Radiosensitivity of hepatoma cell lines and human normal liver cell lines exposed in vitro to carbon ions and argon ions at the HIRFL

Human hepatoma (SMMC-7721) and normal liver (L02) cells were irradiated with c-rays, 12C6+ and 36Ar18+ ion beams at the Heavy Ion Research Facility in Lanzhou (HIRFL). By using the Calyculin-A induced premature chromosome condensation technique, chromatid-type breaks and isochromatid-type breaks were scored separately. Tumor cells irradiated with heavy ions produced a majority of isochromatid break, while chromatid breaks were dominant when cells were exposed to c-rays. The relative biological effectiveness (RBE) for irradiation-induced chromatid breaks were 3.6 for L02 and 3.5 for SMMC-7721 cell lines at the LET peak of 96 keVlm 1 12C6+ ions, and 2.9 for both of the two cell lines of 512 keVlm 1 36Ar18+ ions. It suggested that the RBE of isochromatid-type breaks was pretty high when high-LET radiations were induced. Thus we concluded that the high production of isochromatid-type breaks, induced by the densely ionizing track structure, could be regarded as a signature of high-LET radiation exposure.

Nuclear matter at a HIRFL-CSR energy regime

We report some recent progress in constraining the symmetry energy E-sym(rho) at high densities using high-energy heavy-ion collisions. Circumstantial evidence of a soft E-sym(rho) at supra-saturation density is obtained by comparing the pion ratio pi(-)/pi(+) measured recently with FOPI at GSI and the IBUU04 model calculations. Detailed studies indicate that the power of determining the E-sym(rho)from pi(-)/pi(+) is enhanced with decreasing the beam energy to near the pion production threshold, showing a correlation to the increasing nuclear stopping. Among several heavy-ion reaction facilities in the world, the cooling storage ring (HIRFL-CSR), newly commissioned at Lanzhou, delivering heavy-ion beams up to 1 A GeV, to be coupled with advanced detectors will contribute significantly to further studies of the equation of state of asymmetric nuclear matter.

HIRFL-CSR complex

The construction and commissioning of HIRFL-CSR were finished in 2007. From 2000 to 2005 the subsystem and key devices of CSR were successfully fabricated, such as magnet, power supply, UHV system, e-cooler, electric-static deflector with the septum of 0.1 mm, and the fast-pulse kicker with the rise time of 150 ns. After that the CSR commissioning activities were performed in 2006 and 2007, including the accumulation of those heavy ions of C, Ar, Kr and Xe by the combination of stripping injection (STI) or multiple multi-turn injection (MMI) and e-cooling with a hollow e-beam, wide energy-range synchrotron ramping by changing the RF harmonic-number at mid-energy, the beam stacking in the experimental ring CSRe, the RIBs mass-measurement with the isochronous-mode in CSRe by using the time-of-flight method, and the ion beam slow-extraction from CSRm.

Timing system of HIRFL-CSR

The national science project HIRFL-CSR has recently been officially accepted. As a cyclotron and synchotron complex, it puts some particularly high demands on the control system. There are hundreds of pieces of equipment that need to be synchronized. An integrated timing control system is built to meet these demands. The output rate and the accuracy of the controller are 16 bit/mu s. The accuracy of the time delay reaches 40 ns. The timing control system is based on a typical event distribution system, which adopts the new event generation and the distribution scheme. The scheme of the tuning control system with innovation points, the architecture and the implemented method are presented in the paper.

Magnets for HIRFL-CSR rings

The magnet design, fabrication, and measurement of HIRFL-CSR (Heavy Ion Research Facility in Lanzhou Cooling Storage Ring) are presented. All magnets will be laminated And welded with an armor-coated surface between two big endplates made of sticking glue 0.5 mm-thick sheets. The dipole of CSRm was chosen an H type with an air circle on the pole to improve the field uniformity. The dipole of CSRe was chosen the C type with an air circle and two air slots on the pole to improve the field homogeneity. Its reproducibility of magnet to magnet was adjusted with inserting small laminating pieces before demountable pole ends to reach less than +/- 2 x 10(-4) at optimized field level. CSRm quadrupoles diameter is 170 mm and has two different lengths, and its endplates were made with punching pieces after coating with epoxy glue, there is chamfered directly on the pole ends to reduce 12th-order contribution of field and without the demountable pole ends. CSRe main quadrupoles diameter is 240 mm and has two different lengths, and its endplates were also made with punching pieces coated with epoxy glue, there is also chamfered directly on the pole ends to reduce 12th-order contribution of field like CSRm.

HIRFL today

HIRFL was upgraded from beginning 2000. Besides of researches on nuclear physics, atomic physics, irradiative material and biology, the cancer therapy by heavy ion and hadron physics are being developing. The injector system of SFC+SSC can provide all ions from proton to uranium with higher intensity. The Cooling Storage Ring (CSR) has accelerated beams successful. The ions C-12(6+), Ar-36(18+), Xe-129(27+) have been accelerated up 1000MeV/u, 235MeV/u with about 10(9)similar to 10(8) ions per spill respectively. The beam momentum dispersion was measured from 4x10(-3) to 2x10(-4) after cooling by the electron cooler or similar to 4x10(-4) after accelerated to 1000MeV/u without cooling. In order to improve the nuclear structure and heavy isotope research in SFC+SSC energy domain, A Wien filter was added in front of RIBLL and gas was filled in first section of RIBLL; a new spectrometry SHANS has being installed. Presently, there are two starting version experimental setups at CSR.

Charge stripping accumulation of light heavy ions in HIRFL-CSR main ring

The charge stripping injection method has been adopted for the accumulation of light heavy ions in HIRFL-CSR. This method has some special requirements for the accelerating particles, and at the same time the structure of the injection orbit has to be changed. In this paper, the design of the orbit has been presented, as well as the calculation of the beam line matching. According to the result of commissioning, stripping injection can accumulate the beam to a higher current.

Hadron physics programs at HIRFL-CSRm: Plan and status

An internal target experiment at HIRFL-CSRm is planned for hadron physics, which focuses on hadron spectroscopy, polarized strangeness production and medium effect. A conceptual design of Hadron Physics Lanzhou Spectrometer (HPLUS) is discussed. Related computing framework involves event generation, simulation, reconstruction and final analysis. The R&D works on internal target facilities and sub-detectors are presented briefly.

Heavy-ion conformal irradiation in the shallow-seated tumor therapy terminal at HIRFL

Basic research related to heavy-ion cancer therapy has been done at the Institute of Modern Physics (IMP), Chinese Academy of Sciences since 1995. Now a plan of clinical trial with heavy ions has been launched at IMP. First, superficially placed tumor treatment with heavy ions is expected in the therapy terminal at the Heavy Ion Research Facility in Lanzhou (HIRFL), where carbon ion beams with energy up to 100 MeV/u can be supplied. The shallow-seated tumor therapy terminal at HIRFL is equipped with a passive beam delivery system including two orthogonal dipole magnets, which continuously scan pencil beams laterally and generate a broad and uniform irradiation field, a motor-driven energy degrader and a multi-leaf collimator. Two different types of range modulator, ripple filter and ridge filter with which Guassian-shaped physical dose and uniform biological effective dose Bragg peaks can be shaped for therapeutic ion beams respectively, have been designed and manufactured. Therefore, two-dimensional and three-dimensional conformal irradiations to tumors can be performed with the passive beam delivery system at the earlier therapy terminal. Both the conformal irradiation methods have been verified experimentally and carbon-ion conformal irradiations to patients with superficially placed tumors have been carried out at HIRFL since November 2006.

Intrabeam scattering of heavy ions at HIRFL-CSR

Small-angle multiple intrabeam scattering (IBS) is an important effect for heavy-ion storage rings with electron cooling, because the cooling time is determined by the equilibrium between cooling and IBS process. All usually used numerical algorithms of IBS growth rate calculations are based on the model of the collisions proposed by A.Piwinski, but this result is a multidimensional integral. In this paper, the IBS growth rates are simulated for HIRFL-CSR using symmetric elliptic integral method, and compared with several available IBS code results.

Optimization of the HIRFL-CSR cluster target

A new gas delivery system is designed and installed for HIRFL-CSR cluster target. The original blocked nozzle is replaced by a new one with the throat diameter of 0.12mm. New test of hydrogen and argon gases are performed. The stable jets can be obtained for these two operation gases. The attenuation of the jet caused by the collision with residual gas is studied. The maximum achievable H-2 target density is 1.75x10(13) atoms/cm(3) with a target thickness of 6.3x10(12) atoms/cm(2) for HIRFL-CSR cluster target. The running stability of the cluster source is tested both for hydrogen and argon. The operation parameters for obtaining hydrogen jet are optimized. The results of long time running for H-2 and Ar cluster jets look promising. The jet intensity has no essential change during the test for H-2 and Ar.

Capability verification of the beam delivery system in the superficially-placed tumor therapy terminal at HIRFL

The passive beam delivery system in the superficially-placed tumor therapy terminal at Heavy Ion Researc h Facility in Lanzhou (HIRFL), which includes two orthogonal dipole magnets as scanning system, a motor-driven energy degrader as range-shifter, series of ridge filters as range modulator and a multileaf collimator, is introduced in detail. The capacities of its important components and the whole system have been verified experimentally. The tests of the ridge filter for extending Bragg peak and the range shifter for energy adjustment show both work well. To examine the passive beam delivery system, a beam shaping experiment were carried out, simulating a three-dimensional (3D) conformal irradiation to a tumor. The encouraging experimental result confirms that 3D layer-stacking conformal irradiation can be performed by means of the passive system. The validation of the beam delivery system establishes a substantial basis for upcoming clinical trial for superficially-placed tumors with heavy ions in the therapy terminal at HIRFL.

Physical property measurement of therapeutic carbon ion beam in the shallow-seated tumor therapy terminal at HIRFL

For the first time the physical properties of therapeutic carbon-ion beam supplied by, the shallow-seated tumor therapy terminal at the Heavy Ion Research Facility in Lanzhou (HIRFL) are measured. For a 80.55MeV/u C-12 ion beam delivered to the therapy terminal, the homogeneity of irradiation fields is 73.48%, when the beam intensity varied in the range of 0.001-0.1nA (i.e. 1 X 10(6) - 1 X 10(8) particles per second). The stability of the beam intensity within a few minutes is estimated to be 80.87%. The depth-dose distribution of the beam at the isocenter of the therapy facility is measured, and the position of the high-dose Bragg peak is found to be located at the water-equivalent depth of 13.866mm. Based on the relationship between beam energy and Bragg peak position, the corresponding beam energy at the isocenter of the therapy terminal is evaluated to be 71.71MeV/u for the original 80.55MeV/u C-12 ion beam, which consisted basically with calculation. The readout of the previously-used air-free ionization chamber regarding absorbed dose is calibrated as well in this experiment. The results indicate that the performance of the therapy facility should be optimized further to meet the requirements of clinical trial.

Survival and initial chromatid breakage in normal and tumour cells exposed in vitro to gamma rays and carbon ions at the HIRFL

Human hepatoma and normal liver cells were irradiated with C-12(6+) ion beams (linear energy transfer (LET) = 96 keV mu m(-1)) and gamma-rays at the Heavy Ion Research Facility in Lanzhou (HIRFL). The numbers and types of chromatid breaks were detected using the premature chromosome condensation technique. Irradiation with C-12(6+) ions produced a majority of isochromatid break types, while chromatid breaks were dominant for irradiation with gamma-rays. Experimental results showed that the initial level of chromatid breaks is clearly related to the absorbed dose from C-12(6+), ions and gamma-rays. The (12)C(6+)ions are relatively more effective at inducing initial chromatid breaks when compared with the gamma-rays. A relative biological effectiveness (RBE) of about 2.5 resulted for the induction of initial chromatid breaks by C-12(6+) ions relative to gamma-rays in both cell lines.

Monte Carlo simulation of the neutron detection wall at RIBLL II in HIRFL-CSR

With the construction of the new Radioactive Ion Beam Line in Lanzhou (RIBLL II) which connects the CSRm and the CSRe, an experimental setup for physics research is highly required. A large area neutron detection wall is the main part of the setup. This paper introduced the detection principle of the neutron detection wall and the Monte-Carlo simulation of its design under the environment of the Geant4 toolkit. We presented the final design with the optimized parameters and the performance of the wall.