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At least 361 records · Page 20

Neuromorphic scaling advantages for energy-efficient random walk computations

Neuromorphic computing, which aims to replicate the computational structure and architecture of the brain in synthetic hardware, has typically focused on artificial intelligence applications. What is less explored is whether such brain-inspired hardware can provide value beyond cognitive tasks. Here we show that the high degree of parallelism and configurability of spiking neuromorphic architectures makes them well suited to implement random walks via discrete-time Markov chains. Overall, these random walks are useful in Monte Carlo methods, which represent a fundamental computational tool for solving a wide range of numerical computing tasks. Using IBM’s TrueNorth and Intel’s Loihi neuromorphic computing platforms, we show that our neuromorphic computing algorithm for generating random walk approximations of diffusion offers advantages in energy-efficient computation compared with conventional approaches. We also show that our neuromorphic computing algorithm can be extended to more sophisticated jump-diffusion processes that are useful in a range of applications, including financial economics, particle physics and machine learning.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

A finite-volume scheme for modeling compressible magnetohydrodynamic flows at low Mach numbers in stellar interiors

Fully compressible magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) simulations are a fundamental tool for investigating the role of dynamo amplification in the generation of magnetic fields in deep convective layers of stars. The flows that arise in such environments are characterized by low (sonic) Mach numbers ($\mathscr{M}$ son ≲ 10 –2 ). In these regimes, conventional MHD codes typically show excessive dissipation and tend to be inefficient as the Courant–Friedrichs–Lewy (CFL) constraint on the time step becomes too strict. In this work we present a new method for efficiently simulating MHD flows at low Mach numbers in a space-dependent gravitational potential while still retaining all effects of compressibility. The proposed scheme is implemented in the finite-volume SEVEN-LEAGUE HYDRO (SLH) code, and it makes use of a low-Mach version of the five-wave Harten–Lax–van Leer discontinuities (HLLD) solver to reduce numerical dissipation, an implicit–explicit time discretization technique based on Strang splitting to overcome the overly strict CFL constraint, and a well-balancing method that dramatically reduces the magnitude of spatial discretization errors in strongly stratified setups. The solenoidal constraint on the magnetic field is enforced by using a constrained transport method on a staggered grid. We carry out five verification tests, including the simulation of a small-scale dynamo in a star-like environment at $\mathscr{M}$ son ~ 10 –3 . We demonstrate that the proposed scheme can be used to accurately simulate compressible MHD flows in regimes of low Mach numbers and strongly stratified setups even with moderately coarse grids.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Investigation of boosted proton energies through proton radiography of target normal sheath acceleration fields in the multi-ps regime

Multi-kilojoule, multi-picosecond short-pulse lasers, such as the National Ignition Facility-Advanced Radiographic Capability laser and the OMEGA-Extended Performance laser, which have been constructed over the last two decades, enable exciting opportunities to produce high-brightness, high-energy laser-driven proton sources for applications in high-energy-density science like proton fast ignition for inertial fusion energy, particle radiography, and materials science studies. Results on these platforms have demonstrated enhanced accelerated proton energies and electron temperatures when compared to established scaling laws. Recent work has developed a new scaling for proton TNSA in the multi-ps regime. However, this new physics in the multi-ps regime motivates the need to understand the origin of the enhancement in proton energies. Toward this goal, here this work presents the first measurements of the TNSA accelerating sheath field in the multi-ps regime for pulse durations of 0.6, 5, and 10 ps. This measurement was achieved by using a separate TNSA proton source to radiograph the spatiotemporal profile of the accelerating sheath that is responsible for proton acceleration. The use of stacked radiochromic film detectors allows for a discrete time profile of the radiographs, thus enabling the measurement of the temporal and spatial evolution of the accelerating field. In performing this measurement, we extract quantities such as the sheath strength as a function of time and pulse duration, which shows that longer pulse durations sustain a stronger electric field for a longer duration when compared to sub-ps laser pulses, which may enable the observed boosted proton energies and proton conversion efficiencies.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

Nonlinear Elimination Applied to Radiation Diffusion

We apply a nonlinearly preconditioned, quasi-Newton framework to accelerate the numerical solution of the thermal radiative transfer (TRT) equations. This framework was inspired by the unpublished method that has existed for years in Teton, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s deterministic TRT code. In this paper, we cast this iteration scheme within a formal nonlinear preconditioning framework and compare its performance against other iteration schemes in the framework. With proper choices of iteration controls for the various levels of the solver, we can recover the standard linearized one-step method, a full nonlinear Newton scheme, as well as the method in Teton. In brief, the nonlinear preconditioning TRT scheme formally eliminates the material temperature equation from the nonlinear system in a nonlinear analog of a Schur complement. This nonlinear elimination step involves solving a decoupled nonlinear equation for each spatial degree of freedom and is therefore inexpensive. By applying a quasi-Newton iteration scheme on the new system, we obtain a three-level iteration scheme that is at least as efficient as commonly used TRT schemes. The new method allows full convergence to the nonlinear backward Euler time-discretized system, increasing accuracy and robustness, while using a similar number of linear iterations as the more common linearized one-step methods Eq. (4).

77 NANOSCIENCE AND NANOTECHNOLOGY↗

Conservative discontinuous Galerkin scheme of a gyro-averaged Dougherty collision operator

Here, a conservative discontinuous Galerkin scheme for a non-linear Dougherty collision operator in full-f long-wavelength gyrokinetics is presented. Analytically this model operator has the advective-diffusive form of Fokker-Planck operators, it has a non-decreasing entropy functional, and conserves particles, momentum and energy. Discretely these conservative properties are maintained exactly as well, independent of numerical resolution. In this work the phase space discretization is performed using a novel version of the discontinuous Galerkin scheme, carefully constructed using concepts of weak equality and recovery. Discrete time advancement is carried out with an explicit time-stepping algorithm, whose stability limits we explore. The formulation and implementation within the long-wavelength gyrokinetic solver of Gkeyll are validated with relaxation tests, collisional Landau-damping benchmarks and the study of 5D gyrokinetic turbulence on helical, open field lines.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

Newton versus the machine: solving the chaotic three-body problem using deep neural networks

ABSTRACT Since its formulation by Sir Isaac Newton, the problem of solving the equations of motion for three bodies under their own gravitational force has remained practically unsolved. Currently, the solution for a given initialization can only be found by performing laborious iterative calculations that have unpredictable and potentially infinite computational cost, due to the system’s chaotic nature. We show that an ensemble of converged solutions for the planar chaotic three-body problem obtained using an arbitrarily precise numerical integrator can be used to train a deep artificial neural network (ANN) that, over a bounded time interval, provides accurate solutions at a fixed computational cost and up to 100 million times faster than the numerical integrator. In addition, we demonstrate the importance of training an ANN using converged solutions from an arbitrary precise integrator, relative to solutions computed by a conventional fixed precision integrator, which can introduce errors in the training data, due to numerical round-off and time discretization, that are learned by the ANN. Our results provide evidence that, for computationally challenging regions of phase space, a trained ANN can replace existing numerical solvers, enabling fast and scalable simulations of many-body systems to shed light on outstanding phenomena such as the formation of black hole binary systems or the origin of the core collapse in dense star clusters.

Breen, Philip G.↗

Quantum simulations of hydrodynamics via the Madelung transformation

Developing numerical methods to simulate efficiently nonlinear fluid dynamics on universal quantum computers is a challenging problem. In this paper, a generalization of the Madelung transform is defined to solve quantum relativistic charged fluid equations interacting with external electromagnetic forces via the Dirac equation. The Dirac equation is discretized into discrete-time quantum walks which can be efficiently implemented on universal quantum computers. A variant of this algorithm is proposed to implement simulations using current noisy intermediate scale quantum (NISQ) devices in the case of homogeneous external forces. High resolution (up to N=2 17 grid points) numerical simulations of relativistic and nonrelativistic hydrodynamical shocks on current IBM NISQs are performed with this algorithm. Here, this paper demonstrates that fluid dynamics can be simulated on NISQs, and opens the door to simulating other fluids, including plasmas, with more general quantum walks and quantum automata.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

Real-time evolution of Anderson impurity models via tensor network influence functionals

In this work, we present and analyze two tensor network-based influence functional approaches for simulating the real-time dynamics of quantum impurity models such as the Anderson model. Via comparison with recent numerically exact simulations, we show that such methods accurately capture the long-time nonequilibrium quench dynamics. The two parameters that must be controlled in these tensor network influence functional approaches are a time discretization (Trotter) error and a bond dimension (tensor network truncation) error. We show that the actual numerical uncertainties are controlled by an intricate interplay of these two approximations, which we demonstrate in different regimes. Our work opens the door to using these tensor network influence functional methods as general impurity solvers.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗

Fermion-bag inspired Hamiltonian lattice field theory for fermionic quantum criticality

Motivated by the fermion-bag approach, in this work we construct a new class of Hamiltonian lattice field theories that can help us to study fermionic quantum critical points, particularly those with four-fermion interactions. Although these theories are constructed in discrete time with a finite temporal lattice spacing ϵ, when ϵ → 0, conventional continuous-time Hamiltonian lattice field theories are recovered. The fermion-bag algorithms run relatively faster when ϵ = 1 as compared to ϵ → 0 but still allow us to compute universal quantities near the quantum critical point even at such a large value of ϵ. As an example of this new approach, here we study the $N_f$ = 1 Gross-Neveu chiral-Ising universality class in 2 + 1 dimensions by calculating the critical scaling of the staggered mass order parameter. We show that we are able to study lattice sizes up to 100 2 sites when ϵ = 1, while with comparable resources we can reach lattice sizes of only up to 64 2 when ϵ → 0. The critical exponents obtained in both these studies match within errors.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

Numerically modeling stochastic inflation in slow-roll and beyond

In this work, we present a complete numerical treatment of inflationary dynamics under the influence of stochastic corrections from sub-Hubble modes. We discuss how to exactly model the stochastic noise terms arising from the sub-Hubble quantum modes that give rise to the coarse-grained inflaton dynamics in the form of stochastic differential equations. The stochastic differential equations are solved event by event on a discrete time grid. We then compute the power spectrum of curvature perturbations that can be compared with the power spectrum computed in the traditional fashion using the Mukhanov-Sasaki equation by canonically quantizing the inflaton fluctuations. Our numerical procedure helps us to easily extend the formalism to ultra slow-roll inflation and study the possibility of primordial black hole formation.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Single-ancilla ground state preparation via Lindbladians

We design a quantum algorithm for ground state preparation in the early fault tolerant regime. As a Monte Carlo style quantum algorithm, our method features a Lindbladian where the target state is stationary. The construction of this Lindbladian is algorithmic and should not be seen as a specific approximation to some weakly coupled system-bath dynamics in nature. Our algorithm can be implemented using just one ancilla qubit and efficiently simulated on a quantum computer. It can prepare the ground state even when the initial state has zero overlap with the ground state, bypassing the most significant limitation of methods like quantum phase estimation. As a variant, we also propose a discrete-time algorithm, demonstrating even better efficiency and providing a near-optimal simulation cost depending on the desired evolution time and precision. Numerical simulations using Ising and Hubbard models demonstrate the efficacy and applicability of our method. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

Ding, Zhiyan (ORCID:000000018863403X)↗

Data-driven modeling and control of an X-ray bimorph adaptive mirror

Adaptive X-ray mirrors are being adopted on high-coherent-flux synchrotron and X-ray free-electron laser beamlines where dynamic phase control and aberration compensation are necessary to preserve wavefront quality from source to sample, yet challenging to achieve. Additional difficulties arise from the inability to continuously probe the wavefront in this context, which demands methods of control that require little to no feedback. In this work, a data-driven approach to the control of adaptive X-ray optics with piezo-bimorph actuators is demonstrated. This approach approximates the non-linear system dynamics with a discrete-time model using random mirror shapes and interferometric measurements as training data. For mirrors of this type, prior states and voltage inputs affect the shape-change trajectory, and therefore must be included in the model. Without the need for assumed physical models of the mirror's behavior, the generality of the neural network structure accommodates drift, creep and hysteresis, and enables a control algorithm that achieves shape control and stability below 2 nm RMS. Using a prototype mirror and ex situ metrology, it is shown that the accuracy of our trained model enables open-loop shape control across a diverse set of states and that the control algorithm achieves shape error magnitudes that fall within diffraction-limited performance.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗

High-Efficiency Model Predictive Control for Star-Connected Cascaded H-Bridge STATCOM Under Unbalanced Conditions

This paper presents a high-efficiency model predictive control (HMPC), which is enabled by a sorting approach based on dc capacitor voltages to significantly reduce the exponentially-increasing switching states in cascaded Hbridge (CHB) converters. In addition, a generic discrete-time prediction model for star-connected CHB static synchronous compensator is proposed to address the issues due to either grid and/or load unbalances. Both simulation and hardware-in-loop experimental results are presented to validate the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed HMPC strategy.

Li, Yufei↗

Privacy-preserving Average Consensus Algorithm with Beaver Triple

A privacy-preserving average consensus algorithm is designed based on the Beaver triple technique against passive adversaries. The Beaver triple technique is integrated into a restructure of the discrete-time average consensus algorithm to preserve the privacy of initial values of agents in a multiagent system. The performance of the algorithm is theoretically analyzed.

Wang, Peng [Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China]↗

Reduced Switching Frequency Finite Control Set Model Predictive Control (FCS-MPC) for DFIG

An enhanced Finite Control Set Model Predictive Control (FCS-MPC) strategy with a two-step prediction horizon for a Doubly-Fed Induction Generator (DFIG) is the focus of this paper. The DFIG and RL filter's discrete-time model is used in the proposed control scheme for a two-step prediction horizon of rotor and filter currents for the converter's eight possible switching states. Afterward, the control algorithm selects the ideal switching state, which minimizes currents' objective function. The proposed control scheme does not require a modulation stage for internal controllers. We use Lagrange extrapolations to predict the dynamic changes in currents. The switching frequency reduction is achieved by integrating an optimization constraint in the algorithm's cost function. Furthermore, the Total Harmonic Distortion level of currents is kept below 5%, according to IEEE Std 519-14. Obtained results reveal that the switching frequency of the DFIG converters is considerably reduced without losing control; it is reduced by 13.89KHz for the Grid Side Converter (GSC) and by 1.78KHz for the Rotor Side Converter (RSC).

doubly-fed induction generator↗

Lyapunov-Based Iterative Learning of Regions of Attraction for Autonomous Systems

This paper proposes a novel algorithm for estimating the region of attraction of equilibrium points for nonlinear discrete-time autonomous systems. The method iteratively expands an initial estimate of the region of attraction by constructing unions of sublevel sets of learned functions parametrized as neural networks. Unlike conventional techniques that rely on a single global Lyapunov function, the proposed approach provides a collection of local Lyapunov-like functions, enabling richer representations and potentially larger region of attraction estimates. These functions are trained using sampled state-space data, and their Lipschitz continuity ensures that desirable properties extend beyond the training samples. The devised strategy is tested via numerical simulations, demonstrating the effectiveness of the proposed approach.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Superconvergence of Online Optimization for Model Predictive Control

We develop a one-Newton-step-per-horizon, online, lag-L, model predictive control (MPC) algorithm for solving discrete-time, equality-constrained, nonlinear dynamic programs. Based on recent sensitivity analysis results for the target problems class, we prove that the approach exhibits a behavior that we call superconvergence; that is, the tracking error with respect to the full horizon solution is not only stable for successive horizon shifts, but also decreases with increasing shift order to a minimum value that decays exponentially in the length of the receding horizon. The key analytical step is the decomposition of the one-step error recursion of our algorithm into algorithmic error and perturbation error. We show that the perturbation error decays exponentially with the lag between two consecutive receding horizons, while the algorithmic error, determined by Newton’s method, achieves quadratic convergence instead. Overall this approach induces our local exponential convergence result in terms of the receding horizon length for suitable values of L. In conclusion, numerical experiments validate our theoretical findings.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Robust Predictive Control for Modular Solid-State Transformer With Reduced DC Link and Parameter Mismatch

This paper presents the analysis and implementation of a predictive control method for dc-link regulation and voltage balance in a cascaded modular reduced dc-link solid-state transformer (SST). Passive components like bulky dc links limit the power density of power converters, especially medium-voltage (MV) SST. Reduced dc-link or low-inertia converters can dramatically reduce the size, cost, and weight by tolerating larger dc-link ripples and improve the reliability with electrolytic capacitor-less dc link. However, a small dc link leads to tight coupling between the input and the output stages, which is a challenge for control design. In stacked low-inertia converters (SLIC), the low-inertia converter modules are stacked for MV applications, resulting in coupling between the modules and making the control more challenging. A new model predictive control method which can achieve deadbeat regulation on the dc link without weighting factors has been proposed to address this novel problem. This paper focuses on analyzing the condition of the low-inertia dc link up to 80% ripple, the robustness of the control under parameter mismatches, high-order terms, and important implementation issues such as model-based sampling and computation delay compensation. Significantly, the high-order terms are introduced because of the large dc-link ripple. These high-order terms are unique to the SLIC and negligible in conventional high-inertia converters. A discrete-time large-signal model is built to capture the dc-link’s nonlinear dynamics, and the eigenvalues of a small-signal Jacobian matrix are analyzed with Floquet theory to evaluate stability, using the modular soft-switching solid-state transformer (M-S4T) as an example of the SLIC. Simulation and experimental results of an MVDC M-S4T verify the analysis and the predictive control method. Finally, the general application of the predictive control to low-inertia converters is compared against a conventional PI controller using a reduced dc-link active-front-end (AFE) rectifier as an example.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗