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At least 613 records · Page 34

Clementine Dosimetry

This paper presents radiation dosimetry results from the radiation and reliability experiments on the Clementine spacecraft and Interstage Adapter Satellite. The dosimetry instruments used low dose response p-channel field effect transistor and proton sensitive static random access memory dosimeters. They were an order of magnitude lower in mass and power than previous systems. A solar proton event early in the mission allowed comparison with another dosimeter in orbit.

dosimeters↗

Developing Rationale for Experimental Designs Employed During Forthcoming NASA Quesst Mission Community Noise Campaigns

Since the publication of R.A. Fisher’s “The Arrangement of Field Experiments” in 1926, the enumerated principles that contributed to the improvement of agricultural field experiments in the early 20th century (randomization, replication, blocking, and appropriate variation of factors) remain hallmarks of all well-designed clinical trials and scientific endeavors in the 21st century. Beginning in 2026, NASA will conduct community noise campaigns with the first-of-kind X-59 experimental aircraft to 1) demonstrate the possibility of quiet supersonic flight over land and 2) to collect live data about annoyance (a categorical response) in relation to estimated noise levels (an experimental factor) produced by the new noise phenomenon, a low-noise “sonic thump”. The resulting predicted relationship between perceptual response and estimated noise level, e.g., mixed logistic regression or related models in the class of generalized linear (mixed) models, is believed to be a useful policy tool that domestic and international regulators can use when deciding whether existing prohibitions of supersonic flight over land can be replaced with a noise-based limit. The X-59 is engineered with the expectation that annoyance in the tested ranges should be a rare outcome, and, consequently, NASA convened an interdisciplinary team to examine and refine the rationale underlying the experimental design for future community campaigns. In this presentation, we review relevant literature on experiments with rare binary outcomes, relate the deliberations of the NASA team to tenets of good experimental design, and highlight several challenges and operational realities of this ambitious campaign.

Design of Experiments; blocking; randomization; co↗

Macroscopic study of time unsteady noise of an aircraft engine during static tests

Static tests of aircraft engines can exhibit greater than 10 db random unsteadiness of tone noise levels because flow disturbances that prevail near test site facilities are ingested. Presumably such changes are related to installation and test site features. Some properties of unsteady noise observed during tests of a Lycoming YF-102 turbofan engine are presented. Time and spatial variations in tone noise obtained from closely spaced far field and inlet duct microphones are displayed. Long to extremely short intermittent tone bursts are observed. Unsteadiness of the tone, its harmonics, and the broadband noise show little similarity. In the far field, identity of tone bursts is retained over a directivity angle of less than 10 deg. In the inlet duct, tone bursts appear to propagate axially but exhibit little circumferential similarity. They show only slight relationship to tone bursts observed in the far field. The results imply an intermittent generation of random mixtures of propagating duct modes.

Clark, B. J.↗

Fragmented molecular complexes: The role of the magnetic field in feeding internal supersonic motions

A hierarchical structure for molecular complexes in their cold phase i.e., preceeding the formation of massive stars, was derived from extensive large scale CO(13)(J=1=0) observations: the mass is found to be distributed into virialized clouds which fill only a very low fraction approx. 01 of the volume of the complex and are supported against gravity by internal supersonic motions. An efficient mechanism was found to transfer kinetic energy from the orbital motions of the clouds to their internal random motions. The large perturbations of the magnetic field induced at the cloud boundaries by their interactions with their neighbors generate systems of hydromagnetic waves trapped inside the clouds. The magnetic field lines being closely coupled to the gas at the densities which prevail in the bulk of the clouds volume, internal velocity dispersion is thus generated. Some conclusions derived from this data are given.

Falgarone, E.↗

Far field beam pattern of one MW combined beam of laser diode array amplifiers for space power transmission

The far-field beam pattern and the power-collection efficiency are calculated for a multistage laser-diode-array amplifier consisting of about 200,000 5-W laser diode arrays with random distributions of phase and orientation errors and random diode failures. From the numerical calculation it is found that the far-field beam pattern is little affected by random failures of up to 20 percent of the laser diodes with reference of 80 percent receiving efficiency in the center spot. The random differences in phases among laser diodes due to probable manufacturing errors is allowed to about 0.2 times the wavelength. The maximum allowable orientation error is about 20 percent of the diffraction angle of a single laser diode aperture (about 1 cm). The preliminary results indicate that the amplifier could be used for space beam-power transmission with an efficiency of about 80 percent for a moderate-size (3-m-diameter) receiver placed at a distance of less than 50,000 km.

Kwon, Jin H.↗

Macroscopic study of time unsteady noise of an aircraft engine during static tests

Static tests of aircraft engines can exhibit greater than 10 dB random unsteadiness of tone noise levels because flow disturbances that prevail near test site facilities are ingested. Presumably such changes are related to installation and test site features. This paper presents some properties of unsteady noise observed at a NASA-Lewis facility during tests of a Lycoming YF-102 turbofan engine. Time and spatial variations in tone noise obtained from closely spaced far-field and inlet duct microphones are displayed. Long (0.5 sec) to extremely short (0.001 sec) intermittent tone bursts are observed. Unsteadiness of the tone, its harmonics, and the broadband noise show little similarity. In the far-field, identity of tone bursts is retained over a directivity angle of less than 10 deg. In the inlet duct, tone bursts appear to propagate axially but exhibit little circumferential similarity. They show only slight relationship to tone bursts observed in the far field. The results imply an intermittent generation of random mixtures of propagating duct modes.

Clark, B. J.↗

Sonic Boom Pressure Signature Uncertainty Calculation and Propagation to Ground Noise

The objective of this study was to outline an approach for the quantification of uncertainty in sonic boom measurements and to investigate the effect of various near-field uncertainty representation approaches on ground noise predictions. These approaches included a symmetric versus asymmetric uncertainty band representation and a dispersion technique based on a partial sum Fourier series that allows for the inclusion of random error sources in the uncertainty. The near-field uncertainty was propagated to the ground level, along with additional uncertainty in the propagation modeling. Estimates of perceived loudness were obtained for the various types of uncertainty representation in the near-field. Analyses were performed on three configurations of interest to the sonic boom community: the SEEB-ALR, the 69o DeltaWing, and the LM 1021-01. Results showed that representation of the near-field uncertainty plays a key role in ground noise predictions. Using a Fourier series based dispersion approach can double the amount of uncertainty in the ground noise compared to a pure bias representation. Compared to previous computational fluid dynamics results, uncertainty in ground noise predictions were greater when considering the near-field experimental uncertainty.

West, Thomas K., IV↗

Quantifying Quantum Chaos through Microcanonical Distributions of Entanglement

A characteristic feature of “quantum chaotic” systems is that their eigenspectra and eigenstates display universal statistical properties described by random matrix theory (RMT). However, eigenstates of local systems also encode structure beyond RMT. To capture this feature, we introduce a framework that allows us to compare the properties of eigenstates in local systems with those of pure random states. In particular, our framework defines a notion of distance between quantum state ensembles that utilizes the Kullback-Leibler divergence to compare the microcanonical distribution of entanglement entropy (EE) of eigenstates with a reference RMT distribution generated by pure random states (with appropriate constraints). This notion gives rise to a quantitative metric for quantum chaos that not only accounts for averages of the distributions but also higher moments. The differences in moments are compared on a highly resolved scale set by the standard deviation of the RMT distribution, which is exponentially small in system size. As a result, the metric can distinguish between chaotic and integrable behaviors and, in addition, quantify and compare the of chaos (in terms of proximity to RMT behavior) between two systems that are assumed to be chaotic. We implement our framework in local, minimally structured, Floquet random circuits, as well as a canonical family of many-body Hamiltonians, the mixed-field Ising model (MFIM). Importantly, for Hamiltonian systems, we find that the reference random distribution must be appropriately constrained to incorporate the effect of energy conservation in order to describe the ensemble properties of midspectrum eigenstates. The metric captures deviations from RMT across all models and parameters, including those that have been previously identified as strongly chaotic, and for which other diagnostics of chaos such as level spacing statistics look strongly thermal. In Floquet circuits, the dominant source of deviations is the second moment of the distribution, and this persists for all system sizes. For the MFIM, we find significant variation of the KL divergence in parameter space. Notably, we find a small region where deviations from RMT are minimized, suggesting that “maximally chaotic” Hamiltonians may exist in fine-tuned pockets of parameter space. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

Physics↗

Evidence of the beam pattern concept of subsonic jet noise emission

The methods and results are described of an approach toward positively identifying the apparent location and strength of the sound source in a subsonic jet. The Green's function technique is applied to regenerate the three-dimensional distribution of the acoustic far field from measured data on a two-dimensional plane. The apparent sound-source location is also determined by using geometrical ray acoustics. The results revealed a number of features of the subsonic jet noise mechanisms; they show that the apparent sound source is highly localized within the jet flow and that the spontaneous noise emission from such a compact source volume is in the fashion of a narrow beam with random directions. These observable properties of the sound field offer the basis for a beam pattern concept of subsonic jet noise radiation. A powerful and accurate technique of aerodynamic noise measurement is verified. This technique is expected to have important applications in the development of jet noise reduction technology.

Pao, S. P.↗

A new field-laboratory methodology for assessing human response to noise

Gross measures of community annoyance with intrusive noises have been made in a number of real environment surveys which indicate that aircraft noise may have to be reduced 30-40 EPNdb before it will generally be considered acceptable. Interview studies, however, cannot provide the precise information which is needed by noise abatement engineers of the variable human response to different types and degrees of noise exposure. A new methodological field-survey approach has been developed to provide such information. The integrated attitudes and experiences of a random sample of subjects in the real environment are obtained by a prior field survey. Then these subjects record their more precise responses to controlled noise exposures in a new realistic laboratory. The laboratory is a sound chamber furnished as a typical living room (18 ft x 14 ft) and subjects watch a color TV program while they judge simulated aircraft flyovers that occur at controlled levels and intervals. Methodological experiments indicate that subjects in the laboratory have the sensation that the airplanes are actually moving overhead across the ceiling of the chamber. It was also determined that annoyance judgments in the laboratory stabilize after three flyovers are heard prior to a judgment of annoyance.

Borsky, P. N.↗

Nanoflare Heating of an X-Ray Bright Point

Nanoflares are thought to be one of the prime candidates that can keep the solar corona to its multimillion kelvin temperature. Individual nanoflares are difficult to detect with the present generation instruments, however their presence can be inferred by comparing the nanoflare heated simulated plasma emissions with the observed emission. Here, we present a simulation of emission from an X-ray Bright Point (XBP) that was observed by the Marshall Grazing Incidence X-ray Spectrometer (MaGIXS), along with concurrent observations from SDO/AIA and Hinode/XRT. We use EBTEL hydrodynamic code to simulate the XBP loops. Length and magnetic field strength of these loops are derived from the potential field extrapolation of the observed photospheric magnetogram by HMI/SDO. Each loop is assumed to be heated by random nanoflares, whose magnitude and frequency are determined by the looplength and magnetic field strength. The simulated outputs are used to predict the intensity of spectrally pure map of Fe-18, Fe-17, Ne-9 ,O-8, O-9, Ne-9 etc, which are then compared with the derived intensity from MaGIXS observation. Further we have predicted the intensity map as observed by AIA and XRT and compared them with the observation. We also estimated the temperature distribution of the XBP from the simulation and found a good agreement with the derived distribution from MaGIXS observation.

coronal heating↗

ReaxFF Reactive Force Field for Exploring Electronically Switchable Polarization in Zn 1– x Mg x O Ferroelectric Semiconductors

Cation misfit in traditional ferroelectric crystals offers a new material platform that can drive electronic components toward structural miniaturization and high-density integration, enabling deviation from von-Neumann architectures. Here, we explore ferroelectricity in Zn 1–x Mg x O, a nontraditional ferroelectric material with tunable properties. Using data from density-functional theory calculations, we have developed a ReaxFF reactive force field to explore the ferroelectric properties of Zn 1–x Mg x O and reveal the hysteresis behavior. We discover that ferroelectric switching can be observed at a critical thickness of 10 nm with a residual polarization of ~100 μC/cm 2 . Our analysis indicates that an increase in Mg-substitution correlates with a decrease in the coercive field. We also observe a strong temperature dependence of the coercive field in Zn 1–x Mg x O, with values decreasing as the temperature increases. Additionally, we find that the distribution of Mg atoms significantly impacts the coercive field, with a clustered distribution leading to a substantial increase. In particular, a decrease in coercive field values is observed when Mg atoms are randomly distributed, compared to uniform distribution. Furthermore, leveraging tunable hysteresis behavior offered by varied percentages and distribution of Mg-substitution provides valuable insights into the design of next-generation functional devices and will inspire further investigations.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Weak-coupling theory of neutron scattering as a probe of altermagnetism

Inelastic neutron scattering provides a powerful probe of the magnetic excitations of quantum magnets. Altermagnets have recently emerged as a new class of magnets with vanishing net magnetization characteristic of antiferromagnets and with a spin-split electronic structure typical of ferromagnets. Here we introduce a minimal Hubbard model with two-sublattice orthorhombic anisotropy as a framework to study altermagnetism. Using unrestricted Hartree-Fock calculations, we find an altermagnetic state for this model that evolves from a metallic state to an insulating state with increasing Hubbard-U Coulomb repulsion. We then examine the inelastic neutron scattering response in these states using random-phase approximation calculations of the dynamic spin susceptibility χ"(q,ω). We find that the magnetic excitation spectrum depends on its chirality for q along certain directions in reciprocal space, an observation that may be used in inelastic neutron scattering experiments as a probe of altermagnetism.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗

Spectral theorems for generalized Weyl nodes with impurities in a magnetic field

Here, we prove a few spectral theorems for the density of states of a Weyl node with arbitrary topology. We show that the density of extended states of a Weyl node with random impurity potentials remains gapless in the presence of a magnetic field. Therefore, a magnetic field precludes Anderson localization in Weyl semimetals, when internode transitions are suppressed for smooth enough potentials. We also provide a rigorous quantum mechanical proof of the chiral magnetic effect for arbitrary topology of a Weyl node.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗

Crustal Magnetic Spectra from Correlated Sources on Mars

The spectral method for distinguishing crustal from core-source magnetic fields has been re-examined, modified and applied to both a comprehensive geomagnetic field model and an altitude normalized magnetic map of Mars. These observational spectra are fairly fitted by theoretical forms expected from certain elementary classes of magnetic sources. For Earth we found fields from a core radius 3512 +/- 64 km and a crust represented by a shell of random dipolar sources at radius 6367 +/- 14 km. For Mars we found only a field from a crust represented in the same way, but 46 +/- 10 km below the planetary menu radius. More realistic theoretical spectra, allowing for crustal thickness, oblateness and magnetization by a planet centered dipole, were derived and discussed, as were spectral effects of laterally correlated sources. The main effect of laterally correlated sources is to soften the spectrum at high degrees. We tend to over-estimate source shell depth when this is omitted. To include this effect simply size and magnetization distribution functions for extended sources are recast as a characteristic diameter and mean square magnetization amplitude for an ensemble of vertically magnetized spherical caps on a shell. For small caps, and at moderated degrees, the practical derivatives of the log-theoretical spectrum with respect to amplitude, shell radius, and cap diameter are approximately proportional to l, n, and -n **2, respectively. Separation of diameter from amplitude from layer thickness. Results from applications to observational spectra are discussed, noting that there are now several fine field models for Mars; moreover, the terrestrial magnetic spectrum at high degrees, as revised, updated with high precision Oerstad data, and upgrade with high resolution Champ data, appears softer than before.

Voorhies, Coerte V.↗

Constraining Nanoflare Frequency Through Observations and Models

Nanoflares are considered prime candidates for heating the non-flaring solar corona. However, direct detection of individual nanoflares with present-generation instruments remains challenging. Understanding the frequency and magnitude of nanoflares is crucial for comprehending their role in coronal heating. In this study, we employ field-aligned hydrodynamic model to simulate the emission from a non-flaring X-ray bright point (XBP) observed by the Marshall Grazing Incidence X-ray Spectrometer (MaGIXS). The length and magnetic field strength of the coronal loops associated with this XBP are derived from magnetic field extrapolation of observed photospheric magnetograms by SDO/HMI. Each loop is assumed to be heated by random nanoflares, whose frequency and magnitude are determined by the loop length and their field strength. The simulation results are then compared and matched against the observation to determine the nanoflare heating frequency. We will discuss the findings of this study. Furthermore, we will discuss the evolution of nanoflare heating frequency during the formation and decay of an active region (AR) on the solar disk.

coronalheating↗

The causes of recurrent geomagnetic storms

The causes of recurrent geomagnetic activity were studied by analyzing interplanetary magnetic field and plasma data from earth-orbiting spacecraft in the interval from November 1973 to February 1974. This interval included the start of two long sequences of geomagnetic activity and two corresponding corotating interplanetary streams. In general, the geomagnetic activity was related to an electric field which was due to two factors: (1) the ordered, mesoscale pattern of the stream itself, and (2) random, smaller-scale fluctuations in the southward component of the interplanetary magnetic field Bz. The geomagnetic activity in each recurrent sequence consisted of two successive stages. The first stage was usually the most intense, and it occurred during the passage of the interaction region at the front of a stream. These large amplitudes of Bz were primarily produced in the interplanetary medium by compression of ambient fluctuations as the stream steepened in transit to 1 A.U. The second stage of geomagnetic activity immediately following the first was associated with the highest speeds in the stream.

Burlaga, L. F.↗

X-ray observations of characteristic structures and time variations from the solar corona - Preliminary results from Skylab.

Examples taken from the S-054 X-ray telescope observations made during the first Skylab mission show the hot coronal plasma tracing the configuration of the magnetic fields. The high spectral resolution and sensitivity of the instrument has enabled the following two facts to be more firmly established: (1) that the 'quiet homogeneous corona' is in fact highly structured and that the structures observed appear to be the results of dispersed active region magnetic fields; and (2) that numerous bright points are distributed randomly on the disk. Their presence at high latitudes may play a role in solar cycle models. In addition, the capability of Skylab for studying time evolution has enabled the restructuring of coronal features to be seen at times of high activity, indicating a restructuring of the coronal magnetic fields.

Vaiana, G. S.↗