No Arabic abstract
Proton radiography is a useful diagnostic of high energy density (HED) plasmas under active theoretical and experimental development. In this paper we describe a new simulation tool that interacts realistic laser-driven point-like proton sources with three dimensional electromagnetic fields of arbitrary strength and structure and synthesizes the associated high resolution proton radiograph. The present tools numerical approach captures all relevant physics effects, including effects related to the formation of caustics. Electromagnetic fields can be imported from PIC or hydrodynamic codes in a streamlined fashion, and a library of electromagnetic field `primitives is also provided. This latter capability allows users to add a primitive, modify the field strength, rotate a primitive, and so on, while quickly generating a high resolution radiograph at each step. In this way, our tool enables the user to deconstruct features in a radiograph and interpret them in connection to specific underlying electromagnetic field elements. We show an example application of the tool in connection to experimental observations of the Weibel instability in counterstreaming plasmas, using $sim 10^8$ particles generated from a realistic laser-driven point-like proton source, imaging fields which cover volumes of $sim10 $ mm$^3$. Insights derived from this application show that the tool can support understanding of HED plasmas.
Global MCAO aims to exploit a very wide technical field of view to find AO-suitable NGSs, with the goal to increase the overall sky coverage. The concept foresees the use of numerical entities, called Virtual Deformable Mirrors, to deal with the nominally thin depth of focus reduction, due to the field of view size. These objects act together as a best fit of the atmospheric layers behavior, in a limited number of conjugation altitudes, so to become the starting point for a further optimization of the real deformable mirrors shapes for the correction of the -smaller- scientific field. We developed a simulator, which numerically combines, in a Layer-Oriented fashion, the measurements of a given number of wavefront sensors, each dedicated to one reference star, to optimize the performance in the NGSs directions. Here we describe some details of the numerical code employed in the simulator, along with the philosophy behind some of the algorithms involved, listing the main goals and assumptions. Several details, including, for instance, how the number and conjugation heights of the VDMs are chosen in the simulation code, are briefly given. Furthermore, we also discuss the possible approaches to define a merit function to optimize the best solution. Finally, after an overview of the remaining issues and limitations of the method, numerical results obtained studying the influence of Cn2 profiles on the reconstruction quality and the delivered SR in a number of fields in the sky are given.
Proton radiography is a technique in high energy density science to diagnose magnetic and/or electric fields in a plasma by firing a proton beam and detecting its modulated intensity profile on a screen. Current approaches to retrieve the integrated field from the modulated intensity profile require the unmodulated beam intensity profile before the interaction, which is rarely available experimentally due to shot-to-shot variability. In this paper, we present a statistical method to retrieve the integrated field without needing to know the exact source profile. We apply our method to experimental data, showing the robustness of our approach. Our proposed technique allows not only for the retrieval of the path-integrated fields, but also of the statistical properties of the fields.
Due to their high cross-field mobility, neutrals can contribute to momentum transport even at the low relative densities found inside the separatrix and they can generate intrinsic rotation. We use a charge-exchange dominated solution to the neutral kinetic equation, coupled to neoclassical ions, to evaluate the momentum transport due to neutrals. Numerical solutions to the drift-kinetic equation allow us to cover the full range of collisionality, including the intermediate levels typical of the tokamak edge. In the edge there are several processes likely to contribute to momentum transport in addition to neutrals. Therefore, we present here an interpretive framework that can evaluate the momentum transport through neutrals based on radial plasma profiles. We demonstrate its application by analysing the neutral angular momentum flux for an L-mode discharge in the ASDEX Upgrade tokamak. The magnitudes of the angular momentum fluxes we find here due to neutrals of up to $1{-}2;mathrm{N, m}$ are comparable to the net torque on the plasma from neutral beam injection, indicating the importance of neutrals for rotation in the edge.
Ultra-intense ultra-short laser is firstly used to irradiate the capacity-coil target to generate magnetic field. The spatial structure and temporal evolution of huge magnetic fields were studied with time-gated proton radiography method. A magnetic flux density of 40T was measured by comparing the proton deflection and particle track simulations. Although the laser pulse duration is only 30fs, the generated magnetic field can last for over 100 picoseconds. The energy conversion efficiency from laser to magnetic field can reach as high as ~20%. The results indicate that tens of tesla (T) magnetic field could be produced in many ultra intense laser facilities around the world, and higher magnetic field could be produced by picosecond lasers.
Proton therapy is nowadays becoming a wide spread clinical practice in cancer therapy and sophisticated treatment planning systems are routinely used to exploit at best the ballistic properties of charged particles. The information on the quality of the beams and the range of the protons is a key issue for the optimization of the treatment. For this purpose, proton radiography can be used in proton therapy to obtain direct information on the range of the protons, on the average density of the tissues for treatment planning optimization and to perform imaging with negligible dose to the patient. We propose an innovative method based on nuclear emulsion film detectors for proton radiography, a technique in which images are obtained by measuring the position and the residual range of protons passing through the patients body. Nuclear emulsion films interleaved with tissue equivalent absorbers can be fruitfully used to reconstruct proton tracks with very high precision. The first prototype of a nuclear emulsion based detector has been conceived, constructed and tested with a therapeutic proton beam at PSI. The scanning of the emulsions has been performed at LHEP in Bern, where a fully automated microscopic scanning technology has been developed for the OPERA experiment on neutrino oscillations. After track reconstruction, the first promising experimental results have been obtained by imaging a simple phantom made of PMMA with a step of 1 cm. A second phantom with five 5 x 5 mm^2 section aluminum rods located at different distances and embedded in a PMMA structure has been also imaged. Further investigations are in progress to improve the resolution and to image more sophisticated phantoms.