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DOE OSTI2024

Hamiltonian variational ansatz without barren plateaus

Variational quantum algorithms, which combine highly expressive parameterized quantum circuits (PQCs) and optimization techniques in machine learning, are one of the most promising applications of a near-term quantum computer. Despite their huge potential, the utility of variational quantum algorithms beyond tens of qubits is still questioned. One of the central problems is the trainability of PQCs. The cost function landscape of a randomly initialized PQC is often too flat, asking for an exponential amount of quantum resources to find a solution. This problem, dubbed barren plateaus , has gained lots of attention recently, but a general solution is still not available. In this paper, we solve this problem for the Hamiltonian variational ansatz (HVA), which is widely studied for solving quantum many-body problems. After showing that a circuit described by a time-evolution operator generated by a local Hamiltonian does not have exponentially small gradients, we derive parameter conditions for which the HVA is well approximated by such an operator. Based on this result, we propose an initialization scheme for the variational quantum algorithms and a parameter-constrained ansatz free from barren plateaus.

Physics↗
NASA NTRS1977

Addition of rigid elements to NASTRAN

Four rigid elements, namely, a rigid rod element (CRIGDR) and three rigid body elements (CRIGD1, GRIGD2 and CRIGD3), have recently been added to NASTRAN and will be available in the next public release of the program. The theoretical formulation, the bulk data information and the programming details pertaining and realistic problems are illustrated by employing them in the solution of two helicopter structural analysis problems.

Pamidi, P. R.↗
NASA NTRS1978

Twisted and warped disks as consequences of heavy halos

Observationally testable consequences of the hypothesis that galactic disks are confined less by their self-gravity than that of some hot stellar component are sought. Theoretical and observational studies are reviewed which suggest that elliptical galaxies are typically triaxial in form. It is argued that any hot stellar component is likely to be similarly spherical. The motion of a galactic disk about such a population is calculated. Within the plane the flow is to first order along similar concentric ellipses and without of the plane, provided that certain conditions on the background field are met, an oscillation may be excited which can cause isolated galaxies to become warped. The circular motion of matter in such disks will manifest itself in the misalignment of the apparent minor axis and the H I zero-velocity contour. Such an effect may be present in a number of recent H I surveys, although the data presently available do not allow definite conclusions. Alternative explanations of galactic warps are reviewed and their relation to the present proposal discussed.

Binney, J.↗
NASA NTRS1979

Time recovery measurements using operational GOES and transit satellites

Results of regular monitoring of both the GOES and TRANSIT timing signals over a number of months at the National Bureau of Standards (NBS), Boulder, Colorado are presented. The TRANSIT results include an analysis of how received timing accuracy and stability are affected by: (1) averaging over varying numbers of satellite passes; (2) averaging over different combinations of the five available satellites; (3) using several independent receivers of the same type; and (4) application of published corrections to the received data. Based on monitoring experience to date at NBS, some pros and cons of using each of the available operational systems are discussed. Updated information on recent improvements incorporated into the GOES time code generation and monitoring system at Wallops Island, Virginia is also included.

Beehler, R. E.↗
NASA NTRS1980

Chemical research projects office: An overview and bibliography, 1975-1980

The activities of the Chemical Research Projects Office at Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, California are reported. The office conducts basic and applied research in the fields of polymer chemistry, computational chemistry, polymer physics, and physical and organic chemistry. It works to identify the chemical research and technology required for solutions to problems of national urgency, synchronous with the aeronautic and space effort. It conducts interdisciplinary research on chemical problems, mainly in areas of macromolecular science and fire research. The office also acts as liaison with the engineering community and assures that relevant technology is made available to other NASA centers, agencies, and industry. Recent accomplishments are listed in this report. Activities of the three research groups, Polymer Research, Aircraft Operating and Safety, and Engineering Testing, are summarized. A complete bibliography which lists all Chemical Research Projects Office publications, contracts, grants, patents, and presentations from 1975 to 1980 is included.

Kourtides, D. A.↗
NASA NTRS1982

Medium-range objective predictions of thunderstorms on the McIDAS/CSIS interactive computer system

Until recently, all operational meteorological data has been made available to forecasters in a variety of different forms. Predictions based upon these different data formats have been complicated by the inability of forecasters to easily assimilate, in real-time, all data to provide an optimum decision regarding future weather occurrences. By March 1980, a joint NASA/NOAA effort had been initiated to develop the Centralized Storm Information System (CSIS). The primary objectives of this joint project are related to an improvement of the overall severe storm forecast and warning procedure and to a demonstration of the operational utility of techniques developed within the applied research community. CSIS is to utilize the Man Computer Interactive Data Access System (McIDAS). The present investigation is concerned with one of the first attempts to employ the CSIS system for the evaluation of a new research technique involving the prediction of thunderstorms over a forecast period of 12-48 hours.

Wilson, G. S.↗
NASA NTRS1987

Lyapunov exponents for infinite dimensional dynamical systems

Classically it was held that solutions to deterministic partial differential equations (i.e., ones with smooth coefficients and boundary data) could become random only through one mechanism, namely by the activation of more and more of the infinite number of degrees of freedom that are available to such a system. It is only recently that researchers have come to suspect that many infinite dimensional nonlinear systems may in fact possess finite dimensional chaotic attractors. Lyapunov exponents provide a tool for probing the nature of these attractors. This paper examines how these exponents might be measured for infinite dimensional systems.

Mhuiris, Nessan Mac Giolla↗
NASA NTRS1988

Euler analysis of a swirl recovery vane design for use with an advanced single-rotation propfan

Recent work has demonstrated the propulsive efficiency improvement available from single- and counter-rotation propfans as compared with current technology high bypass ratio turbofans. The concept known as swirl recovery vanes (SRV) is examined through the use of a 3-D Euler code. At high speed cruise conditions, the SRV can improve the efficiency level of a single-rotation propfan, but a concern is to have adequate hub choke margin. The SRV was designed with 2-D methods and was predicted to have hub choking at Mach 0.8 cruise. The 3-D Euler analysis properly accounts for sweep effects and 3-D relief, and predicts that at cruise the SRV will recover roughly 5 percent of the 10 percent efficiency loss due to swirl and have a good hub choke margin.

Miller, Christopher J.↗
NASA NTRS1988

Euler analysis of a swirl recovery vane design for use with an advanced single-rotation propfan

Recent work has demonstrated the propulsive efficiency improvement available from single- and counter-rotation propfans as compared with current technology high bypass ratio turbofans. The concept known as swirl recovery vanes (SRV) is examined through the use of a 3-D Euler code. At high speed cruise conditions, the SRV can improve the efficiency level of a single-rotation propfan, but a concern is to have adequate hub choke margin. The SRV was designed with 2-D methods and was predicted to have hub choking at Mach 0.8 cruise. The 3-D Euler analysis properly accounts for sweep effects and 3-D relief, and predicts that at cruise the SRV will recover roughly 5 percent of the 10 percent efficiency loss due to swirl and have a good hub choke margin.

Miller, Christopher J.↗
NASA NTRS1989

The nature of cometary dust as determined from infrared observations

The infrared measurements of comets, the compositional information available from interplanetary dust particles (IDPs), and the recent results of flybys to Comet Halley can help in restricting the nature and composition of cometary dust models (c.f., Proceedings of the 20th ESLAB Symposium on Exploration of Halley's Comet, 1986). Researchers tried to incorporate some of these results into a coherent model to account for the observed cometary infrared emission. The presence of 10 and 3.4 micron features in Comet Halley (c.f. Bregman et al. 1987; Wickramasinghe and Allen 1986) indicated the presence of at least two components in the grain material, namely silicates and some form of amorphous carbon. These two components could reside in separate grains or may be parts of composite particles. Both these cases have been considered (see Krishna Swamy el a. 1988a, 1988b). In the absence of refractive index data for cometary analogs, the authors used the optical constants of olivine-rich lunar material 12009.48 (Perry et al. 1972) for the infrared region and that of alpha:C-H film for amorphous carbon (angus et al. 1986). For the visible region, a value of m = 1.38-0.39i was used for the silicates, and values published by Arakawa et al. (1985) were used for the amorphous carbon. These materials should give a representative behavior of the expected results. The model results were compared to observational data. The strength of the 3.4 micron and 10 micron features relative to the adjacent continuum, as well as the slope of the continuum between 2500 and 1250 cm(exp -1) (4 to 8 microns), were used as criteria for comparison. Model calculations with alpha approx. equals -3.5, and also the size distribution function inferred for Comet Halley, with a mass fraction (X) of silicate to amorphous carbon grains of about 40 to 1 can fit the data. A good match is obtained for the infrared spectra of Comets Halley and West from a 40 to 1 mixture of silicate and amorphous carbon grains with a a(exp -3.5) size distribution function. The results are consistent with compositional constraints provided by interplanetary dust particles (IPDs) and Halley flyby data. The variation of grain temperature with heliocentric distance appears to account for the major changes observed in cometary spectra.

Swamy, K. S. Krishna↗
NASA NTRS1992

Nitric oxide in the middle to upper thermosphere

The results of six rocket observations of thermospheric nitric oxide are reviewed and reconciled with the available laboratory photochemical data. The impact of the recently revised recommendation for the N (S-4) + O2 rate coefficient on photochemical models is assessed. Use of the new rate coefficient leads to significantly enhanced production of NO, particularly at F-region altitudes during solar maximum conditions. A comparison of photochemical calculations with the rocket profiles indicates that the new rate coefficient introduces a significant discrepancy which can be resolved if the recombination reaction of N + NO is temperature dependent. Calculations using the preposed rate coefficient predict the NO solar cycle variation at 180 km to be less than at 140 km, which is also in agreement with the observations.

Siskind, David E.↗
NASA NTRS1998

Laboratory Evaluation and Application of Microwave Absorption Properties Under Simulated Conditions for Planetary Atmospheres

Radio absorptivity data for planetary atmospheres obtained from spacecraft radio occultation experiments, entry probe radio signal absorption measurements, and earth-based radio astronomical observations can be used to infer abundances of microwave absorbing constituents in those atmospheres, as long as reliable information regarding the microwave absorbing properties of potential constituents is available. The use of theoretically-derived microwave absorption properties for such atmospheric constituents, or using laboratory measurements of such properties taken under environmental conditions which are significantly different than those of the planetary atmosphere being studied, often leads to significant misinterpretation of available opacity data. For example, laboratory measurements completed recently by Kolodner and Steffes (ICARUS 132, pp. 151-169, March 1998, attached as Appendix A) under this grant (NAGS-4190), have shown that the opacity from gaseous H2SO4 under simulated Venus conditions is best described by a different formalism than was previously used. The recognition of the need to make such laboratory measurements of simulated planetary atmospheres over a range of temperatures and pressures which correspond to the altitudes probed by both spacecraft entry probe and orbiter radio occultation experiments and by radio astronomical observations, and over a range of frequencies which correspond to those used in such experiments, has led to the development of a facility at Georgia Tech which is capable of making such measurements. It has been the goal of this investigation to conduct such measurements and to apply the results to a wide range of planetary observations, both spacecraft and earth-based, in order to determine the identity and abundance profiles of constituents in those planetary atmospheres.

Steffes, Paul G.↗
NASA NTRS1994

Performance of BLAS 3, FFTs and NAS Parallel Benchmarks on Cray T3D

Recently, a Cray T3D Emulator has been made available on the Cray Y-MP and C90 computers. The Pittsburgh Supercomputer Center has acquired a CRAY T3D system and many other centers like Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) will have it by the end of 1994. The Cray T3D system is the firstphase system in Cray Research, Inc.'s (CRI) three-phase massively parallel processing (MPP) program. This system features a heterogeneous architecture that closely couples DEC's ALPHA microprocessors and CRI's parallel-vector technology, i.e. the Cray Y-MP and Cray C90. The Cray T3D Emulator will give prospective users a valuable experience in developing high performance applications on the MPP system. This emulator runs programs written in CRI's MPP Fortran programming model (data sharing and work sharing) or Parallel Virtual Machine (PVM) programming model. It will help the users to study data layout, data locality, and data reference patterns thereby providing feedback which will enable one to write more efficient parallel codes. An overview of the Cray T3D hardware, software, and three of its available programming models is presented.The Cray Fortran Programming Model comprising (a) Data Sharing, (b) Worksharing and (c) Message Passing, will be discussed with examples. We have also implemented distributed BLAS 3 (matrix-matrix multiplication) in data parallel model (using only CSHIFT); worksharing model using block distribution and collapsed distribution; and message passing model using PVM. We have also implemented 2D and 3D FFTs for radix-2 using PVM. The performance of NAS Parallel 'Benchmarks (NPB) on CRAY T3D will be compared with other highly parallel systems such as CM-5, Paragon, C90 etc.

Saini, Subhash↗
NASA NTRS2001

Space Transportation Operations: Assessment of Methodologies and Models

The systems design process for future space transportation involves understanding multiple variables and their effect on lifecycle metrics. Variables such as technology readiness or potential environmental impact are qualitative, while variables such as reliability, operations costs or flight rates are quantitative. In deciding what new design concepts to fund, NASA needs a methodology that would assess the sum total of all relevant qualitative and quantitative lifecycle metrics resulting from each proposed concept. The objective of this research was to review the state of operations assessment methodologies and models used to evaluate proposed space transportation systems and to develop recommendations for improving them. It was found that, compared to the models available from other sources, the operations assessment methodology recently developed at Kennedy Space Center has the potential to produce a decision support tool that will serve as the industry standard. Towards that goal, a number of areas of improvement in the Kennedy Space Center's methodology are identified.

Joglekar, Prafulla↗
NASA NTRS2002

Space Transportation Operations: Assessment of Methodologies and Models

The systems design process for future space transportation involves understanding multiple variables and their effect on lifecycle metrics. Variables such as technology readiness or potential environmental impact are qualitative, while variables such as reliability, operations costs or flight rates are quantitative. In deciding what new design concepts to fund, NASA needs a methodology that would assess the sum total of all relevant qualitative and quantitative lifecycle metrics resulting from each proposed concept. The objective of this research was to review the state of operations assessment methodologies and models used to evaluate proposed space transportation systems and to develop recommendations for improving them. It was found that, compared to the models available from other sources, the operations assessment methodology recently developed at Kennedy Space Center has the potential to produce a decision support tool that will serve as the industry standard. Towards that goal, a number of areas of improvement in the Kennedy Space Center's methodology are identified.

Joglekar, Prafulla↗
NASA NTRS1997

Evaluation of heart rate changes: electrocardiographic versus photoplethysmographic methods

The heart rate (HR) variation to forced deep breathing (HRDB) and to the Valsalva maneuver (Valsalva ratio; VR) are the two most widely used tests of cardiovagal function in human subjects. The HR is derived from a continuously running electrocardiographic (ECG) recording. Recently, HR derived from the arterial waveform became available on the Finapres device (FinapHR), but its ability to detect rapid changes in HR remains uncertain. We therefore evaluated HRDB and VR derived from FinapHR using ECG-derived HR (ECGHR) recordings as the standard. We also compared the averaged HR on Finapres (Finapav) with beat-to-beat Finapres (FinapBB) values. Studies were undertaken in 12 subjects with large HR variations: age, 34.5 +/- 9.3 (SD) years; six males and six females. FinapBB values were superimposable upon ECGHR for both HRDB and VR. In contrast, Finapav failed to follow ECGHR for HRDB and followed HRECG with a lag for the VR. To evaluate statistically how closely FinapHR approximated ECGHR, we undertook regression analysis, using mean values for each subject. To compare the two methods, we evaluated the significance of the difference between test and standard values. For HRDB, FinapBB reproducibly recorded HR (R2 = 0.998), and was significantly (p = 0.001) better than Finapav (R2 = 0.616; p < 0.001). For VR, HRBB generated a VR that was not significantly different from the correct values, while HRav generated a value that was slightly but consistently lower than the correct values (p < 0.001). We conclude that FinapHR reliably records HR variations in the beat-to-beat mode for cardiovascular HR tests.

Non-NASA Center↗
NASA NTRS2005

Atmospheric Models for Mars Aerocapture

level Mars atmospheric model. Applications include systems design, performance analysis, and operations planning for aerobraking, entry descent and landing, and aerocapture. Typical Mars aerocapture periapsis altitudes (for systems with rigid- aeroshell heat shields) are about 50 km. This altitude is above the 0-40 km height range covered by Mars Global Surveyor Thermal Emission Spectrometer (TES) nadir observations. Recently, TES limb sounding data have been made available, spanning more than two Mars years (more than 200,000 data profiles) with altitude coverage up to about 60 km, well within the height range of interest for aerocapture. Results are presented comparing Mars-GRAM atmospheric density with densities from TES nadir and limb sounding observations. A new Mars-GRAM feature is described which allows individual TES nadir or limb profiles to be extracted from the large TES databases, and to be used as an optional replacement for standard Mars-GRAM background (climatology) conditions. For Monte-Carlo applications such as aerocapture guidance and control studies, Mars-GRAM perturbations are available using these TES profile background conditions.

Justus, C. G.↗
NASA NTRS2005

Mars Aerocapture and Validation of Mars-GRAM with TES Data

Mars Global Reference Atmospheric Model (Mars-GRAM) is a widely-used engineering- level Mars atmospheric model. Applications include systems design, performance analysis, and operations planning for aerobraking, entry descent and landing, and aerocapture. Typical Mars aerocapture periapsis altitudes (for systems with rigid-aeroshell heat shields) are about 50 km. This altitude is above the 0-40 km height range covered by Mars Global Surveyor Thermal Emission Spectrometer (TES) nadir observations. Recently, TES limb sounding data have been made available, spanning more than two Mars years (more than 200,000 data profiles) with altitude coverage up to about 60 km, well within the height range of interest for aerocapture. Results are presented comparing Mars-GRAM atmospheric density with densities from TES nadir and limb sounding observations. A new Mars-GRAM feature is described which allows individual TES nadir or limb profiles to be extracted from the large TES databases, and to be used as an optional replacement for standard Mars-GRAM background (climatology) conditions. For Monte-Carlo applications such as aerocapture guidance and control studies, Mars-GRAM perturbations are available using these TES profile background conditions.

Justus, C. G.↗