A neural network approach based on more input neurons to predict nuclear mass

The study of nuclear mass is very important, and the neural network(NN) approach can be used to improve the prediction of nuclear mass for various models. Considering the number of valence nucleons of protons and neutrons separately in the input quantity of the NN model, the root-mean-square deviation of binding energy between data from AME2016 and liquid drop model calculations for 2314 nuclei was reduced from 2.385 MeV to 0.203 MeV. In addition, some defects in the Weizs\"{a}cker-Skyrme(WS)-type model were repaired, which well reproduced the two neutron separation energy of the nucleus synthesized recently by RIKEN RI Beam Factory [Phys. Rev. Lett 125 (2020) 122501]. The masses of some of the new nucleus appearing in the latest atomic mass evaluation(AME2020) are also well reproduced. However, the results of neural network methods for predicting the description of regions far from known atomic nuclei need to be further improved The study shows that such a statistical model can be a possible tool for searching in systematic of nuclei beyond existing experimental data.

Ion beam mutagenesis - an innovative and effective method for plant breeding and gene discovery.

We have developed a unique technology for mutation induction of plants using energetic ion beams at the RI Beam Factory (RIBF) of Rikagaku Kenkyūjo (RIKEN) (Institute of Physical and Chemical Research). Ion beams effectively induce mutations at relatively low doses without severely inhibiting growth. The irradiation treatment can be given to various plant materials and mutation can be induced in a short time, between seconds and a few minutes. The linear energy transfer (LET) of ions depends on the nuclide and velocity. Since LET value affects the mutation frequency, it is an important parameter to determine the most effective irradiation condition in mutagenesis. We determined the most effective dose in each LET for mutation induction in imbibed rice seeds. Subsequently, we analysed the mutated DNA responsible for the phenotype in morphological mutants. Most of the mutations were small deletions of less than 100 bp. Irradiations of C-ions and Ne-ions are effective for plant breeding because of the very high mutation rate and sufficient energy to disrupt a single gene. On the other hand, all mutations induced by Ar-ion (290 keV/μm) irradiation were large deletions ranging from 176 bp to approximately 620 kb. The average number of mutations in the target exon regions was 7.3, 8.5 and 4.3 per M3 mutant plant in C-ions, Ne-ions and Ar-ions, respectively. The number of mutations induced by heavy-ion irradiation was relatively small. We could identify six responsible genes for eight mutants induced by C-ion and Ne-ion irradiations and two responsible genes for four mutants induced by Ar-ion irradiation. Three of these were genes not previously described.

Development of a high-density highly oriented graphite stripper

High-density highly oriented graphite sheets provided by Kaneka Corporation have been applied as stripper disks for heavy-ion acceleration at RIKEN RI Beam Factory since 2014. The graphite sheets withstand increasing amounts of beam intensity. We observed the graphite sheets after beam irradiation with an electron microscope and their lifetime was discussed.

Isotope-production cross sections of residual nuclei in proton- and deuteron-induced reactions on 93Zr at 50 MeV/u

The isotope-production cross sections in p- and d-induced reactions on 93Zr at approximately 50 MeV/nucleon were measured by using the inverse-kinematics method at RIKEN RI Beam Factory. The measured data were compared with the previous experimental 93Zr + p, d at 105 and 209 MeV/nucleon data. This comparison represents that the isotopic distribution of production cross sections at 51 MeV p-induced reaction is appreciably different from those at 105 and 209 MeV. On the other hand, these three data sets show that the shape of isotopic distribution is similar in the case of the d-induced reaction. Also, the measured production cross sections were compared with the theoretical model calculations with Particle and Heavy Ion Transport code System (PHITS) version 3.10 in order to investigate the reproducibility of the models implemented in PHITS. The calculations well reproduced the experimental data even in such low incident energy, while several discrepancies were still seen as in the p- and d-induced reactions at 105 and 209 MeV/nucleon.