Measurement of Ultra-Low Potassium Contaminations with Accelerator Mass Spectrometry

Levels of trace radiopurity in active detector materials is a subject of major concern in low-background experiments. Among the radio-isotopes, \k40 is one of the most abundant and yet whose signatures are difficult to reject. Procedures were devised to measure trace potassium concentrations in the inorganic salt CsI as well as in organic liquid scintillator (LS) with Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS), giving, respectively, the \k40-contamination levels of $\sim 10^{-10}$ and $\sim 10^{-13}$ g/g. Measurement flexibilities and sensitivities are improved over conventional methods. The projected limiting sensitivities if no excess of potassium signals had been observed over background are $8 \times 10^{-13}$ g/g and $3 \times 10^{-17}$ g/g for the CsI and LS, respectively. Studies of the LS samples indicate that the radioactive contaminations come mainly in the dye solutes, while the base solvents are orders of magnitude cleaner. The work demonstrate the possibilities of measuring naturally-occurring isotopes with the AMS techniques.Comment: 18 pages, 4 figures, 3 table

Measurement of Trace I-129 Concentrations in CsI Powder and Organic Liquid Scintillator with Accelerator Mass Spectrometry

Levels of trace radiopurity in active detector materials is a subject of major concern in low-background experiments. Procedures were devised to measure trace concentrations of I-129 in the inorganic salt CsI as well as in organic liquid scintillator with Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS) which leads to improvement in sensitivities by several orders of magnitude over other methods. No evidence of their existence in these materials were observed. Limits of < 6 X 10^{-13} g/g and < 2.6 X 10^{-17} g/g on the contaminations of I-129 in CsI and liquid scintillator, respectively, were derived.These are the first results in a research program whose goals are to develop techniques to measure trace radioactivity in detector materials by AMS.Comment: Proceedings of 10th International Conference on Accelerator Mass Spectrometr

Theory of Current-Induced Magnetization Precession

We solve appropriate drift-diffusion and Landau-Lifshitz-Gilbert equations to demonstrate that unpolarized current flow from a non-magnet into a ferromagnet can produce a precession-type instability of the magnetization. The fundamental origin of the instability is the difference in conductivity between majority spins and minority spins in the ferromagnet. This leads to spin accumulation and spin currents that carry angular momentum across the interface. The component of this angular momentum perpendicular to the magnetization drives precessional motion that is opposed by Gilbert damping. Neglecting magnetic anisotropy and magnetostatics, our approximate analytic and exact numerical solutions using realistic values for the material parameters show (for both semi-infinite and thin film geometries) that a linear instability occurs when both the current density and the excitation wave vector parallel to the interface are neither too small nor too large. For many aspects of the problem, the variation of the magnetization in the direction of the current flows makes an important contribution.Comment: Submitted to Physical Review