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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 613 records · Page 34
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2021

Methods for Estimating Dose from Galactic Cosmic Rays and Jovian Radiation Belts on Reduced-Order Monte Carlo Geometries

This document outlines the methods and tools developed to estimate dose rates from galactic cosmic rays and the trapped radiation belts surrounding Jupiter using Monte Carlo particle transport software. Furthermore, the techniques described here are specific for translating high-resolution MAVRIC models to analogous but lower resolution Monte Carlo N-Particle Transport (MCNP) code models to estimate charged particle effects on models originally developed to study neutral particles only. This capability was initially developed to predict doses to various components of dynamic radioisotope power systems for spaceflight applications, but the tools and methods can be easily applied to other problem geometries and expanded to other space radiation environments.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2023

Boundary, SOL, and Divertor Physics Studies on TCV (Final Report for Research Funded by DoE Award DE-SC0020327)

Research supported under this grant was organized around two diagnostic systems installed on the TCV tokamak located at EPFL in Lausanne, Switzerland: Multi-Spectral Imaging (MSI) and Gas-Puff Imaging (GPI). MSI monitors 2-d time-history images of up to 10 spectral lines, in the visible, using identical views for all wavelengths. The primary application of MSI is to infer 2-d time histories of electron temperature and density in the Scrape-Off-Layer (SOL) of diverted plasmas, utilizing ratios of emission from multiple neutral helium lines. The atomic models are validated against 1-d Thomson scattering measurements. SOL density and temperature maps are analyzed to infer divertor dynamics, including particle and power flows, for a variety of divertor configurations, and specifically as flux expansion along the long-legged outboard divertor is systematically varied. GPI is used to measure details of edge fluctuations in the SOL, particularly as a function of plasma triangularity (δ), including both positive and negative δ. A threshold is found, whereby for δ<-0.3, edge turbulence in the far SOL is completely suppressed. Dynamics of the filamentary turbulence was also analyzed using advance machine learning techniques. Research in support of four PhD theses was carried out within the scope of this Award, including 2 at MIT and 2 at EPFL.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
NASA NTRS1971

Models of the Venus ionosphere

Venus daytime ionospheric models using electron, ion and neutral gas heat conduction with momentum and chemical equations for charged particle densities

Bauer, S. J.↗
NASA NTRS1976

Cooling and recombination processes in cometary plasma

The ion electron plasma in comets is examined for cooling processes which result from its interactions with the neutral coma. A cometary coma model is formulated that is composed predominantly of H2O and its decomposition products where electrons are cooled in a variety of processes at rates varying with energy. It is shown that solar plasma plus accumulated cometary ions and electrons is affected very strongly as it flows into the coma. The electrons are rapidly cooled and all but some 10% of the ions undergo charge exchange. Photodissociation of H2O is assumed where ion electron recombination is the dominant loss process.

Wallis, M. K.↗
NASA NTRS1976

The lower ionosphere of Titan

Ionization of the atmosphere of Titan by galactic cosmic rays is a very significant process throughout the altitude range from 100 to 400 km. An approximate form of the Boltzmann equation for cosmic-ray transport has been used to obtain local ionization rates. Models of both ion and neutral chemistry have been employed to compute electron and ion density profiles for three different values of the H2/CH4 abundance ratio. The peak electron density is of the order of 1000 per cu cm. The most abundant positive ions are C2/H9(+) and C3H9(+), while the predicted densities of the negative ions H(-) and CH3(-) are very small (less than one ten-thousandth that of the positive ions). It is suggested that inclusion of the ion chemistry is important in the computation of the H and CH3 density profiles in the lower ionosphere.

Capone, L. A.↗
NASA NTRS1978

Kalman filter divergence and aircraft motion estimators

Kalman filters designed for many aerospace systems turn out to be unsatisfactory. The estimate errors become large compared to the errors predicted by the theory ('divergence'). One of the principal causes of this failure is that the system model contains states or modes that are undisturbed by the modeled process noise, and are neutrally stable (NS). One cure for such problems is periodic restarting of a time-varying Kalman filter. Other cures include minimum variance observers with eigenvalue constraints, added noise, pole-shifting, and destabilization. Several examples are given, including effective time-invariant estimators for the longitudinal and lateral motions of an airplane where several NS modes are undisturbed by wind gusts. An interpretation of these estimators as a 'strapdown IMU' without accelerometers, gimbaled gyros, or servos is given.

Bryson, A. E., Jr.↗
NASA NTRS1983

Density drift instabilities and weak collisions

A model is developed which describes the effects of weak collisions on the linear kinetic theory of electrostatic density drift instabilities. A dispersion equation valid at all frequencies and wave numbers is derived using the assumptions of a weak, uniform density gradient; a uniform magnetic field; and the BGK collision operator with a modification of the local approximation. The properties of the universal and collisional density drift instabilities at maximum growth rates are examined in detail. The thresholds of the instabilities are examined for an ionospheric model which includes ion-neutral, electron-neutral, and electron-ion collisions, and are compared with the threshold of the lower hybrid density drift instability. It is concluded that the k to the -5th short wavelength density power spectra observed above 280 km in the PLUMEX experiment are due to the effects of the universal density drift instability.

Gary, S. P.↗
NASA NTRS1984

Nighttime auroral energy deposition in the middle atmosphere

Ionospheric rocket sounding data for eight nighttime auroral events are used to characterize relativistic electron showers and their effects on atmospheric ozone. The rockets were launched from the Poker Flat Research Range in Alaska and from Andoya, Norway over the period 1976-82. Energetic fluxes were always detected but were of insufficient magnitude to produce significant changes in stratospheric ozone. However, middle atmospheric energy sources were found to be dominated by relativistic electrons and X-ray bremmstrahlung, the latter from 40-55 km and the former from 55-60 km altitudes. The ionizing radiation is concluded to be a significant factor in mesospheric ion conductivity, mobility, electric field structure and analytical models for the ion-neutral chemistry.

Goldberg, R. A.↗
NASA NTRS1985

High-latitude H I structure and the soft X-ray background

The paper presents 21 cm observations made with the NRAO 43 m (140 foot) telescope of 20 randomly selected intermediate and high galactic latitude regions. The data are examined for evidence of the neutral gas clumping required by models in which a substantial fraction of the diffuse soft X-ray background (hv = 0.1 - 0.284 keV) originates outside the galactic disk and is absorbed by interstellar gas. No such evidence is found, and it is concluded that the degree of clumping required by such models must, if it exists, have characteristic angular scales less than 14 arcmin. Furthermore, an analysis of other data indicates that the required clumping does not exist on smaller size scales. It is therefore unlikely that a significant fraction of the X-ray flux originates in a galactic corona, unless some other explanation of the anomalously small apparent absorption can be found.

Jahoda, K.↗
NASA NTRS1990

In situ measurement of the cosmic microwave background temperature at a distance of 7.5 kiloparsecs

Absorption of orthoformaldehyde (H2CO) toward the giant H II region W51A (G49.5 - 0.4) has been used as a remote probe of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) at a distance of 7.5 kpc. VLA observations of the 6 cm and 2 cm wavelength transitions provided sufficient resolution and sensitivity to resolve condensations within the foregound clouds. Solutions to the equations of statistical equilibrium within each condensation in the context of a large velocity gradient model yielded an estimate for the CMB temperature at 2.1 mm wavelength of 3.2 + or - 0.9 K. The uncertainty is dominated by modeling of collisional pumping by neutral hydrogen molecules (H2).

Kogut, A.↗
NASA NTRS1993

The enigmatic object 2201 Oljato - Is it an asteroid or an evolved comet?

The orbital properties of near-earth object 2201 have been associated with meteor showers, and its modeled orbital evolution is chaotic - a property which might indicate a history related to comets. Telescopic observations of its visible and near-infrared spectral reflectance, broad-band visible and near-infrared photometry, infrared radiometric measurements, and radar echoes are reported here from two apparitions, 1979 and 1983. This asteroid has a high radiometric albedo, a property not associated with comet nuclei. In certain wavelength regimes it is classified as an S-type asteroid, in others, an E-type, but its overall spectral reflectance is not typical of either taxonomic type, and neither type is thought of as cometlike. Unexpectedly high ultraviolet reflectance at the 1979 apparition was suggested to be the result of residual outgassing as in a comet. The UV photometric data are modeled as fluorescent emission from neutral species found in comets. The resulting calculations indicate a plausible value for OH and CN emission at 0.3085 and 0.38 micron relative to the observed range of active comets.

Mcfadden, Lucy A.↗
NASA NTRS1993

Modeling of LDEF contamination environment

The Long Duration Exposure Facility (LDEF) satellite was unique in many ways. It was a large structure that was in space for an extended period of time and was stable in orientation relative to the velocity vector. There are obvious and well documented effects of contamination and space environment effects on the LDEF satellite. In order to examine the interaction of LDEF with its environment and the resulting effect on the satellite, the Integrated Spacecraft Environments Model (ISEM) was used to model the LDEF-induced neutral environment at several different times and altitudes during the mission.

Carruth, M. Ralph, Jr.↗
NASA NTRS2002

Double Layers in Expanding Plasmas and Their Relevance to the Auroral Plasma Processes

When a dense plasma consisting of a cold and a sufficiently warm electron population expands, a rarefaction shock forms. In the expansion of the polar wind in the magnetosphere, it has been previously shown that when a sufficiently warm electron population also exists, in addition to the usual cold ionospheric one, a discontinuity forms in the electrostatic potential distribution along the magnetic field lines. Despite the lack of spatial resolution and the assumption of quasi-neutrality in the polar wind models, such discontinuities have been called double layers (DLs). Recently similar discontinuities have been invoked to partly explain the auroral acceleration of electrons and ions in the upward current region. By means of one-dimensional Vlasov simulations of expanding plasmas, for the first time we make here the connection between (i) the rarefaction shocks, (ii) the discontinuities in the potential distributions, and (iii) DLs. We show that when plasmas expand from opposite directions into a deep density cavity with a potential drop across it and when the plasma on the high-potential side contains two electron populations, the temporal evolution of the potential and the plasma. distribution generates evolving multiple double layers with an extended density cavity between them. One of the DLs is the rarefaction-shock (RFS) and it forms by the reflections of the cold electrons coming from the high-potential side; it supports a part of the potential drop approximately determined by the hot electron temperature.

Singh, Nagendra↗
NASA NTRS2003

Double Layers in Expanding Plasmas and Their Relevance to the Auroral Plasma Processes

When a dense plasma consisting of a cold and a sufficiently warm electron population expands, a rarefaction shock forms [Bezzerides et al., 1978]. In the expansion of the polar wind in the magnetosphere, it has been previously shown that when a sufficiently warm electron population also exists, in addition to the usual cold ionospheric one, a discontinuity forms in the electrostatic potential distribution along the magnetic field lines [Barakat and Schunk, 1984]. Despite the lack of spatial resolution and the assumption of quasi-neutrality in the polar wind models, such discontinuities have been called double layers (DLs). Recently similar discontinuities have been invoked to partly explain the auroral acceleration of electrons and ions in the upward current region [Ergun et al., 2000]. By means of one-dimensional Vlasov simulations of expanding plasmas, for the first time we make here the connection between (1) the rarefaction shocks, (2) the discontinuities in the potential distributions, and (3) DLs. We show that when plasmas expand from opposite directions into a deep density cavity with a potential drop across it and when the plasma on the high-potential side contains hot and cold electron populations, the temporal evolution of the potential and the plasma distribution generates evolving multiple double layers with an ,extended density cavity between them. One of the DLs is the rarefaction-shock (RFS) and it forms by the reflections of the cold electrons coming from the high-potential side; it supports a part of the potential drop approximately determined by the hot electron temperature. The other DLs evolve from charge separations arising either from reflection of ions coming from the low-potential side or stemming from plasma instabilities; they support the rest of the potential drop. The instabilities forming these additional double layers involve electron-ion (e-i) Buneman or ion-ion (i-i) two-stream interactions. The electron-electron two-stream interactions on the high-potential side of the RFS generate electron-acoustic waves, which evolve into electron phase-space holes. The ion population originating from the low-potential side and trapped by the RFS is energized by the e-i and i-i instabilities and it eventually precipitates into the high-potential plasma along with an electron beam. Applications of these findings to the auroral plasma physics are discussed.

Singh, Nagendra↗
NASA NTRS1997

The rate of the reaction between C2H and C2H2 at interstellar temperatures

The reaction between the radical C2H and the stable hydrocarbon C2H2 is one of the simplest neutral-neutral hydrocarbon reactions in chemical models of dense interstellar clouds and carbon-rich circumstellar shells. Although known to be rapid at temperatures > or = 300 K, the reaction has yet to be studied at lower temperatures. We present here ab initio calculations of the potential surface for this reaction and dynamical calculations to determine its rate at low temperature. Despite a small potential barrier in the exit channel, the calculated rate is large, showing that this reaction and, most probably, more complex analogs contribute to the formation of complex organic molecules in low-temperature sources.

Non-NASA Center↗