| 3. |
- Barthelmy, S D, et al.
(författare)
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An origin for short gamma-ray bursts unassociated with current star formation
- 2005
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Ingår i: Nature. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0028-0836 .- 1476-4687. ; 438, s. 994-996
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Two short (< 2 s) gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) have recently been localized(1-4) and fading afterglow counterparts detected(2-4). The combination of these two results left unclear the nature of the host galaxies of the bursts, because one was a star-forming dwarf, while the other was probably an elliptical galaxy. Here we report the X-ray localization of a short burst (GRB 050724) with unusual gamma-ray and X-ray properties. The X-ray afterglow lies off the centre of an elliptical galaxy at a redshift of z = 0.258 (ref. 5), coincident with the position determined by ground-based optical and radio observations(6-8). The low level of star formation typical for elliptical galaxies makes it unlikely that the burst originated in a supernova explosion. A supernova origin was also ruled out for GRB 050709 ( refs 3, 31), even though that burst took place in a galaxy with current star formation. The isotropic energy for the short bursts is 2 - 3 orders of magnitude lower than that for the long bursts. Our results therefore suggest that an alternative source of bursts - the coalescence of binary systems of neutron stars or a neutron star-black hole pair - are the progenitors of short bursts.
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| 5. |
- Mancusi, Davide, 1980, et al.
(författare)
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Calculation of Energy-Deposition Distributions and Microdosimetric Estimation of the Biological Effect of a 9C Beam
- 2009
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Ingår i: Radiation and Environmental Biophysics. - 1432-2099 .- 0301-634X. ; 48:2, s. 135-143
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Among the alternative beams being recently considered for external cancer radiotherapy, C-9 has received some attention because it is expected that its biological effectiveness could be boosted by the beta-delayed emission of two alpha particles and a proton that takes place at the ion-stopping site. Experiments have been performed to characterise this exotic beam physically and models have been developed to estimate quantitatively its biological effect. Here, the particle and heavy-ion transport code system (PHITS ) is used to calculate energy-deposition and linear energy transfer distributions for a C-9 beam in water and the results are compared with published data. Although PHITS fails to reproduce some of the features of the distributions, it suggests that the decay of C-9 contributes negligibly to the energy-deposition distributions, thus contradicting the previous interpretation of the measured data. We have also performed a microdosimetric calculation to estimate the biological effect of the decay, which was found to be negligible; previous microdosimetric Monte-Carlo calculations were found to be incorrect. An analytical argument, of geometrical nature, confirms this conclusion and gives a theoretical upper bound on the additional biological effectiveness of the decay. However, no explanation can be offered at present for the observed difference in the biological effectiveness between C-9 and C-12; the reproducibility of this surprising result will be verified in coming experiments.
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| 6. |
- Sihver, Lembit, 1962, et al.
(författare)
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Recent developments and benchmarking of the PHITS code
- 2007
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Ingår i: Advances in Space Research. - : Elsevier BV. - 1879-1948 .- 0273-1177. ; 40:9, s. 1320-1331
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Many new options have recently been included in PHITS, e.g., to calculate LET distributions of particles in matter or energy-deposition distributions event by event and correlations between energy depositions in different regions. This makes it possible to calculate the effects of particle radiation on biological and non-biological materials, e.g., risk for single event upsets in electronic devices. As a part of an extensive ongoing benchmarking of PHITS, we have compared calculated partial projectile fragmentation cross sections with accelerator-based measurements from the reactions of 200-1000 MeV/n He-4, C-12, N-14, O-16, Ne-20, Si-28, Ar-40, and Fe-56 on polyethylene, carbon, aluminum, copper, tin and lead, with different thicknesses, using different total reaction cross section models in PHITS. We have compared simulated and measured Bragg and attenuation curves of 200 MeV/n C-12 in water, and neutron energy spectra, at different angles, from 100 to 400 MeV/n C-12 stopped in water. Bragg curves for 110, 140, 170, 190 and 225 MeV/n He-3 in water have been studied, as well as gamma-ray dose decay curves of activated Cu target bombarded by 400 and 800 MeV/n Ar-40. When using the default total reaction cross section model developed by Tripathi et al. (1996,1997 and 1999) [Tripathi, R.K., Cucinotta, F.A., Wilson, J.W. Accurate universal parameterization of absorption cross sections, Nucl. Instr. Methods B117, 347, 1996; Tripathi, R.K., Wilson, J.W., Cucinotta, F.A. Accurate universal parameterization of absorption cross sections II - neutron absorption cross sections. Nucl. Instr. Methods B129, 11, 1997; Tripathi, R.K., Cucinotta, F.A., Wilson, J.W. Accurate universal parameterization of absorption cross sections III - light systems. Nucl. Instr. Methods B155, 349, 1999.] the partial fragmentation cross sections appear to be systematically slightly underestimated by a factor which is independent on the fragment species within the same data set, and so do the simulated neutron energy spectra from selected heavy ion reactions; especially in the forward direction. The simulated attenuation and Bragg curves, however, show good agreement with measured ones. These observations stimulate further benchmarking to confirm the accuracy of the code and gives directions on possible improvements to be applied to the code in the near future. (C) 2007 Published by Elsevier Ltd on behalf of COSPAR.
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