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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
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2014

Evaluating Kuala Lumpur stock exchange oriented bank performance with stochastic frontiers

Banks play an essential role in the economic development and banks need to be efficient; otherwise, they may create blockage in the process of development in any country. The efficiency of banks in Malaysia is important and should receive greater attention. This study formulated an appropriate stochastic frontier model to investigate the efficiency of banks which are traded on Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange (KLSE) market during the period 2005–2009. All data were analyzed to obtain the maximum likelihood method to estimate the parameters of stochastic production. Unlike the earlier studies which use balance sheet and income statements data, this study used market data as the input and output variables. It was observed that banks listed in KLSE exhibited a commendable overall efficiency level of 96.2% during 2005–2009 hence suggesting minimal input waste of 3.8%. Among the banks, the COMS (Cimb Group Holdings) bank is found to be highly efficient with a score of 0.9715 and BIMB (Bimb Holdings) bank is noted to have the lowest efficiency with a score of 0.9582. The results also show that Cobb-Douglas stochastic frontier model with truncated normal distributional assumption is preferable than Translog stochastic frontier model.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2015

The magnetic transition in ε-Fe{sub 2}O{sub 3} nanoparticles: Magnetic properties and hyperfine interactions from Mössbauer spectroscopy

The nanoparticles of ε-Fe{sub 2}O{sub 3} enriched with {sup 57}Fe isotope in amorphous silica matrix were prepared by sol-gel technique starting from a single molecular precursor for both Fe{sub 2}O{sub 3} and silica. From the X-ray powder diffraction pattern ε-Fe{sub 2}O{sub 3} was identified as the major phase and α-Fe{sub 2}O{sub 3} and β-Fe{sub 2}O{sub 3} were observed as minor iron oxide phases. Using the log-normal distribution for fitting the experimental data from the TEM micrographs, the characteristic size of particles d{sub 0} ∼ 25 nm was derived. The rather high coercivity of ∼2.1 T at room temperature was confirmed for our nanoparticle system. From the dependences of magnetization on temperature a two-step magnetic transition spread between 100 K and 153 K was indicated. From the {sup 57}Fe Mössbauer spectra measured in the temperature range of 4.2–300 K, the hyperfine parameters for one tetrahedral and three octahedral sites of ε-Fe{sub 2}O{sub 3} structure were identified. The in-field spectra in the external magnetic fields up to 6 T were taken both above and below the indicated two-step magnetic transition. Their dependence on temperature and external magnetic field suggests that the first step in the temperature range of 153 K–130 K is related to the spin reorientation of the local magnetic moments in the magnetic sublattices and the second step in temperatures 130 K–100 K may be associated with the intermediate spin–high spin state transition of Fe{sup 3+} cation in the tetrahedral sublattice expressed in the change of the hyperfine magnetic field.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗
DOE OSTI2015

Characterization of the mechanical properties of HL-1 cardiomyocytes with high throughput magnetic tweezers

We characterized the mechanical properties of cardiomyocyte-like HL-1 cells using our recently developed multi-pole magnetic tweezers. With the optimized design, both high force and high throughput are achieved at the same time. Force up to 100 pN can be applied on a 1 μm diameter superparamagnetic bead in a workspace with 60 μm radius, which is encircled symmetrically by 3 sharp magnetic tips. By adjusting the coil currents, both the strength and direction of force can be controlled. The result shows that both viscosity and shear elastic modulus of HL-1 cells exhibit an approximately log-normal distribution. The cells became stiffer as they matured, consistent with a transition from proliferating cells to contractile muscle tissue. Moreover, the mechanical properties of HL-1 cells show high heterogeneity, which agrees well with their physiological structure.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2015

Electron beam induced growth of tin whiskers

We have investigated the influence of electron irradiation on tin whisker growth. Sputtered tin samples exposed to electron beam of 6 MeV energy exhibited fast whisker growth, while control samples did not grow any whiskers. The statistics of e-beam induced whiskers was found to follow the log-normal distribution. The observed accelerated whisker growth is attributed to electrostatic effects due to charges trapped in an insulating substrate. These results offer promise for establishing whisker-related accelerated life testing protocols.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2016

Some functional limit theorems for compound Cox processes

An improved version of the functional limit theorem is proved establishing weak convergence of random walks generated by compound doubly stochastic Poisson processes (compound Cox processes) to Lévy processes in the Skorokhod space under more realistic moment conditions. As corollaries, theorems are proved on convergence of random walks with jumps having finite variances to Lévy processes with variance-mean mixed normal distributions, in particular, to stable Lévy processes.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2016

Electric field stimulated growth of Zn whiskers

We have investigated the impact of strong (∼10{sup 4} V/cm) electric fields on the development of Zn whiskers. The original samples, with considerable whisker infestation were cut from Zn-coated steel floors and then exposed to electric fields stresses for 10-20 hours at room temperature. We used various electric field sources, from charges accumulated in samples irradiated by: (1) the electron beam of a scanning electron microscope (SEM), (2) the electron beam of a medical linear accelerator, and (3) the ion beam of a linear accelerator; we also used (4) the electric field produced by a Van der Graaf generator. In all cases, the exposed samples exhibited a considerable (tens of percent) increase in whiskers concentration compared to the control sample. The acceleration factor defined as the ratio of the measured whisker growth rate over that in zero field, was estimated to approach several hundred. The statistics of lengths of e-beam induced whiskers was found to follow the log-normal distribution known previously for metal whiskers. The observed accelerated whisker growth is attributed to electrostatic effects. These results offer promise for establishing whisker-related accelerated life testing protocols.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗
DOE OSTI2018

Detection of vapor nanobubbles by small angle neutron scattering (SANS)

Experiments using boiling water on untreated (roughness 100–300 nm) metal surfaces using small-angle neutron scattering (SANS) show the appearance of structures that are 50–70 nm in size when boiling is present. The scattering signal disappears when the boiling ceases, and no change in the signal is detected at any surface temperature condition below saturation. This confirms that the signal is caused by vapor nanobubbles. Two boiling regimes are evaluated herein that differ by the degree of subcooling (3–10 °C). A polydisperse spherical model with a log-normal distribution fits the SANS data well. In conclusion, the size distribution indicates that a large number of nanobubbles exist on the surface during boiling, and some of them grow into large bubbles.

74 ATOMIC AND MOLECULAR PHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2024

Consistent and reproducible computation of the glass transition temperature from molecular dynamics simulations

In many fields, from semiconductors for opto-electronic applications to ionic liquids (ILs) for separations, the glass transition temperature (Tg) of a material is a useful gauge for its potential use in practical settings. As a result, there is a great deal of interest in predicting Tg using molecular simulations. However, the uncertainty and variation in the trend shift method, a common approach in simulations to predict Tg, can be high. This is due to the need for human intervention in defining a fitting range for linear fits of density with temperature assumed for the liquid and glass phases across the simulated cooling. The definition of such fitting ranges then defines the estimate for the Tg as the intersection of linear fits. We eliminate this need for human intervention by leveraging the Shapiro–Wilk normality test and proposing an algorithm to define the fitting ranges and, consequently, Tg. Through this integration, we incorporate into our automated methodology that residuals must be normally distributed around zero for any fit, a requirement that must be met for any regression problem. Consequently, fitting ranges for realizing linear fits for each phase are statistically defined rather than visually inferred, obtaining an estimate for Tg without any human intervention. The method is also capable of finding multiple linear regimes across density vs temperature curves. We compare the predictions of our proposed method across multiple IL and semiconductor molecular dynamics simulation results from the literature and compare other proposed methods for automatically detecting Tg from density–temperature data. We believe that our proposed method would allow for more consistent predictions of Tg. We make this methodology available and open source through GitHub.

Chemistry↗
DOE OSTI2015

Spectral dependences of extrinsic optical absorption in sillenite crystals

The influence of laser irradiation at wavelengths of 532 and 655 nm and annealing in air at temperatures from 200 to 370 °C on optical absorption spectra of undoped bismuth silicon oxide and bismuth germanium oxide and aluminium-doped bismuth titanium oxide crystals has been studied experimentally. The experimental data have been interpreted in terms of a model for extrinsic absorption that takes into account not only the contribution of the photoexcitation of electrons from deep donor centres with a normal distribution of their concentration with respect to ionisation energy but also that of intracentre transitions. (laser applications and other topics in quantum electronics)

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2015

Enhanced enstrophy generation for turbulent convection in low-Prandtl-number fluids

Turbulent convection is often present in liquids with a kinematic viscosity much smaller than the diffusivity of the temperature. Here we reveal why these convection flows obey a much stronger level of fluid turbulence than those in which kinematic viscosity and thermal diffusivity are the same; i.e., the Prandtl number Pr is unity. We compare turbulent convection in air at Pr = 0.7 and in liquid mercury at Pr = 0.021. In this comparison the Prandtl number at constant Grashof number Gr is varied, rather than at constant Rayleigh number Ra as usually done. Our simulations demonstrate that the turbulent Kolmogorov-like cascade is extended both at the large- and small-scale ends with decreasing Pr. The kinetic energy injection into the flow takes place over the whole cascade range. In contrast to convection in air, the kinetic energy injection rate is particularly enhanced for liquid mercury for all scales larger than the characteristic width of thermal plumes. As a consequence, mean values and fluctuations of the local strain rates are increased, which in turn results in significantly enhanced enstrophy production by vortex stretching. The normalized distributions of enstrophy production in the bulk and the ratio of the principal strain rates are found to agree for both Prs. Finally, despite the different energy injection mechanisms, the principal strain rates also agree with those in homogeneous isotropic turbulence conducted at the same Reynolds numbers as for the convection flows. Thus, our results have interesting implications for small-scale turbulence modeling of liquid metal convection in astrophysical and technological applications.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2025

Welch Method and Bootstrapping Applied to Subcritical Gamma Noise

We measured the prompt neutron decay constant 𝛼 of the CROCUS zero-power reactor at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne using cross-power spectral density (CPSD) analysis of gamma-gamma correlations from two trans-stilbene organic scintillators positioned near the reactor core. We measured critical and subcritical states, with water levels ranging from 960 mm (critical) to 800 mm (𝜌=−1.4 $ subcritical). Our analysis used the Welch method, dividing signal segments for fast Fourier transform (FFT) frequency analysis and applying bootstrapping uncertainty quantification that uses Welch-defined segments. Results demonstrated a clear increase in the measured 𝛼 as reactor reactivity decreased, distinguishing critical from subcritical conditions. At the 960-mm critical level, 𝛼 was estimated at 155.9 ± 0.7 s −1 , and for the 800-mm subcritical level, 𝛼 increased significantly to 367.3 ± 6.9 s –1 . A linear regression of subcritical states yielded a critical estimate of 154.0 ± 3.1 s –1 , aligning with the static 𝛼 estimate at critical. The bootstrapping method produced normally distributed 𝛼 estimates, confirming data consistency. The gamma CPSD 𝛼 estimates clearly distinguish reactor states and improve monitoring of zero-power reactors. The future deployment of modular and microreactors as potential candidates for noise analysis is demonstrated in CROCUS, particularly zero-power mock-ups of new designs. The improvement of noise analysis in the subcritical domain from this work will support experimental data for reactor deployment and procedure.

CROCUS↗
DOE OSTI2016

Spatiotemporal modeling of node temperatures in supercomputers

Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) is home to many large supercomputing clusters. These clusters require an enormous amount of power (~500-2000 kW each), and most of this energy is converted into heat. Thus, cooling the components of the supercomputer becomes a critical and expensive endeavor. Recently a project was initiated to investigate the effect that changes to the cooling system in a machine room had on three large machines that were housed there. Coupled with this goal was the aim to develop a general good-practice for characterizing the effect of cooling changes and monitoring machine node temperatures in this and other machine rooms. This paper focuses on the statistical approach used to quantify the effect that several cooling changes to the room had on the temperatures of the individual nodes of the computers. The largest cluster in the room has 1,600 nodes that run a variety of jobs during general use. Since extremes temperatures are important, a Normal distribution plus generalized Pareto distribution for the upper tail is used to model the marginal distribution, along with a Gaussian process copula to account for spatio-temporal dependence. A Gaussian Markov random field (GMRF) model is used to model the spatial effects on the node temperatures as the cooling changes take place. This model is then used to assess the condition of the node temperatures after each change to the room. The analysis approach was used to uncover the cause of a problematic episode of overheating nodes on one of the supercomputing clusters. Lastly, this same approach can easily be applied to monitor and investigate cooling systems at other data centers, as well.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2015

Stellar velocity dispersion and anisotropy of the Milky Way inner halo

We measure the three components of velocity dispersion, σ{sub R}, σ{sub θ}, σ{sub ϕ}, for stars within 6 < R < 30 kpc of the Milky Way using a new radial velocity sample from the MMT telescope. We combine our measurements with previously published data so that we can more finely sample the stellar halo. We use a maximum likelihood statistical method for estimating mean velocities, dispersions, and covariances assuming only that velocities are normally distributed. The alignment of the velocity ellipsoid is consistent with a spherically symmetric gravitational potential. From the spherical Jeans equation, the mass of the Milky Way is M(R⩽12 kpc)=1.3×10{sup 11} M{sub ⊙} with an uncertainty of 40%. We also find a region of discontinuity, 15 ≲ R ≲ 25 kpc, where the estimated velocity dispersions and anisotropies diverge from their anticipated values, confirming the break observed by others. We argue that this break in anisotropy is physically explained by coherent stellar velocity structure in the halo, such as the Sgr stream. To significantly improve our understanding of halo kinematics will require combining radial velocities with future Gaia proper motions.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2013

Statistics of general functions of a Gaussian field-application to non-Gaussianity from preheating

We provide a general formula for calculating correlators of arbitrary function of a Gaussian field. This work extends the standard leading-order approximation based on the δN formalism to the case where truncation of the δN at some low order does not yield the correct answer. As an application of this formula, we investigate 2, 3 and 4-point functions of the primordial curvature perturbation generated in the massless preheating model by approximating the mapping between the curvature perturbation and the Gaussian field as a sum of the many spiky normal distribution functions as suggested by lattice calculations. We also discuss observational consequences of this case and show that trispectrum would be a key observable to search signature of preheating in the CMB map. It is found the forms of the curvature correlation functions for any δN, at the leading order in the correlator of the Gaussian field, coincide with the standard local type ones. Within this approximation, it is also found that the standard formula for the non-linearity parameters given by the product of the derivatives of the e-folding number still holds after we replace the bare e-folding number appearing in the original δN expansion with the one smoothed in the field space with a Gaussian window function.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2015

Detecting anomalies in CMB maps: a new method

Ever since WMAP announced its first results, different analyses have shown that there is weak evidence for several large-scale anomalies in the CMB data. While the evidence for each anomaly appears to be weak, the fact that there are multiple seemingly unrelated anomalies makes it difficult to account for them via a single statistical fluke. So, one is led to considering a combination of these anomalies. But, if we ''hand-pick'' the anomalies (test statistics) to consider, we are making an a posteriori choice. In this article, we propose two statistics that do not suffer from this problem. The statistics are linear and quadratic combinations of the a{sub ℓ m}'s with random co-efficients, and they test the null hypothesis that the a{sub ℓ m}'s are independent, normally-distributed, zero-mean random variables with an m-independent variance. The motivation for considering multiple modes is this: because most physical models that lead to large-scale anomalies result in coupling multiple ℓ and m modes, the ''coherence'' of this coupling should get enhanced if a combination of different modes is considered. In this sense, the statistics are thus much more generic than those that have been hitherto considered in literature. Using fiducial data, we demonstrate that the method works and discuss how it can be used with actual CMB data to make quite general statements about the incompatibility of the data with the null hypothesis.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2016

Solving puzzles of GW150914 by primordial black holes

The black hole binary properties inferred from the LIGO gravitational wave signal GW150914 posed several serious problems. The high masses and low effective spin of black hole binary can be explained if they are primordial (PBH) rather than the products of the stellar binary evolution. Such PBH properties are postulated ad hoc but not derived from fundamental theory. We show that the necessary features of PBHs naturally follow from the slightly modified Affleck-Dine (AD) mechanism of baryogenesis. The log-normal distribution of PBHs, predicted within the AD paradigm, is adjusted to provide an abundant population of low-spin stellar mass black holes. The same distribution gives a sufficient number of quickly growing seeds of supermassive black holes observed at high redshifts and may comprise an appreciable fraction of Dark Matter which does not contradict any existing observational limits. Testable predictions of this scenario are discussed.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2019

Stochastic particle production in a de Sitter background

Here, we explore non-adiabatic particle production in a de Sitter universe for a scalar spectator field, by allowing the effective mass m 2 (t) of this field and the cosmic time interval between non-adiabatic events to vary stochastically. Two main scenarios are considered depending on the (non-stochastic) mass M of the spectator field: the conformal case with M 2 =2H 2 , and the case of a massless field. We make use of the transfer matrix formalism to parametrize the evolution of the system in terms of the "occupation number", and two phases associated with the transfer matrix; these are used to construct the evolution of the spectator field. Assuming short-time interactions approximated by Dirac-delta functions, we numerically track the change of these parameters and the field in all regimes: sub- and super-horizon with weak and strong scattering. In all cases a log-normally distributed field amplitude is observed, and the logarithm of the field amplitude approximately satisfies the properties of a Wiener process outside the horizon. We derive a Fokker-Planck equation for the evolution of the transfer matrix parameters, which allows us to calculate analytically non-trivial distributions and moments in the weak-scattering limit.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2015

INERTIAL RANGE TURBULENCE OF FAST AND SLOW SOLAR WIND AT 0.72 AU AND SOLAR MINIMUM

We investigate Venus Express observations of magnetic field fluctuations performed systematically in the solar wind at 0.72 Astronomical Units (AU), between 2007 and 2009, during the deep minimum of solar cycle 24. The power spectral densities (PSDs) of the magnetic field components have been computed for time intervals that satisfy the data integrity criteria and have been grouped according to the type of wind, fast and slow, defined for speeds larger and smaller, respectively, than 450 km s{sup −1}. The PSDs show higher levels of power for the fast wind than for the slow. The spectral slopes estimated for all PSDs in the frequency range 0.005–0.1 Hz exhibit a normal distribution. The average value of the trace of the spectral matrix is −1.60 for fast solar wind and −1.65 for slow wind. Compared to the corresponding average slopes at 1 AU, the PSDs are shallower at 0.72 AU for slow wind conditions suggesting a steepening of the solar wind spectra between Venus and Earth. No significant time variation trend is observed for the spectral behavior of both the slow and fast wind.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗