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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 325 records · Page 18
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2026

Critical transverse compressive stresses of straight and bent CORC® wires with and without impregnation

CORC® wires are a promising superconductor for accelerator magnet applications. While their excellent uniaxial tensile properties have been well established, potential degradation under transverse compression remains a concern for accelerator magnets, in which transverse compression is a primary stress experienced by superconductors. To evaluate the critical transverse compressive stresses of rare-earth barium copper oxide conductors, we developed an experimental system that enables testing of samples both with and without impregnation in liquid nitrogen. Furthermore, because bending strain induced during coil winding may influence the critical compressive response of CORC® wires, the apparatus was also modified to allow testing under the bending condition. In this study wires were tested for five configurations: (1) straight, non-impregnated, (2) bent, non-impregnated, (3) straight, Stycast 2850 FT-impregnated, (4) bent, Stycast 2850 FT-impregnated, and (5) bent, paraffin wax-impregnated. The transverse pressures corresponding to 3% and 5% reductions in the critical current are reported. In conclusion, the effects of wire bending and impregnation on the critical transverse pressure are analyzed, and the implications for transverse stress levels in accelerator magnet conductors are discussed.

CORC® wire↗
DOE OSTI2025

Characterization of proton-induced damage in thick, p-channel skipper-CCDs

Here, in this work, we characterize the radiation-induced damage in two thick, p-channel skipper-CCDs irradiated unbiased and at room temperature with 217-MeV protons. We evaluate the overall performance of the sensors and demonstrate their single-electron/single-photon sensitivity after receiving a fluence on the order of 10 10 protons/cm 2 . Using the pocket-pumping technique, we quantify and characterize the proton-induced defects from displacement damage. We report an overall trap density of 0.134 traps/pixel for a displacement damage dose of 2.3 × 10 7 MeV/g. Three main proton-induced trap species were identified, V 2 , C i O i and V n O m , and their characteristic trap energies and cross sections were extracted. We found that while divacancies are the most common proton-induced defects, C i O i defects have a greater impact on charge integrity at typical operating temperatures because their emission-time constants are comparable or larger than typical readout times. To estimate ionization damage, we measure the characteristic output transistor curves. We found no threshold voltage shifts after irradiation. Our results highlight the potential of skipper-CCDs for applications requiring high-radiation tolerance and can be used to find the operating conditions in which effects of radiation-induced damage are mitigated.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗
DOE OSTI2025

Readout electronics for low occupancy High-Pressure Gas TPCs

High-Pressure Gas Time Projection Chambers (HPgTPCs) have benefits such as low energy thresholds, magnetisability, and 4π acceptance, making them ideal for neutrino experiments such as DUNE. We present the design of an FPGA-based solution optimised for Gaseous Argon Near Detector (ND-GAr), which is part of the Phase-II more capable near detector for DUNE. These electronics reduce the cost significantly compared to using collider readout electronics, which are typically designed for much higher occupancy and therefore, for example, need much larger numbers of FPGAs and power per channel. We demonstrate the performance of our electronics with the Teststand for an Overpressurised Argon Detector (TOAD) at Fermilab in the US at a range of pressures and gas mixtures up to 4.5 barA, reading out ∼10 000 channels from a Multi-Wire Proportional Chamber (MWPC). The operation took place between April and July of 2024. We measure the noise characteristics of the system to be sufficiently low, and we identify sources of noise that can be further mitigated in the next iteration. We also note that the cooling scheme used in the test requires improvement before full-scale deployment. Despite these necessary improvements, we show that the system can fulfil the needs of a HPgTPC for a fraction of the price of collider readout electronics.

Data acquisition concepts↗
DOE OSTI2026

Single pion production and pion propagation in A chilles

We extend the applicability of A chilles (A CHIcagoLand Lepton Event Simulator) by incorporating the single pion production mechanism in a fully exclusive fashion. The electroweak interaction vertex is modeled by combining the state-of-the-art dynamical coupled-channels approach with realistic hole spectral functions, which account for correlations in both the initial target state and the residual spectator system. Final-state interactions are treated using a semiclassical intranuclear cascade that leverages nuclear configurations to determine the correlated spatial distribution of protons and neutrons. The meson-baryon scattering amplitudes used in the cascade are computed within the dynamical coupled-channels framework, consistent with the electroweak vertex. To model pion absorption, we employ the optical potential approach of Oset and Salcedo [Nucl. Phys. A484, 557 (1988).]. As an alternative approach, we explicitly model the production and propagation of resonances which mediate pion-nucleon scattering and pion absorption. We validate our approach against pion-nucleon and pion-nucleus scattering data, and present comparisons with electron- and neutrino-nucleus measurements from e⁢4⁢𝜈, T2K, MINER⁢𝜈⁢A, and MicroBooNE.

Isaacson, Joshua [Michigan State Univ., East Lansi↗
DOE OSTI2026

Coherence-mediated quantum thermometry in a hybrid circuit quantum electrodynamics architecture

Quantum thermometry plays a critical role in the development of low-temperature sensors and quantum information platforms. Here, in this work, we propose and analyze a hybrid circuit quantum electrodynamics architecture in which a superconducting qubit is dispersively coupled to two distinct bosonic modes: one initialized in a weak coherent state as a phase reference and information buffer and the other coupled to a thermal environment. We show that the qubit serves as a sensitive readout of the probe mode, mapping the interplay between thermal and coherent photon-number fluctuations onto measurable dephasing. This coherence-mediated mechanism enables improved sensitivity to thermal energy fluctuations in the sub-millikelvin regime through Ramsey interferometry. We derive analytic expressions for the probe coherence envelope, compute the quantum Fisher information for temperature estimation, and demonstrate numerically that the presence of a coherent reference enhances the qubit's sensitivity to small changes in thermal photon occupancy. Our results establish a coherence-enabled approach to thermometry and provide a scalable platform for future calorimetric sensing in high-energy physics and quantum metrology.

Zhu, Shaojiang [Fermi National Accelerator Laborat↗
DOE OSTI2026

Fast Sideband Control of a Multimode Cavity Memory with Weak Dispersive Coupling to a Transmon

Mitigating ancilla-mediated error channels is a critical challenge in controlling high-quality superconducting cavities using circuit quantum electrodynamics (cQED). We address this by weakening the dispersive coupling while demonstrating fast, high-fidelity multimode control through transmon-mediated sideband interactions. We implement transmon-cavity SWAP gates with speeds up to 30 times larger than the bare dispersive coupling. Combined with transmon rotations, this enables universal state preparation in a single mode, though achieving unitary gates and extending control to multiple modes remains a challenge. In this work, we overcome this limitation by introducing two control strategies: (i) a shelving technique that stores populations in sideband-transparent states, and (ii) a method that exploits the dispersive shift to implement photon-number-selective transmon-cavity SWAP gates. We use these protocols to prepare Fock and binomial code states across any of the ten modes of a multimode cavity with millisecond coherence times—serving as a multimode quantum memory. We demonstrate unitaries that encode and decode an arbitrary qubit state from the transmon into corresponding vacuum and Fock state superpositions, as well as entangled NOON states of cavity mode pairs—a scheme extendable to arbitrary multimode Fock encodings in the cavity modes. Furthermore, we implement a new binomial encoding gate that converts arbitrary transmon superpositions into binomial code states in any cavity mode at a rate exceeding the dispersive shifts in our system, achieving an average post-selected state fidelity of 96.3% in a 4 μ⁢s gate time. By using precalibrated transmon and sideband pulses, our work demonstrates multimode control with significantly reduced calibration overhead, enabling efficient unitary operations using sideband interactions in multimode cQED systems.

Huang, Jordan [Rutgers Univ., Piscataway, NJ (Unit↗
DOE OSTI2025

The critical importance of software for HEP

Particle physics has an ambitious and broad global experimental programme for the coming decades. Large investments in building new facilities are already underway or under consideration. Scaling the present processing power and data storage needs by the foreseen increase in data rates in the next decade for HL-LHC is not sustainable within the current budgets. As a result, a more efficient usage of computing resources is required in order to realise the physics potential of future experiments. Software and computing are an integral part of experimental design, trigger and data acquisition, simulation, reconstruction, and analysis, as well as related theoretical predictions. A significant investment in computing and software is therefore critical. Advances in software and computing, including artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), will be key for solving these challenges. Making better use of new processing hardware such as graphical processing units (GPUs) or ARM chips is a growing trend. This forms part of a computing solution that makes efficient use of facilities and contributes to the reduction of the environmental footprint of HEP computing. The HEP community already provided a roadmap for software and computing for the last EPPSU, and this paper updates that, with a focus on the most resource critical parts of our data processing chain.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2025

ifdhc

Data handling library for IF experiments at Fermilab

Mengel, Marc [Fermi National Accelerator Laborator↗
DOE OSTI2025

libwda

Low level API for IFBeam and other csv data

Mengel, Marc [Fermi National Accelerator Laborator↗
DOE OSTI2025

extapi-acsys

Provides public APIs to the Fermilab control system. This service exposes several GraphQL endpoints for various, logical APIs that clients may use to retrieve control system data and, in some cases, make changes to the control system. This service is currently running on acsys-proxy.fnal.gov on port 8000 with the development instance on port 8001. The middle layer of the control system uses gRPCs for communications. The GraphQL resolvers of this service use various gRPC services to obtain the information that is returned. This uses the async-graphql and warp crates to provide GraphQL over http support. The resolvers use the tonic crate for gRPC client support.

Neswold, Rich [Fermi National Accelerator Laborato↗
DOE OSTI2025

High efficiency glass-based VUV metasurfaces

Most advances in metaoptics have been made at visible wavelengths and above; in contrast, the vacuum ultraviolet (VUV) has barely been explored despite numerous scientific and technological opportunities. Creating metaoptic elements at this short wavelength is challenging due to the scarcity of VUV transparent materials and the small sizes of the required nanostructures. Here, we present the first transmissive VUV (175 nm) metalens. By using UV-grade silica and trading off the Nyquist requirement for subwavelength structures against feasibility of the fabrication process, we achieve a step-change in diffraction efficiencies for wavelengths shorter than 300 nm. Our large numerical aperture (NA = 0.5) metalens shows an average diffraction efficiency of (53.3 ± 1.4)%. This demonstration opens up new avenues for compact flat optic systems operating in the VUV range.

Martins, Augusto [Univ. of York (United Kingdom)] ↗
DOE OSTI2025

Proton Dynamics Scenarios in the Integrable Optics Test Accelerator (IOTA) at Fermilab

The Integrable Optics Test Accelerator (IOTA) at Fermilab provides a versatile platform for studying the interplay of space-charge, impedance, and non-linear optics in high-intensity hadron beams within synchrotrons and storage rings. This report examines the parameters and dynamics of 2.5~MeV proton beam operations in two configurations of the bare IOTA lattice: one for demonstrating Non-linear Integrable Optics with the Danilov-Nagaitsev magnet, and the other for use with electron cooling. We offer order-of-magnitude estimates of the transverse emittance growth rate as a function of beam intensity, highlighting contributions from residual gas scattering, intra-beam scattering, and space-charge effects. Under nominal conditions, the beam lifetime is projected to be less than 7~minutes at low intensity with the current vacuum quality, and fewer than 100,000~turns at high intensity due to strong space-charge effects. The calculations presented here will guide strategies to mitigate emittance growth and inform future IOTA experiments.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗
DOE OSTI2025

dCache: The Storage System of Choice for Data-Intensive Applications

The ever-increasing volumes of data produced by modern scientific facilities like EuXFEL and LHC put significant stress on data management infrastructure operated by laboratories and research centers. The challenges to be addressed span the entire data life cycle, from ingest and efficient data analysis to long-term preservation, typically involving large tape libraries. dCache, a storage system developed in collaboration between the Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron (DESY), Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, and Nordic e-Infrastructure Collaboration (NeIC), is designed to manage a large number of disk servers and to facilitate transparent data migration to and from archival storage. Its multifaceted approach offers a unified method to support a variety of scientific use cases with the same storage infrastructure, including high-throughput data ingest, data sharing over wide area networks, efficient access from HPC clusters, and long-term data preservation on tertiary storage. Initially developed for high energy physics (HEP) experiments, dCache is now used by various scientific communities, including astrophysics, biomedical research, and life sciences, each having specific requirements. This paper presents architecture, deployment strategies, performance and scalability enhancements, and recent advancements in dCache addressing the needs of scientific communities. Finally, we touch on the development and release process, ensuring the software’s high quality.

DCache↗
DOE OSTI2025

AC-LGADs Fermilab front-end electronics characterization

Here, we characterized the front-end electronics used to process high-frequency signals from low-gain avalanche diodes (LGADs) at the Fermilab Test Beam Facility. LGADs are silicon detectors employed for charged particle tracking, offering exceptional spatial and temporal resolution. The purpose of this characterization was to understand how the time resolution is influenced by the front-end electronics. To achieve this, we developed a setup capable of generating input signals with varying amplitudes. The output results demonstrated that signal processing by the front-end electronics plays a crucial role in enhancing time resolution. We showed that the time resolution achieved by the FEE board is better than 2 p s at the 1 σ level.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
DOE OSTI2025

Accelerating detector simulations with Celeritas: Profiling and performance optimizations

Celeritas is a GPU-optimized Monte Carlo (MC) particle transport code designed to meet the growing computational demands of next-generation high energy physics (HEP) experiments. It provides efficient simulation of electromagnetic (EM) physics processes in complex geometries with magnetic fields, detector hit scoring, and seamless integration into Geant4-driven applications to offload EM physics to GPUs. Recent efforts have focused on performance optimizations and expanding profiling capabilities. This paper presents some key advancements, including the integration of the Perfetto system profiling tool for detailed performance analysis and the development of track-sorting methods to improve computational efficiency.

Lund, Amanda [Argonne National Laboratory (ANL)]↗
DOE OSTI2025

Development of interatomic potential and effect of ordering on defect properties in CrMnV

Developing materials that can withstand extreme environments, such as high radiation doses and elevated temperatures, is crucial for next-generation particle accelerators, including the 2.4 MW Long-Baseline Neutrino Facility. High-Entropy Alloys have emerged as promising candidates for beam window materials due to their superior mechanical strength, corrosion resistance, and radiation tolerance. In this study, we focus on the Cr–Mn–V alloy system, developing and employing machine-learning interatomic potentials (MLIPs) to investigate the formation of an ordered phase and its influence on defect properties. Using hybrid Monte Carlo-Molecular Dynamics simulations, we observe the formation of a B2-ordered phase at lower temperatures, consistent with Density Functional Theory (DFT) predictions. Ordered structures display a bimodal distribution of migration energies and reduced mean square displacement values, indicating suppressed vacancy diffusion. Our results also show that the migration energy barrier varies based on the atomic species, with Mn and V exhibiting the highest and lowest average barriers, respectively. These findings suggest that atomic ordering inhibits defect mobility, potentially enhancing the radiation resistance of CrMnV alloys. The validated MLIP provides a reliable framework for simulations that are faster than traditional DFT while maintaining the accuracy required to study defect and ordering properties.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2025

Form-factor dependence of neutrino-nucleus cross sections using microscopic methods

To achieve its design goals, the next generation of neutrino-oscillation accelerator experiments requires percent-level predictions of neutrino-nucleus cross sections supplemented by robust estimates of the theoretical uncertainties involved. The latter arise from both approximations in solving the nuclear many-body problem and in the determination of the single- and few-nucleon quantities taken as input by many-body methods. To gauge the sensitivity of realistic nuclear many body methods to these few-nucleon quantities, we compute flux-averaged double-differential cross sections using the Green’s function Monte Carlo and spectral function methods as well as different parameterizations of the nucleon axial form factors based on either deuterium bubble-chamber data or lattice quantum chromodynamics calculations. The cross-section results are compared with available experimental data from the MiniBooNE and T2K collaborations. We also discuss the uncertainties associated with N → Δ transition form factors that enter the two-body current operator. We quantify the relations between neutrino-nucleus cross section and nucleon form factor uncertainties. These relations enable us to determine the form factor precision targets required to achieve a given cross-section precision.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2025

Temperature-dependent characterization of large-area superconducting microwire array with single-photon sensitivity in the near-infrared

Superconducting nanowire single photon detectors (SNSPDs) are a leading detector technology for time-resolved single-photon counting from the ultraviolet to the near-infrared regime. The recent advancement in single-photon sensitivity in micrometer-scale superconducting wires opens up promising opportunities to develop large area SNSPDs with applications in low background dark matter detection experiments. Here, we present the first detailed temperature-dependent study of a 4-channel 1×1 mm 2 WSi superconducting microwire single photon detector (SMSPD) array, including the internal detection efficiency, dark count rate, and importantly the coincident dark counts across pixels. The detector shows saturated internal detection efficiency for photon wavelengths ranging from 635 nm to 1650 nm, time jitter of about 160 ps for 1060 nm photons, and a low dark count rate of about 10 -2 Hz. Additionally, the coincidences of dark count rate across pixels are studied for the first time in detail, where we observed an excess of correlated dark counts, which has important implications for low background dark matter experiments. The results presented is the first step towards characterizing and developing SMSPD array systems and associated background for low background dark matter detection experiments.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗