Some considerations on the dependence to numerical schemes of Lagrangian radionuclide transport models for the aquatic environment

Periez, R.*; Brovchenko, I.*; Jung, K. T.*; Kim, K. O.*; Liptak, L.*; Little, A.*; Kobayashi, Takuya; Maderich, V.*; Min, B. I.*; Suh, K. S.*

Journal of Environmental Radioactivity, 261, p.107138_1 - 107138_8, 2023/05

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvrad.2023.107138

Lagrangian models present several advantages over Eulerian models to simulate the transport of radionuclides in the aquatic environment in emergency situations. A radionuclide release is simulated as a number of particles whose trajectories are calculated along time and thus these models do not require a spatial discretization. In this paper we investigate the dependence of a Lagrangian model output with the grid spacing which is used to calculate concentrations from the final distribution of particles, with the number of particles in the simulation and with the interpolation schemes which are required because of the discrete nature of the water circulation data used to feed the model.

Enhancement of electrical conductivity to metallization of MnFeO spinel and postspinel with elevating pressure

Yamanaka, Takamitsu*; Rahman, S.*; Nakamoto, Yuki*; Hattori, Takanori; Jang, B. G.*; Kim, D. Y.*; Mao, H.-K.*

Journal of Physics and Chemistry of Solids, 167, p.110721_1 - 110721_10, 2022/08

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpcs.2022.110721

High-pressure neutron diffraction proved that MnFeO and MnFeO spinels transform into CaMnO-type structure above 18 GPa and 14 GPa, respectively. The transition pressure of MnFeO solutions decreases with increasing Mn content. Synchrotron X-ray Mssbauer experiments revealed that Fe and Fe distribution at the tetrahedral (A) and octahedral (B) sites in the spinel structure changes with pressure. MnFeO and MnFeO spinels are ferrimagnetic and the CaMnO-type phase is paramagnetic. The temperature dependence of resistivity indicates that both spinels are semiconductors wherein electrons hop between cations at the A and B sites. A pressure-induced shortening of B-B distance promoted conduction via greater electron mobility between adjacent B cations. The Fe and Fe occupancies at the B sites in MnFeO are much larger than those in MnFeO. The CaMnO-type phase is metallic. Theoretical calculation confirmed the metallic character and Fe d-orbitals strongly renormalized compared to Mn d-orbitals.

Effects of helium on irradiation response of reduced-activation ferritic-martensitic steels; Using nickel isotopes to simulate fusion neutron response

Kim, B. K.*; Tan, L.*; Sakasegawa, Hideo; Parish, C. M.*; Zhong, W.*; Tanigawa, Hiroyasu*; Kato, Yutai*

Journal of Nuclear Materials, 545, p.152634_1 - 152634_12, 2021/03

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jnucmat.2020.152634

Visualization of subnanometric phonon modes in a plasmonic nano-cavity via ambient tip-enhanced Raman spectroscopy

Balois, M. V.*; Hayazawa, Norihiko*; Yasuda, Satoshi; Ikeda, Katsuyoshi*; Yang, B. *; Kazuma, Emiko*; Yokota, Yasuyuki*; Kim, Y.*; Tanaka, Takuo*

npj 2D Materials and Applications (Internet), 3(1), p.38_1 - 38_10, 2019/10

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41699-019-0121-7

We simultaneously observe both allowed and forbidden optical phonon modes of defect-free areas in monolayer graphene to study nanometre scale strain variations and plasmonic activation of the Raman peaks, respectively, using our home-built TERS system in ambient. Through Tip-enhanced Raman scattering (TERS) imaging, strain variations and nanometre-sized domains down to 5 nm were visualised with a spatial resolution of 0.7 nm. Moreover, such subnanometric confinement was found to activate not only the D and D'forbidden phonon modes but also their D + D'combination mode. With our TERS in ambient system, the full phonon characterisation of defect-free graphene and other 2D nanomaterials is now possible, which will be useful for subnanometre strain analysis and exploring the inherent properties of defect-free materials.

Computation speeds and memory requirements of mesh-type ICRP reference computational phantoms in Geant4, MCNP6, and PHITS

Yeom, Y. S.*; Han, M. C.*; Choi, C.*; Han, H.*; Shin, B.*; Furuta, Takuya; Kim, C. H.*

Health Physics, 116(5), p.664 - 676, 2019/05

https://doi.org/10.1097/HP.0000000000000999

Recently, Task Group 103 of the ICRP developed the mesh-type reference computational phantoms (MCRPs), which are planned for use in future ICRP dose coefficient calculation. Performance of major Monte Carlo particle transport codes (Geant4, MCNP6, and PHITS) were tested with MCRP. External and internal exposure of various particles and energies were calculated and the computational times and required memories were compared. Additionally calculation for voxel-mesh phantom was also conducted so that the influence of different mesh-representation in each code was studied. Memory usage of MRCP was as large as 10 GB with Geant4 and MCNP6 while it is much less with PHITS (1.2 GB). In addition, the computational time required for MRCP tends to increase compared to voxel-mesh phantoms with Geant4 and MCNP6 while it is equal or tends to decrease with PHITS.

Laboratory examination of greenhouse gaseous and microbial dynamics during thawing of frozen soil core collected from a black spruce forest in Interior Alaska

Nagano, Hirohiko; Kim, Y.*; Lee, B.-Y.*; Shigeta, Haruka*; Inubushi, Kazuyuki*

Soil Science and Plant Nutrition, 64(6), p.793 - 802, 2018/12

https://doi.org/10.1080/00380768.2018.1525267

In this study, we conducted an incubation experiment on a frozen soil core collected from a black spruce forest in Interior Alaska, in order to investigate potential changes in greenhouse gaseous (GHG) and microbial dynamics during thawing of frozen soil. The soil thawing is an important environmental process determining the annual GHG balance in the northern high-latitude ecosystem. A core spanning the ground surface to upper permafrost with a depth of 90 cm was vertically grouped into three layers (top, middle, and bottom layers). Then, 12 soil samples from 3 layers (i.e., 4 soil samples per layer) were incubated for 3 weeks, and net carbon dioxide (Co) and methane (CH) release/uptake rates were estimated. During the incubation, temperature was changed weekly from 0 to 5, then 10C. The net amounts of CO released by six of the eight soil samples from the top and middle layers were 1.5 to 19.2-fold greater at 5C than at 0C, while the release at 10C was reduced in the cases of three of these six soil samples. Net CH release was the greatest in bottom-layer soil samples incubated at 0C. Then, low but apparent CH release was observed in top and middle-layer soil samples incubated at 0C. At 5 and 10C, net CH release from bottom-layer soil samples was decreased. Then, net CH uptake was observed in the top and the middle-layer soil samples. Both net uptake and release of CH were reduced upon the addition of a chemical inhibitor (i.e., 2-bromoethane sulfonate) of anaerobic methanotrophic and methanogenic activity. The bacterial and archaeal community structures based on 16S rRNA amplicon analysis were changed along the depth, while they were less changed during thawing. Thus, it was found that soil GHG dynamics responded sensitively and variously to thawing, while there was less change in 16S rRNA-based microbial community structures during the thawing prog

Development of a microchannel plate based beam profile monitor for a re-accelerated muon beam

Kim, B.*; Bae, S.*; Choi, H.*; Choi, S.*; Kawamura, Naritoshi*; Kitamura, Ryo*; Ko, H. S.*; Kondo, Yasuhiro; Mibe, Tsutomu*; Otani, Masashi*; et al.

Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research A, 899, p.22 - 27, 2018/08

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nima.2018.05.014

A beam profile monitor (BPM) based on a microchannel plate has been developed for muon beams with low transverse momentum for the measurement of the muon anomalous magnetic moment and electric dipole moment at high precision, with capability of diagnosing muon beams of kinetic energy range from a few keV to 4 MeV. The performance of the BPM has been evaluated using a surface muon beam at J-PARC and additionally with an ultraviolet (UV) light source. It has been confirmed that the BPM has a dynamic range from a few to 10 muons per bunch without saturation. The spatial resolution of the BPM has been estimated to be less than 0.30 mm. The positron background from muon decays is an obstacle in muon beam profile monitoring and a partial discrimination of the positrons has been achieved under discrete particle conditions.

Result of the first muon acceleration with radio frequency quadrupole

Kitamura, Ryo*; Otani, Masashi*; Fukao, Yoshinori*; Futatsukawa, Kenta*; Kawamura, Naritoshi*; Mibe, Tsutomu*; Miyake, Yasuhiro*; Yamazaki, Takayuki*; Kondo, Yasuhiro; Hasegawa, Kazuo; et al.

Proceedings of 9th International Particle Accelerator Conference (IPAC '18) (Internet), p.1190 - 1193, 2018/06

https://doi.org/10.18429/JACoW-IPAC2018-TUPAL076

Muon acceleration using radio-frequency accelerators makes it possible to precisely measure the muon anomalous magnetic moment and the electric dipole moment. The first muon acceleration was demonstrated using a radio-frequency quadrupole (RFQ) linac. A negative muonium ion (Mu) with less than 2 keV energy was produced from an incident muon with 3 MeV energy using a thin aluminum foil target in order to cool the muon beam for the acceleration, because the designed input energy of the RFQ is 5.6 keV. The Mu was first accelerated to 5.6 keV using an electrostatic accelerator, and was subsequently accelerated to 90 keV using the RFQ. This accelerated Mu was selected using a diagnostic beam line and was identified based on Time-Of-Flight measurements.

Multi-threading performance of Geant4, MCNP6, and PHITS Monte Carlo codes for tetrahedral-mesh geometry

Han, M. C.*; Yeom, Y. S.*; Lee, H. S.*; Shin, B.*; Kim, C. H.*; Furuta, Takuya

Physics in Medicine & Biology, 63(9), p.09NT02_1 - 09NT02_9, 2018/05

https://doi.org/10.1088/1361-6560/aabd20

The multi-threading computation performances of the Geant4, MCNP6, and PHITS codes were evaluated using three tetrahedral-mesh phantoms with different complexity. Photon and neutron transport simulations were conducted and the initialization time, calculation time, and memory usage were measured as a function of the number of threads N used in the simulation. The initialization time significantly increases with the complexity of the phantom, but not much with the number of the threads. For the calculation time, Geant4 showed good parallelization efficiency with multi-thread computation (30 times speed-up factor for N = 40) adopting the private tallies while saturation of the speed-up factor were observed in MCNP6 and PHITS (10 and a few times for N = 40) due to the time delay for the sharing tallies. On the other hand, Geant4 requires larger memory specification and the memory usage rapidly increases with the number of threads compared to MCNP6 or PHITS. It is notable that when compared to the other codes, the memory usage of PHITS is much smaller, regardless of both the complexity of the phantom and the number of the threads.

First trial of the muon acceleration for J-PARC muon g-2/EDM experiment

Kitamura, Ryo*; Otani, Masashi*; Fukao, Yoshinori*; Kawamura, Naritoshi*; Mibe, Tsutomu*; Miyake, Yasuhiro*; Shimomura, Koichiro*; Kondo, Yasuhiro; Hasegawa, Kazuo; Bae, S.*; et al.

Proceedings of 8th International Particle Accelerator Conference (IPAC '17) (Internet), p.2311 - 2313, 2017/06

https://doi.org/10.18429/JACoW-IPAC2017-TUPVA097

Muon acceleration is an important technique in exploring the new frontier of physics. A new measurement of the muon dipole moments is planned in J-PARC using the muon linear accelerator. The low-energy (LE) muon source using the thin metal foil target and beam diagnostic system were developed for the world's first muon acceleration. Negative muonium ions from the thin metal foil target as the LE muon source was successfully observed. Also the beam profile of the LE positive muon was measured by the LE-dedicated beam profile monitor. The muon acceleration test using a Radio-Frequency Quadrupole linac (RFQ) is being prepared as the first step of the muon accelerator development. In this paper, the latest status of the first muon acceleration test is described.