Search Results (15 total)

The dynamics of a MeV laser-produced proton beam affected by a radio frequency (rf) electric field has been studied. The proton beam was emitted normal to the rear surface of a thin polyimide target irradiated with an ultrashort pulsed laser with a power density of 4×10¹⁸  W/cm². The energy spread was compressed to less than 11% at the full width at half maximum (FWHM) by an rf field. Focusing and defocusing effects of the transverse direction were also observed. These effects were analyzed and reproduced by Monte Carlo simulations. The simulation results show that the transversely focused protons had a broad continuous spectrum, while the peaks in the proton spectrum were defocused. Based on this new information, we propose that elimination of the continuous energy component of laser-produced protons is possible by utilizing a focal length difference between the continuous spectral protons and the protons included in the spectral peak.

A system for inspecting the inner surface of superconducting rf cavities is developed in order to study the relation between the achievable field gradient and the defects in the inner surface. The inspection system consists of a high resolution complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor camera and a special illumination system built in a cylinder that has a diameter of 50 mm. The camera cylinder can be inserted into the L-band 9 cell superconducting cavity. The system provides a resolution of about 7.5  μm/pixel. Thus far, there have been good correlations between locations identified by thermometry measurements and positions of defects found by this system. The heights or depths of the defects can also be estimated by measuring wall gradients using the reflection angle relation between the camera position and the strip illumination position. This paper presents a detailed description of the system and the data obtained from it.

When a system undergoes a first-order phase transition from a disordered to an ordered state, the local energy is first minimized. This local energy minimization often prevents a system from reaching the global energy minimum state and leads to trapping in an imperfectly ordered state with many defects. In soft matter, however, a system can further relax to the global energy minimum state via slow relaxation due to its softness and fluidity. We study this relaxation process, using a lyotropic lamellar phase in a wedge-shaped cell as a model system. A lyotropic smectic liquid crystal has a large repeat unit (here, an interlayer spacing d) up to ∼0.1 μm, and thus the motion of an individual edge dislocation in the lamellar phase can be directly observed with optical microscopy. Furthermore, a rather macroscopic spatial confinement (size h) can produce strong confinement effects, since d/h can still be large due to the largeness of d. These properties allow us to study the detailed kinetics of the relaxation process. We follow the time evolution of an edge dislocation array over 100 h from its initial stage. We reveal that the pattern evolution of an edge-dislocation array is the relaxation process of excess dislocation lines that formed initially toward the equilibrium configuration, and it is characterized by the motion of “nodes” of the topologically connected edge-dislocation network. We clarify the elementary process of this relaxation from a local to the global energy minimum state.

Nucleation and growth are a basic elementary process of ordering. The nucleation process is controlled by a competition between interfacial and bulk energy. Thus an ordered structure of a nucleus at its birth is not necessarily the most stable thermodynamically: Ostwald step rule. In addition to this, we found the topological transformation of nuclei from the most stable bulk structure (planar lamella) to a metastable one (onion) in a lyotropic liquid crystal. This indicates that the fate of nuclei of low-dimensional internal order can also be seriously affected by an additional competition between interfacial and elastic deformation energy.

We study the holographic representation of the entanglement entropy, recently proposed by Ryu and Takayanagi, in a braneworld context. The holographic entanglement entropy of a de Sitter brane embedded in an anti–de Sitter (AdS) spacetime is evaluated using geometric quantities, and it is compared with two kinds of de Sitter entropy: a quarter of the area of the cosmological horizon on the brane and entropy calculated from the Euclidean path integral. We show that the three entropies coincide with each other in a certain limit. Remarkably, the entropy obtained from the Euclidean path integral is in precise agreement with the holographic entanglement entropy in all dimensions. We also comment on the case of a five-dimensional braneworld model with the Gauss-Bonnet term in the bulk.

A single particle dynamics in beam bending elements including electrostatic fields is formulated. A general form of scalar potentials of electrostatic deflectors is obtained from solutions of the Maxwell equation having axial symmetry. Equations of motion of a charged particle in various types of the electrostatic deflectors are derived based on Hamiltonian formalism. The equation of motion in dispersion suppressors, which are a combination of the electrostatic deflectors and dipole magnets, are also formulated and generalized. Application of one of the dispersion suppressors to an existing heavy ion storage ring S-LSR provides the better condition for generation of a multidimensional crystalline beam. It is shown that this condition is achievable by real fabricated devices composed of a dipole magnet and an electrostatic deflector equipped with intermediate electrodes. The effectiveness of this dispersion suppressor for the real operation is shown by a particle tracking including the nonlinear field component.

We study the gravitational collapse in five-dimensional de Sitter (dS) spacetime and discuss the existence of the conformal boundaries at future timelike infinity (I⁺) from the perspective of the dS/conformal field theories correspondence. We investigate the motion of a spherical dust shell and the black-hole area bounds. The latter includes the analysis of the trapping horizon and the initial data with spindle-shaped matter distribution. In all the above analyses we find the evidences that guarantee the existence of the conformal boundaries at future timelike infinity which may be essential to apply the dS/conformal field theories correspondence.

We produced a monodomain ordered structure with the help of a surface-mediated first-order transition, using a sponge-to-lamella transition in a membrane suspension as a model system. The long characteristic length and time scales of the system allow us to observe the process of the phase ordering in a confined geometry with optical microscopy in real time. We demonstrate that a homogeneously ordered domain can be attained if we prevent nucleation in bulk by using its kinetic coupling to nucleation on the surface.

We discuss a Randall-Sundrum-type two D-braneworld model in which D-branes possess different values of the tensions from those of the charges, and derive an effective gravitational equation on the branes. As a consequence, the Einstein-Maxwell theory is realized together with the nonzero cosmological constant. Here an interesting point is that the effective gravitational constant is proportional to the cosmological constant. If the distance between two D-branes is appropriately tuned, the cosmological constant can have a consistent value with the current observations. From this result we see that, in our model, the presence of the cosmological constant is naturally explained by the presence of the effective gravitational coupling of the Maxwell field on the D-brane.

With detailed experimental studies and hydrodynamics and particle-in-cell simulations we investigate the role of the prepulse in laser proton acceleration. The prepulse or pedestal (amplified spontaneous emission) can completely evaporate the irradiated region of a sufficiently thin foil; therefore, the main part of the laser pulse interacts with an underdense plasma. The multiparametric particle-in-cell simulations demonstrate that the main pulse generates the quasistatic magnetic field, which in its turn produces the long-lived charge separation electrostatic field, accelerating the ions.

Here we study the line defect in a hyperswollen lamellar phase of lyotropic liquid crystal by applying a laser trapping method. We have succeeded in directly measuring the tension of a single isolated line defect and the adhesion energy between two defects. We demonstrate a new possibility of intentional patterning of various defects by direct optical manipulation. Furthermore, local rheological measurements provide information on the membrane organization around a particle and also evidence suggesting that flow in a lamellar phase has a two-dimensional nature.

A helical quadrupole focusing channel has continuous field symmetry and a stronger focusing power compared with a conventional FODO focusing channel. The good field symmetry allowed us to construct an explicit transfer matrix under the paraxial approximation. In the present paper, we report the paraxial analysis of the helical quadrupole focusing channel and compare its characteristics with those of a conventional FODO focusing channel.

A compact proton synchrotron using combined function magnets is proposed to help realize the wider availability of charged particle cancer therapy facilities. This combined function magnet was designed with the help of three-dimensional magnetic field calculations to take account of a realistic fringe and the interference among the magnetic poles. An evaluation scheme for tune values based on particle tracking was developed to improve the magnet design. To verify the magnet design, a model magnet was fabricated and measured. In order to achieve a tune value evaluation from the measured magnetic field, schemes for accurate field mapping and field interpolation were developed. From the tune value evaluation of the measured magnetic field, it was thought that the performance of the model magnet was good enough to construct a synchrotron. In this paper, we report details of the design and the evaluation scheme for the combined function magnet and the results of the field measurements of the model magnet.

A barrier bucket experiment with two dedicated barrier cavities was performed at the Brookhaven AGS. One of the barrier cavities was a magnetic alloy (MA)–loaded cavity and the other was a ferrite-loaded cavity. They generated a single sine wave with a peak voltage of 40 kV at a repetition rate of 351 kHz. A barrier rf system was established with these cavities and five bunches from the AGS booster were accumulated. A total of 3×10¹³ protons were stored without beam loss, and were successfully rebunched and accelerated. The longitudinal emittance growth was observed during accumulation by the barrier bucket, the blowup factor of which was about 3. The longitudinal mismatch between the rf bucket and the beam bunch was the main reason for the emittance growth. The potential distortions by beam loading of the ferrite cavity and the overshooting voltage of the MA cavity disturbed the smooth debunching.

A three-dimensional (3D) laser cooling method of fast stored ion beams based on a linear coupling mechanism is explored. We extensively study two approaches proposed in previous publications, i.e., the dispersive coupling scheme and the coupling-cavity scheme, confirming how much one can improve the transverse cooling efficiency. A possible design of a coupling cavity is presented. We employ the tracking code SAD and the molecular dynamics code SOLID to carry out reliable numerical experiments where realistic lattice structures of storage rings and particle Coulomb interactions are taken into account. Through systematic simulations, it is demonstrated that resonant coupling remarkably enhances transverse cooling rates for any initial beams, making it feasible to reach an equilibrium temperature far below the current achievable level. We further emphasize the crucial importance of avoiding the Mathieu instability. We also discuss the minimum cooling power required for beam crystallization as well as on an interpretation of past experimental results in the TSR and ASTRID storage rings.