Advanced Technology from and for Basic Science: Superconductivity and Superfluid Helium at the Large Hadron Collider

Inaugural Lecture of the Academic Year 2007-2008 - Politechnika Wroclawska/Wroclaw University of Technology - 2 October 2007 Translated in Polish by Maciej Chorowski - Wroclaw University of Technolog

Thermohydraulics of Resistive Transitions of the LHC Prototype Magnet String: Theoretical Modeling and Experimental Results

In preparation for the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) project, a 40 m-long prototype superconducting magnet string, representing a half-cell of the machine lattice, has been built and operated. The superconducting magnets which comprise this string normally operate in a pressurized static bath of superfluid helium at a pressure of 1 bar and at a temperature of 1.9 K. At 13.1 kA they have about 15.3 MJ of stored magnetic energy. A series of tests was performed to assess the thermohydraulics of resistive transitions (quenches) of the string of magnets. These measurements provide the necessary foundation for describing of the observed pressure rise as the combination of two processes, each acting on a different time scale. The measurements are presented and an explanatory model description of the events is given

Detection and period measurements of GX1+4 at hard x ray energies with the SIGMA telescope

The galactic Low Mass X ray Binary GX1+4 was detected by the coded aperture hard X ray gamma ray SIGMA telescope during the Feb. to April 1991 observations of the galactic center regions. The source, whose emission varied during the survey of a factor greater than 40 pct., reached a maximum luminosity in the 40 to 140 energy range of 1.03 x 10(exp 37) erg/s (D = 8.5 kpc), thus approaching the emission level of the 1970 to 1980 high state. Two minute flux pulsations were detected on Mar. 22 and on Mar. 31 and Apr. 1. Comparison with the last period measurements shows that the current spin-down phase of GX1+4 is ending. Concerning the proposed association of this source with the galactic center 511 keV annihilation emission, upper limits were derived

HIGH EXCITATION ENERGY STRUCTURES IN HEAVY ION COLLISIONS ON A208Pb TARGET

Energy spectra of fragments from the 36Ar +208Pb reaction at 11 MeV/n and 20Ne + 208Pb reaction at 30 MeV/n were measured using a time of flight spectrometer. Structures ranging up to 130 MeV excitation energy are observed in the inelastic spectra. These structures are shown to be due to an excitation of the208Pb target nucleus

Science with Simbol-X

Simbol-X is a French-Italian mission, with a participation of German laboratories, for X-ray astronomy in the wide 0.5-80 keV band. Taking advantage of emerging technology in mirror manufacturing and spacecraft formation flying, Simbol-X will push grazing incidence imaging up to ~80 keV, providing an improvement of roughly three orders of magnitude in sensitivity and angular resolution compared to all instruments that have operated so far above 10 keV. This will open a new window in X-ray astronomy, allowing breakthrough studies on black hole physics and census and particle acceleration mechanisms. We describe briefly the main scientific goals of the Simbol-X mission, giving a few examples aimed at highlighting key issues of the Simbol-X design.Comment: Proc. of the workshop "Simbol-X: The hard X-ray universe in focus", Bologna 14-16 May, 200

GRB030406 an extremely hard burst outside of the INTEGRAL field of view

Using the IBIS Compton mode, the INTEGRAL satellite is able to detect and localize bright and hard GRBs, which happen outside of the nominal INTEGRAL telescopes field of view. We have developed a method of analyzing such INTEGRAL data to obtain the burst location and spectra. We present the results for the case of GRB030406. The burst is localized with the Compton events, and the location is consistent with the previous Interplanetary Network position. A spectral analysis is possible with the detailed modeling of the detector response for such a far off-axis source with the offset of 36.9 $^\circ$. The average spectrum of the burst is extremely hard: the photon index above 400 \kev is -1.7, with no evidence of a break up to 1.1 \mev at 90% confidence level.Comment: Astronomy and Astrophysics in pres

The Cryogenics of the LHC Interaction Region Final Focus Superconducting Magnets

The LHC interaction region final focus magnets will include four superconducting quadrupoles cooled with pressurized, static superfluid helium at 1.9 K. The heat absorbed in pressurized He II, which m ay be more than 10 Watts per meter due to dynamic heating from the particle beam halo, will be transported to saturated He II at 1.8 K and removed by the 16 mbar vapor. This paper discusses the concep tual design for the cryogenics of the interaction region final focus superconducting magnets and the integration of this magnet system into the overall LHC cryogenic system

Characterizing a new class of variability in GRS 1915+105 with simultaneous INTEGRAL/RXTE observations

We report on the analysis of 100 ks INTEGRAL observations of the Galactic microquasar GRS 1915+105. We focus on INTEGRAL Revolution number 48 when the source was found to exhibit a new type of variability as preliminarily reported in Hannikainen et al. (2003). The variability pattern, which we name $\xi$, is characterized by a pulsing behaviour, consisting of a main pulse and a shorter, softer, and smaller amplitude precursor pulse, on a timescale of 5 minutes in the JEM-X 3-35 keV lightcurve. We also present simultaneous RXTE data. From a study of the individual RXTE/PCA pulse profiles we find that the rising phase is shorter and harder than the declining phase, which is opposite to what has been observed in other otherwise similar variability classes in this source. The position in the colour-colour diagram throughout the revolution corresponds to State A (Belloni et al. 2000) but not to any previously known variability class. We separated the INTEGRAL data into two subsets covering the maxima and minima of the pulses and fitted the resulting two broadband spectra with a hybrid thermal--non-thermal Comptonization model. The fits show the source to be in a soft state characterized by a strong disc component below ~6 keV and Comptonization by both thermal and non-thermal electrons at higher energies.Comment: Accepted for publication in A&A. 11 pages, 10 figures, 4 in colour. Original figures can be found at http://www.astro.helsinki.fi/~diana/grs1915_rev48. Author affiliations correcte

Nucleon-induced reactions at intermediate energies: New data at 96 MeV and theoretical status

Double-differential cross sections for light charged particle production (up to A=4) were measured in 96 MeV neutron-induced reactions, at TSL laboratory cyclotron in Uppsala (Sweden). Measurements for three targets, Fe, Pb, and U, were performed using two independent devices, SCANDAL and MEDLEY. The data were recorded with low energy thresholds and for a wide angular range (20-160 degrees). The normalization procedure used to extract the cross sections is based on the np elastic scattering reaction that we measured and for which we present experimental results. A good control of the systematic uncertainties affecting the results is achieved. Calculations using the exciton model are reported. Two different theoretical approches proposed to improve its predictive power regarding the complex particle emission are tested. The capabilities of each approach is illustrated by comparison with the 96 MeV data that we measured, and with other experimental results available in the literature.Comment: 21 pages, 28 figure