120424709
The histrap proposal: Heavy-ion storage ring for atomic physics
Abstract HISTRAP, Heavy-Ion Storage Ring for Atomic Physics, is a proposed 46.8-m-circumference synchrotron-cooling-storage ring optimized to accelerate, decelerate, and store beams of highly charged very-heavy ions at energies appropriate for advanced atomic physics research. The ring is designed to allow studies of electron-ion, photon-ion, ion-atom, and ion-ion interactions. An electron cooling system will provide ion beams with small angular divergence and energy spread for precision spectroscopic studies and also is necessary to allow the deceleration of heavy ions to low energies. HISTRAP will have a maximum bending power of 2.0 T m and will be injected with ions from either the existing Holifield Heavy Ion Research Facility 25-MV tandem accelerator or from a dedicated ECR source and 250 keV/nucleon RFQ linac.
93888470
Design Study for the Conversion of the Oak Ridge Isochronous Cyclotron from an Energy Constant of K=90 to K=300 MeV
A possible method of achieving a K=300 MeV cyclotron by increasing the average magnetic field of the Oak Ridge Isochronous Cyclotron (ORIC) from 18.6 to 33.9 kG with superconducting coils has been investigated.
116322052
Accelerators for Heavy Ions
The use of heavy ion accelerators in nuclear physics, nuclear chemistry, atomic physics, and in material sciences studies is rapidly increasing. This paper reviews the present and developing scene in heavy ion accelerator concepts and technology. The area of applicability of various methods, likely avenues of future development and the trends of future requirements are discussed.
115550416
RECENT PROGRESS ON A SUPERCURRENT SEPARATED ORBIT CYCLOTRON.
124286964
INNOVATIONS IN ISOCHRONOUS CYCLOTRONS.
Since the last International Conference on Isochronous Cyclotrons, three major projects have been approved: the 585 MeV proton cyclotron of the Swiss Institute for Nuclear Research (SIN) to be built at Villigen near Zurich; the 500 MeV Hcyclotron of the Tri-University Meson Facility (TRIUMF) at Vancouver, British Columbia; and the 200 MeV variable energy cyclotron of the Indiana University. A much smaller but unique project has been successfully brought into operation, the cyclograaff at Duke University which combines a small cyclotron with a tandem accelerator in a way which enhances the desirable characteristics of both. Finally, the most important happening since the last conference has been the renewed interest in accelerators for very heavy ions. In the United States alone, there will be more than ten major proposals. This paper reviews the activities and progress of the past several years and discusses some of the important innovations accomplished or foreseen.
124130410
HEAVY-ION ACCELERATOR FACILITY FEATURING A SEPARATED-SECTOR ISOCHRONOUS CYCLOTRON.
An isochronous cyclotron of modest size with a model TU Tandem Van de Graaff as its injector would have the capability of accelerating the heaviest ions to well above the Coulomb barrier for the heaviest elements. An evaluation of several cyclotron designs has led to an isochronous cyclotron with four separate sectors. As now envisaged the cyclotron will be capable of accelerating heavy ions with a charge-to-mass ratio of 0.15 to an energy of 7.5 MeV1a.m.u. A unique feature of the plan is the use of a source of highly charged ions of the Dubna or LRL type in the terminal of the tandem. For example, to obtain energetic uranium ions, 9+ ions from the terminal ion source are accelerated to 144 MeV (0.605 MeV}a.m.u.), passed through a stripping foil to increase the ion charge to 36+, injected into the cyclotron, and accelerated to 1785 MeV (7.5 MeV1a.m.u.). The cyclotron will also accelerate light particles, for example, protons and a-particles to about 300 MeV. deuterons to 150 MeV, and 3 ~ e 2 ' ions to 400 MeV. For this added flexibility a small cyclotron will be provided as the alternate light-ion injector. When the tandem is used separately for experiments requiring its special capabilities, the two cyclotrons can also be used together for independent medium-energy research. When the tandem and large cyclotron are used together for heavy-ion acceleration, the injector cyclotron becomes an independent tool for low-energy nuclear chemistry or isotope production.
210886695
DBI-essence
Models where the dark energy is a scalar field with a non-standard Dirac-Born-Infeld (DBI) kinetic term are investigated. Scaling solutions are studied and proven to be attractors. The corresponding shape of the brane tension and of the potential is also determined and found to be, as in the standard case, either exponentials or power-law of the DBI field. In these scenarios, in contrast to the standard situation, the vacuum expectation value of the field at small redshifts can be small in comparison to the Planck mass which could be an advantage from the model building point of view. This situation arises when the present-day value of the Lorentz factor is large, this property being per se interesting. Serious shortcomings are also present such as the fact that, for simple potentials, the equation of state appears to be too far from the observational favored value −1. Another problem is that, although simple stringy-inspired models precisely lead to the power-law shape that has been shown to possess a tracking behavior, the power index turns out to have the wrong sign. Possible solutions to these issues are discussed.
119272967
Everything you always wanted to know about the cosmological constant problem (but were afraid to ask)
Abstract This article aims at discussing the cosmological constant problem at a pedagogical but fully technical level. We review how the vacuum energy can be regularized in flat and curved space–time and how it can be understood in terms of Feynman bubble diagrams. In particular, we show that the properly renormalized value of the zero-point energy density today (for a free theory) is in fact far from being 122 orders of magnitude larger than the critical energy density, as often quoted in the literature. We mainly consider the case of scalar fields but also treat the cases of fermions and gauge bosons which allows us to discuss the question of vacuum energy in super-symmetry. Then, we discuss how the cosmological constant can be measured in cosmology and constrained with experiments such as measurements of planet orbits in our solar system or atomic spectra. We also review why the Lamb shift and the Casimir effect seem to indicate that the quantum zero-point fluctuations are not an artifact of the quantum field theory formalism. We investigate how experiments on the universality of free fall can constrain the gravitational properties of vacuum energy and we discuss the status of the weak equivalence principle in quantum mechanics, in particular the Colella, Overhauser and Werner experiment and the quantum Galileo experiment performed with a Salecker–Wigner–Peres clock. Finally, we briefly conclude with a discussion on the solutions to the cosmological constant problem that have been proposed so far.
18357447
Cosmological Implications of the Supergravity Tracking Potential
It is demonstrated that any realistic model of quintessence should be based on Supergravity since, when the scalar field is on tracks today, $Q\approx m_{\rm Pl}$. This improves the agreement between theoretical predictions and the current observations. In particular, a generic property is that ratio $\omega_{\rm Q}\equiv p_{\rm Q}/\rho_{\rm Q}$ is pushed towards -1. A string-inspired model is proposed where the potential is given by $V(Q)= \frac{\Lambda ^{4+\alpha}}{Q^{\alpha}}e^{\frac{\kappa}{2}Q^2}$. The model predicts $\omega_{\rm Q}\approx -0.82$, a value less that one sigma from the current likehood value.
119467907
Coupling quintessence to inflation in supergravity
The evolution of the quintessence field during a phase of chaotic inflation is studied. The inflaton {phi} and the quintesssence field Q are described in a supergravity framework where the coupling between the inflaton and quintessence is induced by nonrenormalizable operators suppressed by the Planck mass. We show that the resulting quintessence potential during inflation possesses a time-dependent minimum playing the role of an attractor. The presence of this attractor forces the quintessence field to be small during inflation. These initial conditions are such that the quintessence field is on track now.
119477497
THE ROBUSTNESS OF INFLATION TO CHANGES IN SUPER-PLANCK-SCALE PHYSICS
We calculate the spectrum of density fluctuations in models of inflation based on a weakly self-coupled scalar matter field minimally coupled to gravity, and specifically investigate the dependence of the predictions on modifications of the physics on length scales smaller than the Planck length. These modifications are encoded in terms of modified dispersion relations. Whereas for some classes of dispersion relations the predictions are unchanged compared to the usual ones which are based on a linear dispersion relation, for other classes important differences are obtained, involving tilted spectra, spectra with exponential factors and with oscillations. This is the case when the dispersion relation becomes complex. We conclude that the predictions of inflationary cosmology in these models are not robust against changes in the super-Planck-scale physics.