In collaboration between the University of Michigan and Los Alamos National Laboratory, a 3D position-sensing CdZnTe (CZT) detector prototype was built and integrated into a high-altitude balloon platform to evaluate its performance in a space-like mixed-radiation environment. The detector prototype, Orion Eagle, was designed to operate in near-vacuum environments without any temperature regulation. Orion Eagle was hand-launched from NASA's Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility (CSBF) at Fort Sumner, NM on September 26, 2021, and successfully operated throughout a 9-hour flight, which reached 38.5 km in altitude. The flight met its objectives, successfully detecting atmospheric gamma rays and galactic cosmic rays, and raising the Technical Readiness Level from 4 to 6 for large-volume 3D CZT detector technology for space applications. Ionization tracks produced by charged particles create spatial signatures in the detector that are distinguishable from discrete gamma-ray interactions. Therefore, the 3D position-sensing capabilities using pixelated electrodes on a CZT detector can help enable discrimination of background charged particles from gamma-ray events without an anticoincidence shield. The potential for background rejection capability, ambient-temperature operation, gamma-ray coded-aperture and Compton imaging, and near High Purity Germanium (HPGe) energy resolution motivate the use of large-volume 3D CZT imaging spectrometers in future space missions.

The Experiment for Space Radiation Analysis (ESRA) is the next in the series of Demonstration and Validation (DemVal) projects the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) program will fly. The ESRA program will mature technologies such as the novel Wide-field-of-view Plasma Spectrometer (WPS) and the Energetic Charged Particle (ECP) telescope, along with high voltage power supply, a 3U Eurocard single board computers, flight software architecture, and analog-to-digital electronics. The WPS and ECP sensors are intended to actively monitor the local space environment, thus allowing for the attribution and rapid anomaly resolution of unanticipated instrument or spacecraft behavior as a result of space weather effects.

The All-sky Medium Energy Gamma-ray Observatory (AMEGO) is a probe class mission concept that will provide essential contributions to multimessenger astrophysics in the late 2020s and beyond. AMEGO combines high sensitivity in the 200 keV to 10 GeV energy range with a wide field of view, good spectral resolution, and polarization sensitivity. Therefore, AMEGO is key in the study of multimessenger astrophysical objects that have unique signatures in the gamma-ray regime, such as neutron star mergers, supernovae, and flaring active galactic nuclei. The order-of-magnitude improvement compared to previous MeV missions also enables discoveries of a wide range of phenomena whose energy output peaks in the relatively unexplored medium-energy gamma-ray band.

The Ionosphere-Thermosphere environment undergoes constant and sometimes dramatic changes due to solar and geomagnetic activity. Furthermore, given that this environment has a significant effect on space infrastructure, such as satellites, it is important to understand the potential changes caused by space weather events. This work presents the implementation of the ensemble Kalman filter assimilation technique to improve the nowcast and forecast of the thermosphere environment. Specifically, the assimilation tries to adjust F10.7, a solar radio flux parameter at 10.7 cm wavelength that acts as a proxy for solar activity. The results show that during high solar activity, the measured F10.7 index is able to account for the variability in the ionosphere-thermosphere, hence the correction provided by the assimilation is small. On the other hand, during low solar activity, F10.7 is unable to account for variability in the ionosphere-thermosphere, and the correction provided by the assimilation drastically improves the nowcast/forecast.

: The United States relies heavily on its space infrastructure for a vast number of applications, including communication, navigation, banking, national security, and research. However, NASA predicts that between now and 2030 orbital collisions will become increasingly frequent and could reach a runaway environment. This devastating scenario, also known as the Kessler Syndrome, has the potential to eventually destroy our assets in near-Earth space and result in a debris cloud that could make space itself inaccessible. Preventing the Kessler Syndrome requires, in addition to an object removal technique, a groundbreaking new orbital dynamics framework that combines a comprehensive physics-based model of atmospheric drag with an accurate uncertainty quantification of orbital predictions. The IMPACT project (Integrated Modeling of Perturbations in Atmospheres for Conjunction Tracking), funded with over $5 Million by the Los Alamos Laboratory Directed Research and Development office has the goal to develop such an integrated system of atmospheric drag modeling, orbit propagation, and conjunction analysis with detailed uncertainty quantification to address the space debris and collision avoidance problem. We discuss the components and capabilities of the IMPACT framework and show a short demonstration of modeling interface and resulting 3D visualizations.

loading can be accurately captured; the three stages of compression can be imaged: bending, buckling, and breaking; implementation of linear modeling is completed; meshes have been imported into LANL modeling codes--testing and validation is underway and direct comparison and validation between in situ data and modeled mechanical response is possible.

Cs2LiYCl6 : Ce3+ (CLYC) is a promising new inorganic scintillator for gamma-ray spectroscopy and thermal neutron detection with the capability for pulse-shape discrimination (PSD). We verify the scintillation mechanisms responsible for optical emission under gamma-and neutron-induced excitation by fitting decay functions to the waveform structures. Under gamma-excitation, we observe the ultrafast, fast, intermediate, and slow scintillation mechanisms reported in the literature. Thermal neutron waveforms, however, show no evidence of ultrafast decay. We then investigate the thermal dependence of the waveforms in a range from -20 to +50 degrees C. Despite some thermally-variant emission components, we conclude that PSD is feasible at the range of temperatures investigated.

Gigahertz (GHz) imaging technology will be needed at high-luminosity X-ray and charged particle sources. It is plausible to combine fast scintillators with the latest picosecond detectors and GHz electronics for multi-frame hard Xray imaging and achieve an inter-frame time of less than 10 ns. The time responses and light yield of LYSO, LaBr3, BaF2 and ZnO are measured using an MCP-PMT detector. Zinc Oxide (ZnO) is an attractive material for fast hard X-ray imaging based on GEANT4 simulations and previous studies, but the measured light yield from the samples is much lower than expected.

Cs2LiYCl6:Ce3+ (CLYC) is a promising new inorganic scintillator for gamma-ray spectroscopy and thermal neutron detection with the capability for pulse-shape discrimination (PSD). We verify the scintillation mechanisms responsible for optical emission under gamma- and neutron-induced excitation by fitting decay functions to the waveform structures. Under gamma-excitation, we observe the ultrafast, ...

Cs2LiYCI6:Ce3+ (CLYC) is a new inorganic scintillator that has recently garnered attention for its ability to detect and discriminate between gammas and thermal neutrons. While scintilla tors are typically coupled to traditional photomultiplier tubes for data acquisition, this setup may not be feasible in all applications. Solid state photomultipliers offer potential advantages including smaller size, added robustness, no high voltage requirement, and imperviousness to magnetic fields. We investigate the waveform structure of CLYC emission when coupled to a SensL silicon photomultiplier and a Hamamatsu multi-pixel photon counter. We report on the ability to provide pulse-shape discrimination for gamma and thermal neutron separation.

The structure of the proton has been studied in great detail through inelastic scattering for several decades. However, much less is known about the structure of the neutron, due to the unavailability of free neutron targets and the substantial theoretical uncertainties associated with extracting information from nucleons bound in nuclei. In order to overcome this problem, we propose a measurement of the inclusive electron scattering cross section on an almost free neutron using the CEBAF Large Acceptance Spectrometer (CLAS) and a novel technique to largely eliminate nuclear binding effects. We will use a low-momentum recoil detector to tag slow backward-moving spectator protons in coincidence with the scattered electron in the reaction D(e, e′ps)X. This way we can ensure that the electron scattering reaction took place on an almost free neutron, and we can infer its initial four-momentum from the observed spectator proton. We propose to use this technique to extract the structure function F n 2 over a significant range in Q2 (from about 1 to 5 GeV2) and W (from the elastic peak to W = 3 GeV). We will use two beam energies (4 and 6 GeV) with in-bending CLAS torus field configurations. The kinematic coverage, which includes the elastic and resonance regions as well as part of the deep inelastic region (from x = 0.2 to 0.6), allows us to extract neutron elastic form factors, resonance excitation strengths, and the ratio F n 2 /F p 2 at high x. These data will also allow us to test quark-hadron duality for the neutron for the first time. This experiment requires the development and construction of a novel recoil detector with low momentum threshold (≤ 70 MeV/c) for protons and high rate capability. We will use the solenoid under development for the approved DVCS experiment to sweep out Møller background. CLAS will be used in its standard configuration with luminosities up to 0.5 · 1034 cm−2s−1, but with the large angle drift chambers turned off. We request a total of 40 days of new beamtime in Hall B (20 days at 6 GeV, 10 days at 4 GeV, 5 days of background test and calibration runs, and 5 days of engineering for the new recoil detector).

We present a novel concept of the SNM imaging system based on cosmic-ray muon tracking in coincidence with neutron/gamma detection. The cosmic-ray flux at sea level is about 1 muon/sq. cm/minute. It is composed of nearly equal numbers of μ+ and μ-. In previous work, we have demonstrated that these muons can be used to image nuclear threats in relatively short times by measuring their multiple scattering through objects. Here we propose to image nuclear objects by combining tracking of the muons into a scene with measurements of the secondary particles produced when the muons stop in dense potentially fissile materials. We use multiple drift tube planes to trace incoming cosmic rays. Plastic scintillator serves as a detector of outgoing neutrons and gamma-rays. Additionally, the same plastic scintillator is used to estimate the energy of incoming cosmic-rays. We use a coincidence of n/gamma detection with the initial cosmic-ray trigger to suppress the background. The fissions produced by the stopped μ-generate fission chains that die away after several (~5) fissions. Each fission produces ~10 energetic gamma rays and ~2.5 neutrons. Although a self-shielding needs to be considered, it is likely that tens of neutrons and gamma rays will escape from the object of typical configuration. The efficiency of detecting at least one of the products within ~100 ns could be close to 100% for a detector of reasonably large solid angle (~2 ster). Ten minutes of data should produce 50 trajectories from μ-stopped in 20 kg of U. These numbers can be scaled for other size objects. Our approach has no active source, and therefore it is safe for humans and has no effect on the object under inspection. The detectors are scalable and portable. The drift tubes of the detectors are sealed and do not need the gas replenishment. Detection and localization of SNM is achieved with automatic reconstruction algorithm, which can be run at a standard computer.

Measurements of states excited by nuclear resonance fluorescence in Np-237 were performed using a bremsstrahlung beam. Fifteen new states were observed in the region of 1.7 to 2.5 MeV. They can be used to detect or assay Np-237 nondestructively for applications in security and safeguards. The states are populated with similar strength as those states found previously in U-235 and Pu-239 but are spread out more in energy.