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All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS1994

Optical model analyses of heavy ion fragmentation in hydrogen targets

Quantum-mechanical optical-model methods for calculating cross sections for the fragmentation of high-energy heavy ions by hydrogen targets are presented. The cross sections are calculated with a knockout-ablation collision formalism which has no arbitrary fitting parameters. Predictions of elemental production cross sections from the fragmentation of 1.2A Ge(V(La-139) nuclei and of isotope production cross sections from the fragmentation of 400A MeV(S-32) nuclei are in good agreement with recently reported experimental measurements.

Townsend, Lawrence W.↗
NASA NTRS1997

Dynamics of Superfluid Helium in Low-Gravity

This report summarizes the work performed under a contract entitled 'Dynamics of Superfluid Helium in Low Gravity'. This project performed verification tests, over a wide range of accelerations of two Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) codes of which one incorporates the two-fluid model of superfluid helium (SFHe). Helium was first liquefied in 1908 and not until the 1930s were the properties of helium below 2.2 K observed sufficiently to realize that it did not obey the ordinary physical laws of physics as applied to ordinary liquids. The term superfluidity became associated with these unique observations. The low temperature of SFHe and it's temperature unifonrmity have made it a significant cryogenic coolant for use in space applications in astronomical observations with infrared sensors and in low temperature physics. Superfluid helium has been used in instruments such as the Shuttle Infrared Astronomy Telescope (IRT), the Infrared Astronomy Satellite (IRAS), the Cosmic Background Observatory (COBE), and the Infrared Satellite Observatory (ISO). It is also used in the Space Infrared Telescope (SIRTF), Relativity Mission Satellite formally called Gravity Probe-B (GP-B), and the Test of the Equivalence Principle (STEP) presently under development. For GP-B and STEP, the use of SFHE is used to cool Superconducting Quantum Interference Detectors (SQUIDS) among other parts of the instruments. The Superfluid Helium On-Orbit Transfer (SHOOT) experiment flown in the Shuttle studied the behavior of SFHE. This experiment attempted to get low-gravity slosh data, however, the main emphasis was to study the low-gravity transfer of SFHE from tank to tank. These instruments carried tanks of SFHE of a few hundred liters to 2500 liters. The capability of modeling the behavior of SFHE is important to spacecraft control engineers who must design systems that can overcome disturbances created by the movement of the fluid. In addition instruments such as GP-B and STEP are very sensitive to quasi-steady changes in the mass distribution of the liquid. The CFD codes were used to model the fluid's dynamic motion. Tests in one-g were performed with the main emphasis on being able to compute the actual damping of the fluid. A series of flights on the NASA Lewis reduced gravity DC-9 aircraft were performed with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) Low Temperature Flight Facility and a superfluid Test Cell. The data at approximately 0.04g, lg and 2g were used to determine if correct fundamental frequencies can be predicted based on the acceleration field. Tests in zero gravity were performed to evaluate zero gravity motion.

Frank, David J.↗
NASA NTRS1979

Semiclassical theory of electronically nonadiabatic transitions in molecular collision processes

An introductory account of the semiclassical theory of the S-matrix for molecular collision processes is presented, with special emphasis on electronically nonadiabatic transitions. This theory is based on the incorporation of classical mechanics with quantum superposition, and in practice makes use of the analytic continuation of classical mechanics into the complex space of time domain. The relevant concepts of molecular scattering theory and related dynamical models are described and the formalism is developed and illustrated with simple examples - collinear collision of the A+BC type. The theory is then extended to include the effects of laser-induced nonadiabatic transitions. Two bound continuum processes collisional ionization and collision-induced emission also amenable to the same general semiclassical treatment are discussed.

Lam, K. S.↗
NASA NTRS1992

Non-scalar uncertainty: Uncertainty in dynamic systems

The following point is stated throughout the paper: dynamic systems are usually subject to uncertainty, be it the unavoidable quantic uncertainty when working with sufficiently small scales or when working in large scales uncertainty can be allowed by the researcher in order to simplify the problem, or it can be introduced by nonlinear interactions. Even though non-quantic uncertainty can generally be dealt with by using the ordinary probability formalisms, it can also be studied with the proposed non-scalar formalism. Thus, non-scalar uncertainty is a more general theoretical framework giving insight into the nature of uncertainty and providing a practical tool in those cases in which scalar uncertainty is not enough, such as when studying highly nonlinear dynamic systems. This paper's specific contribution is the general concept of non-scalar uncertainty and a first proposal for a methodology. Applications should be based upon this methodology. The advantage of this approach is to provide simpler mathematical models for prediction of the system states. Present conventional tools for dealing with uncertainty prove insufficient for an effective description of some dynamic systems. The main limitations are overcome abandoning ordinary scalar algebra in the real interval (0, 1) in favor of a tensor field with a much richer structure and generality. This approach gives insight into the interpretation of Quantum Mechanics and will have its most profound consequences in the fields of elementary particle physics and nonlinear dynamic systems. Concepts like 'interfering alternatives' and 'discrete states' have an elegant explanation in this framework in terms of properties of dynamic systems such as strange attractors and chaos. The tensor formalism proves especially useful to describe the mechanics of representing dynamic systems with models that are closer to reality and have relatively much simpler solutions. It was found to be wise to get an approximate solution to an accurate model than to get a precise solution to a model constrained by simplifying assumptions. Precision has a very heavy cost in present physical models, but this formalism allows the trade between uncertainty and simplicity. It was found that modeling reality sometimes requires that state transition probabilities should be manipulated as nonscalar quantities, finding at the end that there is always a transformation to get back to scalar probability.

Martinez, Salvador Gutierrez↗
DOE OSTI2023

(2+1)-dimensional compact Lifshitz theory, tensor gauge theory, and fractons

The (2+1)-dimensional continuum Lifshitz theory of a free compact scalar field plays a prominent role in a variety of quantum systems in condensed matter physics and high energy physics. It is known that in compact space, it has an infinite ground-state degeneracy. In order to understand this theory better, we consider two candidate lattice regularizations of it using the modified Villain formalism. We show that these two lattice theories have significantly different global symmetries (including a dipole global symmetry), anomalies, ground-state degeneracies, and dualities. In particular, one of them is self-dual. Given these theories and their global symmetries, we can couple them to corresponding gauge theories. Here, these are two different U(1) tensor gauge theories. The resulting models have excitations with restricted mobility, i.e., fractons. Finally, we give an exact lattice realization of the fracton and lineon-elasticity dualities for the Lifshitz theory, and scalar and vector charge gauge theories.

2-dimensional systems↗
DOE OSTI2020

Giant Wilson loops and AdS 2 /dCFT 1

The 1/2-BPS Wilson loop in N = 4 supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory is an important and well-studied example of conformal defect. In particular, much work has been done for the correlation functions of operator insertions on the Wilson loop in the fundamental representation. In this paper, we extend such analyses to Wilson loops in the large-rank symmetric and antisymmetric representations, which correspond to probe D3 and D5 branes with AdS 2 × S 2 and AdS 2 × S 4 worldvolume geometries, ending at the AdS 5 boundary along a one-dimensional contour. We first compute the correlation functions of protected scalar insertions from supersymmetric localization, and obtain a representation in terms of multiple integrals that are similar to the eigenvalue integrals of the random matrix, but with important differences. Using ideas from the Fermi Gas formalism and the Clustering method, we evaluate their large N limit exactly as a function of the ’t Hooft coupling. The results are given by simple integrals of polynomials that resemble the Q-functions of the Quantum Spectral Curve, with integration measures depending on the number of insertions. Next, we study the correlation functions of fluctuations on the probe D3 and D5 branes in AdS. We compute a selection of three- and four-point functions from perturbation theory on the D-branes, and show that they agree with the results of localization when restricted to supersymmetric kinematics. We also explain how the difference of the internal geometries of the D3 and D5 branes manifests itself in the localization computation.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2022

Quantum vacuum processes in the extremely intense light of relativistic plasma mirror sources

Abstract The advent of petawatt-class laser systems allows generating electromagnetic fields of unprecedented strength in a controlled environment, driving increasingly more efforts to probe yet unobserved processes through their interaction with the quantum vacuum. Still, the lowest intensity scale governing these effects lies orders of magnitude beyond foreseen capabilities, so that such endeavor is expected to remain extremely challenging. In recent years, however, plasma mirrors have emerged as a promising bridge across this gap, by enabling the conversion of intense infrared laser pulses into coherently focused Doppler harmonic beams lying in the X-UV range. In this work, we present predictions on the quantum vacuum signatures produced when such beams are focused to intensities between 10 24 and 10 28 W cm −2 , specifically photon–photon scattering and electron–positron pair creation. These signatures are computed via the stimulated vacuum formalism, combined with a model of perfectly focused beam built from PIC-generated harmonics spectra, and implemented on state-of-the-art massively parallel numerical tools. In view of identifying experimentally favorable configurations, we also consider the coupling of the focused harmonic beam with an auxiliary optical beam, and provide comparison with other established schemes. Our results show that a single coherently focused harmonic beam can produce as much scattered photons as two infrared pulses in head-on collision, and confirm that the coupling of the harmonic beam to an auxiliary beam gives rise to significant levels of inelastic scattering, and hence holds the potential to strongly improve the attainable signal to noise ratios in experiments.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2019

Basis-independent quantum coherence and its distribution

We analyze a basis-independent definition of quantum coherence. The maximally mixed state is used as the reference state, which allows for a way of defining coherence that is invariant under arbitrary unitary transformations. Such a basis independent formulation is related to the purity of system rather than the superposition in a particular basis. The basis-independent approach is applied to finding the distribution of the coherence within a multipartite system, where the contributions due to correlations between the subsystems and within each subsystem are isolated. The use of the square root of the Jensen–Shannon divergence allows for inequality relations to be derived between these quantities, giving a geometrical picture within the Hilbert space of the system. We describe the relationship between the basis-independent and the basis-dependent approaches, and argue that many advantages exist for the former method. The formalism is illustrated with several numerical examples which show that the states can be characterized in a simple and effective manner.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2020

Superfluids as higher-form anomalies

We recast superfluid hydrodynamics as the hydrodynamic theory of a system with an emergent anomalous higher-form symmetry. The higher-form charge counts the winding planes of the superfluid - its constitutive relation replaces the Josephson relation of conventional superfluid hydrodynamics. This formulation puts all hydrodynamic equations on equal footing. The anomalous Ward identity can be used as an alternative starting point to prove the existence of a Goldstone boson, without reference to spontaneous symmetry breaking. This provides an alternative characterization of Landau phase transitions in terms of higher-form symmetries and their anomalies instead of how the symmetries are realized. This treatment is more general and, in particular, includes the case of BKT transitions. As an application of this formalism we construct the hydrodynamic theories of conventional (0-form) and 1-form superfluids.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2023

Extracting the Quantum Hall Conductance from a Single Bulk Wave Function

In this work, we propose a new formula that extracts the quantum Hall conductance from a single (2+1)⁢ D gapped wave function. The formula applies to general many-body systems that conserve particle number, and is based on the concept of modular flow, i.e., unitary dynamics generated from the entanglement structure of the wave function. The formula is shown to satisfy all formal properties of the Hall conductance: it is odd under time reversal and reflection, even under charge conjugation, universal and topologically rigid in the thermodynamic limit. Further evidence for relating the formula to the Hall conductance is obtained from conformal field theory arguments. Finally, we numerically check the formula by applying it to a noninteracting Chern band where excellent agreement is obtained.

2-dimensional systems↗
DOE OSTI2024

Red-QAOA: Efficient Variational Optimization through Circuit Reduction

The Quantum Approximate Optimization Algorithm (QAOA) provides a quantum solution for combinatorial optimization problems. However, the optimal parameter searching process of QAOA is greatly affected by noise, leading to non-optimal solutions. This paper introduces a novel approach to optimize QAOA by exploiting the energy landscape concentration of similar instances via graph reduction, thus addressing the effect of noise. We formalize the notion of similar instances in QAOA and develop a Simulated Annealing-based graph reduction algorithm, called Red-QAOA, to identify the most similar subgraph for efficient parameter optimization. Red-QAOA outperforms state-of-the-art Graph Neural Network (GNN) based graph pooling techniques in performance and demonstrates effectiveness on a diverse set of real-world optimization problems encompassing 3200 graphs. Red-QAOA reduced the node counts and edge counts by 28% and 37%, respectively, while maintaining a low mean square error of 2%. These enable the identification of an optimal parameter set that is closer to the ideal true optimal solution in the presence of noise. By substantially streamlining the search for QAOA parameters, our approach sets the stage for the practical application of quantum algorithms in solving complex optimization problems.

Wang, Meng↗
NASA NTRS2009

Multispectrum Analysis of 12CH4 in the v4 Band: I. Air-Broadened Half Widths, Pressure-Induced Shifts, Temperature Dependences and Line Mixing

Lorentz air-broadened half widths, pressure-induced shifts and their temperature dependences have been measured for over 430 transitions (allowed and forbidden) in the v4 band of (CH4)-12 over the temperature range 210 to 314 K. A multispectrum non linear least squares fitting technique was used to simultaneously fit a large number of high-resolution (0.006 to 0.01/cm) absorption spectra of pure methane and mixtures of methane diluted with dry air. Line mixing was detected for pairs of A-, E-, and F-species transitions in the P- and R-branch manifolds and quantified using the off-diagonal relaxation matrix elements formalism. The measured parameters are compared to air- and N2-broadened values reported in the literature for the v4 and other bands. The dependence of the various spectral line parameters upon the tetrahedral symmetry species and rotational quantum numbers of the transitions is discussed. All data used in the present work were recorded using the McMath-Pierce Fourier transform spectrometer located at the National Solar Observatory on Kitt Peak.

Smith, MaryAnn H.↗
DOE OSTI2024

Harmonic and Subharmonic RF Injection Locking of THz Metasurface Quantum-Cascade VECSEL

Harmonic and subharmonic RF injection locking is demonstrated in a terahertz (THz) quantum-cascade vertical-external-cavity surface-emitting laser (QC-VECSEL). By tuning the RF injection frequency around integer multiples and submultiples of the cavity round-trip frequency, different harmonic and subharmonic orders can be excited in the same device. Modulation-dependent behavior of the device has been studied with recorded lasing spectral broadening and locking bandwidths in each case. In particular, harmonic injection locking results in the observation of harmonic spectra with bandwidths over 200 GHz. A semiclassical Maxwell-density matrix formalism has been applied to interpret QC-VECSEL dynamics, which aligns well with experimental observations.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
DOE OSTI2021

Detecting the stochastic gravitational wave background from massive gravity with pulsar timing arrays

We explore the potential of pulsar timing arrays (PTAs) such as NANOGrav, EPTA, and PPTA to detect the stochastic gravitational wave background in theories of massive gravity. In general relativity, the function describing the dependence of the correlation between the arrival times of signals from two pulsars on the angle between them is known as the Hellings-Downs curve. We compute the analogous overlap reduction function for massive gravity, including the additional polarization states and the correction due to the mass of the graviton, and compare the result with the Hellings-Downs curve. The primary result is a complete analytical form for the analog Hellings-Downs curve, providing a starting point for future numerical studies aimed at a detailed comparison between PTA data and the predictions of massive gravity. We study both the massless limit and the stationary limit as checks on our calculation, and discuss how our formalism also allows us to study the impact of massive spin-2 dark matter candidates on data from PTAs.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
NASA NTRS1978

A semiclassical approach to collisional ionization with application to the Ar-He system

A semiclassical approach based on the propagation of classical trajectories on potential surfaces analytically continued into the complex plane, together with a discretization procedure, has been developed for the problem of collisional ionization. Based on Franck-Condon considerations the formalism is reduced to that of the two-state approximation. Preionization loss and tunnelling beyond turning points have not been considered. Calculated partial ionization cross sections for the Ar-He system show good agreement with a fully quantum mechanical treatment.

Lam, K.-S.↗
NASA NTRS1987

Effective propagation constants in dense random media under effective medium approximation

The effective medium approximation is applied to study the effective propagation constants in a dense random medium. The dyadic Green's function is introduced to establish the effective medium approximation formalism for electromagnetic waves. The multiple scattering equations and the Lippmann-Schwinger equations for the transition operator are obtained in the configuration average form. The dispersion equations of multiple scattering is derived by using a standard method in quantum mechanics. To obtain an expression for the effective propagation constants the matrix elements of the configuration average dyadic transiton operator are calculated in momentum representation. Numerical illustations are carried out to demonstrate the difference in the effective propagation constants between the use of this approximation and the well-known quasi-crystalline approximation. A comparison is made with measured loss tangent in dry snow.

Zhu, P. Y.↗
NASA NTRS2014

Kuang's Semi-Classical Formalism for Calculating Electron Capture Cross Sections: A Space- Physics Application

Accurate estimates of electroncapture cross sections at energies relevant to the modeling of the transport, acceleration, and interaction of energetic neutral atoms (ENA) in space (approximately few MeV per nucleon) and especially for multi-electron ions must rely on detailed, but computationally expensive, quantum-mechanical description of the collision process. Kuang's semi-classical approach is an elegant and efficient way to arrive at these estimates. Motivated by ENA modeling efforts for apace applications, we shall briefly present this approach along with sample applications and report on current progress.

Barghouty, A. F.↗