Dating of two Paleolithic human fossil bones from Romania by accelerator mass spectrometry

In this study we have dated two human fossil remains found in Romania, by the method of radiocarbon using the technique of the accelerator mass spectrometry. The human fossil remains from Woman's cave, Baia deFier, have been dated to the age 30150 $\pm$ 800 years BP, and the skull from the Cioclovina cave has been dated to the age 29000 $\pm$ 700 years BP. These are the most ancient dated till now human fossil remains from Romania, possibly belonging to the upper Paleolithic, the Aurignacian period.Comment: 7 pages, 2 figures, presented to the Conference hipan2002, Neptum, Romania, 2-6 September 2002, http://idranap.nipne.ro/events/2002/HIPAN02/contents.ht

14C emission from Swedish nuclear power plants and its Eeffect on the 14C levels in the environment

The radionuclide 14C is produced in all types of nuclear reactors mainly by neutron-induced reactions in oxygen (17O), nitrogen (14N) and carbon (13C). Part of the 14C created is continuously released during normal operation as airborne effluents in various chemical forms (such as CO2, CO and hydrocarbons) to the surroundings. Because of the biological importance of carbon and the long physical half-life of 14C, it is of interest to measure the releases and their incorporation into living material. The 14C activity concentrations in annual tree rings and air around two Swedish nuclear power plants (Barsebäck and Forsmark) as well as the background 14C activity levels from two reference sites in southern Sweden during 1973-1996 are presented in this report. In order to verify the reliability of the method some investigations have been conducted at two foreign nuclear sites, Sellafield fuel reprocessing plant in England, and Pickering nuclear generating station in Canada, where the releases of 14C are known to be substantial. Furthermore, results from some measurements in the vicinity of Paldiski submarine training centre in Estonia are presented. The results of the 14C measurements of air, vegetation and annual tree rings around the two Swedish nuclear power plants show very low enhancements of 14C, if at all above the uncertainty of the measurements. Even if the accuracy of the measurements of the annual tree rings is rather good (1-2%) the contribution of 14C from the reactors to the environment is so small that it is difficult to separate it from the prevailing background levels of 14C. This is the case for all sampling procedures: in air and vegetation as well as in annual tree rings. Only on a few occasions an actual increase is observed. However, although the calculations suffer from rather large uncertainties, the calculated release rate from Barsebäck is in fair agreement with reported release data. The results of this investigation show that the effective doses to man related to the releases of 14C from the Swedish light-water reactors at Barsebäck and Forsmark are very low, especially compared to the situation at other nuclear installations, such as the fuel reprocessing plant at Sellafield, England, and the heavy-water reactors at Pickering nuclear generating station, Canada. Lund/Malmö February 200

Electrostatic accelerators: fundamentals and applications

Electrostatic accelerators are an important and widespread subgroup within the broad spectrum of modern, large particle acceleration devices. They are specifically designed for applications that require high-quality ion beams in terms of energy stability and emittance at comparatively low energies (a few MeV). Their ability to accelerate virtually any kind of ion over a continuously tunable range of energies make them a highly versatile tool for investigations in many research fields including, but not limited to, atomic and nuclear spectroscopy, heavy ion reactions, accelerator mass spectroscopy as well as ion-beam analysis and modification. The book is divided into three parts. The first part concisely introduces the field of accelerator technology and techniques that emphasize their major modern applications. The second part treats the electrostatic accelerator per se: its construction and operational principles as well as its maintenance. The third part covers all relevant applications in which electrostatic accelerators are the preferred tool for accelerator-based investigations. Since some topics are common to all types of accelerators, Electrostatic Accelerators will also be of value those more familiar with other types of accelerators

Ion Beams in Nanoscience and Technology

Energetic ion beam irradiation is the basis of a wide plethora of powerful research- and fabrication-techniques for materials characterisation and processing on a nanometre scale. This book is suitable for practitioners, researchers and graduate students working in the field of ion beams and applicatio