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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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At least 181 records · Page 10

Lattice Design of the EIC Electron Storage Ring for Energies Down to 5 GeV

The Electron-Ion Collider (EIC) at Brookhaven National Laboratory will feature an electron storage ring that will circulate polarized beams with energies up to 18 GeV. Recently a study has been undertaken to extend the minimum energy from 6 GeV to 5 GeV. As the solenoid-based spin rotators around the interaction point require specific bending angles that depend on the energy range, this change results in major changes to the geometry. Moreover, avoiding interference of the electron beamline with the other beamlines in the tunnel, as well as with the tunnel walls, is a formidable challenge, especially at the location of the large-diameter superconducting solenoids. In this contribution, the details of the modified spin rotators, geometrical layout, and optics of the revised lattice are presented.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗

STATUS OF THE SECOND INTERACTION REGION DESIGN FOR ELECTRON-ION COLLIDER

Provisions are being made in the Electron Ion Collider (EIC) design for future installation of a second Interaction Region (IR), in addition to the day-one primary IR. The envisioned location for the second IR is the existing experi- mental hall at RHIC IP8. It is designed to work with the same beam energy combinations as the first IR, covering a full range of the center-of-mass energy of ?20 GeV to ?140 GeV. The goal of the second IR is to complement the first IR, and to improve the detection of scattered particles with magnetic rigidities similar to those of the ion beam. To achieve this, the second IR hadron beamline features a secondary focus in the forward ion direction. The design of the second IR is still evolving. This paper reports the current status of its pa- rameters, magnet layout, and beam dynamics and discusses the ongoing improvements being made to ensure its optimal performance.

Gamage, B.↗

Advancements in Accelerator Physics and System Developments for the EIC

The development and enhancement of the Electron-Ion Collider (EIC) are founded on extensive research and development efforts aimed at achieving rigorous performance goals. This document outlines the crucial research and development (R&D) efforts that underpin the various systems and components of the EIC, including the polarized electron source and linear accelerator (linac) systems. Achieving the collider’s operational benchmarks relies on meticulously enhancing these components to optimize performance.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗

Applications and Techniques for Fast Machine Learning in Science

In this community review report, we discuss applications and techniques for fast machine learning (ML) in science—the concept of integrating powerful ML methods into the real-time experimental data processing loop to accelerate scientific discovery. The material for the report builds on two workshops held by the Fast ML for Science community and covers three main areas: applications for fast ML across a number of scientific domains; techniques for training and implementing performant and resource-efficient ML algorithms; and computing architectures, platforms, and technologies for deploying these algorithms. We also present overlapping challenges across the multiple scientific domains where common solutions can be found. This community report is intended to give plenty of examples and inspiration for scientific discovery through integrated and accelerated ML solutions. This is followed by a high-level overview and organization of technical advances, including an abundance of pointers to source material, which can enable these breakthroughs.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗

Modeling Yield, Biogenic Emissions, and Carbon Sequestration in Southeastern Cropping Systems With Winter Carinata

Sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) production from lipids is a technologically mature approach for replacing conventional fossil fuel use in the aviation sector, and there is increasing demand for such feedstocks. The oilseed Brassica carinata (known as Ethiopian mustard or simply carinata) is a promising SAF feedstock that can be grown as a supplemental cash crop over the winter fallow season of various annual crop rotations in the Southeast US, avoiding land use changes and potentially achieving some of the soil carbon sequestration and ecosystem service benefits of winter cover crops. However, carinata may require more intensive management than traditional cover crops, potentially leading to additional soil greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions through increased carbon losses from soil tillage and nitrous oxide (N 2 O) emissions from nitrogen fertilizer application. In this work, the 2017 version of the process-based DayCent ecosystem model was used to establish initial expectations for the total regional SAF production potential and associated soil GHG emissions when carinata is integrated as a winter crop into the existing crop rotations across its current suitability range in southern Alabama, southern Georgia, and northern Florida. Using data from academic and industry carinata field trials in the region, DayCent was calibrated to reproduce carinata yield, nitrogen response, harvest index, and biomass carbon-to-nitrogen ratio. The resulting model was then used to simulate the integration of carinata every third winter across all 2.1 Mha of actively cultivated cropland in the study area. The model predicted regional average yields of 2.9–3.0 Mg carinata seed per hectare depending on crop management assumptions. That results in the production of more than two million Mg of carinata seed annually across the study area, enough to supply approximately one billion liters of SAF. Conventional management of carinata led to only modest increases in soil carbon storage that were largely offset by additional N2O emissions. Climate-smart management via adopting no-till carinata establishment or using poultry litter as a nitrogen source resulted in a substantial net soil GHG sink (0.23–0.31 Mg CO 2 e ha -1 y -1 , or 0.24–0.32 Mg CO2e per Mg of seed produced) at the farms where carinata is cultivated.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Transfer of a Catabolic Pathway for Chloromethane in Methylobacterium Strains Highlights Different Limitations for Growth with Chloromethane or with Dichloromethane

Chloromethane is an ozone-depleting gas, produced predominantly from natural sources, that provides an important environmental niche for microbes capable of consuming it. Chloromethane catabolism has been difficult to study owing to the challenging genetics of its native microbial hosts. Since the pathways for chloromethane catabolism show evidence of horizontal gene transfer, we reproduced this transfer process in the laboratory to generate new chloromethane-catabolizing strains in tractable hosts. Here, we demonstrate that six putative accessory genes improve chloromethane catabolism, though heterologous expression of only one of the six is strictly necessary for growth on chloromethane. In contrast to growth of Methylobacterium strains with the closely-related compound dichloromethane, we find that chloride export does not limit growth on chloromethane and, in general, that the ability of a strain to grow on dichloromethane is uncorrelated with its ability to grow on chloromethane. Finally, this heterologous expression system allows us to investigate the components required for effective chloromethane catabolism and the factors that limit effective catabolism after horizontal transfer.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗

Aerobic Methoxydotrophy: Growth on Methoxylated Aromatic Compounds by Methylobacteriaceae

Pink-pigmented facultative methylotrophs have long been studied for their ability to grow on reduced single-carbon (C 1 ) compounds. The C 1 groups that support methylotrophic growth may come from a variety of sources. Here, we describe a group of Methylobacterium strains that can engage in methoxydotrophy: they can metabolize the methoxy groups from several aromatic compounds that are commonly the product of lignin depolymerization. Furthermore, these organisms can utilize the full aromatic ring as a growth substrate, a phenotype that has rarely been described in Methylobacterium . We demonstrated growth on p -hydroxybenzoate, protocatechuate, vanillate, and ferulate in laboratory culture conditions. We also used comparative genomics to explore the evolutionary history of this trait, finding that the capacity for aromatic catabolism is likely ancestral to two clades of Methylobacterium , but has also been acquired horizontally by closely related organisms. In addition, we surveyed the published metagenome data to find that the most abundant group of aromatic-degrading Methylobacterium in the environment is likely the group related to Methylobacterium nodulans , and they are especially common in soil and root environments. The demethoxylation of lignin-derived aromatic monomers in aerobic environments releases formaldehyde, a metabolite that is a potent cellular toxin but that is also a growth substrate for methylotrophs. We found that, whereas some known lignin-degrading organisms excrete formaldehyde as a byproduct during growth on vanillate, Methylobacterium do not. This observation is especially relevant to our understanding of the ecology and the bioengineering of lignin degradation.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗

Cross-Feeding of a Toxic Metabolite in a Synthetic Lignocellulose-Degrading Microbial Community

The recalcitrance of complex organic polymers such as lignocellulose is one of the major obstacles to sustainable energy production from plant biomass, and the generation of toxic intermediates can negatively impact the efficiency of microbial lignocellulose degradation. Here, we describe the development of a model microbial consortium for studying lignocellulose degradation, with the specific goal of mitigating the production of the toxin formaldehyde during the breakdown of methoxylated aromatic compounds. Included are Pseudomonas putida, a lignin degrader; Cellulomonas fimi, a cellulose degrader; and sometimes Yarrowia lipolytica, an oleaginous yeast. Unique to our system is the inclusion of Methylorubrum extorquens, a methylotroph capable of using formaldehyde for growth. We developed a defined minimal “Model Lignocellulose” growth medium for reproducible coculture experiments. We demonstrated that the formaldehyde produced by P. putida growing on vanillic acid can exceed the minimum inhibitory concentration for C. fimi, and, furthermore, that the presence of M. extorquens lowers those concentrations. We also uncovered unexpected ecological dynamics, including resource competition, and interspecies differences in growth requirements and toxin sensitivities. Finally, we introduced the possibility for a mutualistic interaction between C. fimi and M. extorquens through metabolite exchange. This study lays the foundation to enable future work incorporating metabolomic analysis and modeling, genetic engineering, and laboratory evolution, on a model system that is appropriate both for fundamental eco-evolutionary studies and for the optimization of efficiency and yield in microbially-mediated biomass transformation.

Methylorubrum extorquens↗

THE RUNAWAYS AND ISOLATED O-TYPE STAR SPECTROSCOPIC SURVEY OF THE SMC (RIOTS4)

We present the Runaways and Isolated O-Type Star Spectroscopic Survey of the SMC (RIOTS4), a spatially complete survey of uniformly selected field OB stars that covers the entire star-forming body of the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC). Using the IMACS (Inamori-Magellan Areal Camera and Spectrograph) multislit spectrograph and MIKE (Magellan Inamori Kyocera Echelle) echelle spectrograph on the Magellan telescopes, we obtained spectra of 374 early-type field stars that are at least 28 pc from any other OB candidates. We also obtained spectra of an additional 23 field stars in the SMC bar identified from slightly different photometric criteria. Here, we present the observational catalog of stars in the RIOTS4 survey, including spectral classifications and radial velocities. For three multi-slit fields covering 8% of our sample, we carried out monitoring observations over 9–16 epochs to study binarity, finding a spectroscopic, massive binary frequency of at least ∼60% in this subsample. Classical Oe/Be stars represent a large fraction of RIOTS4 (42%), occurring at much higher frequency than in the Galaxy, consistent with expectation at low metallicity. RIOTS4 confirmed a steep upper initial mass function in the field, apparently caused by the inability of the most massive stars to form in the smallest clusters. Our survey also yields evidence for in situ field OB star formation, and properties of field emission-line star populations, including sgB[e] stars and classical Oe/Be stars. We also discuss the radial velocity distribution and its relation to SMC kinematics and runaway stars. RIOTS4 presents a first quantitative characterization of field OB stars in an external galaxy, including the contributions of sparse, but normal, star formation; runaway stars; and candidate isolated star formation.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Classical Oe stars in the field of the small magellanic cloud

We present 29 ± 1 classical Oe stars from RIOTS4 (the Runaways and Isolated O Type Star Spectroscopic Survey of the SMC), a spatially complete, spectroscopic survey of Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) field OB stars. The two earliest are O6e stars, and four are earlier than any Milky Way (MW) Oe stars. We also find ten Ope stars, showing He i infill and/or emission; five appear to be at least as hot as ∼O7.5e stars. The hottest, star 77616, shows He ii disk emission, suggesting that even the hottest O stars can form decretion disks, and offers observational support for theoretical predictions that the hottest, fastest rotators can generate He{sup +}-ionizing atmospheres. Our data also demonstrate that Ope stars correspond to Oe stars earlier than O7.5e with strong disk emission. We find that in the SMC, Oe stars extend to earlier spectral types than in the MW, and our SMC Oe/O frequency, 0.26 ± 0.04, is much greater than the MW value, 0.03 ± 0.01. These results are consistent with angular momentum transport by stronger winds suppressing decretion disk formation at higher metallicity. In addition, the Oe star frequency in the SMC field is indistinguishable from that for clusters, which is consistent with the similarity between rotation rates in these environments, and contrary to the pattern for MW rotation rates. Thus, our findings strongly support the viscous decretion disk model and confirm that Oe stars are the high-mass extension of the Be phenomenon. Additionally, we find that Fe ii emission occurs among Oe stars later than O7.5e with massive disks, and we revise a photometric criterion for identifying Oe stars to J−[3.6]⩾0.1.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

The Resilience of Kepler Systems to Stellar Obliquity

The Kepler mission and its successor K2 have brought forth a cascade of transiting planets. Many of these planetary systems exhibit multiple members, but a large fraction possess only a single transiting example. This overabundance of singles has led to the suggestion that up to half of Kepler systems might possess significant mutual inclinations between orbits, reducing the transiting number (the so-called “Kepler Dichotomy”). In a recent paper, Spalding and Batygin demonstrated that the quadrupole moment arising from a young, oblate star is capable of misaligning the constituent orbits of a close-in planetary system enough to reduce their transit number, provided that the stellar spin axis is sufficiently misaligned with respect to the planetary orbital plane. Moreover, tightly packed planetary systems were shown to be susceptible to becoming destabilized during this process. Here, we investigate the ubiquity of the stellar obliquity-driven instability within systems with a range of multiplicities. We find that most planetary systems analyzed, including those possessing only two planets, underwent instability for stellar spin periods below ∼3 days and stellar tilts of order 30°. Moreover, we are able to place upper limits on the stellar obliquity in systems such as K2-38 (obliquity ≲20°), where other methods of measuring the spin–orbit misalignment are not currently available. Given the known parameters of T-Tauri stars, we predict that up to one-half of super-Earth-mass systems may encounter the instability, in general agreement with the fraction typically proposed to explain the observed abundance of single-transiting systems.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Validation of the Scientific Program for the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument

The Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) was designed to conduct a survey covering 14,000 deg$^{2}$ over 5 yr to constrain the cosmic expansion history through precise measurements of baryon acoustic oscillations (BAO). The scientific program for DESI was evaluated during a 5 month survey validation (SV) campaign before beginning full operations. This program produced deep spectra of tens of thousands of objects from each of the stellar Milky Way Survey (MWS), Bright Galaxy Survey (BGS), luminous red galaxy (LRG), emission line galaxy (ELG), and quasar target classes. These SV spectra were used to optimize redshift distributions, characterize exposure times, determine calibration procedures, and assess observational overheads for the 5 yr program. In this paper, we present the final target selection algorithms, redshift distributions, and projected cosmology constraints resulting from those studies. We also present a One-Percent Survey conducted at the conclusion of SV covering 140 deg$^{2}$ using the final target selection algorithms with exposures of a depth typical of the main survey. The SV indicates that DESI will be able to complete the full 14,000 deg$^{2}$ program with spectroscopically confirmed targets from the MWS, BGS, LRG, ELG, and quasar programs with total sample sizes of 7.2, 13.8, 7.46, 15.7, and 2.87 million, respectively. These samples will allow exploration of the Milky Way halo, clustering on all scales, and BAO measurements with a statistical precision of 0.28% over the redshift interval z < 1.1, 0.39% over the redshift interval 1.1 < z < 1.9, and 0.46% over the redshift interval 1.9 < z < 3.5.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

The Early Data Release of the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument

The Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) completed its 5 month Survey Validation in 2021 May. Spectra of stellar and extragalactic targets from Survey Validation constitute the first major data sample from the DESI survey. This paper describes the public release of those spectra, the catalogs of derived properties, and the intermediate data products. In total, the public release includes good-quality spectral information from 466,447 objects targeted as part of the Milky Way Survey, 428,758 as part of the Bright Galaxy Survey, 227,318 as part of the Luminous Red Galaxy sample, 437,664 as part of the Emission Line Galaxy sample, and 76,079 as part of the Quasar sample. In addition, the release includes spectral information from 137,148 objects that expand the scope beyond the primary samples as part of a series of secondary programs. Here, we describe the spectral data, data quality, data products, Large-Scale Structure science catalogs, access to the data, and references that provide relevant background to using these spectra.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

The High-redshift Clusters Occupied by Bent Radio AGN (COBRA) Survey: The Spitzer Catalog

We present 190 galaxy cluster candidates (most at high redshift) based on galaxy overdensity measurements in the Spitzer/IRAC imaging of the fields surrounding 646 bent, double-lobed radio sources drawn from the Clusters Occupied by Bent Radio AGN (COBRA) Survey. The COBRA sources were chosen as objects in the Very Large Array FIRST survey that lack optical counterparts in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey to a limit of m {sub r} = 22, making them likely to lie at high redshift. This is confirmed by our observations: the redshift distribution of COBRA sources with estimated redshifts peaks near z = 1 and extends out to z≈3. Cluster candidates were identified by comparing our target fields to a background field and searching for statistically significant (⩾2σ) excesses in the galaxy number counts surrounding the radio sources; 190 fields satisfy the ⩾2σ limit. We find that 530 fields (82.0%) have a net positive excess of galaxies surrounding the radio source. Many of the fields with positive excesses but below the 2σ cutoff are likely to be galaxy groups. Forty-one COBRA sources are quasars with known spectroscopic redshifts, which may be tracers of some of the most distant clusters known.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

The Observed Evolution of the Stellar Mass–Halo Mass Relation for Brightest Central Galaxies

We quantify evolution in the cluster-scale stellar mass–halo mass (SMHM) relation's parameters using 2323 clusters and brightest central galaxies (BCGs) over the redshift range 0.03 ≤ z ≤ 0.60. The precision on the inferred SMHM parameters is improved by including the magnitude gap (m gap ) between the BCG and fourth-brightest cluster member (M14) as a third parameter in the SMHM relation. At fixed halo mass, accounting for m gap , through a stretch parameter, reduces the SMHM relation's intrinsic scatter. To explore this redshift range, we use clusters, BCGs, and cluster members identified using the Sloan Digital Sky Survey C4 and redMaPPer cluster catalogs and the Dark Energy Survey redMaPPer catalog. Through this joint analysis, we detect no systematic differences in BCG stellar mass, m gap , and cluster mass (inferred from richness) between the data sets. We utilize the Pareto function to quantify each parameter's evolution. We confirm prior findings of negative evolution in the SMHM relation's slope (3.5σ), and detect negative evolution in the stretch parameter (4.0σ) and positive evolution in the offset parameter (5.8σ). This observed evolution, combined with the absence of BCG growth, when stellar mass is measured within 50 kpc, suggests that this evolution results from changes in the cluster's m gap . For this to occur, late-term growth must be in the intracluster light surrounding the BCG. We also compare the observed results to IllustrisTNG 300-1 cosmological hydrodynamic simulations and find modest qualitative agreement. However, the simulations lack the evolutionary features detected in the real data.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Prompt Searches for Very-high-energy γ -Ray Counterparts to IceCube Astrophysical Neutrino Alerts

The search for sources of high-energy astrophysical neutrinos can be significantly advanced through a multimessenger approach, which seeks to detect the γ-rays that accompany neutrinos as they are produced at their sources. Multimessenger observations have so far provided the first evidence for a neutrino source, illustrated by the joint detection of the flaring blazar TXS 0506+056 in high-energy (E > 1 GeV) and very-high-energy (VHE; E > 100 GeV) γ-rays in coincidence with the high-energy neutrino IceCube-170922A, identified by IceCube. Imaging atmospheric Cherenkov telescopes (IACTs), namely FACT, H.E.S.S., MAGIC, and VERITAS, continue to conduct extensive neutrino target-of-opportunity follow-up programs. These programs have two components: follow-up observations of single astrophysical neutrino candidate events (such as IceCube-170922A), and observation of known γ-ray sources after the identification of a cluster of neutrino events by IceCube. Here we present a comprehensive analysis of follow-up observations of high-energy neutrino events observed by the four IACTs between 2017 September (after the IceCube-170922A event) and 2021 January. Our study found no associations between γ-ray sources and the observed neutrino events. We provide a detailed overview of each neutrino event and its potential counterparts. Furthermore, a joint analysis of all IACT data is included, yielding combined upper limits on the VHE γ-ray flux.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Constraints on the Intergalactic Magnetic Field Using Fermi-LAT and H.E.S.S. Blazar Observations

Magnetic fields in galaxies and galaxy clusters are believed to be the result of the amplification of intergalactic seed fields during the formation of large-scale structures in the universe. However, the origin, strength, and morphology of this intergalactic magnetic field (IGMF) remain unknown. Lower limits on (or indirect detection of) the IGMF can be obtained from observations of high-energy gamma rays from distant blazars. Gamma rays interact with the extragalactic background light to produce electron-positron pairs, which can subsequently initiate electromagnetic cascades. The gamma-ray signature of the cascade depends on the IGMF since it deflects the pairs. Here we report on a new search for this cascade emission using a combined data set from the Fermi Large Area Telescope and the High Energy Stereoscopic System. Using state-of-the-art Monte Carlo predictions for the cascade signal, our results place a lower limit on the IGMF of B > 7.1 × 10 -16 G for a coherence length of 1 Mpc even when blazar duty cycles as short as 10 yr are assumed. This improves on previous lower limits by a factor of 2. For longer duty cycles of 10 4 (10 7 ) yr, IGMF strengths below 1.8 × 10 -14 G (3.9 × 10 -14 G) are excluded, which rules out specific models for IGMF generation in the early universe.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗