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DOE OSTI2023

Simulations and analysis tools for charge-exchange (d, 2 He) reactions in inverse kinematics with the AT-TPC

Charge-exchange (d, 2 He) reactions in inverse kinematics at intermediate energies are a very promising method to investigate the Gamow–Teller transition strength in unstable nuclei. A simulation and analysis software based on the attpcroot package was developed to study this type of reactions with the active-target time projection chamber (AT-TPC). The simulation routines provide a realistic detector response that can be used to understand and benchmark experimental data. Analysis tools and correction routines can be developed and tested from simulations in ATTPCROOT , because they are processed in the same way as the real data. In particular, we study the feasibility of using coincidences with beam-like particles to unambiguously identify the (d, 2 He) reaction channel, and to develop a kinematic fitting routine for future applications. More technically, the impact of space-charge effects in the track reconstruction, and a possible correction method are investigated in detail. Finally, this analysis and simulation package constitutes an essential part of the software development for the fast-beams program with the AT-TPC.

(d,2He)↗

DOE OSTI2024

A novel methodology for gamma-ray spectra dataset procurement over varying standoff distances and source activities

The adoption of machine learning approaches for gamma-ray spectroscopy has received considerable attention in the literature. Many studies have investigated the deployment of various algorithm architectures to a specific task. However, little attention has been afforded to the development of the datasets leveraged to train the models. Such training datasets typically span a set of environmental or detector parameters to encompass a problem space of interest to a user. Variations in these measurement parameters will also induce fluctuations in the detector response, including expected pile-up and ground scatter effects. Fundamental to this work is the understanding that 1) the underlying spectral shape varies as the measurement parameters change and 2) the statistical uncertainties associated with two spectra impact their level of similarity. While previous studies attribute some arbitrary discretization to the measurement parameters for the generation of their synthetic training data, this work introduces a principled methodology for efficient spectral-based discretization of a problem space. A signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) respective spectral comparison measure and a Gaussian Process Regression (GPR) model are used to predict the spectral similarity across a range of measurement parameters. This innovative approach effectively showcased its capability by dividing a problem space, ranging from 5 cm to 100 cm standoff distances and 5 μCi–100 μCi of 137 Cs, into three unique combinations of measurement parameters. The findings from this work will aid in creating more robust datasets, which incorporate many possible measurement scenarios, reduce the number of required experimental test set measurements, and possibly enable experimental training data collection for gamma-ray spectroscopy.

data science↗

DOE OSTI2024

Machine learning framework for predicting uranium enrichments from M400 CZT gamma spectra

A machine learning framework was developed for predicting uranium enrichments from M400 CZT gamma spectra. This framework leverages the availability of a large amount of measured M400 gamma spectra and uses a recently updated version of Gamma Detector Response and Analysis Software (GADRAS) for gamma spectrum analysis and generation. It also leverages the existing machine learning modules in Python for gamma spectrum data processing, curation, model training, benchmarking, and optimization of the deep machine learning models. The framework is used to develop a deep learning model to analyze gamma spectra from a set of U 3 O 8 samples with enrichments ranging from 0.31 to 93.17% and UF 6 cylinders with enrichments ranging from 0.2 to 4.95%, and the model performance is tested using a set of measured spectra and the respective declared enrichment values. Results show that the model can correctly classify 99.35% of the U 3 O 8 sample enrichments, and can predict the samples’ enrichments within an average absolute error of 0.099% (in percentage points of enrichment). For the UF 6 cylinders, the average absolute error was approximately 0.03%, with an accuracy of 98% in classifying discrete enrichment values of UF 6 samples. Finally, the results also show that the model has performed significantly better in terms of predicting enrichments in UF 6 cylinders based on measured gamma spectra than the GEM code, with a standard deviation (of the relative errors) of 2.23% (compared with the 11.51% value for the GEM code) based on results from a set of test data.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗

DOE OSTI2025

Optimizing a detection system for fissile material in nuclear disarmament verification

In arms control treaties, verification plays a crucial role in detecting non-compliance, deterring future violations, and building trust between state parties. Neutron interrogation that induces fission reactions in fissile isotopes and measures the resulting fission neutrons, could be employed for this purpose. This study aims to develop a system which can determine the presence of fissile material while intrinsically protecting information. In this paper, we focus on optimizing the system for discriminating between an enriched uranium block from a depleted uranium (DU) block. The system was built and we report on benchmark measurements with DU and 16% enriched uranium blocks. Furthermore, the Excalibur (Experiment for Calibration with Uranium) neutron source, a neutron spectrometer (redBubble Technology Industries (BTI) N-Probe), and superheated droplet detectors were used for these measurements. MCNP simulations provided insights into detector responses to fissile materials with varying isotopic compositions, confirming that the system functioned as designed.

Active neutron interrogation↗

DOE OSTI2026

Light monitoring system for the lead tungstate calorimeter in Hall D at Jefferson Lab

A new electromagnetic calorimeter composed of 1596 lead tungstate (PbWO 4 ) scintillating crystals has been constructed for the GlueX detector in Hall D at Jefferson Lab. The calorimeter is equipped with a light monitoring system that uses light-emitting diodes. The light monitoring system was fabricated, installed, and integrated into the GlueX trigger system. It was successfully operated during detector commissioning and data collection, providing monitoring of the detector response and verification of the calibration with a precision better than 1%. In conclusion, the paper describes the design, installation, and performance of the light monitoring system.

Lead tungstate calorimeter↗

DOE OSTI2013

Toward laser ablation Accelerator Mass Spectrometry of actinides

A project to measure neutron capture cross sections of a number of actinides in a reactor environment by Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS) at the ATLAS facility of Argonne National Laboratory is underway. This project will require the precise and accurate measurement of produced actinide isotopes in many (>30) samples irradiated in the Advanced Test Reactor at Idaho National Laboratory with neutron fluxes having different energy distributions. The AMS technique at ATLAS is based on production of highlycharged positive ions in an electron cyclotron resonance (ECR) ion source followed by acceleration in the ATLAS linac and mass-to-charge (m/q) measurement at the focus of the Fragment Mass Analyzer. Laser ablation was selected as the method of feeding the actinide material into the ion source because we expect it will have higher efficiency and lower chamber contamination than either the oven or sputtering techniques, because of a much narrower angular distribution of emitted material. In addition, a new multi-sample holder/changer to allow quick change between samples and a computer-controlled routine allowing fast tuning of the accelerator for different beams, are being developed. An initial test run studying backgrounds, detector response, and accelerator scaling repeatability was conducted in December 2010. The project design, schedule, and results of the initial test run to study backgrounds are discussed.

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS↗

DOE OSTI2025

Charge collection efficiency of diamond and silicon sensors irradiated with alpha particles

To evaluate the viability of using semiconductors as sensor materials in a detector for the Associated Particle Imaging technique, the radiation hardness of silicon and diamond diodes to alpha particles has been assessed. Here, the detector lifetimes for both silicon and diamond sensors were measured under the prolonged exposure to alpha particles emitted by an 241 Am source. The silicon detector was exposed to alpha radiation for approximately two months, reaching an accumulated fluence of ~ 1.5 x 10 12 α cm –2 . Additionally, by using a high purity single-crystal diamond with coplanar electrodes operating with full charge collection, the diamond detector response was measured over approximately ten months reaching an accumulated fluence of over 6 x 10 12 α cm –2 cm.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗

DOE OSTI2017

Measurements of photo-nuclear jet production in Pb + Pb collisions with ATLAS

Ultra-peripheral heavy ion collisions provide a unique opportunity to study the parton distributions in the colliding nuclei via the measurement of photo-nuclear jet production. An analysis of jet production in ultra-peripheral Pb+Pb collisions at √ s NN = 5.02 TeV performed using data collected with the ATLAS detector in 2015 is described. The data set corresponds to a total Pb+Pb integrated luminosity of 0.38 nb -1 . The ultra-peripheral collisions are selected using a combination of forward neutron and rapidity gap requirements. The cross-sections, not unfolded for detector response, are compared to results from Pythia Monte Carlo simulations re-weighted to match a photon spectrum obtained from the STARlight model. As a result, qualitative agreement between data and these simulations is observed over a broad kinematic range suggesting that using these collisions to measure nuclear parton distributions is experimentally realisable.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗

DOE OSTI2011

The NOvA experiment at FNAL, status and perspectives

The NO$\nu$A experiment is a new long baseline neutrino experiment designed to measure $\theta_{13}$ through the appear- ance of $\nu_e$ in a $\nu_\mu$ beam, at an off-axis angle of 14 mrad. The NO$\nu$A experiment has constructed and instrumented their near detector and has begun taking data in a surface location that places the detector in both the Neutrinos at the Main Injector (NuMI) neutrino beam and booster neutrino beam at Fermilab. This location provides significant neutrino fluxes for studies of both $\nu_{e}$ and $\nu_\mu$ interactions and for understanding of the detector response to both types of interactions.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗

DOE OSTI2025

A simulation pipeline for fast neutron imaging and spectroscopy using quantified detector attributes

Radiation imaging capabilities, essential in the nuclear nonproliferation regime, facilitate source localization and, in certain cases, spectroscopy. Scatter-based neutron cameras, which can measure the neutron signatures from special nuclear material, hold particular interest. Systems incorporating organic scintillators can extract neutron energy spectra, potentially distinguishing fission neutron sources from others, such as alpha-neutron sources. The development and testing of a scatter-based neutron imager, however, can be challenging without having an accurate simulation model or first constructing a prototype. This work describes a simulation pipeline that takes output from MCNPX-PoliMi simulations and creates the expected back-projection neutron images and neutron energy spectra. This pipeline was developed to improve the modeling of fast neutron imagers and bridge the current gap in literature, which predominantly focuses on gamma-ray Compton imager models. This work also reports on the significance of various real-world system considerations and their effects on the simulated detector responses. The pipeline was verified and validated with experimental data collected using a 252 Cf spontaneous fission source using a fast neutron scattering imager developed at the University of Michigan.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗

DOE OSTI2015

Personal reflections on the highlights and changes in radiation and radioisotope measurement applications

Here, this paper describes the recent changes that the authors have perceived in the use of radiation and radioisotope measurement applications. The first change is that due to the increased use of Monte Carlo simulation which has occurred from a normal evolutionary process. This is due in large part to the increased accuracy that is being obtained by the use of detector response functions (DRFs) and the simultaneous increased computational efficiency that has become available with these DRFs, the availability of a greatly improved weight windows variance reduction method, and the availability of in-expensive computer clusters. This first change is a happy one. The other change that is occurring is in response to recent terrorist activities. That change is the replacement or major change in the use of long-lived radioisotopes in radioisotope measurement and other radioisotope source applications. In general this can be done by improving the security of these radioisotope sources or by replacing them altogether by using machine sources of radiation. In either case one would like to preclude altogether or at least minimize the possibility of terrorists being able to obtain radioisotopes and use them for clandestine purposes.

07 ISOTOPE AND RADIATION SOURCES↗

DOE OSTI2021

Quantitative imaging and automated fuel pin identification for passive gamma emission tomography

Compliance of member States to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons is monitored through nuclear safeguards. The Passive Gamma Emission Tomography (PGET) system is a novel instrument developed within the framework of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) project JNT 1510, which included the European Commission, Finland, Hungary and Sweden. The PGET is used for the verification of spent nuclear fuel stored in water pools. Advanced image reconstruction techniques are crucial for obtaining high-quality cross-sectional images of the spent-fuel bundle to allow inspectors of the IAEA to monitor nuclear material and promptly identify its diversion. In this work, we have developed a software suite to accurately reconstruct the spent-fuel cross sectional image, automatically identify present fuel rods, and estimate their activity. Unique image reconstruction challenges are posed by the measurement of spent fuel, due to its high activity and the self-attenuation. While the former is mitigated by detector physical collimation, we implemented a linear forward model to model the detector responses to the fuel rods inside the PGET, to account for the latter. The image reconstruction is performed by solving a regularized linear inverse problem using the fast-iterative shrinkage-thresholding algorithm. We have also implemented the traditional filtered back projection (FBP) method based on the inverse Radon transform for comparison and applied both methods to reconstruct images of simulated mockup fuel assemblies. Higher image resolution and fewer reconstruction artifacts were obtained with the inverse-problem approach, with the mean-square-error reduced by 50%, and the structural-similarity improved by 200%. We then used a convolutional neural network (CNN) to automatically identify the bundle type and extract the pin locations from the images; the estimated activity levels finally being compared with the ground truth. The proposed computational methods accurately estimated the activity levels of the present pins, with an associated uncertainty of approximately 5%.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗

DOE OSTI2023

Differentiating multi-MeV, multi-ion spectra with CR-39 solid-state nuclear track detectors

The development of high intensity petawatt lasers has created new possibilities for ion acceleration and nuclear fusion using solid targets. In such laser-matter interaction, multiple ion species are accelerated with broad spectra up to hundreds of MeV. To measure ion yields and for species identification, CR-39 solid-state nuclear track detectors are frequently used. However, these detectors are limited in their applicability for multi-ion spectra differentiation as standard image recognition algorithms can lead to a misinterpretation of data, there is no unique relation between track diameter and particle energy, and there are overlapping pit diameter relationships for multiple particle species. In this report, we address these issues by first developing an algorithm to overcome user bias during image processing. Second, we use calibration of the detector response for protons, carbon and helium ions (alpha particles) from 0.1 to above 10 MeV and measurements of statistical energy loss fluctuations in a forward-fitting procedure utilizing multiple, differently filtered CR-39, altogether enabling high-sensitivity, multi-species particle spectroscopy. To validate this capability, we show that inferred CR-39 spectra match Thomson parabola ion spectrometer data from the same experiment. Filtered CR-39 spectrometers were used to detect, within a background of ~ 2 × 10 11 sr -1 J -1 protons and carbons, (1.3 ± 0.7) × 10 8 sr -1 J -1 alpha particles from laser-driven proton-boron fusion reactions.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗

DOE OSTI2015

Gamma-ray Output Spectra from 239 Pu Fission

Gamma-ray multiplicities, individual gamma-ray energy spectra, and total gamma energy spectra following neutron-induced fission of 239Pu were measured using the DANCE detector at Los Alamos. Corrections for detector response were made using a forward-modeling technique based on propagating sets of gamma rays generated from a paramaterized model through a GEANT model of the DANCE array and adjusting the parameters for best fit to the measured spectra. The results for the gamma-ray spectrum and multiplicity are in general agreement with previous results, but the measured total gamma-ray energy is about 10% higher. A dependence of the gamma-ray spectrum on the gamma-ray multplicity was also observed. Global model calculations of the multiplicity and gamma energy distributions are in good agreement with the data, but predict a slightly softer total-energy distribution.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗

DOE OSTI2025

Anomaly Detection Based on Machine Learning for the CMS Electromagnetic Calorimeter Online Data Quality Monitoring

Using a semi-supervised machine learning approach we present a real-time anomaly detection system based on an autoencoder used for online data quality monitoring of the CMS electromagnetic calorimeter operating at the CERN LHC. We introduce a novel method that maximizes the anomaly detection performance making use of the time-dependence of anomalies and the spatial variations in the detector response. The autoencoder-based system efficiently detects anomalies in real time and maintains a very low false discovery rate. We validate the performance of this novel system with anomalies from LHC collision data taken in 2018 and 2022. In addition, results are presented after deploying the autoencoder-based system in the CMS online Data Quality Monitoring workflow at the beginning of LHC Run 3 resulting in the system to detect issues that were missed by the existing system.

Harilal, Abhirami [Carnegie Mellon University, Pit↗

DOE OSTI2012

Analysis of moire fringes by Wiener filtering: An extension to the Fourier method

In X-ray Talbot interferometry, tilting the phase grating with respect to the absorption grating results in the formation of spatial fringes. The analysis of this moire pattern, classically performed by the Fourier method, allows the extraction of the sample phase shift information from a single image. In this context, an extension to the Fourier method is proposed. The filter used to extract the fringe information is chosen optimally in the least-squares sense, given models for the zeroth and first order modes, noise and the modulation transfer function. The latter is obtained by measuring the detector response to moire fringes with increasing frequencies. The obtained Wiener filter allows a better reconstruction of the phase information at all fringe frequencies, compared to the usual box or gaussian filters. This is demonstrated quantitatively by experiments using synchrotron radiation.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗

DOE OSTI2014

Antenna-coupled microcavities for enhanced infrared photo-detection

We demonstrate mid-infrared detectors embedded into an array of double-metal nano-antennas. The antennas act as microcavities that squeeze the electric field into thin semiconductor layers, thus enhancing the detector responsivity. Furthermore, thanks to the ability of the antennas to gather photons from an area larger than the device's physical dimensions, the dark current is reduced without hindering the photo-generation rate. In these devices, the background-limited performance is improved with a consequent increase of the operating temperature. Our results illustrate how the antenna-coupled microcavity concept can be applied to enhance the performances of infrared opto-electronic devices.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗

DOE OSTI2014

Current-driven detection of terahertz radiation using a dual-grating-gate plasmonic detector

We report on the detection of terahertz radiation by an on-chip planar asymmetric plasmonic structure in the frequency region above one terahertz. The detector is based on a field-effect transistor that has a dual grating gate structure with an asymmetric unit cell, which provides a geometrical asymmetry within the structure. Biasing the detector with a dc source-to-drain current in the linear region of the current-voltage characteristic introduces an additional asymmetry (electrical asymmetry) that enhances the detector responsivity by more than one order of magnitude (by a factor of 20) as compared with the unbiased case due to the cooperative effect of the geometrical and electrical asymmetries. In addition to the responsivity enhancement, we report a relatively low noise equivalent power and a peculiar non-monotonic dependence of the responsivity on the frequency, which results from the multi-plasmonic-cavity structure of the device.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗