Performances of silicone coated high resistive bakelite RPC

Performances of several single gap (gas gap 2 mm) prototype Resistive Plate Chambers (RPC) made of high resistive ({\rho} \sim 1010 - 1012 {\Omega} cm) bakelite, commercially available in India have been studied in recent times. To make the inner electrode surfaces smooth, a thin coating of silicone has been applied. An efficiency > 90% and time resolution \sim 2 ns (FWHM) have been obtained for both the streamer and the avalanche mode. The induced charge distributions of those silicone coated RPC are studied and the results are presented. A numerical study on the effect of surface roughness of the resistive electrodes on the electric field of the device has been carried out using Garfield-neBEM code. A few results for a simplified model representing surface roughness, measured using a surface profilometer for the bakelite surfaces, have also been presented

The Complex Time WKB Approximation And Particle Production

The complex time WKB (CWKB) approximation has been an effective technique to understand particle production in curved as well as in flat spacetime. Earlier we obtained the standard results on particle production in time dependent gauge in various curved spacetime. In the present work we generalize the technique of CWKB to the equivalent problems in space dependent gauge. Using CWKB, we first obtain the gauge invariant result for particle production in Minkowski spacetime in strong electric field. We then carry out particle production in de-Sitter spacetime in space dependent gauge and obtain the same result that we obtained earlier in time dependent gauge. The results obtained for de-Sitter spacetime has a obvious extension to particle production in black hole spacetime. It is found that the origin of Planckian spectrum is due to repeated reflections between the turning points. As mentioned earlier, it is now explicitly shown that particle production is accompanied by rotation of currents.Comment: 12 pages, Revte

Detector calibration of the Indian cosmic ray experiment (IONS) in Space-Shuttle Spacelab-13

In the Indian cosmic ray experiment (IONS) in Spacelab-3 the intention is to study nuclei up to iron in low energy cosmic rays, using CR-39 (DOP) detectors. CR-39 (DOP) was exposed to He4, C12, O16, Ne20, Si28, Ar40, Cr52 and Fe56 accelerated beams from various accelerator facilities available around the world. Different beam energies and exposure angles were used. From these exposures, the charge resolution and energy resolution for the detector in the region of interest were studied. The effect of pre-annealing and depth on the response of our detector was studied. For isotopic resolution, exposed the detector samples were exposed to Ne2O and Ne22 accelerated beams. Samples of CR-39 (DOP) exposed to different accelerated heavy ions were kept in the detector module to take into account the effect of ambient conditions on detector response during the flight

On bouncing solutions in non-local gravity

A non-local modified gravity model with an analytic function of the d'Alembert operator is considered. This model has been recently proposed as a possible way of resolving the singularities problem in cosmology. We present an exact bouncing solution, which is simpler compared to the already known one in this model in the sense it does not require an additional matter to satisfy all the gravitational equations.Comment: 5 pages; v2: matching the jounral versio

Relative abundances of sub-iron to iron nuclei in low energy (50-250 MeV/N) cosmic rays as observed in the Skylab experiment

A Lexan polycarbonate detector exposed on the exterior of Skylab-3 for 73 days during a solar quiet period was used to study the relative abundances of calcium to nickel ions in low energy cosmic rays of 50 to 250 MeV/N. The method of charge identification is based on the measurement of conelength (L) and residual range (R) of these particles in various Lexan sheets. Since more than one cone (sometimes as many as five) is observed and is measured, the charge accuracy becomes precise and accurate. The ratio of (calcium to manganese) to (iron and cobalt) obtained at three energy intervals of 50 to 80, 80 to 150, 150 to 250 and 50 to 250 MeV/N are 7.6 plus or minus 3.8, 2.7 plus or minus 0.8, 1.4 plus or minus 0.6 and 3.3 plus or minus 0.7 respectively. These data thus indicate a large increase of this ratio with decreasing energy. The origin of this strong energy dependence is not understood at present

The CWKB Method of Particle Production in Periodic Potential

In this work we study the particle production in time dependent periodic potential using the method of complex time WKB (CWKB) approximation. In the inflationary cosmology at the end of inflationary stage, the potential becomes time dependent as well as periodic. Reheating occurs due to particle production by the oscillating inflaton field. Using CWKB we obtain almost identical results on catastrophic particle production as obtained by others.Comment: 17 pages, latex, 2 figure