Laser-initiated primary and secondary nuclear reactions in Boron-Nitride.

Nuclear reactions initiated by laser-accelerated particle beams are a promising new approach to many applications, from medical radioisotopes to aneutronic energy production. We present results demonstrating the occurrence of secondary nuclear reactions, initiated by the primary nuclear reaction products, using multicomponent targets composed of either natural boron (B) or natural boron nitride (BN). The primary proton-boron reaction (p + (11)B → 3 α + 8.

CR-39 track detector calibration for H, He, and C ions from 0.1-0.5 MeV up to 5 MeV for laser-induced nuclear fusion product identification.

Laser-accelerated ion beams can be used in many applications and, especially, to initiate nuclear reactions out of thermal equilibrium. We have experimentally studied aneutronic fusion reactions induced by protons accelerated by the Target Normal Sheath Acceleration mechanism, colliding with a boron target. Such experiments require a rigorous method to identify the reaction products (alpha particles) collected in detectors among a few other ion species such as protons or carbon ions, for example.

Fusion reactions initiated by laser-accelerated particle beams in a laser-produced plasma.

The advent of high-intensity-pulsed laser technology enables the generation of extreme states of matter under conditions that are far from thermal equilibrium. This in turn could enable different approaches to generating energy from nuclear fusion. Relaxing the equilibrium requirement could widen the range of isotopes used in fusion fuels permitting cleaner and less hazardous reactions that do not produce high-energy neutrons.

Compact ultradense matter impactors.

We study interactions of meteorlike compact ultradense objects (CUDO), having nuclear or greater density, with Earth and other rocky bodies in the Solar System as a possible source of information about novel forms of matter. We study the energy loss in CUDO puncture of the body and discuss differences between regular matter and CUDO impacts.

Threshold disorder as a source of diverse and complex behavior in random nets.

We study the diversity of complex spatio-temporal patterns in the behavior of random synchronous asymmetric neural networks (RSANNs). Special attention is given to the impact of disordered threshold values on limit-cycle diversity and limit-cycle complexity in RSANNs which have 'normal' thresholds by default. Surprisingly, RSANNs exhibit only a small repertoire of rather complex limit-cycle patterns when all parameters are fixed.

Sudden hadronization in relativistic nuclear collisions.

We formulate and study a mechanical instability criterion for sudden hadronization of dense matter fireballs formed in 158A GeV Pb-Pb collisions. Considering properties of quark-gluon matter and hadron gas we obtain the phase boundary between these two phases and demonstrate that the required deep quark-gluon-plasma supercooling prior to sudden hadronization has occurred.

Equilibrium distribution of heavy quarks in fokker-planck dynamics.

We obtain an explicit generalization, within Fokker-Planck dynamics, of Einstein's relation between drag, diffusion, and the equilibrium distribution for a spatially homogeneous system, considering both the transverse and longitudinal diffusion for dimension n>1. We provide a complete characterization of the equilibrium distribution in terms of the drag and diffusion transport coefficients. We apply this analysis to charm quark dynamics in a thermal quark-gluon plasma for the case of collisional equilibration.