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At least 811 records · Page 45
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2022

Theory of disordered superconductors with applications to nonlinear current response

I present a review of the theory and basic equations for charge transport in superconducting alloys starting from the Keldysh formulation of the quasiclassical transport equations developed by Eilenberger, Larkin and Ovchinnikov, and Eliashberg. This formulation is the natural extension of Landau’s theory of normal Fermi liquids to the superconducting state of strongly correlated metals. For dirty metals the transport equations reduce to equations for charge diffusion, with the current response given by the Drude conductivity at low temperatures. The extension of the diffusion equation for the charge and current response of a strongly disordered normal metal to the superconducting state yields Usadel’s equations for the nonequilibrium quasiclassical Keldysh propagator. The conditions for the applicability of the Usadel equations are discussed, the pair-breaking effect of disorder on the current response, including the nonlinear current response to an electromagnetic field in the dirty limit, τ ≪ ℏ/Δ, are reported. The same nonlinearity is shown to lead to source currents for photon generation and nonlinear Kerr rotation driven by the nonlinear response to excitation of the superconductor by a multi-mode electromagnetic field. The potential relevance of the nonlinear source currents to superconducting radio-frequency cavities as detectors of axion-like dark matter candidates is briefly discussed.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗
DOE OSTI2020

CRAGE-mediated insertion of fluorescent chromosomal markers for accurate and scalable measurement of co-culture dynamics in Escherichia coli

Monitoring population dynamics in co-culture is necessary in engineering microbial consortia involved in distributed metabolic processes or biosensing applications. However, it remains difficult to measure strain-specific growth dynamics in high-throughput formats. This is especially vexing in plate-based functional screens leveraging whole-cell biosensors to detect specific metabolic signals. Here, we develop an experimental high-throughput co-culture system to measure and model the relationship between fluorescence and cell abundance, combining chassis-independent recombinase-assisted genome engineering (CRAGE) and whole-cell biosensing with a PemrR-green fluorescent protein (GFP) monoaromatic reporter used in plate-based functional screening. CRAGE was used to construct Escherichia coli EPI300 strains constitutively expressing red fluorescent protein (RFP) and the relationship between RFP expression and optical density (OD600) was determined throughout the EPI300 growth cycle. A linear equation describing the increase of normalized RFP fluorescence during deceleration phase was derived and used to predict biosensor strain dynamics in co-culture. Measured and predicted values were compared using flow cytometric detection methods. Induction of the biosensor lead to increased GFP fluorescence normalized to biosensor cell abundance, as expected, but a significant decrease in relative abundance of the biosensor strain in co-culture and a decrease in bulk GFP fluorescence. Taken together, these results highlight sensitivity of population dynamics to variations in metabolic activity in co-culture and the potential effect of these dynamics on the performance of functional screens in plate-based formats. The engineered strains and model used to evaluate these dynamics provide a framework for optimizing growth of synthetic co-cultures used in screening, testing and pathway engineering applications.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2021

Assessment of Clonal Expansion Using CarcSeq Measurement of Lung Cancer Driver Mutations and Correlation With Mouse Strain- and Sex-Related Incidence of Spontaneous Lung Neoplasia

Quantification of variation in levels of spontaneously occurring cancer driver mutations (CDMs) was developed to assess clonal expansion and predict future risk of neoplasm development. Specifically, an error-corrected next-generation sequencing method, CarcSeq, and a mouse CarcSeq panel (analogous to human and rat panels) were developed and used to quantify low-frequency mutations in a panel of amplicons enriched in hotspot CDMs. Mutations in a subset of panel amplicons, Braf, Egfr, Kras, Stk11, and Tp53, were related to incidence of lung neoplasms at 2 years. This was achieved by correlating median absolute deviation (MAD) from the overall median mutant fraction (MF) measured in the lung DNA of 16-week-old male and female, B6C3F1 and CD-1 mice (10 mice/sex/strain) with percentages of spontaneous alveolar/bronchioloalveolar adenomas and carcinomas reported in bioassay control groups. A total of 1586 mouse lung mutants with MFs > x 10-4 were recovered. The ratio of nonsynonymous to synonymous mutations was used to assess the proportion of recovered mutations conferring a positive selective advantage. The greatest ratio was observed in what is considered the most lung tumor-sensitive model examined, male B6C3F1 mice. Of the recurrent, nonsynonymous mouse mutations recovered, 55.5% have been reported in human tumors, with many located in or around the mouse equivalent of human cancer hotspot codons. MAD for the same subset of amplicons measured in normal human lung DNA samples showed a correlation of moderate strength and borderline significance with age (a cancer risk factor), as well as age-related cumulative lung cancer risk, suggesting MAD may inform species extrapolation.

Toxicology↗
DOE OSTI2025

Gate-tunable enhancement of supercurrent in hybrid planar Josephson junctions

Planar Josephson junctions (JJs) have emerged as a promising platform for the realization of topological superconductivity and Majorana zero modes. To obtain robust quasi one-dimensional (1D) topological superconducting states using planar JJs, limiting the number of 1D Andreev bound states’ subbands that can be present, and increasing the size of the topological superconducting gap are two fundamental challenges. It has been suggested that both problems can be addressed by properly designing the interfaces between the JJ’s normal region and the superconducting leads. We fabricated Josephson junctions with periodic hole structures on the superconducting contact leads on InAs heterostructures with epitaxial superconducting Al. By depleting the chemical potential inside the holes region with a top gate, we observed an enhancement of the supercurrent across the junction. The theoretical analysis shows that the enhancement of the JJ’s critical current is achieved when the depletion of the holes is such to optimize the matching of quasiparticles’ wave function at the normal/superconductor interface. Furthermore, these results show how the combination of carefully designed patterns for the Al coverage, and external gates, can be successfully used to tune the density and wave functions’ profiles in the normal region of the JJ, and therefore open an avenue to tune some of the critical properties, such as number of subbands and size of the topological gap, that must be optimized to obtain robust quasi-1D superconducting states supporting Majorana bound states.

Bogoliubov-de Gennes equations↗
DOE OSTI2026

Nuclear spin coherence and RKKY interaction in superconducting Nb 3 Sn

We have investigated the normal and superconducting states of the technologically important compound Nb$_3$Sn using $^{93}$Nb nuclear magnetic resonance. From spin-lattice relaxation we find strong suppression of the zero-temperature superconducting order parameter by magnetic field. Additionally we have identified an anomalously large electron-nuclear exchange interaction from spin-spin relaxation measurements, an order of magnitude beyond that of the nuclear dipolar coupling. This RKKY interaction evolves from normal to superconducting states, becoming essentially Lorentzian in the low temperature limit.

Zhai, Gan [Northwestern U.] (ORCID:000000016623956↗
DOE OSTI2026

Strong long-wavelength electron-phonon coupling in Ta 2 ⁢Ni⁡(Se,S) 5

The search for intrinsic excitonic insulators (EI) has long been confounded by coexisting electron–phonon coupling in bulk materials. Although the ground state of an EI may be difficult to differentiate from density-wave orders or other structural instabilities, excited states offer distinctive signatures. One way to provide clarity is to directly inspect the phonon spectral function for long wavelength broadening caused by phonon interaction with the high velocity EI phason. Here, in this study, we report that the quasi-one-dimensional (quasi-1D) EI candidate Ta 2 NiSe 5 shows extremely anisotropic phonon broadening and softening in the semimetallic normal state. In contrast, such behavior is completely absent in the broken symmetry state of Ta 2 NiSe 5 and in the isostructural Ta 2 NiS 5 , where the latter has a fully gapped normal state. By contrasting the expected phonon lifetimes in the BCS and BEC limits of a putative EI, our results suggest that the phase transition in Ta 2 Ni(Se,S) 5 family is closely related to strong interband electron–phonon coupling. We experimentally determine the dimensionless coupling $\frac{g}{ω_0}$ ∼ 10, revealing Ta 2 Ni(Se,S) 5 as a rare “ultrastrong coupling” material.

Kang, Zhibo [Yale University, New Haven, CT (Unite↗
DOE OSTI2025

Multiplicity dependent 𝐽/𝜓 and 𝜓⁡(2⁢𝑆) production at forward and backward rapidity in 𝑝 + 𝑝 collisions at $\sqrt{𝑠}$ = 200 GeV

Recent measurements of 𝐽/𝜓 production as a function of event charged-particle multiplicity at the collision energies of both the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) and the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) show enhanced 𝐽/𝜓 production yields with increasing multiplicity. One potential explanation for this type of dependence is multiparton interactions (MPI). We present the first study of potential autocorrelations at RHIC energies and forward and backward rapidity of self-normalized 𝐽/𝜓 yields and 𝜓⁡(2⁢𝑆) to 𝐽/𝜓 ratio, as a function of self-normalized multiplicity in 𝑝 + 𝑝 collisions. In addition, detailed pythia studies tuned to RHIC energies were performed to investigate the MPI impacts. We find that the PHENIX data at RHIC are consistent with recent LHC measurements and can only be described by pythia calculations that include MPI effects. The forward and backward 𝜓⁡(2⁢𝑆) to 𝐽/𝜓 ratio is found to be less dependent on the charged-particle multiplicity.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2025

Results from the T2K Experiment on Neutrino Mixing Including a New Far Detector 𝜇-like Sample

We have made improved measurements of three-flavor neutrino mixing with 19.7⁢(16.3) × 10 20 protons on target in (anti-)neutrino-enhanced beam modes. A new sample of muon-neutrino events with tagged pions has been added at the far detector, as well as new proton and photon-tagged samples at the near detector. Significant improvements have been made to the flux and neutrino interaction modeling. T2K data continue to prefer the normal mass ordering and upper octant of sin 2 ⁡𝜃 23 with a near-maximal value of the charge-parity violating phase with best-fit values in the normal ordering of 𝛿 CP = −2.18$^{+1.22}_{−0.47}$, sin 2 ⁡𝜃 23 = 0.559$^{+0.018}_{−0.078}$ and Δ⁢𝑚$^{2}_{32}$ = (+2.506$^{+0.039}_{−0.052}$) × 10 −3 eV 2 .

CP violation↗
DOE OSTI2026

Electric accumulation of millicharged particles

A terrestrial population of millicharged particles that interact significantly with normal matter can arise if they make up a dark matter subcomponent or if they are light enough to be produced in cosmic-ray air showers. Such particles thermalize to terrestrial temperatures through repeated scatters with normal matter in Earth’s environment. We show that a simple electrified shell (for example, a Van de Graaff generator) functions as an efficient accumulator of such room-temperature millicharged particles, parametrically enhancing their local density by as much as 12 orders of magnitude. This can be used to boost the sensitivity of any detector housed in the shell’s interior, such as ion traps and tests of Coulomb’s law. In a companion paper, we apply this specifically to Cavendish tests of Coulomb’s law, and we show that a well-established setup can probe a large region of unexplored parameter space, with sensitivity to the irreducible density of millicharged particles generated from cosmic rays that outperforms future accelerator searches for sub-GeV masses.

Berlin, Asher [Fermilab] (ORCID:0000000211561482)↗
DOE OSTI2026

Efficient many-jet event generation with flow matching

We apply for the first time, to the best of our knowledge, the flow matching method to the problem of phase-space sampling for event generation in high-energy collider physics. By training the model to remap the random numbers used to generate the momenta and helicities of the scattering matrix elements as implemented in the portable partonic event generator pepper, we find substantial efficiency improvements in the studied processes. We focus our study on the highest final-state multiplicities in Drell-Yan and top-antitop pair production used in simulated samples for the Large Hadron Collider, which computationally are the most relevant ones. We find that the unweighting efficiencies improve by factors of 184 and 25, respectively, when compared to the standard approach of using a vegas-based optimization. We also compare continuous normalizing flows trained with flow matching against the previously studied normalizing flows based on coupling layers and find that the former leads to better results, faster training and a better scaling behavior across the studied multiplicity range, while the latter evaluate faster. When combining the advantages of both methods using the regflow approach, we find parton-level unweighted event generation walltime gains of about a factor of 10 at the highest final-state multiplicities.

Bothmann, E. [CERN; Gottingen U.] (ORCID:000000016↗
DOE OSTI2026

Computational schemes for the Magnus expansion of the in-medium similarity renormalization group

The in-medium similarity renormalization group (IMSRG) is a popular many-body method used for computations of nuclei. It solves the many-body Schrödinger equation through a continuous unitary transformation of the many-body Hamiltonian. The IMSRG transformation is typically truncated at the normal-ordered two-body level, the IMSRG(2), but recently several approaches have been developed to capture the effects of normal-ordered three-body operators, the IMSRG(3). In particular, a factorized approximation to the IMSRG(3) proposes to capture the leading effects of three-body operators at the same computational cost as the IMSRG(2) approximation. This approach often employs an approximate scheme for solving the IMSRG equations, the so-called hunter-gatherer scheme. In this work, I study the uncertainty associated with this scheme. I find that the hunter-gatherer scheme differs by up to 7MeV for ground-state energies and 0.5MeV for excitation energies from standard IMSRG(2) approaches. These differences are in some cases comparable to the expected size of IMSRG(3) corrections.

39 ≤ A ≤ 58↗
DOE OSTI2026

Primordial black hole dark matter: A quantitative parameter sensitivity comparison across formation mechanisms and particle candidates

Primordial black holes (PBHs) in the asteroid-mass window ( 10 17 – 10 22 g ) can account for all of the dark matter without violating any observational constraint, yet are routinely dismissed as fine-tuned. I put that dismissal to the test by applying three complementary sensitivity measures uniformly across a broad landscape: three noninflationary PBH production mechanisms, six classes of inflationary PBH models, and seven particle dark matter benchmarks, all evaluated against the same observable target. Three distinct naturalness universality classes emerge, determined entirely by the analytic structure of the abundance map rather than by the nature of the dark matter candidate. Biased-domain-wall PBHs, in their least model-dependent (free- V b ) form, have the same low sensitivity, Δ = 4.5 , as off-resonance weakly interacting massive particles and freeze-in particles ( Δ = 2 ), a sensitivity that, because it is constant over the entire parameter space of the construction, also coincides trivially with its own Wilson-normalized average within that parameter space (Section Definition and conventions), an equivalence that concerns only the space over which Δ is computed and is not a naturalness statement about the construction as a whole; a further reduction to Δ = 2 is possible only under the additional, independently motivated but not required, assumption that the domain-wall bias is generated by Planck-suppressed operators; early matter-domination PBHs occupy an intermediate tier alongside coannihilating weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs), unified by a structural identity in which the sensitivity measure equals the logarithm of the ratio of the formation scale to the matter–radiation equality scale; first-order phase transition PBHs, once the more accurate super-exponential collapse probability is used in place of the single-exponential approximation, instead belong to the same highly sensitive tier as resonant WIMP annihilation and single-field inflationary collapse, for a structurally distinct reason; single-field ultraslow-roll inflationary collapse is severely tuned for a distinct reason: a double exponential in which the power spectrum amplitude is itself exponentially sensitive to the inflaton potential coefficients, on top of the exponential collapse sensitivity of the abundance map. My main conclusion is that the claim that PBH dark matter is generically fine-tuned conflates the worst case with a landscape spanning every naturalness tier. The Barbieri-Giudice sensitivity computed here and the Wilson-normalized measure of Iovino and Riotto answer distinct and mutually consistent questions about the same construction, a distinction I clarify within the two-layer decomposition.

Profumo, Stefano [University of California, Santa ↗
DOE OSTI2020

Broadening of the drumhead-mode spectrum due to in-plane thermal fluctuations of two-dimensional trapped ion crystals in a Penning trap

Two-dimensional crystals of ions stored in Penning traps are a leading platform for quantum simulation and sensing experiments. For small amplitudes, the out-of-plane motion of such crystals can be described by a discrete set of normal modes called the drumhead modes, which can be used to implement a range of quantum information protocols. However, experimental observations of crystals with Doppler-cooled and even nearground- state-cooled drumhead modes reveal an unresolved drumhead-mode spectrum. In this work, we establish in-plane thermal fluctuations in ion positions as a major contributor to the broadening of the drumhead-mode spectrum. In the process, we demonstrate how the confining magnetic field leads to unconventional in-plane normal modes, whose average potential and kinetic energies are not equal. This property, in turn, has implications for the sampling procedure required to choose the in-plane initial conditions for molecular-dynamics simulations. Further, for current operating conditions of the NIST Penning trap, our study suggests that the two-dimensional crystals produced in this trap undergo in-plane potential-energy fluctuations of the order of 10mK. Our study therefore motivates the need for designing improved techniques to cool the in-plane degrees of freedom.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2023

Dark and bright modes, and their coherent control in dipolar metasurface bilayers

Several plasmonic nanoparticles supporting dipolar resonances can couple to form normal modes. Here, we develop an analytical model to explain the formation of nonradiative “dark” and radiative “bright” modes through radiative coupling in bilayers consisting of dipolar nanoantenna arrays that are separated by a subwavelength distance. We also include near-field contributions in our model and show that the absorption and reflectance spectra obtained from our model agree reasonably well with the respective finite-difference time-domain simulation results for both perfectly aligned and misaligned bilayers. Here, the ability to vary the reflection and absorption spectra of these bilayers by changing the material and geometrical parameters has potential applications in the design of efficient spectral filters. We also show that we can selectively excite these modes by adjusting the phase between two counterpropagating normally incident fields, which has applications in all-optical modulators and switches based on purely linear interferometric effects.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2024

High-gradient performance of a prototype accelerator cavity for a 3 GeV proton radiography booster

This paper reports the design, fabrication, and results of the high-gradient conditioning and testing for a two-cell, π -mode, standing wave normal-conducting prototype booster cavity for the proposed 3 GeV proton linac upgrade at Los Alamos Neutron Science Center. Increasing the energy of proton beam from the existing 800 MeV to 3 GeV will improve resolution of the proton radiography by up to 10 times. The proposed energy boost can be achieved with a compact normal-conducting high-gradient radio-frequency (rf) linac section. The C-band section of the booster linac was designed with optimized-shaped copper accelerator cavities with distributed rf coupling. A short two-cell test prototype structure was designed for the frequency of 5.712 GHz, fabricated, and tested at the C-band Engineering Research Test Facility in New Mexico (CERF-NM) at Los Alamos National Laboratory. The maximum klystron power coupled into the test structure was 8.3 MW with 1 μ s pulse length and 100 Hz repetition rate. The breakdown probabilities were recorded as functions of the accelerating gradient and peak surface fields. Operation of the test cavity at accelerating gradients of up to 100 MV / m was demonstrated. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗
DOE OSTI2020

Pairing instability on a Luttinger surface: A non-Fermi liquid to superconductor transition and its Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev dual

Superconductivity results from an instability of the Fermi surface—contour of poles of the single-particle propagator—to an infinitesimally small attraction between electrons. Here, we instead discuss the analogous problem on a model Luttinger surface, or contour of zeros of the Green function. At zero temperature ($β → \infty$) and a critical interaction strength ($u_{c∞}$) characterized by the residue of self-energy pole, we find that the pair susceptibility diverges leading to a superconducting instability. We evaluate the pair fluctuation partition function and find that the spectral density in the normal state has an interaction-driven, power-law $\frac{1}{\sqrt{ω}}$ type, van-Hove singularity (vHS), indicating non-Fermi liquid (NFL) physics. Crucially, in the strong coupling limit ($βu \gg 1$), the leading-order fluctuation free-energy terms in the normal state of this NFL-SC transition resembles the equivalent [$\textit{O}(1)$] terms of the Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev (SYK) model. This free-energy contribution takes a simple form $–βF = βu_{c∞} – γ \text{ln}(βu_{c∞}$), where $\gamma$ is a constant equal to $\frac{1}{2}$. Weak impurity scattering ($τ \gg β^{–1}$) leaves the low-energy spectral density unaffected but leads to an interaction-driven enhancement of superconductivity. Our results in this work shed light on the role played by order-parameter fluctuations in providing the key missing link between Mott physics and strongly coupled toy models exhibiting gravity duals.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗
DOE OSTI2020

Quantum Hamiltonian for the surface charge density on a ring torus and radiative decay of plasmons

Photon scattering and the ensuing excitation of surface plasmons in single rings, single composite rings, and many-ring systems was recently shown to provide dispersion and field distributions [K. V. Garapati et al., J. Phys. Commun. 2, 015031 (2018)] of potential for specific applications in particle and molecular trapping [R. Alaee et al., Appl. Phys. Lett. 109, 141102 (2016); M. Salhi et al., Phys. Rev. A 92, 033416 (2015)], in addition to metamaterials and sensing. Furthermore, following photon or electron interactions with metallic nanorings, both radiative and nonradiative decay channels are important in the consideration of the nanoparticle as a photon or phonon source, and in related applications. In this work, we quantize the electronic normal modes of the ring torus and obtain the radiative decay of plasmons. Due to a geometry-related complexity, we employ a perturbation approach to obtain analytical expressions for the radiative decay channel for a vacuum bounded single solid nanoring. In quantizing the fields, the frequency spectrum of the charge density normal modes of the nanoring is obtained and shown to agree with the exact quasistatic plasmon dispersion relations. Higher-order corrections beyond the presented zero- and first-order calculations may be obtained following the presented results. The results are of potential interest in quantum sensing such as entangling photons and plasmons, or plasmons and trapped molecules.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗
DOE OSTI2020

Nematic superconductivity in LiFeAs

The role of nematic order for the mechanism of high-temperature superconductivity is highly debated. In most iron-based superconductors (IBSs) the tetragonal symmetry is broken already in the normal state, resulting in orthorhombic lattice distortions, static stripe magnetic order, or both. Superconductivity then emerges, at least at weak doping, already from the state with broken C 4 rotational symmetry. One of the few stoichiometric IBSs, lithium iron arsenide superconducts below 18 K and does not display either structural or magnetic transition in the normal state. Here we demonstrate, using angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy, that even the superconducting state in LiFeAs is also a nematic one. We observe spontaneous breaking of the rotational symmetry in the gap amplitude on all Fermi surfaces, as well as unidirectional distortion of the Fermi pockets. Remarkably, these deformations are hardly visible above superconducting T c . Our results demonstrate the realization of the phenomenon of superconductivity-induced nematicity in IBSs, emphasizing the intimate relation between them. Furthermore, we suggest a theoretical explanation based on the emergence of a secondary instability inside the superconducting state, which leads to the nematic order and s–d mixing in the gap function.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗