Plastic scintillator-based dosimeters for ultra-high dose rate (UHDR) electron radiotherapy.

This paper reports the development of dosimeters based on plastic scintillating fibers imaged by a charge-coupled device camera, and their performance evaluation through irradiations with the electron Flash research accelerator located at the Centro Pisano Flash Radiotherapy. The dosimeter prototypes were composed of a piece of plastic scintillating fiber optically coupled to a clear optical fiber which transported the scintillation signal to the readout systems (an imaging system and a photodiode). The following properties were tested: linearity, capability to reconstruct the percentage depth dose curve in solid water and to sample in time the single beam pulse. The stem effect contribution was evaluated with three methods, and a proof-of-concept one-dimensional array was developed and tested for online beam profiling. Results show linearity up to 10 Gy per pulse, and good capability to reconstruct both the timing and spatial profiles of the beam, thus suggesting that plastic scintillating fibers may be good candidates for low-energy electron Flash dosimetry.

Pressure anisotropy and small spatial scales induced by velocity shear.

By including the full pressure tensor dynamics in a fluid plasma model, we show that a sheared velocity field can provide an effective mechanism that makes the initial isotropic pressure nongyrotropic. This is distinct from the usual gyrotropic anisotropy related to the fluid compressibility and usually accounted for in double-adiabatic models. We determine the time evolution of the pressure agyrotropy and discuss how the propagation of "magnetoelastic perturbations" can affect the pressure tensor anisotropization and its spatial filamentation, which are due to the action of both the magnetic field and the flow strain tensor. We support this analysis with a numerical integration of the nonlinear equations describing the pressure tensor evolution.

Hamiltonian stochastic processes induced by successive wave-particle interactions in stimulated Raman scattering.

The long-time dynamics of particles interacting resonantly with large-amplitude coherent plasma wave is investigated in the kinetic regime of stimulated Raman scattering in which particle trapping plays a major role (and which corresponds to a high value of the parameter k_{EPW}lambda_{D}, where k_{EPW} is the plasma wave vector and lambda_{D} is the electron Debye length). Using Vlasov simulations, the dynamics of such particles become stochastic when repeated wave-particle interactions take place. For small values of the ratio tau_{auto}/tau_{b} of the autocorrelation time to the bounce time of particle (condition usually met in backward propagation of the scattered wave) the turbulent regime results in the merging of phase-space trapping vortices according to a weak turbulencelike scenario. For high values of tau_{auto}/tau_{b} (or narrow spectrum of longitudinal electric field as met when only one plasma wave is present), the stochasticity is now induced by particle trapping, detrapping, and retrapping in the adiabatically fluctuating field. The stochastic transitions performed by resonant particles above (or below) the separatrix limit in phase space determine now the long-time plasma evolution.

Three-dimensional magnetic structures generated by the development of the filamentation (Weibel) instability in the relativistic regime.

We present three-dimensional, fully relativistic, fluid simulations of the dynamics of inhomogeneous counter streaming beams with the aim of understanding the magnetic structures that can be expected to form as a consequence of the development of the so-called Weibel instability. Ringlike structures in the transverse direction are generated as a consequence of the development of a spatially resonant mode. We describe the structures generated by beams of equal initial density and velocity and by a fast, less dense beam compensated by a slower, denser beam. We consider these two cases as schematic models of a laser produced beam propagating in a plasma with nearly equal density and in a plasma much denser than the injected beam.

Secondary instabilities and vortex formation in collisionless-fluid magnetic reconnection.

It is shown that the pattern of current layers formed within a magnetic island in the nonlinear phase of magnetic field line reconnection in a collisionless two-dimensional fluid plasma is subject to the onset of a secondary instability, the effect of which increases with decreasing electron temperature. In the cold electron limit the saturation of the island growth is accompanied by a turbulent redistribution of the current layers and by the development of long lived fluid vortices while, in the opposite limit, the current layer structure remains regular.