Abstract: Purpose. To estimate Type B uncertainties in absorbed-dose calculations arising from the different implementations in current state-of-the-art Monte Carlo (MC) codes of low-energy photon cross-sections (<200 keV). Methods. MC simulations are carried out using three codes widely used in the low-energy domain: PENELOPE-2018, EGSnrc, and MCNP. Three dosimetry-relevant quantities are considered: mass energy-absorption coefficients for water, air, graphite, and their respective ratios; absorbed dose; and photon-fluence spectra. The absorbed dose and the photon-fluence spectra are scored in a spherical water phantom of 15 cm radius. Benchmark simulations using similar cross-sections have been performed. The differences observed between these quantities when different cross-sections are considered are taken to be a good estimator for the corresponding Type B uncertainties. Results. A conservative Type B uncertainty for the absorbed dose (k = 2) of 1.2%-1.7% (<50 keV), 0.6%-1.2% (50-100 keV), and 0.3% (100-200 keV) is estimated. The photon-fluence spectrum does not present clinically relevant differences that merit considering additional Type B uncertainties except for energies below 25 keV, where a Type B uncertainty of 0.5% is obtained. Below 30 keV, mass energy-absorption coefficients show Type B uncertainties (k = 2) of about 1.5% (water and air), and 2% (graphite), diminishing in all materials for larger energies and reaching values about 1% (40-50 keV) and 0.5% (50-75 keV). With respect to their ratios, the only significant Type B uncertainties are observed in the case of the water-to-graphite ratio for energies below 30 keV, being about 0.7% (k = 2). Conclusions. In contrast with the intermediate (about 500 keV) or high (about 1 MeV) energy domains, Type B uncertainties due to the different cross-sections implementation cannot be considered subdominant with respect to Type A uncertainties or even to other sources of Type B uncertainties (tally volume averaging, manufacturing tolerances, etc). Therefore, the values reported here should be accommodated within the uncertainty budget in low-energy photon dosimetry studies.

Abstract: The ground state and excited spectra of baryons containing three identical heavy quarks, b or c, have been recently calculated in nonperturbative lattice QCD. The energy of positive and negative parity excitations has been determined with high precision. Lattice results constitute a unique opportunity to learn about the quark-confinement mechanism as well as elucidating our knowledge about the nature of the strong force. We analyze the nonperturbative lattice QCD results by means of heavy-quark static potentials derived using SU(3) lattice QCD. We make use of different numerical techniques for the three-body problem.

Abstract: This paper provides results for the ground state and excited spectra of three-flavored doubly heavy baryons, bcn and bcs. We take advantage of the spin-independent interaction recently obtained to reconcile the lattice SU(3) QCD static potential and the results of nonperturbative lattice QCD for the triply heavy baryon spectra. We show that the spin-dependent potential might be constrained on the basis of nonperturbative lattice QCD results for the spin splittings of three-flavored doubly heavy baryons. Our results may also represent a challenge for future lattice QCD work, because a smaller lattice error could help in distinguishing between different prescriptions for the spin-dependent part of the interaction. Thus, by comparing with the reported baryon spectra obtained with parameters estimated from lattice QCD, one can challenge the precision of lattice calculations. The present work supports a coherent description of singly, doubly and triply heavy baryons with the same Cornell-like interacting potential. The possible experimental measurement of these states at LHCb is an incentive for this study.