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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

Error-mitigated nonorthogonal quantum eigensolver via shadow tomography

We present a shadow-tomography-enhanced nonorthogonal quantum eigensolver (NOQE) for more efficient and accurate electronic structure calculations on near-term quantum devices. By integrating shadow tomography into the NOQE, the measurement cost scales linearly rather than quadratically with the number of reference states, while also reducing the required qubits and circuit depth by half. This approach enables extraction of all matrix elements via randomized measurements and classical postprocessing. We analyze its sample complexity and show that, for small systems, it remains constant in the high-precision regime, while for larger systems, it scales linearly with the system size. We further apply shadow-based error mitigation to suppress noise-induced bias without increasing quantum resources. Demonstrations on the hydrogen molecule in the strongly correlated regime achieve chemical accuracy under realistic noise, showing that our method is both resource-efficient and noise-resilient for practical quantum chemistry simulations in the near term.

quantum algorithms & computation↗

Using GANs with adaptive training data to search for new molecules

The process of drug discovery involves a search over the space of all possible chemical compounds. Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) provide a valuable tool towards exploring chemical space and optimizing known compounds for a desired functionality. Standard approaches to training GANs, however, can result in mode collapse, in which the generator primarily produces samples closely related to a small subset of the training data. In contrast, the search for novel compounds necessitates exploration beyond the original data. In this work, we present an approach to training GANs that promotes incremental exploration and limits the impacts of mode collapse using concepts from Genetic Algorithms. In our approach, valid samples from the generator are used to replace samples from the training data. We consider both random and guided selection along with recombination during replacement. By tracking the number of novel compounds produced during training, we show that updates to the training data drastically outperform the traditional approach, increasing potential applications for GANs in drug discovery.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

Increasing the hardness of posiform planting using random QUBOs for programmable quantum annealer benchmarking

Posiform planting is a method for constructing QUBO instances with a unique planted solution that can be tailored to arbitrary connectivity graphs. In this study we investigate making posiform planted QUBOs computationally harder by fusing many smaller random Ising models, whose global minimum is computed classically, with posiform planted QUBOs. The unique ground state of the resulting QUBO is the concatenation of (exactly one of) the ground states of each smaller problem. Our method generates QUBO instances that have a unique solution, are native to the hardware graph, and have tunable computational hardness. We use our QUBOs to benchmark three D-Wave quantum annealing processors (with 563–5627 qubits), and compare them against simulated annealing and Gurobi. Surprisingly, we find that the D-Wave ground state sampling success rate is not dependent on the glued random QUBO size, and that some QUBO classes are solved at high success rates at short annealing times on the Zephyr processors.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

Use of Longitudinal Serum Analysis and Machine Learning to Develop a Classifier for Cancer Early Detection

Early detection of solid tumors through a simple screening process, such as the proteomic analysis of biofluids, has the potential to significantly alter the management and outcomes of cancers. The application of advanced targeted proteomics measurements and data analysis strategies to uniformly collected serum or plasma samples would enable longitudinal studies of cancer risk, progression, and response to therapy that have the potential to significantly reduce cancer burden in general. In this article, we describe a generalizable workflow combining robust, multiplexed targeted proteomics measurements applied to longitudinal samples from the Department of Defense Serum Repository with a Random Forest machine learning method for developing and initially evaluating the performance of candidate biomarker panels for early detection of cancers. The effectiveness of this approach was demonstrated in a cohort of 175 head and neck squamous cell carcinoma patients. The outlined protocols include methods for sample preparation, instrument analysis, and data analysis and interpretation using this workflow.

Longitudinal analysis, machine learning, cancer, e↗

Inelastic Neutron Scattering Data for Ba₃Zn(Ru₀.₁Sb₁.₉)O₉

This dataset contains inelastic neutron scattering measurements on the magnetically dilute compound Ba₃Zn(Ru₀.₁Sb₁.₉)O₉, collected at the Spallation Neutron Source using the Cold Neutron Chopper Spectrometer (CNCS) and the SEQUOIA Fine-Resolution Fermi Chopper Spectrometer. The sample consists of nominally 5% magnetic Ru⁵⁺ ions (S = 3/2) randomly substituted into a diamagnetic Sb⁵⁺ matrix. Measurements were performed at base temperature (2–5 K) and 300 K using multiple incident energies (1.00, 3.32, 12.0, and 100 meV) to resolve magnetic excitations from isolated monomers and small Ru clusters (dimers, trimers, etc.). The dataset includes raw event-mode files, momentum- and energy-resolved spectra, and supporting metadata for instrument configuration, sample environment, and reduction parameters.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Trajectory sampling and finite-size effects in first-principles stopping power calculations

Abstract Real-time time-dependent density functional theory (TDDFT) is presently the most accurate available method for computing electronic stopping powers from first principles. However, obtaining application-relevant results often involves either costly averages over multiple calculations or ad hoc selection of a representative ion trajectory. We consider a broadly applicable, quantitative metric for evaluating and optimizing trajectories in this context. This methodology enables rigorous analysis of the failure modes of various common trajectory choices in crystalline materials. Although randomly selecting trajectories is common practice in stopping power calculations in solids, we show that nearly 30% of random trajectories in an FCC aluminum crystal will not representatively sample the material over the time and length scales feasibly simulated with TDDFT, and unrepresentative choices incur errors of up to 60%. We also show that finite-size effects depend on ion trajectory via “ouroboros” effects beyond the prevailing plasmon-based interpretation, and we propose a cost-reducing scheme to obtain converged results even when expensive core-electron contributions preclude large supercells. This work helps to mitigate poorly controlled approximations in first-principles stopping power calculations, allowing 1–2 order of magnitude cost reductions for obtaining representatively averaged and converged results.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Resolution of 100 photons and quantum generation of unbiased random numbers

Macroscopic quantum phenomena, such as observed in superfluids and superconductors, have led to promising technological advancements and some of the most important tests of fundamental physics. At present, quantum detection of light is mostly relegated to the microscale, where avalanche photodiodes are very sensitive to distinguishing single-photon events from vacuum but cannot differentiate between larger photon-number events. Beyond this, the ability to perform measurements to resolve photon numbers is highly desirable for a variety of quantum information applications including computation, sensing, and cryptography. True photon-number resolving detectors do exist, but they are currently limited to the ability to resolve on the order of 10 photons, which is too small for certain proposals. In this work, we extend photon measurement into the mesoscopic regime by implementing a detection scheme based on multiplexing highly quantum-efficient transition-edge sensors to accurately resolve photon numbers between zero and 100. Further, we then demonstrate the use of our system by implementing a quantum random number generator with no inherent bias. This method is based on sampling a coherent state in the photon-number basis and is robust against environmental noise, phase and amplitude fluctuations in the laser, loss and detector inefficiency as well as eavesdropping. Beyond true random number generation, our detection scheme serves as a means to implement quantum measurement and engineering techniques valuable for photonic quantum information processing.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗

Measuring photometric redshifts for high-redshift radio source surveys

With the advent of deep, all-sky radio surveys, the need for ancillary data to make the most of the new, high-quality radio data from surveys like the Evolutionary Map of the Universe (EMU), GaLactic and Extragalactic All-sky Murchison Widefield Array survey eXtended, Very Large Array Sky Survey, and LOFAR Two-metre Sky Survey is growing rapidly. Radio surveys produce significant numbers of Active Galactic Nuclei (AGNs) and have a significantly higher average redshift when compared with optical and infrared all-sky surveys. Thus, traditional methods of estimating redshift are challenged, with spectroscopic surveys not reaching the redshift depth of radio surveys, and AGNs making it difficult for template fitting methods to accurately model the source. Machine Learning (ML) methods have been used, but efforts have typically been directed towards optically selected samples, or samples at significantly lower redshift than expected from upcoming radio surveys. This work compiles and homogenises a radio-selected dataset from both the northern hemisphere (making use of Sloan Digital Sky Survey optical photometry) and southern hemisphere (making use of Dark Energy Survey optical photometry). We then test commonly used ML algorithms such as k-Nearest Neighbours (kNN), Random Forest, ANNz, and GPz on this monolithic radio-selected sample. We show that kNN has the lowest percentage of catastrophic outliers, providing the best match for the majority of science cases in the EMU survey. We note that the wider redshift range of the combined dataset used allows for estimation of sources up to z = 3 before random scatter begins to dominate. When binning the data into redshift bins and treating the problem as a classification problem, we are able to correctly identify ≈ 76% of the highest redshift sources—sources at redshift z > 2.51 —as being in either the highest bin (z > 2.51) or second highest (z = 2.25).

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Hot Stars with Kepler Planets Have High Obliquities

It has been known for a decade that hot stars with hot Jupiters tend to have high obliquities. Less is known about the degree of spin–orbit alignment for hot stars with other kinds of planets. Here, we reassess the obliquities of hot Kepler stars with transiting planets smaller than Neptune, based on spectroscopic measurements of their projected rotation velocities (vsin i). The basis of the method is that a lower obliquity—all other things being equal—causes sin i to be closer to unity and increases the value of vsin i. We sought evidence for this effect using a sample of 150 Kepler stars with effective temperatures between 5950 and 6550 K and a control sample of 101 stars with matching spectroscopic properties and random orientations. The planet hosts have systematically higher values of vsin i than the control stars, but not by enough to be compatible with perfect spin–orbit alignment. The mean value of sin i is 0.856 ± 0.036, which is 4σ away from unity (perfect alignment), and 2σ away from π/4 (random orientations). There is also evidence that the hottest stars have a broader obliquity distribution: when modeled separately, the stars cooler than 6250 K have 〈sin i〉=0.928±0.042 while the hotter stars are consistent with random orientations. This is similar to the pattern previously noted for stars with hot Jupiters. Based on these results, obliquity excitation for early-G and late-F stars appears to be a general outcome of star and planet formation, rather than being exclusively linked to hot Jupiter formation.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Effect of Heat Treatment on Microstructure and Mechanical Property of 316L Stainless Steel Produced by Laser Powder Bed Fusion

The advanced non-light water reactor designs (Gen IV reactors), including molten salt/ very high temperature/ sodium-cooled and lead-cooled fast reactors, typically operate at higher temperatures and more extreme radiation conditions than light water reactors. An intrinsic part of the deployment and progress of Gen IV reactor designs is selecting the most suitable structural material for a specific application. Additive manufacturing (AM), a fairly new process of making physical, three-dimensional objects from a computer design file, is going to completely change the way of design, build and certify nuclear systems. It offers a range of opportunities to produce complex geometries from existing materials, offers new routes for processing of previously difficult to process materials, allows for design of new high-performance materials, and finally facilitates hybridization of dissimilar materials. This emerging technology has successfully produced cars, wind turbine blade molds and even live cells. It could also open up big opportunities for the nuclear industry to quickly deploy technologies at a fraction of the cost. So far, AM techniques have been preliminarily applied in the field of nuclear reactors, including the classical parts such as the pressure vessel of a small reactor with 508-III steel, the bottom nozzle of a fuel assembly with 304L steel, the fuel cladding with zirconium alloy and the integrated impeller of a pump and the multi-channel valve body with 316L steel [6,7]. The AM applications for operating nuclear reactors started in auxiliary plant components and have slowly migrated to metallic reactors and core components, but many of these are not safety critical components. Although many parts used for nuclear reactors have been fabricated by AM techniques, practical applications in engineering are still a long way off due to the uncertainty factors focused on the processing, material properties, analysis methods and application standards, which feeds the safety and life-cycle of the nuclear reactor. Due to rapid, repeated heating and cooling during production, a high dislocation density was present in the AM material. This microstructure feature is unstable at elevated temperature while high temperature is one of the typical operation environments for nuclear reactors. Thus, it is important to understand the thermal effect on the microstructure of AM material. The objectives of this study are to investigate the effect of heat treatment on the microstructure and mechanical properties of 316L stainless steel produced by laser powder bed fusion additive manufacturing, and to determine an appropriate heat treatment practice that will be applied to the lightweight AM lattice-structured material with the same chemistry. The heat treatment study consisted of annealing the samples at a temperature range of 800 to 1200 oC with a 50 oC increment for different times (1-24 hours), followed by vacuum or air cooling. Microstructural characterization was carried out by Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM). Grain size and crystallographic orientation were investigated by Electron Backscatter Diffraction (EBSD). Vickers hardness tests with a 0.5 kg load were employed to determine the hardness of samples after different heat treatments. After heat treatment, the random crystallographic orientation was preserved, and the volume fraction of high-angle grain boundaries (grain boundary misorientation =15 oC) remained the same. The dislocation density decreased with annealing temperature due to recovery. The fine subgrain structures in the as-printed specimen were quite stable up to 1200 oC. Minimal recrystallization was observed up to 1200 oC. Recrystallization initiated only after 8.5 hours at 1200 oC. The SEM images did not show obvious dependence of microstructure on cooling rate. The hardness of the specimens decreased with increasing annealing temperature as a result of the decrease in dislocation density. It is interesting to note that the AM material showed very similar hardness to the wrought material when annealing at similar temperature, although the microstructures are very different. Annealing at 1050 oC for 1 hour followed by air cooling was selected as the heat treatment procedure for the lattice designed lightweight AM 316L material.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Photometric redshift estimation of BASS DR3 quasars by machine learning

ABSTRACT Correlating Beijing–Arizona Sky Survey (BASS) data release 3 (DR3) catalogue with the ALLWISE data base, the data from optical and infrared information are obtained. The quasars from Sloan Digital Sky Survey are taken as training and test samples while those from LAMOST are considered as external test sample. We propose two schemes to construct the redshift estimation models with XGBoost, CatBoost, and Random Forest. One scheme (namely one-step model) is to predict photometric redshifts directly based on the optimal models created by these three algorithms; the other scheme (namely two-step model) is to first classify the data into low- and high-redshift data sets, and then predict photometric redshifts of these two data sets separately. For one-step model, the performance of these three algorithms on photometric redshift estimation is compared with different training samples, and CatBoost is superior to XGBoost and Random Forest. For two-step model, the performances of these three algorithms on the classification of low and high redshift subsamples are compared, and CatBoost still shows the best performance. Therefore, CatBoost is regarded as the core algorithm of classification and regression in two-step model. In contrast to one-step model, two-step model is optimal when predicting photometric redshift of quasars, especially for high-redshift quasars. Finally, the two models are applied to predict photometric redshifts of all quasar candidates of BASS DR3. The number of high-redshift quasar candidates is 3938 (redshift ≥3.5) and 121 (redshift ≥4.5) by two-step model. The predicted result will be helpful for quasar research and follow-up observation of high-redshift quasars.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Leverage Score Sampling for Parametric PDEs (Final Technical Report)

This final technical report summarizes the accomplishments of work performed under DOE Office of Science Award DE-SC0022266, which is titled “Leverage Score Sampling for Parametric PDEs”. The goal of the project was to extend methods from Randomized Numerical Linear Algebra (RandNLA) to tackle central computational challenges in model order reduction and uncertainty quantification (UQ) for parametric partial differential equations (PDEs). In particular, we sought to use importance sampling methods originally developed for RandNLA to develop sample efficient active learning algorithms for approximating high-dimensional scalar functions, e.g. by polynomials, Gaussian process models, and simple neural networks. Such methods can be immediately applied to developing surrogate models or to approximating quantity of interest (QoI) surfaces. In the context of PDEs, each sample used for learning equates to the solution of the differential equation for a particular set of parameters, so sample efficiency translates to improved computational efficiency for a variety of downstream tasks.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Examining AGN UV/Optical Variability beyond the Simple Damped Random Walk

We present damped harmonic oscillator (DHO) light-curve modeling for a sample of 12,714 spectroscopically confirmed quasars in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Stripe 82 region. DHO is a second-order continuous-time autoregressive moving-average process, which can be fully described using four independent parameters: a natural oscillation frequency (ω 0 ), a damping ratio (ξ), a characteristic perturbation timescale (τ perturb ), and an amplitude for the perturbing white noise (σ ϵ ). The asymptotic variability amplitude of a DHO process is quantified by σ DHO —a function of ω 0 , ξ, τ perturb , and σ ϵ . We find that both τ perturb and σ ϵ follow different dependencies with rest-frame wavelength (λ RF ) on either side of 2500 Å, whereas σ DHO follows a single power-law relation with λ RF . After correcting for wavelength dependence, σ DHO exhibits anticorrelations with both the Eddington ratio and the black hole mass, while τ perturb —with a typical value of days in the rest frame—shows an anticorrelation with the bolometric luminosity. Modeling active galactic nuclei (AGN) variability as a DHO offers more insight into the workings of accretion disks close to the supermassive black holes at the center of AGN. The newly discovered short-term variability (characterized by τ perturb and σ ϵ ) and its correlation with bolometric luminosity pave the way for new algorithms that will derive fundamental properties (e.g., Eddington ratio) of AGN using photometric data alone.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

A Metabolomics Assay to Diagnose Citrus Huanglongbing Disease and to Aid in Assessment of Treatments to Prevent or Cure Infection

Citrus greening disease, or Huanglongbing (HLB), has devastated citrus crops globally in recent years. The causal bacterium, ‘ Candidatus Liberibacter asiaticus’, presents a sampling issue for qPCR diagnostics and results in a high false negative rate. In this work, we compared six metabolomics assays to identify HLB-infected citrus trees from leaf tissue extracted from 30 control and 30 HLB-infected trees. A liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry-based assay was most accurate. A final partial least squares-discriminant analysis (PLS-DA) model was trained and validated on 690 leaf samples with corresponding qPCR measures from three citrus varieties (Rio Red grapefruit, Hamlin sweet orange, and Valencia sweet orange) from orchards in Florida and Texas. Trees were naturally infected with HLB transmitted by the insect vector Diaphorina citri. In a randomized validation set, the assay was 99.9% accurate to classify diseased from nondiseased samples. This model was applied to samples from trees receiving plant defense-inducer compounds or biological treatments to prevent or cure HLB infection. From two trials, HLB-related metabolite abundances and PLS-DA scores were tracked longitudinally and compared with those of control trees. We demonstrate how our assay can assess tree health and the efficacy of HLB treatments and conclude that no trialed treatment was efficacious.

Plant Sciences↗

Physics Informed Reinforcement Learning for Power Grid Control using Augmented Random Search

Wide adoption of deep reinforcement learning need to overcome several challenges in energy system domain, including scalability, learning from limited samples, and high-dimensional continuous state and action spaces. In this paper, we integrated physics-based information from the normal generator operation state formula in the reinforcement learning agent's neural network loss function, and applied an augmented random search agent to optimize the generator control under dynamic contingency. Simulation results demonstrated the reliability performance improvements in training speed, reward convergence, sampling efficiency, scalability, and transferability.

physics informed ML, Physics Informed Neural Netwo↗

Quantum-Inspired Bayesian Sampling for Uncertainty Quantification and Machine Learning (Final Technical Report)

With increasing simulation and measurement data, machine learning and artificial intelligence have been widely used in computational decision-making of complex engineering systems. The resulting tools, such as uncertainty quantification solvers, reinforcement learning, and physics-informed machine learning, have achieved great success in critical DOE tasks such as material discovery and design, energy system modeling and control, and numerical weather and climate prediction. A core topic in scientific machine learning and artificial intelligence is Bayesian inference: given an observed data set, people want to estimate the posterior distribution of a (possibly large) number of hidden parameters. Due to the flexibility and weak assumptions, Bayesian sampling has been the mainstream Bayesian inference solvers despite the rapid progress of approximate Bayesian inference. Classical Bayesian sampling methods such as Markov-chain Monte Carlo suffer from a low-acceptance rate due to the random walk nature, therefore state-of-the-art techniques use Hamiltonian Monte Carlo and its variants to efficiently draw posterior samples in a high dimension. The key idea of Hamiltonian Monte Carlo and its variants is to simulate the Hamiltonian dynamics of a classical particle with a fixed mass, and their performance significantly degrades when the posterior distribution is highly spiky or has multiple modes. Leveraging the idea of quantum physics, this project has investigated new theory, algorithms and applications of Bayesian inference (especially Bayesian sampling). The main results include: (1) novel quantum-inspired Bayesian sampling methods that can lead to better accuracy for challenging multi-modal or spiky distributions, (2) more scalable machine learning framework leveraging tensor-compressed Bayesian inference, and (3) Bayesian and sampling approaches for verifying the robustness of continuous and binary neural networks.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Convergent behavior of extended stalk regions from staphylococcal surface proteins with widely divergent sequence patterns

Staphylococcus epidermidis and Staphylococcus aureus are highly problematic bacteria in hospital settings. A major challenge is their ability to form biofilms on abiotic or biotic surfaces. Biofilms are well-organized, multicellular bacterial aggregates that resist antibiotic treatment and often lead to recurrent infections. Bacterial cell wall-anchored (CWA) proteins are important players in biofilm formation and infection. Many have putative stalk-like regions or regions of low complexity near the cell wall-anchoring motif. Recent work demonstrated the strong propensity of the stalk region of S. epidermidis accumulation-associated protein (Aap) to remain highly extended under solution conditions that typically induce compaction. This behavior is consistent with the expected function of a stalk-like region that is covalently attached to the cell wall peptidoglycan and projects the adhesive domains of Aap away from the cell surface. In this study, we evaluate whether the ability to resist compaction is a common theme among stalk regions from various staphylococcal CWA proteins. Circular dichroism spectroscopy was used to examine secondary structure changes as a function of temperature and cosolvents along with sedimentation velocity analytical ultracentrifugation, size-exclusion chromatography, and SAXS to characterize structural characteristics in solution. All stalk regions tested are intrinsically disordered, lacking secondary structure beyond random coil and polyproline type II helix, and they all sample highly extended conformations. Remarkably, the Ser-Asp dipeptide repeat region of SdrC exhibited nearly identical behavior in solution when compared to the Aap Pro/Gly-rich region, despite highly divergent sequence patterns, indicating conservation of function by various distinct staphylococcal CWA protein stalk regions.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗

Codiscovering graphical structure and functional relationships within data: A Gaussian Process framework for connecting the dots

Most problems within and beyond the scientific domain can be framed into one of the following three levels of complexity of function approximation. Type 1: Approximate an unknown function given input/output data. Type 2: Consider a collection of variables and functions, some of which are unknown, indexed by the nodes and hyperedges of a hypergraph (a generalized graph where edges can connect more than two vertices). Given partial observations of the variables of the hypergraph (satisfying the functional dependencies imposed by its structure), approximate all the unobserved variables and unknown functions. Type 3: Expanding on Type 2, if the hypergraph structure itself is unknown, use partial observations of the variables of the hypergraph to discover its structure and approximate its unknown functions. These hypergraphs offer a natural platform for organizing, communicating, and processing computational knowledge. While most scientific problems can be framed as the data-driven discovery of unknown functions in a computational hypergraph whose structure is known (Type 2), many require the data-driven discovery of the structure (connectivity) of the hypergraph itself (Type 3). We introduce an interpretable Gaussian Process (GP) framework for such (Type 3) problems that does not require randomization of the data, access to or control over its sampling, or sparsity of the unknown functions in a known or learned basis. Its polynomial complexity, which contrasts sharply with the super-exponential complexity of causal inference methods, is enabled by the nonlinear ANOVA capabilities of GPs used as a sensing mechanism.

Science & Technology - Other Topics↗