Publications by authors named "Pierfrancesco Ulpiani"
Article Synopsis
- Boron-containing compounds like 4-borono-phenylalanine (BPA) are used in Boron Neutron Capture Therapy (BNCT) to target and destroy cancer cells via neutron irradiation, which triggers nuclear reactions in boron-rich materials.*
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- This study models the thermal neutron cross-section of BPA to examine how boron absorption competes with hydrogen scattering, aiming to optimize BNCT treatment by reducing the latter's effect.*
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- The findings indicate that fluorinated versions of BPA enhance neutron capture efficiency, offering a potential improvement for BNCT, while also facilitating monitoring and pharmacokinetic studies with fluorine-based imaging techniques.*
J Phys Condens Matter
May 2021
Article Synopsis
- The experimental neutron cross sections for all 20 standard amino acids were measured over a range of energies from 1 meV to 10 keV, using advanced calculation techniques.
- The dominant contribution to scattering comes from hydrogen atoms, and the results simplify the modeling of complex organic systems like proteins and tissues by averaging functional group contributions.
- These findings enhance transport simulations for medical applications, particularly in therapies such as boron neutron capture therapy and proton therapy, while also improving the accuracy of neutron scattering experiments on biological samples.
J Chem Phys
December 2020
Article Synopsis
- The study investigates the hydrogen nuclear momentum distribution in biphenyl using deep inelastic neutron scattering, revealing that the potential affecting hydrogen is mainly harmonic and isotropic in nature.
- The findings support the central limit theorem, indicating that as the number of vibrational modes increases, the momentum distribution approaches a Gaussian function.
- Additionally, the research highlights a disparity between experimental and theoretical predictions of anisotropy in biphenyl due to complex interactions and structural disorder, while also showcasing an improved experimental setup for better data collection.
Rev Sci Instrum
July 2019
Article Synopsis
- The study presents a refined detection method for yttrium-aluminum-perovskite detectors on the VESUVIO spectrometer, resulting in a significant increase in photon count rates—up to three times higher.
- This optimization leads to a notable reduction in both the relative error bars (by about 40%) and noise levels (by around 35%) during deep inelastic neutron scattering measurements.
- The improvements also enhance the accuracy of line shape analysis in neutron Compton profiles and support better detection of anisotropy and anharmonicity in local potentials, potentially benefiting future research at VESUVIO.
