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At least 775 records · Page 43

Collective plasma effects of electron–positron pairs in beam-driven QED cascades

Understanding the interplay of strong-field QED and collective plasma effects is important for explaining extreme astrophysical environments like magnetars. It has been shown that QED pair plasma can be produced and observed by passing a relativistic electron beam through an intense laser field. This work presents in detail multiple sets of 3D QED-particle-in-cell simulations to show the creation of pair plasma in the QED cascade. The beam driven method enables a high pair particle density and also a low particle Lorentz factor, which both play equal roles on exhibiting large collective plasma effects. Finite laser frequency upshift is observed with both ideal parameters (24 PW laser colliding with a 300 GeV electron beam) and with existing technologies (3 PW laser colliding with a 30 GeV electron beam).

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

Editorial for the Collection "Preparatory Work for the American Wake Experiment (AWAKEN)"

The American WAKE experimeNt (AWAKEN) is a large field campaign focused on gathering observations for improved understanding of atmospheric and wind power plant flow physics, one of the outstanding needs for the wind energy community as described in the Science paper by Veers et al.1 "Grand challenges in wind energy." AWAKEN was planned over several years with an international consortium of numerous stakeholders, including national laboratories, academic researchers, wind turbine manufacturers, and wind farm operators. A highlight of the AWAKEN campaign is the extensive use of remote sensing instrumentation to characterize the atmosphere and its interactions with wind power plants, enabled by recent developments in lidar, radar, and thermodynamic profiling technology. Advanced modeling techniques like mesoscale and large-eddy simulations (LES) also played an important role in the preparation of the experiment and the interpretation of the experimental data collected. This special-topic issue for the Journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy presents a collection of 12 papers that describe the preparatory work and some initial analyses from the AWAKEN campaign. An overview of the contents of the various papers in this special issue is provided in Sec. II.

17 WIND ENERGY↗

Role of collective preparation and measurement of states in some quantum communication protocols

We consider related problems in quantum communications: distribution of information and a secret key between a sender and several receivers. We study the gain of participants of communication protocols both from the use of collective measurements and from collective actions at the transmitter’s side related to the employment of entangled states and various actions on them. (paper)

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

Disentangling the chemistry of Australian plant exudates from a unique historical collection

For thousands of years, the unique physicochemical properties of plant exudates have defined uses in material culture and practical applications. Native Australian plant exudates, including resins, kinos, and gums, have been used and continue to be used by Aboriginal Australians for numerous technical and cultural purposes. A historic collection of well-preserved native Australian plant exudates, assembled a century ago by plant naturalists, gives a rare window into the history and chemical composition of these materials. Here we report the full hierarchical characterization of four genera from this collection, Xanthorrhoea, Callitris, Eucalyptus, and Acacia, from the local elemental speciation, to functional groups and main molecular markers. We use high-resolution X-ray Raman spectroscopy (XRS) to achieve bulk-sensitive chemical speciation of these plant exudates, including insoluble, amorphous, and cross-linked fractions, without the limitation of invasive and/or surface specific methods. Combinatorial testing of the XRS data allows direct classification of these complex natural species as terpenoid, aromatic, phenolic, and polysaccharide materials. Differences in intragenera chemistry was evidenced by detailed interpretation of the XRS spectral features. We complement XRS with Fourier-transform infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy, gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC-MS), and pyrolysis–GC-MS (Py-GC-MS). This multimodal approach provides a fundamental understanding of the chemistry of these natural materials long used by Aboriginal Australian peoples.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

hpMCA: A Python-based Graphical Program for Energy Dispersive X-Ray Diffraction Data Collection and Analysis

Energy-dispersive X-ray diffraction (EDXD) at synchrotron beamlines is commonly used for the study of material properties under high pressure and/or high temperature. Experimenters typically rely on the availability of robust data collection and analysis at a beamline, but this has become increasingly difficult, especially with the introduction of multi-element detectors that generate complex, multi-dimensional data sets. These data sets have energy resolution, and they can also be resolved in relation to sample position, diffraction angle, or different external stimuli. We report a new Python-based graphical program, hpMCA, for EDXD data collection and analysis that streamlines the experimental process for the beamline users. The program features a user-friendly interface, capability for online viewing and analyzing data from multi-element energy-dispersive detectors, and includes features useful for working with samples under high pressure and/or high temperature, such as crystal phase identification, real-time unit cell lattice refinement, and pressure determination based on an equation of state.

data analysis software↗

Collective properties of neutron-star X-ray binary populations of galaxies. II. Pre-low-mass X-ray binary properties, formation rates, and constraints

We continue our exploration of the collective properties of neutron-star X-ray binaries in the stellar fields (i.e., outside globular clusters) of normal galaxies. In Paper I of this series, we considered high-mass X-ray binaries (HMXBs). In this paper (Paper II), we consider low-mass X-ray binaries (LMXBs), whose evolutionary scenario is very different from that of HMXBs. We consider the evolution of primordial binaries up to the stage where the neutron star just formed in the supernova explosion of the primary is in a binary with its low-mass, unevolved companion, and this binary has circularized tidally, producing what we call a pre-low-mass X-ray binary (pre-LMXB). We study the constraints on the formation of such pre-LMXBs in detail (since these are low-probability events), and calculate their collective properties and formation rates. To this end, we first consider the changes in the binary parameters in the various steps involved, viz., the common-envelope phase, the supernova, and the tidal evolution. This naturally leads to a clarification of the constraints. We then describe our calculation of the evolution of the distributions of primordial binary parameters into those of pre-LMXB parameters, following the standard evolutionary scenario for individual binaries. We display the latter as both bivariate and monovariate distributions, discuss their essential properties, and indicate the influences of some essential factors on these. Finally, we calculate the formation rate of these pre-LMXBs. The results of this paper will be used in a subsequent one to compute the expected X-ray luminosity function of LMXBs.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Collective outflow from a small multiple stellar system

The formation of high-mass stars is usually accompanied by powerful protostellar outflows. Such high-mass outflows are not simply scaled-up versions of their lower-mass counterparts, since observations suggest that the collimation degree degrades with stellar mass. Theoretically, the origins of massive outflows remain open to question because radiative feedback and fragmentation of the accretion flow around the most massive stars, with M > 15 M {sub ☉}, may impede the driving of magnetic disk winds. We here present a three-dimensional simulation of the early stages of core fragmentation and massive star formation that includes a subgrid-scale model for protostellar outflows. We find that stars that form in a common accretion flow tend to have aligned outflow axes, so that the individual jets of multiple stars can combine to form a collective outflow. We compare our simulation to observations with synthetic H{sub 2} and CO observations and find that the morphology and kinematics of such a collective outflow resembles some observed massive outflows, such as Cepheus A and DR 21. We finally compare physical quantities derived from simulated observations of our models to the actual values in the models to examine the reliability of standard methods for deriving physical quantities, demonstrating that those methods indeed recover the actual values to within a factor of two to three.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Creating pair plasmas with observable collective effects

Although existing technology cannot yet directly produce fields at the Schwinger level, experimental facilities can already explore strong-field QED phenomena by taking advantage of the Lorentz boost of energetic electron beams. Recent studies show that QED cascades can create electron-positron pairs at sufficiently high density to exhibit collective plasma effects. Signatures of the collective pair plasma effects can appear in exquisite detail through plasmainduced frequency upshifts and chirps in the laser spectrum. Maximizing the magnitude of the QED plasma signature demands high pair density and low pair energy, which suits the configuration of colliding an over 10 18 Jm -3 energy-density electron beam with a 10 22 -10 23 Wcm -2 intensity laser pulse. The collision creates pairs that have a large plasma frequency, made even larger as they slow down or reverse direction due to both the radiation reaction and laser pressure. This paper explains at a tutorial level the key properties of the QED cascades and laser frequency upshift, and at the same time finds the minimum parameters that can be used to produce observable QED plasma.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

Describing massive neutrinos in cosmology as a collection of independent flows

A new analytical approach allowing to account for massive neutrinos in the non-linear description of the growth of the large-scale structure of the universe is proposed. Unlike the standard approach in which neutrinos are described as a unique hot fluid, it is shown that the overall neutrino fluid can be equivalently decomposed into a collection of independent flows. Starting either from elementary conservation equations or from the evolution equation of the phase-space distribution function and assuming that there is no shell-crossing, we derive the two non-linear motion equations that each of these flows satisfies. Those fluid equations describe the evolution of macroscopic fields. We explain in detail the connection between the collection of flows we defined and the standard massive neutrino fluid. Then, in the particular case of adiabatic initial conditions, we explicitly check that, at linear order, the resolution of this new system of equations reproduces the results obtained in the standard approach based on the collisionless Boltzmann hierarchy. Besides, the approach advocated in this paper allows to show how each neutrino flow settles into the cold dark matter flow depending on initial velocities. Although valid up to shell-crossing only, it is a further step towards a fully non-linear treatment of the dynamical evolution of neutrinos in the framework of large-scale structure growth.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

Increasing the efficiency of photon collection in LArTPCs: the ARAPUCA light trap

The Liquid Argon Time Projection Chambers (LArTPCs) are a choice for the next generation of large neutrino detectors due to their optimal performance in particle tracking and calorimetry. The detection of Argon scintillation light plays a crucial role in the event reconstruction as well as the time reference for non-beam physics such as supernovae neutrino detection and baryon number violation studies. Here in this contribution, we present the current R&D work on the ARAPUCA (Argon R&D Advanced Program at UNICAMP), a light trap device to enhance Ar scintillation light collection and thus the overall performance of LArTPCs. The ARAPUCA working principle is based on a suitable combination of dichroic filters and wavelength shifters to achieve a high efficiency in light collection. We discuss the operational principles, the last results of laboratory tests and the application of the ARAPUCA as the alternative photon detection system in the protoDUNE detector.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗

Simulations of the nEDM@SNS light collection system efficiency

Here, a system for collecting the scintillation light produced by the capture of ultra-cold neutrons (UCN) on polarized 3 He is discussed and results from simulations of its performance are presented. This system will be implemented in nEDM@SNS, the experiment searching for the neutron electric dipole moment (nEDM) at the Spallation Neutron Source (SNS) at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Simulation results show that the light collection system detects on average 17 photoelectrons per UCN- 3 He capture event (sufficient to generate a robust signal), reconstructs the event location in the beam direction to approximately 3 cm accuracy, detects capture events with a high and spatially uniform efficiency (0.95 with 1% variation), and rejects greater than 50% of beta decay background events.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗

K-means-driven Gaussian Process data collection for angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy

Abstract We propose the combination of k-means clustering with Gaussian Process (GP) regression in the analysis and exploration of 4D angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) data. Using cluster labels as the driving metric on which the GP is trained, this method allows us to reconstruct the experimental phase diagram from as low as 12% of the original dataset size. In addition to the phase diagram, the GP is able to reconstruct spectra in energy-momentum space from this minimal set of data points. These findings suggest that this methodology can be used to improve the efficiency of ARPES data collection strategies for unknown samples. The practical feasibility of implementing this technology at a synchrotron beamline and the overall efficiency implications of this method are discussed with a view on enabling the collection of more samples or rapid identification of regions of interest.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗

The MetaCyc database of metabolic pathways and enzymes and the BioCyc collection of Pathway/Genome Databases

The MetaCyc database (MetaCyc.org) is a comprehensive and freely accessible database describing metabolic pathways and enzymes from all domains of life. MetaCyc pathways are experimentally determined, mostly small-molecule metabolic pathways and are curated from the primary scientific literature. MetaCyc contains >2100 pathways derived from >37 000 publications, and is the largest curated collection of metabolic pathways currently available. BioCyc (BioCyc.org) is a collection of >3000 organism-specific Pathway/Genome Databases (PGDBs), each containing the full genome and predicted metabolic network of one organism, including metabolites, enzymes, reactions, metabolic pathways, predicted operons, transport systems and pathway-hole fillers. Additions to BioCyc over the past 2 years include YeastCyc, a PGDB for Saccharomyces cerevisiae, and 891 new genomes from the Human Microbiome Project. The BioCyc Web site offers a variety of tools for querying and analysis of PGDBs, including Omics Viewers and tools for comparative analysis. New developments include atom mappings in reactions, a new representation of glycan degradation pathways, improved compound structure display, better coverage of enzyme kinetic data, enhancements of the Web Groups functionality, improvements to the Omics viewers, a new representation of the Enzyme Commission system and, for the desktop version of the software, the ability to save display states.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗

Stokes-dependent droplet collection efficiency on a NACA 0012 airfoil from droplet-informed simulations with statistical overloading

Accurate modelling of ice accretion on aircraft wings requires analysing droplet impingement on the surface to optimize the design of ice-protection systems. We perform Euler–Lagrange simulations of a droplet-laden flow impinging on a NACA 0012 airfoil. Our study includes water droplets with eight discrete sizes ranging from 1 to 160 microns. We vary the free-stream velocity of the incoming airflow in the range 60 ≤ U ≤ 240 m s −1 and the chord length of the airfoil in the range 0.5 ≤ c ≤ 2 m. Due to the dilute nature of supercooled clouds, one-way coupling is used in the simulations. The effects of droplet breakup and collision are also neglected. To reduce the computational cost, we employ statistical overloading of droplets, allowing us to simulate millions of impinging droplets in a time span on the order of milliseconds. Our results show that the droplet collection efficiency, which measures the likelihood of droplet impingement on the airfoil surface, increases with droplet size and free-stream velocity but decreases with airfoil size. We demonstrate that collection efficiency, impingement velocity and impingement angle are primarily dictated by a single non-dimensional parameter, the droplet Stokes number. We also identify a critical stagnation-streamline Stokes number below which impingements do not occur and use it to estimate the minimum droplet size for impingement. In addition, we observe droplet behaviour to become Stokes number independent at large values of the Stokes number. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Heat and mass transfer in frost and ice’.

Science & Technology - Other Topics↗

Unraveling Fano noise and the partial-charge-collection effect in x-ray spectra below 1 keV

Fano noise, readout noise, and the partial-charge-collection (PCC) effect collectively contribute to the degradation of energy spectra in charge-coupled device (CCD) measurements, especially at low energies. Here, in this work, the x rays produced by the fluorescence of fluorine (677 eV) and aluminum (1486 eV) were recorded using a Skipper-CCD, which enabled the readout noise to be reduced to 0.2 e - . Based on an analytical description of photopeak shapes resulting from the convolution of the PCC effect and Fano noise, we achieved a precise characterization of the energy spectra. This description enabled us to disentangle and quantify the contributions from both Fano noise and the PCC effect. As a result, we determined the Fano factor and the electron-hole pair creation energy. Additionally, we estimated the PCC region of the sensor and, for the first time, experimentally observed the expected skewness of photopeaks at low energies.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗

Universal collective modes in two-dimensional chiral superfluids

In this work, we utilize semiclassical kinetic equations to investigate the order parameter collective modes of a class of two-dimensional superfluids. Extending the known results for p-wave superfluids, we show that for any chiral ground state of angular momentum L ≥ 1, there exists a subgap mode with a mass √2Δ in the BCS limit, where Δ is the magnitude of the ground-state gap. We determine the most significant Landau parameter that contributes to the mass renormalization and show explicitly that the renormalized modes become massless at the Pomeranchuk instability of the fermion vacuum. Particularly for L = 1, we propose a continuous field theory to include the Fermi liquid effect in a quadrupolar channel and produce the same result under consistent approximations. Furthermore, they provide potential diagnostics for distinguishing two-dimensional chiral ground states of different angular momenta with the order parameter collective modes and reveal another low-energy degree of freedom near the nematic transition.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗

Proximity-induced collective modes in an unconventional superconductor heterostructure

Unconventional superconductors have been long sought for their potential applications in quantum technologies and devices. A key challenge impeding this effort is the difficulty associated with probing and characterizing candidate materials and establishing their order parameter. Here we present a platform that allows one to spectroscopically probe unconventional superconductivity in thin-layer materials via the proximity effect. Here we show that inducing an s-wave gap in a sample with an intrinsic d-wave instability leads to the formation of bound states of quasiparticle pairs, which manifest as a collective mode in the d-wave channel. This finding provides a way to study the underlying pairing interactions vicariously through the collective mode spectrum of the system. Upon further cooling of the system we observe that this mode softens considerably and may even condense, signaling the onset of time-reversal symmetry-breaking superconductivity. Therefore, our proposal also allows for the creation and study of these elusive unconventional states.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Coincidence of collective relaxation anomaly and specific heat peak in a bulk metallic glass-forming liquid

The study of multicomponent metallic liquids' relaxational behavior is still the key to understanding and improving the glass-forming abilities of bulk metallic glasses. Here, we report measurements of the collective relaxation times in a melted bulk metallic glass (LM601Zr 51 Cu 36 Ni 4 Al 9 ) in the kinetic regime (Q: 1.5–4.0Å –1 ) using quasielastic neutron scattering. The results reveal an unusual slope change in the Angell plots of this metallic liquid's collective relaxation time around 950°C, beyond the material's melting point. Measurement of specific heat capacity also reveals a peak around the same temperature. Adams-Gibbs theory is used to rationalize the coincidence, which motivates more careful experimental and computational studies of the metallic liquids in the future.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗