[en] The Beam-Test Facility (BTF) of the DAΦNE accelerator complex, in the Frascati National Laboratory of the INFN is in operation since 2004 for the high-energy particle and accelerator community. The performance of the BTF is discussed and the plans for the future upgrade of the facility are introduced

[en] The integration of web technologies and web services has been, in the recent years, one of the major trends in upgrading and developing control systems for accelerators and large experimental apparatuses. Usually, web technologies have been introduced to complement the control systems with smart add-on and user friendly services or, for instance, to safely allow access to the control system to users from remote sites. Despite this still narrow spectrum of employment, some software technologies developed for high performance web services, although originally intended and optimized for these particular applications, deserve some features that would allow their deeper integration in a control system and, eventually, using them to develop some of the control system's core components. In this paper we present the conclusion of the preliminary investigations of a new design for an accelerator control system and associated machine data acquisition system (DAQ), based on a synergic combination of network distributed object caching (DOC) and a non-relational key/value database (KVDB). We investigated these technologies with particular interest on performances, namely speed of data storage and retrieve for the distributed caching, data throughput and queries execution time for the database and, especially, how much this performances can benefit from their inherent adaptability. (authors)

[en] The AGILE Mission will explore the gamma-ray Universe with a very innovative instrument combining for the first time a gamma-ray imager and a hard X-ray imager. AGILE will be operational at the beginning of 2007 and it will provide crucial data for the study of Active Galactic Nuclei, Gamma-Ray Bursts, unidentified gamma-ray sources, Galactic compact objects, supernova remnants, TeV sources, and fundamental physics by microsecond timing. The AGILE instrument is designed to simultaneously detect and image photons in the 30 MeV - 50 GeV and 15 - 45 keV energy bands with excellent imaging and timing capabilities, and a large field of view covering ∼ 1/5 of the entire sky at energies above 30 MeV. A CsI calorimeter is capable of GRB triggering in the energy band 0.3-50 MeV. The broadband detection of GRBs and the study of implications for particle acceleration and high energy emission are primary goals of the mission. AGILE can image GRBs with 2-3 arcminute error boxes in the hard X-ray range, and provide broadband photon-by photon detection in the 15-45 keV, 03-50 MeV, and 30 MeV-30 GeV energy ranges. Microsecond on-board photon tagging and a ∼ 100 microsecond gamma-ray detection deadtime will be crucial for fast GRB timing. On-board calculated GRB coordinates and energy fluxes will be quickly transmitted to the ground by an ORBCOMM transceiver. AGILE is now (January 2007) undergoing final satellite integration and testing. The PLS V launch is planned in spring 2007. AGILE is then foreseen to be fully operational during the summer of 2007

[en] The DAFNE Beam Test Facility (BTF) provides electron and positron beams in a wide range of intensity, from single particle up to 10¹⁰ particles per pulse, and energy, from a few tens of MeV up to 800 MeV. The pulse time width can be 1 or 10 ns long, and the maximum repetition rate is 50 Hz. The large range of operation of the facility requires the implementation of different beam profile and multiplicity monitors. In the single particle operation mode, and up to a few 10³ particles/pulse, the beam spot profile and position are measured by a x-y scintillating fiber system with millimeter scale resolution and multi-anode photomultiplier tube readout. From a few tens up to 10^6-7 particles per pulse, a silicon chamber made of two 9.5 x 9.5 cm² wide 400 μm thick silicon strip detectors organized in a x-y configuration with a pitch of 121 μm has been developed. Once calibrated, the system can be used also as an intensity monitor. The description of the devices and the results obtained during the data taking periods of several experiments at the facility are presented. The system has showed very good performance operating with very high reliability in the energy range from a few tens of MeV up to 800 MeV, in single electron/positron mode as well as in the high intensity beam

[en] AGILE will explore the gamma-ray Universe with a very innovative instrument combining for the first time a gamma-ray imager and a hard X-ray imager. AGILE will be operational in spring 2007 and it will provide crucial data for the study of Active Galactic Nuclei, Gamma-Ray Bursts, unidentified gamma-ray sources. Galactic compact objects, supernova remnants, TeV sources, and fundamental physics by microsecond timing. The AGILE instrument is designed to simultaneously detect and image photons in the 30 MeV - 50 GeV and 15 - 45 keV energy bands with excellent imaging and timing capabilities, and a large field of view covering ∼ 1/5 of the entire sky at energies above 30 MeV. A CsI calorimeter is capable of GRB triggering in the energy band 0.3-50 MeV AGILE is now (March 2007) undergoing launcher integration and testing. The PLSV launch is planned in spring 2007. AGILE is then foreseen to be fully operational during the summer of 2007

[en] AGILE is a Scientific Mission dedicated to high-energy astrophysics supported by ASI with scientific participation of INAF and INFN. The AGILE instrument is designed to simultaneously detect and image photons in the 30 MeV - 50 GeV and 15 - 45 keV energy bands with excellent imaging and timing capabilities, and a large field of view covering ∼ 1/5 of the entire sky at energies above 30 MeV. A CsI calorimeter is capable of GRB triggering in the energy band 0.3-50 MeV. The broadband detection of GRBs and the study of implications for particle acceleration and high energy emission are primary goals of th emission. AGILE can image GRBs with 2-3 arcminutes error boxes in the hard X-ray range, and provide broadband photon-by photon detection in the 15-45 keV, 03-50 MeV, and 30 MeV-30 GeV energy ranges. Microsecond on-board photon tagging and a ∼ 100 microsecond gamma-ray detection deadtime will be crucial for fast GRB timing. On-board calculated GRB coordinates and energy fluxes will be quickly transmitted to the ground by an ORBCOMM transceiver. AGILE have recently (December 2005) completed its gamma-ray calibration. It is now (January 2006) undergoing satellite integration and testing. The PLSV launch is planned in early 2006. AGILE is then foreseen to be fully operational during the summer of 2006. It will be the only mission entirely dedicated to high-energy astrophysics above 30 MeV during the period mid-2006/mid-2007

[en] The PADME experiment [1] aims at searching for the dark photon (A’) in the e ⁺ e ⁻ → A_γ′ process in a positron-on-target experiment, exploiting the positron beam of the DAΦNE Linac at the INFN Frascati National Laboratory (Italy). The Linac can provide a number of positrons in excess of 10¹⁰ in a 200 ns long pulse but, in order to keep the pile-up probability in the calorimeter at an acceptable level, the number of positrons for PADME has to be below 10⁵/pulse, in particular by using the attenuating target in the BTF beam-line. The experiment is then essentially limited by the low duty factor (10⁻⁵ = 200 ns/20 ms). In this paper, an alternative proposal to use the DAΦNE positron ring as a Linac pulse stretcher, by injecting each pulse into the ring and extracting it by a slow resonant extraction using the m/3 resonance, is presented. This would allow for distributing the positrons of a single Linac pulse over a much longer time interval (0.2-0.5 ms), increasing the duty factor up to ∼1%. The required modifications of the DAΦNE positron transfer line and ring are described. A dedicated lattice for the positron ring has been designed and tracking of the positrons injected in the ring has been performed in order to optimize the extraction parameters and to give a preliminary estimate of the extracted beam characteristics. (paper)

[en] A photo-neutron irradiation facility is going to be established at the Frascati National Laboratories of INFN on the base of the successful results of the n-BTF experiment. The photo-neutron source is obtained by an electron or positron pulsed beam, tuneable in energy, current and in time structure, impinging on an optimized tungsten target located in a polyethylene-lead shielding assembly. The resulting neutron field, through selectable collimated apertures at different angles, is released into a 100 m² irradiation room. The neutron beam, characterized by an evaporation spectrum peaked at about 1 MeV, can be used in nuclear physics, material science, calibration of neutron detectors, studies of neutron hardness, ageing and study of single event effect. The intensity of the neutron beam obtainable with 510 MeV electrons and its fluence energy distribution at a point of reference in the irradiation room were predicted by Monte Carlo simulations and experimentally determined with a Bonner Sphere Spectrometer (BSS). Due to the large photon contribution and the pulsed time structure of the beam, passive photon-insensitive thermal neutron detectors were used as sensitive elements of the BSS. For this purpose, a set of Dy activation foils was used. This paper presents the numerical simulations and the measurements, and compares their results in terms of both neutron spectrum and total neutron fluence.

[en] The most critical point of the CUORE Project [CUORE Proposal, see the web page: http://crio.mib.infn.it/wig] is the background level (BKGL) in the neutrinoless double beta decay (0νββ) region that is dominated by degraded particles coming from materials that face the detectors. Surface Sensitive Bolometers (SSBs) have been developed in order to reduce the BKGL by means of an active background discrimination. The principle of this technique and the first results obtained are briefly described in the following paper

[en] The main goal of the next generation neutrinoless double beta decay (0νββ) experiments will be the investigation of the inverse hierarchy region of the neutrino mass pattern. One of the major challenges for these experiments is to greatly reduce the background in order to reach the required sensitivity. In this work we report some results obtained with a new technique that, exploiting the dynamic of the heat flow in the detector, gives us information on the particle impact point providing a new means for an active background discrimination