Nondestructive technique for identifying nuclides using neutron resonance transmission analysis at CSNS Back-n

Nondestructive and noninvasive neutron assays are essential applications of neutron techniques.Neutron resonance transmission analysis(NRTA)is a powerful nondestructive method for investigating the elemental composition of an object.The back-streaming neutron line(Back-n)is a newly built time-of-flight facility at the China Spallation Neutron Source(CSNS)that provides neutrons in the eV to 300 MeV range.A feasibility study of the NRTA method for nuclide identification was conducted at the CSNS Back-n via two test experiments.The results demonstrate that it is feasible to identify different elements and isotopes in samples using the NRTA method at Back-n.This study reveals its potential future applications.

Measurement of the ^(232)Th(n,f)cross section in the 1-200 MeV range at the CSNS Back-n

The ^(232)Th(n,f)cross section is very important in basic nuclear physics and applications based on the Th/U fuel cycle.Using the time-of-flight method and a multi-cell fast-fission ionization chamber,a novel measurement of the^(232)Th(n,f)cross sec-tion relative to^(235)U in the 1–200 MeV range was performed at the China Spallation Neutron Source Back-n white neutron source(Back-n).The fission event-neutron energy spectra of^(232)Th and^(235)U fission cells were measured in the single-bunch mode.Corrected 232Th/235U fission cross-sectional ratios were obtained,and the measurement uncertainties were 2.5–3.7%for energies in the 2–20 MeV range and 3.6–6.2%for energies in the 20–200 MeV range.The^(232)Th(n,f)cross section was obtained by introducing the standard cross section of^(235)U(n,f).The results were compared with those of previous theoreti-cal calculations,measurements,and evaluations.The measured 232Th fission cross section agreed with the main evaluation results in terms of the experimental uncertainty,and 232Th fission resonances were observed in the 1–3 MeV range.The present results provide^(232)Th(n,f)cross-sectional data for the evaluation and design of Th/U cycle nuclear systems.

Back-n white neutron source at CSNS and its applications

Back-streaming neutrons from the spallation target of the China Spallation Neutron Source(CSNS)that emit through the incoming proton channel were exploited to build a white neutron beam facility(the so-called Back-n white neutron source),which was completed in March 2018.The Back-n neutron beam is very intense,at approximately 29107 n/cm2/s at 55 m from the target,and has a nominal proton beam with a power of 100 kW in the CSNS-I phase and a kinetic energy of 1.6 GeV and a thick tungsten target in multiple slices with modest moderation from the cooling water through the slices.In addition,the excellent energy spectrum spanning from 0.5 eV to 200 MeV,and a good time resolution related tothe time-of-flight measurements make it a typical white neutron source for nuclear data measurements;its overall performance is among that of the best white neutron sources in the world.Equipped with advanced spectrometers,detectors,and application utilities,the Back-n facility can serve wide applications,with a focus on neutron-induced cross-sectional measurements.This article presents an overview of the neutron beam characteristics,the experimental setups,and the ongoing applications at Backn.

Measurement of the neutron total cross section of carbon at the Back-n white neutron beam of CSNS

To verify the performance of the neutron total cross-sectional spectrometer, the neutron total cross section of carbon is initially measured in the energy range of 1 eV to 20 MeV using the time-of-flight method. The measurement is performed at the Back-n white neutron source with a 76-m time-of-flight path using the China Spallation Neutron Source. A multilayer fast fission chamber with 235U and 238U is employed as the neutron detector. The diameter and thickness of the natural graphite sample are 70 mm and 40 mm, respectively. Signal waveforms are collected using a data acquisition system. Off-line data processing was used to obtain the neutron time-of-flight spectra and transmissions. The uncertainty of the counting statistics is generally approximately 3% for each bin in the energy range of 1–20 MeV. It is determined that the results for the neutron total cross section of carbon obtained using ^235U cells are in good agreement with the results obtained using 238U cells within limits of statistical uncertainty. Moreover, the measured total cross sections show good agreement with the broadening evaluated data.

Test system of the front-end readout for an application-specific integrated circuit for the water Cherenkov detector array at the large high-altitude air shower observatory

The water Cherenkov detector array(WCDA) is an important part of the large high-altitude air shower observatory(LHAASO),which is in a research and development phase.The central scientific goal of LHAASO is to explore the origin of high-energy cosmic rays of the universe and to push forward the frontier of new physics.To simplify the WCDA's readout electronics,a prototype of a front-end readout for an application-specific integrated circuit(ASIC) is designed based on the timeover-threshold method to achieve charge-to-time conversion.High-precision time measurement and charge measurement are necessary over a full dynamic range[1-4000photoelectrons(P.E.)].To evaluate the performance of this ASIC,a test system is designed that includes the front-end ASIC test module,digitization module,and test software.The first module needs to be customized for different ASIC versions,whereas the digitization module and test software are tested for general-purpose use.In the digitization module,a field programmable gate array-based time-todigital converter is designed with a bin size of 333 ps,which also integrates an inter-integrated circuit to configure the ASIC test module,and a universal serial bus interface is designed to transfer data to the remote computer.Test results indicate that the time resolution is better than 0.5 ns,and the charge resolution is better than 30%root mean square(RMS) at 1 P.E.and 3%RMS at 4000 P.E.,which are beyond the application requirements.

Readout electronics for a high-resolution soft X-ray spectrometer based on silicon drift detector

The readout electronics for a prototype soft X-ray spectrometer based on silicon drift detector(SDD),for precisely measuring the energy and arrival time of X-ray photons is presented in this paper.The system mainly consists of two parts,i.e.,an analog electronics section(including a pre-amplifier,a signal shaper and filter,a constant fraction timing circuit,and a peak hold circuit)and a digital electronics section(including an ADC and a TDC).Test results with X-ray sources show that an energy dynamic range of 1-10 keV with an integral nonlinearity of less than 0.1%can be achieved,and the energy resolution is better than 160 eV @ 5.9 keV FWHM.Using a waveform generator,test results also indicate that time resolution of the electronics system is about 3.7 ns,which is much less than the transit time spread of SDD(<100 ns)and satisfies the requirements of future applications.

Readout electronics of a prototype time-of-flight ion composition analyzer for space plasma

Readout electronics is developed for a prototype time-of-flight(TOF) ion composition spectrometer for in situ measurement of the mass/charge distributions of major ion species from 200 to 100 ke V/e in space plasma.By utilizing a constant fraction discriminator(CFD) and time-to-digital converter(TDC), challenging dynamic range measurements were performed with high time resolution and event rates. CFD was employed to discriminate the TOF signals from the micro-channel plate and channel electron multipliers. TDC based on the combination of counter and OR-gate delay chain was designed in a highreliability flash field programmable gate array. Owing to the non-uniformity of the delay chain, a correction algorithm based on integral nonlinearity compensation was implemented to reduce the time uncertainty. The test results showed that the electronics achieved a low timingerror of < 200 ps in the input range from 35 to 500 m V for the CFD, and a time resolution of ～550 ps with time uncertainty < 180 ps after correction and a time range of6.4 ls for the TDC. The TOF spectrum from an electron beam experiment of the impacting N_2 gas further indicated the good performance of this readout electronic.

FPGA-based α/γ pulse shape discrimination for BaF_2 detector using 2-GSPS fast waveform sampling

Four FPGA-based α/γ pulse shape discrimination algorithms for Ba F2 detector are investigated and compared in this paper. A 2-GSPS fast waveform sampling board based on DRS4 chip is employed to sample the pulses. The test results with a22 Na γ-source and the natural radioactivity of Ba F2 show good discrimination performance of the algorithms, with false rates around 1%. Small logical resource occupancy and short dead time are achieved. About 4400 slices are used in FPGA for pulse sampling and real-time discrimination altogether.

Readout system for ground-based tests of BGO calorimeter of DAMPE satellite

A readout system for ground-based tests of the bismuth germanium oxide(BGO) calorimeter of the Dark Matter Particle Explorer satellite is described in this paper.The system mainly consists of a data acquisition board with a field-programmable gate array to implement the control logic, and a graphical user interface software based on LabWindows/CVI. The system has been successfully applied in a series of ground-based environmental experiments and almost all the performance tests throughout the entire manufacturing processes. These contribute significantly to the development of the BGO calorimeter before being submitted for satellite-level integration.

Readout electronics of a prototype spectrometer for measuring low-energy ions in solar wind plasma

Readout electronics is developed for a prototype spectrometer for in situ measurement of low-energy ions of30 e V/e–20 ke V/e in the solar wind plasma.A low-noise preamplifier/discriminator(A111F) is employed for each channel to process the signal from micro-channel plate(MCP) detectors.A high-voltage(HV) supply solution based on a HV module and a HV optocoupler is adopted to generate a fast sweeping HV and a fixed HV.Due to limitation of telemetry bandwidth in space communication,an algorithm is implemented in an FPGA(field programmable gate array) to compress the raw data.Test results show that the electronics achieves a 1 MHz event rate and a large input dynamic range of 95 p C.A slew rate of 0.8 V/ls and an integral nonlinearity of 0.7-LSB for the sweeping HV,and a precision of less than 0.8 % for the fixed HV are obtained.A vacuum beam test shows an energy resolution of 12 ± 0.7 % full width at half maximum(FWHM) is achieved,and noise counts are less than10/sec,indicating that the performance meets the physical requirement.

Prototype of the readout electronics for the RICH PID detector in the STCF

The ring imaging Cherenkov(RICH) detector for particle identification(PID) is being evaluated for the future super tau-charm facility(STCF) complex. In this work, the prototype readout electronics for the RICH PID detector is designed. The prototype RICH PID detector is based on a thick gas electron multiplier combined with a micromegas detector for Cherenkov light detection. Considering that there will be a large number(~ 690,000) of detector channels in future RICH detector, the readout electronics faces many challenges to precisely measuring time and charge information, such as reducing the noise,increasing density, and improving precision. The requirements of the readout electronics are explored, the downselection of the ASICs is made and thus a prototype readout electronics is designed and implemented. Tests are also conducted to evaluate the performance of the prototype readout electronics, and the results indicate that the time resolution is better than ~ 1 ns(RMS) when the input charge is greater than ~ 12 fC based on the APV25chip, while the time resolution is better than ~ 1 ns(RMS) at an input charge of over ~ 48 fC based on the AGET and STCF ASIC chips, and the equivalent noise charge is better than ~ 0.5 fC(RMS) @ 20 pF based on the three ASICs. The test results indicate that the prototype readout electronics design meets the requirement of the future RICH PID detector and thus provides a reference for future engineering.

Design of a 20-Gsps 12-bit time-interleaved analog-to-digital conversion system

The time-interleaved analog-to-digital conversion(TIADC)technique is an effective method for increasing the sampling rate in a waveform digitization system.In this study,a 20-Gsps TIADC system was designed.A wide-bandwidth performance was achieved by optimizing the analog circuits,and a sufficient effective number of bits(ENOB)performance guaranteed using the perfect reconstruction algorithm for mismatch error correction.The proposed system was verified by tests,and the results indicated that a-3 dB bandwidth of 6 GHz and the ENOB performance of 8.7 bits at 1 GHz and 7.6 bits at6 GHz were successfully achieved.

Position-sensitive plastic scintillator detector with WLS-fiber readout

In this paper,the design,construction,simulation,and performance of a position-sensitive plastic scintillator detector are presented.The readout of the detector uses wavelength-shifting fibers coupled with multi-anode photomultipliers(PMTs) for the x-and y-dimensions.After calibrating the multi-anode PMTs,a two-dimensional projection image of the square scintillator telescope hit by cosmic muons is demonstrated.By performing a cosmic test with the Micromegas telescope,the position resolution of the detector was determined to reach approximately8.6 mm,which is close to the value obtained in physical simulation.

Pichia pastoris composition expressed aerolysin mutant of Aeromonas veronii as an oral vaccine evaluated in zebrafish(Danio rerio)

Vaccines are one of the most practical means to stop the spreading of Aeromonas veronii in aquaculture.In this study,virulence factor aerolysin mutant NTaer which has lost its hemolytic activity was used as a target antigen.Pichia pastoris constitutive secretory expression NTaer(GS115-NTaer)was used as a potential safe oral vaccine to evaluate its effectiveness on zebrafish immunity.The result shows that vaccination of GS115-NTaer for four weeks did not affect the growth performance of the host,while eliciting an effective immune protective response.Compared with the control group,the GS115-NTaer could significantly up-regulate the relative expression level of the intestinal tight junction protein 1α(TJP1α)gene,and significantly increased the contents of lysozyme(LYZ),complement C3 and C4 in the gut,indicating that the innate immune response of the fish was activated.The relative gene expression levels of macrophage-expressed gene 1(MPEG1)and T cell receptor(TCR-α)in the gut,and MPEG1,CD4,CD8,TCR-α,GATA3,and T-bet in the spleen were all increased significantly,indicating that the cellular immune response of the fish was activated.Furthermore,the contents of serum IgM and intestinal mucosa IgZ antibodies were significantly increased,which showed that humoral immunity was also activated.Moreover,inoculation with GS115-NTaer significantly changed the structure of gut microbiota.In particular,the relative ratio of(Firmicutes+Fusobacteriota+Bacteroidota)/Proteobacteria was significantly higher than that of the control and GS115 groups.Lastly,the vaccinated fish were challenged with A.veronii,and the relative percent survival of GS115 and the GS115-NTear groups was 14.28%and 33.43%.This improvement of immunity was not only due to the specific immune response but also attributed to the improvement of innate immunity and the gut microbiota which was demonstrated by the germ-free zebrafish model.Collectively,this study provides information on the effectiveness of GS115-NTear as an oral vaccine for the green prevention and control of A.veronii infection in fish aquaculture.

In-beam gamma rays of CSNS Back-n characterized by black resonance filter

The back-streaming white-neutron beamline(Back-n)of the China Spallation Neutron Source is an essential neutronresearch platform built for the study of nuclear data,neutron physics,and neutron applications.Many types of cross-sectional neutron-reaction measurements have been performed at Back-n since early 2018.These measurements have shown that a significant number of gamma rays can be transmitted to the experimental stations of Back-n along with the neutron beam.These gamma rays,commonly referred to as in-beam gamma rays,can induce a non-negligible experimental background in neutron-reaction measurements.Studying the characteristics of in-beam gamma rays is important for understanding the experimental background.However,measuring in-beam gamma rays is challenging because most gamma-ray detectors are sensitive to neutrons;thus,discriminating between neutron-induced signals and those from in-beam gamma rays is difficult.In this study,we propose the use of the black resonance filter method and a CeBr_(3) scintillation detector to measure the characteristics of the in-beam gamma rays of Back-n.Four types of black resonance filters,^(181)Ta,^(59)Co,^(nat)Ag,and^(nat)Cd,were used in this measurement.The time-of-flight(TOF)technique was used to select the detector signals remaining in the absorption region of the TOF spectra,which were mainly induced by in-beam gamma rays.The energy distribution and flux of the in-beam gamma rays of Back-n were determined by analyzing the deposited energy spectra of the CeBr_(3) scintillation detector and using Monte Carlo simulations.Based on the results of this study,the background contributions from in-beam gamma rays in neutron-reaction measurements at Back-n can be reasonably evaluated,which is beneficial for enhancing both the experimental methodology and data analysis.

On the single-electron local kinetic energy

The single electron local kinetic energy is rigorously defined and explained based on Schrdinger equation for an electronic system. Its uniqueness and asymptotic behavior are demonstrated through two theorems, thereby clarifying the problem of arbitrary choice of the kinetic energy functional in density functional theory. The adequate models of the kinetic energy functional that satisfy the condition are suggested.