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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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All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2024

Conference Support for 2024 MagNetUS Meeting

The 4th annual MagNetUS meeting was held from April 14-18, 2024 in Los Angeles, California at the UCLA Lake Arrowhead Conference Center. The goal of the meeting was to continue the successful template of a mix of invited talks, contributed talks, posters, and discussion sessions established by the first three MagNetUS meetings, in order to 1) communicate physics advances relevant for basic magnetized plasma research which can be performed at small and mid-size experimental facilities; 2) allow collaborator facilities to connect and interact with existing users and potential new users; and 3) grow the community of potential users of collaborator facilities, as well as scientists who focus on theory/modeling and spacecraft observations. The meeting was attended by 77 participants (71 in person) from 23 unique institutions and included 14 invited talks, 19 contributed talks, 22 posters, and six discussion sessions. Topics covered by the meeting included fusion research, space and astrophysical systems (including laboratory analogs), magnetic reconnection, plasma thrusters, turbulence, waves, dusty plasmas, laser plasmas, plasma vortices, plasma sources, and software ecosystems. Discussion sessions included discussions on science communication, with NSF and DOE program managers, on the MagNetUS application process for new users, on experimental facility capabilities, and as a tie-in to the Solar Wind Machine meeting.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2020

The Mini Astrophysical MeV Background Observatory (MAMBO) CubeSat mission

The origin of the cosmic diffuse gamma-ray (CDG) background in the 0.3 – 30 MeV energy range is a mystery that has persisted for over 40 years. The Mini Astrophysical MeV Background Observatory (MAMBO) is a CubeSat mission concept motivated by the fact that, since the MeV CDG is relatively bright, only a small detector is required to make highquality measurements of it. Indeed, the sensitivity of space-based gamma-ray instruments to the CDG is limited not by size, but by the locally generated instrumental background produced by interactions of energetic particles in spacecraft materials. Comparatively tiny CubeSat platforms provide a uniquely quiet environment relative to previous gamma-ray science missions. The MAMBO mission will provide the best measurements ever made of the MeV CDG spectrum and angular distribution, utilizing two key innovations: 1) low instrumental background on a 12U CubeSat platform; and 2) an innovative shielded spectrometer design that simultaneously measures signal and background. We describe the MAMBO instrument and mission concept in detail, including simulations and laboratory measurements demonstrating the key measurement concept.

Astronomy and astrophysics↗
DOE OSTI2025

SUDA: A SUrface Dust Analyser for Compositional Mapping of the Galilean Moon Europa

Abstract The Surface Dust Analyser (SUDA) is a mass spectrometer onboard the Europa Clipper mission for investigating the surface composition of the Galilean moon Europa. Atmosphereless planetary moons such as the Galilean satellites are wrapped into a ballistic dust exosphere populated by tiny samples from the moon’s surface produced by impacts of fast micrometeoroids. SUDA will measure the composition of such surface ejecta during close flybys of Europa to obtain key chemical signatures for revealing the satellite’s composition such as organic molecules and salts, history, and geological evolution. Because of their ballistic orbits, detected ejecta can be traced back to the surface with a spatial resolution roughly equal to the instantaneous altitude of the spacecraft. SUDA is a Time-Of-Flight (TOF), reflectron-type impact mass spectrometer, optimized for a high mass resolution which only weakly depends on the impact location. The instrument will measure the mass, speed, charge, elemental, molecular, and isotopic composition of impacting grains. The instrument’s small size of$268 ~\mathrm {mm} \times 250 ~\mathrm {mm} \times 171$ 268 mm × 250 mm × 171 $~\mathrm {mm}$ mm , radiation-hard design, and rather large sensitive area of 220 cm 2 matches well the challenging demands of the Clipper mission.

Astronomy & Astrophysics↗
DOE OSTI2024

Estimating Interplanetary Magnetic Field Conditions at Mercury's Orbit From MESSENGER Magnetosheath Observations Using a Feedforward Neural Network

Abstract Mercury's small magnetosphere is embedded in the dynamic and intense solar wind environment characteristic of the inner heliosphere. Both the magnitude and orientation of the interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) significantly influence the solar wind‐magnetospheric interaction at Mercury, driving phenomena such as magnetic reconnection. The MErcury Surface, Space Environment, Geochemistry and Ranging (MESSENGER) spacecraft provided in‐situ magnetic field measurements of the solar wind, the magnetosheath, and the magnetosphere along each orbit. However, it is a challenge to directly assess the IMF's impact on Mercury's plasma environment due to the temporal separation between observations within the solar wind and the magnetosphere, especially in the absence of an upstream monitor. Here, we present a feedforward neural network (FNN) trained on a subset of magnetosheath observations to estimate the strength and orientation of the IMF upstream of the bow shock. Utilizing magnetosheath magnetic field, cylindrical spatial coordinates, and heliocentric distance measurements, the FNN predicts upstream IMF conditions with an score of 0.70 and mean averaged error of 5.3 nT, thereby greatly decreasing the temporal separation between IMF estimates and magnetospheric measurements throughout the MESSENGER mission. This approach yields IMF estimates for all magnetosheath data measured by MESSENGER, providing a useful tool for future investigations of the IMF impact on Mercury's magnetosphere. This method will be integrable with the dual‐spacecraft BepiColombo magnetosheath measurements, providing useful estimates of upstream IMF conditions particularly during the extended periods in which neither spacecraft sample the solar wind. Our results demonstrate the utility of machine learning techniques on advancing space science research.

Bowers, Charles F.↗
DOE OSTI2025

The CHIMERAS project: design framework for the Collisionless HIgh-beta Magnetized Experiment Researching Astrophysical Systems

From the near-Earth solar wind to the intracluster medium of galaxy clusters, collisionless, high-beta, magnetized plasmas pervade our universe. Energy and momentum transport from large-scale fields and flows to small-scale motions of plasma particles is ubiquitous in these systems, but a full picture of the underlying physical mechanisms remains elusive. The transfer is often mediated by a turbulent cascade of Alfvénic fluctuations as well as a variety of kinetic instabilities; these processes tend to be multi-scale and/or multi-dimensional, which makes them difficult to study using spacecraft missions and numerical simulations alone. Meanwhile, existing laboratory devices struggle to produce the collisionless, high ion beta (β i ≳ 1), magnetized plasmas across the range of scales necessary to address these problems. As envisioned in recent community planning documents, it is therefore important to build a next generation laboratory facility to create a β i ≳ 1, collisionless, magnetized plasma in the laboratory for the first time. A working group has been formed and is actively defining the necessary technical requirements to move the facility towards a construction-ready state. Recent progress includes the development of target parameters and diagnostic requirements as well as the identification of a need for source-target device geometry. As the working group is already leading to new synergies across the community, we anticipate a broad community of users funded by a variety of federal agencies (including National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Department of Energy and National Science Foundation) to make copious use of the future facility.

astrophysical plasmas↗
DOE OSTI2022

Reconnection-driven energy cascade in magnetohydrodynamic turbulence

Magnetohydrodynamic turbulence regulates the transfer of energy from large to small scales in many astrophysical systems, including the solar atmosphere. We perform three-dimensional magnetohydrodynamic simulations with unprecedentedly large magnetic Reynolds number to reveal how rapid reconnection of magnetic field lines changes the classical paradigm of the turbulent energy cascade. By breaking elongated current sheets into chains of small magnetic flux ropes (or plasmoids), magnetic reconnection leads to a previously undiscovered range of energy cascade, where the rate of energy transfer is controlled by the growth rate of the plasmoids. As a consequence, the turbulent energy spectra steepen and attain a spectral index of -2.2 that is accompanied by changes in the anisotropy of turbulence eddies. The omnipresence of plasmoids and their consequences on, for example, solar coronal heating, can be further explored with current and future spacecraft and telescopes.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2021

Evidence of Alfvenic Poynting Flux as the Primary Driver of Auroral Motion During a Geomagnetic Substorm

Geomagnetic substorms are major energy transfer events where energy stored in the Earth's magnetotail is released into the ionosphere. Substorm phenomena, including auroral activities, earthward Poynting flux, magnetic field dipolarization, etc, have been extensively studied. However, the complex interplay among them is not fully understood. In a fortuitous event on June 7, 2013, the twin Van Allen Probes (separated by 0.4 h in local time) observed bursts of earthward Alfvenic Poynting flux in the vicinity of the plasma sheet boundary layer (PSBL). The Poynting flux bursts correlate with enhancements of auroral brightness around the footpoints of both spacecraft. This indicates a temporal and spatial correlation between the auroral brightening and Poynting flux bursts, and that the auroral motion is directly linked to the perpendicular expansion of the Alfven wave. These observations suggest that the Alfvenic Poynting flux is a primary driver for the auroral electron acceleration. Furthermore, around the time of auroral brightening, a dipolarization was seen to propagate more than 4 h in local time during a 20 min period. The azimuthal phase speed of this dipolarization (2 deg/min) is too small to explain the azimuthal motion of the aurora (13.6 deg/min), but the dipolarization could be related to the generation of the Alfvenic Poynting flux through phase mixing at strong density gradients like those in the PSBL.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2022

High-frequency heating of the solar wind triggered by low-frequency turbulence

The fast solar wind’s high speeds and non-thermal features require that considerable heating occurs well above the Sun’s surface. Two leading theories seem incompatible: low-frequency ‘Alfvénic’ turbulence, which transports energy outwards and is observed ubiquitously by spacecraft but seems insufficient to explain the observed dominance of ion over electron heating; and high-frequency ion-cyclotron waves, which explain the non-thermal heating of ions but lack an obvious source. Here we argue that the recently proposed ‘helicity barrier’ effect, which limits electron heating by inhibiting the turbulent cascade of energy to the smallest scales, can unify these two paradigms. Our six-dimensional simulations show how the helicity barrier causes the large-scale energy to grow through time, generating small parallel scales and high-frequency ion-cyclotron-wave heating from low-frequency turbulence, while simultaneously explaining various other long-standing observational puzzles. Furthermore, the predicted causal link between plasma expansion and the ion-to-electron heating ratio suggests that the helicity barrier could contribute to key observed differences between fast and slow wind streams.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2020

Soft x-ray detection for small satellites with a commercial CMOS sensor at room temperature

Recently CMOS (complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor) sensors have progressed to a point where they may offer improved performance in imaging x-ray detection compared to the CCDs often used in x-ray satellites. We demonstrate x-ray detection in the soft x-ray band (250-1700 eV) by a commercially available back-illuminated Sony IMX290LLR CMOS sensor using the Advanced Photon Source at the Argonne National Laboratory. Additionally, while operating the device at room temperature, we measure energy resolutions (FWHM) of 47 eV at 250 eV and and 77 eV 1700 eV which are comparable to the performance of the Chandra ACIS and the Suzaku XIS. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the IMX290LLR can withstand radiation up to 17.1 krad, making it suitable for use on spacecraft in low earth orbit.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗
DOE OSTI2023

Coherent microwave scattering for diagnostics of small plasma objects: A review

Measurements of parameters of small-size plasmas are very challenging because many traditional diagnostic approaches cannot be used. Constructive coherent microwave scattering (CMS) offers a convenient diagnostic solution for such small plasmas. This work reviews the development and applications of constructive coherent microwave scattering by the Electric Propulsion and Plasma Laboratory at Purdue University. It presents fundamentals of CMS with an emphasis on Thomson, collisional, and Rayleigh scattering in short, thin, unmagnetized plasma media. Additionally, we review examples of CMS application for diagnostics of temporally resolved plasma dynamics and electron decay, photoionization rates, electron momentum-transfer collision frequencies, and number densities of selective species in gaseous mixtures. These applications are relevant for various research fields including strong field and femtosecond filamentation physics, plasma-assisted ignition and combustion, and combustion and spacecraft electric propulsion diagnostics.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2022

Parametric Decay of Alfvénic Wave Packets in Nonperiodic Low-beta Plasmas

The parametric decay of finite-size Alfvén waves in nonperiodic low-beta plasmas is investigated using one-dimensional (1D) hybrid simulations. Compared with the usual small periodic system, a wave packet in a large system under the absorption boundary condition shows different decay dynamics, including reduced energy transfer, localized density cavitation, and ion heating. The resulting Alfvén wave dynamics are influenced by several factors relating to this instability, including the growth rate, central wave frequency, and unstable bandwidth. A final steady state of the wave packet may be achieved when the instability does not have enough time to develop within the residual packet, and the packet size shows well-defined scaling dependencies on the growth rate, wave amplitude, and plasma beta. Under the proper conditions, enhanced secondary decay can also be excited in the form of a narrow, amplified wave packet. These results may help to interpret laboratory and spacecraft observations of Alfvén waves, and to refine our understanding of the associated energy transport and ion heating.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2025

Velocity-space signatures of shock-drift acceleration at quasi-perpendicular collisionless shocks

The shock-drift acceleration of ions at quasi-perpendicular shocks is a well-known kinetic mechanism for the acceleration of a small fraction of incoming ions to high energy. Here, we use a suite of sixteen hybrid simulations of quasi-perpendicular collisionless shocks over the range of Alfvén Mach number 4.3 ≤ M A ≤ 15.8 (corresponding to a range of fast magnetosonic Mach numbers 2.6 ≤ M f ≤ 9.4) and shock-normal angle 45°≤ θ Bn ≤ 90° to identify the velocity-space signature of shock-drift acceleration using the field-particle correlation technique. We show that the features of the ion velocity distribution in the shock foot and ramp regions can be clearly interpreted by analysis of the single-particle trajectory of a reflected ion through the full 3D-3V phase space. The characteristic features of the velocity-space signature of shock-drift acceleration remain qualitatively robust over the full parameter range of our simulations, providing a potential means for its identification using single-point spacecraft measurements. At higher Alfvén Mach numbers M A ≳8 (M f ≳5), kinetic instabilities generate fluctuations of the electromagnetic fields within the shock transition region, leading to fluctuations in and smearing out of the resulting velocity-space signatures, but the signature remains generally robust and identifiable. The results on the shock-drift acceleration of ions presented here represent a novel means to determine more completely the partitioning of upstream bulk flow kinetic energy into plasma heating, particle acceleration, and electromagnetic fields in collisionless shocks.

Howes, Gregory G. [Univ. of Iowa, Iowa City, IA (U↗
DOE OSTI2022

Lower‐Hybrid Wave Structures and Interactions With Electrons Observed in Magnetotail Reconnection Diffusion Regions

Abstract We investigate waves close to the lower‐hybrid frequency in 12 magnetotail reconnection electron diffusion region (EDR) events with guide field levels of near‐zero to 30%. In about half of the events, the wave vector has a small component along the current sheet normal, consistent with known lower‐hybrid drift wave properties, but the perpendicular magnetic field fluctuations can be comparable or greater than the parallel component, a feature unique to the waves inside and adjacent to EDRs. Another new wave property is that the wave vector has a significant component along the current sheet normal in some events and completely along the normal for one event. In 1/4 of the events, the term has a significant contribution to the wave electric field, possibly a feature of lower‐hybrid waves more likely to exist in the diffusion region than further away from the X‐line. Electron temperature variations are correlated with the wave potential, due to wave electric field acceleration and crossings at the corrugated separatrix region with different amounts of mixing between reconnection inflowing and outflowing populations. The latter also leads to the anti‐correlation between parallel and perpendicular temperature components. Using four‐spacecraft measurements, the magnetic field line twisting is demonstrated by the correlated fluctuations in and . The lower‐hybrid wave in the EDR of weak guide field reconnection may be generated near separatrices and penetrate to the mid‐plane or locally generated, and the latter possibility is beyond the prediction of previous reconnection simulations.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2024

Achievement of the Planetary Defense Investigations of the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) Mission

NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission was the first to demonstrate asteroid deflection, and the mission's Level 1 requirements guided its planetary defense investigations. Here, we summarize DART's achievement of those requirements. On 2022 September 26, the DART spacecraft impacted Dimorphos, the secondary member of the Didymos near-Earth asteroid binary system, demonstrating an autonomously navigated kinetic impact into an asteroid with limited prior knowledge for planetary defense. Months of subsequent Earth-based observations showed that the binary orbital period was changed by –33.24 minutes, with two independent analysis methods each reporting a 1 σ uncertainty of 1.4 s. Dynamical models determined that the momentum enhancement factor, β , resulting from DART's kinetic impact test is between 2.4 and 4.9, depending on the mass of Dimorphos, which remains the largest source of uncertainty. Over five dozen telescopes across the globe and in space, along with the Light Italian CubeSat for Imaging of Asteroids, have contributed to DART's investigations. These combined investigations have addressed topics related to the ejecta, dynamics, impact event, and properties of both asteroids in the binary system. A year following DART's successful impact into Dimorphos, the mission has achieved its planetary defense requirements, although work to further understand DART's kinetic impact test and the Didymos system will continue. In particular, ESA's Hera mission is planned to perform extensive measurements in 2027 during its rendezvous with the Didymos–Dimorphos system, building on DART to advance our knowledge and continue the ongoing international collaboration for planetary defense.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗