Spin transport, spin diffusion and Bloch equations in electron storage rings

We show how, beginning with the Fokker--Planck equation for electrons emitting synchrotron radiation in a storage ring, the corresponding equation for spin motion can be constructed. This is an equation of the Bloch type for the polarisation density.Comment: 7 pages. No figures. Latex: Minor corrections in the tex

The Muon Ionisation Cooling Experiment

Outstanding areas of ambiguity within our present understanding of the nature and behaviour of neutrinos warrant the construction of a dedicated future facility capable of investigating the likely parameter space for the theta 1,3 mixing angle, the Dirac CP violating phase and clarifying the neutrino mass hierarchy. A number of potential discovery venues have been proposed including the beta beam, superbeam and neutrino factory accelerator facilities. Of these, the neutrino factory significantly outperforms the others. A neutrino factory will deliver intense beams of 10^21 neutrinos per year, produced from muons decaying in storage rings. This specification, coupled with the constraints of the short muon lifetime warrant the inclusion of a novel cooling channel to reduce the phase space volume of the beam to fall within the acceptance of the acceleration system. Ionisation cooling is the only viable cooling technique with efficacy over the lifetime of the muon, however, it has yet to be demonstrated in practice. In a full cooling channel, a muon beam will traverse a periodic absorber and accelerator lattice consisting of low Z absorbers enclosed by focusing coils and accelerating radio-frequency cavities. Energy loss in the absorbers reduces both transverse and longitudinal momentum. The latter is restored by the accelerating cavities providing a net reduction in transverse momentum and consequently reducing the phase space volume of the muon beam. The Muon Ionisation Cooling Experiment (MICE), under construction at the ISIS synchrotron at Rutherford Appleton Laboratory seeks to provide both a first measurement and systematic study of ionisation cooling, demonstrated within the context of a single cell prototype of a cooling channel. The experiment will evolve incrementally toward its final configuration, with construction and scientific data taking schedules proceeding in parallel. The stated goal of MICE is to measure a fractional change in emittance of order 10% to an error of 1%. This thesis constitutes research into different aspects of MICE: design and implementation of the MICE configuration database, determination of the statistical errors and alignment tolerances associated with cooling measurements made using MICE, simulations and data analysis studying the performance of the luminosity monitor and a first analysis of MICE Step I data. A sophisticated information management solution based on a bi-temporal relational database and web service suite has been designed, implemented and tested. This system will enable the experiment to record geometry, calibration and cabling information in addition to beamline settings (including but not limited to magnet and target settings) and alarm handler limits. This information is essential both to provide an experimental context to the analysis user studying data at a later time and to experimenters seeking to reinstate previous settings. The database also allows corrections to be stored, for example to the geometry, whereby a later survey may clarify an incomplete description. The old and new geometries are both stored with reference to the same period of validity, indexed by the time they are added to the configuration database. This allows MICE users to recall both the best-known geometry of the experiment at a given time by default, as well as the history of what was known about the geometry as required. Such functionality is two dimensional in time, hence the choice of a bi-temporal database paradigm, enabling the collaboration to run new analyses with the most up to date knowledge of the experimental configuration and also repeat previous analyses which were based upon incomplete information. From Step III of MICE onwards, the phase space volume, or emittance, of the beam will be measured by two scintillating fibre trackers placed before and after the cooling cell. Since the two emittance measurements are made upon a similar sample of muons, the measurement errors are influenced by correlations. This thesis will show through an empirical approach that correlations act to reduce the statistical error by an order of magnitude. In order to meet its goals MICE must also quantify its systematic errors. A misalignment study is presented which investigates the sensitivity of the scintillating fibre trackers to translational and rotational misalignment. Tolerance limits of 1 mm and 0.3 mrad respectively allow MICE to meet the requirement that systematic errors due to misalignment of the trackers contribute no more than 10% of the total error. At present, MICE is in Step I of its development: building and commissioning a muon beamline which will be presented to a cooling channel in later stages of MICE. A luminosity monitor has been built and commissioned to provide a measurement of particle production from the target, normalise particle rate at all detectors and verify the physics models which will be used throughout the lifetime of MICE and onwards through to the development of a neutrino factory. Particle identification detectors have already been installed and allow the species of particles to be distinguished according to their time of flight. This has enabled a study of particle identification, particle momenta and simulated and experimental beam profiles at each time of flight detector. The widths of the beam profiles are sensitive to multiple scattering and magnetic effects, providing an opportunity to quantify the success of the simulations in modelling these behaviours. Such a comparison was also used to detect offsets in the beam centre position which can be caused by misalignments of the detectors or relative misalignments in magnet positions causing asymmetrical skew in the magnetic axis. These effects were quantified in this analysis. Particle identification combined with the earlier statistical analysis will be used to show that the number of muons required to meet the statistical requirements of MICE can be produced within a realistic time frame for each beam configuration considered

Hardware and Software Studies for the Alignment of the Proton CT

Proton therapy is a form of particle therapy using protons to irradiate tumors as a form of cancer treatment. It is becoming more and more popular around the world, including in Norway. To locate the tumor, conventional CT scan is used today, which uses x-ray beams. The proton energy deposition is then achieved by conversions that are not optimal. Proton computed tomography has several important advantages over the conventional computed tomography. The two main advantages are giving a lower dose to the patient during imaging compared to the conventional method and eliminating the need for conversion of photon attenuation to stopping power for protons, which is a source of error. This is necessary in particle therapy, because the physical properties of photons and protons are very different. Using the same type of particles for both imaging and therapy will potentially increase the accuracy of particle therapy treatment plans. For proton CT to be possible, the detectors need to accurately detect the proton tracks and energy depositions and for that the layers of the proton detectors have to be aligned. This master's thesis is an attempt at finding a method for the purpose of alignment in a proton CT detector.Masteroppgave i medisinsk teknologiMTEK39

Feasibility assessment of the interactive use of a Monte Carlo algorithm in treatment planning for intraoperative electron radiation therapy

This work analysed the feasibility of using a fast, customized Monte Carlo (MC) method to perform accurate computation of dose distributions during pre- and intraplanning of intraoperative electron radiation therapy (IOERT) procedures. The MC method that was implemented, which has been integrated into a specific innovative simulation and planning tool, is able to simulate the fate of thousands of particles per second, and it was the aim of this work to determine the level of interactivity that could be achieved. The planning workflow enabled calibration of the imaging and treatment equipment, as well as manipulation of the surgical frame and insertion of the protection shields around the organs at risk and other beam modifiers. In this way, the multidisciplinary team involved in IOERT has all the tools necessary to perform complex MC dosage simulations adapted to their equipment in an efficient and transparent way. To assess the accuracy and reliability of this MC technique, dose distributions for a monoenergetic source were compared with those obtained using a general-purpose software package used widely in medical physics applications. Once accuracy of the underlying simulator was confirmed, a clinical accelerator was modelled and experimental measurements in water were conducted. A comparison was made with the output from the simulator to identify the conditions under which accurate dose estimations could be obtained in less than 3 min, which is the threshold imposed to allow for interactive use of the tool in treatment planning. Finally, a clinically relevant scenario, namely early-stage breast cancer treatment, was simulated with pre- and intraoperative volumes to verify that it was feasible to use the MC tool intraoperatively and to adjust dose delivery based on the simulation output, without compromising accuracy. The workflow provided a satisfactory model of the treatment head and the imaging system, enabling proper configuration of the treatment planning system and providing good accuracy in the dosage simulation

Tutorial on Linear Colliders

Proceeding from the collision point towards the source, we discuss purpose and design concepts of the various linear-collider subsystems, as well as important mechanisms of emittance dilution, beam diagnostics, and advanced tuning methods. In particular, we address beamstrahlung, linac emittance degradation due to dispersion and wake fields, scaling of damping-ring parameters with collider energy, fast beam-ion and electron-cloud instabilities, coherent synchrotron radiation, and rf guns. Five case studies are examined in detail

Penning traps as a versatile tool for precise experiments in fundamental physics

This review article describes the trapping of charged particles. The main principles of electromagnetic confinement of various species from elementary particles to heavy atoms are briefly described. The preparation and manipulation with trapped single particles, as well as methods of frequency measurements, providing unprecedented precision, are discussed. Unique applications of Penning traps in fundamental physics are presented. Ultra-precise trap-measurements of masses and magnetic moments of elementary particles (electrons, positrons, protons and antiprotons) confirm CPT-conservation, and allow accurate determination of the fine-structure constant alpha and other fundamental constants. This together with the information on the unitarity of the quark-mixing matrix, derived from the trap-measurements of atomic masses, serves for assessment of the Standard Model of the physics world. Direct mass measurements of nuclides targeted to some advanced problems of astrophysics and nuclear physics are also presented

Commissioning of the tracking system in the ATLAS detector

ATLAS is one of the four experiments that will analyze the p-p collisions at LHC. It consists of several subsystems: the Inner Detector is devoted to the measurement of the charged particle tracks in the interaction point region and the Pixel Detector is its innermost component. Both have been commissioned by using cosmic rays collected by the ATLAS detector in 2009. In the first part of the thesis, the spatial resolution of the Pixel Detector is studied and optimized. When a charged particle traverses the Pixel Detector, charges released in the sensors are collected by segmented electrodes, the pixels. The charge of each pixel is read out by the Time-over-Threshold technique and adjacent pixels are grouped into clusters. Cluster position can be computed by considering its geometrical center, but spatial resolution can be optimized if using charge information to improve position determination. In the second part of the thesis, the Inner Detector resolution in all track parameters has been studied by splitting each cosmic ray track into two halves. Since both halves stem from the same particle, they should be described by the same parameters. At the same time, the two tracks are fitted independently and can be compared to study the resolution of the tracking system. Resolution been studied as a function of track direction and distance from the beam axis. The multiple scattering contribution and several systematic effects due to residual misalignments have been evaluated

A Monte-Carlo-based study of a single-2D-detector proton-radiography system

PURPOSE: To assess the feasibility of a proton radiography (pRG) system based on a single thin pixelated detector for water-equivalent path length (WEPL) and relative stopping power (RSP) measurements.METHODS: A model of a pRG system consisting of a single pixelated detector measuring energy deposition and proton fluence was investigated in a Geant4-based Monte Carlo study. At the position directly after an object traversed by a broad proton beam, spatial 2D distributions are calculated of the energy deposition in, and the number of protons entering the detector. Their ratio relates to the 2D distribution of the average stopping power of protons in the detector. The system response is calibrated against the residual range in water of the protons to provide the 2D distribution of the WEPL of the object. The WEPL distribution is converted into the distribution of the RSP of the object. Simulations have been done, where the system has been tested on 13 samples of homogeneous materials of which the RSPs have been calculated and compared with RSPs determined from simulations of residual-range-in-water, which we refer to as reference RSPs.RESULTS: For both human-tissue- and non-human-tissue-equivalent materials, the RSPs derived with the detector agree with the reference values within 1%.CONCLUSION: The study shows that a pRG system based on one thin pixelated detection screen has the potential to provide RSP predictions with an accuracy of 1%.</p