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At least 199 records · Page 11

The First Simultaneous Microlensing Observations by Two Space Telescopes: Spitzer and Swift Reveal a Brown Dwarf in Event OGLE-2015-BLG-1319

Simultaneous observations of microlensing events from multiple locations allow for the breaking of degeneracies between the physical properties of the lensing system, specifically by exploring different regions of the lens plane and by directly measuring the "microlens parallax". We report the discovery of a 30-65M J brown dwarf orbiting a K dwarf in the microlensing event OGLE-2015-BLG-1319. The system is located at a distance of approximately 5 kpc toward the Galactic Bulge. The event was observed by several ground-based groups as well as by Spitzer and Swift, allowing a measurement of the physical properties. However, the event is still subject to an eight-fold degeneracy, in particular the well-known close-wide degeneracy, and thus the projected separation between the two lens components is either approximately 0.25 au or approximately 45 au. This is the first microlensing event observed by Swift, with the UVOT camera. We study the region of microlensing parameter space to which Swift is sensitive, finding that though Swift could not measure the microlens parallax with respect to ground-based observations for this event, it can be important for other events. Specifically, it is important for detecting nearby brown dwarfs and free-floating planets in high magnification events.

microlensing events↗

Turbulent Heat Flux, Downward Longwave Radiation and Large-Scale Atmospheric Circulation Associated with the Wintertime Barents-Kara Sea Extreme Sea Ice Loss Events

We investigate wintertime extreme sea ice loss events on synoptic to subseasonal time scales over the Barents-Kara Sea, where the largest sea ice variability is located. Consistent with previous studies, extreme sea ice loss events are associated with moisture intrusions over the Barents-Kara Sea, which are driven by the large-scale atmospheric circulation. In addition to the role of downward longwave radiation associated with moisture intrusions, which is emphasized by previous studies, our analysis shows strong turbulent heat fluxes are associated with extreme sea ice melting events, with both turbulent sensible and latent heat fluxes contributing, though turbulent sensible heat fluxes dominate. Our analysis also shows that these events are connected to tropical convective anomalies. A dipole pattern of convective anomalies with enhanced convection over the Maritime Continent and suppressed convection over the central to eastern Pacific is consistently detected about 6 to 10 days prior to extreme sea ice loss events. This pattern is associated with either the Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO) or El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO). Composites show that extreme sea ice loss events are connected to tropical convection via Rossby wave propagation in the midlatitudes. However, tropical convective anomalies alone are not sufficient to trigger extreme sea ice loss events, suggesting that extratropical variability likely modulates the connection between tropical convection and extreme sea ice loss events.

Turbulent heat flux↗

Turbulent Heat Flux, Downward Longwave Radiation, and Large-Scale Atmospheric Circulation Associated with Wintertime Barents–Kara Sea Extreme Sea Ice Loss Events

We investigate wintertime extreme sea ice loss events on synoptic to subseasonal time scales over the Barents–Kara Sea, where the largest sea ice variability is located. Consistent with previous studies, extreme sea ice loss events are associated with moisture intrusions over the Barents–Kara Sea, which are driven by the large-scale atmospheric circulation. In addition to the role of downward longwave radiation associated with moisture intrusions, which is emphasized by previous studies, our analysis shows that strong turbulent heat fluxes are associated with extreme sea ice melting events, with both turbulent sensible and latent heat fluxes contributing, although turbulent sensible heat fluxes dominate. Our analysis also shows that these events are connected to tropical convective anomalies. A dipole pattern of convective anomalies with enhanced convection over the Maritime Continent and suppressed convection over the central to eastern Pacific is consistently detected about 6–10 days prior to extreme sea ice loss events. This pattern is associated with either the Madden–Julian oscillation (MJO) or El Nino–Southern Oscillation (ENSO). Composites show that extreme sea ice loss events are connected to tropical convection via Rossby wave propagation in the midlatitudes. However, tropical convective anomalies alone are not sufficient to trigger extreme sea ice loss events, suggesting that extratropical variability likely modulates the connection between tropical convection and extreme sea ice loss events.

Arctic↗

Multi-level impacts of climate change and supply disruption events on a potato supply chain: An agent-based modeling approach

Context: The world is experiencing frequent extreme weather events like droughts, snowstorms, and shifting of seasons due to climate change. Increased frequency and severity of these extreme weather events threaten food security because agriculture depends on climate conditions. Impacts of climate change on the agricultural system not only occur at the grower’s level, but also cascade to other levels along the supply chain. Objective: In this study, we aim to quantify a wide range of economic impacts of different extreme climate events on different stages of a food supply chain. Methods: We chose the potato supply chain in Idaho as a case study. We developed a multi-echelon supply chain simulation model using an agent-based modeling (ABM) approach with five types of agents—farmers, shippers, processors, retailers, and logistics companies. In addition to the business-as-usual (BAU) scenario, we designed two climate-related disruption events—drought and snowstorm. We quantified the heterogeneous impacts at different stages of the supply chain for both fresh and processed potatoes using key performance indicators (KPIs) including revenues, prices, lead times, traded quantities, and food waste quantity. Results and Conclusion: The impacts of the disruption events are different on different agents in the supply chain for different product categories. The price hike of fresh potatoes is far higher than processed potatoes during disruption events. This price hike makes consumers switch to processed potatoes, which require more fresh potatoes as an input that further reinforces the price hike. However, because processed potatoes have an elastic demand, once their prices go up due to higher input cost, their demand drops. Non-contracted farmers gain additional revenues from the disruption events, whereas contracted farmers incur a loss due to lock-in price and lower than usual harvest. Significance: The methodology developed in this study could be applied to other food and agricultural supply chains for understanding the vulnerabilities at agent levels due to climate change disruption events. Furthermore, the findings would help develop mitigation strategies or policies to improve the well-being of the overall supply chain.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Mitigating cosmic-ray-like correlated events with a modular quantum processor

Quantum processors based on superconducting qubits are being scaled to larger qubit numbers, enabling the implementation of small-scale quantum error-correction codes. However, catastrophic chip-scale correlated errors have been observed in these processors, attributed to, e.g., cosmic ray impacts, which challenge conventional error-correction codes such as the surface code. These events are characterized by a temporary but pronounced suppression of the qubit-energy relaxation times. Here, in this study, we explore the potential for modular quantum computing architectures to mitigate such correlated energy decay events. We measure cosmic-ray-like events in a quantum processor comprising a motherboard and two flip-chip bonded daughterboard modules, each module containing two superconducting qubits. We monitor the appearance of correlated qubit decay events within a single module and across the physically separated modules. We find that while decay events within one module are strongly correlated (over 85%), events in separate modules only display approximately 2% correlations. We also report coincident decay events in the motherboard and in either of the two daughterboard modules, providing further insight into the nature of these decay events. These results suggest that modular architectures, combined with bespoke errorcorrection codes, offer a promising approach for protecting future quantum processors from chip-scale correlated errors.

Wu, Xuntao [Univ. of Chicago, IL (United States)] ↗

Real-time Event Detection Using Rank Signatures of Real-world PMU Data

Timely detection of power system events is a crucial task, which can facilitate the implementation of remedial actions to improve reliability, resiliency, and security of the system. Meanwhile, the widespread deployment of phasor measurement units (PMUs) makes it possible to develop data-driven event detection techniques. However, relying purely on data without incorporating domain knowledge for the event detection task in power systems poses substantial security and stability risks due to issues associated with data misinterpretation and model accuracy. In this regard, we propose a real-time event detection method using real-world PMU data by incorporating domain knowledge to adequately capture the event signatures. Specifically, we track the change in rank signatures of PMU data to accurately localize the events. To optimize the detection process, we incorporate an offline Bayesian optimization algorithm to tune the parameters by efficiently searching for the best values. The experiments using the real-world PMU dataset from a U.S. interconnection show that the proposed event detection approach can efficiently detect the events from PMU data streams with high accuracy.

Ghasemkhani, Amir↗

Imagery Applications for Advanced Event Analytics (WBS 24.3.1.3.3-IDC FY202 Final Project Report)

Accurate event locations and replicability of location analyses are essential for assessing the nature of an event, its context, ambient site conditions, and proximity to relevant facilities and infrastructure. Additionally, accurate event locations provide valuable information that reduce uncertainties, improve confidence in event analyses, and inform in-field verification activities. However, event location/relocation and replicability are difficult due to a number of factors, including spatially-sparse network coverage in some areas of the globe and variability in seismic data processing. This team proposed that the incorporation of high-fidelity imagery as a data backbone to the analytical assessment of a suspected underground explosion and/or an advanced seismic event bulletin produced by the International Data Centre (IDC) of the Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO PrepCom) could reduce uncertainties and improve confidence in analyses. Specifically, temporally-separated images can reduce uncertainty by identifying areas where change has occurred (e.g., building construction or demolition, road or facilities improvements). The primary goal of this project was to develop an automated geospatial processing script for imagery change detection to better reflect needs of the technical community (including the IDC) and to make the use of such a tool accessible in a variety of settings across platforms. Technical experts at Los Alamos National Laboratory successfully built GAIA: the Geospatial Automated Imagery Analysis tool, to fill this need. GAIA combines five tool components to produce orthorectified time separated imagery and imagery change detection maps. Our toolkit (1) reduces error by providing a standardized workflow for image analyses and (2) significantly reduces processing time from between 7 and 24+ hours to approximately 5 minutes. Technical experts at Sandia National Laboratories supported GAIA via beta-testing and by introducing a web-based system approach for increased applicability. To test the function, performance, broad application, and ease-of-use of GAIA, we applied it to four separate test cases. The results of this preliminary investigation show promise in reducing uncertainty in seismic event locations: if satellite imagery can show regions where operations that produce seismic activity likely occurred, then pursuing imagery to locate epicenters of seismic nuclear events could reduce the time needed to find the true epicenter location.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗

Imagery Applications for Advanced Event Analytics (WBS 24.3.1.3.3-IDC FY2020 Final Project Report)

Accurate event locations and replicability of location analyses are essential for assessing the nature of an event, its context, ambient site conditions, and proximity to relevant facilities and infrastructure. Additionally, accurate event locations provide valuable information that reduce uncertainties, improve confidence in event analyses, and inform in-field verification activities. However, event location/relocation and replicability are difficult due to a number of factors, including spatially-sparse network coverage in some areas of the globe and variability in seismic data processing. This team proposed that the incorporation of high-fidelity imagery as a data backbone to the analytical assessment of a suspected underground explosion and/or an advanced seismic event bulletin produced by the International Data Centre (IDC) of the Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO PrepCom) could reduce uncertainties and improve confidence in analyses. Specifically, temporally-separated images can reduce uncertainty by identifying areas where change has occurred (e.g., building construction or demolition, road or facilities improvements). The primary goal of this project was to develop an automated geospatial processing script for imagery change detection to better reflect needs of the technical community (including the IDC) and to make the use of such a tool accessible in a variety of settings across platforms. Technical experts at Los Alamos National Laboratory successfully built GAIA: the Geospatial Automated Imagery Analysis tool, to fill this need. GAIA combines five tool components to produce orthorectified time-separated imagery and imagery change detection maps. Our toolkit (1) reduces error by providing a standardized workflow for image analyses and (2) significantly reduces processing time from between 7 and 24+ hours to approximately 5 minutes. Technical experts at Sandia National Laboratories supported GAIA via beta-testing and by introducing a web-based system approach for increased applicability. To test the function, performance, broad application, and ease-of-use of GAIA, we applied it to four separate test cases. The results of this preliminary investigation show promise in reducing uncertainty in seismic event locations: if satellite imagery can show regions where operations that produce seismic activity likely occurred, then pursuing imagery to locate epicenters of seismic nuclear events could reduce the time needed to find the true epicenter location.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗

Understanding Event Trajectories Across Massive Temporal Datasets with Word Embeddings and Visualization

In collaboration with researchers from Virginia Tech, Savannah River National Laboratory has continued development of a natural language processing pipeline to identify and extract events of interest from massive open data sources in the domain of worldwide state-sponsored civil nuclear energy. The foundation of the pipeline is built on compass aligned temporal word embedding models, whereby contextual shifts are automatically identified by comparing keyword embedding vectors across successive time windows. Within the approach, a contextual shift indicates the occurrence of a potential event of interest. However, in such a broad topical domain that captures events at a global scale, across various life cycle stages, and across numerous different technology types, a user that is monitoring events may have broad interests in capturing many different event types with varying degrees of signal. As such, the quantity of information that may be returned from an automated event extraction pipeline can be substantial, requiring manual effort to sift through the information to identify any relevant bits of information. Therefore, a more streamlined workflow that aids in directing a user toward specific information at different points in time is necessary. The workflow presented here has been developed with this concept in mind, built on top of the initial prototype event extraction pipeline, whereby a user can analyze temporal text-based data sources at multiple different contextual levels to isolate key points in time and key subdomains captured within a data corpus. Using multiple corpuses that consist of approximately 7 million Tweets and 7 million news articles, the team has extended compass aligned temporal word embedding models to establish an interconnected and hierarchical structure that relates known key words of interest to documents, local topics (i.e., within a time window), and global topics across the corpuses. All of this information is packaged into a visual analytics system that is linked to the information extraction pipeline and enables a user to identify contextual information that describes the evolution of a high dimensional embedding space across time to isolate changes of interest and explore associated events. This report demonstrates the use of these analytics and a means to fuse information across multiple datasets.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Radiation Imaging with Event Camera

Neuromorphic or event-based imaging is a new, commercially available sensor technology inspired by how the human eye works. Instead of measuring frames at a fixed rate, the camera measures changes in pixel intensity asynchronously. This difference in readout architecture results in a high dynamic range and low latency. Event-based cameras have been used in a variety of applications, including object tracking, navigation, and lidar technologies. However, event-based cameras have not been adequately researched for their ability to image high-energy particles. This report explores the use of an event camera for imaging alpha, beta, and X-rays particles, when coupled with scintillator screens to convert high-energy particles into visible light. Methods to process event data were developed and are presented here, along with the results. The event camera can measure alpha and beta particles with comparable performance to that of a conventional camera. Event cameras can also image higher-activity sources and offer the possibility of discriminating particle interaction types on the basis of timing differences, which typical cameras cannot do. Additionally, event cameras can image objects with an X-ray source when the source strength dynamically changes but does not create a high-contrast image during static X-ray measurement.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗

A Search for Predicted Astrometric Microlensing Events by Nearby Brown Dwarfs*

Gravitational microlensing has the potential to provide direct gravitational masses of single, free-floating brown dwarfs, independent of evolutionary and atmospheric models. The proper motions and parallaxes of nearby brown dwarfs can be used to predict close future alignments with distant background stars that cause a microlensing event. Targeted astrometric follow up of the predicted microlensing events permits the brown dwarf’s mass to be measured. Predicted microlensing events are typically found via searching for a peak threshold signal using an estimate of the lens mass. We develop a novel method that finds predicted events that instead will lead to a target lens-mass precision. The main advantage of our method is that it does not require a lens-mass estimate. We use this method to search for predicted astrometric microlensing events occurring between 2014 and 2032 using a catalog of 1225 low-mass star and brown-dwarf lenses in the Solar Neighborhood of spectral type M6 or later and a background source catalog from DECaLS Data Release 9. The background source catalog extends to g = 23.95, providing a more dense catalog compared to Gaia. Our search did not reveal any upcoming microlensing events. We estimate the rate of astrometric microlensing event for brown dwarfs in the Legacy Survey and find it to be low ~10 -5 yr -1 . We recommend carrying out targeted searches for brown dwarfs in front of the Galactic Bulge and Plane to find astrometric microlensing events that will allow the masses of single, free-floating brown dwarfs to be measured.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Energy spectra in relativistic electron precipitation events.

Two events in August 1967, categorized as relativistic electron precipitation (REP) events by their effect on VHF transmissions propagated via the forward-scatter mode, have been examined with regard to the energy spectra of trapped and precipitated electrons. These two substorm-associated events August 11 and August 25 differ with respect to the relativistic, trapped electron population at synchronous altitude; in the August 25 event there was a nonadiabatic enhancement of relativistic (greater than 400 keV) electrons, while in the August 11 event no relativistic electrons were produced. In both events electron spectra deduced from bremsstrahlung measurements (made on a field line close to that of the satellite) had approximately the same e-folding energies as the trapped electron enhancements. However, the spectrum of electrons in the August 25 event was significantly harder than the spectrum in the event of August 11.

Rosenberg, T. J.↗

Neural network classification of questionable EGRET events

High energy gamma rays (greater than 20 MeV) pair producing in the spark chamber of the Energetic Gamma Ray Telescope Experiment (EGRET) give rise to a characteristic but highly variable 3-D locus of spark sites, which must be processed to decide whether the event is to be included in the database. A significant fraction (about 15 percent or 10(exp 4) events/day) of the candidate events cannot be categorized (accept/reject) by an automated rule-based procedure; they are therefore tagged, and must be examined and classified manually by a team of expert analysts. We describe a feedforward, back-propagation neural network approach to the classification of the questionable events. The algorithm computes a set of coefficients using representative exemplars drawn from the preclassified set of questionable events. These coefficients map a given input event into a decision vector that, ideally, describes the correct disposition of the event. The net's accuracy is then tested using a different subset of preclassified events. Preliminary results demonstrate the net's ability to correctly classify a large proportion of the events for some categories of questionables. Current work includes the use of much larger training sets to improve the accuracy of the net.

Meetre, C. A.↗

Element abundances in solar (He-3) rich events

The results of a survey of over 228 (He-3)-rich events, with He-3/H-4 of more than 0.1, observed by the ISEE-3 spacecraft from 1978 August through 1991 April. In these events the elements above C are enhanced relative to the corresponding abundances in the corona and the degree of enhancement increases with Z or A. The flare-to-flare variations in abundances are different in character from those seen in large proton events. For example, using Fe/C as a parameter to describe these variations, the slope of the least-squares fits to ln(X/C) vs ln(Fe/C), where X is the intensity of N, O, Ne, Mg, Si, or S. Slopes of these abundance-correlation lines are much steeper for the (He-3)-rich events than for a sample of 36 large proton events, especially for Ne and heavier ions. The event-to-event variations for the (He-3)-rich events distinguish 3 groups of elements, He-O, Ne-S, and Fe. The abundances of all of the species within each group seem to vary in unison.

Reames, D. V.↗

Were all extinction events caused by impacts?

Extraterrestrial impacts are firmly implicated in several of the five major Phanerozoic extinction events. A critical issue now is whether extraterrestrial events have been the only mechanism that produced physical changes of sufficient magnitude to cause major extinction events. While we believe the evidence is overwhelming that the KT extinction event was caused by an impact, we also find that an event of similar or larger size near the end of the Ordovician is best explained by terrestrial causes. The Ordovician extinction event (End-O extinction event) occurred near the end of the Ordovician, but the interval of extinction was completed prior to the newly established Ordovician-Silurian boundary. In spite of extensive field studies, a convincing signature of an associated impact has not been found. However, a prominent glaciation does coincide with the End-O extinction event.

Sheehan, P. M.↗

The design and implementation of EPL: An event pattern language for active databases

The growing demand for intelligent information systems requires closer coupling of rule-based reasoning engines, such as CLIPS, with advanced data base management systems (DBMS). For instance, several commercial DBMS now support the notion of triggers that monitor events and transactions occurring in the database and fire induced actions, which perform a variety of critical functions, including safeguarding the integrity of data, monitoring access, and recording volatile information needed by administrators, analysts, and expert systems to perform assorted tasks; examples of these tasks include security enforcement, market studies, knowledge discovery, and link analysis. At UCLA, we designed and implemented the event pattern language (EPL) which is capable of detecting and acting upon complex patterns of events which are temporally related to each other. For instance, a plant manager should be notified when a certain pattern of overheating repeats itself over time in a chemical process; likewise, proper notification is required when a suspicious sequence of bank transactions is executed within a certain time limit. The EPL prototype is built in CLIPS to operate on top of Sybase, a commercial relational DBMS, where actions can be triggered by events such as simple database updates, insertions, and deletions. The rule-based syntax of EPL allows the sequences of goals in rules to be interpreted as sequences of temporal events; each goal can correspond to either (1) a simple event, or (2) a (possibly negated) event/condition predicate, or (3) a complex event defined as the disjunction and repetition of other events. Various extensions have been added to CLIPS in order to tailor the interface with Sybase and its open client/server architecture.

Giuffrida, G.↗

Solar Particle Induced Upsets in the TDRS-1 Attitude Control System RAM During the October 1989 Solar Particle Events

The three large solar particle events, beginning on October 19, 1989 and lasting approximately six days, were characterized by high fluences of solar protons and heavy ions at 1 AU. During these events, an abnormally large number of upsets (243) were observed in the random access memory of the attitude control system (ACS) control processing electronics (CPE) on-board the geosynchronous TDRS-1 (Telemetry and Data Relay Satellite). The RAM unit affected was composed of eight Fairchild 93L422 memory chips. The Galileo spacecraft, launched on October 18, 1989 (one day prior to the solar particle events) observed the fluxes of heavy ions experienced by TDRS-1. Two solid-state detector telescopes on-board Galileo, designed to measure heavy ion species and energy, were turned on during time periods within each of the three separate events. The heavy ion data have been modeled and the time history of the events reconstructed to estimate heavy ion fluences. These fluences were converted to effective LET spectra after transport through the estimated shielding distribution around the TDRS-1 ACS system. The number of single event upsets (SEU) expected was calculated by integrating the measured cross section for the Fairchild 93L422 memory chip with average effective LET spectrum. The expected number of heavy ion induced SEU's calculated was 176. GOES-7 proton data, observed during the solar particle events, were used to estimate the number of proton-induced SEU's by integrating the proton fluence spectrum incident on the memory chips, with the two-parameter Bendel cross section for proton SEU'S. The proton fluence spectrum at the device level was gotten by transporting the protons through the estimated shielding distribution. The number of calculated proton-induced SEU's was 72, yielding a total of 248 predicted SEU'S, very dose to the 243 observed SEU'S. These calculations uniquely demonstrate the roles that solar heavy ions and protons played in the production of SEU's during the October 1989 solar particle events.

Croley, D. R.↗

Response of the Antarctic Stratosphere to Two Types of El Nino Events

This study is the first to identify a robust El Nino/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) signal in the Antarctic stratosphere. El Nino events are classified as either conventional "cold tongue" events (positive SST anomalies in the Nino 3 region) or "warm pool" events (positive SST anomalies in the Nino 4 region). The ERA-40, NCEP and MERRA meteorological reanalyses are used to show that the Southern Hemisphere stratosphere responds differently to these two types of El Nino events. Consistent with previous studies, "cold tongue" events do not impact temperatures in the Antarctic stratosphere. During "warm pool" El Nino events, the poleward extension and increased strength of the South Pacific Convergence Zone (SPCZ) favor an enhancement of planetary wave activity during the SON season. On average, these conditions lead to higher polar stratospheric temperatures and a weakening of the Antarctic polar jet in November and December, as compared with neutral ENSO years. The phase of the quasi-biennial oscillation (QBO) modulates the stratospheric response to "warm pool" El Nino events: the strongest planetary wave driving events are coincident with the easterly phase of the QBO.

Hurwitz, M. M.↗