Engineering Papers⌕ Search

SEARCH · Engineering Papers

Results for “Disentanglement”

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.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 379 records · Page 21

Probing fundamental constant oscillation in the Galactic Center with S-Star Spectroscopy

Astrophysical spectroscopy provides a powerful probe of spacetime variations of fundamental constants, as atomic and ionic emission and absorption lines depend sensitively on the fine-structure constant. In particular, coherent temporal oscillations induced by an ultralight scalar background produce characteristic, time-resolved signatures that can be robustly disentangled from intrinsic variability. In the Galactic Center, such scalar backgrounds can be substantially enhanced, either through the formation of dense scalar clouds powered by black hole rotational energy extraction or as ultralight scalar dark matter forming a soliton-like core. These scalar configurations generically induce oscillations of the fine-structure constant, with periods set by the scalar mass and spatial profiles determined by the scalar wavefunction and its coupling to the electromagnetic sector. We show that precise, time-resolved spectroscopy of S-stars orbiting the supermassive black hole Sgr A^* provides a sensitive test of these effects, enabling constraints on quadratic scalar-photon couplings in the exceptionally high boson-density environment of the Galactic Center.

Bai, Zhaoyu [Weizmann Inst.] (ORCID:00000002075815↗

Brighter-fatter Effect in Near-infrared Detectors—III. Fourier-domain Treatment of Flat Field Correlations and Application to WFIRST

Weak gravitational lensing has emerged as a leading probe of the growth of cosmic structure. However, the shear signal is very small and accurate measurement depends critically on our ability to understand how non-ideal instrumental effects affect astronomical images. The Wide-Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST) will fly a focal plane containing 18 Teledyne H4RG-10 near-infrared detector arrays, which present different instrument calibration challenges from previous weak lensing observations. Previous work [Paper I: Hirata & Choi, PASP, 132, 014501 (2020); and Paper II: Choi & Hirata, PASP, 132, 014502 (2020)] has shown that correlation functions of flat field images, including cross-correlations between different time slices that are enabled by the non-destructive read capability of the infrared detectors, are effective tools for disentangling linear and nonlinear inter-pixel capacitance (IPC) and the brighter-fatter effect (BFE). Here we present a Fourier-domain treatment of the flat field correlations, which allows us to expand the previous formalism to all orders in IPC, BFE, and classical nonlinearity. We show that biases in simulated flat field analyses in Paper I are greatly reduced through the use of this formalism. We then apply this updated formalism to flat field data from three WFIRST flight candidate detectors, and explore the robustness to variations in the analysis. We find that the BFE is present in all three detectors, and that its contribution to the flat field correlations dominates over the nonlinear IPC, in accordance with the results from Paper II on a development detector. The magnitude of the BFE is such that the effective area of a pixel is increased by (3.54 ± 0.03) × 10 -7 for every electron deposited in a neighboring pixel (sensor chip assembly [SCA] 20829, statistical error, not IPC-deconvolved). We compare IPC maps from flat field autocorrelation measurements to those obtained from the single pixel reset method and find a median difference of 0.113% for SCA 20829. After further diagnosis of this difference, we ascribe it largely to an additional source of cross-talk, the vertical trailing pixel effect, and recommend further work to develop a model for this effect. These results represent a significant step toward calibration of the non-ideal effects in WFIRST detectors.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Xenon doping of Liquid Argon in ProtoDUNE Single Phase: first results

Doping Liquid Argon (LAr) with xenon is a known technique to shift the light emitted by argon (128 nm) to a longer wavelength to ease its detection. The largest Xenon doping test ever performed in a LArTPC was carried out in ProtoDUNE Single Phase (ProtoDUNE-SP) at the CERN Neutrino Platform. The response of such a large TPC (7701 of Liquid Argon and 4401 of fiducial mass) has been studied using the ProtoDUNE Photon Detection System (PDS) and a dedicated setup installed before the run. With the first, it was possible to study the light detected in the system as a function of the xenon concentration and to characterise the light collection efficiency with respect to the track position. With the second system it was possible to disentangle the LAr (128 nm) light from the xenon (178 nm) light using two dedicated X-ARAPUCA modules. The run was fully satisfactory, it was possible to measure directly the increase of the xenon light component during doping; furthermore most of the LAr light quenched by impurities was fully recovered even at small Xenon concentration (< 20 ppm in mass). A study of the collected scintillation light as a function of the track position showed an improvement of the detector response uniformity.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗

Scintillator ageing of the T2K near detectors from 2010 to 2021

The T2K experiment widely uses plastic scintillator as a target for neutrino interactions and an active medium for the measurement of charged particles produced in neutrino interactions at its near detector complex. Over 10 years of operation the measured light yield recorded by the scintillator based subsystems has been observed to degrade by 0.9–2.2% per year. Extrapolation of the degradation rate through to 2040 indicates the recorded light yield should remain above the lower threshold used by the current reconstruction algorithms for all subsystems. This will allow the near detectors to continue contributing to important physics measurements during the T2K-II and Hyper-Kamiokande eras. Additionally, work to disentangle the degradation of the plastic scintillator and wavelength shifting fibres shows that the reduction in light yield can be attributed to the ageing of the plastic scintillator. The long component of the attenuation length of the wavelength shifting fibres was observed to degrade by 1.3–5.4% per year, while the short component of the attenuation length did not show any conclusive degradation.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗

The scintillator surface detector of the Pierre Auger observatory

Data collected so far by the Pierre Auger Observatory have enabled major advances in ultra-high energy cosmic ray physics and demonstrated that improved determination of masses of primary cosmic-ray particles, preferably on an event-by-event basis, is necessary for understanding their origin and nature. Improvement in primary mass measurements was the main motivation for the upgrade of the Pierre Auger Observatory, called AugerPrime. As part of this upgrade, scintillator detectors are added to the existing water-Cherenkov surface detector stations. By making use of the differences in detector response to the electromagnetic particles and muons between scintillator and water-Cherenkov detectors, the electromagnetic and muonic components of cosmic-ray air showers can be disentangled. Since the muonic component is sensitive to the primary mass, such combination of detectors provides a powerful way to improve primary mass composition measurements over the original Auger surface detector design. In this paper, the so-called Scintillator Surface Detectors are discussed, including their design characteristics, production process, testing procedure and deployment in the field.

Detector design and construction technologies and ↗

Distinct roles of land cover in regulating spatial variabilities of temperature responses to radiative effects of aerosols and clouds

Surface temperature responses to radiative perturbations due to aerosols and clouds are complicated by the land surface properties. To disentangle these complexities, this study, from a terrestrial surface energy budget perspective, isolates the underlying biophysical processes from the instantaneous radiative effects of aerosols and clouds on surface temperature using the National Center for Atmospheric Research Community Earth System Model version 1.2.1. It is found that in comparison with the global heterogeneous distributions of instantaneous radiative perturbations at the surface induced by aerosols and clouds, the spatial variations of the corresponding surface temperature responses to aerosol direct radiative effects (DRE) during the daytime and cloud radiative effects (CRE) during the nighttime are amplified. It is because of the consistent global distribution of the local surface climate sensitivity (a function of land cover properties such as surface roughness and Bowen ratio) with those of daytime DRE and nighttime CRE. By applying identical anthropogenic aerosol and precursor emissions over eight major past, present and projected future anthropogenic aerosol emitting regions (i.e. Brazil, China, East Africa, India, Indonesia, South Africa, United States and Western Europe), surface temperature responses to aerosol radiative cooling in the daytime and cloud radiative warming in the nighttime over these regions positively regulated by local surface climate sensitivities are prominent.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Rapidly changing high-latitude seasonality: implications for the 21st century carbon cycle in Alaska

Seasonal variations in high-latitude terrestrial carbon (C) fluxes are predominantly driven by air temperature and radiation. At present, high-latitude net C uptake is largest during the summer. Recent observations and modeling studies have demonstrated that ongoing and projected climate change will increase plant productivity, microbial respiration, and growing season lengths at high-latitudes, but impacts on high-latitude C cycle seasonality (and potential feedbacks to the climate system) remain uncertain. Here we use ecosys, a well-tested and process-rich mechanistic ecosystem model that we evaluate further in this study, to explore how climate warming under an RCP8.5 scenario will shift C cycle seasonality in Alaska throughout the 21st century. The model successfully reproduced recently reported large high-latitude C losses during the fall and winter and yet still predicts a high-latitude C sink, pointing to a resolution of the current conflict between process-model and observation-based estimates of high-latitude C balance. We find that warming will result in surprisingly large changes in net ecosystem exchange (NEE; defined as negative for uptake) seasonality, with spring net C uptake overtaking summer net C uptake by year 2100. This shift is driven by a factor of 3 relaxation of spring temperature limitation to plant productivity that results in earlier C uptake and a corresponding increase in magnitude of spring NEE from –19 to –144 gC m –2 season –1 by the end of the century. Although a similar relaxation of temperature limitation will occur in the fall, radiation limitation during those months will limit increases in C fixation. Additionally, warmer soil temperatures and increased carbon inputs from plants lead to combined fall and winter C losses (163 gC m –2 ) that are larger than summer net uptake (123 gC m –2 season –1 ) by year 2100. However, this increase in microbial activity leads to more rapid N cycling and increased plant N uptake during the fall and winter months that supports large increases in spring NPP. Due to the large increases in spring net C uptake, the high-latitude atmospheric C sink is projected to sustain throughout this century. Our analysis disentangles the effects of key environmental drivers of high-latitude seasonal C balances as climate changes over the 21st century.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Optimizing training trajectories in variational autoencoders via latent Bayesian optimization approach *

Unsupervised and semi-supervised ML methods such as variational autoencoders (VAE) have become widely adopted across multiple areas of physics, chemistry, and materials sciences due to their capability in disentangling representations and ability to find latent manifolds for classification and/or regression of complex experimental data. Like other ML problems, VAEs require hyperparameter tuning, e.g. balancing the Kullback–Leibler and reconstruction terms. However, the training process and resulting manifold topology and connectivity depend not only on hyperparameters, but also their evolution during training. Because of the inefficiency of exhaustive search in a high-dimensional hyperparameter space for the expensive-to-train models, here we have explored a latent Bayesian optimization (zBO) approach for the hyperparameter trajectory optimization for the unsupervised and semi-supervised ML and demonstrated for joint-VAE with rotational invariances. We have demonstrated an application of this method for finding joint discrete and continuous rotationally invariant representations for modified national institute of standards and technology database (MNIST) and experimental data of a plasmonic nanoparticles material system. The performance of the proposed approach has been discussed extensively, where it allows for any high dimensional hyperparameter trajectory optimization of other ML models.

42 ENGINEERING↗

A robust estimator of mutual information for deep learning interpretability

Abstract We develop the use of mutual information (MI), a well-established metric in information theory, to interpret the inner workings of deep learning (DL) models. To accurately estimate MI from a finite number of samples, we present GMM-MI (pronounced ‘Jimmie’), an algorithm based on Gaussian mixture models that can be applied to both discrete and continuous settings. GMM-MI is computationally efficient, robust to the choice of hyperparameters and provides the uncertainty on the MI estimate due to the finite sample size. We extensively validate GMM-MI on toy data for which the ground truth MI is known, comparing its performance against established MI estimators. We then demonstrate the use of our MI estimator in the context of representation learning, working with synthetic data and physical datasets describing highly non-linear processes. We train DL models to encode high-dimensional data within a meaningful compressed (latent) representation, and use GMM-MI to quantify both the level of disentanglement between the latent variables, and their association with relevant physical quantities, thus unlocking the interpretability of the latent representation. We make GMM-MI publicly available in this GitHub repository.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗

Combining variational autoencoders and physical bias for improved microscopy data analysis *

Electron and scanning probe microscopy produce vast amounts of data in the form of images or hyperspectral data, such as electron energy loss spectroscopy or 4D scanning transmission electron microscope, that contain information on a wide range of structural, physical, and chemical properties of materials. To extract valuable insights from these data, it is crucial to identify physically separate regions in the data, such as phases, ferroic variants, and boundaries between them. In order to derive an easily interpretable feature analysis, combining with well-defined boundaries in a principled and unsupervised manner, here we present a physics augmented machine learning method which combines the capability of variational autoencoders to disentangle factors of variability within the data and the physics driven loss function that seeks to minimize the total length of the discontinuities in images corresponding to latent representations. Our method is applied to various materials, including NiO-LSMO, BiFeO 3 , and graphene. The results demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach in extracting meaningful information from large volumes of imaging data. The customized codes of the required functions and classes to develop phyVAE is available at https://github.com/arpanbiswas52/phy-VAE.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Finding simplicity: unsupervised discovery of features, patterns, and order parameters via shift-invariant variational autoencoders *

Abstract Recent advances in scanning tunneling and transmission electron microscopies (STM and STEM) have allowed routine generation of large volumes of imaging data containing information on the structure and functionality of materials. The experimental data sets contain signatures of long-range phenomena such as physical order parameter fields, polarization, and strain gradients in STEM, or standing electronic waves and carrier-mediated exchange interactions in STM, all superimposed onto scanning system distortions and gradual changes of contrast due to drift and/or mis-tilt effects. Correspondingly, while the human eye can readily identify certain patterns in the images such as lattice periodicities, repeating structural elements, or microstructures, their automatic extraction and classification are highly non-trivial and universal pathways to accomplish such analyses are absent. We pose that the most distinctive elements of the patterns observed in STM and (S)TEM images are similarity and (almost-) periodicity, behaviors stemming directly from the parsimony of elementary atomic structures, superimposed on the gradual changes reflective of order parameter distributions. However, the discovery of these elements via global Fourier methods is non-trivial due to variability and lack of ideal discrete translation symmetry. To address this problem, we explore the shift-invariant variational autoencoders (shift-VAEs) that allow disentangling characteristic repeating features in the images, their variations, and shifts that inevitably occur when randomly sampling the image space. Shift-VAEs balance the uncertainty in the position of the object of interest with the uncertainty in shape reconstruction. This approach is illustrated for model 1D data, and further extended to synthetic and experimental STM and STEM 2D data. We further introduce an approach for training shift-VAEs that allows finding the latent variables that comport to known physical behavior. In this specific case, the condition is that the latent variable maps should be smooth on the length scale of the atomic lattice (as expected for physical order parameters), but other conditions can be imposed. The opportunities and limitations of the shift VAE analysis for pattern discovery are elucidated.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Uncovering obscured phonon dynamics from powder inelastic neutron scattering using machine learning

The study of phonon dynamics is pivotal for understanding material properties, yet it faces challenges due to the irreversible information loss inherent in powder inelastic neutron scattering spectra and the limitations of traditional analysis methods. In this study, we present a machine learning framework designed to reveal obscured phonon dynamics from powder spectra. Using a variational autoencoder, we obtain a disentangled latent representation of spectra and successfully extract force constants for reconstructing phonon dispersions. Notably, our model demonstrates effective applicability to experimental data even when trained exclusively on physics-based simulations. The fine-tuning with experimental spectra further mitigates issues arising from domain shift. Analysis of latent space underscores the model’s versatility and generalizability, affirming its suitability for complex system applications. Furthermore, our framework’s two-stage design is promising for developing a universal pre-trained feature extractor. This approach has the potential to revolutionize neutron measurements of phonon dynamics, offering researchers a potent tool to decipher intricate spectra and gain valuable insights into the intrinsic physics of materials.

domain adaptation↗

Viral infections likely mediate microbial controls on ecosystem responses to global warming

Abstract Climate change is affecting how energy and matter flow through ecosystems, thereby altering global carbon and nutrient cycles. Microorganisms play a fundamental role in carbon and nutrient cycling and are thus an integral link between ecosystems and climate. Here, we highlight a major black box hindering our ability to anticipate ecosystem climate responses: viral infections within complex microbial food webs. We show how understanding and predicting ecosystem responses to warming could be challenging—if not impossible—without accounting for the direct and indirect effects of viral infections on different microbes (bacteria, archaea, fungi, protists) that together perform diverse ecosystem functions. Importantly, understanding how rising temperatures associated with climate change influence viruses and virus-host dynamics is crucial to this task, yet is severely understudied. In this perspective, we (i) synthesize existing knowledge about virus-microbe-temperature interactions and (ii) identify important gaps to guide future investigations regarding how climate change might alter microbial food web effects on ecosystem functioning. To provide real-world context, we consider how these processes may operate in peatlands—globally significant carbon sinks that are threatened by climate change. We stress that understanding how warming affects biogeochemical cycles in any ecosystem hinges on disentangling complex interactions and temperature responses within microbial food webs.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Wildfire impact on soil microbiome life history traits and roles in ecosystem carbon cycling

Abstract Wildfires, which are increasing in frequency and severity with climate change, reduce soil microbial biomass and alter microbial community composition and function. The soil microbiome plays a vital role in carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) cycling, but its complexity makes it challenging to predict post-wildfire soil microbial dynamics and resulting impacts on ecosystem biogeochemistry. The application of biogeochemically relevant conceptual trait-based frameworks to the soil microbiome can distill this complexity, enabling enhanced predictability of soil microbiome recovery following wildfire and subsequent impacts to biogeochemical cycles. Conceptual frameworks that have direct links to soil C and N cycling have been developed for the soil microbiome; the Y-A-S framework overviews soil microbiome life history strategies that have tradeoffs with one another and others have proposed frameworks specific to wildfire. Here, we aimed to delineate post-wildfire changes of bacterial traits in western US coniferous forests to inform how severe wildfire influences soil microbiome recovery and resultant biogeochemical cycling. We utilized a comprehensive metagenome-assembled genome catalog from post-wildfire soils representing 1 to 11 years following low- and high-severity burning to identify traits that enable the persistence of microbial taxa in burned soils and influence ecosystem C and N cycling. We found that high-severity wildfire initially selects for fast growers and, up to a decade post-fire, taxa that invest in genes for acquiring diverse resources from the external environment, which in combination could increase soil C losses. This work begins to disentangle how climate change–induced shifts in wildfire behavior might alter microbially mediated soil biogeochemical cycling.

Nelson, Amelia R.↗

Fisher for complements: extracting cosmology and neutrino mass from the counts-in-cells PDF

In this work, we comprehensively analyse the cosmology dependence of counts-in-cells statistics. Furthermore, we focus on the shape of the one-point probability distribution function (PDF) of the matter density field at mildly non-linear scales. Based on large-deviation statistics, we parametrize the cosmology dependence of the matter PDF in terms of the linear power spectrum, the growth factor, the spherical collapse dynamics, and the non-linear variance. We extend our formalism to include massive neutrinos, finding that the total matter PDF is highly sensitive to the total neutrino mass Mν and can disentangle it from the clustering amplitude σ 8 . Additionally, using more than a million PDFs extracted from the Quijote simulations, we determine the response of the matter PDF to changing parameters in the νΛCDM model and successfully cross-validate the theoretical model and the simulation measurements. We present the first νΛCDM Fisher forecast for the matter PDF at multiple scales and redshifts, and its combination with the matter power spectrum. We establish that the matter PDF and the matter power spectrum are highly complementary at mildly non-linear scales. The matter PDF is particularly powerful for constraining the matter density Ωm, clustering amplitude σ 8 and the total neutrino mass Mν. Adding the mildly non-linear matter PDF to the mildly non-linear matter power spectrum improves constraints on Ω m by a factor of 5 and σ 8 by a factor of 2 when considering the three lowest redshifts. In our joint analysis of the matter PDF and matter power spectrum at three redshifts, the total neutrino mass is constrained to better than 0.01 eV with a total volume of 6 (Gpc h -1 ) 3 . We discuss how density-split statistics can be used to translate those encouraging results for the matter PDF into realistic observables in galaxy surveys.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Supernova host galaxies in the dark energy survey: I. Deep coadds, photometry, and stellar masses

ABSTRACT The 5-yr Dark Energy Survey Supernova Programme (DES-SN) is one of the largest and deepest transient surveys to date in terms of volume and number of supernovae. Identifying and characterizing the host galaxies of transients plays a key role in their classification, the study of their formation mechanisms, and the cosmological analyses. To derive accurate host galaxy properties, we create depth-optimized coadds using single-epoch DES-SN images that are selected based on sky and atmospheric conditions. For each of the five DES-SN seasons, a separate coadd is made from the other four seasons such that each SN has a corresponding deep coadd with no contaminating SN emission. The coadds reach limiting magnitudes of order ∼27 in g band, and have a much smaller magnitude uncertainty than the previous DES-SN host templates, particularly for faint objects. We present the resulting multiband photometry of host galaxies for samples of spectroscopically confirmed type Ia (SNe Ia), core-collapse (CCSNe), and superluminous (SLSNe) as well as rapidly evolving transients (RETs) discovered by DES-SN. We derive host galaxy stellar masses and probabilistically compare stellar-mass distributions to samples from other surveys. We find that the DES spectroscopically confirmed sample of SNe Ia selects preferentially fewer high-mass hosts at high-redshift compared to other surveys, while at low redshift the distributions are consistent. DES CCSNe and SLSNe hosts are similar to other samples, while RET hosts are unlike the hosts of any other transients, although these differences have not been disentangled from selection effects.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Towards modelling ghostly damped Ly α s

ABSTRACT We use simple models of the spatial structure of the quasar broad-line region (BLR) to investigate the properties of so-called ghostly damped Ly α (DLA) systems detected in Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) data. These absorbers are characterized by the presence of strong metal lines but no H i Ly α trough is seen in the quasar spectrum indicating that, although the region emitting the quasar continuum is covered by an absorbing cloud, the BLR is only partially covered. One of the models has a spherical geometry, another one is the combination of two wind flows, whereas the third model is a Keplerian disc. The models can reproduce the typical shape of the quasar Ly α emission and different ghostly configurations. We show that the DLA H i column density can be recovered precisely independently of the BLR model used. The size of the absorbing cloud and its distance to the centre of the AGN are correlated. However, it may be possible to disentangle the two using an independent estimate of the radius from the determination of the particle density. Comparison of the model outputs with SDSS data shows that the wind and disc models are more versatile than the spherical one and can be more easily adapted to the observations. For all the systems, we derive log N(H i)(cm−2) > 20.5. With higher quality data, it may be possible to distinguish between the models.

Laloux, Brivael↗

The COMBS Survey – III. The chemodynamical origins of metal-poor bulge stars

The characteristics of the stellar populations in the Galactic bulge inform and constrain the Milky Way’s formation and evolution. The metal-poor population is particularly important in light of cosmological simulations, which predict that some of the oldest stars in the Galaxy now reside in its centre. The metal-poor bulge appears to consist of multiple stellar populations that require dynamical analyses to disentangle. In this work, we undertake a detailed chemodynamical study of the metal-poor stars in the inner Galaxy. Using R ~ 20000 VLT/GIRAFFE spectra of 319 metal-poor (-2.55 dex ≤ [Fe/H] ≤ 0.83 dex, with $\overline{[Fe/H]}$ = -0.84 dex) stars, we perform stellar parameter analysis and report 12 elemental abundances (C, Na, Mg, Al, Si, Ca, Sc, Ti, Cr, Mn, Zn, Ba, and Ce) with precisions of ≈0.10 dex. Based on kinematic and spatial properties, we categorize the stars into four groups, associated with the following Galactic structures: the inner bulge, the outer bulge, the halo, and the disc. We find evidence that the inner and outer bulge population is more chemically complex (i.e. higher chemical dimensionality and less correlated abundances) than the halo population. This result suggests that the older bulge population was enriched by a larger diversity of nucleosynthetic events. We also find one inner bulge star with a [Ca/Mg] ratio consistent with theoretical pair-instability supernova yields and two stars that have chemistry consistent with globular cluster stars.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗