Sedimentation and Fouling of Optical Surfaces at the ANTARES Site

ANTARES is a project leading towards the construction and deployment of a neutrino telescope in the deep Mediterranean Sea. The telescope will use an array of photomultiplier tubes to detect the Cherenkov light emitted by muons resulting from the interaction with matter of high energy neutrinos. In the vicinity of the deployment site the ANTARES collaboration has performed a series of in-situ measurements to study the change in light transmission through glass surfaces during immersions of several months. The average loss of light transmission is estimated to be only ~2% at the equator of a glass sphere one year after deployment. It decreases with increasing zenith angle, and tends to saturate with time. The transmission loss, therefore, is expected to remain small for the several year lifetime of the ANTARES detector whose optical modules are oriented downwards. The measurements were complemented by the analysis of the ^{210}Pb activity profile in sediment cores and the study of biofouling on glass plates. Despite a significant sedimentation rate at the site, in the 0.02 - 0.05 cm.yr^{-1} range, the sediments adhere loosely to the glass surfaces and can be washed off by water currents. Further, fouling by deposits of light-absorbing particulates is only significant for surfaces facing upwards.Comment: 18 pages, 14 figures (pdf), submitted to Astroparticle Physic

Coulomb dissociation of 16O into 4He and 12C

We measured the Coulomb dissociation of 16O into 4He and 12C at the R3B setup in a first campaign within FAIR Phase 0 at GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung, Darmstadt. The goal was to improve the accuracy of the experimental data for the 12C(a,?)16O fusion reaction and to reach lower center-ofmass energies than measured so far. The experiment required beam intensities of 109 16O ions per second at an energy of 500 MeV/nucleon. The rare case of Coulomb breakup into 12C and 4He posed another challenge: The magnetic rigidities of the particles are so close because of the same mass-To-charge-number ratio A/Z = 2 for 16O, 12C and 4He. Hence, radical changes of the R3B setup were necessary. All detectors had slits to allow the passage of the unreacted 16O ions, while 4He and 12C would hit the detectors' active areas depending on the scattering angle and their relative energies. We developed and built detectors based on organic scintillators to track and identify the reaction products with sufficient precision

Modeling of Hydrogen Absorption/Desorption Isotherms of Hydride-Forming Materials

Abstract not Available.</jats:p

Modeling of hydrogen storage in hydride-forming materials : statistical thermodynamics

A new lattice gas model has been developed, describing the hydrogen storage in hydride-forming materials. This model is based on the mean-field theory and Bragg-Williams approximation. To describe first-order phase transitions and two-phase coexistence regions, a binary alloy approach has been adopted. A complete set of equations describing pressure-composition isotherms and equilibrium electrode potential curves of hydride forming materials in both solid-solution and two-phase coexistence regions has been set up. The proposed model defines both the equilibrium pressure and equilibrium potential as explicit functions of the normalized hydrogen concentration, using eight physically well-defined parameters. Gibbs free energies, entropies, and phase diagrams of both model (LaNiyCu1.0) and commercial, MischMetal-based, AB5-type materials at different compositions and temperatures have been simulated. Good agreement between experimental and theoretical results for the pressure-composition isotherms obtained in the gas phase and the equilibrium potential curves measured in electrochemical environment has been found in all cases

Russian internal narratives about the “Western enemy” as a barrier for reconciliation: the example of school history textbooks

International audienc

Coulomb dissociation of 16O into 4He and 12C

We measured the Coulomb dissociation of 16O into 4He and 12C at the R3B setup in a first campaign within FAIR Phase 0 at GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung, Darmstadt. The goal was to improve the accuracy of the experimental data for the 12C(a,?)16O fusion reaction and to reach lower center-ofmass energies than measured so far. The experiment required beam intensities of 109 16O ions per second at an energy of 500 MeV/nucleon. The rare case of Coulomb breakup into 12C and 4He posed another challenge: The magnetic rigidities of the particles are so close because of the same mass-To-charge-number ratio A/Z = 2 for 16O, 12C and 4He. Hence, radical changes of the R3B setup were necessary. All detectors had slits to allow the passage of the unreacted 16O ions, while 4He and 12C would hit the detectors' active areas depending on the scattering angle and their relative energies. We developed and built detectors based on organic scintillators to track and identify the reaction products with sufficient precision

Coulomb dissociation of ¹⁶O into ⁴He and ¹²C

We measured the Coulomb dissociation of ¹⁶O into ⁴He and ¹²C at the R³B setup in a first campaign within FAIR Phase 0 at GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung, Darmstadt. The goal was to improve the accuracy of the experimental data for the ¹²C(α,γ)¹⁶O fusion reaction and to reach lower center-ofmass energies than measured so far. The experiment required beam intensities of 10⁹ ¹⁶O ions per second at an energy of 500 MeV/nucleon. The rare case of Coulomb breakup into ¹²C and ⁴He posed another challenge: The magnetic rigidities of the particles are so close because of the same mass-to-charge-number ratio A/Z = 2 for ¹⁶O, ¹²C and ⁴He. Hence, radical changes of the R³B setup were necessary. All detectors had slits to allow the passage of the unreacted ¹⁶O ions, while ⁴He and ¹²C would hit the detectors’ active areas depending on the scattering angle and their relative energies. We developed and built detectors based on organic scintillators to track and identify the reaction products with sufficient precision

The ANTARES optical module

The ANTARES collaboration is building a deep sea neutrino telescope in the Mediterranean Sea. This detector will cover a sensitive area of typically 0.1 km2 and will be equipped with about 1000 optical modules. Each of these optical modules consists of a large area photomultiplier and its associated electronics housed in a pressure resistant glass sphere. The design of the ANTARES optical module, which is a key element of the detector, has been finalized following extensive R&amp;D studies and is reviewed here in detail. © 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved