Conveners
Applications
- Simon Jerome (Norges miljø- og biovitenskapelige universitet)
Efficient soil exploitation in agriculture has always been a crucial issue. Nowadays, valid results in precision agriculture cannot be pursued without a multi-source analysis of soil properties, which must be carried forward by different and complementary techniques. Indeed, spectroscopy (VNIR-SWIR, gamma), remote-sensing, proximal electromagnetic and geo-chemical analysis are all essential...
The study of the origin of the Solar System can gain significant information from the characterisation of meteorites. However, these samples are quite rare and it is therefore of paramount importance to settle a completely non-destructive analysis procedure to preserve these materials. The idea is to perform a set of bulk and surface analysis in order to identify a rock as a meteorite and to...
Acknowledged to be a relevant hazardous agent and the most important contribution to ionizing radiation exposure, in most cases, radon (Rn – mostly referring to 222Rn, but in some context also to 220Rn) has therefore been subject to regulation and to intense scientific interest for many years. Temporal dynamic as well as spatial variability of environmental Rn are controlled by a number of...
ABSTRACT
An inescapable feature of life on Earth is exposure to ionizing radiation both from space and terrestrial sources. Deep Underground Laboratories (DUL) are research infrastructures built under a layer of rock able to greatly reduce the cosmic ray flux and provide the ideal environment for extremely low dose/dose rate investigations in many different disciplines such as physics and...
Environmental radioactivity was recently discovered as a potential limit for superconducting quantum bits. Cosmic rays, but also radioactive isotopes naturally present in the laboratory, can suppress the coherence time of individual qubits and induce correlated errors in quantum processors.
In this contribution, we present the effect of “far” radioactive sources (cosmic rays, neutrons, and...
This low-level radionuclide metrology research work was carried out within the Joint Danube Survey 4 (JDS4), coordinated in 2018-2020 by the International Commission for the Protection of the Danube River (ICPDR). The ICPDR (http://www.icpdr.org) is a transnational body, which has been established to implement the Danube River Protection Convention. The Joint Danube Survey is carried out every...
The RENOIR radiobiology experiment focuses on the study of the underlying biophysical mechanisms that trigger the different biological response observed in external laboratory with respect to the underground LNGS laboratory, where the cosmic ray flux is reduced by a factor of 10^6 and the neutrons flux by a factor of 10^3. A detailed characterization of the radiation spectrum is crucial for...
About two tons of ultra pure copper has been produced as a material for construction of an internal shield of a low-background gamma spectrometer. In the process several companies were involved. Aurubis A.G. (Germany) has prepared a dedicated casting mould, selected the best possible raw material (Cu cathodes) with respect to chemical composition and cast the 2-ton block. In order to minimize...
There are two major underground experiments in Korea, AMoRE and COSINE, searching for neutrinoless double beta decay and WIMP (Weakly Interacting Massive Particle) type dark matter respectively. The Advanced Molybdenum based Rare process Experiment (AMoRE) is searching for the neutrinoless double beta (0νββ) decay of $^{100}$Mo isotopes in molybdate crystals using high-resolution cryogenic...
Meteoroids are activated by cosmic rays during their travel through space. Formation of specific radionuclides in meteoroids enables nuclear dating of recovered meteorites. It is of interest to determine their (i) formation age, (ii) cosmic age (time since breakup) and (iii) terrestrial age. Furthermore, radionuclides can help to determine the original size of a meteoroid by investigating the...
Large efforts are being made to directly detect interactions of dark matter with ordinary matter, including the Cryogenic Rare Event Search with Superconducting Thermometers (CRESST) experiment located at the Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso (LNGS) in Italy. During the second phase of the experiment, CRESST-II, scintillating CaWO4 target crystals were used to detect nuclear recoils....
