We present a new measurement of the 1S-3S two-photon transition frequency of hydrogen, realized with a continuous-wave excitation laser at 205 nm on a room-temperature atomic beam, with a relative uncertainty of 9×10^{-13}. The proton charge radius deduced from this measurement, r_{p}=0.877(13)  fm, is in very good agreement with the current CODATA-recommended value. This result contributes to the ongoing search to solve the proton charge radius puzzle, which arose from a discrepancy between the CODATA value and a more precise determination of r_{p} from muonic hydrogen spectroscopy.

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A method and apparatus for plotting automatically the secondary electron emission yield curves from metals in an ultra-high vacuum environment are described. The yield curves from metals can be plotted in times of only a few seconds before the surfaces become contaminated. In addition, both the variation of the back-scattering coefficient with primary energy and the yield with angle of incidence of primaries may be plotted. Typical curves from Ni, Pt and Ta are presented to indicate the performance of the apparatus. Measurements using the apparatus are reported on the secondary electron emission characteristics of the three carbides TaC, TiC and ZrC as a function of primary energy and angle of incidence. In addition the yield curves are correlated with a theoretical universal yield curve.

We report the latest advances in the Doppler-free spectroscopy of the 1S–3S transition in hydrogen. A new continuous ultra-violet source has been developed and delivers a power level of 15 mW. With this setup, the statistical uncertainty on the 1S–3S transition frequency measurement is 2.2 kHz. Combined with the 1S–2S frequency, absolute accuracy at that level would significantly enlighten the proton radius puzzle.

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Background and Purpose: Associations between dose and rectal toxicity in prostate radiotherapy are generally poorly understood. Evaluating spatial dose distributions to the rectal wall (RW) may lead to improvements in dose-toxicity modelling by incorporating geometric information, masked by dose-volume histograms. Furthermore, predictive power may be strengthened by incorporating the effects of interfraction motion into delivered dose calculations.Here we interrogate 3D dose distributions for patients with and without toxicity to identify rectal subregions at risk (SRR), and compare the discriminatory ability of planned and delivered dose. Material and Methods: Daily delivered dose to the rectum was calculated using image guidance scans, and accumulated at the voxel level using biomechanical finite element modelling. SRRs were statistically determined for rectal bleeding, proctitis, faecal incontinence and stool frequency from a training set (n = 139), and tested on a validation set (n = 47). Results: SRR patterns differed per endpoint. Analysing dose to SRRs improved discriminative ability with respect to the full RW for three of four endpoints. Training set AUC and OR analysis produced stronger toxicity associations from accumulated dose than planned dose. For rectal bleeding in particular, accumulated dose to the SRR (AUC 0.76) improved upon dose-toxicity associations derived from planned dose to the RW (AUC 0.63). However, validation results could not be considered significant. Conclusions: Voxel-level analysis of dose to the RW revealed SRRs associated with rectal toxicity, suggesting nonhomogeneous intra-organ radiosensitivity. Incorporating spatial features of accumulated delivered dose improved dose-toxicity associations. This may be an important tool for adaptive radiotherapy in the future.