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In nuclear science, the decay chain refers to a series of radioactive decays of different radioactive decay products as a sequential series of transformations. It is also known as a "radioactive cascade". The typical radioisotope does not decay directly to a stable state, but rather it decays to another radioisotope. Thus there is usually a series of decays until the atom has become a stable isotope, meaning that the nucleus of the atom has reached a stable state. Decay stages are referred to by their relationship to previous or subsequent stages. A parent isotope is one that undergoes decay to form a daughter isotope. One example of this is uranium (atomic number 92) decaying into thorium (atomic number 90). The daughter isotope may be stable or it may decay to form a daughter isotope of its own. The daughter of a daughter isotope is sometimes called a granddaughter isotope. Note that the parent isotope becomes the daughter isotope, unlike in the case of a biological parent and dau

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Radiation shielding of a beta-beam rapid cycling synchrotron

Stefania Trovati

In a future beta-beam facility, radioactive ions (namely, 6He and 18Ne) are produced, accelerated, and then stored in a large decay ring, where they eventually produce neutrino beams through beta decay. Radiation protection is of great concern for this facility because decay products are present at all energies along the accelerator chain. Experimental data on radioactivity produced by ion accelerators are still poor, and few Monte Carlo codes can transport ions. All present calculations are performed with the Monte Carlo code FLUKA. The radiation environment generated by ion beam losses is compared with the available experimental data. The attenuation length of radiation in concrete is calculatedfor 6 He and18Ne at four different energies, from 100 to 1650 MeV/u. A preliminary shielding design for the Rapid Cycling Synchrotron, purpose-designed for a beta-beam accelerator chain at CERN, is proposed.

American Nuclear Society2009

Universal non-diffusive slow dynamics in aging soft matter

Suliana Manley

We use conventional and multispeckle dynamic light scattering to investigate the dynamics of a wide variety of jammed soft materials, including colloidal gels, concentrated emulsions, and concentrated surfactant phases. For all systems, the dynamic structure factor f(q,t) exhibits a two-step decay. The initial decay is due to the thermally activated diffusive motion of the scatterers, as indicated by the q -2 dependence of the characteristic relaxation time, where q is the scattering vector. However, due to the constrained motion of the scatterers in jammed systems, the dynamics are arrested and the initial decay terminates in a plateau. Surprisingly, we find that a final, ultraslow decay leads to the complete relaxation of f(q,t), indicative of rearrangements on length scales as large as several microns or tens of microns. Remarkably, for all systems the same very peculiar form is found for the final relaxation of the dynamic structure factor: f(q,t)∼exp[-(t/τ s) P], with p ≈ 1.5 and τ s∼q -1, thus suggesting the generality of this behavior. Additionally, for all samples the final relaxation slows down with age, although the aging behavior is found to be sample dependent. We propose that the unusual ultraslow dynamics are due to the relaxation of internal stresses, built into the sample at the jamming transition, and present simple scaling arguments that support this hypothesis.

2003

Search for B decays to final states with the eta(c) meson

Tagir Aushev, Dipanwita Dutta, Sun Hee Kim, Donghyun Kim, Ji Hyun Kim, Olivier Schneider, Mingkui Wang

We report a search for B decays to selected final states with the eta (c) meson: B (+/-) -> K (+/-) eta (c) pi (+) pi (-), B-+/- -> K-+/-eta(c)pi(+)pi(-), B-+/- -> K-+/-eta(c)eta and B-+/- -> K-+/-eta(c)pi(0). The analysis is based on 772 x 10(6) B (B) over bar pairs collected at the gamma(4S) resonance with the Belle detector at the KEKB asymmetric-energy e (+)e (-) collider. We set 90% confidence level upper limits on the branching fractions of the studied B decay modes, independent of intermediate resonances, in the range (0.6-5.3) x 10(-4). We also search for molecular-state candidates in the D-0 (D) over bar*(0) - (D) over bar (0) D*(0), D-0 (D) over bar (0) + (D) over bar (0) D-0 and D*(0) (D) over bar*(0) + D*(0) (D) over bar*(0) D*(0) combinations, neutral partners of the Z(3900)(+/-) and Z(4020)(+/-), and a poorly understood state X(3915) as possible intermediate states in the decay chain, and set 90% confidence level upper limits on the product of branching fractions to the mentioned intermediate states and decay branching fractions of these states in the range (0.6-6.9) x 10(-5).

Springer2015

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