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At least 451 records · Page 25
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2019

RDataFrame: Easy Parallel ROOT Analysis at 100 Threads

The Physics programmes of LHC Run III and HL-LHC challenge the HEP community. The volume of data to be handled is unprecedented at every step of the data processing chain: analysis is no exception. Physicists must be provided with first-class analysis tools which are easy to use, exploit bleeding edge hardware technologies and allow to seamlessly express parallelism. This document discusses the declarative analysis engine of ROOT, RDataFrame, and gives details about how it allows to profitably exploit commodity hardware as well as high-end servers and manycore accelerators thanks to the synergy with the existing parallelised ROOT components. Real-life analyses of LHC experiments’ data expressed in terms of RDataFrame are presented, highlighting the programming model provided to express them in a concise and powerful way. The recent developments which make RDataFrame a lightweight data processing framework are described, such as callbacks and I/O capabilities. Finally, the flexibility of RDataFrame and its ability to read data formats other than ROOT’s are characterised, as an example it is discussed how RDataFrame can directly read and analyse LHCb’s raw data format MDF.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2019

Distributed data management on Belle II

The Belle II experiment started taking physics data in April 2018 with an estimated total volume of all files including raw events, Monte-Carlo and skim statistics of 340 petabytes expected by the end of operations in the late-2020s. Originally designed as a fully integrated component of the BelleDIRAC production system, the Belle II distributed data management (DDM) software needs to manage data across about 29 storage elements worldwide for a collaboration of nearly 1000 physicists. By late 2018, this software required significant performance improvements to meet the requirements of physics data taking and was seriously lacking in automation. Rucio, the DDM solution created by ATLAS, was an obvious alternative but required tight integration with BelleDIRAC and a seamless yet non-trivial migration. This contribution describes the work done on both DDM options, the current status of the software running successfully in production and the problems associated with trying to balance long-term operations cost against short term risk. .

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2025

Machine Learning for Optimized Polarization at Jefferson Lab

Polarized cryo-targets and polarized photon beams are widely used in experiments at Jefferson Lab. Traditional methods for maintaining the optimal polarization involve manual adjustments throughout data taking by human shift takers. This may introduce some level of inconsistency simply due to the wide variety of experience and expertise of the shift takers themselves. Implementing machine learning-based control systems can improve the stability of the polarization without relying on human intervention. The cryo-target polarization is influenced by temperature, microwave energy, the distribution of paramagnetic radicals, as well as operational conditions including the radiation dose. Diamond radiators are used to generate linearly polarized photons from a primary electron beam. The energy spectrum of these photons can drift over time due to changes in the primary electron beam conditions and diamond degradation. As a first step towards automating the continuous optimization and control processes, uncertainty aware surrogate models have been developed to predict the polarization based on historical data. This talk will provide an overview of the use cases and models developed, highlighting the collaboration between data scientists and physicists at Jefferson Lab.

Jeske, Torri [Thomas Jefferson National Accelerato↗
DOE OSTI2012

Intricacies and strategies for the implementation of new technologies in radiotherapy: Reflections on the meaning and prevention of the error

When facing the challenge of implementing new technologies in Radiotherapy, a reflection on philosophical and ethical principles is in order for the Medical Physicist to assume a reality of increased risks of harm to the patient. A series of ideas from philosophers and clinical professionals are reviewed to encourage an increased awareness of our ethical responsibility towards patients that entrust us with their hopes for alleviating their disease.

62 RADIOLOGY AND NUCLEAR MEDICINE↗
DOE OSTI2012

Measurement of bunch length in Indus-1 storage ring using fast photodiode

The length of electron bunches in a storage ring is an important parameter for both synchrotron radiation users and accelerator physicists. Several methods are used for measurements of bunch length using electronic and optical instruments. We have measured temporal profile of synchrotron radiation emitted from dipole magnet of Indus-1 by using fast photodiode. Bunch length is calculated by assuming gaussian profile for the particles inside bunch. The results show that bunch length is increasing with the decrease of gap voltage of RF cavity. These measurements were carried out at low beam current; at high voltage results are in close agreement with theory and the values estimated using ZAP code. In the second experiment, the results show that bunch length increases with the increase of beam current inside the bunch, and above threshold current, it follows Chao-Gareyte scaling law. The longitudinal broadband impedance for Indus-1 SRS was estimated using Keil-Schnell criterion and results were compared with theoretical estimated values using ZAP code.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗
DOE OSTI2012

An isocenter detection and verification device for use in proton therapy

We developed a new device for isocenter detection and verification for use in proton therapy. This device can be used to confirm the isocenters of a room laser, a digital radiography system, and a rotational gantry. Agreement between the isocenters of a room laser and a digital radiography system was examined visually. We used the star-shots method for detecting and verifying the rotational gantry isocenter. The gafchromic film could be irradiated with this method using a 2 mm slitted 200 MeV proton beam. The isocenters of a room laser and digital radiography system were in good agreement. The size distribution of the isocenter by the star-shots method was <2 mm, which is the value recommended by the American Association of Physicists in Medicine Task Group 142. This new device can be used to evaluate comprehensive isocenter detection and verification for related equipment. Subsequent checking using this new device will decrease the uncertainty in measuring an isocenter. When using this device, the working time was significantly reduced to about 30 min, including preparation. These measurements should be useful for high accuracy daily treatments.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
DOE OSTI2013

Revisiting heavy ion collisions under the influence of strong magnetic fields

The quark-gluon plasma (QGP) phase refers to matter where quarks and gluons are believed to be deconfined and it probably takes place at temperatures of the order of 150 to 170 MeV. In large colliders around the world (RHIC/BNL, ALICE/CERN, GSI, etc), physicists are trying to convert hadronic matter at these order of temperatures into QGP by looking at non-central heavy ion collisions. Possible experiments towards this search are Au-Au collisions at RHIC/BNL and Pb-Pb collisions at SPS/CERN, where the hadron abundances and particle ratios are used in order to determine the temperature and baryonic chemical potential of the possibly present hadronic matter-QGP phase transition. The magnetic fields involved in heavy-ion collisions, although time dependent and short-lived, can reach intensities higher than the ones considered in magnetars, around 1.7 Multiplication-Sign 10{sup 19} to 10{sup 20} Gauss. In fact, the densities related to the chemical potentials obtained within the relativistic models framework developed in previous works are very low (of the order of 10{sup -3} fm{sup -3}). At these densities the nuclear interactions are indeed very small and this fact made us consider the possibility of free Fermi and Boson gases under the unfluence of strong magnetic fields. We investigate the effects of magnetic fields of the order of 10{sup 18}, 10{sup 19} and 10{sup 20} G through a {chi}{sup 2} fit to some data sets of the STAR experiment. Our results shown that a field of the order of 10{sup 19} G can produce a much better fit to the experimental data than the calculations without magnetic fields.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2013

Excitation of transverse dipole and quadrupole modes in a pure ion plasma in a linear Paul trap to study collective processes in intense beams

Transverse dipole and quadrupole modes have been excited in a one-component cesium ion plasma trapped in the Paul Trap Simulator Experiment (PTSX) in order to characterize their properties and understand the effect of their excitation on equivalent long-distance beam propagation. The PTSX device is a compact laboratory Paul trap that simulates the transverse dynamics of a long, intense charge bunch propagating through an alternating-gradient transport system by putting the physicist in the beam's frame of reference. A pair of arbitrary function generators was used to apply trapping voltage waveform perturbations with a range of frequencies and, by changing which electrodes were driven with the perturbation, with either a dipole or quadrupole spatial structure. The results presented in this paper explore the dependence of the perturbation voltage's effect on the perturbation duration and amplitude. Perturbations were also applied that simulate the effect of random lattice errors that exist in an accelerator with quadrupole magnets that are misaligned or have variance in their field strength. The experimental results quantify the growth in the equivalent transverse beam emittance that occurs due to the applied noise and demonstrate that the random lattice errors interact with the trapped plasma through the plasma's internal collective modes. Coherent periodic perturbations were applied to simulate the effects of magnet errors in circular machines such as storage rings. The trapped one component plasma is strongly affected when the perturbation frequency is commensurate with a plasma mode frequency. The experimental results, which help to understand the physics of quiescent intense beam propagation over large distances, are compared with analytic models.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2013

Friedmann equation with quantum potential

Friedmann equations are used to describe the evolution of the universe. Solving Friedmann equations for the scale factor indicates that the universe starts from an initial singularity where all the physical laws break down. However, the Friedmann equations are well describing the late-time or large scale universe. Hence now, many physicists try to find an alternative theory to avoid this initial singularity. In this paper, we generate a version of first Friedmann equation which is added with an additional term. This additional term contains the quantum potential energy which is believed to play an important role at small scale. However, it will gradually become negligible when the universe evolves to large scale.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2013

Ash'arite's atomistic conception of the physical world: A restatement

Atomism plays an important role in the history of human thought. It can be traced back from Democritus atomos in the 500 BC to particle physics and quantum theory in the 21{sup st} century. However, as it being rejected and developed in the course of history of science, it still brings the fundamental question that perplexes physicists. It gives the views that the world is eternal; that the laws of nature is immutable and eternal therefore all phenomena can be determined through the laws and that there is no reality behind the quantum world. In this paper, we shall briefly describe all these three views on the nature of the physical world or universe and this include on the nature of matter. Then, we shall explain our stand on those conceptions based on the Ash'arites atomistic conception of the physical world. We hope this paper can shed a light on several fundamental issues in the conception of the universe and gives the proper response to them.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2014

Beyond modulation doping: Engineering a semiconductor to be ambipolar, or making an ON-OFF-ON transistor

Semiconductors are traditionaly either p-type or n-type, meaning that the mobile charge carriers in them are either 'holes' in the valence band or electrons in the conduction band. Ambipolar conduction implies that the experimenter should be able to populate the same channel with either electrons or holes in a controlled manner. This has been shown to be possible in newer materials like Graphene and some organic semiconductors. 'Ambipolarity' can open up new device possibilities as well as new ways to study fundamental scattering mechanisms in semiconductors. However, achieving this in a conventional high mobility structure like a GaAs-AlGaAs heterostructure/quantum well requires new thinking. It was realized, that to do this modulation doping must be given up and techniques to make an undoped heterostructure conduct, must be developed first. Such structures have been developed by only a few groups worldwide. They are of great interest to low temperature physicists working with Quantum Hall states and mesoscopic/nano structures in the ballistic regime. We discuss the reason behind this interest and the analysis of scattering mechanisms in such structures. Finally very recent experimental success in developing fully gate controlled ambipolar structures where both electron and hole mobilites exceed 1 million cm{sup 2}/Vs at low temperatures (T∼1Kelvin) are discussed. Such gated ambipolar structures can be used to analyse scattering mechanisms in ultra-high mobility 2dimensional electron and hole gases in a way that is not possible using other techniques.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗
DOE OSTI2014

Abundance measurements in stellar environments

Most of what we know about stars, and systems of stars, is derived from the analysis of their electromagnetic radiation. This lesson is an attempt to describe to Physicists, without any Astrophysical background, the framework to understand the present status of abundance determination in stellar environments and its limit. These notes are dedicated to the recently passed, November 21, 2013, Prof. Dimitri Mihalas who spent his life confuting the 19th century positivist philosopher Auguste Comte who stated that we shall not at all be able to determine the chemical composition of stars.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2014

The strategic offense initiative? The Soviets and Star Wars

Historians of the Cold War have paid too little attention to Soviet fears of 'space-strike weapons' - that is, possible offensive uses of President Ronald Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative. In fifteen years or so, soldiers will no longer shoot rifles but will use some kind of lightning, some sort of a machine emitting a holocaustal electrical beam. Tell me, what can we invent in this line so as to surprise our neighbors?... Alas, we are only capable of imitating and purchasing weapons from others, and we do well if we manage to repair them ourselves. --Fyodor Dostoevsky, A Writer's Diary, 1873. [Khlinov, a physicist]: 'I know that he has made an important discovery concerning the transmission of infra-red rays over a distance.... Heat waves at a temperature of a thousand degrees centigrade transmitted parallel to each other constitute a monstrous weapon of destruction and defense in time of war. The whole secret lies in the transmission of a ray that does not disperse. So far nobody has been able to do this. Judging by your story, Garin has constructed a machine that will do it. If so it is an extremely important discovery.' 'I've been thinking for a long time that this invention smells of higher politics,' said Shelga. --Aleksei Tolstoy, The Garin Death Ray, 1927 (translated by George Hanna)

98 NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT, SAFEGUARDS, AND PHYSICAL P↗
DOE OSTI2014

Quantum correlations and distinguishability of quantum states

A survey of various concepts in quantum information is given, with a main emphasis on the distinguishability of quantum states and quantum correlations. Covered topics include generalized and least square measurements, state discrimination, quantum relative entropies, the Bures distance on the set of quantum states, the quantum Fisher information, the quantum Chernoff bound, bipartite entanglement, the quantum discord, and geometrical measures of quantum correlations. The article is intended both for physicists interested not only by collections of results but also by the mathematical methods justifying them, and for mathematicians looking for an up-to-date introductory course on these subjects, which are mainly developed in the physics literature.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2014

Metastability, spectrum, and eigencurrents of the Lennard-Jones-38 network

We develop computational tools for spectral analysis of stochastic networks representing energy landscapes of atomic and molecular clusters. Physical meaning and some properties of eigenvalues, left and right eigenvectors, and eigencurrents are discussed. We propose an approach to compute a collection of eigenpairs and corresponding eigencurrents describing the most important relaxation processes taking place in the system on its way to the equilibrium. It is suitable for large and complex stochastic networks where pairwise transition rates, given by the Arrhenius law, vary by orders of magnitude. The proposed methodology is applied to the network representing the Lennard-Jones-38 cluster created by Wales's group. Its energy landscape has a double funnel structure with a deep and narrow face-centered cubic funnel and a shallower and wider icosahedral funnel. However, the complete spectrum of the generator matrix of the Lennard-Jones-38 network has no appreciable spectral gap separating the eigenvalue corresponding to the escape from the icosahedral funnel. We provide a detailed description of the escape process from the icosahedral funnel using the eigencurrent and demonstrate a superexponential growth of the corresponding eigenvalue. The proposed spectral approach is compared to the methodology of the Transition Path Theory. Finally, we discuss whether the Lennard-Jones-38 cluster is metastable from the points of view of a mathematician and a chemical physicist, and make a connection with experimental works.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
DOE OSTI2014

Coexisting chaotic and multi-periodic dynamics in a model of cardiac alternans

The spatiotemporal dynamics of cardiac tissue is an active area of research for biologists, physicists, and mathematicians. Of particular interest is the study of period-doubling bifurcations and chaos due to their link with cardiac arrhythmogenesis. In this paper, we study the spatiotemporal dynamics of a recently developed model for calcium-driven alternans in a one dimensional cable of tissue. In particular, we observe in the cable coexistence of regions with chaotic and multi-periodic dynamics over wide ranges of parameters. We study these dynamics using global and local Lyapunov exponents and spatial trajectory correlations. Interestingly, near nodes—or phase reversals—low-periodic dynamics prevail, while away from the nodes, the dynamics tend to be higher-periodic and eventually chaotic. Finally, we show that similar coexisting multi-periodic and chaotic dynamics can also be observed in a detailed ionic model.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2015

The chemistry of molecular anions in circumstellar sources

The detection of negatively charged molecules in the interstellar and circumstellar medium in the past four years has been one of the most impacting surprises in the area of molecular astrophysics. It has motivated the interest of astronomers, physicists, and chemists on the study of the spectroscopy, chemical kinetics, and prevalence of molecular anions in the different astronomical regions. Up to six different molecular anions have been discovered in space to date, the last one being the small ion CN{sup −}, which has been observed in the envelope of the carbon star IRC +10216 and which contrary to the other larger anions is not formed by electron attachment to CN, but through reactions of large carbon anions with nitrogen atoms. Here we briefly review the current status of our knowledge of the chemistry of molecular anions in space, with particular emphasis on the circumstellar source IRC +10216, which to date is the astronomical source harboring the largest variety of anions.

74 ATOMIC AND MOLECULAR PHYSICS↗