Investigation of excited states in Mg-22 via resonant elastic scattering of Na-21+p and its astrophysical implications

The excited states in 22Mg have been investigated by the resonant elastic scattering of 21Na + p. A 4.0 MeV/nucleon 21Na beam was separated by the Center for Nuclear Study (CNS) radioactive ion beam separator (CRIB) and then used to bombard a thick (CH2)n target. The energy spectra of recoiled protons were measured at scattering angles of θc.m. ≈ 172◦ , 146◦, and 134◦, respectively. A wide energy-range of excitation function in 22Mg (up to Ex ∼ 8.9 MeV) was obtained simultaneously with a thick-target method, and a state at 7.06 MeV was newly observed. The resonant parameters were deduced from an R-matrix analysis of the center-of-mass (c.m.) differential cross-section data with a SAMMY-M6-BETA code. The astrophysical resonant reaction rate for the 18Ne(α,p)21Na reactionwas recalculated based on the present parameters. Generally speaking, the present rates are much smaller than the previous ones.

Linear energy transfer dependence of the effects of carbon ion beams on adventitious shoot regeneration from in vitro leaf explants of Saintpaulia ionahta

Purpose: To determine the effects of carbon ion beams with five different linear energy transfer (LET) values on adventitious shoots from in vitro leaf explants of Saintpaulia ionahta Mauve cultivar with regard to tissue increase, shoots differentiation and morphology changes in the shoots. Materials and methods: In vitro leaf explant samples were irradiated with carbon ion beams with LET values in the range of 31 similar to 151 keV/mu m or 8 MeV of X-rays (LET 0.2 keV/mu m) at different doses. Fresh weight increase, surviving fraction and percentage of the explants with regenerated malformed shoots in all the irradiated leaf explants were statistically analysed. Results: The fresh weight increase (FWI) and surviving fraction (SF) decreased dramatically with increasing LET at the same doses. In addition, malformed shoots, including curliness, carnification, nicks and chlorophyll deficiency, occurred in both carbon ion beam and X-ray irradiations. The induction frequency with the former, however, was far more than that with the X-rays. Conclusions: This work demonstrated the LET dependence of the relative biological effectiveness (RBE) of tissue culture of Saintpaulia ionahta according to 50% FWI and 50% SF. After irradiating leaf explants with 5 Gy of a 221 MeV carbon ion beam having a LET value of 96 keV/mu m throughout the sample, a chlorophyll-deficient (CD) mutant, which could transmit the character of chlorophyll deficiency to its progeny through three continuous tissue culture cycles, and plantlets with other malformations were obtained.

Experiments and modification on electron cyclotron resonance ion sources at the Institute of Modern Physics

Uranium ion beams were produced from electron cyclotron resonance (ECR) ion sources by sputtering method this year at the Institute of Modern Physics. At first, we chose the Lanzhou ECR No. 3 ion source to implement the production experiment of U ion beams. Finally, 11 e mu A of U28+, 5 e mu A of U32+, and 1.5 e mu A of U35+ were obtained. A U26+ ion beam produced by the LECR2 ion source was accelerated successfully by the cyclotron. This means that the Heavy Ion Research Facility in Lanzhou (HIRFL) has accomplished the acceleration of the ion beam of the heaviest element according to the designed parameters. The Lanzhou ECR ion source No. 2 (LECR2), which was built in 1997, has served the HIRFL for eight years and needed to be upgraded to provide more intense high charge state ion beams for HIRFL cooling storage ring. We started the upgrading project of LECR2 last year, and the modified design just has been finished. (c) 2006 American Institute of Physics.

Advanced superconducting electron cyclotron resonance ion source SECRAL: Design, construction, and the first test result

Superconducting electron cyclotron resonance (ECR) ion source with advanced design in Lanzhou (SECRAL) is a next generation ECR ion source and aims for developing a very compact superconducting ECR ion source with a structure and high performances for highly charged ion-beam production. The ion source was designed to be operated at 18 GHz at initial operation and finally will be extended to 28 GHz. The superconducting magnet confinement configuration of the ion source consists of three axial solenoid coils and six sextupole coils with a cold iron structure as field booster and clamping. At full excitation, this magnet assembly can produce peak mirror fields on the axis of 3.6 T at injection, 2.2 T at extraction, and a radial sextupole field of 2.0 T at plasma chamber wall. What is different from the traditional design, such as LBNL VENUS and LNS SERSE, is that the three axial solenoid coils are located inside of the sextupole bore in order to reduce the interaction forces between the sextupole coils and the solenoid coils. SECRAL may open the way for building a compact and high-performance 18-28 GHz superconducting ECR ion source. Very preliminary commissioning results are promising. Detailed design, construction issues and very preliminary test results of the ion source at 18 GHz are presented.

Progresses of heavy-ion cancer therapy

The status of heavy-ion cancer therapy has been reviewed. The existing and constructing heavy-ion beam facilities for cancer therapy in the world are introduced. The first clinical trials of superficially placed tumor therapy at heavy ion research facility in Lanzhou (HIRFL) are presented.

The influence of carbon ion irradiation on sweet sorghum seeds

The aim of this study is to investigate the effects of different doses of 100 MeV/u carbon ions on sweet sorghum seeds in order to improve crop yields and their sugar content. After irradiation, seeds were germinated and grown to 30 days, and others were sown in the field. At the end of harvesting season all planted seeds were picked separately and M2 generations obtained. The differences among the treatments were examined using the RAPID procedure. In the study done by using 38 primers; according to the amplification results, the differences among the various doses treatment were shown.

Study on the apoptosis and Bcl-2/Bax expression of human hepatoma SMMC-7721 cells after exposure to heavy-ion and X-ray irradiations

This study is aimed at observing the apoptosis and Bcl-2/Bax gene expression of mammalian cells following heavy-ion and X-ray irradiations. Exponentially growing human hepatoma SMMC-7721 cells cultured in vitro were irradiated with a C-12 ion beam of 50 MeV/u (corresponding to a LET value of 44.56 keV/mu m) from Heavy Ion Research Facility in Lanzhou (HIRFL) at doses varying from 0 to 3 Gy. The X-ray irradiation (8 MV) was performed in the therapy unit of the General Hospital of the Lanzhou Military Area. Survival fractions of irradiated cells at various doses were measured by means of MTT assay. Apoptotic cells after irradiation were analyzed with fluorescence microscope and flow cytometer (FCM). Immuno-histological assay were applied to detect the expression of Bcl-2/Bax genes in the irradiated cells. The survival fraction of SMMC-7721 cells decreased gradually (vs. control p<0.05) with increasing the dose of the carbon ion beam more obviously than X-ray irradiation, and the carbon ion irradiation efficiently induced cell apoptosis and significantly promoted the expression of Bax gene while Bcl-2 gene expression was restrained. High-LET heavy ion beam would induce cell apoptosis effectively than low-LET X-ray, and the apoptosis rate is correlated with the transcription of Bcl-2/Bax and the ratio of Bcl-2/Bax in human hepatoma SMMC-7721 cells after irradiation to heavy ion beam.

First results of SECRAL at 18GHz for intense beam production of highly charged ions

A Superconducting ECR ion source with Advanced design in Lanzhou (SECRAL) was successfully built to produce intense beams of highly charged ions for Heavy Ion Research Facility in Lanzhou (HIRFL). The ion source has been optimized to be operated at 28GHz for its maximum performance. The superconducting magnet confinement configuration of the ion source consists of three axial solenoid coils and six sextupole coils with a cold iron structure as field booster and clamping. For 28GHz operation, the magnet assembly can produce peak mirror fields on axis 3.6T at injection, 2.2T at extraction and a radial sextupole field of 2.0T at plasma chamber wall. A unique feature of SECRAL is that the three axial solenoid coils are located inside of the sextupole bore in order to reduce the interaction forces between the sextupole coils and the solenoid coils. During the ongoing commissioning phase at 18GHz with a stainless steel chamber, tests with various gases and some metals have been conducted with microwave power less than 3.2kW and it turned out the performance is very promising. Some record ion beam intensities have been produced, for instance, 810e mu A of O7+, 505e mu A of Xe20+, 306e mu A of Xe27+, 21e mu A of Xe34+, 2.4e mu A of Xe38+ and so on. To reach better results for highly charged ion beams, further modifications such as an aluminium chamber with better cooling, higher microwave power and a movable extraction system will be done, and also emittance measurements are being prepared.

Pre-irradiation with low-dose C-12(6+) beam significantly enhances the efficacy of AdCMV-p53 gene therapy in human non-small lung cancer

The combination of ionizing radiation and gene therapy has been investigated. However, there are very few reports about the combination of heavy-ion irradiation and gene therapy. To determine if the pre-exposure to low-dose heavy ion beam enhances the suppression of AdCMV-p53 on non-small lung cancer (NSLC), the cells pre-irradiated or non-irradiated were infected with 20, 40 MOI of AdCMV-p53. Survival fraction and the relative biology effect (RBE) were determined by clonogenic assay. The results showed that the proportions of p53 positive cells in C-12(6+) beam induced AdCMV-p53 infected cells were more than 90%, which were significantly more than those in gamma-ray induced AdCMV-p53 infected cells. The pre-exposure to low-dose 12C6+ beam significantly prevented the G(0)/G(1) arrest and activated G(2)/M checkpoints. The pre-exposure to C-12(6+) beam significantly improved cell to apoptosis. RBEs for the C-12(6+)+ AdCMV-p53 infection groups were 30%-60%,20% -130% and 30%-70% more than those for the C-12(6+)_irradiated only, AdCMV-p53 infected only, and gamma-irradiation induced AdCMVp53 infected groups, respectively. The data suggested that the pre-exposure to low-dose C-12(6+) beam significantly promotes exogenous p53 expression in NSLC, and the suppression of AdCMV-p53 gene therapy on NSLC.

High sensitivity beam phase measurement system for isochronous cyclotron

The beam phase measurement system in the HIRFL is introduced. Based on the double-balanced mixer principle using rf-signal mixing and filtering techniques, a stable and sensitive phase measurement system has been developed. The phase history of the ion beam is detected by using a set of capacitive pick-up probes installed in the cyclotron. The phase information of the measurement is necessary for tuning to obtain a optimized isochronous magnetic field which induces to maximize the beam intensity and to optimize the beam quality. The result of the phase measurement is reliable and the accurancy reaches +/- 0.5 degrees.

Elastic scattering angular dispersion of weakly bound nucleus F-17

The differential cross-sections for elastic scattering of F-17 and O-17 on Pb-208 have been measured at Radioactive Ion Beam Line at Lanzhou (RIBLL). The variation of the logarithms of differential cross-sections with the square of scattering angles, viz. angulax dispersion plot, shows clearly that there exists a turning point in the range of small scattering angles (6 degrees-20 degrees) for F-17 due to its exotic structure, while no turning point was observed for O-17. The experimental results have been compared with previous data of other groups. Systematical analysis on the available data seems to conclude that there is an exotic behavior of elastic scattering angular dispersion of weakly bound nuclei with halo or skin structure as compared with that of the stable nuclei. Therefore the fact that the turning point of the elastic scattering angular dispersion plot appears at small angle for weakly bound nuclei can be used as a new probe to investigate the halo and skin phenomenon.

Exotic behavior of elastic scattering differential cross-sections of weakly bound nucleus F-17 at small angles

The differential cross-sections for elastic scattering of F-17 and O-17 on Pb-208 have been measured at Radioactive Ion Beam Line at Lanzhou (RIBLL). The variation of the logarithms of differential cross-sections with the square of scattering angles shows clearly that there exists a turning point in the range of small scattering angles (6 degrees-20 degrees) for F-17 having exotic structure, while no turning point was observed in the O-17 elastic scattering. The experimental results have been compared with previous data. Systematical analysis on the available data seems to conclude that there is an exotic behavior of elastic scattering differential cross-sections of weakly bound nuclei with halo or skin structure as compared with that of the ordinary nuclei near stable line. Therefore the fact that the turning point of the logarithms of differential cross-sections appears at small angle for weakly bound nuclei could be used as a new probe to investigate the halo and skin phenomenon.

Exotic behaviour of angular dispersion of weakly bound nucleus F-17 at small angles

The differential cross sections of F-17 and O-17 elastic scattering products on Pb-208 have been measured at the Radioactive Ion Beam Line at Lanzhou (RIBLL). Two angular dispersion plots of ln(d sigma/d theta) versus theta 2 are obtained from the angular distribution of the elastic scattering differential cross sections. The angular dispersion plot exhibits a clear turning point for F-17 in the range of small scattering angles 6 degrees-20 degrees due to its exotic structure, but for O-17, the turning point is not observed in the same angular range. The experimental results have been compared with previous data of other groups. Systematical analysis on the available data supports the above conclusion that there is an exotic behaviour of the angular dispersion plot of weakly bound nuclei with halo or skin structure as compared with that of the ordinary nuclei near stable line. Therefore the turning point of the angular dispersion plot appears at small angle for weakly bound nuclei with halo or skin structure, and can be used as a new probe to investigate the halo and skin phenomena of weakly bound nuclei.

Study of n=2, Delta n=0 transition of Be-, B-, C-, N- and O-like sequence in the beam-foil spectrum of titanium

The foil-excited the spectrum of highly stripped titanium ions between 12-40 nm has been studied. Titanium ions of 80 and 120 MeV were provided by the HI-13 tandem accelerator at the China Institute of Atomic Energy. GIM-957 XUV-VUV monochromator was refocused to get highly-resolved spectra. Our experimental results and the published spectral data of laser-produced plasma show agreement in nearly all cases within +/- 0.03 nm. The spectra contained some weak or strong lines previously unclassified. These spectral lines mainly belong to 2s2p(2) for TiXVIII, 2p(3) for TiXVIII, 2s2p(3) for TiXVII, 2p(6)4p for Ti XII and 2p(6)3d for Ti XII transitions.