Anthony Leveling

Experimental studies of shielding and irradiation effects at high-energy accelerator facilities

Abstract Experimental studies of shielding and radiation effects are carried out at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (FNAL) under collaboration between FNAL and Japan, aiming at benchmarking simulation codes and studying irradiation effects for the upgrade and design of new high-energy accelerator facilities. The purposes of this collaboration are (a) acquisition of shielding data in a proton beam energy region above 100 GeV, (b) further evaluation of predictive accuracy of the PHITS and MARS codes, (c) modification of physics models and data in these codes if needed, (d) characterization of radiation fields for studies of radiation effects, and (e) development of a code module for an improved description of radiation effects. The first campaign of the experiment was carried out at the Pbar target station and NuMI experimental station at FNAL, which use irradiation of targets with 120-GeV protons for antiproton and neutrino production, respectively. The generated secondary particles passing through steel, concrete, and rock were measured by activation methods as well as by other detectors such as a scintillator with a veto counter, phoswich detector, and a Bonner ball counter on trial. Preliminary experimental and calculated results are presented.

Fitting Method for Spectrum Deduction in High-Energy Neutron Field Induced by GeV-Protons Using Experimental Reaction-Rate Data

The Japanese and American Study of Muon Interaction and Neutron detection (JASMIN) collaboration, has been conducting shielding experiments using the Fermilab anti-proton target station (Pbar) shielding assembly. A multi-foil technique was used to measure the high energy neutron spectra, in the range of 1 to 100 MeV, for the target station shielding configuration. The neutron spectra were de-convoluted using a new fitting method. This method is based on the assumption that a neutron spectrum can be expressed as a simple sum of two exponentials. The validity of the fitting method was confirmed by comparison with the results obtained using SAND-II computer code and theoretical calculations. Finally, it was found that there are simple correlations between reaction rates and the adjustable parameters in the fitting function.

The MARS15-based FermiCORD code system for calculation of the accelerator-induced residual dose

Abstract The FermiCORD code system, a set of codes based on MARS15 that calculates the accelerator-induced residual doses at experimental facilities of arbitrary configurations, has been developed. FermiCORD is written in C++ as an add-on to Fortran-based MARS15. The FermiCORD algorithm consists of two stages: 1) simulation of residual doses on contact with the surfaces surrounding the studied location and of radionuclide inventories in the structures surrounding those locations using MARS15, and 2) simulation of the emission of the nuclear decay γ -quanta by the residuals in the activated structures and scoring the prompt doses of these γ -quanta at arbitrary distances from those structures. The FermiCORD code system has been benchmarked against similar algorithms based on other code systems and against experimental data from the CERF facility at CERN, and FermiCORD showed reasonable agreement with these. The code system has been applied for calculation of the residual dose of the target station for the Mu2e experiment and the results have been compared to approximate dosimetric approaches.