Search

An experimental program is currently underway at the National Ignition Facility (NIF) to compress deuterium and tritium (DT) fuel to densities and temperatures sufficient to achieve fusion and energy gain. The primary approach being investigated is indirect drive inertial confinement fusion (ICF), where a high-Z radiation cavity (a hohlraum) is heated by lasers, converting the incident energy into x-ray radiation which in turn drives the DT fuel filled capsule causing it to implode. Previous experiments reported DT fuel gain exceeding unity [O.A. Hurricane et al., Nature 506, 343 (2014)] and then exceeding the kinetic energy of the imploding fuel [S. Le Pape et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 120, 245003 (2018)]. We report on recent experiments that have achieved record fusion neutron yields on NIF, greater than 100 kJ with momentary fusion powers exceeding 1PW, and have for the first time entered the burning plasma regime where fusion alpha-heating of the fuel exceeds the energy delivered to the fuel via compression. This was accomplished by increasing the size of the high-density carbon (HDC) capsule, increasing energy coupling, while controlling symmetry and implosion design parameters. Two tactics were successful in controlling the radiation flux symmetry and therefore the implosion symmetry: transferring energy between laser cones via plasma waves, and changing the shape of the hohlraum. In conducting these experiments, we controlled for known sources of degradation. Herein we show how these experiments were performed to produce record performance, and demonstrate the data fidelity leading us to conclude that these shots have entered the burning plasma regime.

We analyse the performance of a gas time projection chamber (TPC) as a high-performance gamma-ray telescope and polarimeter in the e$^+$e$^-$ pair creation regime. We use data collected at a gamma-ray beam of known polarisation. The TPC provides two orthogonal projections $(x,z)$ and $(y,z)$ of the tracks induced by each conversion in the gas volume. We use a simple vertex finder in which vertices and pseudo-tracks exiting from them are identified. We study the various contributions to the single-photon angular resolution using Monte Carlo simulations and compare them with the experimental data and find that they are in excellent agreement. The distribution of the azimutal angle of pair conversions shows a bias due to the non-cylindrical-symmetric structure of the detector. This bias would average out for a long duration exposure on a space mission, but for this pencil-beam characterisation we have ensured its accurate simulation by a double systematics control scheme, data taking with the detector rotated at several angles with respect to the beam polarisation direction and systematics control with a non-polarised beam. We measure, for the first time, the polarisation asymmetry of a linearly polarised gamma-ray beam in the low energy pair creation regime. This sub-GeV energy range is critical for cosmic sources as their spectra are power laws which fall quickly as a function of increasing energy. This work could pave the way to extending polarised gamma-ray astronomy beyond the MeV energy regime., Comment: Submitted to Astroparticle Physics

Current $\gamma$-ray telescopes suffer from a gap in sensitivity in the energy range between 100keV and 100MeV, and no polarisation measurement has ever been done on cosmic sources above 1MeV. Past and present e$^+$e$^-$ pair telescopes are limited at lower energies by the multiple scattering of electrons in passive tungsten converter plates. This results in low angular resolution, and, consequently, a drop in sensitivity to point sources below 1GeV. The polarisation information, which is carried by the azimuthal angle of the conversion plane, is lost for the same reasons. HARPO (Hermetic ARgon POlarimeter) is an R\&D program to characterise the operation of a gaseous detector (a Time Projection Chamber or TPC) as a high angular-resolution and sensitivity telescope and polarimeter for $\gamma$ rays from cosmic sources. It represents a first step towards a future space instrument in the MeV-GeV range. We built and characterised a 30cm cubic demonstrator [SPIE 91441M], and put it in a polarised $\gamma$-ray beam at the NewSUBARU accelerator in Japan. Data were taken at photon energies from 1.74MeV to 74MeV, and with different polarisation configurations. We describe the experimental setup in beam. We then describe the software we developed to reconstruct the photon conversion events, with special focus on low energies. We also describe the thorough simulation of the detector used to compare results. Finally we will present the performance of the detector as extracted from this analysis and preliminary measurements of the polarisation asymmetry. This beam-test qualification of a gas TPC prototype in a $\gamma$-ray beam could open the way to high-performance $\gamma$-ray astronomy and polarimetry in the MeV-GeV energy range in the near future., Comment: SPIE Astronomical telescopes and instrumentation conference 2016

Current {\gamma}-ray telescopes based on photon conversions to electron-positron pairs, such as Fermi, use tungsten converters. They suffer of limited angular resolution at low energies, and their sensitivity drops below 1 GeV. The low multiple scattering in a gaseous detector gives access to higher angular resolution in the MeV-GeV range, and to the linear polarisation of the photons through the azimuthal angle of the electron-positron pair. HARPO is an R&D program to characterise the operation of a TPC (Time Projection Chamber) as a high angular-resolution and sensitivity telescope and polarimeter for {\gamma} rays from cosmic sources. It represents a first step towards a future space instrument. A 30 cm cubic TPC demonstrator was built, and filled with 2 bar argon-based gas. It was put in a polarised {\gamma}-ray beam at the NewSUBARU accelerator in Japan in November 2014. Data were taken at different photon energies from 1.7 MeV to 74 MeV, and with different polarisation configurations. The electronics setup is described, with an emphasis on the trigger system. The event reconstruction algorithm is quickly described, and preliminary measurements of the polarisation of 11 MeVphotons are shown., Comment: Proceedings VCI2016

The cross-slip process of a screw $<$a$>$ dislocation from the basal to the prismatic plane in magnesium was studied using the density functional theory and the molecular dynamics calculations. An atomistic method for calculating the total Peierls energy map has been devised to track the transition path of a dissociated and/or constricted screw $<$a$>$ dislocation in the cross-slip process. The barrier of a screw $<$a$>$ dislocation from the basal to the prismatic plane is estimated by the density functional theory for the first time to be $61.4\pm 2.0$ meV per Burgers vector length. The activation enthalpy for the cross slip is calculated using a line tension model based on the density functional theory to be $1.4$ to $1.7$ eV, which is in reasonable agreement with experiments. On the basis of the results, the effect of temperature on the cross-slip process of the dissociated screw $<$a$>$ dislocation on the basal plane is studied in detail using the molecular dynamics method with the embedded-atom-method (EAM) interatomic potential, in which the critical resolved shear stress for the cross slip is evaluated. It is confirmed that the bowed-out dislocation line on the prismatic plane consists of slightly dissociated rectilinear segments with connecting jogs at low temperatures and, as the temperature rises, the curved dislocation line becomes smooth with many segments. The motion of an $<$a$>$ dislocation on the prismatic plane is jerky in the low temperature region, while it is retarded by the formation of the largely dissociated plateau segment above the room temperature. A large reduction of the critical shear stress for the cross slip is obtained when the $<$a$>$ screw dislocation interacts with a hard-sphere particle placed on the basal plane in the low temperature region, Comment: To appear in Modelling and Simulation in Materials Science and Engineering

The one neutron knock-out reaction $^1$H($^{20}$C,$^{19}$C$\gamma$) was studied at RIKEN using the DALI2 array. A $\gamma$ ray transition was observed at 198(10) keV. Based on the comparison between the experimental production cross section and theoretical predictions, the transition was assigned to the decay of the 3/2$_1^+$ state to the ground state., Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, submitted in Physical Review C

We introduce a new model applying to the core-nucleus and two-neutron system. The Faddeev equations of 6He-n-n and 8He-n-n systems for 8He and 10He are solved, respectively. The potential of the subsystem in the model has been determined to make a coupling both of the ground state and the excited one inside the core nucleus. By a similar mechanism the three-nucleon system is solved with the three-body force originating from an isobar excitation of the nucleon. Inputting only the information of subsystem energy levels and widths we get the coupling constants of rank 1 Yamaguchi potential between the core nucleus and neutron. We calculate the Faddeev three-cluster equations to obtain the low-lying energy levels of 8He and 10He. The 1- state of 10He, which has not been detected yet in experiments, is located in the energy level between the 0+ and 2+ states., Comment: 6 pages 6, tables, 3 figures

We investigate the effect of hydrogen on the mobility of a screw dislocation in body-centered cubic (bcc) iron using first-principles calculations, and show that an increase of screw dislocation velocity is expected for a limited temperature range. The interaction energy between a screw dislocation and hydrogen atoms is calculated for various hydrogen positions and dislocation configurations with careful estimations of the finite size effects, and the strongest binding energy of a hydrogen atom to the stable screw dislocation configuration is estimated to be $256\pm32$ meV. These results are incorporated into a line tension model of a curved dislocation line to elucidate the effect of hydrogen on the dislocation migration process. Both the softening and hardening effect of hydrogen, caused by the reduction of kink nucleation enthalpy and kink trapping, respectively, are evaluated. A clear transition between softening and hardening behavior at the lower critical temperature is predicted, which is in qualitative agreement with the experimental observation., Comment: v2: minor revision, 16 pages, 15 figures; v3: to appear in Acta Materialia

Temporal changes of X-ray to very-high-energy gamma-ray emissions from the pulsar-Be star binary PSR B1259-63/LS 2883 are studied based on 3-D SPH simulations of pulsar wind interaction with Be-disk and wind. We focus on the periastron passage of the binary and calculate the variation of the synchrotron and inverse-Compton emissions using the simulated shock geometry and pressure distribution of the pulsar wind. The characteristic double-peaked X-ray light curve from observations is reproduced by our simulation under a dense Be disk condition (base density ~10^{-9} g cm^{-3}). We interpret the pre- and post-periastron peaks as being due to a significant increase in the conversion efficiency from pulsar spin down power to the shock-accelerated particle energy at orbital phases when the pulsar crosses the disk before periastron passage, and when the pulsar wind creates a cavity in the disk gas after periastron passage, respectively. On the contrary, in the model TeV light curve, which also shows a double peak feature, the first peak appears around the periastron phase. The possible effects of cooling processes on the TeV light curve are briefly discussed., Comment: 32 pages, 6 figues. Accepted for publication in ApJ

The vector analyzing power has been measured for the elastic scattering of neutron-rich 6He from polarized protons at 71 MeV/nucleon making use of a newly constructed solid polarized proton target operated in a low magnetic field and at high temperature. Two approaches based on local one-body potentials were applied to investigate the spin-orbit interaction between a proton and a 6He nucleus. An optical model analysis revealed that the spin-orbit potential for 6He is characterized by a shallow and long-ranged shape compared with the global systematics of stable nuclei. A semimicroscopic analysis with a alpha+n+n cluster folding model suggests that the interaction between a proton and the alpha core is essentially important in describing the p+6He elastic scattering. The data are also compared with fully microscopic analyses using non-local optical potentials based on nucleon-nucleon g-matrices., Comment: 20 pages, 20 figures, accepted by Physical Review C

Vector analyzing power for the proton-6He elastic scattering at 71 MeV/nucleon has been measured for the first time, with a newly developed polarized proton solid target working at low magnetic field of 0.09 T. The results are found to be incompatible with a t-matrix folding model prediction. Comparisons of the data with g-matrix folding analyses clearly show that the vector analyzing power is sensitive to the nuclear structure model used in the reaction analysis. The alpha-core distribution in 6He is suggested to be a possible key to understand the nuclear structure sensitivity., Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, accepted for publication as a Rapid Communication in Physical Review C

The structure of neutron rich nitrogen nuclei has been studied by use of neutron removal reaction and inelastic scattering. Mass and charge deformations have been deduced for the first excited state of 21N, which indicates the partial persitence of the N=14 subshell closure in nitrogen isotopes. The spectroscopic information obtained on the structure of 19,20,21N confirms the results from a previous experiment.

A time projection chamber (TPC) is a strong candidate for the central tracker of the international linear collider (ILC) experiment and we have been conducting a series of cosmic ray experiments under a magnetic field up to 4 T, using a small prototype TPC with a replaceable readout device: multi-wire proportional chamber (MWPC) or gas electron multiplier (GEM). We first confirmed that the MWPC readout could not be a fall-back option of the ILC-TPC under a strong axial magnetic field of 4 T since its spatial resolution suffered severely from the so called E x B effect in the vicinity of the wire planes. The GEM readout, on the other hand, was found to be virtually free from the E x B effect as had been expected and gave the resolution determined by the transverse diffusion of the drift electrons (diffusion limited). Furthermore, GEMs allow a wider choice of gas mixtures than MWPCs. Among the gases we tried so far a mixture of Ar-CF4-isobutane, in which MWPCs could be prone to discharges, seems promising as the operating gas of the ILC-TPC because of its small diffusion constant especially under a strong magnetic field. We report the measured drift properties of this mixture including the diffusion constant as a function of the electric field and compare them with the predictions of Magboltz. Also presented is the spatial resolution of a GEM-based ILC-TPC estimated from the measurement with the prototype., Comment: 4 pages, 8 figures. Preprint submitted to TIPP09 Proceedings

We have performed low-temperature transport measurements on a double quantum dot-quantum wire coupled device and demonstrated non-local control of the Kondo effect in one dot by manipulating the electronic spin states of the other. We discuss the modulation of the local density of states in the wire region due to the Fano-Kondo antiresonance, and the Ruderman-Kittel-Kasuya-Yoshida (RKKY) exchange interaction as the mechanisms responsible for the observed features., Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures

A realistic nucleon-nucleon potential is transformed into a low-momentum effective one (LMNN) using the Okubo theory. The separable potentials are converted from the LMNN with a universal separable expansion method and a simple Legendre expansion. Through the calculation of the triton binding energies, the separability for the convergence of these ranks is evaluated. It is found that there is a tendency for the lower momentum cutoff parameter $\Lambda$ of LMNN to gain good separability., Comment: 6 pages, 1 table

The photoluminescence (PL) spectra of a two-dimensional electron system induced in a Be-delta-doped GaAs/AlGaAs quantum well (QW) with a back gate are measured. The electron density is controlled from 1 X 10^{9} cm^{-2} to 2.5 X 10^{11} cm^{-2} by changing the back gate voltage. There is a linear increase in the acceptor PL spectrum around 1.49 eV with an increase in the back gate voltage and the PL disappears from the exciton bound to neutral donors (D^{0}X) around 1.51 eV at 1.2 X 10^{10} cm^{-2}., Comment: 3 pages

We introduce a new screening function which is useful for the few-body Coulomb scattering problem in ``screening and renormalization'' scheme. The new renormalization phase factor of the screening function is analytically shown. The Yukawa type of the screening potential has been used in several decades, we modify it to make more useful. As a concrete example, we compare the proton-proton scattering phase shifts calculated from these potentials. The numerical results document that high precision calculations of the renormalization are performed by the new screening function., Comment: 4 pages, 8 figures

The relic abundance of stable neutralinos is investigated in $E_8 \times E_8'$ heterotic string theory when supersymmetry is spontaneously broken by hidden-sector gaugino condensates. In the weak coupling regime, very large scalar masses (compared to gaugino masses) are shown to lead to a too large relic abundance of the neutralinos, incompatible with cosmological observations in most of parameter space. The problem does not arise in the strong coupling regime (heterotic M-theory) because there scalar and gaugino masses are generically of the same order of magnitude., Comment: 24 pages, latex, no figures

We derive cosmological constraints on the masses of generic scalar fields which decay only through gravitationally suppressed interactions into unstable gravitinos and ordinary particles in the supersymmetric standard model. For the gravitino mass 100GeV-1TeV, the scalar masses should be larger than 100TeV to keep the success of big-bang nucleosynthesis if no late-time entropy production dilutes the gravitino density., Comment: 6 pages, latex

In supersymmetric theories, the Peccei-Quinn symmetry has a complex extension as a symmetry of the superpotential, so that the scalar potential always has an almost flat direction, the dilaton. We discuss how coherent oscillation of the dilaton affects axion cosmology. We stress that the dilaton decay, if its dominant mode is not into axions, releases large entropy at a late epoch of the Universe's evolution to dilute axion energy density and the upperbound of the decay constant is raised up to about $10^{15}$ GeV. The case of the M-theory axion is also discussed., Comment: 11 pages, latex

We consider hidden sector supersymmetry breakdown in the strongly coupled heterotic $E_8\times E_8$ theory of Ho\v{r}ava and Witten. Using effective field theory methods in four dimensions, we can show that gravitational interactions induce soft breaking terms in the observable sector that are of order of the gravitiono mass. We apply these methods to the mechanism of gaugino condensation at the hidden wall. Although the situation is very similar to the weakly coupled case, there is a decisive difference concerning the observable sector gaugino mass; with desirable phenomenological as well as cosmological consequences., Comment: 29 pages, latex, no figures, To appear in Nuclear Physics B. Minor changes

An exact-diagonalization technique on finite-size clusters is used to study the ground state and excitation spectra of the two-dimensional effective fermion model, a fictious model of hole quasiparticles derived from numerical studies of the two-dimensional t-J model at low doping. We show that there is actually a reasonable range of parameter values where the $d_{x^2-y^2}$-wave pairing of holes occurs and the low-lying excitation can be described by the picture of Bogoliubov quasiparticles in the BCS pairing theory. The gap parameter of a size $\Delta_d\simeq 0.13|V|$ (where $V$ is the attractive interaction between holes) is estimated at low doping levels. The paired state gives way to the state of clustering of holes for some stronger attractions., Comment: 4 pages, RevTeX. Figures available upon request to ohta@science.s.chiba-u.ac.jp. To be published in Phys. Rev. B

We investigate gaugino condensation in the framework of the strongly coupled heterotic $E_8 \times E_8$ string (M--theory). Supersymmetry is broken in a hidden sector and gravitational interactions induce soft breaking parameters in the observable sector. The resulting soft masses are of order of the gravitino mass. The situation is similar to that in the weakly coupled $E_8 \times E_8$ theory with one important difference: we avoid the problem of small gaugino masses which are now comparable to the gravitino mass., Comment: 9 pages, latex, no figures

Event rates of various lepton flavor violating processes in the minimal supersymmetric SU(5) model are calculated, using exact formulas which include Yukawa vertices of lepton-slepton-Higgsino. We find subtlety in evaluating event rates due to partial cancellation between diagrams. This cancellation typically reduces the event rates significantly, and the size of the reduction strongly depends on superparticle mass spectrum., Comment: 11pages, 8 figures. Fig.5 where the mu-e conversion rates in nuclei was shown was incorrect due to an error in our numerical computation.It is replaced in this corrected version. All conclusions remain unchanged

Thermal history after inflation is studied in a chaotic inflation model with supersymmetric couplings of the inflaton to matter fields. Time evolution equation is solved in a formalism that incorporates both the back reaction of particle production and the cosmological expansion. The effect of the parametric resonance gives rise to a rapid initial phase of the inflaton decay followed by a slow stage of the Born term decay. Thermalization takes place immediately after the first explosive stage for a medium strength of the coupling among created particles. As an application we calculate time evolution of the gravitino abundance that is produced by ordinary particles directly created from the inflaton decay, which typically results in much more enhanced yield than what a naive estimate based on the Born term would suggest., Comment: 23 pages + 13 figures

Various lepton-flavor violating (LFV) processes in the supersymmetric standard model with right-handed neutrino supermultiplets are investigated in detail. It is shown that large LFV rates are obtained when $\tan \beta $ is large. In the case where the mixing matrix in the lepton sector has a similar structure as the Kobayashi-Maskawa matrix and the third-generation Yukawa coupling is as large as that of the top quark, the branching ratios can be as large as $Br(\mu\rightarrow e\gamma)\simeq 10^{-11}$ and $Br(\tau\rightarrow\mu\gamma)\simeq 10^{-7}$, which are within the reach of future experiments. If we assume a large mixing angle solution to the atmospheric neutrino problem, rate for the process $\tau\rightarrow\mu\gamma$ becomes larger. We also discuss the difference between our case and the case of the minimal $SU(5)$ grand unified theory.

Large amplitude oscillation of cosmic field that may occur right after inflation and in the decay process of weakly interacting fields gives rise to violent particle production via the parametric resonance. In the large amplitude limit the problem of back reaction against the field oscillation is solved and the energy spectrum of created particles is determined in a semi-classical approximation. For large enough coupling or large enough amplitude the resulting energy spectrum is broadly distributed, implying larger production of high energy particles than what a simple estimate of the reheating temperature due to the Born formula would suggest., Comment: 12 pages + 4 figures

We discuss photon emission from particles decelerlated by the cosmic expansion. This can be interpretated as a kind of bremsstrahlung induced by the Universe geometry. In the high momentum limit its transition probability does not depend on detailed behavior of the expansion., Comment: 20 pages, No figures

We examine the lepton-flavor violation caused by a Yukawa coupling matrix $y_{\nu,ij}$ for right-handed neutrinos in the supersymmetric standard model. We stress that decay rates for $\tau\rightarrow\mu\gamma$ and $\mu\rightarrow e\gamma$ may reach the range to be accessible to near future experiments if left-right mixing terms in the slepton mass matrix are substantially large.

We study the solution to the Polonyi problem where the Polonyi field weighs as $O(10{\rm TeV})$ and decays just before the primordial nucleosynthesis. It is shown that in spite of a large entropy production by the Polonyi field decay, one can naturally explain the present value of the baryon-to-entropy ratio, $n_B/s \sim (10^{-10}-10^{-11})$ if the Affleck-Dine mechanism for baryogenesis works. It is pointed out, however, that there is another cosmological problem related to the abundance of the lightest superparticles produced by the Polonyi decay.