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At least 775 records · Page 43
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2024

Local models of two-temperature accretion disc coronae – II. Ion thermal conduction and the absence of disc evaporation

We use local stratified shearing-box simulations with magnetic field-aligned thermal conduction to study an idealized model of the coupling between a cold, radiatively efficient accretion disc, and an overlying, hot, two-temperature corona. Evaporation of a cold disc by conduction from the hot corona has been proposed as a means of mediating the soft-to-hard state transitions observed in X-ray binary systems. We model the coronal plasma in our local disc patch as an MHD fluid subject to both free-streaming ion conduction and a parametrized cooling function that captures the collisional transfer of energy from hot ions to colder, rapidly cooling leptons. In all of our models, independent of the initial net vertical magnetic flux (NF) threading the disc, we find no evidence of disc evaporation. The ion heat flux into the disc is radiated away before conduction can heat the disc’s surface layers. When an initial NF is present, steady-state temperature, density, and outflow velocities in our model coronae are unaffected by conduction. Instead of facilitating disc evaporation, thermal conduction is more likely to feed the disc with plasma condensing out of the corona, particularly in flows without NF. Our work indicates that uncertainties in the amount of NF threading the disc hold far greater influence over whether or not the disc will evaporate into a radiatively inefficient accretion flow compared to thermal conduction. We speculate that a change in net flux mediates disc truncation/evaporation.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2017

Precision Tests of the Electroweak Interaction using Trapped Atoms and Ions

The objective of the proposed research is to study fundamental aspects of the electroweak interaction via precision measurements in beta decay to test our current understanding of fundamental particles and forces as contained in the so-called "Standard Model" of particle physics. By comparing elegant experiments to rigorous theoretical predictions, we will either confirm the Standard Model to a higher degree and rule out models which seek to extend it, or find evidence of new physics and help guide theorists in developing the New Standard Model. The use of ion and neutral atom traps at radioactive ion beam facilities has opened up a new vista in precision low-energy nuclear physics experiments. Traps provide an ideal source of decaying atoms: they can be extremely cold (~1 mK); they are compact (~1 mm^3); and perhaps most importantly, the daughter particles escape with negligible distortions to their momenta in a scattering-free, open environment. The project is taking advantage of these technologies and applying them to precision beta-decay studies at radioactive beam facilities. The program consists of two complementary efforts: 1) Ion traps are an extremely versatile tool for purifying, cooling and bunching low-energy beams of short-lived nuclei. A large-bore (210~mm) superconducting 7-Tesla solenoid is at the heart of a Penning trap system for which there is a dedicated beamline at T-REX, the upgraded radioactive beam facility at the Cyclotron Institute, Texas A&M University. In addition to providing a general-purpose decay station, the flagship program for this system is measuring the ft-values and beta-neutrino correlation parameters from isospin T=2 superallowed beta-delayed proton decays, complimenting and expanding the already strong program in fundamental interactions at the Institute. 2) A magneto-optical trap is being used at the TRIUMF Neutral Atom Trap facility to observe the (un)polarized angular distribution parameters of isotopes of potassium. We are able to highly polarize laser-cooled atoms and observe their decay with unprecedented precision. The correlation of the daughter beta particle with the initial nuclear spin as well as other correlations are sensitive to physics beyond the Standard Model. Both of these cutting-edge and exciting research efforts will test our understanding of the fundamental symmetries underlying our current theory of electroweak interactions. Complementary to high-energy collider experiments, these low-energy nuclear physics "table-top" experiments will search for new particles and interactions which are not already described by the Standard Model of particle physics. The value of this research is recognized to be cross-disciplinary, exciting and potentially revolutionary in our understanding of nature's fundamental interactions. Accordingly, it has been endorsed by the recent (2007) Nuclear Science Advisory Committee's Long Range Plan as part of their recommendation for a "New Standard Model Initiative." In addition to the near-term benefits of scholarly publications and visibility through description of this work at international conferences, an important benefit of this research program is the training of new, young and enthusiastic nuclear physicists. Participants in this demanding and rewarding field develop a very strong background in physics with experience in a range of its subfields since we use atomic techniques and apply them to a nuclear physics experiment which in the end tests the theories of high-energy physics.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2018

Scaling of the detonation product state with reactant kinetic energy

Chemical explosives provide one of the most high-power and energy-dense storage materials available. During detonation, transfer of this energy to adjacent materials is governed by the detonation product equation of state. No accurate methodology exists for prediction of this thermodynamic relationship and equation-of-state data continues to be experimentally characterized for each new formulation or charge density. Here we present a universal detonation product equation of state derived from several newly discovered empirical correlations in prior condensed-phase detonation product measurements. This model depends only on initial charge density and detonation velocity as inputs, dramatically simplifying the calibration process relative to existing models, which require measurement of up to seven formulation-specific parameters. This new result implies the product energy density scales with reactant kinetic energy density, which is the product of the explosive initial density and detonation velocity squared, for all condensed-phase energetic materials and that explosive microstructural or chemical details only influence the product energy density though these two parameters.

25 ENERGY STORAGE↗
DOE OSTI2021

Thermal-Hydrological-Mechanical Modelling of Stockton University Reservoir Cooling System, Large Scale Grid

Mesh, properties, initial conditions, injection/withdrawal rates for modeling thermal, hydrological, and mechanical effects of fluid injection to and withdrawal from ground for Stockton University reservoir cooling system (aquifer storage cooling system), Galloway, New Jersey, on large scale grid, with some results. First simulation of J.T. Smith, E. Sonnenthal, P. Dobson, P. Nico, and M. Worthington, 2021. Thermal-hydrological-mechanical modeling of Stockton University reservoir cooling system, Proceedings of the 46th Workshop on Geothermal Reservoir Engineering, Stanford University, SGP-TR-218, from which Figures 1-5 pertain.

15 GEOTHERMAL ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2019

Reconstructing large-scale structure with neutral hydrogen surveys

Upcoming 21-cm intensity surveys will use the hyperfine transition in emission to map out neutral hydrogen in large volumes of the universe. Unfortunately, large spatial scales are completely contaminated with spectrally smooth astrophysical foregrounds which are orders of magnitude brighter than the signal. This contamination also leaks into smaller radial and angular modes to form a foreground wedge, further limiting the usefulness of 21-cm observations for different science cases, especially cross-correlations with tracers that have wide kernels in the radial direction. Here in this paper, we investigate reconstructing these modes within a forward modeling framework. Starting with an initial density field, a suitable bias parameterization and non-linear dynamics to model the observed 21-cm field, our reconstruction proceeds by {combining} the likelihood of a forward simulation to match the observations (under given modeling error and a data noise model) {with the Gaussian prior on initial conditions and maximizing the obtained posterior}. For redshifts z=2 and 4, we are able to reconstruct 21cm field with cross correlation, r c > 0.8 on all scales for both our optimistic and pessimistic assumptions about foreground contamination and for different levels of thermal noise. The performance deteriorates slightly at z=6. The large-scale line-of-sight modes are reconstructed almost perfectly. We demonstrate how our method also provides a technique for density field reconstruction for baryon acoustic oscillations, outperforming standard methods on all scales. We also describe how our reconstructed field can provide superb clustering redshift estimation at high redshifts, where it is otherwise extremely difficult to obtain dense spectroscopic samples, as well as open up a wealth of cross-correlation opportunities with projected fields (e.g. lensing) which are restricted to modes transverse to the line of sight.

21 cm↗
DOE OSTI2023

Improving Experimental Design through Uncertainty Analysis

In this paper, the development of a fission-gas collecting and physical-analysis-enabling instrument was proposed for small-volume determination. Analysis specifications require a design capable of accurately and repeatably determining volumes in the range of 0.07–2.5 mL. This system relies on a series of gas expansions originating from a cylinder with known internal volume. The combined gas law is used to derive the unknown volumes from these expansions. Initial system designs included one of two known volumes, 11.85 ± 0.34 mL and 5.807 ± 0.078 mL, with a manifold volume of 32 mL. Results obtained from modeling this system’s operation showed that 0.07 mL can be determined with a relative expanded uncertainty greater than 300% (k = 2) for a single replicate, which was unacceptable for the proposed experimental design. Initial modeling showed that the volume connecting the known volume and rodlet, i.e., the manifold volume, and the sensitivity of the pressure sensor were key contributors to the expanded uncertainty of the measured rodlet volume. The system’s design limited the available options for pressure sensors, so emphasis was placed on the design of the manifold volume. The final system design reduced the manifold volume to 17 mL. These changes in design, combined with replicate analysis, were able to reduce the relative expanded uncertainty by ±12% (k = 2) for the 0.07 mL volume.

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗
DOE OSTI2023

Dynamically constraining the length of the Milky way bar

ABSTRACT We present a novel method for constraining the length of the Galactic bar using 6D phase-space information to directly integrate orbits. We define a pseudo-length for the Galactic bar, named RFreq, based on the maximal extent of trapped bar orbits. We find the RFreq measured from orbits is consistent with the RFreq of the assumed potential only when the length of the bar and pattern speed of said potential is similar to the model from which the initial phase-space coordinates of the orbits are derived. Therefore, one can measure the model’s or the Milky Way’s bar length from 6D phase-space coordinates by determining which assumed potential leads to a self-consistent measured RFreq. When we apply this method to ≈210 000 stars in APOGEE DR17 and Gaia eDR3 data, we find a consistent result only for potential models with a dynamical bar length of ≈3.5 kpc. We find the Milky Way’s trapped bar orbits extend out to only ≈3.5 kpc, but there is also an overdensity of stars at the end of the bar out to 4.8 kpc which could be related to an attached spiral arm. We also find that the measured orbital structure of the bar is strongly dependent on the properties of the assumed potential.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2017

SURFplus Model Calibration for PBX 9502

The SURFplus reactive burn model is calibrated for the TATB based explosive PBX 9502 at three initial temperatures; hot (75 C), ambient (23 C) and cold (-55 C). The CJ state depends on the initial temperature due to the variation in the initial density and initial specific energy of the PBX reactants. For the reactants, a porosity model for full density TATB is used. This allows the initial PBX density to be set to its measured value even though the coeffcient of thermal expansion for the TATB and the PBX differ. The PBX products EOS is taken as independent of the initial PBX state. The initial temperature also affects the sensitivity to shock initiation. The model rate parameters are calibrated to Pop plot data, the failure diameter, the limiting detonation speed just above the failure diameters, and curvature effect data for small curvature.

45 MILITARY TECHNOLOGY, WEAPONRY, AND NATIONAL DEF↗
DOE OSTI2021

Continued Investigations of Respirable Release Fractions for Stress Corrosion Crack-Like Geometries

The formation of a stress corrosion crack (SCC) in the canister wall of a dry cask storage system (DCSS) has been identified as a potential issue for the long-term storage of spent nuclear fuel. The presence of an SCC in a storage system could represent a through-wall flow path from the canister interior to the environment. Modern, vertical DCSSs are of particular interest due to the commercial practice of using relatively high backfill pressures (up to approximately 800 kPa) in the canister to enhance internal natural convection. This pressure differential offers a comparatively high driving potential for blowdown of any particulates that might be present in the canister. In this study, the rates of gas flow and aerosol transmission of a spent fuel surrogate through an engineered microchannel with dimensions representative of an SCC were evaluated experimentally using coupled mass flow and aerosol analyzers. The microchannel was formed by mating two gage blocks with a linearly tapering slot orifice nominally 13 μm (0.005 in.) tall on the upstream side and 25 μm (0.0010 in.) tall on the downstream side. The orifice is 12.7 mm (0.500 in.) wide by 8.89 mm (0.350 in.) long (flow length). Surrogate aerosols of cerium oxide, CeO 2 , were seeded and mixed with either helium or air inside a pressurized tank. The aerosol characteristics were measured immediately upstream and downstream of the simulated SCC at elevated and ambient pressures, respectively. These data sets are intended to demonstrate a new capability to characterize SCCs under well-controlled boundary conditions. Modeling efforts were also initiated that evaluate the depletion of aerosols in a commercial dry storage canister. These preliminary modeling and ongoing testing efforts are focused on understanding the evolution in both size and quantity of a hypothetical release of aerosolized spent fuel particles from failed fuel to the canister interior and ultimately through an SCC.

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗
DOE OSTI2018

Structural Transition and Antibody Binding of EBOV GP and ZIKV E Proteins from Pre-Fusion to Fusion-Initiation State

Membrane fusion proteins are responsible for viral entry into host cells—a crucial first step in viral infection. Additonally, these proteins undergo large conformational changes from pre-fusion to fusion-initiation structures, and, despite differences in viral genomes and disease etiology, many fusion proteins are arranged as trimers. Structural information for both pre-fusion and fusion-initiation states is critical for understanding virus neutralization by the host immune system. In the case of Ebola virus glycoprotein (EBOV GP) and Zika virus envelope protein (ZIKV E), pre-fusion state structures have been identified experimentally, but only partial structures of fusion-initiation states have been described. While the fusion-initiation structure is in an energetically unfavorable state that is difficult to solve experimentally, the existing structural information combined with computational approaches enabled the modeling of fusion-initiation state structures of both proteins. In conclusion, these structural models provide an improved understanding of four different neutralizing antibodies in the prevention of viral host entry.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2016

THE AGORA HIGH-RESOLUTION GALAXY SIMULATIONS COMPARISON PROJECT. II. ISOLATED DISK TEST

Using an isolated Milky Way-mass galaxy simulation, we compare results from nine state-of-the-art gravito-hydrodynamics codes widely used in the numerical community. We utilize the infrastructure we have built for the AGORA High-resolution Galaxy Simulations Comparison Project. This includes the common disk initial conditions, common physics models (e.g., radiative cooling and UV background by the standardized package Grackle) and common analysis toolkit yt, all of which are publicly available. Subgrid physics models such as Jeans pressure floor, star formation, supernova feedback energy, and metal production are carefully constrained across code platforms. With numerical accuracy that resolves the disk scale height, we find that the codes overall agree well with one another in many dimensions including: gas and stellar surface densities, rotation curves, velocity dispersions, density and temperature distribution functions, disk vertical heights, stellar clumps, star formation rates, and Kennicutt–Schmidt relations. Quantities such as velocity dispersions are very robust (agreement within a few tens of percent at all radii) while measures like newly formed stellar clump mass functions show more significant variation (difference by up to a factor of ∼3). Systematic differences exist, for example, between mesh-based and particle-based codes in the low-density region, and between more diffusive and less diffusive schemes in the high-density tail of the density distribution. Yet intrinsic code differences are generally small compared to the variations in numerical implementations of the common subgrid physics such as supernova feedback. Our experiment reassures that, if adequately designed in accordance with our proposed common parameters, results of a modern high-resolution galaxy formation simulation are more sensitive to input physics than to intrinsic differences in numerical schemes.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2017

Refinements of a treat model for transient analysis

In order to prepare for the TREAT reactor being taken off standby, the Gateway for Advanced Modeling and Simulation Lab has used a set of KENO models to simulate certain TREAT temperature- limited transients using the Transient Reactor excursion simulator (T-ReX) code, a hybrid deterministic-stochastic code. These transients are from the M8CAL experiment series, a set of experiments done to calibrate the reactor for the planned M8 series of fuel tests. Recently, the model has been updated in media definitions and geometry. Models were examined and calculations were performed to low uncertainty values to find the k{sub eff} and reactivity insertions. Alterations to modeled values of shutdown and initial transient rod insertion depth were made to create models which had experimental values of reactivity insertion, pre-transient k{sub eff}, or both. It was found that two of the altered media inputs, fuel and Zircaloy-3 cladding, had significant effect on the k{sub eff}. Surprisingly, the Zircaloy-3 composition had a larger effect on k{sub eff}. The reactivity insertions in this model's 2855, 2856 and 2857 temperature-limited transients were found to be above experimental values by a factor of 5.5% to 7%, and that pre-transient k{sub eff} was too high, at 1.002. It was found that increasing shutdown rod insertion by 2 to 2.5 cm decreased pre-transient k{sub eff} to 1.0, and that increasing shutdown rod insertion by 3 to 5 cm and decreasing initial transient rod insertion by 1 to 2 cm gave perfect pre-transient k{sub eff} and total reactivity insertion. (authors)

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS↗
DOE OSTI2023

A Deep Learning Pipeline for Optimizing Large-scale Phase Field Simulations

Phase field (PF) simulations are computationally expensive but remain a key analysis tool to understand the complex mechanisms of additive manufacturing (AM) processes. Each PF simulation-aided analysis requires thousands of node hours on leadership-class supercomputers. One of the main goals of these analyses is the study of microstructure evolution during the build process which begins with the onset of nucleation. Nucleation occurs under certain thermomechanical conditions which are not known a priori and many PF simulations are required to identify ranges of input thermo-mechanical parameters that can result in the onset of nucleation. Since many of the simulations do not result in nucleation, an analysis campaign often ends up wasting tremendous amounts of precious computing resources executing nucleation-absent simulations. The goal of this work is to design and train deep learning models to inform a PF simulation about the likelihood of the occurrence of nucleation in a future simulation time-step based on the state summary over a finite number of past time-steps of a running simulation. If the prediction determines that the running simulation is unlikely to reach nucleation in the allotted time, then its execution is stopped immediately ultimately resulting in vast reduction in wasted computations when accrued over all the PF simulations typically performed in a single or multiple analysis campaign(s). The paper presents the performance of a machine learning pipeline that uses a convolutional neural network (CNN) model to learn an embedding which is then used with a self-attention network to build a multi-task deep learning model to predict the likelihood of nucleation. The model also predicts the input parameters used in a simulation. Performance is compared with a baseline pipeline that uses an off-the-shelf LeNet-5 model to learn the initial embedding. Despite their smaller size, performance results indicate significant improvement in accuracy of the proposed models compared to the larger baseline models.

Kannan, Ramakrishnan {ramki}↗
DOE OSTI2023

Deep learning-enabled natural language processing to identify directional pharmacokinetic drug–drug interactions

Background. During drug development, it is essential to gather information about the change of clinical exposure of a drug (object) due to the pharmacokinetic (PK) drug-drug interactions (DDIs) with another drug (precipitant). While many natural language processing (NLP) methods for DDI have been published, most were designed to evaluate if (and what kind of) DDI relationships exist in the text, without identifying the direction of DDI (object vs. precipitant drug). Here we present a method for the automatic identification of the directionality of a PK DDI from literature or drug labels. Methods. We reannotated the Text Analysis Conference (TAC) DDI track 2019 corpus for identifying the direction of a PK DDI and evaluated the performance of a fine-tuned BioBERT model on this task by following the training and validation steps prespecified by TAC. Results. This initial attempt showed the model achieved an F-score of 0.82 in identifying sentences as containing PK DDI and an F-score of 0.97 in identifying object versus precipitant drugs in those sentences. Discussion and conclusion. Despite a growing list of NLP methods for DDI extraction, most of them use a common set of corpora to perform general purpose tasks (e.g., classifying a sentence into one of several fixed DDI categories). There is a lack of coordination between the drug development and biomedical informatics method development community to develop corpora and methods to perform specific tasks (e.g., extract clinical exposure changes due to PK DDI). We hope that our effort can encourage such a coordination so that more “fit for purpose” NLP methods could be developed and used to facilitate the drug development process.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2022

Classical and quantum evolution in a simple coherent neutrino problem

The extraordinary neutrino flux produced in extreme astrophysical environments like the early Universe, core-collapse supernovae and neutron star mergers may produce coherent quantum neutrino oscillations on macroscopic length scales. The Hamiltonian describing this evolution can be mapped into quantum spin models with all-to-all couplings arising from neutrino-neutrino forward scattering. To date many studies of these oscillations have been performed in a mean-field limit where the neutrinos time evolve in a product state. In this paper we examine a simple two-beam model evolving from an initial product state and compare the mean-field and many-body evolution. The symmetries in this model allow us to solve the real-time evolution for the quantum many-body system for hundreds or thousands of spins, far beyond what would be possible in a more general case with an exponential number (2 N ) of quantum states. We compare mean-field and many-body solutions for different initial product states and ratios of one- and two-body couplings, and find that in all cases in the limit of infinite spins the mean-field (product state) and many-body solutions coincide for simple observables. This agreement can be understood as a consequence of the fact that the typical initial condition represents a very local but dense distribution about a mean energy in the spectrum of the Hamiltonian. We explore quantum information measures like entanglement entropy and purity of the many-body solutions, finding intriguing relationships between the quantum information measures and the dynamical behavior of simple physical observables.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗