N. Dhingra

The determination of the gamma-ray attenuation coefficient is a critical parameter in the characterization of the extent and diffusion of gamma radiation within intricate materials, such as soil. Soils exhibit a complex and diverse composition, characterized by the presence of several phases, including minerals, gasses, organic matter, water, and metals. The study demonstrates the utilization of gamma-ray spectrometry to determine the mass attenuation coefficient and soil bulk density. The impact of incident gamma-ray energy, soil texture, and soil depth on the mass attenuation coefficient is also investigated. The experimental measurements were conducted utilizing a gamma spectrometer equipped with a 2″ × 2″ NaI(Tl) detector at gamma energies of 0.356, 0.662, and 1.332 MeV using 133Ba, 137Cs, and 60Co sources, respectively. The soil samples corresponding to two textures and three depths were collected from the research farms of the Department of Soil Science, Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana. The study revealed that the attenuation coefficient depends on the energy of incident radiation and the nature as well as the composition of the soil. The mass attenuation coefficient was observed to decrease rapidly with the increase in gamma radiation energy. Mass attenuation coefficient was found to be higher for sandy loam compared to sandy clay loam textured soil. Moreover, the attenuation coefficient was higher for the lower depths than the upper depth. The comparison between the experimental and predicted values of the mass attenuation coefficient, utilizing the XCOM-NIST framework, demonstrated a satisfactory level of concordance within a 10% margin for gamma energies measuring 0.356 and 0.662 MeV. However, the agreement was slightly less favorable, with discrepancies of less than 12% for sandy clay loam samples and less than 15% for sandy loam textured soil samples, when examining a higher gamma energy of 1.332 MeV. The measured value of mass attenuation coefficient was used to calculate soil bulk density, which agreed reasonably well with the values obtained with the conventional method. Specifically, the sandy clay loam samples displayed a range of 7–14% deviation, while the sandy loam textured soil samples exhibited a range of 14–23% deviation. The investigation can be expanded to ascertain significant soil properties, such as porosity and moisture content.

This document describes the simulation framework used in the Snowmass Energy Frontier studies for future Hadron Colliders. An overview of event generation with Madgraph5 along with parton shower and hadronization with Pythia6 is followed by a detailed description of pile-up and detector simulation with Delphes3. Details of event generation are included in a companion paper cited within this paper. The input parametrization is chosen to reflect the best object performance expected from the future ATLAS and CMS experiments; this is referred to as the "Combined Snowmass Detector". We perform simulations of pp interactions at center-of-mass energies √s = 14, 33, and 100 TeV with 0, 50, and 140 additional pp pile-up interactions. The object performance with multi-TeV pp collisions are studied for the first time using large pile-up interactions.

This document describes the novel techniques used to simulate the common Snowmass 2013 En- ergy Frontier Standard Model backgrounds for future hadron colliders. The purpose of many Energy Frontier studies is to explore the reach of high luminosity data sets at a variety of high energy collid- ers. The generation of high statistics samples which accurately model large integrated luminosities for multiple center-of-mass energies and pile-up environments is not possible using an unweighted event generation strategy | an approach which relies on event weighting was necessary. Even with these improvements in e ciency, extensive computing resources were required. This document de- scribes the speci c approach to event generation using Madgraph5 to produce parton-level processes, followed by parton showering and hadronization with Pythia6, and pile-up and detector simulation with Delphes3. The majority of Standard Model processes for pp interactions at √s = 14, 33, and 100 TeV with 0, 50, and 140 additional pile-up interactions are publicly available.

Biochar (BC) is a soil fertility enhancer, regarded as a potential carbon sequester and nutrient leaching preventer. Various studies have shown better phosphorus (P) availability with adding biochar. However, limited reporting is available on absorption–desorption behaviour of added P and dose optimisation of biochar. Rice straw biochar (RSB) and acacia biochar (ACB), prepared by slow pyrolysis at optimised temperature and pyrolysis time, were incubated at different rates (0, 5, and 10 g kg−1) in loamy sand and clay loam soils to study P sorption compared to the unamended control. The data was observed to be best fitted into Langmuir adsorption isotherm for P adsorption. The effects on maximum P adsorption, bonding energy, and adsorption rate constants were lower in loamy sand compared to clay loam soil. The values of maximum P desorption (Dm) and desorption rate constant (Kd) decreased with the application of biochar. A linear regression equation optimised the amount of P addition for soil amendments. For the soil with inherent P content, rice biochar was the best option (5 g kg−1), while for soils lacking in P, ACB is optimised at 5 g kg−1 with external P input of 1 mg P kg−1 of test soil. This data can be recommended to the farmers as a best practice for the P addition, along with managing farm wastes as biochars to enhance nutrient availability.

Clean waterWater availabilityNanoadsorbent is a primary requisite of all living organisms. The rapid rise in population has led to significant development and industrial growth all over the globe to fulfil the increasing demands. This has resulted in the contamination of water bodies due to the release of heavy metals and metalloids caused by sudden mine tailings, gasoline, leaded paints, usage of fertilizers inland, animal manures, pesticides, sewage sludge, wastewater irrigation, coal, etc. The contaminationContamination of waterWater bodies has caused severe environmental concerns. As a limited natural resource, the water preservation and its quality maintenance are of fundamental importance to ensure its availability for future generations. Therefore, eliminating heavy metalsHeavy metal and other pollutants from contaminated streams is a primary concern due to their ability to cause toxic chaos that can affect the metabolism of flora and fauna. However, the existing decontaminationDecontamination techniques, such as ion exchange and reverse osmosis, suffer many disadvantages; hence, the focus has been shifted to developing novel, efficient techniques to remove heavy metals such as lead from the water. Out of these, the adsorption based on nanoadsorbentsNanoadsorbent has gained popularity due to its ease of operation and cost-effectiveness. This chapter highlights the recent advances in waterWater decontaminationDecontamination methods using nanoadsorbentsNanoadsorbent involving carbon nanotubes, graphene, polymer-based, metal oxide nanoparticles, zeolites, and nano-clays.

Access to clean and pure water is a prime need of all living creatures worldwide. The integrated effect of rapid population rise and industrial development has led to a critical situation where all the living organisms on earth are affected directly or indirectly by environmental pollution involving water, air, and soil. As a limited natural resource, its protection and safety are of grave concern. Therefore, eliminating heavy metals and other pollutants from water resources is paramount. The existing decontamination techniques, such as ion exchange and reverse osmosis, suffer many disadvantages; hence, the focus has been shifted to developing novel, efficient techniques to remove heavy metals such as mercury from the water. The adsorption based on nanoadsorbents has gained popularity due to its ease of operation and cost-effectiveness. This chapter highlights the recent advances in water decontamination methods using nanoadsorbents, including polymeric nanocomposites, transition metal chalcogenides (MoS2), polyrhodanine coated magnetite nanoparticles, chitosan-coated magnetite nanoparticles, TiO2 nanoparticles, Fe3O4/Au nanocomposite, polyacrylate-modified carbon composite, and carbon nanotubes based nanocomposite. Finally, the fate of nanoparticles used for wastewater decontamination is discussed.

Nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) are vital for crop growth. However, most agricultural systems have limited inherent ability to supply N and P to crops. Biochars (BCs) are strongly advocated in agrosystems and are known to improve the availability of N and P in crops through different chemical transformations. Herein, a soil-biochar incubation experiment was carried out to investigate the transformations of N and P in two different textured soils, namely clay loam and loamy sand, on mixing with rice straw biochar (RSB) and acacia wood biochar (ACB) at each level (0, 0.5, and 1.0% w/w). Ammonium N (NH4-N) decreased continuously with the increasing incubation period. The ammonium N content disappeared rapidly in both the soils incubated with biochars compared to the unamended soil. RSB increased the nitrate N (NO3-N) content significantly compared to ACB for the entire study period in both texturally divergent soils. The nitrate N content increased with the enhanced biochar addition rate in clay loam soil until 15 days after incubation; however, it was reduced for the biochar addition rate of 1% compared to 0.5% at 30 and 60 days after incubation in loamy sand soil. With ACB, the net increase in nitrate N content with the biochar addition rate of 1% remained higher than the 0.5% rate for 60 days in clay loam and 30 days in loamy sand soil. The phosphorus content remained consistently higher in both the soils amended with two types of biochars till the completion of the experiment.

ABSTRACTThe gamma-ray mass attenuation coefficient is a crucial parameter to characterize the penetration and propagation of gamma rays in complex, multiphased, and heterogeneous materials like soil. Microscopically, soils contain minerals, water, gases, and other fluids that influence gamma-ray transmission. This paper discusses the potential of the Gamma Ray Spectroscopy (GRS) technique for precise measurement of various soil properties, focusing on soil’s mass attenuation coefficient and bulk density. The limitations and advantages of GRS over conventional methods are also highlighted.KEYWORDS: Bulk densitygamma-ray spectrometrymass attenuation coefficientsoil AcknowledgementsThe author would like to express his sincere gratitude to the Electron Microscopy & Nanoscience Laboratory, Department of Soil Science and the Director of Research, Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana.Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Abstract An experiment was carried out to study the effect of farm yard manure (FYM) and lime addition on the distribution of native and added chromium among various soil chromium (Cr-VI) fractions, namely exchangeable and water soluble (Ex + WS), carbonate bound (CARB), easily reducible oxides (ERO's), organic matter bound (OM), reducible oxides (RO's), and residual (RES) fractions of non-contaminated surface soil. The study was performed with three different treatments (FYM@1%, lime @1% and no amendment) and for eight contact periods (1, 3, 7, 21, 42, 63, 84, and 105 days). The overall trend in Cr fractions shows that a more significant proportion of native Cr was associated with the residual fraction, followed by reducible oxide and organic matter fractions. The lowest concentration of Cr was observed to be in the exchangeable fraction. The addition of different concentrations of Cr increased the Cr content in each fraction with a higher increase in more labile fractions (water-soluble + exchangeable) at a lesser contact period, and further transformation of Cr to relatively lesser available fractions was observed with the increase in the time of contact.

By the end of the year 2023, the LHC is expected to reach a total integrated luminosity of $$300\,\text {fb}^{-1}$$ of the data. The high luminosity upgrade of the LHC is foreseen during a third long shutdown to further increase the instantaneous luminosity to $$ 5\times 10^{-34}\,\text {cm}^{-2}\text {s}^{-1}$$ . The muon system of CMS detector consists of DTs in barrel, CSCs in the endcaps and RPCs that provide redundant trigger and fine position measurement in both barrel and endcap regions. The forward region of the endcaps is instrumented only with the CSCs. The muon system aims to provide efficient and fast identification of muons, however the possible degradation of CSC performance due to the sustained operation in a high rate environment could drastically affect the entire muon system. In order to improve and maintain the forward muon triggering and muon reconstruction at high luminosity, CMS detector is planned to be equipped with an additional layer of new technology based set of muon detectors, called Gas Electron Multiplier (GEM). In this paper, various activities carried out by Panjab University group in the fabrication and testing of GEM detectors is discussed.

The advancements in producing interactions of concentrated energy fluxes, such as femtosecond lasers and high-energy electron beams with the absorbing substances, have facilitated new discoveries and excitement in various scientific and technological areas. Since their invention, significant improvements in temporal, spatial, energetic, and spectroscopic characteristics have been realized. Due to the ultrashort pulse width and higher intensity (1012 W/cm2), it is possible to ablate the materials with negligible damage outside the focal volume, thereby allowing the treatment of biological samples, such as live cells, membranes, and removal of thin films, as well as bulk materials for many applications in diverse fields, including micro-optics, electronics, and even biology under extremely high precision. Since most biological systems are transparent toward the NIR spectral range, it follows the nonlinear multi-photon absorption interaction mechanism. In contrast, the electron beam follows linear absorption mechanism for material modifications even at lower energies. For realizing the fs-laser nano-processing in material applications, such as silicon microchips, or in biology like retinal cells, it is crucial to find a way to deliver these pulses precisely at the site of action and enhance the selectivity. The utilization of electron beams in material modification has also been exercised widely to attain nanoscale precision. In the next section, biological materials, such as cornea, retina, and silk, are discussed.

The identification of jets originating from b quarks is crucial both for the searches for new physics and for the measurement of standard model processes. The Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) collaboration at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) has developed a variety of algorithms to select b-quark jets based on variables such as the impact parameter of charged particle tracks, properties of reconstructed secondary vertices from heavy hadron decays, and the presence or absence of a lepton in the jet, or combinations thereof. Performance measurements of these b-jet identification algorithms are presented, using multijet and $t\overline{t}$ events recorded in proton-proton collision data at $\sqrt s$=8 TeV with the CMS detector during the LHC Run 1.

Tau leptons appear in the final state of many important physics processes such as decay of the Higgs boson, supersymmetric particles and additional heavy gauge bosons corresponding to a new symmetry. Thus, tau leptons play a crucial role in LHC physics programme at all energies. Since majority of the tau lepton decays are hadronic, Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) experiment at CERN employs a dedicated procedure to reconstruct tau leptons from the light hadrons inside jets. In view of the upcoming LHC run at 13–14 TeV, it is crucial to study the performance of tau reconstruction and identification at high pileup and with the upgraded CMS detector geometry. In this paper, an overview of the results from CMS simulations is presented including the fake rates and their dependence on kinematic variables.

The identification of jets originating from b quarks is crucial both for the searches for new physics and for the measurement of standard model processes. The Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) collaboration at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) has developed a variety of algorithms to select b-quark jets based on variables such as the impact parameter of charged particle tracks, properties of reconstructed secondary vertices from heavy hadron decays, and the presence or absence of a lepton in the jet, or combinations thereof. Performance measurements of these b-jet identification algorithms are presented, using multijet and $t\overline{t}$ events recorded in proton-proton collision data at $\sqrt s$=8 TeV with the CMS detector during the LHC Run 1.

This document describes the novel techniques used to simulate the common Snowmass 2013 Energy Frontier Standard Model backgrounds for future hadron colliders. The purpose of many Energy Frontier studies is to explore the reach of high luminosity data sets at a variety of high energy colliders. The generation of high statistics samples which accurately model large integrated luminosities for multiple center-of-mass energies and pile-up environments is not possible using an unweighted event generation strategy -- an approach which relies on event weighting was necessary. Even with these improvements in efficiency, extensive computing resources were required. This document describes the specific approach to event generation using Madgraph5 to produce parton-level processes, followed by parton showering and hadronization with Pythia6, and pile-up and detector simulation with Delphes3. The majority of Standard Model processes for pp interactions at $\sqrt(s)$ = 14, 33, and 100 TeV with 0, 50, and 140 additional pile-up interactions are publicly available.

This document describes the simulation framework used in the Snowmass Energy Frontier studies for future Hadron Colliders. An overview of event generation with {\sc Madgraph}5 along with parton shower and hadronization with {\sc Pythia}6 is followed by a detailed description of pile-up and detector simulation with {\sc Delphes}3. Details of event generation are included in a companion paper cited within this paper. The input parametrization is chosen to reflect the best object performance expected from the future ATLAS and CMS experiments; this is referred to as the "Combined Snowmass Detector". We perform simulations of $pp$ interactions at center-of-mass energies $\sqrt{s}=$ 14, 33, and 100 TeV with 0, 50, and 140 additional $pp$ pile-up interactions. The object performance with multi-TeV $pp$ collisions are studied for the first time using large pile-up interactions.

The Vector Boson Fusion (VBF) topology offers a promising avenue for the study of electroweak sector of supersymmetry.The first search for supersymmetry with VBF topology is presented using 19.7 fb -1 of pp collision data at 8 TeV collected with the CMS detector.The search targets the final states with at least two leptons, large missing transverse momentum, and two jets with a large separation in rapidity.The observed dijet invariant mass spectrum after the final selections is found to be consistent with the expected standard model predictions, hence the upper limits are set for the production of charginos and neutralinos with two associated jets, assuming the supersymmetric partner of the τ-lepton to be the lightest slepton and the lightest slepton to be lighter than the charginos.

A search for Supersymmetry with Vector Boson Fusion (VBF) topology is performed using proton-proton collision data at 8 TeV collected with CMS detector at the LHC. The VBF processes offer a promising avenue at the LHC to study the non-colored sectors of supersymmetric extensions of the Standard Model where other searches have limited sensitivity. Final states consisting of at least two leptons, large missing transverse momentum, and two jets with a large pseudorapidity are expected in pair-production of charginos and neutralinos. The observed dijet invariant mass spectrum after the final selections is found to be consistent with the expected standard model predictions, hence the upper limits are set for the production of charginos and neutralinos with two associated jets, assuming the supersymmetric partner of the tau lepton to be the lightest slepton and the lightest slepton to be lighter than the charginos. The Run2 of LHC machine has allowed us to naturally extend this search to 13 TeV data where we utilize the methodology developed for 8 TeV search along with newly implemented VBF-Dijet Trigger. This is expected to improve the search sensitivity for compressed-mass SUSY spectra at high-luminosity.

Searching for Supersymmetry (Susy) is one of the major physics goals of the Large Hadron Collider. A large number of physics analyses are being performed in CMS (and ATLAS) experiments to detect signatures of Susy particles. The search presented here aims for observing Susy particles produced in the Vector Boson Fusion (VBF) topology, leading to the final state having zero or one lepton, large missing $E_{T}$, two jets with high $p_{T}$ and large rapidity separation. The analysis is performed using 35.9 fb$^{-1}$ of proton-proton collision data collected with CMS detector during the year 2016 at a center-of-mass energy of 13 TeV. The background estimation is performed using data-driven/semi data-driven techniques and the observed dijet invariant mass, as well as lepton transverse mass spectra, are found to be consistent with the Standard Model (SM) background predictions and no signal signature is observed. Hence, the upper limits are set on the cross-sections for chargino ($\tilde{\chi}_{1}^{\pm}$) and neutralino ($\tilde{\chi}_{2}^{0}$) production along with two associated jets, assuming the lightest scalar leptons to be lighter than $\tilde{\chi}_{1}^{\pm}$. For a compressed mass spectra in which mass difference between Lightest Supersymmetric Particle (LSP) $\tilde{\chi}_{1}^{0}$ and the mass-degenerate particles $\tilde{\chi}_{1}^{\pm}$ and $\tilde{\chi}_{2}^{0}$ is 30 (1) GeV, the most stringent mass upper limit to date is set for the latter two particles.