Comparison of FAIR technique with different inversion times and post contrast dynamic perfusion MRI in chronic occlusive cerebrovascular disease

The purpose of this study was to examine the signal change occurring with different inversion times (TIs) of the flow-sensitive alternating inversion recovery (FAIR) technique and to compare with the perfusion image obtained with Gd-DTPA injection. The subjects were 11 patients with unilateral occlusive cerebrovascular disease. Two FAIR images with different TIs (800 ms and 1600 ms) were measured for each patient and dynamic perfusion MRI was performed to produce four kinds of parameter maps: mean transit time (MTT), time to peak (TTP), relative cerebral blood flow (rCBF) and relative cerebral blood volume (rCBV) maps. Asymmetry ratios (ARs) between the affected and contra-lateral vascular sides were measured in both FAIR images and the four dynamic parameter maps. The AR of the MTT map of the four parameters showed the highest correlation with that of the FAIR images, especially with that of TI = 1600 ms (r = 0.829), and the AR of the rCBV map revealed the worst correlation with the FAIR images. The AR of the FAIR image with TI = 800 ms was less correlated with that of MTT than that with TI = 1600 ms. These results suggested that the signal intensity of the FAIR image was influenced by flow transition time and the change in TI could be used to select the flow with a different transition time. Our study suggested that a longer TI in the FAIR technique might be more useful than a shorter TI for evaluating chronic occlusive cerebrovascular disease in the clinical setting.     

New physics and technical challenges of ¯ANDA

An antiproton beam of unprecedented intensity and quality will soon be available at the HESR machine foreseen for the new FAIR accelerator complex of Darmstadt. This new facility, together with a properly designed new detector ( ˉANDA), will be the ideal environment to study fundamental questions of hadron and nuclear physics and to carry out precise tests of the strong interaction.     

Density of states in the magnetic ground state of the Friedel-Anderson impurity

By applying a magnetic field whose Zeeman energy exceeds the Kondo energy by an order of magnitude the ground state of the Friedel-Anderson impurity is a magnetic state. In recent years the author introduced the FAIR (Friedel Artificially Inserted Resonance) method to investigate the impurity properties. Within this FAIR approach the full excitation spectrum and the composition of the excitations is calculated and numerically evaluated. From the excitation spectrum the electron density of states is calculated. Majority and minority d-resonances are obtained. The width of the resonances is about twice as wide as the mean field theory predicts. This broadening reduces the height of the resonance curve and therefore the density of states by a factor of two. This yields an intuitive understanding for a previous result of the FAIR approach that it requires a much larger Coulomb interaction for the formation of a magnetic moment than the mean field theory.     

High Energy Density Physics Studies at the Facility for Antiprotons and Ion Research: the HEDgeHOB Collaboration

The forthcoming F acility for A ntiprotons and I on R esearch (FAIR) at Darmstadt, is going to be a unique accelerator facility that will deliver high quality, strongly bunched, well focused, intense beams of heavy ions that will lead to unprecedented specific power deposition in solid matter. This will generate macroscopic samples of H igh E nergy D ensity (HED) matter with fairly uniform physical conditions. These samples can be used to study the thermophysical and transport properties of HED matter. Extensive theoretical work has been carried out over the past decade to design numerous dedicated experiments to study HED physics at the FAIR, which has provided the basis for the HEDgeHOB ( H igh E nergy D ensity Matter Ge nerated by H eavy I o n B eams) scientific proposal. This work is still in progress as the feasibility studies for more experimental schemes are being carried out. Another, very important research area that will benefit tremendously from the FAIR facility, is the production of radioactive beams. A superconducting fragment separator, Super–FRS is being designed for the production and separation of rare radioactive isotopes. Unlike the HED targets, the Super–FRS production target should not be destroyed or damaged by the beam, but should remain intact during the long experimental campaign. However, the high level of specific power deposited in the production target by the high intensity ion beam at FAIR, could cause serious problems to the target survival. These HED issues related to the Super–FRS production target are also discussed in the present paper (© 2011 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

NUSTAR and the status of the R3B project at FAIR

Over the last 15 years, reaction experiments on fixed targets using secondary beams of high energy have developed a potential as exploratory tool to study the properties of nuclei far from stability. NUSTAR (nuclear structure, astrophysics and reactions) is a collaboration of the international nuclear structure and astrophysics community with the aim to further explore this method at the FAIR Facility. Within the FAIR complex, NUSTAR defines a facility where the heart is the super-fragment separator (Super-FRS), which serves three experimental branches: The RING, the LOW- and the HIGH-ENERGY branches.     

磁振灌流造影:对“流动敏感交互反转恢复”的评论(英文)

磁振造影在过去的数十年內取得了长足的进步,除了可提供生物解剖构造的资讯外,如今更可以进行组织灌流造影.磁振灌流造影主要可分成2种:动态磁感对比(Dynamic susceptibility Contrast)和动脉标记(Arterial Spin Labeling) .相较于动态磁感对比,动脉标记能非侵入性地观测灌流.动脉标记包括了数种技术:如CASL (continu-ous arterial spinlabeling) ,EPISTAR(echo planar imaging and signal targeting with al-ternating radiofrequency) ,PICORE(proxi mal inversion with a control for off-resonance effects)和FAIR(flow-sensitive alternating inversion recovery) .该文主要提供流动磁感交互反转恢复(FAIR)技术的综合介绍,包括其理论基础和实践,特别针对T1法在FAIR定量上的使用.定量上的困难亦将会在文章中被讨论.文章的最后总结FAIR之实际应用情形.     

Secondary-beam production: Protons versus heavy ions

The construction of two new-generation complementary RIB facilities in Europe, one based on the in-flight fragmentation or fission (IFF) method (FAIR) and the other on the isotope separation on-line (ISOL) method (EURISOL) is expected in the next 10-15 years. The reaction mechanisms, responsible for the production of the secondary nuclei, along with the technical constrains, have to be considered for the designs of the facilities. In this work, we study which reaction mechanisms can be exploited at best for the production of the secondary beams in the two facilities.     

How deep is the antinucleon optical potential at FAIR energies

The key question in the interaction of antinucleons in the nuclear medium concerns the deepness of the antinucleon-nucleus optical potential. In this work we study this task in the framework of the non-linear derivative (NLD) model which describes consistently bulk properties of nuclear matter and Dirac phenomenology of nucleon-nucleus interactions. We apply the NLD model to antinucleon interactions in nuclear matter and find a strong decrease of the vector and scalar self-energies in energy and density and thus a strong suppression of the optical potential at zero momentum and, in particular, at FAIR energies. This is in agreement with available empirical information and, therefore, resolves the issue concerning the incompatibility of G-parity arguments in relativistic mean-field (RMF) models. We conclude the relevance of our results for the future activities at FAIR.     

Simultaneous BOLD/perfusion measurement using dual-echo FAIR and UNFAIR: sequence comparison at 1.5T and 3.0T.

Functional MRI (fMRI) studies designed for simultaneously measuring Blood Oxygenation Level Dependent (BOLD) and Cerebral Blood Flow (CBF) signal often employ the standard Flow Alternating Inversion Recovery (FAIR) technique. However, some sensitivity is lost in the BOLD data due to inherent T1 relaxation. We sought to minimize the preceding problem by employing a modified UN-inverted FAIR (UNFAIR) technique, which (in theory) should provide identical CBF signal as FAIR with minimal degradation of the BOLD signal. UNFAIR BOLD maps acquired from human subjects (n = 8) showed significantly higher mean z-score of approximately 17% (p < 0.001), and number of activated voxels at 1.5T. On the other hand, the corresponding FAIR perfusion maps were superior to the UNFAIR perfusion maps as reflected in a higher mean z-score of approximately 8% (p = 0.013), and number of activated voxels. The reduction in UNFAIR sensitivity for perfusion is attributed to increased motion sensitivity related to its higher background signal, and, T2 related losses from the use of an extra inversion pulse. Data acquired at 3.0T demonstrating similar trends are also presented.     

Visual cortex reactivity in sedated children examined with perfusion MRI (FAIR)

Sleeping and sedated children can respond to visual stimulation with a decrease in blood oxygenation level dependent (BOLD) functional MRI signal response. The contribution of metabolic and hemodynamic parameters to this inverse signal response is incompletely understood. It has been hypothesized that it is caused by a relatively greater increase of oxygen consumption compared to rCBF (regional cerebral blood flow) increase. We studied the rCBF changes during visual stimulation in four sedated children, aged 4-71 months, and four alert adults, with an arterial water spin labeling technique (FAIR) and BOLD fMRI in a 1.5T MR scanner. In the children, FAIR signal decreased by a mean of 0.96% (range 0.77-1.05) of the baseline periods of the non-selective images, while BOLD signal decreased by 2.03% (range 1.99-2.93). In the adults, FAIR and BOLD signal increased by 0.88% (range 0.8-0.99) and 2.63% (range 1.99-2.93), respectively. Thus, in the children, an rCBF increase could not be detected by perfusion MRI, but indications of a FAIR signal decrease were found. An rCBF decrease in the primary visual cortex during stimulation has not been reported previously, but it is a possible explanation for the negative BOLD response. Future studies will have to address if this response pattern is a consequence of age or sleep/sedation.     

Proposal for the study of thermophysical properties of high-energy-density matter using current and future heavy-ion accelerator facilities at GSI Darmstadt

The subject of high-energy-density (HED) states in matter is of considerable importance to numerous branches of basic as well as applied physics. Intense heavy-ion beams are an excellent tool to create large samples of HED matter in the laboratory with fairly uniform physical conditions. Gesellschaft für Schwerionenforschung, Darmstadt, is a unique worldwide laboratory that has a heavy-ion synchrotron, SIS18, that delivers intense beams of energetic heavy ions. Construction of a much more powerful synchrotron, SIS100, at the future international facility for antiprotons and ion research (FAIR) at Darmstadt will lead to an increase in beam intensity by 3 orders of magnitude compared to what is currently available. The purpose of this Letter is to investigate with the help of two-dimensional numerical simulations, the potential of the FAIR to carry out research in the field of HED states in matter.     

Status of the MLLTRAP setup and future plans

The MLLTRAP Penning trap system serves as a development environment, both for mass spectrometry as well as for novel in-trap decay-spectroscopy experiments at the MATS facility at FAIR. This contribution gives an outline on the development work done at MLLTRAP and presents the current status.     

SPARC collaboration: new strategy for storage ring physics at FAIR

SPARC collaboration at FAIR pursues the worldwide unique research program by utilizing storage ring and trapping facilities for highly-charged heavy ions. The main focus is laid on the exploration of the physics at strong, ultra-short electromagnetic fields including the fundamental interactions between electrons and heavy nuclei as well as on the experiments at the border between nuclear and atomic physics. Very recently SPARC worked out a realization scheme for experiments with highly-charged heavy-ions at relativistic energies in the High-Energy Storage Ring HESR and at very low-energies at the CRYRING coupled to the present ESR. Both facilities provide unprecedented physics opportunities already at the very early stage of FAIR operation. The installation of CRYRING, dedicated Low-energy Storage Ring (LSR) for FLAIR, may even enable a much earlier realisation of the physics program of FLAIR with slow anti-protons.     

The process p¯↦γπwithin the handbag approach

We analyse the exclusive channel pˉ↦γπ⁰, assuming handbag dominance. The soft parts are parametrized in terms of CGLN amplitudes for the qˉ↦γπ⁰ transition and form factors for the pˉ↦qˉ ones; the latter represent moments of Generalized Distribution Amplitudes. We present a combined fit to Fermilab data from E760 taking simultaneously into account information from other exclusive reactions, especially from pˉ↦γγ data. Overall a nicely consistent picture emerges, such that one can hope, that our theoretical analysis will be reliable also for the kinematics of GSI/FAIR, which, hopefully, will provide much more precise and complete data. Consequently, data from this facility should improve our knowledge both on the proton-antiproton distribution amplitudes and the pion production mechanism.     

Search for the critical point and the onset of deconfinement

A review of the current experimental situation on the search for a critical point in the QCD phase diagram and the onset of deconfinement is given. Ongoing (STAR, NA61), as well as previous (NA49) experiments are presented. Their main results up-to-now are summarized and their findings are put into a general context. The future experimental program (CBM at FAIR, MPD at NICA) is discussed as well.     

A study of the feasibility of conducting the ELISE and EXL experiments at the ITEP accelerator complex

We report the results of a study into the feasibility of conducting the ELISE and EXL experiments on collisions of nuclei of radioactive fragments with electrons at the Institute for Theoretical and Experimental Physics (ITEP). A scheme for uranium ion acceleration in the ITEP accelerator complex is chosen, and it is shown that uranium ions may be accelerated with an intensity of ～1 × 10¹¹ ions/s as soon as the complex is modified and a new injector is constructed. The basic parameters of the modified complex are given, and a layout diagram indicating the positions of the target that serves to produce radioactive fragments, the separator, and the storage rings (CR, RESR, NESR, and ER) at the ITEP site is presented.     

Kaon and antikaon optical potentials in isospin asymmetric hyperonic matter

The medium modifications of the energies of kaons and antikaons in isospin asymmetric hyperonic matter are investigated using a chiral SU(3) model. The isospin-dependent medium effects are important for asymmetric heavy-ion collision experiments, as well as relevant for the neutron star phenomenology as the bulk matter in the interior of the neutron star is highly isospin asymmetric. The effects of hyperons on the medium modifications of the kaons and antikaons in the strange hadronic matter are investigated in the present work and are seen to be appreciable for hadronic matter with large strangeness fractions. The study of the K -mesons in the asymmetric strange hadronic matter can be especially relevant for the compressed strange baryonic matter which can result from asymmetric heavy-ion collision experiments in the future accelerator facility FAIR at GSI.     

Radiative corrections in nucleon time-like form factors measurements

The completely general radiative corrections to lowest order, including the final- and initial-state radiations, are studied in proton-antiproton annihilation into an electron-positron pair. Numerical estimates have been made in a realistic configuraton of the PANDA detector at FAIR for the proton time-like form factors measurements.