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Photoneutron cross sections were measured for {sup 108}Pd, {sup 106}Pd, and {sup 105}Pd with laser-Compton scattering {gamma}-ray beams in an application of the {gamma}SF method to a radioactive nucleus {sup 107}Pd. We present radiative neutron cross sections for {sup 107}Pd[6.5x10{sup 6} y] obtained with the {gamma}SF method.
The large scale extrusion deposition process has recently been commercialized in the form of additive manufacturing machines such as the BAAM from Cincinnati Inc., which enables layered production of chopped fiber reinforced thermoplastic polymer systems. The application of this process to the automotive market is being pursued by Local Motors to enable rapid design to market cycles and build on-demand capability for a wide range of vehicle styles from a distributed network of micro-factories. This endeavor will require an understanding of the structural performance of components with complex geometries, where the properties are known to vary as a function of printing conditions, as well as orientation and shape. In order to rapidly build a database of structural performance, a beam specimen with outer dimensions of 914 x 305 x 64 mm3 was selected to be subjected to bending, torsion, and shear loading with full field displacement measurement by digital image correlation (DIC). A total of 25 different specimen configurations were designed including variation of print geometry, reinforcement by foam filling, and overwrapping with advanced composites. This work documents the results of the study and presents the relative performance of the structures in addition to the approach to simulation that is being initiated to serve as a framework for efficient design of structures manufactured in this way. The results are presented as a table of structural efficiency including stiffness and strength as functions of mass for each design. Additional results will also be provided in the form of surface displacements from DIC; future work will utilize this data to better optimize simulations for predicting structural performance of articles manufactured by this process.
We present a new waveform inversion technique to estimate the energy of near-surface explosions using atmospheric acoustic waves. Conventional methods often employ air blast models based on a homogeneous atmosphere, where the acoustic wave propagation effects (e.g., refraction and diffraction) are not taken into account, and therefore, their accuracy decreases with increasing source-receiver distance. In this study, three-dimensional acoustic simulations are performed with a finite difference method in realistic atmospheres and topography, and the modeled acoustic Green's functions are incorporated into the waveform inversion for the acoustic source time functions. The strength of the acoustic source is related to explosion yield based on a standard air blast model. The technique was applied to local explosions (<10 km) and provided reasonable yield estimates (<~30% error) in the presence of realistic topography and atmospheric structure. In conclusion, the presented method can be extended to explosions recorded at far distance provided proper meteorological specifications.
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The surrogate reaction method is an alternative to direct measurements of compound nuclear reaction cross sections. We introduce theory tools for extracting capture cross sections from experiments that use proton inelastic scattering as a surrogate reaction mechanism. This makes it possible to constrain compound nucleus decay models which are typically the largest source of uncertainty in capture cross section calculations. This letter describes the theory developments that were used to simultaneously infer 89 Y(p, γ) and 89 Zr(n, γ) cross sections from 90 Zr(p, p′γ) surrogate measurements.
The rapid-neutron capture process (r process) is identified as the producer of about 50% of elements heavier than iron. This process requires an astrophysical environment with an extremely high neutron flux over a short amount of time ( seconds), creating very neutron-rich nuclei that are subsequently transformed to stable nuclei via beta decay. In 2017, one site for the r process was confiimed: the advanced LIGO and advanced Virgo detectors observed two neutron stars merging, and immediate follow-up measurements of the electromagnetic transients demonstrated an "afterglow" over a broad range of frequencies fully consistent with the expected signal of an r process taking place. Although neutronstar mergers are now known to be r-process element factories, contributions from other sites are still possible, and a comprehensive understanding and description of the r process is still lacking. One key ingredient to large-scale r-process reaction networks is radiative neutron-capture ( n , γ ) rates, for which there exist virtually no data for extremely neutron rich nuclei involved in the r process. Due to the current status of nuclear-reaction theory and our poor understanding of basic nuclear properties such as level densities and average g-decay strengths, theoretically estimated ( n , γ ) rates may vary by orders of magnitude and represent a major source of uncertainty in any nuclear-reaction network calculation of r-process abundances. Here in this review, we discuss new approaches to provide information on neutron-capture cross sections and reaction rates relevant to the r process. In particular, we focus on indirect, experimental techniques to measure radiative neutron-capture rates. While direct measurements are not available at present, but could possibly be realized in the future, the indirect approaches present a first step towards constraining neutron-capture rates of importance to the r process.
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Highlights: • Human astrocytes increase traction forces of cells applied to the ECM in response to increased substrate stiffness. • Astrocytes apply intercellular stresses with noticeable increase in higher substrate stiffness. • Cell velocity decreases in human astrocytes in brain tumor like environment compared to normal brain environment. • Astrocytes mechanical strength and function could be potentially enhanced by increased stiffness of the microenvironment. Astrocytes are essential to brain homeostasis and their dysfunction can have devastating consequences on human quality of life. Such deleterious effects are generally due in part to changes that occur at the cellular level, which may be biochemical or biomechanical in nature. One biomechanical change that can occur is a change in tissue stiffness. Brain tumors are generally associated with increased brain tissue stiffness, but the impact increased tissue stiffness has on astrocyte biomechanical behavior is poorly understood. Therefore, in this study we cultured human astrocytes on flexible substrates with stiffness that mimicked the healthy human brain (1 kPa), meningioma (4 kPa), and glioma (11 kPa) and investigated astrocyte biomechanical behavior by measuring cell-substrate tractions, strain energies, cell-cell intercellular stresses, and cellular velocities. In general, tractions, intercellular stresses, and strain energy was observed to increase as a function of increased substrate stiffness, while cell velocities were observed to decrease with increased substrate stiffness. We believe this study will be of great importance to the fields of brain pathology and brain physiology.
The study of beta-delayed proton emission is a well known method to aid the determination of the beta strength distribution in nuclei far from the stability line. At the neutron deficient side of the nuclear chart the process of proton or alpha emission from excited states is energetically allowed when one goes far enough from stability. However, beta-delayed alphas have seldom been measured for nuclei heavier than A = 20. Here we present a study of the beta-delayed alpha-particle emission from {sup 152}Tm and {sup 150}Ho and their importance in the full B(GT) distribution.
Electro-magnetic dipole transitions below the neutron separation energy in {sup 56}Fe have been measured by using a quasi-monochromatic, linearly polarized photon beam generated by the Compton scattering of laser light with high energy electrons. The parity of the resonant states in {sup 56}Fe was determined by the intensity asymmetry of resonant scattering {gamma} rays relative to the polarization plane of the incident photon beam. The total magnetic dipole strength of {approx}6{mu}{sup 2}{sub N} at the excitation energies between 6 and 10 MeV was obtained.
Excited states in the {sup 240}Pu nucleus have been studied by means of the (p,t) reaction using the Q3D spectrometer and the focal plane detector from Munich. The comparison between experimental angular distributions and the DWBA calculations allowed the extraction of relative two-neutron transfer strengths. These observables may reveal important information about the structure of different states. The experimental two neutron strength for the 0{sup +}{sub 2} and 0{sup +}{sub 3} states is found in good agreement with the predictions of the IBA model, confirming the double octupole nature for the 0{sup +}{sub 2} state proposed in the previous studies.
Spectra of {gamma} rays following the neutron capture at isolated resonances of stable Gd nuclei were measured. The objectives were to get new information on photon strength of {sup 153,155-159}Gd with emphasis on the role of the M1 scissors-mode vibration. An analysis of the data obtained clearly indicates that the scissors mode is coupled not only to the ground state, but also to all excited levels of the nuclei studied. The specificity of our approach ensures unbiasedness in estimating the sumed scissors-mode strength {Sigma}B(M1){up_arrow}, even for odd product nuclei, for which conventional nuclear resonance fluorescence measurements yield only limited information. Our analysis indicates that for these nuclei the sum {Sigma}B(M1){up_arrow} increases with A and for {sup 157,159}Gd it is significantly higher compared to {sup 156,158}Gd.
The low-lying dipole strength distributions of {sup 40}CaCa and {sup 48}Ca, in the energy region between 5 and 10 MeV, are studied within the second random phase approximation (RPA) with Skyrme interaction. Standard RPA models do not usually predict any presence of strength in this energy region, while experimentally a significant amount of strength is found. The inclusion of the 2 particle -2 hole configurations allows to obtain a description in a rather good agreement with the experimental data. The properties of the most collective state are analyzed in terms of its 1 particle -1 hole nature and its transition densities.
We introduce a new method for the study of fluctuations of partial transition widths based on nuclear resonance fluorescence experiments with quasimonochromatic linearly polarized photon beams below particle separation thresholds. It is based on the average branching of decays of 𝐽=1 states of an even-even nucleus to the 2$^{+}_{1}$ state in comparison to the ground state. Between 5 and 7 MeV, a constant average branching ratio for 𝛾 decays from 1 − states of 0.490(16) is observed for the nuclide 150 Nd. Assuming 𝜒 2 -distributed partial transition widths, this average branching ratio is related to a degree of freedom of 𝜈 = 1.93(12), rejecting the validity of the Porter-Thomas distribution, requiring 𝜈 = 1. The observed deviation can be explained by nonstatistical effects in the 𝛾-decay behavior with contributions in the range of 9.4(10)% up to 94(10)%.
Here, we discuss the failure of the Markov approximation in the description of atom-surface fluctuation-induced interactions, both in equilibrium (Casimir-Polder forces) and out of equilibrium (quantum friction). Using general theoretical arguments, we show that the Markov approximation can lead to erroneous predictions of such phenomena with regard to both strength and functional dependencies on system parameters. Particularly, we show that the long-time power-law tails of two-time dipole correlations and their corresponding low-frequency behavior, neglected in the Markovian limit, affect the prediction of the force. These findings highlight the importance of non-Markovian effects in dispersion interactions.