Monte Carlo simulations of the underwater detection of illicit war remnants with neutron-based sensors
M. Silarski, P. Sibczyński, O. Bezshyyko, Ł. Kapłon, V. Kumar, S. Niedźwiecki, M. Nowakowski, P. Moskal, S. Sharma, F. Sobczuk
abstract
In recent years, the demand for accurate detection and identification of hazardous substances in an aquatic environment, especially in the Baltic Sea, has seen a significant rise, with a specific focus on unexploded ordnance (UXO) containing conventional explosives and various chemical agents, including, but not limited to, mustard gas, Clark I and II and other lethal compounds. These substances pose a significant threat to human health and the environment, and their identification is crucial for effective demining and environmental protection efforts. In this article, a novel approach for fast, remote, and non-destructive recognition of dangerous substances based on a SABAT sensor installed on an ROV is described. The performance of the proposed neutron-based sensor in an aquatic environment was verified based on a series of Monte Carlo simulations for mustard gas, Clark I and II, and TNT, as they are the most common chemical threats at the bottom of the Baltic Sea. The sensor?s ability to accurately discriminate hazardous and non-hazardous materials is described in the paper in terms of the ratio of chlorine to hydrogen (Cl/H), carbon to oxygen (C/O), and nitrogen to hydrogen (N/H) activation lines integrals. The authors also discussed the future directions of work to validate SABAT (Stoichiometry Analysis By Activation Techniques) sensors in the operational environment.
Performance of the SABAT Neutron-Based Explosives Detector Integrated with an Unmanned Ground Vehicle: A Simulation Study
M. Silarski, M. Nowakowski
abstract
The effective and safe detection of illicit materials, explosives, in particular, is currently of growing importance taking into account the geopolitical situation and increasing risk of a terrorist attack. The commonly used methods of detection are based predominantly on metal detectors and georadars, which show only the shapes of the possible dangerous objects and do not allow for exact identification and risk assessment. A supplementary or even alternative method may be based on neutron activation analysis, which provides the possibility of a stoichiometric analysis of the suspected object and its non-invasive identification. One such sensor is developed by the SABAT collaboration, with its primary application being underwater threat detection. In this article, we present performance studies of this sensor, integrated with a mobile robot, in terms of the minimal detectable quantity of commonly used explosives in different environmental conditions. The paper describes the functionality of the used platform considering electronics, sensors, onboard computing power, and communication system to carry out the manual operation and remote control. Robotics solutions based on modularized structures allow the extension of sensors and effectors that can significantly improve the safety of personnel as well as work efficiency, productivity, and flexibility.
Light neutral CP-even Higgs boson within the next-to-minimal supersymmetric standard model at the Large Hadron Electron Collider
Siba Prasad Das and Marek Nowakowski
abstract
We analyze the prospects of observing the light charge parity (CP)-even neutral Higgs bosons (h1) in their decays into bb? quarks, in the neutral and charged current production processes eh1q and ?h1q at the upcoming Large Hadron Electron Collider (LHeC), with sqrt(s) = 1.296 TeV. Assuming that the intermediate Higgs boson (h2) is Standard Model (SM)-like, we study the Higgs production within the framework of next-to-minimal supersymmetric Standard Model (NMSSM). We consider the constraints from darkmatter, sparticle masses, and the Higgs boson data. The signal in our analysis can be classified as three jets, with electron (missing energy) coming from the neutral (charged) current interaction. We demand that the number of b-tagged jets in the central rapidity region be greater or equal to two. The remaining jet is tagged in the forward regions. With this forward jet and two b-tagged jets in the central region, we reconstructed three jets invariant masses. Applying some lower limits on these invariant masses turns out to be an
essential criterion to enhance the signal?to?background rates, with slightly different sets of kinematical selections in the two different channels. We consider almost all reducible and irreducible SM background processes. We find that the non-SM like Higgs boson, h1, would be accessible in some of the NMSSM benchmark points, at approximately the 0.4? (2.5?) level in the Et 3j channel up to Higgs boson masses of 75 GeV, and in the ET + 3j channel could be discovered with the 1.7? (2.4?) level up to Higgs boson
masses of 88 GeV with 100 fb^?1 of data in a simple cut-based (with optimization) selection. With ten times more data accumulation at the end of the LHeC run, and using optimization, one can have 5? discovery in the electron (missing energy) channel up to 85 (more than 90) GeV.
