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Raman spectroscopy and X-Ray Powder Diffraction were applied in order to characterize the materials used for the manufacturing of an ancient, decorated vase of Apulian manufacturing in 4th century B.C. In this case study, three small fragments from one vase were sampled from pictorial areas in black and white. X-Ray Diffraction on a powdered sample was applied to characterize the composition of ceramic: the analysis allowed the identification of quartz, plagioclase and diopside and consequent hypotheses about the production process. The pictorial decorations in black and white were analysed through Raman spectroscopy. While the pigment constituting the dark areas was identified as maghemite γ-Fe2O3, an iron oxide with spinel structure, which suggests a maghemization oxidative process, in the white decoration it was possible to individuate the presence of both anatase -an allotropic phase of titanium oxide- and α-alumina. The application of alumina as pigment results peculiar and it represents a new knowledge advancement, which is worth of further studies. The combination of anatase and alumina suggested hypotheses about the origin of the starting materials for the white decorations, with reference to the manufacturing period and area. This set of data resulted in new information about the Apulian vase production, enriching the knowledge about a less popular pottery typology and opening new perspectives about commercial and cultural exchanges.

The main purpose of the Divertor Tokamak Test facility (DTT) is to study alternative solutions to mitigate the issue of power exhaust under integrated physics and technical conditions relevant for ITER and DEMO. In this framework, the conceptual design of the beamline for the DTT Neutral Beam Heating system is here summarized, with a particular focus on the technical solutions adopted to fulfill the requirements and maximize beamline performances. The proposed system features a beamline providing deuterium neutrals (D0) with an energy of 510 keV and an injected power of 10 MW. Various design options were considered, and a comprehensive set of simulations was carried out using several physics and engineering codes to drive the choice of the most suitable design options and optimize them, aiming at finding a good compromise among different design requirements. These simulations mainly regard the efficiency of the main processes, the optics of the beam, the physics reactions along the beamline (stripping, charge-exchange and ionization), the thermo-mechanical behaviour of the acceleration grids and the coupling between the beam and the plasma in the tokamak chamber. This paper describes the design of the main components of the injector for the DTT NBI system, i.e. ion source, accelerator, beam line components and vacuum vessel, explaining the motivations for the main design choices.