Microbially formed Mn(IV) oxide as a novel adsorbent for removal of Radium

Tanaka, Kazuya; Yamaji, Keiko*; Masuya, Hayato*; Tomita, Jumpei; Ozawa, Mayumi*; Yamasaki, Shinya*; Tokunaga, Kohei; Fukuyama, Kenjin*; Ohara, Yoshiyuki*; Maamoun, I.*; et al.

Chemosphere, 355, p.141837_1 - 141837_11, 2024/05

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chemosphere.2024.141837

In this study, biogenic Mn(IV) oxide was applied to remove Ra from mine water collected from a U mill tailings pond in the Ningyo-toge center. Just 7.6 mg of biogenic Mn(IV) oxide removed more than 98% of the Ra from 3 L of mine water, corresponding to a distribution coefficient of 10 mL/g for Ra at pH 7. The obtained value was convincingly high for practical application of biogenic Mn(IV) oxide in water treatment.

Interlaboratory comparison of electron paramagnetic resonance tooth enamel dosimetry with investigations of the dose responses of the standard samples

Toyoda, Shin*; Inoue, Kazuhiko*; Yamaguchi, Ichiro*; Hoshi, Masaharu*; Hirota, Seiko*; Oka, Toshitaka; Shimazaki, Tatsuya*; Mizuno, Hideyuki*; Tani, Atsushi*; Yasuda, Hiroshi*; et al.

Radiation Protection Dosimetry, 199(14), p.1557 - 1564, 2023/09

https://doi.org/10.1093/rpd/ncad150

Interlaboratory comparison studies are important for radiation dosimetry in order to demonstrate how the technique is universally available. The set of standard samples are examined in each participating laboratory in the present study. After a set of standard samples together with the samples with unknown doses, which were prepared in the same laboratory as the standard samples, are measured at a participating laboratory, those samples are sent to another participating laboratory for next measurement. There is some small difference observed in the sensitivity (the slope of the dose response line) of the standard samples while the differences in the obtained doses for the samples with unknown doses are rather systematic, implying that the difference is mostly due to the samples but not to measurements.

Level structures of Ca cast doubt on a doubly magic Ca

Chen, S.*; Browne, F.*; Doornenbal, P.*; Lee, J.*; Obertelli, A.*; Tsunoda, Yusuke*; Otsuka, Takaharu*; Chazono, Yoshiki*; Hagen, G.*; Holt, J. D.*; et al.

Physics Letters B, 843, p.138025_1 - 138025_7, 2023/08

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.physletb.2023.138025

Gamma decays were observed in Ca and Ca following quasi-free one-proton knockout reactions from Sc. For Ca, a ray transition was measured to be 1456(12) keV, while for Ca an indication for a transition was observed at 1115(34) keV. Both transitions were tentatively assigned as the decays. A shell-model calculation in a wide model space with a marginally modified effective nucleon-nucleon interaction depicts excellent agreement with experiment for level energies, two-neutron separation energies, and reaction cross sections, corroborating the formation of a new nuclear shell above the N = 34 shell. Its constituents, the and orbitals, are almost degenerate. This degeneracy precludes the possibility for a doubly magic Ca and potentially drives the dripline of Ca isotopes to Ca or even beyond.

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.

Multiple mechanisms in proton-induced nucleon removal at 100 MeV/nucleon

Pohl, T.*; Sun, Y. L.*; Obertelli, A.*; Lee, J.*; Gmez-Ramos, M.*; Ogata, Kazuyuki*; Yoshida, Kazuki; Cai, B. S.*; Yuan, C. X.*; Brown, B. A.*; et al.

Physical Review Letters, 130(17), p.172501_1 - 172501_8, 2023/04

https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.130.172501

We report on the first proton-induced single proton- and neutron-removal reactions from the neutron deficient O nucleus with large Fermi-surface asymmetry at 100 MeV/nucleon. Our results provide the first quantitative contributions of multiple reaction mechanisms including the quasifree knockout, inelastic scattering, and nucleon transfer processes. It is shown that the inelastic scattering and nucleon transfer, usually neglected at such energy regime, contribute about 50% and 30% to the loosely bound proton and deeply bound neutron removal, respectively.

"Southwestern" boundary of the island of inversion; First study of low-lying bound excited states in V and V

Elekes, Z.*; Juhsz, M. M.*; Sohler, D.*; Sieja, K.*; Yoshida, Kazuki; Ogata, Kazuyuki*; Doornenbal, P.*; Obertelli, A.*; Achouri, N. L.*; Baba, Hidetada*; et al.

Physical Review C, 106(6), p.064321_1 - 064321_10, 2022/12

https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevC.106.064321

The low-lying level structure of V and V was investigated for the first time. The neutron knockout reaction and inelastic proton scattering were applied for V while the neutron knock-out reaction provided the data for V. Four and five new transitions were determined for V and V, respectively. Based on the comparison to our shell-model calculations using the Lenzi-Nowacki-Poves-Sieja (LNPS) interaction, three of the observed rays for each isotope could be placed in the level scheme and assigned to the decay of the first 11/2 and 9/2 levels. The (,) excitation cross sections for V were analyzed by the coupled-channels formalism assuming quadrupole plus hexadecapole deformations. Due to the role of the hexadecapole deformation, V could not be unambiguously placed on the island of inversion.

A New approach to extracting biofilm from environmental plastics using ultrasound-assisted syringe treatment for isotopic analyses

Battulga, B.; Atarashi-Andoh, Mariko; Nakanishi, Takahiro; Koarashi, Jun

Science of the Total Environment, 849, p.157758_1 - 157758_11, 2022/11

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.157758

Characterizing plastic-associated biofilms is key to the better understanding of organic material and mineral cycling in the "Plastisphere"-the thin layer of microbial life on plastics. In this study, we propose a new method to extract biofilms from environmental plastics, in order to evaluate the properties of biofilm-derived organic matter through stable carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) isotope signatures and their interactions with radionuclides especially radiocesium (Cs). After ultrasound-assisted separation from the plastics, biofilm samples were successfully collected via a sequence of syringe treatments. Biofilm-derived organic matter samples (14.5-65.4 mg) from four river mouths in Japan showed Cs activity concentrations of 75 to 820 Bq kg biofilm (dw), providing evidence that environmental plastics, mediated by developed biofilms, serve as a carrier for Cs in the coastal environment. Significant differences in the (C and N signatures were also obtained for the biofilms, indicating the different sources, pathways, and development processes of biofilms on plastics.

Magnetic properties and electronic configurations of Mn ions in the diluted magnetic semiconductor BaK(ZnMn)As studied by X-ray magnetic circular dichroism and resonant inelastic X-ray scattering

Suzuki, Hakuto*; Zhao, G.*; Okamoto, Jun*; Sakamoto, Shoya*; Chen, Z.-Y.*; Nonaka, Yosuke*; Shibata, Goro; Zhao, K.*; Chen, B.*; Wu, W.-B.*; et al.

Journal of the Physical Society of Japan, 91(6), p.064710_1 - 064710_5, 2022/06

https://doi.org/10.7566/JPSJ.91.064710

Low-temperature thermochronology of active arc-arc collision zone, South Fossa Magna region, central Japan

Sueoka, Shigeru; Kobayashi, Yumi*; Fukuda, Shoma; Kohn, B. P.*; Yokoyama, Tatsunori; Sano, Naomi*; Hasebe, Noriko*; Tamura, Akihiro*; Morishita, Tomoaki*; Tagami, Takahiro*

Tectonophysics, 828, p.229231_1 - 229231_17, 2022/04

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tecto.2022.229231

The South Fossa Magna zone, central Japan, has been an active collision zone between the Honshu Arc and the Izu-Bonin Arc since the middle Miocene and provides an excellent setting for reconstructing the earliest stages of continent formation. Multi-system geo-thermochronometry was applied to different domains of the South Fossa Magna zone, together with some previously published data, to reveal mountain formation processes, i.e., vertical crustal movements. Nine granitic samples yielded zircon U-Pb ages of 10.2-5.8 Ma ( = 2), apatite (U-Th)/He (AHe) ages of 42.8-2.6 Ma ( = 7), and apatite fission-track (AFT) ages of 44.1-3.0 Ma ( = 9). Thermal history inversion modeling based on the AHe and AFT data suggested rapid cooling events confined within the study region at 6-2 Ma. The Kanto Mountains may have undergone a domal uplift in association with their collision with the Tanzawa Block at 5 Ma. However, this uplift may have slowed down following the migration of the plate boundary and late Pliocene termination of the Tanzawa collision. The Minobu Mountains and possibly adjacent mountains may have been uplifted by the motional change of the Philippine Sea plate at 3 Ma. Therefore, the mountain formation in the South Fossa Magna zone was mainly controlled by collisions of the Tanzawa and Izu Blocks and motional change of the Philippine Sea plate. Earlier collisions of the Kushigatayama Block at 13 Ma and Misaka Block at 10 Ma appeared to have had little effect on mountain formation. Together with a 90 deg. clockwise rotation of the Kanto Mountains at 12-6 Ma, these observations suggest that horizontal deformation predominated during the earlier stage of arc-arc collision, and vertical movements due to buoyancy resulting from crustal shortening and thickening developed at a later stage.

Dynamical response of transition-edge sensor microcalorimeters to a pulsed charged-particle beam

Okumura, Takuma*; Azuma, Toshiyuki*; Bennet, D. A.*; Caradonna, P.*; Chiu, I.-H.*; Doriese, W. B.*; Durkin, M. S.*; Fowler, J. W.*; Gard, J. D.*; Hashimoto, Tadashi; et al.

IEEE Transactions on Applied Superconductivity, 31(5), p.2101704_1 - 2101704_4, 2021/08

https://doi.org/10.1109/TASC.2021.3067793

A superconducting transition-edge sensor (TES) microcalorimeter is an ideal X-ray detector for experiments at accelerator facilities because of good energy resolution and high efficiency. To study the performance of the TES detector with a high-intensity pulsed charged-particle beam, we measured X-ray spectra with a pulsed muon beam at the Japan Proton Accelerator Research Complex (J-PARC) in Japan. We found substantial temporal shifts of the X-ray energy correlated with the arrival time of the pulsed muon beam, which was reasonably explained by pulse pileup due to the incidence of energetic particles from the initial pulsed beam.