Beam profile monitors provide position and ux distribution information to facilitate the configuration of an experimental apparatus and are an important component of any accelerator facilities beam diagnostic system. Nuclear physics experiments typically involve the incidence of high energy particles or gamma-rays on some target material and the detection of the products of the ensuing interactions. Therefore, knowing the profile of the incident radiation beam is desirable. To address the need for a profile monitor for the High-Intensity Gamma-Ray Source, development of a CCD-based gamma-ray beam profiler was undertaken. The profiler consisted of plastic scintillator, a lens system and a Starlight Express MX5 CCD camera, all contained within a light tight box. The scintillation pattern, created by the interaction between the incident gamma-rays and the scintillator, could be focused onto the CCD. Simulations were used to determine the amount of power that would be absorbed for different beam energies and scintillator thicknesses. The use of a converter material, placed directly against the scintillator to improve power deposition, was also investigated. The system was tested in order to and the camera noise characteristics, the optical resolution and magnification and the systems responsivity to power absorption in the scintillator. Using a 137Cs source, preliminary beam proles were obtained. By combining the results of the testing and simulation, predictions of the required length of exposure were made. It was determined that a beam with a flux of 10^6/s and a diameter of 2.5 cm could be profiled, using 6.0 mm of plastic scintillator and 0.6 mm of iron converter, to within 5% error per 0.64 mm x 0.91 mm resolving unit, in less than 1 minute.

published_or_final_version / abstract / toc / Physics / Master / Master of Philosophy

published_or_final_version / Physics / Master / Master of Philosophy

published_or_final_version / abstract / Physics / Master / Master of Philosophy

The detection of γ-rays from explosive astrophysical scenarios such as novae provides an excellent opportunity for the study of on-going nucleosynthesis in the Universe. Within this context, this work has addressed an uncertainty in the destruction rate of the 18F nucleus, thought to be the primary source of 511 keV γ-rays from novae. A direct measurement of the 18F(p,α )15O cross section has provided the opportunity to extract resonance parameters through the R-Matrix formalism. The inferred parameters of populated states in 19Ne include the observation of a broad 1/2+ state, consistent with a recent theoretical prediction, which will have a significant impact on the rate of destruction of this γ-ray producing radioisotope. The 18O(p,α )15N reaction follows similar nuclear and kinematic processes and is expected to occur in the hydrogen burning layers of AGB stars. Resonance widths have been extracted from a direct measurement in the region around a poorly constrained broad state close to the Gamow window. This has produced a new parameter set for future reference and provides new information on the reaction rate. The complex R-Matrix formalism used in these analyses is a crucial tool in the study of nuclear astrophysics reactions, and many codes have been written to implement the complex mathematics. This thesis presents a comparison of two publicly available codes from the JINA collaboration and a code used extensively by the University of Edinburgh. For this, the recent results of the 18F destruction reaction, presented here, have been used. A minor error was found within one of the codes, and corrected. The final parameters extracted, and the resulting cross sections calculations, are shown to be consistent between the three codes. A further γ-ray line of interest at 1.809 MeV, characteristic of 26Al decay, has been observed throughout the interstellar medium. If, however, this isotope is formed in a known isomeric state, its decay bypasses the emission of this γ-ray, thus complicating the interpretation of observed γ-ray fluxes. To this end, an experiment has been carried out, providing proof of principle of a direct measurement of the 26mAl(p,γ)27Si reaction. The calculation of the isomeric intensity is presented here.

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Thesis (Ph. D.)--Oregon State University, 2007. / Printout. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 107-113). Also available on the World Wide Web.

<p>Gamma ray spectroscopy has provided enormous amounts of information on the behaviour and structure of atomic nuclei [SHA88, BEA92, EBE08]. Most of the major discoveries in experimental nuclear physics over the last five decades are strongly associated with improvements in detector technologies. Inorganic scintilators led to the discovery in 1963 of the first excited states of a rotational band based on the ground state of 162Dy. Improvements in peak-to-background ratios and detector resolutions obtained with germanium led to the first evidence of backbending which is associated with a two quasi-particle excitation in 162Dy [SHA88]. More recently the development of composite and highly-segmented Ge detectors has significantly increased the performance and power of detection systems. The Clover detector is such a detector system and is in use at iThemba LABS. This study concerns the evaluation of the particle transport code MCNPX 2.5.0 as a tool to model complex composite detectors such as the Clover. Lanthanum silicate (LSO) and Lead tungstate (PbWO) are also evaluated as possible suppressor shield materials. It is shown that reasonable agreement between experiment and simulation is found when the experiment is accurately reproduced. However, when complex detection modes are implemented in the detector based on the number of elements that fire, MCNPX cannot be used to model the detector performance exactly. Differences between simulated and experimental results are found in suppressed add-back mode. It is proposed that the discrepancies are due to limitations in implementation of the pulse-height and special anti-coincidence tally in MCNPX. LSO and PbWO are compared to BGO as suppressor shield materials. It is found that LSO is not an ideal material for a suppression shield. PbWO is shown to give performance values similar to that of BGO. The back-plug is shown to have no effect on the Peak-to-Total ratio but is effective at reducing the background at lower energies.</p>