Engineering Papers⌕ Search

SEARCH · Engineering Papers

Results for “model checking”

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.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 793 records · Page 44

Theoretical Modeling of Electromagnetic Field from Electron Bunches in Periodic Wire Medium

The interaction of relativistic electrons with periodic conducting structures results in radiation via a number of mechanisms. In case of crystals one obtains parametric X-ray radiation, its frequency is determined by the distance between crystallographic planes and the direction of electron beam. If instead of a crystal one considers a periodic structure of metallic wires with the spacing of the order of mm, it is plausible to expect the emission of radiation of a similar nature (“diffraction response”) at THz frequencies. Additionally, a “long-wave” radiation will occur in this case with wavelengths much larger then structure periods. In this contribution, we present different theoretical approaches for describing the electromagnetic radiation field from prolonged electron bunch propagated in the lattice of metallic wires. The validity of these analytical descriptions is checked by numerical simulations. We discuss the possible applications of aforementioned structure as sources of coherent THz radiation.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗

Cross-correlation between the CMB lensing potential measured bY Planck and high-z submillimeter galaxies detected by the Herschel-ATLAS Survey

We present the first measurement of the correlation between the map of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) lensing potential derived from the Planck nominal mission data and z≳1.5 galaxies detected by the Herschel-ATLAS (H-ATLAS) survey covering about 600 deg{sup 2}, i.e., about 1.4% of the sky. We reject the hypothesis that there is no correlation between CMB lensing and galaxy detection at a 20σ significance, checking the result by performing a number of null tests. The significance of the detection of the theoretically expected cross-correlation signal is found to be 10σ. The galaxy bias parameter, b, derived from a joint analysis of the cross-power spectrum and of the autopower spectrum of the galaxy density contrast is found to be b=2.80{sub −0.11}{sup +0.12}, consistent with earlier estimates for H-ATLAS galaxies at similar redshifts. On the other hand, the amplitude of the cross-correlation is found to be a factor 1.62 ± 0.16 higher than expected from the standard model and also found by cross-correlation analyses with other tracers of the large-scale structure. The enhancement due to lensing magnification can account for only a fraction of the excess cross-correlation signal. We suggest that part of it may be due to an incomplete removal of the contamination of the cosmic infrared background, which includes the H-ATLAS sources we are cross-correlating with. In any case, the highly significant detection reported here using a catalog covering only 1.4% of the sky demonstrates the potential of CMB lensing correlations with submillimeter surveys.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Denial of Service Attack Detection via Differential Analysis of Generalized Entropy Progressions

Denial-of-Service (DoS) attacks are one the most common and consequential cyber attacks in computer networks. While existing research offers a plethora of detection methods, the issue of achieving scalability, a low false positive rate, and high detection accuracy remains open. In this work, we address this problem by developing a differential method based on generalized entropy progression. In this method, named as DoDGE, we continuously fit the line of best fit to the entropy progression of destination addresses and check if the derivative, that is, the slope of this line is less than the negative of the dynamically computed standard deviation of the derivatives. Furthermore, to distinguish from flash events, we leverage the symmetry that when a flash event occurs, the derivative of the entropy progression of source addresses is positive. With this design, we omit the usage of the thresholds and the results with five real-world network traffic datasets confirm that DoDGE outperforms threshold-based DoS attack detection by two orders of magnitude in terms of false positives on average. When compared to ten machine learning (ML) models, DoDGE achieves a balanced accuracy of 99%, while the average balanced accuracy for the ML models is 52%. Moreover, the results show that DoDGE successfully differentiates between a flash event and a DoS attack. Furthermore, since the main computation cost of DoDGE is the entropy computation, which is linear in the volume of the unit-time network flow, uses integer only operations, and works on a small fraction of the total flow, it is lightweight and scalable.

Cybersecurity, wireless communication↗

SU-F-P-37: Implementation of An End-To-End QA Test of the Radiation Therapy Imaging, Planning and Delivery Process to Identify and Correct Possible Sources of Deviation

Purpose: To implement an end-to-end QA test of the radiation therapy imaging, planning and delivery process, aimed to assess the dosimetric agreement accuracy between planned and delivered treatment, in order to identify and correct possible sources of deviation. To establish an internal standard for machine commissioning acceptance. Methods: A test involving all steps of the radiation therapy: imaging, planning and delivery process was designed. The test includes analysis of point dose and planar dose distributions agreement between TPS calculated and measured dose. An ad hoc 16 cm diameter PMMA phantom was constructed with one central and four peripheral bores that can accommodate calibrated electron density inserts. Using Varian Eclipse 10.0 and Elekta XiO 4.50 planning systems, IMRT, RapidArc and 3DCRT with hard and dynamic wedges plans were planned on the phantom and tested. An Exradin A1SL chamber is used with a Keithley 35617EBS electrometer for point dose measurements in the phantom. 2D dose distributions were acquired using MapCheck and Varian aS1000 EPID.Gamma analysis was performed for evaluation of 2D dose distribution agreement using MapCheck software and Varian Portal Dosimetry Application.Varian high energy Clinacs Trilogy, 2100C/CD, 2000CR and low energy 6X/EX where tested.TPS-CT# vs. electron density table were checked for CT-scanners used. Results: Calculated point doses were accurate to 0.127% SD: 0.93%, 0.507% SD: 0.82%, 0.246% SD: 1.39% and 0.012% SD: 0.01% for LoX-3DCRT, HiX-3DCRT, IMRT and RapidArc plans respectively. Planar doses pass gamma 3% 3mm in all cases and 2% 2mm for VMAT plans. Conclusion: Implementation of a simple and reliable quality assurance tool was accomplished. The end-to-end proved efficient, showing excellent agreement between planned and delivered dose evidencing strong consistency of the whole process from imaging through planning to delivery. This test can be used as a first step in beam model acceptance for clinical use.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗

A new multi-energy neutrino radiation-hydrodynamics code in full general relativity and its application to the gravitational collapse of massive stars

We present a new multi-dimensional radiation-hydrodynamics code for massive stellar core-collapse in full general relativity (GR). Employing an M1 analytical closure scheme, we solve spectral neutrino transport of the radiation energy and momentum based on a truncated moment formalism. Regarding neutrino opacities, we take into account a baseline set in state-of-the-art simulations, in which inelastic neutrino–electron scattering, thermal neutrino production via pair annihilation, and nucleon–nucleon bremsstrahlung are included. While the Einstein field equations and the spatial advection terms in the radiation-hydrodynamics equations are evolved explicitly, the source terms due to neutrino–matter interactions and energy shift in the radiation moment equations are integrated implicitly by an iteration method. To verify our code, we first perform a series of standard radiation tests with analytical solutions that include the check of gravitational redshift and Doppler shift. A good agreement in these tests supports the reliability of the GR multi-energy neutrino transport scheme. We then conduct several test simulations of core-collapse, bounce, and shock stall of a 15M{sub ⊙} star in the Cartesian coordinates and make a detailed comparison with published results. Our code performs quite well to reproduce the results of full Boltzmann neutrino transport especially before bounce. In the postbounce phase, our code basically performs well, however, there are several differences that are most likely to come from the insufficient spatial resolution in our current 3D-GR models. For clarifying the resolution dependence and extending the code comparison in the late postbounce phase, we discuss that next-generation Exaflops class supercomputers are needed at least.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Mosaicked Historic Airborne Imagery from Seward Peninsula, Alaska, Starting in the 1950's

Historical airborne imagery for each Seward Peninsula NGEE Arctic site - Teller, Kougarok, Council - were obtained with multiple years for each site in order to identify landscape changes over time when compared to more recent imagery. This dataset includes mosaicked, geolocated and, where possible, orthorectified, historic airborne and recent satellite imagery. The older photos were sourced from the USGS Earth Explorer site and the newer, satellite imagery is from the Statewide Digital Mapping Initiative (SDMI) project managed by the Geographic Information Network of Alaska on behalf of the state of Alaska. Check with Jessica Cherry (jessica.cherry@alaska.edu), University of Alaska, and Lisa Wirth (lisa@gina.alaska.edu), Geographic Information Network of Alaska (GINA) and the Statewide Digital Mapping Initiative (SDMI), for citation information and redistribution restrictions of the imagery. Dataset includes the following types of files: *.tif, *.txt, *.pdf, *.jpg, *.xml. Please refer to metadata files included inside the data folders for detailed descriptions of the data products. The use of historical aerial photographs in combination with more recent satellite imagery has proven effective at detecting and quantifying landscape changes. The Next-Generation Ecosystem Experiments: Arctic (NGEE Arctic), was a research effort to reduce uncertainty in Earth System Models by developing a predictive understanding of carbon-rich Arctic ecosystems and feedbacks to climate. NGEE Arctic was supported by the Department of Energy's Office of Biological and Environmental Research. The NGEE Arctic project had two field research sites: 1) located within the Arctic polygonal tundra coastal region on the Barrow Environmental Observatory (BEO) and the North Slope near Utqiagvik (Barrow), Alaska and 2) multiple areas on the discontinuous permafrost region of the Seward Peninsula north of Nome, Alaska. Through observations, experiments, and synthesis with existing datasets, NGEE Arctic provided an enhanced knowledge base for multi-scale modeling and contributed to improved process representation at global pan-Arctic scales within the Department of Energy's Earth system Model (the Energy Exascale Earth System Model, or E3SM), and specifically within the E3SM Land Model component (ELM).

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Manifesting enhanced cancellations in supergravity: integrands versus integrals

We have found examples of `enhanced ultraviolet cancellations' with no known standard-symmetry explanation in a variety of supergravity theories. Furthermore, by examining one- and two-loop examples in four- and five-dimensional half-maximal supergravity, we argue that enhanced cancellations in general cannot be exhibited prior to integration. In light of this, we explore reorganizations of integrands into parts that are manifestly finite and parts that have poor power counting but integrate to zero due to integral identities. At two loops we find that in the large loop-momentum limit the required integral identities follow from Lorentz and SL(2) relabeling symmetry. We carry out a nontrivial check at four loops showing that the identities generated in this way are a complete set. We propose that at L loops the combination of Lorentz and SL(L) symmetry is sufficient for displaying enhanced cancellations when they happen, whenever the theory is known to be ultraviolet finite up to (L - 1) loops.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

Failure prediction using machine learning in a virtualised HPC system and application

Failure is an increasingly important issue in high performance computing and cloud systems. As large-scale systems continue to grow in scale and complexity, mitigating the impact of failure and providing accurate predictions with sufficient lead time remains a challenging research problem. Traditional existing fault-tolerance strategies such as regular check-pointing and replication are not adequate because of the emerging complexities of high performance computing systems. This necessitates the importance of having an effective as well as proactive failure management approach in place aimed at minimizing the effect of failure within the system. With the advent of machine learning techniques, the ability to learn from past information to predict future pattern of behaviours makes it possible to predict potential system failure more accurately. Thus, in this paper, we explore the predictive abilities of machine learning by applying a number of algorithms to improve the accuracy of failure prediction. We have developed a failure prediction model using time series and machine learning, and performed comparison based tests on the prediction accuracy. The primary algorithms we considered are the support vector machine (SVM), random forest (RF), k-nearest neighbors (KNN), classification and regression trees (CART) and linear discriminant analysis (LDA). Experimental results indicates that the average prediction accuracy of our model using SVM when predicting failure is 90% accurate and effective compared to other algorithms. This finding implies that our method can effectively predict all possible future system and application failures within the system.

Mohammed, Bashir↗

Energy Exascale Earth System Model v2.0.2

Second patch release of v2.0.0 Changes since v2.0.1 [Important change] Add and update SSP370 and SSP585 cases, add tests, fix use-case files, Change ocean and sea-ice IC for ARRM60to10. [EAM] allow thetaxx as a CAM_TARGET, enable northamericax4v1pg2_WC14to60E2r3 for AMIP, fix ndrop initialization, allow up to 15 history files. [EAMxx] allow use of readnl [EAM-MMF] allow transient SST case for C++ MMF, remove specific task/thread count for ESMT test, modify the variance transport diagnostic, reorg tests, [HOMME] Allow optional sponge layer. [ELM] add 2 land-atm compsets, update FATES to API 17.0.0, allow FATES sp mode, allow ELM harvest to drive FATES harvest, fix memleaks, reduce test build times, modified parameters for miscanthus and switchgrass based on calibration [MPAS-Ocean] turn on ocean BGC in BGC cases, fix interface locations for 60L PHC grid, add mode spec to conservation check streams, allow oRRS18to6v3 grid to run with JRA, update ocean and sea ice ICs for ARRM60to10 (needed for v2), GPU port of thickness tendency, add CMPASO-JRA1p4, [MPAS framework] Add new reproducible global sum module for MPAS components, Add mostRecentAccessTime attribute to streams [MPAS-landice] Update MALI version and Greenland mesh [MPAS-seaice] add single-cell test case, fix BGC restart, Adds omp critical directives for ice warnings seen on cori. [CIME] Fix component namelist creation bugs when NINST>1, add OpenACC, OpenMP and CXX GPU tests, fix nonBFB tests, stop using config_compilers, reduce ELM test build times with shared executable, update OpenMPI on Chrysalis. fix baseline handling, provenance handling with update to cime6.0.33, also use component-specific config_pes files and add the ones from master [Machine updates] cori modules after maint, Chrysalis to OpenMPI-4.1.3 [run_e3sm] replace default case name and group. [Externals] update SCORPIO to 1.3.2

ECP↗

CHESS 2025: Leaf Area Index (LAI) for meadow, shrub, tree, and understory vegetation

This dataset contains Leaf Area Index (LAI) measurements made as part of the Colorado Headwaters Ecological Spectroscopy Study (CHESS) during June and July of 2025. Data were collected in the Upper Gunnison Basin, Colorado, across three study domains: the Upper East River (CRBU), Almont Triangle (ALMO), and the Upper Taylor Basin (UPTA). Field observations of LAI were collected within 72 hours of airborne data collection by the National Ecological Observatory Network’s Aerial Observation Platform (NEON AOP). The NEON AOP collected waveform LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) and imaging spectrometer data in 426 spectral bands from the visible to shortwave infrared. LAI measurements were collected using the LICOR LAI-2200C Plant Canopy Analyzer following protocols outlined in the instrument manual (LI-COR 2019). Sampling targeted four distinct vegetation types: meadows, shrubs, trees, and aspen forest understory. We have archived data separately by site type because different field methods were used for each. At meadow sites, measurements were made at the four corners of 1m x 1m plots, with the instrument moving inward toward the center of the plot. At shrub sites, we measured the canopies of individual shrubs. At tree sites, we made measurements within a 10m x 10m subplot centered around a focal tree, with 30 observations taken on a regular grid. At aspen understory sites, we measured overstory trees following the tree protocol and understory herbaceous vegetation following the meadow protocol. All measurements included above-canopy (A) and below-canopy (B) readings, with specific protocols for scattering correction measurements in direct-sun conditions. Data were processed using the R package `rlai` (Worsham 2025). This package includes functions to calculate LAI, gap fraction, apparent clumping factor (Ω), scattering correction, and other canopy metrics. Package contents: Full file descriptions appear in ‘flmd.csv’. Files named according to the convention ‘lai_*_summary_data_cleaned.csv’ contain summary values of LAI, apparent clumping factor (Ωapp), and scattering correction factors for each site. These are the analysis-ready products that most data users will work with. Files named ‘lai_*_metadata_cleaned.csv’ contain additional site-level observations made during field collection. We have also archived intermediate and supplementary data for users who wish to check our processing approach or apply alternative methods. ‘raw_lai_2200C.zip’ contains the raw files as read from the LI-COR instrument, with no processing applied, in TXT format. The zip archive contains subdirectories by site type, which are further subdivided by sampling area. Filenames correspond to the sampling site number. ‘intermediate_results.zip’ contains detailed output from the processing routines, in JSON format. The zip archive contains subdirectories by site type; filenames correspond to the sampling site number. ‘scattering_correction_logs.zip’ contains logfiles from the implementation of Kobayashi et al.'s (2013) scattering correction algorithm. The logfiles report values of several parameters at each iteration of the algorithm, as the model converges toward a stable solution. They are intended for users who want to verify scattering correction performance. The zip archive contains subdirectories by site type; filenames correspond to the sampling site number. ‘spot_checks.csv’ reports LAI and other values for a small number of files processed with LI-COR FV2200 software (LI-COR 2013) using the same control parameters as in our R-based approach. Additional metadata are provided in a data dictionary describing column names and definitions (dd.csv), and in a file-level metadata file (flmd.csv). All zip files can be expanded with common archive utilities. TXT, CSV, and JSON files can be ingested into R or Python computing environments or read in common text editor utilities. Geospatial information: Geospatial data for mapping measurement site locations are in the files CHESS_polygons_lai_UTM.geojson, CHESS_polygons_shrub_UTM.geojson, and CHESS_polygons_meadow_UTM.geojson in the companion geospatial package for the 2025 CHESS campaign, ‘CHESS 2025: Location data for field observations and sampling’ (Henderson et al., 2026). CHESS Project Description: The Colorado Headwaters Ecological Spectroscopy Study (CHESS) comprised a multi-week airborne remote sensing and field observation campaign in the Upper Gunnison Basin, Colorado, conducted in June and July of 2025. Airborne remote sensing was conducted by the National Ecological Observatory Network Airborne Observation Platform (NEON AOP), concurrent with a field campaign run by the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory (RMBL), the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) and SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory Watershed Function Science Focus Area (SFA), and NASA-JPL (Jet Propulsion Laboratory) Earth Surface Mineral Dust Source Investigation (EMIT) program. Between June 10 and July 18, 2025, the NEON AOP flight team collected high-resolution aerial imaging spectroscopy and Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) data over three domains: the Upper East River (CRBU), Almont Triangle (ALMO), and the Upper Taylor Basin (UPTA). In coordination with the flights, a field campaign acquired ground-truth observations, including observations of vegetation composition, foliar traits, forest demography, and subsurface properties in 18 core sampling areas within the domains. Additional surface water observations were taken at over 380 point locations. All CHESS campaign datasets can be found within the CHESS ESS-DIVE data portal: https://data.ess-dive.lbl.gov/portals/chess. Funding Acknowledgement: Field and remote-sensing data acquisition was performed under a grant from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (80NSSC24K1005). This work was also supported by the Watershed Function Science Focus Area at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory funded by the US Department of Energy, Office of Science, Biological and Environmental Research under Contract No. DE-AC02-05CH11231. * Todorov and Worsham are co–first authors.

2018 NEON and 2025 CHESS Campaigns↗

Logarithmic corrections to black hole entropy from Kerr/CFT

It has been shown by A. Sen that logarithmic corrections to the black hole area-entropy law are entirely determined macroscopically from the massless particle spectrum. They therefore serve as powerful consistency checks on any proposed enumeration of quantum black hole microstates. Furthermore, Sen’s results include a macroscopic computation of the logarithmic corrections for a five-dimensional near extremal Kerr-Newman black hole. We compute these corrections microscopically using a stringy embedding of the Kerr/CFT correspondence and find perfect agreement.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

RRab variables with identical light-curve shapes at different pulsation periods

In this paper, we report on the detection of RRab stars with quasi-identical-shape light curves but period differences as large as 0.05–0.21 d using the Galactic bulge data of the OGLE-IV survey. We have examined stars with shorter periods than the Oosterhoff I ridge of the bulge. These stars generally have smaller amplitudes and larger Fourier phase-differences than the typical bulge RRab stars have at the same period. Many of these ‘anomalous’ stars have good-quality light curves without any sign of the Blazhko modulation. Examining their Fourier parameters revealed that several of these stars show very similar light curve to the typical bulge RR Lyrae. We found hundreds of quasi-identical-shape light-curve pairs with different periods between the ‘anomalous’- and the ‘normal’-position RRab stars based on the OGLE I-band data. The OGLE V-band, and the archive VVV and MACHO surveys K s -, b- and r -band data of these stars were also checked for light-curve-shape similarity. Finally, 149 pairs with identical-shape light curves in each available photometric band were identified. Calculating the physical properties of the variables using empirical formulae, on average, −0.5 dex, −0.13 mag, 0.67, and 165 K differences between the [Fe/H], M V , R/R ⊙ , and T eff values of the members of the pairs are derived, being the short-period stars less metal-poor, fainter, smaller, and hotter than the long-period variables. To explain the existence of variables with different physical properties and pulsation periods but with identical-shape light curves is a challenging task for modelling.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Global root traits (GRooT) database

Motivation: Trait data are fundamental to the quantitative description of plant form and function. Although root traits capture key dimensions related to plant responses to changing environmental conditions and effects on ecosystem processes, they have rarely been included in large-scale comparative studies and global models. For instance, root traits remain absent from nearly all studies that define the global spectrum of plant form and function. Thus, to overcome conceptual and methodological roadblocks preventing a widespread integration of root trait data into large-scale analyses we created the Global Root Trait (GRooT) Database. GRooT provides readyto- use data by combining the expertise of root ecologists with data mobilization and curation. Specifically, we (a) determined a set of core root traits relevant to the description of plant form and function based on an assessment by experts, (b) maximized species coverage through data standardization within and among traits, and (c) implemented data quality checks. Main types of variables contained: GRooT contains 114,222 trait records on 38 continuous root traits. Spatial location and grain: Global coverage with data from arid, continental, polar, temperate and tropical biomes. Data on root traits were derived from experimental studies and field studies. Time period and grain: Data were recorded between 1911 and 2019. Major taxa and level of measurement: GRooT includes root trait data for which taxonomic information is available. Trait records vary in their taxonomic resolution, with subspecies or varieties being the highest and genera the lowest taxonomic resolution available. It contains information for 184 subspecies or varieties, 6,214 species, 1,967 genera and 254 families. Owing to variation in data sources, trait records in the database include both individual observations and mean values. Software format: GRooT includes two csv files. A GitHub repository contains the csv files and a script in R to query the database.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗

Rapamycin attenuates mitochondrial dysfunction via activation of mitophagy in experimental ischemic stroke

Highlights: • Rapamycin enhances mitophagy via increasing p62 translocation to the mitochondria. • Rapamycin attenuates brain ischemic damage and improves mitochondrial function. • The protection of rapamycin to mitochondrial is linked to enhanced mitophagy. - Abstract: Rapamycin has been demonstrated to exhibit neuroprotective functions via the activation of autophagy in a cerebral ischemia model. However, the involvement of mitophagy in this process and its contribution to the protection of mitochondrial function remains unknown. The present study explored the characteristics of mitophagy after cerebral ischemia and the effect of rapamycin on mitochondrial function. Male Sprague–Dawley rats underwent transient middle cerebral artery occlusion (tMCAO). Neurological deficits scores; infarct volumes; mitophagy morphology; and the levels of malondialdehyde (MDA), adenosine triphosphate (ATP) and mitochondrial membrane potentials (Δψm) were examined. The expression of LC3, Beclin-1 and p62 in the mitochondrial fraction combined with transmission electronic microscopy were used to explore mitophagic activity after ischemia. We also blocked autophagosome formation using 3-methyladenine (3-MA) to check the linkage between the mitochondrial protective effect of rapamycin and enhanced mitophagy. We observed that rapamycin significantly enhanced mitophagy, as evidenced by the increase in LC3-II and Beclin-1 expression in the mitochondria and p62 translocation to the mitochondria. Rapamycin reduced infarct volume, improved neurological outcomes and inhibited mitochondrial dysfunction compared with the control animals (p < 0.05). However, these protective effects were reversed by 3-methyladenine treatment after rapamycin. The present study indicates that rapamycin treatment attenuates mitochondrial dysfunction following cerebral ischemia, which is linked to enhanced mitophagy.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗

SEARCH FOR ANISOTROPY OF ULTRAHIGH ENERGY COSMIC RAYS WITH THE TELESCOPE ARRAY EXPERIMENT

We study the anisotropy of Ultra-High Energy Cosmic Ray (UHECR) events collected by the Telescope Array (TA) detector in the first 40 months of operation. Following earlier studies, we examine event sets with energy thresholds of 10 EeV, 40 EeV, and 57 EeV. We find that the distributions of the events in right ascension and declination are compatible with an isotropic distribution in all three sets. We then compare with previously reported clustering of the UHECR events at small angular scales. No significant clustering is found in the TA data. We then check the events with E > 57 EeV for correlations with nearby active galactic nuclei. No significant correlation is found. Finally, we examine all three sets for correlations with the large-scale structure (LSS) of the universe. We find that the two higher-energy sets are compatible with both an isotropic distribution and the hypothesis that UHECR sources follow the matter distribution of the universe (the LSS hypothesis), while the event set with E > 10 EeV is compatible with isotropy and is not compatible with the LSS hypothesis at 95% CL unless large deflection angles are also assumed. We show that accounting for UHECR deflections in a realistic model of the Galactic magnetic field can make this set compatible with the LSS hypothesis.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Are IceCube neutrinos unveiling PeV-scale decaying dark matter?

Recent observations by IceCube, notably two PeV cascades accompanied by events at energies ∼ (30–400) TeV, are clearly in excess over atmospheric background fluxes and beg for an astroparticle physics explanation. Although some models of astrophysical accelerators can account for the observations within current statistics, intriguing features in the energy and possibly angular distributions of the events make worth exploring alternatives. Here, we entertain the possibility of interpreting the data with a few PeV mass scale decaying dark matter, with lifetime of the order of 10{sup 27} s. We discuss generic signatures of this scenario, including its unique energy spectrum distortion with respect to the benchmark E{sub ν}{sup −2} expectation for astrophysical sources, as well as peculiar anisotropies. A direct comparison with the data show a good match with the above-mentioned features. We further discuss possible future checks of this scenario.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

Numerical simulation of fiber interaction in short-fiber injection-molded composite using different cavity geometries

The theoretical fiber-interaction model for calculating the fiber orientation in the injection molded short fiber/thermoplastic composite parts was proposed. The proposed model included the fiber dynamics simulation in order to obtain an equation of the global interaction coefficient and accurate estimate of the fiber interacts at all orientation states. The steps to derive the equation for this coefficient in short fiber suspension as a function of the fiber aspect ratio, volume fraction and general shear rate are delineated. Simultaneously, the high-resolution 3D X-ray computed tomography system XVA-160α was used to observe fiber distribution of short-glass-fiber-reinforced polyamide specimens using different cavity geometries. The fiber orientation tensor components are then calculated. Experimental orientation measurements of short-glass-fiber-reinforced polyamide is used to check the ability of present theory for predicting orientation. The experiments and predictions show a quantitative agreement and confirm the basic understanding of fiber orientation in injection-molded composites.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

GAS-PHASE SEQUESTRATION OF NOBLE GASES IN THE PROTOSOLAR NEBULA: POSSIBLE CONSEQUENCES ON THE OUTER SOLAR SYSTEM COMPOSITION

We address the problem of the sequestration of Ar, Kr, and Xe by H{sub 3}{sup +} in the gas-phase conditions encountered during the cooling of protoplanetary disks when H{sub 3}{sup +} is competing with other species present in the same environment. Using high-level ab initio simulations, we try to quantify other sequestration possibilities involving He, H{sub 5}{sup +}, H{sub 2}O, and H{sub 3}O{sup +} present in the protosolar nebula. Apart from the fact that H{sub 3}{sup +} complexes formed with heavy noble gases are found to be by far much more stable than those formed with He or H{sub 2}O, we show that H{sub 2}D{sup +} and H{sub 3}O{sup +}, both products of the reactions of H{sub 3}{sup +} with HD and H{sub 2}O, can also be efficient trapping agents for Ar, Kr, and Xe. Meanwhile, the abundance profile of H{sub 3}{sup +} in the outer part of the nebula is revisited with the use of an evolutionary accretion disk model that allows us to investigate the possibility that heavy noble gases can be sequestered by H{sub 3}{sup +} at earlier epochs than those corresponding to their trapping in planetesimals. We find that H{sub 3}{sup +} might be abundant enough in the outer protosolar nebula to trap Xe and Kr prior their condensation epochs, implying that their abundances should be solar in Saturn's current atmosphere and below the observational limit in Titan. The same scenario predicts that comets formed at high heliocentric distances should also be depleted in Kr and Xe. In situ measurements, such as those planed with the Rosetta mission on 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, will be critical to check the validity of our hypotheses.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗