Molecular dynamics study of a two-dimensional model of squaric acid

The vibrational properties of the two-dimensional model of squaric acid are studied. Intermolecular and intramolecular interactions are taken to be either harmonic or of Lippincot-Schroeder type. Special attention is paid to the influence of the anharmonicity on the infrared active vibrations of the protons in the hydrogen bonds. The potential for the proton is chosen in such a way that in the room temperature phase the protons are found in an asymmetric position between two neighbouring oxygens. In the high temperature phase a symmetric distribution of protons is accessible indicating that a structural phase transition can occur.     

Spectrum of heavy-light mesons in the QCD string picture

We describe in detail predictions of the QCD string approach for the masses of the heavy—light D, D _s , B, and B _s mesons, including orbitally and radially excited states. We discuss the role of the proper dynamics of the QCD string in the formation of the spectrum of the heavy—light mesons, with quark self-energy corrections calculated self-consistently in the same picture. We give our predictions in terms of the current quark masses; the string tension—the only dimensional parameter describing the interquark interaction; and the strong coupling constant, which differs for the fine and the hyperfine interactions. The results are compared with the predictions of other models and with the experimental and lattice results.     

库仑作用对同位旋分馏过程的影响

利用同位旋相关的量子分子动力学模型研究了中能重离子碰撞中库仑作用对同位旋分馏过程的影响.研究结果表明,在所研究的能区,无论是丰(缺)中子碰撞系统或者轻(重)反应系统,库仑作用都使同位旋分馏过程减弱,而这种影响主要来自于库仑作用对质子的排斥作用,使更多的质子发射,从而降低了气相中子–质子比所导致     

Screening of light mesons and charmonia at high temperature

We present lattice QCD results for the screening masses of light mesons and charmonia. The lattice computations were performed with 2 + 1 flavors of improved staggered quarks using quark masses which correspond to realistic pion and kaon masses at zero temperature. For the light quark sector we have found that the screening masses in the pseudo-scalar and the isovector scalar channels do not become degenerate at the chiral crossover temperature indicating an effective non-restoration of the axial symmetry. Also the splitting between the vector and the pseudo-scalar screening masses persists even in the limit of zero lattice spacing and at a moderately high temperature around 420 MeV. In the charmonium sector our investigation shows that the screening masses of the pseudo-scalar and the vector charmonia are almost (within a few percent) equal to their zero temperature masses for temperatures less than 300 MeV. We also present results for the charmonium screening masses using periodic boundary conditions along the temporal direction and discuss their implications.     

Overlap valence quarks on a twisted mass sea: A case study for mixed action lattice QCD

We discuss a lattice QCD mixed action investigation employing Wilson maximally twisted mass sea and overlap valence fermions. Using four values of the lattice spacing, we demonstrate that the overlap Dirac operator assumes a point-like locality in the continuum limit. We also show that by adopting suitable matching conditions for the sea and valence theories a consistent continuum limit for the pion decay constant and light baryon masses can be obtained. Finally, we confront results for sea–valence mixed meson masses and the valence scalar correlator with corresponding expressions of chiral perturbation theory. This allows us to extract low energy constants of mixed action chiral perturbation which characterize the strength of unitarity violations in our mixed action setup.     

Test of the heavy quark–light diquark approximation for baryons with a heavy quark

We check a commonly used approximation in which a baryon with a heavy quark is described as a heavy quark–light diquark system. The heavy quark influences the diquark internal motion reducing the average distance between the two light quarks. Besides, we show how the average distance between the heavy quark and any of the light quarks, and that between the heavy quark and the center of mass of the light diquark, are smaller than the distance between the two light quarks, which seems to contradict the heavy quark–light diquark picture. This latter result is in agreement with expectations from QCD sum rules and lattice QCD calculations. Our results also show that the diquark approximations produces larger masses than the ones obtained in a full calculation.     

Nonlinear excitations and electric transport in dissipative Morse-Toda lattices

We investigate the onset and maintenance of nonlinear soliton-like excitations in chains of atoms with Morse interactions at rather high densities, where the exponential repulsion dominates. First we discuss the atomic interactions and approximate the Morse potential by an effective Toda potential with adapted density-dependent parameters. Then we study several mechanisms to generate and stabilize the soliton-like excitations: (i) External forcing: we shake the masses periodically, mimicking a piezoelectric-like excitation, and delay subsequent damping by thermal excitation; (ii) heating, quenching and active friction: we heat up the system to a relatively high temperature Gaussian distribution, then quench to a low temperature, and subsequently stabilize by active friction. Finally, we assume that the atoms in the chain are ionized with free electrons able to move along the lattice. We show that the nonlinear soliton-like excitations running on the chain interact with the electrons. They influence their motion in the presence of an external field creating dynamic bound states (“solectrons”, etc.). We show that these bound states can move very fast and create extra current. The soliton-induced contribution to the current is constant, field-independent for a significant range of values when approaching the zero-field value.     

Laser Accelerated, High Quality Ion Beams

Intense beams of protons and heavy ions have been observed in ultra-intense laser-solid interaction experiments. Thereby, a considerable fraction of the laser energy is transferred to collimated beams of energetic ions (e.g. up to 50 MeV protons; 100 MeV fluorine), which makes these beams highly interesting for various applications. Experimental results indicate very short pulse duration and an excellent beam quality, leading to beam intensities in the TW range. To characterize the beam quality and its dependence on laser parameters and target conditions, we performed experiments at several high-power laser systems. We found a strong dependence on the target rear surface conditions allowing to tailor the ion beam by an appropriate target design. We also succeeded in the generation of heavy ion beams by suppressing the proton amount at the target surface. We will present recent experimental results demonstrating a transverse beam emittance far superior to accelerator-based ion beams. Finally, we will discuss the prospect of laser-accelerated ion beams as new diagnostics in laser-solid interaction experiements. Special fields of interest are proton radiography, electric field imaging, and relativistic electron transport inside the target.     

Modification induced by proton irradiation in polyallyldiglycol carbonate (PADC)

Swift heavy ions interact predominantly through inelastic scattering while traversing through any polymeric medium producing excited/ionised atoms. Beyond a certain threshold, they affect the lattice structure leading to remarkable flexibility in engineering many physical and mechanical properties of the polymer. Polyallyldiglycol carbonate (PADC) is a class of polymeric detectors which finds its applications in various fields. In the present work, PADC samples were irradiated by four different fluences (≈10¹²–10¹³ cm⁻²) of 62 MeV protons from heavy ion accelerator (ISL) at HMI, Berlin. The modifications in the proton irradiated polymers as a function of fluence have been studied through different characterisation techniques such as Fourier Transform IR, UV-Vis, Electron Spin resonance, Thermogravimetric analysis, Differential Scanning Calorimetry and Track studies. The optical band-gap was found to be constant while a decrease in transmittance of PADC was observed with the increase in proton fluence. The thermal stability of PADC was found to be an inverse function of fluence. Further, these proton irradiated PADCs were exposed to fission fragments from ²⁵²Cf source and the bulk etch-rate was improved with the increase in proton fluence and was found to be increased by 90% for the PADC irradiated at the highest fluence as compared to the pristine. Thus, proton irradiation has led to degradation of the polymer by chain scission converting it into an easily etchable material.     

On the strong and weak effects in the s-wave monopole-fermion interactions

Neglecting the masses of light fermions at small distances and corrections due to higher angular momentum excitations and heavy fermions, we show that strong and weak effects do not forbid the monopole catalysis of proton decay. We develop a simple bag-like model of a proton with a monopole sitting at its center and estimate the proton lifetime. We show that the monopole catalysis is not allowed in a variant of the SU(5) grand unified theory, so this process is not characteristic to all GUTs.     

Effective Dynamics of a Tracer Particle Interacting with an Ideal Bose Gas

We study a system consisting of a heavy quantum particle, called the tracer particle, coupled to an ideal gas of light Bose particles, the ratio of masses of the tracer particle and a gas particle being proportional to the gas density. All particles have non-relativistic kinematics. The tracer particle is driven by an external potential and couples to the gas particles through a pair potential. We compare the quantum dynamics of this system to an effective dynamics given by a Newtonian equation of motion for the tracer particle coupled to a classical wave equation for the Bose gas. We quantify the closeness of these two dynamics as the mean-field limit is approached (gas density ${\to \infty}$ ). Our estimates allow us to interchange the thermodynamic with the mean-field limit.     

Surveying post-saddle nuclear dissipation with protons and a particles as probes

Using a Langevin model, we calculate post-saddle proton and a-particle multiplicities as a function of the post-saddle dissipation strength (β) for the heavy systems ~(234)Cf, ~(240)Cf, ~(246)Cf and ~(240)U. We find that, with increasing isospin of the system, the sensitivity of post-saddle light charged-particle multiplicities to β decreases considerably and, moreover, for 240U the charged-particle multiplicities are no longer sensitive to β. These results suggest that in order to determine the post-saddle friction strength more accurately by measuring the multiplicities of pre-scission protons and a particles, it is best to populate those heavy compound systems with low isospin.     

Constraining the QCD phase diagram by tricritical lines at imaginary chemical potential

We present unambiguous evidence, from lattice simulations of QCD with three degenerate quark species, for two tricritical points in the (T, m) phase diagram at fixed imaginary chemical potential μ/T = iπ/3 mod2π/3, one in the light and one in the heavy mass regime. These represent the boundaries of the chiral and deconfinement critical lines continued to imaginary μ, respectively. It is demonstrated that the shape of the deconfinement critical line for real chemical potentials is dictated by tricritical scaling and implies the weakening of the deconfinement transition with real chemical potential. The generalization to nondegenerate and light quark masses is discussed.     

Two-particle bound states in the field of a heavy nucleus

We calculate the wavefunction and the energy eigenvalues of two non-relativistic interacting particles in an external field with spherical symmetry. The techniques used and the formalism developed are suitable for all problems of this kind. We give explicit formulae for the matrixelements. As an example we discuss the case of a light charged fermion-antifermion pair in the Coulomb field of a heavy nucleus, assuming a confining potential between the fermions.     

Control the relaxation properties of the diffuse bistable potential

The purpose of this work is to investigate procedures to control the population dynamics in a bistable potential. We use the solutions of the Fokker–Planck equation for the distribution function corresponding to a bistable potential under action of an external electric field. The control is performed with a piecewise protocol with time independent potentials. This protocol provides to be adequate for this problem, controlling the time necessary to balance of system probabilities. Some trajectories were controlled and the limits of procedure clarified. Nevertheless, with the application of the control protocol we clarify some simple phenomena of the system, associating the application of the external field with the system diffusion coefficient.     

Stationary states in bistable system driven by Lévy noise

We study the properties of the probability density function (PDF) of a bistable system driven by heavy tailed white symmetric Lévy noise. The shape of the stationary PDF is found analytically for the particular case of the Lévy index α = 1 (Cauchy noise). For an arbitrary Lévy index we employ numerical methods based on the solution of the stochastic Langevin equation and space fractional kinetic equation. In contrast to the bistable system driven by Gaussian noise, in the Lévy case, the positions of maxima of the stationary PDF do not coincide with the positions of minima of the bistable potential. We provide a detailed study of the distance between the maxima and the minima as a function of the depth of the potential and the Lévy noise parameters.     

Pion and proton emission in interactions induced by relativistic heavy nuclei withZ≧12

The emission of pions and protons in interactions between heavy nuclei from the cosmic radiation (12≦Z≦26) and photoemulsion nuclei has been studied. The angular and energy distributions of target protons are similar to corresponding distributions in proton-nucleus interactions for emission angles >30°. In heavy ion interactions a forward peak of high energy target protons (E>200 MeV)is observed. The energy spectrum of target protons for angles <30° is remarkably flat for heavy ion interactions. For increasing disintegration of the target nucleus the number of produced pions per emitted recoil target proton is almost constant in heavy ion interactions, while it decreases rapidly in proton-nucleus interactions. The logtgΘ distributions of pions have small standard deviations even in interactions with a large target disintegration.     

Structural and property changes in poly (vinylidene fluoride–trifluoroethylene) 70/30 mol % copolymer induced by proton irradiation

Poly(vinylidene fluoride–trifluoroethylene) 70/30 mol% copolymer has been irradiated with 3 MeV protons at doses ranging from 43 to 200 Mrad. The effects of irradiation on the polarization hysteresis, dielectric properties, lattice spacing, phase transition behavior and electric-field-induced strain have been studied. The irradiated copolymer exhibits the characteristic behavior of a relaxor ferroelectric, including frequency dispersion of the dielectric constant, which follows the Vogel–Fulcher rule. These results indicate that the proton irradiation breaks up the coherent polarization domains in the copolymer into nano-sized regions, thereby converting the copolymer to a relaxor ferroelectric. X-ray diffraction measurements show that the nano-sized regions are in the non-polar phase. Since the lattice spacing of the non-polar phase is substantially different from that of the polar phase, the local phase transformation between these two phases induced by an external electric field gives rise to a large lattice strain and hence a giant electrostrictive response. PACS 77     

Development of a laser-driven proton accelerator for cancer therapy

Recent advances in laser technology have made proton (light ion) acceleration possible using laser-induced plasmas. In this work, we report our work for the last few years on the investigation of a new proton therapy system for radiation oncology, which employs laser-accelerated protons. If successfully developed, the new system will be compact, cost-effective, and capable of delivering energy-and intensity-modulated proton therapy (EIMPT). We have focused our research on three major aspects: (1) target design for laser-proton acceleration, (2) system design for particle/energy selection and beam collimation, and (3) dosimetric studies on the use of laser-accelerated protons for cancer therapy. We have performed particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations to investigate optimal target configurations for proton/ion acceleration. We also performed Monte Carlo simulations to study the beam characteristics and the feasibility of using such beams for cancer treatment. Since laser-accelerated protons have broad energy and angular distributions, which are not suitable for radiotherapy applications directly, we have designed a compact particle selection and beam collimating system for EIMPT beam delivery. We also proposed a new gantry design to make the whole system compact to retrofit existing linac vaults. We have compared Monte Carlo calculated dose distributions using X-ray IMRT and laser-proton EIMPT. Our results show that EIMPT using laser protons produces superior target coverage and much reduced critical structure dose and integral dose compared to X-ray IMRT.