Photon Stimulated Desorption and the Effect of Cracking of Condensed Molecules in a Cryogenic Vacuum System

The design of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) vacuum system requires a complete understanding of all processes which may affect the residual gas density in the cold bore of the 1.9 K cryomagnets. A wealth of data has been obtained which may be used to predict the residual gas density inside a cold vacuum system exposed to synchrotron radiation. In this study the effect of cracking of cryosorbed molecules by synchrotron radiation photons has been included. Cracking of the molecular species CO2 and CH4 has been observed in recent studies and these findings have been incorporated in a more detailed dynamic gas density model for the LHC. In this paper, we describe the relevant physical processes and the parameters required for a full evaluation. It is shown that the dominant gas species in the LHC vacuum system with its beam screen are H2 and CO. The important result of this study is that while the surface coverage of cryosorbed CH4 and CO2 molecules is limited due to cracking, the coverage of H2 and CO molecules may increase steadily during the long term operation of the machine

Aggregation of amyloid Aβ(1-40) peptide in perdeuterated 2,2,2-trifluoroethanol caused by ultrasound sonication

Ultrasound sonication of protein and peptide solutions is routinely used in biochemical, biophysical, pharmaceutical and medical sciences to facilitate and accelerate dissolution of macromolecules in both aqueous and organic solvents. However, the impact of ultrasound waves on folding/unfolding of treated proteins, in particular, on aggregation kinetics of amyloidogenic peptides and proteins is not understood. In this work, effects of ultrasound sonication on the misfolding and aggregation behavior of the Alzheimer's Aβ (1-40)-peptide is studied by pulsed-field gradient (PFG) spin-echo diffusion NMR and UV circular dichroism (CD) spectroscopy. Upon simple dissolution of Aβ(1-40) in perdeuterated trifluoroethanol, CF3-CD2-OD (TFE-d3), the peptide is present in the solution as a stable monomer adopting α-helical secondary structural motifs. The self-diffusion coefficient of Aβ(1 -40) monomers in TFE-d3 was measured as 1.35 × 10-10 m2 s-1, reflecting its monomeric character. However, upon ultrasonic sonication for less than 5 min, considerable populations of Aβ molecules (ca 40%) form large aggregates as reflected in diffusion coefficients smaller than 4.0 × 10-13 m2 s-1. Sonication for longer times (up to 40 min in total) effectively reduces the fraction of these aggregates in 1H PFG NMR spectra to ca 25%. Additionally, absorption below 230 nm increased significantly upon sonication treatment, an observation, which also clearly confirms the ongoing aggregation process of Aβ(1-40) in TFE-d3. Surprisingly, upon ultrasound sonication only small changes in the peptide secondary structure were detected by CD: the peptide molecules mainly adopt α-helical motifs in both monomers and aggregates formed upon sonication. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd

Magnetic and electric field effect on the photoelectron emission from prototype LHC bean screen material.

This paper describes experimental studies of the effect of a dipole field on the photoelectron emission and on the photon reflectivities from LHC beam screen material. These studies were performed using synchrotron radiation from the VEPP-2M storage ring at BINP (Novosibirsk). The particular surface roughness and geometry of the prototype LHC beam screen material requires dedicated experimental measurements. The experiments were performed under conditions close to those expected in the LHC. An important result obtained is that a dipole magnetic field attenuates the photoelectron emission from surface by more than two orders of magnitude with the magnetic field aligned parallel to the surface. The measurements of photon reflectivities, forward scattered and diffuse, and the azimuthal distribution of emitted photoelectrons from the same material are reported. These experimental results are important input for the final design of the LHC beam screen

Photon stimulated desorption and effect of cracking of condensed molecules in a cryogenic vacuum system.

The design of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) vacuum system requires a complete understanding of all processes which may affect the residual gas density in the cold bore of the 1.9 K cryomagnets. A wealth of data has been obtained which may be used to predict the residual gas density inside a cold vacuum system exposed to synchrotron radiation. In this study, the effect of cracking of cryosorbed molecules by synchrotron radiation photons has been included. Cracking of the molecular species CO/sub 2/ and CH/sub 4/ has been observed in recent studies and these findings have been incorporated in a more detailed dynamic gas density model for the LHC. In this paper, we describe the relevant physical processes and the parameters required for a full evaluation. It is shown that the dominant gas species in the LHC vacuum system with its beam screen are H/sub 2/ and CO. The important result of this study is that, while the surface coverage of cryosorbed CH/sub 4/ and CO/sub 2/ molecules is limited due to cracking, the coverage of H/sub 2/ and CO molecules may increase steadily during the long-term operation of the machine. (7 refs)

Diffusion and aggregation of Alzheimer's Aβ1-40 peptide in aqueous trifluoroethanol solutions as studied by pulsed field gradient NMR

Pulsed field gradient nuclear magnetic resonance technique was applied to measure the self-diffusion coefficient of Aβ1-40 peptide in trifluoroethanol (TFE) and mixed solvent TFE-water (D2O) buffer (pD 7.8) at 293 K. The data were analyzed on the basis of the Stokes model and the hard-sphere approach was used to estimate self-diffusion coefficients. It was found that the extent of the Aβ1-40 aggregation in TFE solutions depends on the concentration of the peptide and the sample preparation protocol. After soft mixing, i.e., without any additional mechanical pretreatment of the peptide, the peptide is present in the monomeric form in TFE solutions. However, the additional water-bath sonication of the sample during the dissolution of Aβ1-40 in TFE enforces oligomerization of the peptide with the size of aggregates ranging from tetra- to hexamers. An increase of D2O in the mixed TFE-D2O solvent of up to 75% leads to the aggregation of the larger part of the peptide. However, the components of self-diffusion coefficients related to low-mass Aβ1-40 oligomers (dimers and trimers) were not observed in the diffusion decay curves. The most probable explanation is that dimers and trimers are not the principal intermediate species in the aggregation of Aβ1-40 peptide. © Springer-Verlag 2005

Vacuum Stability for Ion Induced Gas Desorption

Ion induced vacuum instability was first observed in the Intersecting Proton Storage Rings (ISR) at CERN and in spite of substantial vacuum improvements, it remained a limitation of the maximum beam current throughout the operation of the machine. Extensive laboratory studies and dedicated machine experiments were made during this period to understand the details of this effect and to identify ways of increasing the limit to higher beam currents. Stimulated by the recent design work for the LHC vacuum system, the interest in this problem has been revived with a new critical review of the parameters which determine the pressure run-away in a given vacuum system with high intensity beams

Reflection of photons and azimuthal distribution of photoelectrons in a cylindrical beam pipe

In a cryogenic proton accelerator, such as the LHC, the creation of an electron cloud and generated heat loads resulting from electron bombardment are strongly dependent on the azimuthal distribution of created photoelectrons. In this context, photon reflection and photoelectron yield measurements have been performed using a beam line on the VEPP-2M storage ring. Six electrodes, covering the complete vacuum chamber perimeter, were mounted such that they could be suitably biased, and while one electrode was irradiated with synchrotron radiation the resulting electron current of all others could be measured. A detailed description of the experimental apparatus and the results of the measurements of photon reflection and the azimuthal distribution of generated photoelectrons are presented

Quality assurance of the Brewer UV measurements in Finland

International audienceThe quality assurance of the two Brewer spectrophotometers of the Finnish Meteorological Institute is discussed in this paper. The complete data processing chain from raw signal to high quality spectra is presented. The quality assurance includes daily maintenance, laboratory characterizations, calculation of long term spectral responsivity, data processing and quality assessment. The cosine correction of the measurements is based on a new method, and included in the data processing software. The results showed that the actual cosine correction factor of the Finnish Brewers can vary between 1.08?1.13 and 1.08?1.12, respectively, depending on the sky radiance distribution and wavelength. The temperature characterization showed a linear temperature dependence between the internal temperature and the photon counts per cycle, and a temperature correction was used for correcting the measurements. The long term spectral responsivity was calculated using time series of several lamps using two slightly different methods. The long term spectral responsivity was scaled to the irradiance scale of the Helsinki University of Technology (HUT) for the whole measurement time periods 1990?2006 and 1995?2006 for Sodankylä and Jokioinen, respectively. Both Brewers have participated in many international spectroradiometer comparisons, and have shown good stability. The differences between the Brewers and the portable reference spectroradiometer QASUME have been within 5% during 2002?2007