Nuclear Commons^™

Developing And Testing Visualization Simulations For The Gamma-Ray Energy Tracking Array (Greta), Blake Mcnulty

Physics and Astronomy Summer Fellows

GRETA is a recently-completed Department of Energy-funded project to construct an array of 120 gamma-ray detectors for use in nuclear physics experiments. The Gretina Array was the successful pilot project to construct 48 of the eventual 120 detectors that would be used in the array. UCGretina is a program that is used to simulate the GRETA array for the purposes of planning experiments and analyzing measurements. My job for this summer, with the advent of the full GRETA system, was to implement the new modular mounting structure for the full GRETA array in the simulation code. This involves creating the …

Monte Carlo Analysis Of Dose Distribution In Tumour And Adjacent Healthy Tissues During 192Ir Hdr Brachytherapy In The Presence Of Gold Nanoparticles, Damian P. Tippe, Innocent J. Lugendo

Tanzania Journal of Science

High dose rate (HDR) brachytherapy using ¹⁹²Ir is an effective modality for cancer treatment; however, its therapeutic efficiency is often constrained by unintended radiation exposure to healthy tissues surrounding the tumour. Fortunately, the incorporation of high atomic number (Z) nanoparticles as radiosensitizers has emerged as a promising strategy to enhance tumour dose while sparing adjacent normal tissues. In this study, the dose distribution in tumour and nearby healthy tissues during 192Ir HDR brachytherapy was investigated in the presence of gold (Au) nanoparticles using Monte Carlo simulations based on the Geant4 toolkit. Radial dose distributions and anisotropy characteristics were analysed …

Natural Radioactivity And Radiological Hazards In Sediments From The Lindi Coast, Indian Ocean, Tanzania, Viator Mujuni, Innocent J. Lugendo

Tanzania Journal of Science

The Lindi coast of the Indian Ocean, located in southeastern Tanzania, supports rich biodiversity and has recently experienced rapid growth in socio-economic activities such as fishing, mining, and oil and gas exploration. These activities may enhance levels of natural radioactivity in coastal sediments, potentially increasing radiation exposure to local populations. Therefore, monitoring radioactivity levels and estimating associated radiation doses in this region is important. In this study, thirty-six sediment samples were collected from twelve locations along the Lindi coast and analysed for naturally occurring radionuclides using high-purity germanium (HPGe) gamma-ray spectrometry. The activity concentrations of ²²⁶Ra, ²³²Th, and …

Validation Of Electromagnetic Shower Development In A Reduced Alice Focal-E Detector Model Using Geant4, Isaac Lara Romo

Physics

This project focuses on the preliminary simulation of a reduced FoCal-E detector model for the ALICE experiment at CERN. Beamline tests were simulated using an electron gun at various incident energies, and the results were compared with those of the FoCal group. The longitudinal charge deposition per sensor layer was compared between the two setups to verify that the reduced model exhibited expected calorimeter behavior. Additionally, the transverse signal across the high-granularity sensor layers was examined to determine whether the reduced model reproduced the expected lateral development of electromagnetic showers. The results obtained from these measurements show that the reduced …

Experimental Methods For Cryogenic Rare Event Detection: Cuore And Cupid, Alessandro Libenson

Physics

This senior project was written with the primary purpose of serving as a introductory guide for undergraduate students learning about the experimental methods used in the CUORE and CUPID Collaborations. In particular, this project is geared towards getting students in Dr. Gutierrez's research group at Cal Poly up to speed on what CUORE and CUPID actually do. I wrote this as an undergraduate aiming to help future undergraduates. For Cal Poly students, I would suggest the following prerequisites before reading this paper: Electronics and Instrumentation, Quantum Laboratory 1, and the equivalent of the coding/analysis class. It is also important to …

Validation And Implementation Of Automated Planning Optimization In Utah Valley Hospital, Oluwatobi Adeniji

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The increasing complexity of modern radiotherapy demands planning workflows that are efficient, standardized, and dosimetrically robust across diverse disease sites. Knowledge-based planning (KBP) systems such as RapidPlan offer a data-driven approach to automate and improve treatment planning by learning geometric–dosimetric relationships from high-quality clinical plans. In this work, I am evaluating the performance, generalizability, and clinical applicability of vendor-provided RapidPlan models across seven anatomical sites: intracranial SRS, prostate SBRT, right and left lung SBRT, liver SBRT, head and neck, and glioblastoma. Subsequently, a complementary institution-specific SRS model tailored to single-isocenter multitarget workflows was created. Seventy retrospectively selected patients were replanned …

Bremsstrahlung Photons Emissions Measured At Different Rf Power In 28 Ghz Ecr Ion Source, Mwingereza John Kumwenda

Tanzania Journal of Engineering and Technology (TJET)

High-performance electron cyclotron resonance ion sources (ECRISs) generate large amounts of bremsstrahlung photons that affect the cryogenic systems due to the extra heat load that is produced. Thus, this study investigates the bremsstrahlung photons energy spectra at various RF powers, presenting some insight about the trends of the electron heating process inside the plasma. Bremsstrahlung photons from a 28 GHz ECRIS were measured at Busan center of Korean Basic Science Institute (KBSI). The gamma-ray detection system consists of three round-type NaI(Tl) scintillation detectors placed 620 mm radially from the beam axis at the extraction side of the ECRIS, and a …

Quantum Scattering Of Hc5n And Para-H2 On A New Potential Energy Surface, Shan Gao, François Lique, Ernesto Quintas-Sánchez, Richard Dawes, Jérôme Loreau

Chemistry Faculty Research & Creative Works

In the interstellar medium (ISM), non-local thermodynamic equilibrium situations are common due to low density, and one needs to consider the effect of molecular collisions in order to interpret the observations. Among the species detected in the ISM, cyanopolyynes, with the general molecular formula HC_2n+1N (n = 1, 2, …), are characterized by large dipole moments and small rotational constants and constitute an indispensable class of candidates for the sensitive tracers of local density and temperature. We present a study of the collisional (de-) excitation of HC₅N by para-H₂ (p-H₂) in its ground …

Developing A Workforce To Build A Star On Earth, Vola Andrianarijaona, Angelina Castillo, Sean Walters

Campus Research Month

This study is meant to help understand why fusion has remained "30 years away" for decades and why that may finally be changing.We see nuclear fusion not merely as a physics phenomenon, but as a complex engineering challenge requiring coordination across different disciplines, including physics, materials science, electrical and mechanical engineering, systems engineering, robotics, and computer science, etc. Indeed, nuclear fusion is not just about "making atoms fuse"—it's about controlling, powering, measuring, and stabilizing one of the most extreme environments humans have ever built. Advances in superconducting magnets, new materials are bringing fusion closer to reality than ever before, and …

Radiation Protection Factor Research: The Keystone For Conventional-Nuclear Integration (Cni), Andrew W. Decker

Faculty Publications

This article briefly describes Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) vehicle Radiation Protection Factor (RPF) research and explains its critical role in enabling future Operations in a Nuclear Environment (ONE) and Conventional-Nuclear Integration (CNI) on behalf of the US Department of War (DoW).1 As such, the background and practical utility of RPF values is discussed, as well as the justification for renewed Army and DoW investment into RPF research to enhance Joint military planning, survivability, and lethality on tomorrow’s nuclear battlefields. Advances in DTRA RPF research directly strengthen US strategic and extended deterrence efforts and support all Agencies and Departments responsible …

A Study Of Short-Range Correlated Pair Formation Mechanisms, Noah S. Swan

Physics Theses & Dissertations

Short-Range Correlations (SRCs) refers to pairs of nucleons that are temporary high density fluctuations with high relative momenta and lower center-of-mass momenta com pared to the nuclear Fermi momentum (kF). SRCs account for 20–25% of the nucleons in medium to heavy nuclei, make up essentially all nucleons with momentum greater than kF, and contribute most of the kinetic energy carried by nucleons in nuclei.

The existing semi-inclusive and exclusive measurements only cover a handful of light nu clei or heavy elements. This does not allow for a systematic study of the dependence of SRC pairs on nuclear mass and proton-neutron …

Exclusive Neutral Pion Electroproduction Cross Section Measurements With A Neutral Particle Spectrometer, Mitchell R. Kerver

Physics Theses & Dissertations

Deep Virtual Compton Scattering (DVCS), the exclusive electron-proton scattering process ep →e′p′γ, provides access to generalized parton distributions (GPDs), which correlate informa tion about the longitudinal momentum and transverse spatial structure of quarks inside the nucleon. Experiment E12-13-010 in Hall C at Jefferson Lab was designed to take high-precision measure ments of the DVCS cross section over an extended kinematic range using the newly commis sioned Neutral Particle Spectrometer (NPS). The NPS features a high-resolution electromagnetic calorimeter and a streaming data acquisition system optimized for operation at high luminosities. This thesis presents the detector and analysis work carried out to …

Transfer Learning Neural Networks For Nuclear Forensic Image Morphology Using Image Splitting Techniques, Niko A. Petrocelli, Lee C. Lambert, Brett J. Borghetti, Abigail A. Bickley

Faculty Publications

Manual morphological analysis of actinide particles from scanning electron microscope (SEM) imagery is a critical component of nuclear forensics but is prone to significant inter-analyst variability. To address this challenge, this work develops and evaluates an automated classification method using deep learning. We introduce a methodology based on partitioning 1906 SEM images, representing 13 classes of uranium compounds, into smaller patches for analysis. Three convolutional neural network (CNN) architectures of increasing complexity were compared: a custom baseline CNN, a simple transfer learning model using ResNet50v1, and a complex model featuring hierarchical feature extraction and a spatial attention mechanism built upon …

Experiments Towards A Neutron Target For Measurements In Inverse Kinematics, S. F. Dellmann, Caroline M. Harrington, O. R. Cantrell, A. L. Cooper, A. Couture, D, V, Gorelov, I Knapová, S. M. Mosby, R. Reifarth, A. Alvarez, A. Aprahamian, J. Butz, I. J. Bos, Michael T. Febbraro, T. Hankins, B. M. Harvey, T. Heftrich, M. Le, Juan J. Manfredi, A. B. Mcintosh, K. V. Manukyan, M. Matney, S. Regener, D. Robertson, A. Simon, D. Sokolovic, E. Stech, G. Tabacaru, W. Tan, M. Wiescher, S. Yennello

Faculty Publications

Neutron-induced reactions play an important role in fundamental nuclear physics, nuclear astrophysics, and applications. In the case of reactions on rare isotopes, there are limited options for direct experimental measurements. The Neutron Target Demonstrator project at Los Alamos National Laboratory seeks to test the feasibility of moderating spallation neutrons within a 1 m³graphite cube to create a standing neutron target for neutron-induced reaction measurements in inverse kinematics. This paper presents the results of experimental neutron flux distribution tests using neutron sources (ranging from 1 keV to 50 MeV) created by accelerators at the University of Notre Dame and …

Optimization Of Image Quality Of Simulated Multiple Detectors Computed Tomography Acquisition Parameters Using Machine Learning And Catphan Phantom, Ali O. Masoud, Najat K. Mohammed, Khamis O. Amour, Ahmed M. Jusabani, Denise Mwalongo, Mwingereza John Kumwenda

Tanzania Journal of Science

The study successfully employed Monte Carlo (MC) simulation and a Machine Learning (ML) approach using a Random Forest Regression (RFR) model to develop optimized Multi-Detector CT (MDCT) protocols that significantly reduce radiation dose while maintaining diagnostic image quality. The MC engine accurately modeled X-ray spectra, and the RFR model demonstrated high predictive power for key metrics, achieving R2 scores of 0.97 for CTDIvol and over 0.92 for image quality metrics (Noise, CNR). Through multi-objective optimization guided by the RFR, the final protocol (Optimization-3) was found on the Pareto front, achieving a notable 35% dose reduction (from 15.5 mGy to 9.9 …

Optimizing Gamma Radiation Shielding Of Low Bismuth Borate Glass Via Antimony Addition: Optical And Physical Insights, Shaimaa Hafez, Elsayed Salama, Wesam Omar

Basic Science Engineering

This study reports the fabrication and characterization of novel bismuth borate-based glass systems doped with varying concentrations of antimony oxide (Sb₂O₃) for gamma radiation shielding applications. Using the melt-quenching method, the glass systems [0] with x = 0, 1, 3, and 5 mol% were prepared. Density measurements, X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), and UV–Vis–NIR spectroscopy were employed to analyze the structural, physical, and optical properties systematically. The results show that increasing Sb₂O₃ content raises the glass density, refractive index, and oxygen packing density, while reducing the molar volume and optical band gap. These changes contribute to forming a …

Long-Range Fit: A Software Package For The Representation And Study Of Long-Range Molecular Interactions, Adrian L. Batista-Planas, Ernesto Quintas-Sánchez, Richard Dawes

Chemistry Faculty Research & Creative Works

Describing intermolecular forces is fundamental to modeling and predicting the behavior of molecular systems. In particular, long-range molecular interactions with electrostatic, induction, and dispersion as the main components play a critical role, especially for low-temperature and low-density regimes. Long-range interactions are often described through perturbation theory, representing the electronic charge distribution via a multipolar series of the moments and polarizability tensors corresponding to each molecule. However, while the theory is well established, obtaining the resulting analytical expressions (and their practical implementation) constitutes a highly complex and system-dependent task. To address this challenge, we developed long-range-fit (LRF), an interactive and user-friendly …

On Resolving The Neutron Lifetime Puzzle, Polievkt Perov

College of Arts & Sciences Faculty Works

The neutron lifetime puzzle, characterized by significantly different lifetime values obtained from bottle vs beam experiments, may stem from differences in how decayed neutrons are counted. Neutron decay is a beta-decay process producing a proton, an electron, and a neutrino. In bottle experiments, the number of decayed neutrons is measured directly. In beam experiments, this number is inferred indirectly by counting the protons resulting from neutron decays. It is proposed that in beam experiments, some protons may capture electrons and form neutral hydrogen atoms, which go undetected by proton detectors. Consequently, not all neutron decay events are counted, leading to …

Measurement Of 18f(Alpha,P)21ne With The Array For Nuclear Astrophysics And Structure With Exotic Nuclei (Anasen), Keilah S. Davis

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Certain (α,p) reactions on proton-rich nuclei are among the most important nuclear reactions occurring during Type I X-ray bursts, as well as being impactful in stellar explosions during the Asymptotic Giant Branch (AGB) phase and on accreting white dwarfs (WD). However, large uncertainties remain for reaction rates on some radioactive nuclei due to the lack of direct measurements. The Array for Nuclear Astrophysics and Structure with Exotic Nuclei (ANASEN) is a gas target and charged-particle detector designed for direct measurements of (α,p) reactions. ANASEN was redesigned with two hexagonal barrels of 100-µm-thick silicon strip surrounding the beam axis over a …

Measuring Short-Range Correlations And Quasi-Elastic Cross Sections In A(E,E') At X > 1 And Modest Q², Y. P. Zhang, Z. H. Ye, D. Nguyen, P. Aguilera, Z. Ahmed, H. Albataineh, K. Allada, B. Anderson, D. Anez, K. Aniol, J. Annand, J. Arrington, T. Averett, H. Baghdasaryan, X. Bai, A. Beck, S. Beck, V. Bellini, F. Benmokhtar, A. Camsonne, C. Chen, J. -P. Chen, K. Chiraptpimol, E. Cisbani, S. Covid Dusa, M. M. Dalton, D. Day, W. Deconinck, M. Defurne, D. Flay, N. Fomin, M. Friend, E. Fuchey, F. Garibaldi, D. Gaskell, S. Gilad, R. Gilman, S. Glamazdin, C. Gu, P. Guèye, C. Hanretty, J. -O Hansen, M. Hashemi Shabestari, D. W. Higinbotham, M. Huang, S. Iqbal, G. Jin, N. Kalantarians, H. Kang, A. Kelleher, I. Korover, J. Lerose, J. Leckey, S. Li, R. Lindgren, E. Long, J. Mammei, P. Markowitz, D. Meekins, R. Michaels, M. Mihovilovič, N. Muangma, C. Munoz Camacho, B. E. Norum, Nuruzzaman, K. Pan, S. Phillips, E. Piasetzky, I. Pomerantz, M. Posik, V. Punjabi, X. Qian, Y. Qiang, X. Qiu, P. E. Reimer, A. Rakhman, S. Riordan, G. Ron, O. Rondon-Aramayo, L. Selvy, A. Shahinyan, R. Shneor, S. Širca, K. Slifer, N. Sparveris, R. Subedi, V. Sulkosky, D. Wang, J. W. Watson, L. B. Weinstein, B. Wojtsekhowski, S. A. Wood, I. Yaron, J. Zhang, Y. W. Zhang, B. Zhao, X. Zheng, P. Zhu, R. Zielinski

Physics Faculty Publications

We present results from the Jefferson Lab E08-014 experiment, investigating short-range correlations (SRC) through measurements of inclusive quasi-elastic scattering from ²H, ³He, ⁴He, ¹²C, ⁴⁰Ca, and ⁴⁸Ca. The kinematics were selected to isolate scattering from SRCs, yielding a plateau in the A/²H cross-section ratios due to the universal two-body structure of the 2N-SRCs in light and heavy nuclei. We observe approximate plateaus in the A/²H ratios and provide the first extractions of the A/²H ratio for ⁴⁰Ca and ⁴⁸Ca. We also examine the A/³He ratio, aiming to identify three-nucleon SRCs (3N-SRCs). Following the approach for isolating 2N-SRCs, searching for 3N-SRC …