Radiation protection issues after 20 years of LHC operation

Since November 2009, the LHC commissioning progresses very well, both with proton and lead beams. It will continue in 2011 and nominal LHC operation is expected to be attained in 2013. In parallel, plans for various LHC upgrades are under discussion, suggesting a High-Luminosity (HL) upgrade first and a High-Energy (HE) upgrade in a later state. Whereas the upgrade in luminosity would require the modification of only some few key accelerator components like the inner triplets, the upgrade in beam energy from 7 TeV to 16.5 TeV would require the exchange of all dipoles and of numerous other accelerator components. The paper gives an overview of the radiation protection issues related to the dismantling of LHC components prior to the installation of the HE-LHC components, i.e. after about 20 years of LHC operation. Two main topics will be discussed: (i) the exposure of workers to ionizing radiation during the dismantling of dipoles, inner triplets or collimators and experiments and (ii) the production, conditioning, interim storage and final disposal of radioactive waste.Comment: 3 pages, contribution to the EuCARD-AccNet-EuroLumi Workshop: The High-Energy Large Hadron Collider, Malta, 14 -- 16 Oct 2010; CERN Yellow Report CERN-2011-003, pp. 134-13

Characterisation of ionisation chambers for a mixed radiation field and investigation of their suitability as radiation monitors for the LHC

Monitoring of the radiation environment is one of the key tasks in operating a high-energy accelerator such as the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). The radiation fields consist of neutrons, charged hadrons as well as photons and electrons with energy spectra extending from those of thermal neutrons up to several hundreds of GeV. The requirements for measuring the dose equivalent in such a field are different from standard uses and it is thus necessary to investigate the response of monitoring devices thoroughly before the implementation of a monitoring system can be conducted. For the LHC, it is currently foreseen to install argon- and hydrogen-filled high-pressure ionisation chambers as radiation monitors of mixed fields. So far their response to these fields was poorly understood and, therefore, further investigation was necessary to prove that they can serve their function well enough. In this study, ionisation chambers of type IG5 (Centronic Ltd) were characterised by simulating their response functions by means of detailed FLUKA calculations as well as by calibration measurements for photons and neutrons at fixed energies. The latter results were used to obtain a better understanding and validation of the FLUKA simulations. Tests were also conducted at the CERF facility at CERN in order to compare the results with simulations of the response in a mixed radiation field. It is demonstrated that these detectors can be characterised sufficiently enough to serve their function as radiation monitors for the LH

The charged beam dumps for the international linear collider

The baseline configuration of the International Linear Collider requires 2 beam dumps per interaction region, each rated to 18MW of beam power, together with additional beam dumps for tuning purposes and machine protection. The baseline design uses high pressure moving water dumps, first developed for the SLC and used in the TESLA design, although a gas based dump is also being considered. In this paper we discuss the progress made by the international community on both physics and engineering studies for the beam dumps.Comment: Presented at European Particle Accelerator Conference (EPAC 06), Edinburgh, Scotland, 26-30 Jun 200

The influence of the type of filling gas on the response of ionisation chambers to a mixed high-energy radiation field

Radiation protection dosimetry in radiation fields behind the shielding of high-energy accelerators such as CERN is a challenging task and the quantitative understanding of the detector response used for dosimetry is essential. Measurements with ionisation chambers are a standard method to determine absorbed dose (in the detector material). For applications in mixed radiation fields, ionisation chambers are often also calibrated in terms of ambient dose equivalent at conventional reference radiation fields. The response of a given ionisation chamber to the various particle types of a complex high-energy radiation field in terms of ambient dose equivalent depends of course on the materials used for the construction and the chamber gas used. This paper will present results of computational studies simulating the exposure of high-pressure ionisation chambers filled with different types of gases to the radiation field at CERN's CERN-EU high-energy reference field facility. At this facility complex high-energy radiation fields, similar to those produced by cosmic rays at flight altitudes, are produced. The particle fluence and spectra calculated with FLUKA Monte Carlo simulations have been benchmarked in several measurements. The results can be used to optimise the response of ionisation chambers for the measurement of ambient dose equivalent in high-energy mixed radiation field

Field calibration studies for ionisation chambers in mixed high-energy radiation fields

The monitoring of ambient doses at work places around high-energy accelerators is a challenging task due the complexity of the mixed stray radiation fields encountered. At CERN, mainly Centronics IG5 high-pressure ionisation chambers are used to monitor radiation exposure in mixed fields. The monitors are calibrated in the operational quantity ambient dose equivalent H*(10) using standard, source-generated photon- and neutron fields. However, the relationship between ionisation chamber reading and ambient dose equivalent in a mixed high-energy radiation field can only be assessed if the spectral response to every component and the field composition is known. Therefore, comprehensive studies were performed at the CERN-EU high-energy reference field facility where the spectral fluence for each particle type has been assessed with Monte Carlo simulations. Moreover, studies have been performed in an accessible controlled radiation area in the vicinity of a beam loss point of CERN's proton synchrotron. The comparison of measurements and calculations has shown reasonable agreement for most exposure conditions. The results indicate that conventionally calibrated ionisation chambers can give satisfactory response in terms of ambient dose equivalent in stray radiation fields at high-energy accelerators in many cases. These studies are one step towards establishing a method of ‘field calibration' of radiation protection instruments in which Monte Carlo simulations will be used to establish a correct correlation between the response of specific detectors to a given high-energy radiation fiel

Effective potential between two gluons from the scalar glueball

Starting from the $0^{++}$ glueball mass and wave function computed from lattice QCD, we compute the local potential between two constituent gluons. Since the properties of constituent gluons are still a matter of research, we allow for them to be either massless, or massive with a mass around 0.7 GeV. Both pictures are actually used in the literature. When the gluons are massless, the corresponding local potential is shown to be compatible with a Cornell form, that is a linear confinement plus a short-range Coulomb part, with standard values for the flux tube energy density and for the strong coupling constant. When the gluons are massive, the confining potential is a saturating one, commonly used to simulate string-breaking effects. These results fill a gap between lattice QCD and phenomenological models: The picture of the scalar glueball as a bound state of two constituent gluons interacting via a phenomenological potential is shown to emerge from pure gauge lattice QCD computations. Moreover, we show that the allowed potential shape is constrained by the mass of the constituent gluons.Comment: 4 figures; Comments added, one typo corrected in v2. V3 accepted for publication in EPJA : major changes, content enlarged, inclusion of massive gluon

Design of beam optics and radiation protection concept for NA60+ heavy-ion experiment at CERN

NA60+ is a fixed target experiment proposed in the framework of the Physics Beyond Colliders programme at CERN. It aims to precisely measure the hard and electromagnetic probes in nuclear collisions. Initially proposed for the underground cavern ECN3 with very high beam intensities, the experiment now foresees a location in the EHN1 surface hall which was shown to have a limited impact on the physics performance in spite of a significant reduction of beam intensity and detector size. The potential installation and operation of the experiment with the ion beams from the Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS) has been examined regarding detector integration, beam physics, radiation protection and shielding requirements. The integration of the experiment is considered feasible, but would require a significant reconfiguration of the existing hall infrastructure with regards to shielding and layout

fichierecologique.be : évolutions et perspectives après 5 années d’utilisation

Le Fichier écologique des essences a été imaginé par Franz Weissen dans les années ‘90 pour aider les forestiers à réfléchir leurs choix d’essences lors des reboisements. Revu et amélioré grâce à l’Accord-cadre de recherches et vulgarisation forestières, il est paru dans sa nouvelle version numérique en juillet 2017 et a connu depuis un grand intérêt auprès des gestionnaires forestiers. Après quasi 5 années d’utilisation, c’est l’occasion de faire le bilan de son utilisation, des évolutions qu’il a connues et d’ouvrir les perspectives de développement pour le futur. Le succès de l’utilisation de fichierecologique.be montre le besoin des gestionnaires de disposer d’outils opérant le trait d’union entre les recherches et les recommandations de gestion des écosystèmes forestiers. Dans un environnement changeant, ces outils doivent être mis à jour régulièrement. C’est ce qui vient d’être fait pour fichierecologique.be15. Life on lan

Individual aggregates of amyloid beta induce temporary calcium influx through the cell membrane of neuronal cells.

Local delivery of amyloid beta oligomers from the tip of a nanopipette, controlled over the cell surface, has been used to deliver physiological picomolar oligomer concentrations to primary astrocytes or neurons. Calcium influx was observed when as few as 2000 oligomers were delivered to the cell surface. When the dosing of oligomers was stopped the intracellular calcium returned to basal levels or below. Calcium influx was prevented by the presence in the pipette of the extracellular chaperone clusterin, which is known to selectively bind oligomers, and by the presence a specific nanobody to amyloid beta. These data are consistent with individual oligomers larger than trimers inducing calcium entry as they cross the cell membrane, a result supported by imaging experiments in bilayers, and suggest that the initial molecular event that leads to neuronal damage does not involve any cellular receptors, in contrast to work performed at much higher oligomer concentrations.Herchel Smith (Postdoctoral Fellowship), Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (studentship), European Research Council (Advanced Grant (669237)), Augustus Newman Foundatio

Response of neutron detectors to high-energy mixed radiation fields

Radiation protection around CERN's high-energy accelerators represents a major challenge due to the presence of complex, mixed radiation fields. Behind thick shielding neutrons dominate and their energy ranges from fractions of eV to about 1 GeV. In this work the response of various portable detectors sensitive to neutrons was studied at CERN's High-Energy Reference Field Facility (CERF). The measurements were carried out with conventional rem counters, which usually cover neutron energies up to 20 MeV, the Thermo WENDI-2, which is specified to measure neutrons up to several GeV, and a tissue-equivalent proportional counter. The experimentally determined neutron dose equivalent results were compared with Monte Carlo (MC) simulations. Based on these studies field calibration factors can be determined, which result in a more reliable estimate of H*(10) in an unknown, but presumably similar high-energy field around an accelerator than a calibration factor determined in a radiation field of a reference neutron sourc