Design of hadronic calorimeter for DarkSHINE experiment

The sensitivity of the dark photon search through invisible decay final states in low-background experiments relies sig-nificantly on the neutron and muon veto efficiencies,which depend on the amount of material used and the design of the detector geometry.This paper presents the optimized design of the hadronic calorimeter(HCAL)used in the DarkSHINE experiment,which is studied using a GEANT4-based simulation framework.The geometry is optimized by comparing a traditional design with uniform absorbers to one that uses different thicknesses at different locations on the detector,which enhances the efficiency of vetoing low-energy neutrons at the sub-GeV level.The overall size and total amount of material used in the HCAL are optimized to be lower,owing to the load and budget requirements,whereas the overall performance is studied to satisfy the physical objectives.

Modification of SDOF model for reinforced concrete beams under close-in explosion

In this paper,a modified single-degree-of-freedom(SDOF)model of reinforced concrete(RC)beams under close-in explosion is proposed by developing the specific impulse equivalent method and flexural resistance calculation method.The equivalent uniform specific impulse was obtained based on the local conservation of momentum and global conservation of kinetic energy.Additionally,the influence of load uniformity,boundary condition and complex material behaviors(e.g.strain rate effect,hardening/softening and hoop-confined effect)was considered in the resistance calculation process by establishing a novel relationship between external force,bending moment,curvature and deflection successively.The accuracy of the proposed model was verified by carrying out field explosion tests on four RC beams with the scaled distances of 0.5 m/kg~(1/3)and 0.75 m/kg~(1/3).The test data in other literatures were also used for validation.As a result,the equivalent load implies that the blast load near the mid-span of beams would contribute more to the maximum displacement,which was also observed in the tests.Moreover,both the resistance model and test results declare that when the blast load becomes more concentrated,the ultimate resistance would become lower,and the compressive concrete would be more prone to softening and crushing.Finally,based on the modified SDOF model,the calculated maximum displacements agreed well with the test data in this paper and other literatures.This work fully proves the rationality of the modified SDOF method,which will contribute to a more accurate damage assessment of RC structures under close-in explosion.

Experimental study on detonation parameters and cellular structures of fuel cloud

In this paper, detonation parameters of fuel cloud, such as propylene oxide （PO）, isopropyl nitrate （IPN）, hex- ane, 90# oil and decane were measured in a self-designed and constructed vertical shock tube. Results show that the deto- nation pressure and velocity of PO increase to a peak value and then decrease smoothly with increasing equivalence ra- tio. Several nitrate sensitizers were added into PO to make fuel mixtures, and test results indicated that the additives can efficiently enhance detonation velocity and pressure of fuel cloud and one type of additive n-propyl nitrate （NPN） played the best in the improvement. The critical initiation energy that directly initiated detonation of all the test liquid fuel clouds showed a U-shape curve relationship with equiva- lence ratios. The optimum concentration lies on the rich-fuel side （;b 〉 1）. The critical initiation energy is closely related to molecular structure and volatility of fuels. IPN and PO have similar critical values while that of alkanes are larger. Detonation cell sizes of PO were respectively investigated at 25;C, 35;C and 50;C with smoked foil technique. The cell width shows a U-shape curve relationship with equivalence ratios at all temperatures. The minimal cell width also lies on the rich-fuel side （;b 〉 1）. The cell width of PO vapor is slightly larger than that of PO cloud. Therefore, the deto- nation reaction of PO at normal temperature is controlled by gas phase reaction.

Prospective study of light dark matter search with a newly proposed DarkSHINE experiment

Dark photons have been well motivated as strong candidates for dark force carriers and light dark matter in the sub-GeV mass range.Compared with collider experiments,fixed-target experiments provide a complementary approach to searching for dark photons,particularly in the lower mass range.We have studied the physics potential of the electron-on-target experiment based on the Shanghai SHINE facility,which provides 10 MHz single electron beam at 8 GeV energy.This analysis focuses on dark photons being produced via electron and nucleon interaction and then decays to dark matter candidates,which escape detection as missing momentum in the detector.This experiment takes advantage of using missing momentum to enhance signal versus background separation power.In this study,signal samples as a function of dark photon mass and an inclusive background sample with 2.5 billion events are simulated with GEANT4.For better background estimates,major rare background processes have also been simulated.This paper presents the experiment and detector design,signal and background simulations,analysis strategy,and the prospective study of the experiment sensitivity.With 9×10^(14) electron-on-target events(about three years running),this experiment is expected to rule out most of the sensitive regions predicted by popular dark photon models.