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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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At least 487 records · Page 27
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2022

Radial velocity variability and the evolution of hot subdwarf stars

Hot subdwarf stars represent a late and peculiar stage in the evolution of low-mass stars, since they are likely formed by close binary interactions. In this work, we perform a radial velocity (RV) variability study of a sample of 646 hot subdwarfs with multi-epoch radial velocities based on spectra from Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) and Large Sky Area Multi-Object Fibre Spectroscopic Telescope (LAMOST). The atmospheric parameters and RVs were taken from the literature. For stars with archival spectra but without literature values, we determined the parameters by fitting model atmospheres. In addition, we redetermined the atmospheric parameters and RVs for all the He-enriched sdO/Bs. This broad sample allowed us to study RV-variability as a function of the location in theT eff - log g- and T eff - log n (He)/n (H) diagrams in a statistically significant way. We used the fraction of RV-variable stars and the distribution of the maximum RV variations ΔRV max as diagnostics. Both indicators turned out to be quite inhomogeneous across the studied parameter ranges. A striking feature is the completely dissimilar behaviour of He-poor and He-rich hot subdwarfs. While the former have a high fraction of close binaries, almost no significant RV variations could be detected for the latter. This has led us to the conclusion that there is likely no evolutionary connection between these subtypes. On the other hand, intermediate He-rich- and extreme He-rich sdOB/Os are more likely to be related. Furthermore, we conclude that the vast majority of this population is formed via one or several binary merger channels. Hot subdwarfs with temperatures cooler than ~24 000 K tend to show fewer and smaller RV-variations. These objects might constitute a new subpopulation of binaries with longer periods and late-type or compact companions. The RV-variability properties of the extreme horizontal branch (EHB) and corresponding post-EHB populations of the He-poor hot subdwarfs match and confirm the predicted evolutionary connection between them. Stars found below the canonical EHB at somewhat higher surface gravities show large RV variations and a high RV variability fraction. These properties are consistent with most of them being low-mass EHB stars or progenitors of low-mass helium white dwarfs in close binaries.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2022

The miniJPAS survey: A search for extreme emission-line galaxies

Context. Galaxies with extreme emission lines (EELGs) may play a key role in the evolution of the Universe, as well as in our understanding of the star formation process itself. For this reason an accurate determination of their spatial density and fundamental properties in different epochs of the Universe will constitute a unique perspective towards a comprehensive picture of the interplay between star formation and mass assembly in galaxies. In addition to this, EELGs are also interesting in order to explain the reionization of the Universe, since their interstellar medium (ISM) could be leaking ionizing photons, and thus they could be low z, analogous of extreme galaxies at high z . Aims. This paper presents a method to obtain a census of EELGs over a large area of the sky by detecting galaxies with rest-frame equivalent widths ≥300 Å in the emission lines [O II]λλ3727,3729Å, [O III]λ5007Å, and Hα. For this, we aim to use the J-PAS survey, which will image an area of ≈8000 deg 2 with 56 narrow band filters in the optical. As a pilot study, we present a methodology designed to select EELGs on the miniJPAS images, which use the same filter dataset as J-PAS, and thus will be exportable to this larger survey. Methods. We make use of the miniJPAS survey data, conceived as a proof of concept of J-PAS, and covering an area of ≈1 deg 2 . Objects were detected in the r SDSS images and selected by imposing a condition on the flux in a given narrow-band J-PAS filter with respect to the contiguous ones, which is analogous to requiring an observed equivalent width larger than 300 Å in a certain emission line within the filter bandwidth. The selected sources were then classified as galaxies or quasi-stellar objects (QSOs) after a comparison of their miniJPAS fluxes with those of a spectral database of objects known to present strong emission lines. This comparison also provided a redshift for each source, which turned out to be consistent with the spectroscopic redshifts when available (|Δz/(1 + z spec )| ≤ 0.01). Results. The selected candidates were found to show a compact appearance in the optical images, some of them even being classified as point-like sources according to their stellarity index. After discarding sources classified as QSOs, a total of 17 sources turned out to exhibit EW 0 ≥ 300 Å in at least one emission line, thus constituting our final list of EELGs. Our counts are fairly consistent with those of other samples of EELGs in the literature, although there are some differences, which were expected due to biases resulting from different selection criteria.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2023

X-ray emission from a rapidly accreting narrow-line Seyfert 1 galaxy at z = 6.56

The space density of X-ray-luminous, blindly selected active galactic nuclei (AGN) traces the population of rapidly accreting super-massive black holes through cosmic time. It is encoded in the X-ray luminosity function, whose bright end remains poorly constrained in the first billion years after the Big Bang as X-ray surveys have thus far lacked the required cosmological volume. With the eROSITA Final Equatorial-Depth Survey (eFEDS), the largest contiguous and homogeneous X-ray survey to date, X-ray AGN population studies can now be extended to new regions of the luminosity–redshift space (L 2 - 10 keV > 10 45 erg s -1 and z > 6). The current study aims at identifying luminous quasars at z > 5.7 among X-ray-selected sources in the eFEDS field in order to place a lower limit on black hole accretion well into the epoch of re-ionisation. A secondary goal is the characterisation of the physical properties of these extreme coronal emitters at high redshifts. Cross-matching eFEDS catalogue sources to optical counterparts from the DESI Legacy Imaging Surveys, we confirm the low significance detection with eROSITA of a previously known, optically faint z = 6.56 quasar from the Subaru High-z Exploration of Low-luminosity Quasars (SHELLQs) survey. We obtained a pointed follow-up observation of the source with the Chandra X-ray telescope in order to confirm the low-significance eROSITA detection. Using new near-infrared spectroscopy, we derived the physical properties of the super-massive black hole. Finally, we used this detection to infer a lower limit on the black hole accretion density rate at z > 6. The Chandra observation confirms the eFEDS source as the most distant blind X-ray detection to date. The derived X-ray luminosity is high with respect to the rest-frame optical emission of the quasar. With a narrow MgII line, low derived black hole mass, and high Eddington ratio, as well as its steep photon index, the source shows properties that are similar to local narrow-line Seyfert 1 galaxies, which are thought to be powered by young super-massive black holes. In combination with a previous high-redshift quasar detection in the field, we show that quasars with L 2 - 10 keV > 10 45 erg s -1 dominate accretion onto super-massive black holes at z ~ 6.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2026

Delving into the depths of NGC 3783 with XRISM V. Broad-band modelling of ionized outflows

The Seyfert 1 galaxy NGC 3783 hosts a multi-phase warm absorber (WA) that has been extensively studied in the X-ray band. High-resolution spectra from 2000−2001 revealed a complex outflow with multiple ionization and velocity components. Two decades later, new XMM-Newton and XRISM observations allow us to investigate the long-term evolution of these outflows. We performed joint spectral modelling of the XMM-Newton /RGS and XRISM/Resolve time-averaged spectra using the pion photoionization code within SPEX. We derived the ionization parameter, column density, turbulent velocity, and outflow velocity for each absorption component, and investigated their thermal stability and absorption measure distribution (AMD) to characterize the physical and dynamical properties of the WA in NGC 3783 in 2024. We compared these results with the 2000−2001 epoch to assess long-term variability, stability, and possible changes in the absorber population. We identify eight WA components spanning log ξ = 1.08 − 3.38 and outflow velocities of 480−1230 km s −1 . The ranges of column densities and turbulent velocities remain broadly consistent with the WAs from 2000−2001, but the earlier data contained more low-ionization, high-velocity components. The total column density of all the outflows in 2024 is 1.5 times larger than in 2000−2001, which means that it has been replenished by fresh material. The dominant unresolved transition array (UTA) absorber (component B3) has increased its column density by a factor of three while maintaining a similar ionization parameter. The WAs in NGC 3783 have undergone significant structural and dynamical evolution over the past 24 years.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2023

Enhanced electron acceleration by high-intensity lasers in extended (confined) preplasma in cone targets

Here we report on experimental results from a high-intensity laser interaction with cone targets that increase the number (×3) and temperature (×3) of the measured hot electrons over a traditional planar target. This increase is caused by a substantial increase in the plasma density within the cone target geometry, which was induced by 17 ± 9 mJ prepulse that arrived 1.5 ns prior to the main high intensity (>10 19 W/cm 2 ). Three-dimensional hydrodynamic simulations are conducted using hydra which show that the cone targets create substantially longer and denser plasma than planar targets due to the geometric confinement of the expanding plasma. The density within the cone is a several hundred-micron plasma “shelf” with a density of approximately 10 20 n e /cc. The HYDRA simulated plasma densities are used as the initial conditions for two-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations using EPOCH. These simulations show that the main acceleration mechanism is direct-laser-acceleration, with close agreement between experimentally measured and simulated electron temperatures. Further analysis is conducted to investigate the acceleration of the electrons within the long plasma generated within a compound parabolic concentrator by the prepulse.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2023

Faraday effect in collisional magnetized plasmas

Faraday rotation is a valuable diagnostic tool for investigating laboratory and astrophysical plasmas, but it has almost exclusively been treated in the collisionless limit (despite the non-negligible role of Coulomb collisions in many laboratory plasmas). Here, we show that Faraday rotation can occur in collisional plasmas and that the usual effect is curiously altered by collisions. Namely, an initially linearly polarized light wave—propagating parallel to a uniform magnetic field—becomes elliptically polarized in the collisional plasma, and collisional absorption of the wave also occurs. Moreover, the ellipticity and rotation angle are quantifiably sensitive to the fidelity of the collisional transport coefficients. As we will demonstrate with particle-in-cell EPOCH simulations, these effects offer a stringent diagnostic tool for benchmarking multi-scale plasma simulation codes.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2023

Endothermic physiology of extinct megatooth sharks

The evolution of the extinct megatooth shark, Otodus megalodon , and its close phylogenetic relatives remains enigmatic. A central question persists regarding the thermophysiological origins of these large predatory sharks through geologic time, including whether O. megalodon was ectothermic or endothermic (including regional endothermy), and whether its thermophysiology could help to explain the iconic shark’s gigantism and eventual demise during the Pliocene. To address these uncertainties, we present unique geochemical evidence for thermoregulation in O. megalodon from both clumped isotope paleothermometry and phosphate oxygen isotopes. Our results show that O. megalodon had an overall warmer body temperature compared with its ambient environment and other coexisting shark species, providing quantitative and experimental support for recent biophysical modeling studies that suggest endothermy was one of the key drivers for gigantism in O. megalodon and other lamniform sharks. The gigantic body size with high metabolic costs of having high body temperatures may have contributed to the vulnerability of Otodus species to extinction when compared to other sympatric sharks that survived the Pliocene epoch.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2021

Large N-ightmare dark matter

A dark QCD sector is a relatively minimal extension of the Standard Model (SM) that admits Dark Matter (DM) candidates, but requires no portal to the visible sector beyond gravitational interactions: a "nightmare scenario" for DM detection. Here, we consider a secluded dark sector containing a single flavor of light, vector-like dark quark gauged under (N). In the large-N limit, this single-flavor theory becomes highly predictive, generating two DM candidates whose masses and dynamics are described by few parameters: a light quark-antiquark bound state, the dark analog of the η' meson, and a heavy bound state of N quarks, the dark analog of the Δ ++ baryon. We show that the latter may freeze-in with an abundance independent of the confinement scale, forming DM-like relics for N ≲ 10, while the former may generate DM via cannibalization and freeze-out. We study the interplay of this two-component DM system, and determine the characteristic ranges of the confinement scale, dark-visible sector temperature ratio, and N that admit non-excluded DM, once effects of self-interaction constraints and bounds on effective degrees of freedom at the BBN and CMB epochs are included.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2021

Exploring the early Universe with Gaia and Theia

It has recently been pointed out that Gaia is capable of detecting a stochastic gravitational wave background in the sensitivity band between the frequency of pulsar timing arrays and LISA. Here, we argue that Gaia and Theia have great potential for early universe cosmology, since such a frequency range is ideal for probing phase transitions in asymmetric dark matter, SIMP and the cosmological QCD transition. Furthermore, there is the potential for detecting primordial black holes in the solar mass range produced during such an early universe transition and distinguish them from those expected from the QCD epoch. Finally, we discuss the potential for Gaia and Theia to probe topological defects and the ability of Gaia to potentially shed light on the recent NANOGrav results.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2022

Cannibalism's lingering imprint on the matter power spectrum

The early universe may have contained internally thermalized dark sectors that were decoupled from the Standard Model. In such scenarios, the relic dark thermal bath, composed of the lightest particle in the dark sector, can give rise to an epoch of early matter domination prior to Big Bang Nucleosynthesis, which has a potentially observable impact on the smallest dark matter structures. This lightest dark particle can easily and generically have number-changing self-interactions that give rise to “cannibal” behavior. We consider cosmologies where an initially sub-dominant cannibal species comes to temporarily drive the expansion of the universe, and we provide a simple map between the particle properties of the cannibal species and the key features of the enhanced dark matter perturbation growth in such cosmologies. Finally, we further demonstrate that cannibal self-interactions can determine the small-scale cutoff in the matter power spectrum even when the cannibal self-interactions freeze out prior to cannibal domination.

cosmological perturbation theory↗
DOE OSTI2022

Cosmological dependence of sterile neutrino dark matter with self-interacting neutrinos

Unexplored interactions of neutrinos could be the key to understanding the nature of the dark matter (DM). In particular, active neutrinos with new self-interactions can produce keV-mass sterile neutrinos that account for the whole of the DM through the Dodelson-Widrow mechanism for a large range of active-sterile mixing values. This production typically occurs before Big-Bang Nucleosynthesis (BBN) in a yet uncharted era of the Universe. We assess how the mixing range for keV-mass sterile neutrino DM is affected by the uncertainty in the early Universe pre-BBN cosmology. This is particularly relevant for identifying the viable parameter space of sterile neutrino searches allowed by all astrophysical limits, as well as for cosmology, since the detection of a sterile neutrino could constitute the first observation of a particle providing information about the pre-BBN epoch. Here, we find that the combined uncertainties in the early Universe cosmology and neutrino interactions significantly expand the allowed parameter space for sterile neutrinos that can constitute the whole of the DM.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2022

Optical depth to reionization from perturbative 21 cm clustering

The optical depth τ is the least well determined parameter in the standard model of cosmology, and one whose precise value is important for both understanding reionization and for inferring fundamental physics from cosmological measurements. Here, we forecast how well future epoch of reionization experiments could constraint τ using a symmetries-based bias expansion that highlights the special role played by anisotropies in the power spectrum on large scales. Given a parametric model for the ionization evolution inspired by the physical behavior of more detailed reionization simulations, we find that future 21 cm experiments could place tight constraints on the timing and duration of reionization and hence constraints on τ that are competitive with proposed, space-based CMB missions provided they can measure k ≈ 0.1 h Mpc -1 with a clean foreground wedge across redshifts spanning the most active periods of reionization, corresponding to ionization fractions 0.2 ≲ x ≲ 0.8. Significantly improving upon existing CMB-based measurements with next-generation 21 cm surveys would require substantially longer observations (~ 5 years) than standard $\mathscr{O}$(1000 hour) integration times. Precise measurements of smaller scales will not improve constraints on τ until a better understanding of the astrophysics of reionization is achieved. In the presence of noise and foregrounds even future 21 cm experiments will struggle to constrain τ if the ionization evolution deviates significantly from simple parametric forms.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2023

Precision cosmology with primordial GW backgrounds in presence of astrophysical foregrounds

The era of Gravitational-Wave (GW) astronomy will grant the detection of the astrophysical GW background from unresolved mergers of binary black holes, and the prospect of probing the presence of primordial GW backgrounds. In particular, the low-frequency tail of the GW spectrum for causally-generated primordial signals (like a phase transition) offers an excellent opportunity to measure unambiguously cosmological parameters as the equation of state of the universe, or free-streaming particles at epochs well before recombination. We discuss whether this programme is jeopardised by the uncertainties on the astrophysical GW foregrounds that coexist with a primordial background. We detail the motivated assumptions under which the astrophysical foregrounds can be assumed to be known in shape, and only uncertain in their normalisation. In this case, the sensitivity to a primordial signal can be computed by a simple and numerically agile procedure, where the optimal filter function subtracts the components of the astrophysical foreground that are close in spectral shape to the signal. We show that the degradation of the sensitivity to the signal in presence of astrophysical foregrounds is limited to a factor of a few, and only around the frequencies where the signal is closer to the foregrounds. Our results highlight the importance of modelling the contributions of eccentric or intermediate-mass black hole binaries to the GW background, to consolidate the prospects to perform precision cosmology with primordial GW backgrounds.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2023

Parity-odd and even trispectrum from axion inflation

The four-point correlation function of primordial scalar perturbations has parity-even and parity-odd contributions and the parity-odd signal in cosmological observations is opening a novel window to look for new physics in the inflationary epoch. We study the distinct parity-odd and even prediction from the axion inflation model, in which the inflaton couples to a vector field via a Chern-Simons interaction, and the vector field is considered to be either approximately massless (m A << Hubble scale H) or very massive (m A ~ H). The parity-odd signal arises due to one transverse mode of the vector field being predominantly produced during inflation. We adopt the in-in formalism to evaluate the correlation functions. Considering the vector field mode function to be dominated by its real part up to a constant phase, we simplify the formulas for numerical computations. The numerical studies show that the massive and massless vector fields give significant parity-even signals, while the parity-odd contribution is about one to two orders of magnitude smaller.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2023

Effects of fragmentation on post-inflationary reheating

We consider the effects of fragmentation on the post-inflationary epoch of reheating. In simple single field models of inflation, an inflaton condensate undergoes an oscillatory phase once inflationary expansion ends. The equation of state of the condensate depends on the shape of the scalar potential, V(Φ), about its minimum. Assuming V(Φ) ~ Φ k , the equation of state parameter is given by w = P Φ /ρ Φ = (k - 2)/(k + 2). The evolution of condensate and the reheating process depend on k. For k ≥ 4, inflaton self-interactions may lead to the fragmentation of the condensate and alter the reheating process. Indeed, these self-interactions lead to the production of a massless gas of inflaton particles as w relaxes to 1/3. If reheating occurs before fragmentation, the effects of fragmentation are harmless. We find, however, that the effects of fragmentation depend sensitively to the specific reheating process. Reheating through the decays to fermions is largely excluded since perturbative couplings would imply that fragmentation occurs before reheating and in fact could prevent reheating from completion. Reheating through the decays to boson is relatively unaffected by fragmentation and reheating through scatterings results in a lower reheating temperature.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2024

Primordial non-Gaussianities with weak lensing: information on non-linear scales in the Ulagam full-sky simulations

Abstract Primordial non-Gaussianities (PNGs) are signatures in the density field that encode particle physics processes from the inflationary epoch. Such signatures have been extensively studied using the Cosmic Microwave Background, through constraining their amplitudes,f X NL , with future improvements expected from large-scale structure surveys; specifically, the galaxy correlation functions. We show that weak lensing fields can be used to achieve competitive and complementary constraints. This is shown via theUlagamsuite of N-body simulations, a subset of which evolves primordial fields with four types of PNGs. We create full-sky lensing maps and estimate the Fisher information from three summary statistics measured on the maps: the moments, the cumulative distribution function, and the 3-point correlation function. We find that the year 10 sample from the Rubin Observatory Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) can constrain PNGs toσ(f NL eq ) ≈ 110,σ(f NL or, lss ) ≈ 120,σ(f NL loc ) ≈ 40. For the former two, this is better than or comparable to expected galaxy clustering-based constraints from the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI). The PNG information in lensing fields is on non-linear scales and at low redshifts (z≲ 1.25), with a clear origin in the evolution history of massive halos. The constraining power degrades by ∼60% under scale cuts of ≳ 20 Mpc, showing there is still significant information on scales mostly insensitive to small-scale systematic effects (e.g., baryons). We publicly release theUlagamsuite to enable more survey-focused analyses.

Astronomy & Astrophysics↗
DOE OSTI2024

Cosmological probes of Dark Radiation from Neutrino Mixing

Abstract Models of stepped dark radiation have recently been found to have an important impact on the anisotropies of the cosmic microwave background, aiding in easing the Hubble tension. In this work, we study models with a sector of dark radiation with a step in its abundance, which thermalizes after big bang nucleosynthesis by mixing with the standard model neutrinos. For this, we extend an earlier work which has focused on the background evolution only until the dark sector thermalizes by deriving the full background and perturbation equations of the model and implementing them in an Einstein-Boltzmann solving code. We expound on the behavior of this model, discussing the wide range of parameters that result in interesting and viable cosmologies that dynamically generate dark radiation during a range of epochs. We find that for the strongly self-coupled regime, there is no large cosmological impact for a tight prior on the mass, whereas larger mass ranges allow a smooth interpolation between a behavior close to the ΛCDM cosmological standard model and close to an additional component of strongly self-interacting dark radiation. In the weakly self-coupled regime we find that we can accommodate a parameter space relevant for the neutrino anomalies as well as one relevant to easing the Hubble tension.

Astronomy & Astrophysics↗
DOE OSTI2024

Warm inflation with a heavy QCD axion

We propose the first model of warm inflation in which the particle production emerges directly from coupling the inflaton to Standard Model particles. Warm inflation, an early epoch of sustained accelerated expansion at finite temperature, is a compelling alternative to cold inflation, with distinct predictions for inflationary observables such as the amplitude of fluctuations, the spectral tilt, the tensor-to-scalar ratio, and non-gaussianities. In our model a heavy QCD axion acts as the warm inflaton whose coupling to Standard Model gluons sources the thermal bath during warm inflation. Axion-like couplings to non-Abelian gauge bosons have been considered before as a successful microphysical theory with emerging thermal friction that can maintain finite temperature during inflation via sphaleron heating. However, the presence of light fermions charged under the non-Abelian group suppresses particle production, hindering a realization of warm inflation by coupling to QCD. We point out that the Standard Model quarks can be heavy during warm inflation if the Higgs field resides in a high-energy second minimum which restores efficient sphaleron heating. A subsequent large reheating temperature is required to allow the Higgs field to relax to its electroweak minimum. Exploring a scenario in which hybrid warm inflation provides the large reheating temperature, we show that future collider and beam dump experiments have discovery potential for a heavy QCD axion taking the role of the warm inflaton.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗