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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 55 records · Page 3
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS1981

Detection of severe thunderstorms using short interval geosynchronous satellite data

The potential and limitations of using short interval (3-7 minutes) geosynchronous, infrared data to ascertain thunderstorm intensity, and therefore indirectly detect severe thunderstorms are discussed. Thunderstorms on four case study days were analyzed over selected areas and time periods using SMS/GOES data, and derived satellite based intensity parameters were compared to severe weather reports. Young, growing thunderstorms are intensity rated using the rate of decrease of the satellite observed cloud top minimum equivalent blackbody temperature. Since most storms cannot be observed until they penetrate through the cirrus overcast produced by previous convection, minimum cloud temperature and rate of blackbody temperature isotherm expansion are then used as intensity indicators. Results are presented and problems and limitations of the techniques and the data are examined. In addition, an analysis of cloud top height variations (as viewed by the satellite) in relation to tornado touchdown times and, in a few cases, to mesocyclone formation times is also presented.

Adler, R. F.↗
NASA NTRS2012

Water Detection Based on Color Variation

This software has been designed to detect water bodies that are out in the open on cross-country terrain at close range (out to 30 meters), using imagery acquired from a stereo pair of color cameras mounted on a terrestrial, unmanned ground vehicle (UGV). This detector exploits the fact that the color variation across water bodies is generally larger and more uniform than that of other naturally occurring types of terrain, such as soil and vegetation. Non-traversable water bodies, such as large puddles, ponds, and lakes, are detected based on color variation, image intensity variance, image intensity gradient, size, and shape. At ranges beyond 20 meters, water bodies out in the open can be indirectly detected by detecting reflections of the sky below the horizon in color imagery. But at closer range, the color coming out of a water body dominates sky reflections, and the water cue from sky reflections is of marginal use. Since there may be times during UGV autonomous navigation when a water body does not come into a perception system s field of view until it is at close range, the ability to detect water bodies at close range is critical. Factors that influence the perceived color of a water body at close range are the amount and type of sediment in the water, the water s depth, and the angle of incidence to the water body. Developing a single model of the mixture ratio of light reflected off the water surface (to the camera) to light coming out of the water body (to the camera) for all water bodies would be fairly difficult. Instead, this software detects close water bodies based on local terrain features and the natural, uniform change in color that occurs across the surface from the leading edge to the trailing edge.

Rankin, Arturo L.↗
DOE OSTI2022

Dark freeze-out cogenesis

We propose a new mechanism where a multi-component dark sector generates the observed dark matter abundance and baryon asymmetry and thus addresses the coincidence between the two. The thermal freeze-out of dark matter annihilating into meta-stable dark partners sets the dark matter relic abundance while providing the out-of-equilibrium condition for baryogenesis. The meta-stable state triggers baryon asymmetry production by its decay well after the freeze-out and potentially induces a period of early matter domination before its decay. The dark matter and baryon abundances are related through number conservation within the dark sector (cogenesis). The “coincidence” is a natural outcome with GeV- to TeV-scale symmetric dark matter and the dark sector’s interactions with the Standard Model quarks. We present a UV-complete model and explore its phenomenological predictions, including dark matter direct detection signals, LHC signatures of new massive particles with color charges and long-lived particles with displaced vertices, dark matter-induced nucleon conversions, (exotic) dark matter indirect detection signals, and effects on the cosmological matter power spectrum. As a side result, we provide a novel analytical treatment for dark sector freeze-out, which may prove useful in the study of related scenarios.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2023

Snowmass2021 cosmic frontier white paper: Ultraheavy particle dark matter

We outline the unique opportunities and challenges in the search for "ultraheavy" dark matter candidates with masses between roughly 10 TeV and the Planck scale $m_{\rm pl} ≈ 10^{16}$ TeV. This mass range presents a wide and relatively unexplored dark matter parameter space, with a rich space of possible models and cosmic histories. We emphasize that both current detectors and new, targeted search techniques, via both direct and indirect detection, are poised to contribute to searches for ultraheavy particle dark matter in the coming decade. We highlight the need for new developments in this space, including new analyses of current and imminent direct and indirect experiments targeting ultraheavy dark matter and development of new, ultra-sensitive detector technologies like next-generation liquid noble detectors, neutrino experiments, and specialized quantum sensing techniques.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
NASA NTRS1999

Infalling Planetesimals in Pre-Main Sequence Stellar Systems

These are exciting times in the study of planetary system formation with a steadily expanding inventory of exo-planet detections, and imaging of dust disks around nearby young and main sequence stars. While these discoveries imply that our Solar System is far from unique, linking the data for the protoplanetary and debris disks to mature planetary systems requires a demonstration that disk evolution proceeds via planetesimal production and growth to the formation of planets. Theoretical studies of planet formation indicate that planetesimals grow, via runaway accretion, to lunar-sized (approx. = 2000 km) embryos in 10(exp 5) years. Recent gas giant planet formation studies have suggested that most of the action in planet formation occurs over 1-16 Myr, with formation of planets similar to Jupiter in t less than 10 Myr, within the time interval that infrared (IR) and optical emission line studies have demonstrated that circumstellar material remains detectable around both solar mass and intermediate mass stars. Direct imaging of exo-planetesimals is not feasible with current and foreseeable technology, since such bodies have substantially less surface area than micron-sized grains distributed in a disk, and thus are inefficient IR emitters. However, such bodies may be indirectly detectable.

Grady, Carol A.↗
NASA NTRS1986

Jets, mass outflows and disks associated with young stellar objects

Over the past 3 years, a series was obtained of the CCD images of regions surrounding young stellar objects (YSO's) located in a variety of environments with the goal of providing a census of the properties of mass outflows associated these objects. A catalog describing the optical morphology and kinematics of 38 mass outflows associated with young stellar objects (YSOs) was completed. The direct detection was reported of disks surrounding HL Tau and LI551/IRS 5 -- both sources of optical jets and large-scale mass outflows. In each case, the disk dimensions are on the order of several hundred astronomical units and the disk dust masses approximately 10 to the -7th power solar masses. A program aimed at indirect detection of circumstellar disks associated with YSOs was started. The technique involves comparison of an observed bolometric luminosity (L(bol)) with an independent measure of the true luminosity (L(spec)) of a YSO which derives from the observed strengths of surface-gravity-sensitive spectral features.

Strom, S. E.↗
NASA NTRS2010

Water Detection Based on Sky Reflections

This software has been designed to detect water bodies that are out in the open on cross-country terrain at mid- to far-range (approximately 20 100 meters), using imagery acquired from a stereo pair of color cameras mounted on a terrestrial, unmanned ground vehicle (UGV). Non-traversable water bodies, such as large puddles, ponds, and lakes, are indirectly detected by detecting reflections of the sky below the horizon in color imagery. The appearance of water bodies in color imagery largely depends on the ratio of light reflected off the water surface to the light coming out of the water body. When a water body is far away, the angle of incidence is large, and the light reflected off the water surface dominates. We have exploited this behavior to detect water bodies out in the open at mid- to far-range. When a water body is detected at far range, a UGV s path planner can begin to look for alternate routes to the goal position sooner, rather than later. As a result, detecting water hazards at far range generally reduces the time required to reach a goal position during autonomous navigation. This software implements a new water detector based on sky reflections that geometrically locates the exact pixel in the sky that is reflecting on a candidate water pixel on the ground, and predicts if the ground pixel is water based on color similarity and local terrain features

Rankin, Arturo L.↗
DOE OSTI2020

Absorption of fermionic dark matter by nuclear targets

Absorption of fermionic dark matter leads to a range of distinct and novel signatures at dark matter direct detection and neutrino experiments. We study the possible signals from fermionic absorption by nuclear targets, which we divide into two classes of four Fermi operators: neutral and charged current. In the neutral current signal, dark matter is absorbed by a target nucleus and a neutrino is emitted. This results in a characteristically different nuclear recoil energy spectrum from that of elastic scattering. The charged current channel leads to induced $\beta$ decays in isotopes which are stable in vacuum as well as shifts of the kinematic endpoint of $ \beta$ spectra in unstable isotopes. To confirm the possibility of observing these signals in light of other constraints, we introduce UV completions of example higher dimensional operators that lead to fermionic absorption signals and study their phenomenology. Most prominently, dark matter which exhibits fermionic absorption signals is necessarily unstable leading to stringent bounds from indirect detection searches. Nevertheless, we find a large viable parameter space in which dark matter is sufficiently long lived and detectable in current and future experiments.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2020

A testable hidden-sector model for Dark Matter and neutrino masses

We consider a minimal extension of the Standard Model with a hidden sector charged under a dark local U(1)' gauge group, accounting simultaneously for light neutrino masses and the observed Dark Matter relic abundance. The model contains two copies of right-handed neutrinos which give rise to light neutrino-masses via an extended seesaw mechanism. The presence of a stable Dark-Matter candidate and a massless state naturally arise by requiring the simplest anomaly-free particle content without introducing any extra symmetries. We investigate the phenomenology of the hidden sector considering the U(1)' breaking scale of the order of the electroweak scale. Confronting the thermal history of this hidden-sector model with existing and future constraints from collider, direct and indirect detection experiments provides various possibilities of probing the model in complementary ways as every particle of the dark sector plays a specific cosmological role. Across the identified viable parameter space, a large region predicts a sizable contribution to the effective relativistic degrees-of-freedom in the early Universe that allows to alleviate the recently reported tension between late and early measurements of the Hubble constant.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2024

Multi-component Dark Matter and small scale structure formation

We consider the evolution of non-thermal dark matter perturbations in models which contain both Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs) and axions. Using constraints from existing observations we examine the percentage of WIMPs and axions that may comprise the cosmological dark matter budget in models with an Early Matter Dominated Epoch (EMDE) — where entropy production is important. After carefully tracking the thermal evolution of the various species by solving the Boltzmann equations, we consider the enhancement of perturbations that may have led to early structure formation for axions and WIMPs. We investigate the impact of enhanced perturbations on the parameter space of both species, after imposing existing constraints from indirect detection experiments. Given these constraints we establish the feasibility of axions to form miniclusters in the early universe in EMDEs for a given percentage of allowed WIMPs. We find that EMDEs with low reheat temperatures near the BBN limit are preferred for axion minicluster formation. When the EMDE is caused by string moduli, the WIMP contribution to the relic density is set by the moduli branching to dark matter at the level of ≲ $\mathcal{O}$ (10 −4 ).

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2026

Topological freeze-out by semi-annihilation

We point out that a QCD-like dark sector can be coupled to the Standard Model by gauging the topological Skyrme current, which measures the dark baryon number in the infrared, to give a technically natural model for dark matter. This coupling allows for a semi-annihilation process χχ → χX μ , where X μ is the gauge boson mediator and χ a dark pion field, which plays the dominant role in setting the dark matter relic abundance. The topological interaction is purely p-wave and so free from indirect detection constraints. We show that the dark matter pion mass needs to be in the range 10 MeV ≲ m χ ≲ 1 TeV; towards the lighter end of this range, there can moreover be significant self-interactions. We discuss prospects for probing this scenario at collider experiments, ranging from the LHC to low-energy e + e − colliders, future Higgs factories, and beam-dump experiments.

Models for Dark Matter↗
DOE OSTI2021

Dark matter spectra from the electroweak to the Planck scale

We compute the decay spectrum for dark matter (DM) with masses above the scale of electroweak symmetry breaking, all the way to the Planck scale. For an arbitrary hard process involving a decay to the unbroken standard model, we determine the prompt distribution of stable states including photons, neutrinos, positrons, and antiprotons. These spectra are a crucial ingredient in the search for DM via indirect detection at the highest energies as being probed in current and upcoming experiments including IceCube, HAWC, CTA, and LHAASO. Our approach improves considerably on existing methods, for instance, we include all relevant electroweak interactions.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2025

Dark showers from sneaky dark matter

We present a minimal composite dark matter model, based on a SU(Nd) dark sector with nf dark quarks and a heavy t-channel mediator. For nf ≥ 4, the dark flavor symmetry guarantees the stability of a subset of the dark pions, which serve as our dark matter candidates. Their relic abundance is determined by dark sector annihilation with the remaining dark pions, which are unstable and decay. Due to their degenerate masses, the annihilation cross section is suppressed at low temperatures, thereby avoiding stringent constraints from indirect detection and opening up the GeV mass window. The decaying dark pions are naturally long lived. We obtain limits on the model from semi-visible or emerging jet searches and estimate the reach of future probes.

ALPs↗
DOE OSTI2026

Upper bound on Parity breaking scale for doublet WIMP dark matter

A bstract We consider weakly interacting massive particle (WIMP) dark matter in a Parity solution to the strong CP problem. The WIMP phenomenology can be drastically affected by the presence of Parity partners of the WIMP and electroweak gauge bosons. We focus on a Parity extension of SU(2) L -doublet fermion dark matter, identify the viable parameter space, and derive the predictions of the theory. We find that the Parity symmetry breaking scale is bounded from above, with the bound given by 25–60 TeV, depending on whether or not dark matter and its Parity partner coannihilate with each other. The High-Luminosity Large Hadron Collider, future colliders, and direct and indirect detection experiments can probe the parameter space further, with correlated signal rates.

Baldwin, Matthew J. [University of Chicago; Univer↗
DOE OSTI2020

Freeze-in dark matter from secret neutrino interactions

We investigate a simplified freeze-in dark-matter model in which the dark matter only interacts with the standard-model neutrinos via a light scalar. The extremely small coupling for the freeze-in mechanism is naturally realized in several neutrino-portal scenarios with the secret neutrino interactions. We study possible evolution history of the hidden sector: the dark sector would undergo pure freeze-in production if the interactions between the dark-sector particles are negligible, while thermal equilibrium within the dark sector could occur if the reannihilation of the dark matter and the scalar mediator is rapid enough. We investigate the relic abundance in the freeze-in and dark freeze-out regimes, calculate evolution of the dark temperature, and study its phenomenological aspects on BBN and CMB constraints, the indirect-detection signature, as well as the potential to solve the small scale structure problem.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2022

Dark matter in the Alternative Left Right model

The Alternative Left-Right Model is an attractive variation of the usual Left-Right Symmetric Model because it avoids flavour-changing neutral currents, thus allowing the additional Higgs bosons in the model to be light. We show here that the model predicts several dark matter candidates naturally, through introduction of an R-parity similar to the one in supersymmetry, under which some of the new particles are odd, while all the SM particles are even. Dark matter candidates can be fermionic or bosonic. We present a comprehensive investigation of all possibilities. We analyze and restrict the parameter space where relic density, direct and indirect detection bounds are satisfied, and investigate the possibility of observing fermionic and bosonic dark matter signals at the LHC. Both the bosonic and fermionic candidates provide promising signals, the first in LHC at 300 fb -1 , the second at higher luminosity, 3000 fb -1 . Signals from bosonic candidates are indicative of the presence of exotic d' quarks, while fermionic candidates imply the existence of charged Higgs bosons, all with masses in the TeV region.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2023

Convolutional Neural Network–Aided Temperature Field Reconstruction: An Innovative Method for Advanced Reactor Monitoring

In this study, the capabilities of a physics-informed convolutional neural network (CNN) for reconstructing the temperature field from a limited set of measurements taken at the boundaries of internal flows are demonstrated. Such an approach enables the development of less invasive monitoring methods for real-time plant diagnostics. As a test case, a Molten Salt Fast Reactor (MSFR) design was selected. This circulating fuel reactor has received interest from both scientific and industrial communities due to its intrinsic safety and sustainability. Molten salt flows in such reactors, however, can present highly localized temperature peaks that can induce significant thermal stresses onto the vessel walls. At these local maxima, the salt temperature may exceed a thousand kelvins, which makes a direct measurement challenging or even unfeasible. The proposed CNN algorithm allows one to detect indirectly such discontinuities through an accurate, albeit indirect, temperature measurement method during reactor operation. The datasets employed to train and test the machine learning models in the present work were generated with Nek5000, a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) code developed at Argonne National Laboratory. The CNN algorithm is trained with CFD results that span a set of MSFR operational power and flow ranges. Here, to demonstrate the efficacy of the algorithm, predictions are made for test cases contained within the training range but for which the CFD data were not used when training. Results demonstrate that the proposed technique properly characterizes temperature peaks and distributions within the domain for a broad range of scenarios.

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS↗
DOE OSTI2021

Axion-photon conversion in strongly magnetised plasmas

Axion dark matter can resonantly convert to photons in the magnetosphere of neutron stars, possibly giving rise to radio signals observable on Earth. This method for the indirect detection of axion dark matter has recently received significant attention in the literature. The calculation of the radio signal is complicated by a number of effects; most importantly, the gravitational infall of the axions onto the neutron star accelerates them to semi-relativistic speed, and the neutron star magnetosphere is highly anisotropic. Both of these factors complicate the calculation of the conversion of axions to photons. In this work, we present the first fully three-dimensional calculation of the axion-photon conversion in highly magnetised anisotropic media. Depending on the axion trajectory, this calculation leads to orders-of-magnitude differences in the conversion compared to the simplified one-dimensional calculation used so far in the literature, altering the directionality of the produced photons. Our results will have important implications for the radio signal one would observe in a telescope.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗