 0.02 mBq/kg, K-40 <0.54 mBq/kg, and (60) Co <0.02 mBq/kg (68% CL). Such low intrinsic activities, which are some of the lowest ever reported for titanium, enable its use for future dark matter and other rare event searches. Monte Carlo simulations have been performed to assess the expected background contribution from the LZ cryostat with this radioactivity. In 1,000 days of WIMP search exposure of a 5.6-tonne fiducial mass, the cryostat will contribute only a mean background of 0.160 +/- 0.001(stat) +/- 0.030(sys) counts.
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Lubicz, V., Melis, A., & Simula, S. (2017). Masses and decay constants of D-(s)* and B-(s)* mesons with N-f=2+1+1 twisted mass fermions. Phys. Rev. D, 96(3), 034524–10pp.
Abstract: We present a lattice calculation of the masses and decay constants of D-(s)* and B-(s)* mesons using the gauge configurations produced by the European Twisted Mass Collaboration (ETMC) with N-f=2+1+1 dynamical quarks at three values of the lattice spacing a similar to(0.06-0.09) fm. Pion masses are simulated in the range M-pi similar or equal to(210-450) MeV, while the strange and charm sea-quark masses are close to their physical values. We compute the ratios of vector to pseudoscalar masses and decay constants for various values of the heavy-quark mass mh in the range 0.7m(c)(phys) less than or similar to m(h) less than or similar to 3m(c)(phys). In order to reach the physical b-quark mass, we exploit the Heavy Quark Effective Theory prediction that, in the static limit of infinite heavy-quark mass, the considered ratios are equal to one. At the physical point our results are: M-D*/M-D=1.0769(79), M-D*(s)/M-Ds=1.0751(56), f(D)*/f(D)=1.078(36), f(D)*s/f(Ds)=1.087(20), M-B*/M-B=1.0078(15), M-B*(s)/M-Bs=1.0083(10), f(B)*/f(B)=0.958(22) and f(B)*s/f(Bs)=0.974(10). Combining them with the experimental values of the pseudoscalar meson masses (used as input to fix the quark masses) and the values of the pseudoscalar decay constants calculated by ETMC, we get: M-D*=2013(14) MeV, M-D*(s)=2116(11) MeV, f(D)*=223.5(8.4) MeV, f(D)*(s)=268.8(6.6) MeV, M-B*=5320.5(7.6) MeV, M-B*(s)=5411.36(5.3) MeV, f(B)*=185.9(7.2) MeV and f(B)*(s)=223.1(5.4) MeV.
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Lopez-Ibañez, M. L., Melis, A., Jay Perez, M., & Vives, O. (2017). Slepton non-universality in the flavor-effective MSSM. J. High Energy Phys., 11(11), 162–27pp.
Abstract: Supersymmetric theories supplemented by an underlying flavor-symmetry G(f) provide a rich playground for model building aimed at explaining the flavor structure of the Standard Model. In the case where supersymmetry breaking is mediated by gravity, the soft-breaking Lagrangian typically exhibits large tree-level flavor violating e ff ects, even if it stems from an ultraviolet flavor-conserving origin. Building on previous work, we continue our phenomenological analysis of these models with a particular emphasis on leptonicflavor observables. We consider three representative models which aim to explain the flavor structure of the lepton sector, with symmetry groups G(f) = Delta (27), A(4); and S-3.
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