Engineering Papers⌕ Search

SEARCH · Engineering Papers

Results for “High Energy Physics”

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

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

At least 559 records · Page 31
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2024

Topological Green’s Function Zeros in an Exactly Solved Model and Beyond

The interplay of topological electronic band structures and strong interparticle interactions provides a promising path towards the constructive design of robust, long-range entangled many-body systems. As a prototype for such systems, we here study an exactly integrable, local model for a fractionalized topological insulator. Using a controlled perturbation theory about this limit, we demonstrate the existence of topological bands of zeros in the exact fermionic Green’s function and show that in this model they do affect the topological invariant of the system, but not the quantized transport response. Close to (but prior to) the Higgs transition signaling the breakdown of fractionalization, the topological bands of zeros acquire a finite “lifetime.” We also discuss the appearance of edge states and edge zeros at real space domain walls separating different phases of the system. This model provides a fertile ground for controlled studies of the phenomenology of Green’s function zeros and the underlying exactly solvable lattice gauge theory illustrates the synergetic cross pollination between solid-state theory, high-energy physics, and quantum information science.

Bollmann, Steffen↗
DOE OSTI2024

Quantum Thermodynamics of Nonequilibrium Processes in Lattice Gauge Theories

A key objective in nuclear and high-energy physics is to describe nonequilibrium dynamics of matter, e.g., in the early Universe and in particle colliders, starting from the standard model of particle physics. Classical computing methods, via the framework of lattice gauge theory, have experienced limited success in this mission. Quantum simulation of lattice gauge theories holds promise for overcoming computational limitations. Because of local constraints (Gauss’s laws), lattice gauge theories have an intricate Hilbert-space structure. This structure complicates the definition of thermodynamic properties of systems coupled to reservoirs during equilibrium and nonequilibrium processes. We show how to define thermodynamic quantities such as work and heat using strong-coupling thermodynamics, a framework that has recently burgeoned within the field of quantum thermodynamics. Our definitions suit instantaneous quenches, simple nonequilibrium processes undertaken in quantum simulators. To illustrate our framework, we compute the work and heat exchanged during a quench in a Z 2 lattice gauge theory coupled to matter in 1+1 dimensions. Here, the thermodynamic quantities, as functions of the quench parameter, evidence a phase transition. For general thermal states, we derive a simple relation between a quantum many-body system’s entanglement Hamiltonian, measurable with quantum-information-processing tools, and the Hamiltonian of mean force, used to define strong-coupling thermodynamic quantities.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2024

Scalable measurement error mitigation via iterative bayesian unfolding

Measurement errors are a significant obstacle to achieving scalable quantum computation. To counteract systematic readout errors, researchers have developed postprocessing techniques known as measurement error mitigation methods. However, these methods face a tradeoff between scalability and returning nonnegative probabilities. In this paper, we present a solution to overcome this challenge. Our approach focuses on iterative Bayesian unfolding, a standard mitigation technique used in high-energy physics experiments, and implements it in a scalable way. We demonstrate our method on experimental Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger state preparation on up to 127 qubits and on the Bernstein-Vazirani algorithm on up to 26 qubits. Compared to state-of-the-art methods (such as M3), our implementation guarantees valid probability distributions, returns comparable or better-mitigated results, and does so without a noticeable time and memory overhead. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

Pokharel, Bibek (ORCID:0000000342841353)↗
DOE OSTI2025

Quantum-enhanced distributed phase sensing with a truncated SU(1,1) interferometer

In recent years, distributed quantum sensing has gained interest for a range of applications requiring networks of sensors, from global-scale clock synchronization to high energy physics. In particular, a network of entangled sensors can improve not only the sensitivity beyond the shot noise limit, but also enable a Heisenberg scaling with the number of sensors. Here, using bright entangled twin beams, we theoretically and experimentally demonstrate the detection of a linear combination of two distributed phases beyond the shot noise limit with a truncated SU(1,1) interferometer. Specifically, we show a quantum noise reduction of 1.7 ± 0.3 dB below what is possible with the corresponding classical configuration. Additionally, we theoretically extend the use of a truncated SU(1,1) interferometer to a multi-phase-distributed sensing scheme that leverages entanglement as a resource to achieve a quantum improvement in the scaling with the number of sensors in the network. Our results pave the way for developing quantum-enhanced sensor networks that can achieve an entanglement-enhanced sensitivity.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2021

Modern and Future Colliders

Since the initial development of charged particle colliders in the middle of the 20th century, these advanced scientific instruments have been at the forefront of scientific discoveries in high energy physics over the past 60 years. Collider accelerator technology and beam physics have progressed immensely and modern facilities now operate at energies and luminosities many orders of magnitude greater than the pioneering colliders of the early 1960s. In addition, the field of colliders remains extremely dynamic and continues to develop many innovative approaches. Indeed, several novel concepts are currently being considered for designing and constructing even more powerful future colliders. In this paper, we first review the colliding beam method and the history of colliders, and then present, in detail, the major achievements of operational machines and the key features of near-term collider projects that are currently under development. We conclude with an analysis of numerous proposals and studies for far-future colliders. The evaluation of their respective potentials reveals tantalizing prospects for further significant breakthroughs in the collider field.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗
DOE OSTI2026

Coherence-mediated quantum thermometry in a hybrid circuit quantum electrodynamics architecture

Quantum thermometry plays a critical role in the development of low-temperature sensors and quantum information platforms. Here, in this work, we propose and analyze a hybrid circuit quantum electrodynamics architecture in which a superconducting qubit is dispersively coupled to two distinct bosonic modes: one initialized in a weak coherent state as a phase reference and information buffer and the other coupled to a thermal environment. We show that the qubit serves as a sensitive readout of the probe mode, mapping the interplay between thermal and coherent photon-number fluctuations onto measurable dephasing. This coherence-mediated mechanism enables improved sensitivity to thermal energy fluctuations in the sub-millikelvin regime through Ramsey interferometry. We derive analytic expressions for the probe coherence envelope, compute the quantum Fisher information for temperature estimation, and demonstrate numerically that the presence of a coherent reference enhances the qubit's sensitivity to small changes in thermal photon occupancy. Our results establish a coherence-enabled approach to thermometry and provide a scalable platform for future calorimetric sensing in high-energy physics and quantum metrology.

Zhu, Shaojiang [Fermi National Accelerator Laborat↗
DOE OSTI2026

Detector alignment for X-ray crystallography using Millepede-II

I describe a method for accurately refining the geometrical parameters of segmented X-ray area detectors on the basis of serial crystallography data, using 'Millepede' – an algorithm created for a very similar problem in high-energy physics. The Millepede method for serial crystallography builds on the approach of Brewster et al. [Acta Cryst. (2018), D74, 877–894], in which the detector parameters are refined simultaneously with the parameters for each individual crystal. This accounts for the mutual dependency between the parameters and thereby avoids the bias and slow convergence problems that have afflicted older approaches in which the deviations between observed and calculated Bragg peak positions were taken directly as the updates for the detector panel positions. The Millepede method uses the special structure of the least-squares normal equations to reduce them to a much smaller form that can be solved very quickly, even compared with the sparse matrix methods used previously. This makes it practical to refine the detector geometry frequently and thereby maintain accurate calibration without specialized alignment campaigns. Tilts of detector panels out of the plane can be reliably refined, as can the overall distance of the detector in the beam direction. With a simulated test case, the new method produced panel shifts within 7% of the correct values with only one iteration, and produced almost exactly correct shifts after a second iteration. A simulated out-of-plane panel rotation was correctly determined to within 0.001°. Applied to experimental data from an X-ray free-electron laser, the method increased the indexable fraction of frames from 30% to 91% in a single iteration, and to 96% after two further iterations. Computing the geometry updates on the basis of 2060 crystals took only 0.819 s on desktop computing hardware, including the time taken to read the required data from disk. The scaling was found to be very close to linear for up to 100 980 sets of crystal parameters, which took only 78.2 s to process under the same conditions. The method has been applied as part of a real-time feedback system at a synchrotron radiation beamline, in which an out-of-plane detector tilt of 0.04° was detected and corrected. Possible further applications are also described here.

Millepede-II↗
DOE OSTI2023

Effectiveness and predictability of in-network storage cache for Scientific Workflows

Large scientific collaborations often have multiple scientists accessing the same set of files while doing different analyses, which create repeated accesses to the large amounts of shared data located far away. These data accesses have long latency due to distance and occupy the limited bandwidth available over the wide-area network. To reduce the wide-area network traffic and the data access latency, regional data storage caches have been installed as a new networking service. To study the effectiveness of such a cache system in scientific applications, we examine the Southern California Petabyte Scale Cache for a high-energy physics experiment. By examining about 3TB of operational logs, we show that this cache removed 67.6% of file requests from the wide-area network and reduced the traffic volume on wide-area network by 12. 3TB (or 35.4%) an average day. The reduction in the traffic volume (35.4%) is less than the reduction in file counts (67.6%) because the larger files are less likely to be reused. Due to this difference in data access patterns, the cache system has implemented a policy to avoid evicting smaller files when processing larger files. We also build a machine learning model to study the predictability of the cache behavior. Tests show that this model is able to accurately predict the cache accesses, cache misses, and network throughput, making the model useful for future studies on resource provisioning and planning.

Sim, Caitlin↗
DOE OSTI2024

Automated Calibration of Parallel and Distributed Computing Simulators: A Case Study

Many parallel and distributed computing research results are obtained in simulation, using simulators that mimic real-world executions on some target system. Each such simulator is configured by picking values for parameters that define the behavior of the underlying simulation models it implements. The main concern for a simulator is accuracy: simulated behaviors should be as close as possible to those observed in the real-world target system. This requires that values for each of the simulator's parameters be carefully picked, or “calibrated,” based on ground-truth real-world executions. Examining the current state of the art shows that simulator calibration, at least in the field of parallel and distributed computing, is often undocumented (and thus perhaps often not performed) and, when documented, is described as a labor-intensive, manual process. In this work we evaluate the benefit of automating simulation calibration using simple algorithms. Specifically, we use a real-world case study from the field of High Energy Physics and compare automated calibration to calibration performed by a domain scientist. Our main finding is that automated calibration is on par with or significantly outperforms the calibration performed by the domain scientist. Furthermore, automated calibration makes it straightforward to operate desirable tradeoffs between simulation accuracy and simulation speed.

Mc donald, Jesse↗
DOE OSTI2025

Temperature and Strain Sensing Characteristics of a 128° YX-Cut LiNbO 3 Rayleigh-Mode SAW Sensor From Room to Cryogenic Temperatures

Accurate, passive, and wireless monitoring of cryogenic hardware is essential for high-energy physics, space propulsion, and biomedical instrumentation. Here, this study quantifies the coupled temperature-strain behavior of Rayleigh-mode surface acoustic-wave (SAW) delay-line sensors fabricated on 128° YX-cut LiNbO 3 . A nonlinear finite element (FE) model incorporating Varshni-based elastic constants, higher-order thermal expansion, and temperature-dependent piezo- and dielectric coefficients was developed and validated experimentally between 280K and 80K. Free-standing (first test condition) and bonded/wired (second test condition) devices exhibited indistinguishable thermal responses; the average temperature coefficient of delay (TCD) in the critical cryogenic range from 130K down to 80K differed by only 0.15 ppm/K (0.32%), confirming that bonding-induced stress is negligible. Over 280-80K the measured TCD was 61.77 ppm/K, while the FE model predicted an equivalent temperature coefficient of frequency (TCF) of −62.74 ppm/K with an overall coefficient of determination R2 = 0.998. In the critical cryogenic interval 130-80K the TCD fell to 47.66 ppm/K, indicating improved thermal stability at low temperature. Controlled loading (0-300 με) revealed a strain coefficient of delay (SCD) that rises from 0.53 ± 0.02 ppm/με at 300K to 1.05 ± 0.02 ppm/με at 80K. This modest sensitivity confirms that, for temperature sensing, strain is a second-order perturbation above 135K but must be compensated at deeper cryogenic levels. Overall, this work establishes a predictive multiphysics model together with repeatable wired measurements that confirm the suitability of SAW sensors for temperature and strain monitoring in extreme cryogenic environments, while also providing a baseline for future wireless implementations.

25 ENERGY STORAGE↗
DOE OSTI2020

An electric-circuit model on the inter-tape contact resistance and current sharing for REBCO cable and magnet applications

REBCO coated conductor has demonstrated high current capacity that can enable high-field magnets for high energy physics and fusion applications. However, quench protection is still one of the main challenges to be addressed for these applications. In addition, Ic and n value variations along the length of REBCO tapes exist in commercial production. The inter-tape contact resistance plays a key role to develop the self protection capability in cables and magnets by enabling current sharing and suppressing excessive eddy currents. Here we propose an electric-circuit model to describe the inter-tape contact resistance and its impact on the current sharing between REBCO tapes. We report the experiments on a 2-stacked tape REBCO cable with local Ic drop to validate the model. With the developed model, we study the upper limit of the contact resistance which allows current sharing between tapes. We also study the impact of variation in Ic and n values in tapes on the cable performance. Finally, our model is expected to provide useful insight into the current sharing and target values for inter-tape contact resistance in REBCO cables and magnets for various applications.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗
DOE OSTI2021

Magnetic and Mechanical Analysis of a Large Aperture 15 T Cable Test Facility Dipole Magnet

The US Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science (SC), is funding a large bore “Cable Test Facility Magnet” for testing advanced cables and inserts in high transverse field. This is a joint effort between the Office of High Energy Physics (HEP) and the Office of Fusion Energy Sciences (FES). The background field magnet for this facility is being developed at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) while the cryostat and test facility will be located and operated by Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (FNAL). The Nb 3 Sn dipole magnet, which will provide the transverse background field, is designed to generate a field of 15 T in a 100 × 150 mm bore at 1.9 K. The conceptual design of a block-type dipole with flared ends and a structure based on key-and-bladder technology will be introduced. The results of the magnetic and mechanical analysis will be presented.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗
DOE OSTI2023

Beam Test Results of the RADiCAL—A Radiation Hard Innovative EM Calorimeter

High-performance calorimetry conducted at future hadron colliders, such as the FCC-hh, poses a significant challenge for applying current detector technologies due to unprecedented beam luminosities and radiation fields. Solutions include developing scintillators that are capable of separating events at the sub-fifty picosecond level while also maintaining performance after extreme and constant neutron and ionizing radiation exposure. The radiation-hard innovative calorimeter (RADiCAL) is an approach that incorporates radiation tolerant materials in a sampling “shashlik”-style calorimeter configuration, using quartz capillaries filled with organic liquid or polymer-based wavelength shifters embedded in layers of tungsten plates and lutetium-yttrium oxyorthosilicate (LYSO) crystals. Here, this novel design intends to address the priority research directions (PRD) for calorimetry listed in the DOE basic research needs (BRN) workshop for high energy physics (HEP) instrumentation. Here we report preliminary results from an experimental run at the Fermilab Test Beam Facility (FTBF) in June 2022. These tests demonstrate that the RADiCAL concept is capable of ¡50 ps timing resolution.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2025

Synthesis and characterization of electron beam irradiation-induced damage in polycrystalline metal thin films

High-energy physics research, industrial sterilizing, and material processing depend extensively on electron beam accelerators. Exit windows are crucial components of such electron accelerator systems, maintaining vacuum integrity inside the machine while providing mechanical strength, thermal stability, and radiation resistance at the beam-target interface. In this study, thin metallic films of Ni, Ti, Cr, and V were explored for use in electron beam exit windows, and their properties were compared with the properties of their bulk counterparts. Simulation results of metal foils predicted Ti to exhibit less beam power dissipation compared to Ni. However, Ni possesses superior mechanical and structural properties compared to Ti. The performance of these films under electron beam irradiation was examined by depositing thin layers of these films on silicon and metallic substrates using magnetron sputtering and exposing them to e-beam irradiation in a controlled setup. The deposited films were subjected to a dose of approximately 66 kGy at a beam energy of 10 MeV and characterized prior to and postexposure to the beam using field emission scanning electron microscopy, atomic force microscopy, x-ray diffraction (XRD), and nanoindentation. Particular emphasis was given to characteristics like the grain structure, surface morphology, dislocation density, and hardness. XRD patterns revealed irradiation-induced changes in peak intensities, while the crystallinity remained largely unchanged. Nanoindentation results showed that the pristine and irradiated Ti and Ni films were twice as hard when compared to bulk Ti and Ni samples, regardless of the substrate type used (Si or bulk Ti, or Ni). These results emphasize the superior mechanical properties of thin metal films compared to their bulk counterparts. In conclusion, this study advances the optimization of thin film materials for robust and efficient e-beam applications, ensuring improved durability and operational reliability.

AFM↗
DOE OSTI2022

Longevity evaluation of SiC based alpha voltaic batteries with surface alpha sources

The alpha emitting actinide 241 Am is electrodeposited on the surface of the Pt electrode of in-house fabricated SiC Schottky diodes. With 17 nCi 241 Am directly coated on the top of a device, the 2-pi geometry yields a high energy (5.486 MeV) and a long-term irradiation accumulating to a high fluence (1.6 × 10 9 alpha particles’ infusion/month). The forward, reverse I/V, and dark current, are periodically measured to monitor key characteristics of device durability for any sign of degradation over time. The direct deposition of actinides on the surface of the device also enables the evaluation of radiation damage through alpha particles’ energy spectroscopic performance, which shows a clear spectrum degradation that can be reversed by optical excitation of the device prior to spectrum acquisition. As an analytical aide, the device performance is also simulated by Allpix 2 . Lastly, this study provides an insight into the durability of 4H-SiC as an energy converter option for alpha-voltaic batteries and the survivability in the other harsh environment found in nuclear fuel cycle, high energy physics, fission, fusion, and space exploration where rad-hard sensors are required.

Americium↗
DOE OSTI2023

Multi-body entanglement and information rearrangement in nuclear many-body systems: a study of the Lipkin–Meshkov–Glick model

Here, we examine how effective-model-space (EMS) calculations of nuclear many-body systems rearrange and converge multi-particle entanglement. The generalized Lipkin-Meshkov-Glick (LMG) model is used to motivate and provide insight for future developments of entanglement-driven descriptions of nuclei. The effective approach is based on a truncation of the Hilbert space together with a variational rotation of the qubits (spins), which constitute the relevant elementary degrees of freedom. The non-commutivity of the rotation and truncation allows for an exponential improvement of the energy convergence throughout much of the model space. Our analysis examines measures of correlations and entanglement, and quantifies their convergence with increasing cut-off. We focus on one- and two-spin entanglement entropies, mutual information, and $n$-tangles for $n=2,4$ to estimate multi-body entanglement. The effective description strongly suppresses entropies and mutual information of the rotated spins, while being able to recover the exact results to a large extent with low cut-offs. Naive truncations of the bare Hamiltonian, on the other hand, artificially underestimate these measures. The $n$-tangles in the present model provide a basis-independent measures of $n$-particle entanglement. While these are more difficult to capture with the EMS description, the improvement in convergence, compared to truncations of the bare Hamiltonian, is significantly more dramatic. We conclude that the low-energy EMS techniques, that successfully provide predictive capabilities for low-lying observables in many-body systems, exhibit analogous efficacy for quantum correlations and multi-body entanglement in the LMG model, motivating future studies in nuclear many-body systems and effective field theories relevant to high-energy physics and nuclear physics.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2022

Punzi-loss: a non-differentiable metric approximation for sensitivity optimisation in the search for new particles

We present the novel implementation of a non-differentiable metric approximation and a corresponding loss-scheduling aimed at the search for new particles of unknown mass in high energy physics experiments. We call the loss-scheduling, based on the minimisation of a figure-of-merit related function typical of particle physics, a Punzi-loss function, and the neural network that utilises this loss function a Punzi-net. We show that the Punzi-net outperforms standard multivariate analysis techniques and generalises well to mass hypotheses for which it was not trained. This is achieved by training a single classifier that provides a coherent and optimal classification of all signal hypotheses over the whole search space. Our result constitutes a complementary approach to fully differentiable analyses in particle physics. We implemented this work using PyTorch and provide users full access to a public repository containing all the codes and a training example.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2023

Lorentz group equivariant autoencoders

Abstract There has been significant work recently in developing machine learning (ML) models in high energy physics (HEP) for tasks such as classification, simulation, and anomaly detection. Often these models are adapted from those designed for datasets in computer vision or natural language processing, which lack inductive biases suited to HEP data, such as equivariance to its inherent symmetries. Such biases have been shown to make models more performant and interpretable, and reduce the amount of training data needed. To that end, we develop the Lorentz group autoencoder (LGAE), an autoencoder model equivariant with respect to the proper, orthochronous Lorentz group $$\textrm{SO}^+(3,1)$$ SO + ( 3 , 1 ) , with a latent space living in the representations of the group. We present our architecture and several experimental results on jets at the LHC and find it outperforms graph and convolutional neural network baseline models on several compression, reconstruction, and anomaly detection metrics. We also demonstrate the advantage of such an equivariant model in analyzing the latent space of the autoencoder, which can improve the explainability of potential anomalies discovered by such ML models.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗