Instruments

Laser-accelerated electron beams, in the so-called Very High-Energy Electron (VHEE) energy range, are of great interest for biomedical applications. For instance, laser-driven VHEE beams are envisaged to offer suitable compact accelerators for the promising field of FLASH radiotherapy. Radiobiology experiments carried out using laser-driven beams require the real-time knowledge of the dose delivered to the sample. We have developed an online dose monitoring procedure, using an Integrating Current Transformer (ICT) coupled to a suitable collimator, that allows the estimation of the delivered dose on a shot-to-shot basis under suitable assumptions. The cross-calibration of the measured charge with standard offline dosimetry measurements carried out with RadioChromic Films (RCFs) is discussed, demonstrating excellent correlation between the two measurements.

The Large Binocular Telescope (LBT) is a world-leading astronomical observatory, where the Italian partnership has played an important role in increasing the telescope’s productivity, both through an optimized observing strategy and through peer-reviewed publications that are well recognized by the international astronomical community. This manuscript provides an updated overview of the active and past instruments at LBT, together with key usage statistics. In particular, we analyze the operational performance recorded in the LBT Italia night logs during INAF’s observing time and assess the scientific impact of each instrument. Between 2014 and 2025, LBT Italia produced an average of 14 refereed publications per year, based on an annual average of 311 h of on-sky time. This corresponds to approximately 2.2 nights of telescope time per publication. The results of this analysis are placed in an international context to evaluate the competitiveness of LBT, and we outline future perspectives for scientific exploitation.

Accurate knowledge of a patient’s anatomy during every treatment fraction in proton therapy is an important prerequisite to ensure a correct dose deposition in the target volume. Adaptive proton therapy aims to detect those changes and adjust the treatment plan accordingly. One way to trigger a daily re-planning of the treatment is to take a proton radiograph from the beam’s-eye view before the treatment to check for possible changes in the water equivalent thickness (WET) along the path due to daily changes in the patient’s anatomy. In this paper, the Two-Plane Imaging System (TPIS) is presented, comprising two ATLAS IBL silicon pixel-detector modules developed for the tracking detector of the ATLAS experiment at CERN. The prototype of the TPIS is described in detail, and proof-of-principle WET images are presented, of two-step phantoms and more complex phantoms with bone-like inlays (WET 10 to 40 mm). This study shows the capability of the TPIS to measure WET images with high precision. In addition, the potential of the TPIS to accurately determine WET changes over time down to 1 mm between subsequently taken WET images of a changing phantom is shown. This demonstrates the possible application of the TPIS and ATLAS IBL pixel-detector module in adaptive proton therapy.