| 1. |
- Al-Adili, Ali, et al.
(författare)
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Isomer yields in nuclear fission
- 2021
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Ingår i: EPJ Web of Conferences. - : EDP Sciences. - 2100-014X. ; 256
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The generation of angular momentum in the fission process is still an open question. To shed light on this topic, we started a series of measurements at the IGISOL-JYFLTRAP facility in Finland. Highprecision measurements of isomeric yield ratios (IYR) are performed with a Penning trap, partly with the aim to extract average root-mean-square (rms) quantities of fragment spin distributions. The newly installed Phase-Imaging Ion-Cyclotron Resonance (PI-ICR) technique allows the separation of masses down to tens of keV, which is suffcient to disentangle many isomers. In this paper, we first summarize the previous measurements on the neutron and proton-induced fission of uranium and thorium, e.g. the odd cadmium and indium isotopes (119 ≤ A ≤ 127). The measurements revealed systematic trends as function of mass number, which stimulated further exploration. A recent measurement was performed at IGISIOL and several new IYR data will soon be published, for the first time. Secondly, we employ the TALYS nuclear-reaction code to model one of the newly measured isomer yields. Detailed GEF and TALYS calculations are discussed for the fragment angular momentum distribution in 134I.
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| 2. |
- Gao, Zhihao, et al.
(författare)
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Applying machine learning methods for the analysis of two-dimensional mass spectra
- 2023
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Ingår i: European Physical Journal A. - : Springer Nature. - 1434-6001 .- 1434-601X. ; 59:169
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In a measurement of isomeric yield-ratios in fission, the Phase-Imaging Ion-Cyclotron-Resonance technique, which projects the radial motions of ions in the Penning trap (JYFLTRAP) onto a position-sensitive micro-channel plate detector, has been applied. To obtain the yield ratio, that is the relative population of two states of an isomer pair, a novel analysis procedure has been developed to determine the number of detected ions in each state, as well as corrections for the detector efficiency and decay losses. In order to determine the population of the states in cases where their mass difference is too small to reach full separation, a Bayesian Gaussian Mixture model was implemented. The position-dependent efficiency of the micro-channel plate detector was calibrated by mapping it with 133Cs+ ions, and a Gaussian Process was trained with the position data to construct an efficiency function that could be used to correct the recorded distributions. The obtained numbers of counts of excited and ground-state ions were used to derive the isomeric yield ratio, taking into account decay losses as well as feeding from precursors.
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| 3. |
- Gao, Zhihao, et al.
(författare)
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Benchmark of a multi-physics Monte Carlo simulation of an ionguide for neutron-induced fission products
- 2022
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Ingår i: European Physical Journal. - : Springer Nature. - 1286-0042 .- 1286-0050. ; 58:2
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- To enhance the production of medium-heavy,neutron-rich nuclei, and to facilitate measurements of independentyields of neutron-induced fission, a proton-toneutronconverter and a dedicated ion guide for neutroninducedfission have been developed for the IGISOL facilityat the University of Jyväskylä. The ion guide holds thefissionable targets, and the fission products emerging fromthe targets are collected in helium gas and transported to thedownstream experimental stations.Acomputer model, basedon a combination of MCNPX for modeling the neutron production,the fission code GEF, and GEANT4 for the transportof the fission products, was developed. The model willbe used to improve the setup with respect to the productionand collection of fission products. In this paper we benchmarkthe model by comparing simulations to a measurementin which fission products were implanted in foils located atdifferent positions in the ion guide. In addition, the productsfrom neutron activation in the titanium foil and the uraniumtargets are studied. The result suggests that the neutron fluxat the high-energy part of the neutron spectrum is overestimatedby approximately 40%.However, the transportation offission products in the uranium targets agrees with the experimentwithin 10%. Furthermore, the simulated transportationof fission products in the helium gas achieves almost perfectagreement with the measurement. Hence, we conclude thatthe model, after correction for the neutron flux, is well suitedfor optimization studies of future ion guide designs.
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| 4. |
- Gao, Zhihao, et al.
(författare)
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Fission studies at IGISOL/JYFLTRAP : Simulations of the ion guide for neutron-induced fission and comparison with experimental data
- 2020
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Ingår i: ND 2019. - : EDP Sciences. - 9782759891061
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- For the production of exotic nuclei at the IGISOL facility, an ion guide for neutron-induced fission has been developed and tested in experiments. Fission fragments are produced inside the ion guide and collected using a helium buffer gas. Meanwhile, a GEANT4 model has been developed to simulate the transportation and stopping of the charged fission products. In a recent measurement of neutron-induced fission yields, implantation foils were located at different positions in the ion guide. The gamma spectra from these foils and the fission targets are compared to the results from the GEANT4 simulation.In order to allow fission yield measurements in the low yield regions, towards the tails and in the symmetric part of the mass distribution, the stopping and extraction efficiency of the ion guide has to be significantly improved. This objective can be achieved by increasing the size while introducing electric field guidance using a combination of static electrodes and an RF-carpet. To this end, the GEANT4 model is used to optimise the design of such an ion guide.
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| 5. |
- Gao, Zhihao
(författare)
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Isomeric yield ratios in nuclear fission
- 2023
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Isomeric yield ratios (IYR), referring to the relative yield of the high spin states of a nucleus to the total yield of all observed states, is an observable of nuclear fission that has the potential to improve our understanding of the fission dynamics. Apart from that, systematic observations of IYRs can also contribute to other areas, such as the validation of fission models, modelling of the r-process in stellar nucleosynthesis, studies of the antineutrino mixing angle, the safety of present-day nuclear reactors, and the design of advanced reactor systems.With these motivations in mind, an IYR measurement in proton-induced fission was performed at the IGISOL facility in Jyväskylä, Finland. In the measurement, the Penning trap JYFLTRAP was used to separate the excited state from the ground state and to project those onto a position-sensitive MCP detector. The obtained phase images were used to train a Bayesian Gaussian Mixture model to identify the states. After considering corrections for the detector efficiency and radioactive decay, 19 IYRs were obtained.In this thesis, the measurement of IYRs with the IGISOL technique is described, and a systematic study of IYRs in proton-induced fission is presented. Furthermore, the measured ratios are compared with calculations using three different models: the Madland-England (ME) model, the fission model GEF, and the combination of GEF + TALYS. The experimental results show that, in general, the IYR decreases with the spins of measured states. While this, to some degree, confirms the ME model, variations in the IYR between nuclides with the same spin assignments reveal that the model is too simple to predict individual ratios. Furthermore,discrepancies in the IYRs between the measurement and GEF are observed in most cases, indicating a need to optimize the performance of GEF against nuclear data from proton-induced fission. The combination of GEF + TALYS results in an overall under estimation of the observedIYRs, which could be explained by the different assumptions used in GEF and TALYS.To investigate how the angular momenta of the primary fission fragments relate to the IYRs, a surrogate model of GEF has been developed. By reproducing the measured IYR with the calculated ratios from the model, the average angular momentum Jav, is deduced. The Jav for fission products with a mass number greater than 131 show a mass dependency which fits the parameterisation proposed by J. Wilson et al,. For IYRs in the mass region 119 ≤ A < 132, in which no measurements are presented by Wilson, a decrease in the Jav with increasing mass number is observed for the first time.Besides the study of IYRs, a benchmark of a multi-physics simulation model of the ion guide for neutron-induced fission products has been performed using γ-ray spectroscopy data. The results of the benchmark show that the high-energy part of the neutron flux from the simulation with MCNPX is overestimated by about 40 %, while the ion transportation simulated with GEANT4 agrees well with the experimental data. Based on the benchmark, the ion guide can be optimized to achieve high enough intensities of the collected ions to reach reasonable measurement times. In the next step, the addition of electric fields is considered to direct the ions in and to reduce the ion drifting time. However, this task lies outside the scope of this PhD thesis.
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| 6. |
- Gao, Zhihao, et al.
(författare)
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Isomeric yield ratios in proton-induced fission of 238U
- 2023
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Ingår i: Physical Review C. - : American Physical Society. - 2469-9985 .- 2469-9993. ; 108:5
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Background: Isomeric yield ratios are an important observable in nuclear fission as they can guide model development by providing insight into the angular momentum generation. Furthermore, isomeric yield ratios are important in applications for nuclear energy, as well as in the study of the r-process in stellar nucleosynthesis, and in the antineutrino mixing angle from reactor spectra. In nuclear data evaluations, the Madland-England model is commonly used to estimate isomeric yield ratios that have not been measured.Purpose: To measure isomeric yield ratios in 25-MeV proton-induced fission of 238U, and to compare the result with the values obtained from the Madland-England model and the fission model code GEF. Furthermore, to evaluate whether the predictions of GEF can be improved by coupling it to the nuclear reaction code TALYS.Methods: Isomeric yield ratios in 25-MeV proton-induced fission of 238U have been measured at the Ion GuideIsotope Separate On-Line facility. The excited state and the ground state were separated by mass using the Phase-Imaging Ion-Cyclotron-Resonance technique in the double Penning trap JYFLTRAP. The number of counts of each state was extracted from the phase-images using a Bayesian Gaussian Mixture model and, after corrections fordetector efficiency and decay, the isomeric yield ratios were derived. The experimental values have been compared with the calculated results from the Madland-England model and the GEF code. Furthermore, GEF has been combined with the nuclear reaction code TALYS, in order to take advantage of the latter codes’ implementation of the Hauser-Feshbach formalism, and the results have been compared with the experimental values.Results: From the measurements, 19 new isomeric yield ratios in 25-MeV proton-induced fission of 238U are reported and are, together with another 12 isomeric yield ratios (IYRs) from a previous campaign, compared with the model calculations. It is shown that, though the models manage to capture some of the features observed, there is room for improvement.Conclusions: As predicted by the Madland-England model, a strong correlation between the measured IYRs and the spins of the long-lived states of the fission products is confirmed. However, the IYRs also vary between nuclides with the same spin-parity of the two states, and systematic trends in the IYRs of close-lying isotopes and isotones with similar nuclear configurations are observed.From the comparison of the experimental data with the prediction of GEF it is concluded that more data from proton-induced fission are needed to optimize the internal parameters of GEF. Furthermore, using a combination of GEF and TALYS in most cases results in an underestimation of the yield ratios. This might be explained by an underestimation of the angular momentum on the initial fission fragments by GEF. Altogether, these results highlight the possibility to use measurements of IYRs to improve model predictions and to study the angular momentum generation in nuclear fission.
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| 7. |
- Gao, Zhihao, et al.
(författare)
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New design and simulation of the ion guide for neutron-induced fission products at the IGISOL facility
- 2023
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Ingår i: EPJ Web of Conferences. - : EDP Sciences. - 2100-014X. ; 284
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Measurements of independent fission yield distributions in neutron-induced fission at high neutron energies are important for our fundamental understanding of the fission process, and are also relevant for reactor physics applications. So far, measurements of independent fission yields in proton-induced fission have been performed at the IGISOL facility at the University of Jyväskylä, using the Penning trap as a high resolving-power mass-filter. In order to also facilitate measurements of neutron-induced fission, a dedicated ion guide and a proton-to-neutron converter was developed. However, the first measurement indicates that fewer fission products than expected reach the Penning trap. To explore potential reasons and possible improvements, a simulation model was also developed and benchmarked. The benchmark showed that the model is able to reproduce the performance of the ion guide remarkably well and that the main reason for the low yield of fission products is the low collection efficiency of the ion guide.Based on the benchmark, a new ion guide is being designed. In the new design, the positions of the uranium targets and volume of the ion guide have been changed to increase the collection of fission products. This results in a five-fold increase of the yield. However, the collection efficiency of the new ion guide still needs to be improved in order to achieve intensities of the extracted fission products that are large enough to allow for reasonable measurement times.Because the volume of the ion guide is increased significantly, the extraction time of the ions is expected to be longer than that from the previous ion guide. Therefore, an electric field guidance system that consists of a combination of a stationary electric field and an RF-carpet is considered to be deployed. The stationary field, produced from a set of DC-ring electrodes, accelerates the ions towards the RF-carpet at end plate of the ion guide. The RF-carpet consists of a time-dependent field, produced from a radio-frequent structure of concentric rings, with a DC-component that guides the ions towards the exit hole in the center of the end plate. In this paper we present the current status of the simulations and design of the new ion guide.
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| 8. |
- Gustavsson, Cecilia, Dr, 1973-, et al.
(författare)
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Citizen science in radiation research
- 2020
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Ingår i: ND 2019. - : EDP Sciences. - 9782759891061
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- A growing trend in science is that research institutions reach out to members of the public for participating in research. The reasons for outreach are many, spanning from the desire to collect and/or analyse large sets of data efficiently, to the idea of including the general public on a very fundamental level in science-making and ultimately decision-making. The presented project is curriculum-based and carried out in 240 lower secondary school classes (pupils of age 13-16). The task, as designed by the participating universities, is to collect mushrooms, soil and animal droppings from different parts of Sweden, do preliminary sample preparation and analyses and send the samples to the university institutions for radioactivity measurement. Behind the project is a desire to compare today’s levels of 137Cs with those deposited right after the Chernobyl accident in 1986, but also to study the exchange of caesium between organisms as well as the impacts of biological and geological processes on uptake and retention. The scientific outcome is a geodatabase with the 137Cs activity (Bq/m2) present in the Swedish environment, where radioactivity data can be linked to the species (fungi, competing species, animals foraging), forest type, land type, land use and other environmental factors. The science question is of interest to the general public as foraging for mushrooms, as well as spending recreational time in forests is widely popular in Sweden. In this article, we will discuss the current status of the project and the observations we have made about how well the public can participate in scientific research. Focus will be on organization of the project, such as logistics, preparation of supportive material, feedback and communication between researchers and schools. We will present observations about the impact the project has had on the participants, based on quantitative and qualitative evaluations.
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| 9. |
- Lantz, Mattias, 1971-, et al.
(författare)
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Gamma spectroscopy methodology for large amounts of environmental samples in Sweden 30 years after the Chernobyl accident
- 2020
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Ingår i: ND 2019. - : EDP Sciences. - 9782759891061
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- In a Swedish citizen science project, more than 200 elementary school classes participated in collecting fungi, soil samples, and droppings from deer and wild boar, from all over Sweden. The samples have been sent to a laboratory at Uppsala University where they are being analyzed through gamma spectroscopy with a shielded HPGe detector. The main objective is to scan the samples for 137Cs from the Chernobyl accident and compare the data with measurements from 1986, but uptake of naturally occuring radionuclides like 40K and radon daughters will also be determined. Together with the soil samples, transfer factors will be derived, and correlations for these factors will be sought for different species of fungi and soil types. The potential for correlating the results with different biological processes will also be investigated, in part through the collected animal droppings. This is a work in progress where the present status of the experimental setup and methodology are presented. Issues with the initial approach for corrections are discussed and preliminary results are presented.
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| 10. |
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