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Kwan, J. T.

Paper Title Page
RPAP022 A Study of Storage Ring Requirements for an Explosive Detection System Using NRA Method 1790
 
  • T.-S. F. Wang, J. T. Kwan
    LANL, Los Alamos, New Mexico
  
  Funding: US Department of Energy

The technical feasibility of an explosives detection system based on the nuclear resonance absorption (NRA) of gamma rays in nitrogen-rich materials was demonstrated at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) in 1993 by using an RFQ proton accelerator and a tomographic imaging prototype.* The study is being continued recently to examine deployment of such an active interrogation system in realistic scenarios. The approach is to use a cyclotron and electron-cooling-equipped storage rings(s) to provide the high quality and high current proton beam needed in a practical application. In this work, we investigate the storage ring requirements for a variant of the airport luggage inspection system considered in the earlier LANL experiments. Estimations are carried out based on the required inspection throughput, the gamma ray yield, the proton beam emittance growth due to scattering with the photon-production target, beam current limit in the storage ring, and the electron cooling rate. Studies using scaling and reasonable parameter values indicate that it is possible to use no more than a few storage rings in a practical NRA luggage inspection system.

*R. E. Morgado et al., SPIE Conf. Proc. 2092, International Society for Optical Engineering, Bellingham, WA, 1993, p. 503.

 
FPAT025 Electron Dynamics of the Rod-Pinch Diode in the Cygnus Experiment at Los Alamos 1901
 
  • L. Yin, K. J. Bowers, R.C. Carlson, BG.D. DeVolder, J. T. Kwan, JR.S. Smith, CM.S. Snell
    LANL, Los Alamos, New Mexico
  • MJ.B. Berninger
    Bechtel Nevada, Los Alamos, New Mexico
  
  In this work, two-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations are used to examine the electron physics in the rod-pinch diode, a device that can be used to produce a relatively low-energy (a few MeV) radiographic electron source. It is found that with diode parameters for which the electrons' dominant dynamics are approximated well as a magnetized fluid, the diode produces an electron source with a desired small spot size as the electrons drift to and impinge on the anode tip. However, for a large cathode-to-anode radius ratio, a population of electrons that consists predominantly of electrons emitted from the downstream surface of the cathode is found to propagate in the upstream direction and the diode may perform anomalously as a consequence. A method is proposed for improving the quality of the electron source by suppressing electron emission from the downstream cathode surface to reduce the presence of unmagnetized electrons.