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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 883 records · Page 49
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2018

Recent developments for the optical model of nuclei

A brief overview of various approaches to the optical-model description of nuclei is presented. A survey of some of the formal aspects is given which links the Feshbach formulation for either the hole or particle Green’s function to the time-ordered quantity of many-body theory. The link between the reducible self-energy and the elastic nucleon–nucleus scattering amplitude is also presented using the development of Villars. A brief summary of the essential elements of the multiple-scattering approach is also included. Several ingredients contained in the time-ordered Green’s function are summarized for the formal framework of the dispersive optical model (DOM). Empirical approaches to the optical potential are reviewed with emphasis on the latest global parametrizations for nucleons and composites. Various calculations that start from an underlying realistic nucleon–nucleon interaction are discussed with emphasis on more recent work. The efficacy of the DOM is illustrated in relating nuclear structure and nuclear reaction information. Its use as an intermediate between experimental data and theoretical calculations is advocated. Applications of the use of optical models are pointed out in the context of the description of nuclear reactions other than elastic nucleon–nucleus scattering.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2018

Developments of the Jülich–Bonn Dynamical Coupled-Channel Analysis

Here, a new analysis of KΛ photoproduction is presented, including the latest data measured at Jefferson Lab and other facilities. Evidence for two states has been found, the N (1900)3/2 + and N (2060)5/2¯ resonances that have been seen in other analysis. Future extensions are discussed like the use of model selection techniques to achieve a minimal resonance content of the amplitude. Also, conceptual aspects like three-body unitarity are highlighted that can help to provide a connection between phenomenology and ab-initio lattice QCD calculations.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2024

Molecular Dynamics Simulation of Complex Reactivity with the Rapid Approach for Proton Transport and Other Reactions (RAPTOR) Software Package

Simulating chemically reactive phenomena such as proton transport on nanosecond to microsecond and beyond time scales is a challenging task. Ab initio methods are unable to currently access these time scales routinely, and traditional molecular dynamics methods feature fixed bonding arrangements that cannot account for changes in the system’s bonding topology. The Multiscale Reactive Molecular Dynamics (MS-RMD) method, as implemented in the Rapid Approach for Proton Transport and Other Reactions (RAPTOR) software package for the LAMMPS molecular dynamics code, offers a method to routinely sample longer time scale reactive simulation data with statistical precision. RAPTOR may also be interfaced with enhanced sampling methods to drive simulations toward the analysis of reactive rare events, and a number of collective variables (CVs) have been developed to facilitate this. Key advances to this methodology, including GPU acceleration efforts and novel CVs to model water wire formation are reviewed, along with recent applications of the method which demonstrate its versatility and robustness.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
DOE OSTI2025

Observation of a mixed close-packed structure in superionic water

The study of superionic (SI) water has been a highly active research area since its theoretical prediction. Despite significant experimental and computational efforts, its melting curve and the stability of different oxygen lattices remain debated, impacting our understanding of SI ice’s peculiar transport properties. Experimental results at lower pressures show disagreement, whereas data at higher pressures are scarce due to the extreme challenges of such experiments. In this work, we present ultrafast X-ray diffraction results of water compressed by multiple shocks to pressures up to ~ 180 GPa. At pressures exceeding 150 GPa and temperatures around 2500 K, our diffraction patterns challenge the pure FCC-SI phase model, providing experimental evidence of the mixed close-packed superionic phase predicted by advanced ab initio calculations. At lower pressures, we observe simultaneous signatures of BCC and FCC structures within a pressure-temperature range consistent with some static-compression experiments, helping to resolve contradictory results in literature. These insights offer new constraints on the stability domains of SI phases and reveal detailed structural features, such as stacking faults. Our results advance the structural understanding of high-pressure SI ice to a level approaching that of ice I polymorphs, with potential implications for water-rich interiors of giant planets.

Andriambariarijaona, Leon [Centre National de la R↗
DOE OSTI2018

DeePCG: Constructing coarse-grained models via deep neural networks

We introduce a general framework for constructing coarse-grained potential models without ad hoc approximations such as limiting the potential to two- and/or three-body contributions. The scheme, called the Deep Coarse-Grained Potential (abbreviated DeePCG), exploits a carefully crafted neural network to construct a many-body coarse-grained potential. The network is trained with full atomistic data in a way that preserves the natural symmetries of the system. The resulting model is very accurate and can be used to sample the configurations of the coarse-grained variables in a much faster way than with the original atomistic model. As an application, we consider liquid water and use the oxygen coordinates as the coarse-grained variables, starting from a full atomistic simulation of this system at the ab initio molecular dynamics level. We find that the two-body, three-body, and higher-order oxygen correlation functions produced by the coarse-grained and full atomistic models agree very well with each other, illustrating the effectiveness of the DeePCG model on a rather challenging task

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2026

Probing the 𝑗 dependence of angular distributions and 𝑁=20 shell rigidity via the 36 S (𝑝,𝑑) 35 S reaction

An investigation of the N=20 36 S nucleus has been performed through a detailed study of the 3 6S (p,d)3 5S neutron-removal reaction, employing a 66-MeV proton beam at iThemba Laboratory for Accelerator Based Sciences and an innovative target design. Using the high-resolution K = 600 magnetic spectrometer, 98 states in 3 5S were identified up to 16-MeV excitation energy, including 47 previously unobserved states. Angular distributions and spectroscopic factors, including isobaric analog-state contributions, were extracted for 81 levels. A pronounced j dependence in the angular distributions of ℓ=2 states provides refined insights into the spin-orbit splitting. Finite-range adiabatic distorted-wave approximation calculations qualitatively reproduce the observed j dependence. Comparisons of the measured 1d 5/2 spectroscopic strength distribution with large-scale shell-model and ab initio calculations show good agreement overall, and the robustness of the N=20 shell closure in 36 S is confirmed when comparing the relatively low fp orbital occupancies in 40 Ca and 3 6S across the Fermi surface. This study underscores the utility of neutron-removal reactions in probing nuclear structure and the Fermi surface of sd nuclei and beyond. The findings advance our understanding of shell evolution and offer constraining data for theoretical models.

20 ≤ A ≤ 38↗
NASA NTRS1988

The C4H7+ cation. A theoretical investigation

The potential energy surface of the C4H7+ cation has been investigated with ab initio quantum chemical theory. Extended basis set calculations, including electronic correlation, show that cyclobutyl and cyclopropylcarbinyl cation are equally stable isomers. The saddle point connecting these isomers lies 0.6 kcal/mol above the minima. The global C4H7+ minimum corresponds to the 1-methylallyl cation, which is 9.0 kcal/mol more stable than the cyclobutyl and the cyclopropylcarbinyl cation and 9.5 kcal/mol below the 2-methylallyl cation. These results are in excellent agreement with experimental data.

NASA Discipline Number 52-10↗
DOE OSTI2022

Ab initio theory of free-carrier absorption in semiconductors

The absorption of light by free carriers in semiconductors results in optical loss for all photon wavelengths. Since free-carrier absorption competes with optical transitions across the band gap, it also reduces the efficiency of optoelectronic devices such as solar cells because it does not generate electron-hole pairs. In this work, we develop a first-principles theory of free-carrier absorption taking into account both single-particle excitations and the collective Drude term, and we demonstrate its application to the case of doped Si. Here, we determine the free-carrier absorption coefficient as a function of carrier concentration and we obtain excellent agreement with experimental data. We identify the dominant processes that contribute to free-carrier absorption at various photon wavelengths, and analyze the results to evaluate the impact of this loss mechanism on the efficiency of Si-based optoelectronic devices.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗
DOE OSTI2023

Graph-EAM: An Interpretable and Efficient Graph Neural Network Potential Framework

The development of deep learning interatomic potentials has enabled efficient and accurate computations in quantum chemistry and materials science, circumventing computationally expensive ab initio calculations. However, the huge number of learnable parameters in deep learning models and their complex architectures hinder physical interpretability and affect the robustness of the derived potential. In this work, we propose graph-EAM, a lightweight graph neural network (GNN) inspired by the empirical embedded atom method to model the interatomic potential of single-element structures. Four material systems: platinum, niobium, silicon, and amorphous-carbon, for which quantum simulation data sets are publicly available, are examined to demonstrate that graph-EAM can achieve high energy and force prediction accuracy-comparable or better than existing state-of-the-art machine learning models-with much fewer parameters. It is also shown that the explicit inclusion of the angular information via three-body atomic density increases the prediction accuracy. In conclusion, the accuracy and efficiency of potentials obtained from graph-EAM can help accelerate the molecular dynamics simulation.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗
DOE OSTI2016

Methane dissociation on Pt(111): Searching for a specific reaction parameter density functional

The theoretical description of methane dissociating on metal surfaces is a current frontier in the field of gas-surface dynamics. Dynamical models that aim at achieving a highly accurate description of this reaction rely on potential energy surfaces based on density functional theory calculations at the generalized gradient approximation. We focus here on the effect that the exchange-correlation functional has on the reactivity of methane on a metal surface, using CHD{sub 3} + Pt(111) as a test case. We present new ab initio molecular dynamics calculations performed with various density functionals, looking also at functionals that account for the van der Waals (vdW) interaction. While searching for a semi-empirical specific reaction parameter density functional for this system, we find that the use of a weighted average of the PBE and the RPBE exchange functionals together with a vdW-corrected correlation functional leads to an improved agreement with quantum state-resolved experimental data for the sticking probability, compared to previous PBE calculations. With this semi-empirical density functional, we have also investigated the surface temperature dependence of the methane dissociation reaction and the influence of the rotational alignment on the reactivity, and compared our results with experiments.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
DOE OSTI2021

Ab initio and force field molecular dynamics study of bulk organophosphorus and organochlorine liquid structures

Here, we performed ab initio molecular dynamics (AIMD) simulations to benchmark bulk liquid structures and to evaluate results from all-atom force field molecular dynamics (FFMD) simulations with the generalized Amber force field (GAFF) for organophosphorus (OP) and organochlorine (OC) compounds. Our work also addresses the current and important topic of force field validation, applied here to a set of nonaqueous organic liquids. Our approach differs from standard treatments, which validate force fields based on thermodynamic data. Utilizing radial distribution functions (RDFs), our results show that GAFF reproduces the AIMD-predicted asymmetric liquid structures moderately well for OP compounds that contain bulky alkyl groups. Among the OCs, RDFs obtained from FFMD overlap well with AIMD results, with some offsets in position and peak structuring. However, re-parameterization of GAFF for some OCs is needed to reproduce fully the liquid structures predicted by AIMD. The offsets between AIMD and FFMD peak positions suggest inconsistencies in the developed force fields, but, in general, GAFF is able to capture short-ranged and long-ranged interactions of OPs and OCs observed in AIMD. Along with the local coordination structure, we also compared enthalpies of vaporization. Overall, calculated bulk properties from FFMD compared reasonably well with experimental values, suggesting that small improvements within the FF should focus on parameters that adjust the bulk liquid structures of these compounds.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
DOE OSTI2020

Molecular Structure and Electron Affinity of Metal-Solvent Complexes: Insights from Density Functional Theory Simulations

A molecular level understanding of the structure and energetics of the monovalent and divalent metal ion complexes is of great importance for development of next-generation batteries. Here, Density Functional Theory (DFT) simulations at the ωb97xD/6-31 + G(d,p) level of theory are performed to investigate the interaction of metal ions (Li + , Na + , K + , Mg 2+ , Ca 2+ , Zn 2+ ) with 26 organic solvent molecules. The reduction energetics (electron affinity and reduction potential) and structural responses of the solvent molecules and the molecular complexes are discussed. The DFT calculations are carried out to investigate the structure, energetics and electron affinities of chelated complexes of water (H 2 O), tetrahydrofuran (THF) and di-methoxy ethane (DME) solvent molecules. Additionally, ab initio dynamic simulations (AIMD) at 298 K using atom centered density matrix propagation (ADMP) formalism are performed to understand the spontaneous structure formation upon electron attachment of the metal ion-solvent complexes. The ADMP simulations indicate the decomposition of Mg + -(DME) 3 complex via cleavage of C–O bond of one of the three DME molecules indicating irreversible decomposition of DME in the presence of the Mg + radical. We believe that the data collected as part of this investigation serves as a library of fundamental knowledge towards a deeper understanding of the electrode-electrolyte interfacial reactions.

25 ENERGY STORAGE↗
DOE OSTI2015

Ab initio study of structural stability and electronic properties of Ti{sub 1-x}Mg{sub x}Cr{sub 2} and TiMg{sub x}Cr{sub 2-x} laves phase

The structural stability and electronic properties of TiMgCr{sub 2} laves phase have been calculated and compared. It is found that Mg prefer to substitutes titanium than chromium. The values of entalpies of formation show that Ti{sub 1-x}Mg{sub x}Cr{sub 2} may exist for only one concentration x=0.125 and the more favorable alloy is Ti{sub 0.875}Mg{sub 0.125}Cr{sub 2}. For TiCr{sub 2}, the optimized structural parameters were in good agreement with experimental values, while for TiMgCr{sub 2}, there is not experimental data. The electronic densities of states (DOS) are given and the nature of bonds are also discussed.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2014

Scattering matrix approach to the dissociative recombination of HCO{sup +} and N{sub 2}H{sup +}

We present a theoretical study of the indirect dissociative recombination of linear polyatomic ions at low collisional energies. The approach is based on the computation of the scattering matrix just above the ionization threshold and enables the explicit determination of all diabatic electronic couplings responsible for dissociative recombination. In addition, we use the multi-channel quantum-defect theory to demonstrate the precision of the scattering matrix by reproducing accurately ab initio Rydberg state energies of the neutral molecule. We consider the molecular ions N{sub 2}H{sup +} and HCO{sup +} as benchmark systems of astrophysical interest and improve former theoretical studies, which had repeatedly produced smaller cross sections than experimentally measured. Specifically, we demonstrate the crucial role of the previously overlooked stretching modes for linear polyatomic ions with large permanent dipole moment. The theoretical cross sections for both ions agree well with experimental data over a wide energy range. Finally, we consider the potential role of the HOC{sup +} isomer in the experimental cross sections of HCO{sup +} at energies below 10 meV.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2019

High-resolution infrared spectroscopy of jet cooled trans -deuteroxycarbonyl ( trans -DOCO) radical

The rovibrational spectrum of jet cooled trans-deuteroxycarbonyl (trans-DOCO) radical has been explored at suppressed-Doppler resolution via direct infrared absorption spectroscopy. The trans-DOCO is produced in a supersonic slit discharge of rare-gas/CO mixture doped with D 2 O, whereby the OD forms an energized adduct with CO, cooling in the supersonic expansion and stabilizing DOCO in the trans well. Active laser-frequency stabilization and collisional quenching of Doppler broadening along the slit axis yield <10 MHz frequency precision, with the absorbance noise approaching the quantum shot-noise limit. The current high-resolution spectral results are in excellent agreement with recent studies of the trans-DOCO radical by infrared frequency comb spectroscopy under room temperature conditions [Bui et al., Mol. Phys. 116, 3710 (2018)]. Combined with previous microwave/millimeter wave rotational studies, the suppressed-Doppler infrared data permit characterization of the vibrational ground state, improved structural parameters for the OD stretch vibrational level, and trans-DOCO spin-rotation information in both ground and excited vibrational states. Additionally, the infrared data reveal a-type and much weaker b-type contributions to the spectrum, analysis of which yields orientation of the OD stretch transition dipole moment in the body fixed frame. Of dynamical interest is whether the nascent trans-DOCO complex formed in the entrance channel has sufficient time to convert into the cis-DOCO isomer, or whether this is quenched by rapid stabilization into the trans-DOCO well. Finally, ab initio and Rice–Ramsperger–Kassel–Marcus analysis of the intrinsic reaction coordinate for trans-DOCO to cis-DOCO interconversion rates supports the latter scenario, which helps explain the failure of previous high resolution infrared efforts to detect cis-hydroxycarbonyl.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2024

Experimental evidence for nonspherical magnetic form factor in Ru 3 +

The Mott insulator ..alpha..-RuCl3 has generated great interest in the community due to its possible field-induced Kitaev quantum spin liquid state. Despite enormous effort spent trying to obtain the form of the low-energy Hamiltonian, there is currently no agreed upon set of parameters which is able to explain all of the data. A key piece of missing information lies in the determination of the magnetic form factor of Ru3+, particularly for a true quantitative treatment of inelastic neutron scattering data. Here we present the experimentally derived magnetic form factor of Ru3+ in the low spin 4d5 state using polarized neutron diffraction within the paramagnetic regime on high-quality single crystals of ..alpha..-RuCl3. We observe strong evidence of an anisotropic form factor, expected of the spin-orbit coupled jeff=12 ground state. We model the static magnetization density in increasing complexity from simple isotropic cases, to a multipolar expansion, and, finally, ab initio calculations of the generalized jeff=12 ground state. Comparison of both single ion models and inclusion of Cl- anions support the presence of hybridization of Ru3+ with the surrounding Cl- ligands.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗
DOE OSTI2022

Ab initio free energies of liquid metal alloys: Application to the phase diagrams of Li-Na and K-Na

Comparison of free energies between different phases and different compositions underlies the prediction of alloy phase diagrams. To allow direct comparison, consistent reference points for the energies or enthalpies are required, and the entropy must be placed on an absolute scale, yielding absolute free energies. Here we derive absolute free energies of liquids from ab-initio molecular dynamics (AIMD) by combining the directly simulated enthalpies with an entropy derived from simulated densities and pair correlation functions. Additionally, as an example of the power of this method we calculate the phase diagrams of two binary alkali metal alloys, Li-Na and K-Na, revealing a critical point and liquid-liquid phase separation in the former case, and a deep eutectic in the latter. Good agreement with experimental data demonstrates the power of this simple method.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2025

What's new? An ab initio investigation of the 3 He-4He radiative capture into 7 Be

The 3 He$(α, γ)$ 7 Be radiative capture reaction plays an important role in the creation of elements in stars and in the production of solar neutrinos. It is difficult to experimentally measure this fusion cross section at energies relevant to solar processes because of Coulomb repulsion. Therefore, theory is needed to perform extrapolations from higher energies (where experimental fusion measurements are feasible) to the astrophysical regime. Here, we present the first microscopic calculations of 3 He$(α, γ)$ 7 Be with explicit inclusion of three-nucleon forces. With the incorporation of experimental bound-state and scattering information, our calculation of the astrophysical S factor agrees quantitatively with experimental data.

Physics - Nuclear physics and radiation physics↗