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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 739 records · Page 41
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2015

GIANT IMPACT: AN EFFICIENT MECHANISM FOR THE DEVOLATILIZATION OF SUPER-EARTHS

Mini-Neptunes and volatile-poor super-Earths coexist on adjacent orbits in proximity to host stars such as Kepler-36 and Kepler-11. Several post-formation processes have been proposed for explaining the origin of the compositional diversity between neighboring planets: mass loss via stellar XUV irradiation, degassing of accreted material, and in situ accumulation of the disk gas. Close-in planets are also likely to experience giant impacts during the advanced stage of planet formation. This study examines the possibility of transforming volatile-rich super-Earths/mini-Neptunes into volatile-depleted super-Earths through giant impacts. We present the results of three-dimensional hydrodynamic simulations of giant impacts in the accretionary and disruptive regimes. Target planets are modeled with a three-layered structure composed of an iron core, silicate mantle, and hydrogen/helium envelope. In the disruptive case, the giant impact can remove most of the H/He atmosphere immediately and homogenize the refractory material in the planetary interior. In the accretionary case, the planet is able to retain more than half of the original gaseous envelope, while a compositional gradient suppresses efficient heat transfer as the planetary interior undergoes double-diffusive convection. After the giant impact, a hot and inflated planet cools and contracts slowly. The extended atmosphere enhances the mass loss via both a Parker wind induced by thermal pressure and hydrodynamic escape driven by the stellar XUV irradiation. As a result, the entire gaseous envelope is expected to be lost due to the combination of those processes in both cases. Based on our results, we propose that Kepler-36b may have been significantly devolatilized by giant impacts, while a substantial fraction of Kepler-36c’s atmosphere may remain intact. Furthermore, the stochastic nature of giant impacts may account for the observed large dispersion in the mass–radius relationship of close-in super-Earths and mini-Neptunes (at least to some extent)

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2011

Crystalline islands of semiconductor films

Silicon carbide (SiC) nucleation in the form of powder in a discharge plasma and the formation of thin film islands on a Si(100) substrate in the course of gas-phase epitaxy are simulated numerically. Models of plasma-like media and nonequilibrium processes accompanying phase transitions of the first kind (such as condensation and crystallization) in the initial fast (fluctuation) stage are described. The nonstationary evolution of nuclei size distribution functions is modeled by solving kinetic equations in partial derivatives and stochastic Ito-Stratonovich analog equations. This makes it possible to refine the formation mechanisms of microcrystalline state polytypes and calculate the nucleation rate and the initial roughness of a SiC coating.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2012

Possible action mechanism of the electromagnetic fields in the liver cancer development: A mathematical proposal

Currently it is known that electromagnetic field exposure can induce biological changes, although the precise effects and action mechanism of the interaction between the electromagnetic field and biological systems are not well understood. In this work we propose a possible action mechanism, concerning the effect that the extremely low frequency electromagnetic field exposure has on the early stage of liver cancer development. The model is developed studying the phenomena called oxidative stress that it appears after it is applied a carcinogenic agent used to induce hepatic cancer chemically in an experimental animal model. This physical-chemical process involves the movement of magnetic field dependent free charged particles, called free radicals. We will consider the use of the radical pairs theory as a framework, in which we will describe the spin density operator evolution by implementing the stochastic Liouville equation with hyperfine interaction. This describes how the selectivity of the interaction between spin states of the free radicals with the applied electromagnetic field, influences the development of pre-neoplastic lesions in the liver. AIP Publishing is retracting this article due to the substantial use of content in the Results and Conclusions section without proper citation of a previously published paper in Chemical Physics Letters 361 (2012) 219-225. This article is retracted from the scientific record with effect from 15 October 2015.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2012

Improved computational neutronics methods and validation protocols for the advanced test reactor

The Idaho National Laboratory (INL) is in the process of updating the various reactor physics modeling and simulation tools used to support operation and safety assurance of the Advanced Test Reactor (ATR). Key accomplishments so far have encompassed both computational as well as experimental work. A new suite of stochastic and deterministic transport theory based reactor physics codes and their supporting nuclear data libraries (HELIOS, KENO6/SCALE, NEWT/SCALE, ATTILA, and an extended implementation of MCNP5) has been installed at the INL. Corresponding models of the ATR and ATRC are now operational with all five codes, demonstrating the basic feasibility of the new code packages for their intended purposes. On the experimental side of the project, new hardware was fabricated, measurement protocols were finalized, and the first four of six planned physics code validation experiments based on neutron activation spectrometry have been conducted at the ATRC facility. Data analysis for the first three experiments, focused on characterization of the neutron spectrum in one of the ATR flux traps, has been completed. The six experiments will ultimately form the basis for flexible and repeatable ATR physics code validation protocols that are consistent with applicable national standards. (authors)

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS↗
DOE OSTI2014

New perspectives on superparameterization for geophysical turbulence

This is a research expository paper regarding superparameterization, a class of multi-scale numerical methods designed to cope with the intermittent multi-scale effects of inhomogeneous geophysical turbulence where energy often inverse-cascades from the unresolved scales to the large scales through the effects of waves, jets, vortices, and latent heat release from moist processes. Original as well as sparse space–time superparameterization algorithms are discussed for the important case of moist atmospheric convection including the role of multi-scale asymptotic methods in providing self-consistent constraints on superparameterization algorithms and related deterministic and stochastic multi-cloud parameterizations. Test models for the statistical numerical analysis of superparameterization algorithms are discussed both to elucidate the performance of the basic algorithms and to test their potential role in efficient multi-scale data assimilation. The very recent development of grid-free seamless stochastic superparameterization methods for geophysical turbulence appropriate for “eddy-permitting” mesoscale ocean turbulence is presented here including a general formulation and illustrative applications to two-layer quasigeostrophic turbulence, and another difficult test case involving one-dimensional models of dispersive wave turbulence. This last test case has randomly generated solitons as coherent structures which collapse and radiate wave energy back to the larger scales, resulting in strong direct and inverse turbulent energy cascades.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2017

Extension of moment projection method to the fragmentation process

The method of moments is a simple but efficient method of solving the population balance equation which describes particle dynamics. Recently, the moment projection method (MPM) was proposed and validated for particle inception, coagulation, growth and, more importantly, shrinkage; here the method is extended to include the fragmentation process. The performance of MPM is tested for 13 different test cases for different fragmentation kernels, fragment distribution functions and initial conditions. Comparisons are made with the quadrature method of moments (QMOM), hybrid method of moments (HMOM) and a high-precision stochastic solution calculated using the established direct simulation algorithm (DSA) and advantages of MPM are drawn.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2010

Quantum-classical modeling of photoisomerization of polyatomic molecules

A new method, non-Markovian quantum-classical approximation (NQCA), is suggested to model the photoisomerization of polyatomic molecules. The NQCA method can be successfully applied to follow the photoisomerization process for a wide class of reacting systems, namely, those for which the time scale required for the equilibration in the phase space of the potential energy surface (PESs) is short compared to the time scale of the transitions between them. Such a situation is quite typical for the nonadiabatic transitions between the different electronic states in polyatomic molecules, where a high density of vibronic states facilitates the intramolecular vibrational energy redistribution, thus providing an efficient relaxation for the phase space distribution. The NQCA can easily be combined with molecular dynamics and quantum-chemical methods to describe the evolution of the classical degrees of freedom and the quantum part of the problem.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
DOE OSTI2010

SECULAR ORBITAL DYNAMICS OF HIERARCHICAL TWO-PLANET SYSTEMS

The discovery of multi-planet extrasolar systems has kindled interest in using their orbital evolution as a probe of planet formation. Accurate descriptions of planetary orbits identify systems that could hide additional planets or be in a special dynamical state, and inform targeted follow-up observations. We combine published radial velocity data with Markov Chain Monte Carlo analyses in order to obtain an ensemble of masses, semimajor axes, eccentricities, and orbital angles for each of the five dynamically active multi-planet systems: HD 11964, HD 38529, HD 108874, HD 168443, and HD 190360. We dynamically evolve these systems using 52,000 long-term N-body integrations that sample the full range of possible line-of-sight and relative inclinations, and we report on the system stability, secular evolution, and the extent of the resonant interactions. We find that planetary orbits in hierarchical systems exhibit complex dynamics and can become highly eccentric and maybe significantly inclined. Additionally, we incorporate the effects of general relativity in the long-term simulations and demonstrate that it can qualitatively affect the dynamics of some systems with high relative inclinations. The simulations quantify the likelihood of different dynamical regimes for each system and highlight the dangers of restricting simulation phase space to a single set of initial conditions or coplanar orbits.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2012

The internal disruption as hard Magnetohydrodynamic limit of 1/2 sawtooth like activity in large helical device

Large helical device (LHD) inward-shifted configurations are unstable to resistive MHD pressure-gradient-driven modes. Sawtooth like activity was observed during LHD operation. The main drivers are the unstable modes 1/2 and 1/3 in the middle and inner plasma region which limit the plasma confinement efficiency of LHD advanced operation scenarios. The aim of the present research is to study the hard MHD limit of 1/2 sawtooth like activity, not observed yet in LHD operation, and to predict its effects on the device performance. Previous investigations pointed out this system relaxation can be an internal disruption [J. Varela et al., 'Internal disruptions and sawtooth like activity in LHD,' 38th EPS Conference on Plasma Physics (2011), P5.077]. In the present work, we simulate an internal disruption; we study the equilibria properties before and after the disruptive process, its effects on the plasma confinement efficiency during each disruptive phase, the relation between the n/m = 1/2 hard MHD events and the soft MHD events, and how to avoid or reduce their adverse effects. The simulation conclusions point out that the large stochastic region in the middle plasma strongly deforms and tears the flux surfaces when the pressure gradient increases above the hard MHD limit. If the instability reaches the inner plasma, the iota profiles will be perturbed near the plasma core and three magnetic islands can appear near the magnetic axis. If the instability is strong enough to link the stochastic regions in the middle plasma (around the half minor radius {rho}) and the plasma core ({rho}<0.25), an internal disruption is driven.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2015

New risk metrics and mathematical tools for risk analysis: Current and future challenges

The current status of the food safety supply world wide, has led Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and World Health Organization (WHO) to establishing Risk Analysis as the single framework for building food safety control programs. A series of guidelines and reports that detail out the various steps in Risk Analysis, namely Risk Management, Risk Assessment and Risk Communication is available. The Risk Analysis approach enables integration between operational food management systems, such as Hazard Analysis Critical Control Points, public health and governmental decisions. To do that, a series of new Risk Metrics has been established as follows: i) the Appropriate Level of Protection (ALOP), which indicates the maximum numbers of illnesses in a population per annum, defined by quantitative risk assessments, and used to establish; ii) Food Safety Objective (FSO), which sets the maximum frequency and/or concentration of a hazard in a food at the time of consumption that provides or contributes to the ALOP. Given that ALOP is rather a metric of the public health tolerable burden (it addresses the total ‘failure’ that may be handled at a national level), it is difficult to be interpreted into control measures applied at the manufacturing level. Thus, a series of specific objectives and criteria for performance of individual processes and products have been established, all of them assisting in the achievement of FSO and hence, ALOP. In order to achieve FSO, tools quantifying the effect of processes and intrinsic properties of foods on survival and growth of pathogens are essential. In this context, predictive microbiology and risk assessment have offered an important assistance to Food Safety Management. Predictive modelling is the basis of exposure assessment and the development of stochastic and kinetic models, which are also available in the form of Web-based applications, e.g., COMBASE and Microbial Responses Viewer), or introduced into user-friendly softwares, (e.g., Seafood Spoilage Predictor) have evolved the use of information systems in the food safety management. Such tools are updateable with new food-pathogen specific models containing cardinal parameters and multiple dependent variables, including plate counts, concentration of metabolic products, or even expression levels of certain genes. Then, these tools may further serve as decision-support tools which may assist in product logistics, based on their scientifically-based and “momentary” expressed spoilage and safety level.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2021

Model Predictive Fault-Tolerant Tracking Control for PDF Control Systems With Packet Losses

In this article, a fault-tolerant tracking control strategy is investigated for nonlinear probability density function (PDF) control systems with the actuator fault, uncertainties, unknown disturbance, and random packet losses. The control input signal dropout and measurement signal dropouts are described as the independent Bernoulli distribution. An adaptive fault diagnosis (FD) observer based on the Lyapunov function is given to simultaneously estimate the fault, disturbance, and state with packet losses. Furthermore, different from the traditional robust fault-tolerant control (FTC), a new active fault-tolerant tracking controller is designed based on the model predictive control framework, which has better adaptive fault-tolerant performance. Finally, the validity of the proposed FTC method has been proved by a simulation study of a papermaking process.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2015

Adaptive error covariances estimation methods for ensemble Kalman filters

This paper presents a computationally fast algorithm for estimating, both, the system and observation noise covariances of nonlinear dynamics, that can be used in an ensemble Kalman filtering framework. The new method is a modification of Belanger's recursive method, to avoid an expensive computational cost in inverting error covariance matrices of product of innovation processes of different lags when the number of observations becomes large. When we use only product of innovation processes up to one-lag, the computational cost is indeed comparable to a recently proposed method by Berry–Sauer's. However, our method is more flexible since it allows for using information from product of innovation processes of more than one-lag. Extensive numerical comparisons between the proposed method and both the original Belanger's and Berry–Sauer's schemes are shown in various examples, ranging from low-dimensional linear and nonlinear systems of SDEs and 40-dimensional stochastically forced Lorenz-96 model. Our numerical results suggest that the proposed scheme is as accurate as the original Belanger's scheme on low-dimensional problems and has a wider range of more accurate estimates compared to Berry–Sauer's method on L-96 example.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2010

Do WMAP data favor neutrino mass and a coupling between Cold Dark Matter and Dark Energy?

We fit WMAP5 and related data by allowing for a CDM-DE coupling and non-zero neutrino masses, simultaneously. We find a significant correlation between these parameters, so that simultaneous higher coupling and {nu}-masses are allowed. Furthermore, models with a significant coupling and {nu}-mass are statistically favoured in respect to a cosmology with no coupling and negligible neutrino mass (our best fits are: C{approx}1/2 m{sub p}, m{sub {nu}{approx}0}.12 eV per flavor). We use a standard Monte Carlo Markov Chain approach, by assuming DE to be a scalar field self-interacting through Ratra-Peebles or SUGRA potentials.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2010

Properties and uncertainties of scalar field models of dark energy with barotropic equation of state

The dynamics of expansion and large scale structure formation in the multicomponent Universe with dark energy modeled by the minimally coupled scalar field with generalized linear barotropic equation of state are analyzed. It is shown that the past dynamics of expansion and future of the Universe - eternal accelerated expansion or turnaround and collapse - are completely defined by the current energy density of a scalar field and relation between its current and early equation of state parameters. The clustering properties of such models of dark energy and their imprints in the power spectrum of matter density perturbations depend on the same relation and, additionally, on the 'effective sound speed' of a scalar field, defined by its Lagrangian. It is concluded that such scalar fields with different values of these parameters are distinguishable in principle. This gives the possibility to constrain them by confronting the theoretical predictions with the corresponding observational data. For that we have used the 7-year Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe data on cosmic microwave background anisotropies, the Union2 data set on Supernovae Ia and the seventh data release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey data on luminous red galaxies space distribution. Using the Markov Chain Monte Carlo technique the marginalized posterior and mean likelihood distributions are computed for the scalar fields with two different Lagrangians: Klein-Gordon and Dirac-Born-Infeld ones. The properties of such scalar field models of dark energy with best fitting parameters and uncertainties of their determination are also analyzed in the paper.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2011

Speckle evolution with multiple steps of least-squares phase removal

We study numerically the evolution of speckle fields due to the annihilation of optical vortices after the least-squares phase has been removed. A process with multiple steps of least-squares phase removal is carried out to minimize both vortex density and scintillation index. Statistical results show that almost all the optical vortices can be removed from a speckle field, which finally decays into a quasiplane wave after such an iterative process.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2010

EXPLORING SHORT GAMMA-RAY BURSTS AS GRAVITATIONAL-WAVE STANDARD SIRENS

Recent observations support the hypothesis that a large fraction of 'short-hard' gamma-ray bursts (SHBs) are associated with the inspiral and merger of compact binaries. Since gravitational-wave (GW) measurements of well-localized inspiraling binaries can measure absolute source distances, simultaneous observation of a binary's GWs and SHB would allow us to directly and independently determine both the binary's luminosity distance and its redshift. Such a 'standard siren' (the GW analog of a standard candle) would provide an excellent probe of the nearby (z {approx}< 0.3) universe's expansion, independent of the cosmological distance ladder, thereby complementing other standard candles. Previous work explored this idea using a simplified formalism to study measurement by advanced GW detector networks, incorporating a high signal-to-noise ratio limit to describe the probability distribution for measured parameters. In this paper, we eliminate this simplification, constructing distributions with a Markov Chain Monte Carlo technique. We assume that each SHB observation gives source sky position and time of coalescence, and we take non-spinning binary neutron star and black hole-neutron star coalescences as plausible SHB progenitors. We examine how well parameters (particularly distance) can be measured from GW observations of SHBs by a range of ground-based detector networks. We find that earlier estimates overstate how well distances can be measured, even at fairly large signal-to-noise ratio. The fundamental limitation to determining distance proves to be a degeneracy between distance and source inclination. Overcoming this limitation requires that we either break this degeneracy, or measure enough sources to broadly sample the inclination distribution.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2012

DIFFUSIVE COSMIC-RAY ACCELERATION IN SAGITTARIUS A*

Together, Fermi-LAT and HESS have revealed the presence of an unusual GeV-TeV source coincident with Sgr A* at the Galactic center. Its high-energy emission appears to be bimodal, hinting at an energizing process more sophisticated than mere shock acceleration. It has been suggested that this may be evidence of strong, rapid variability, as required if Sgr A*'s emission were responsible for the fluorescent X-ray echoes detected in nearby molecular clouds. In this Letter, however, we show that stochastic acceleration in a more realistic two-phase environment surrounding the central black hole can accommodate Sgr A*'s high-energy spectrum quite well. We therefore suggest that the Fermi-HESS data alone do not necessarily provide evidence for strong variability in Sgr A*.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗