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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 793 records · Page 44
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS1992

Ground-based measurements of galactic cosmic ray fragmentation in shielding

The mean free path for nuclear interactions of galactic cosmic-rays is comparable to shielding and tissue thicknesses present in human interplanetary exploration, resulting in a significant fraction of nuclear reaction products at depth. In order to characterize the radiation field, the energy spectrum, the angular distribution, and the multiplicity of each type of secondary particles must also be known as a function of depth. Reactions can take place anywhere in a thick absorber; therefore, it is necessary to know these quantities as a function of particle energy for all particles produced. HZE transport methods are used to predict the radiation field; they are dependent on models of the interaction of man-made systems with the space environment to an even greater extent than methods used for other types of radiation. Hence, there is a major need to validate these transport codes by comparison with experimental data. The most cost-effective method of validation is a comparison with ground-based experimental measurements. A research program to provide such validation measurements using neon, iron and other accelerated heavy ion beams will be discussed and illustrated using results from ongoing experiments and their comparison with current transport codes. The extent to which physical measurements yield radiobiological predictions will be discussed.

NASA Discipline Radiation Health↗
NASA NTRS2002

Uncertainties in Estimates of the Risks of Late Effects from Space Radiation

The health risks faced by astronauts from space radiation include cancer, cataracts, hereditary effects, and non-cancer morbidity and mortality risks related to the diseases of the old age. Methods used to project risks in low-Earth orbit are of questionable merit for exploration missions because of the limited radiobiology data and knowledge of galactic cosmic ray (GCR) heavy ions, which causes estimates of the risk of late effects to be highly uncertain. Risk projections involve a product of many biological and physical factors, each of which has a differential range of uncertainty due to lack of data and knowledge. Within the linear-additivity model, we use Monte-Carlo sampling from subjective uncertainty distributions in each factor to obtain a Maximum Likelihood estimate of the overall uncertainty in risk projections. The resulting methodology is applied to several human space exploration mission scenarios including ISS, lunar station, deep space outpost, and Mar's missions of duration of 360, 660, and 1000 days. The major results are the quantification of the uncertainties in current risk estimates, the identification of factors that dominate risk projection uncertainties, and the development of a method to quantify candidate approaches to reduce uncertainties or mitigate risks. The large uncertainties in GCR risk projections lead to probability distributions of risk that mask any potential risk reduction using the "optimization" of shielding materials or configurations. In contrast, the design of shielding optimization approaches for solar particle events and trapped protons can be made at this time, and promising technologies can be shown to have merit using our approach. The methods used also make it possible to express risk management objectives in terms of quantitative objective's, i.e., the number of days in space without exceeding a given risk level within well defined confidence limits.

Cucinotta, F. A.↗
DOE OSTI2024

The ALICE experiment: a journey through QCD

The ALICE experiment was proposed in 1993, to study strongly-interacting matter at extreme energy densities and temperatures. This proposal entailed a comprehensive investigation of nuclear collisions at the LHC. Its physics programme initially focused on the determination of the properties of the quark–gluon plasma (QGP), a deconfined state of quarks and gluons, created in such collisions. The ALICE physics programme has been extended to cover a broader ensemble of observables related to Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD), the theory of strong interactions. The experiment has studied Pb–Pb, Xe–Xe, p–Pb and pp collisions in the multi-TeV centre of mass energy range, during the Run 1–2 data-taking periods at the LHC (2009–2018). The aim of this review is to summarise the key ALICE physics results in this endeavor, and to discuss their implications on the current understanding of the macroscopic and microscopic properties of strongly-interacting matter at the highest temperatures reached in the laboratory. It will review the latest findings on the properties of the QGP created by heavy-ion collisions at LHC energies, and describe the surprising QGP-like effects in pp and p–Pb collisions. Measurements of few-body QCD interactions, and their impact in unraveling the structure of hadrons and hadronic interactions, will be discussed. ALICE results relevant for physics topics outside the realm of QCD will also be touched upon. Finally, prospects for future measurements with the ALICE detector in the context of its planned upgrades will also be briefly described.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2022

Comprehensive simulation of heavy-ion collisions at nonzero baryon chemical potential

Here, we present results of hydrodynamic modeling of Au-Au collisions from $\sqrt{s_{NN}}$ = 7.7 to 200 GeV. Our simulations have three novel components. First, we use a Linear EXtrapolation of Ultratrelativistic nucleon-nucleon Scattering to nucleus-nucleus collisions (LEXUS) inspired Monte Carlo initial-state model. Second, we use a crossover equation of state at finite baryon densities without a critical point. Finally, we use departure functions derived from the quasiparticle theory of transport coefficients for hadronic matter at nonzero baryon densities.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2023

Pion, kaon, and (anti)proton production in $\cup + \cup$ collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}} = 193$ GeV measured with the STAR detector

We present the first measurements of transverse momentum spectra of $π^±, K^±, p(\overline{p})$ at midrapidity ($|y|$ < 0.1) in $\cup + \cup$ collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}} = 193$ GeV with the STAR detector at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC). The centrality dependence of particle yields, average transverse momenta, particle ratios and kinetic freezeout parameters are discussed. The results are compared with the published results from Au+Au collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}} = 200$ GeV in STAR. The results are also compared to those from A Multi Phase Transport (AMPT) model.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2024

Dynamical Aspects of the Quark Gluon Plasma

Shortly after the Big Bang the entire universe was filled with a nearly perfect fluid known as the Quark Gluon Plasma. Relativistic heavy ion collisions can now reproduce this fluid in the laboratory where the Quark Gluon Plasma exhibits a rapid but smooth cross-over phase transition into hadrons at vanishing net-baryon densities. Recent experiments plan to explore finite baryon densities where a critical point is expected. If found, this would mark the first discovery of a critical point in a relativistic system described by a fundamental theory of nature, which would have far-reaching consequences for high-energy nuclear physics and nuclear astrophysics (such as in neutron star mergers). Characteristic temperatures of equilibrium (e.g. the inflection point of the entropy density) and transport coefficients (e.g. minimum of the shear viscosity over entropy density) vary widely at a cross-over phase transition but converge at a critical point, and extracting the behavior of these characteristic temperatures is a major focal point of this research. Specifically, the interplay between strange and light hadrons is exploited to study the flavor hierarchy in the cross-over region. To investigate this, a viscous relativistic hydrodynamics framework with two conserved charges is being developed into a new open-source code along with initial conditions that contain baryon number and strangeness. Flow observables sensitive to the equation of state and transport coefficients are calculated across beam energies. New techniques are being developed to study this flavor hierarchy from first principles and to extract the characteristic temperatures from experimental data. Through this new dynamical framework, this project provides essential guidance to the Beam Energy Scan II runs at Relativistic Heavy-Ion Collider and the future Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research facility in the search for the Quantum Chromodynamic critical point and subsequent investigation of the baryon-rich Quark Gluon Plasma.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2024

Probing nuclear structure of heavy ions at energies available at the CERN Large Hadron Collider

We perform high-statistics simulations to study the impacts of nuclear structure on the ratios of anisotropic flow observables in 208 Pb + 208 Pb and 129 Xe + 129 Xe collisions at the Large Hadron Collider. Even with 40% difference in atomic numbers between 208 Pb and 129 Xe nuclei, the ratios of anisotropic flow in the same centrality class between the two collision systems are strongly affected by the nuclear structure inputs in the initial state. The ratios of v 2 ⁡{4}/v 2 ⁡{2} in these collisions are sensitive to the nuclear skin thickness of the colliding nuclei, providing indirect constraints on the nuclei's neutron skin. In conclusion, our model predictions serve as a benchmark to compare with experimental measurements.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2024

Proton and neutron density distributions at supranormal density in low- and medium-energy heavy-ion collisions. II. Central Pb + Pb collisions

This paper represents a continuation of our investigation into the limitations on total, proton, and neutron particle number densities, as well as the asymmetry of proton and neutron density distributions achievable in central heavy-ion collisions. We explore these aspects at low and medium energies within the framework of the Boltzmann-Uhlenbeck-Uehling (pBUU) transport and time-dependent Hartree-Fock (TDHF) models. Previous studies, focusing on symmetric and asymmetric collisions of Ca and Sn nuclei [1], and initial results on Pb-nuclei collisions [2], emphasized the role of the Coulomb interaction in these events. Our findings indicated that: (i) the highest total densities predicted at 𝐸 beam = 800 MeV/nucleon were on the order of ≈ 2.5⁢𝜌 0 (𝜌 0 = 0.16 fm −3 ), (ii) the proton-neutron asymmetry for maximal densities, 𝛿=(𝜌$^{max}_{n}$− 𝜌$^{max}_{p}$)/(𝜌$^{max}_{n}$+𝜌$^{max}_{p}$), did not generally exceed the asymmetry in the initial state of the collision at all beam energies and tended to decrease during the reaction, and (iii) a significant portion of this asymmetry had its microscopic origin in Coulomb forces, masking the pure nuclear contribution. These new findings, particularly relevant in the astrophysical context, are further examined in this work, focusing on the heaviest target-projectile combination 212,208 Pb accessible in an experiment. We introduce the SkT3 Skyrme force model, not previously used for the Pb system, and compare it to the SV-bas and SV-sym34 models to explore the symmetry-energy dependence of the results. Contour plots of nucleonic densities are presented, contrasting the time evolution of the density distributions in low (TDHF) and high (pBUU) models. We also present the evolution of normalized maximal proton, neutron, and total nucleon number density with increasing beam energy in the full pBUU model and the Vlasov approximation, aiming to explore the impact of correlations in the reaction. The time evolution of the proton and neutron density distributions in the plane transverse to the beam direction is illustrated at both low and high beam energy. In conclusion, our detailed examination of the Pb system in this work provides further essential evidence that the aforementioned findings (i)–(iii) are only weakly dependent on system size and a symmetry-energy model, and thus, they are of more general importance.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2024

Jet angularities in dijet production in proton-proton and heavy-ion collisions at RHIC

We study jet angularities for dijet production at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) in proton-proton (pp) and nucleus-nucleus (AA) collisions at 200 GeV nucleon-nucleon center-of-mass collision energy. In particular, we provide NLL resummed predictions for angularity observables of groomed and ungroomed jets produced in pp collisions matched to next-to-leading order QCD calculations resulting in NLO + NLL ' accuracy. Our parton-level predictions are corrected for non-perturbative effects, such as hadronization and underlying event, using parton-to-hadron level transfer matrices obtained with the Sherpa event generator. Furthermore, we use the Q-PYTHIA and JEWEL generators to estimate the impact of the interaction between quarks and gluons produced by the parton shower with the dense medium formed in heavy-ion collisions on the considered jet angularities.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2020

Heavy quark transport: a theoretical overview

A brief overview on heavy-quark-QGP interactions is presented in this work. Theories at different momentum scales are summarized, including the flavor hierarchy of jet energy loss at high pT, hadronization and the charmed hadron chemistry at medium to low pT, and the extraction of the heavy-quark-QGP potential at low pT. Additionally, recent theoretical developments on heavy quark theories are discussed, such as multi-scale transport models of heavy quarks, probing initial state effects and cold nuclear matter effects using heavy quarks, as well as extending studies from single heavy flavor hadrons to heavy flavor jets.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2025

Measurement of substructure-dependent suppression of large-radius jets with charged particles in Pb+Pb collisions with ATLAS

Measurements of jet substructure in Pb+Pb collisions provide key insights into the mechanism of jet quenching in the hot and dense QCD medium created in these collisions. This Letter presents a measurement of the suppression of large-radius jets with a radius parameter of $R = 1.0$ and its dependence on the jet substructure. The measurement uses 1.72 nb$^{-1}$ of Pb+Pb data and 255 pb$^{-1}$ of $pp$ data, both at $\sqrt{s_{_\mathrm{NN}}} = 5.02$ TeV, recorded with the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider. Large-radius jets are reconstructed by reclustering $R = 0.2$ calorimetric jets and are measured for transverse momentum above $200$ GeV. Jet substructure is evaluated using charged-particle tracks, and the overall level of jet suppression is quantified using the jet nuclear modification factor ($R_\mathrm{AA}$). The jet $R_\mathrm{AA}$ is measured as a function of jet $p_{\mathrm{T}}$, the charged $k_t$ splitting scale ($\sqrt{d_{12}}$), and the angular separation ($dR_{12}$) of two leading sub-jets. The jet $R_\mathrm{AA}$ gradually decreases with increasing $\sqrt{d_{12}}$, implying significantly stronger suppression of large-radius jets with larger $k_t$ splitting scale. The jet $R_\mathrm{AA}$ gradually decreases for $dR_{12}$ in the range $0.01{-}0.2$ and then remains consistent with a constant for $ΔR_{12} \gtrsim 0.2$. The observed significant dependence of jet suppression on the jet substructure will provide new insights into its role in the quenching process.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2020

Charmed hadron production in an improved quark coalescence model

Here, we study the production of charmed hadrons $D^0$ and $Λ^+_c$ in relativistic heavy ion collisions using the charm quark coalescence. Besides taking into consideration changing hadron sizes in a hot dense medium, which results in an enhanced coalescence probability for charm quarks of very low transverse momenta, we also include the collective flow effect on heavier resonances, which leads to a shift of massive charmed resonances to larger transverse momenta. Including the conversion of charm quarks not undergoing coalescence to hadrons by independent fragmentation, we obtain a good description of the measured yield ratio $Λ^+_c/D^0$ as a function of transverse momentum in Au + Au collisions at $\sqrt{s_{\mathrm{NN}}}$ = 200 GeV by the STAR Collaboration at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2021

Exclusive dimuon production in ultraperipheral Pb+Pb collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}$ = 5.02 TeV with ATLAS

Exclusive dimuon production in ultraperipheral collisions (UPC), resulting from photon-photon interactions in the strong electromagnetic fields of colliding high-energy lead nuclei, PbPb(γγ) → μ + μ - (Pb (*) Pb (*) ), is studied using $\mathcal{L}$ int = 0.48 nb -1 of $\sqrt{s_{NN}}$ = 5.02 TeV lead-lead collision data at the LHC with the ATLAS detector. Dimuon pairs are measured in the fiducial region p T,μ >4 GeV, |η μ |<2.4, invariant mass m μμ >10 GeV, and p T,μμ <2 GeV. The primary background from single-dissociative processes is extracted from the data using a template fitting technique. Differential cross sections are presented as a function of m μμ , absolute pair rapidity (|y μμ |), scattering angle in the dimuon rest frame (| cos $\mathscr{O}$$^{*}_{μμ}$|), and the colliding photon energies. The total cross section of the UPC γγ → μ + μ - process in the fiducial volume is measured to be $σ^{μμ}_{fid}$ = 34.1 ± 0.3(stat.) ± 0.7(syst.) μb. Generally good agreement is found with calculations from STARlight, which incorporate the leading-order Breit-Wheeler process with no final-state effects, albeit differences between the measurements and theoretical expectations are observed. In particular, the measured cross sections at larger |y μμ | are found to be about 10–20% larger in data than in the calculations, suggesting the presence of larger fluxes of photons in the initial state. Modification of the dimuon cross sections in the presence of forward and/or backward neutron production is also studied and is found to be associated with a harder incoming photon spectrum, consistent with expectations.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2021

Application of machine learning in the determination of impact parameter in the 132 Sn+ 124 Sn system

Here, 132 Sn + 124 Sn collisions at a beam energy of 270 MeV/nucleon were performed at the Radioactive Isotope Beam Factory (RIBF) in RIKEN to investigate the nuclear equation of state. Reconstructing the impact parameter is one of the important tasks in the experiment as it relates to many observable. In this work, we employ three commonly used algorithms in machine learning, the artificial neural network (ANN), the convolutional neural network (CNN), and the light gradient boosting machine (LightGBM), to determine the impact parameter by analyzing either the charged particle spectra or several features simulated with events from the ultrarelativistic quantum molecular dynamics (UrQMD) model. To closely imitate experimental data and investigate the generalizability of the trained machine learning algorithms, incompressibility of nuclear equation of state and the in-medium nucleon-nucleon cross sections are varied in the UrQMD model to generate the training data. The mean absolute error Δb between the true and the predicted impact parameter is smaller than 0.45 fm if training and testing sets are sampled from the UrQMD model with the same parameter set. However, if training and testing sets are sampled with different parameter sets, Δb would increase to 0.8 fm. The generalizability of the trained machine learning algorithms suggests that these machine learning algorithms can be used reliably to reconstruct the impact parameter in experiment.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2022

Checking nonflow assumptions and results via PHENIX published correlations in p+p, p+Au, d+Au, and 3 He+Au at √ s NN=200 GeV

Recently the PHENIX Collaboration has made available two-particle correlation Fourier coefficients for multiple detector combinations in minimum bias p+p and 0–5% central p+Au, d+Au, and 3 He+Au collisions at √ s NN = 200 GeV [Phys. Rev. C 105, 024901 (2022)]. Using these coefficients for three sets of two-particle correlations, azimuthal anisotropy coefficients v 2 and v 3 are extracted for midrapidity charged hadrons as a function of transverse momentum. In this paper, we use the available coefficients to explore various nonflow hypotheses as well as to compare the results with theoretical model calculations. The nonflow methods fail basic closure tests with ampt and pythia/angantyr, particularly when including correlations with particles in the low multiplicity light-projectile going direction. In data, the nonflow adjusted v 2 results are modestly lower in p+Au and the adjusted v 3 results are more significantly higher in p+Au and d+Au. However, the resulting higher values for the ratio v 3 /v 2 in p+Au at RHIC compared to p+Pb at the LHC is additional evidence for a significant overcorrection. Incorporating these additional checks, the conclusion that these flow coefficients are dominated by initial geometry coupled with final-state interactions (e.g., hydrodynamic expansion of quark-gluon plasma) remains true, and explanations based solely on initial-state glasma are ruled out. The detailed balance between intrinsic and fluctuation-driven geometry and the exact role of weakly versus strongly coupled prehydrodynamic evolution remains an open question for triangular flow, requiring further theoretical and experimental investigation.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗