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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 91 records · Page 5
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS2002

Event Rate for LISA Gravitational Wave Signals from Black Hole-Massive Black Hole Coalescences

Earlier work under a previous grant had been mainly on investigating the event rate for coalescences of white dwarfs or neutron stars with massive black holes (MBHs) in galactic nuclei. Under the new grant, two studies were undertaken. One was an approximate extension of the earlier study to stellar mass black holes as the lighter object, with masses in the range of roughly 3 to 20 solar mass rather than about 1 solar mass. The other was an improved estimate of the confusion noise due to galactic binaries against which the signals from BH-MBH coalescences would have to be detected. In the earlier work, the mass of the white dwarfs (WDs) and neutron stars (NSs) was assumed to be about the same as that of the evolved stars in the density cusp around the galactic center MBH. However, with the BH mass being substantially larger, the sinking down of pHs toward the center (mass segregation) became important, and was included in the model. A single representative mass of 7 solar mass was used. The other main difference involved what happened after the compact object got scattered in close enough to the MBH to start losing appreciable energy and angular momentum by gravitational radiation. For WDs or NSs, it had been found in most cases that the object would be perturbed considerably by other stars in the cusp before much energy had been lost. Thus the angular momentum would either increase enough so that gravitational radiation would be cut off, or would decrease enough so that the WD or NS would plunge into the MBH in just a few revolutions. The latter event would mean that the signal-to noise ratio would not have time to build up, and the event would not be detectable. The ratio of gradual energy loss events to plunges was found to be roughly one to a few percent, and thus substantially decreased the expected rate of detectable events.

Bender, Peter L.↗
DOE OSTI2021

Black Carbon Deposited in Hariqin Glacier of the Central Tibetan Plateau Record Changes in the Emission from Eurasia

Black carbon (BC), by the combustion of fossil fuels and biomass, has profound effects on climate change and glacier retreat in industrial eras. In the present study, we report refractory BC (rBC) in an ice core spanning 1850–2014, retrieved from the Hariqin Glacier of the Tanggula Mountains in the central Tibetan Plateau, measured using a single particle soot photometer (SP2). The rBC concentration shows a three-fold increase since the 1950s. The mean rBC concentration was 0.71±0.52 ng mL-1 during 1850s–1940s and 2.11±1.60 ng mL-1 during 1950s–2010s. The substantial increase in rBC since the 1950s is consistent with rBC ice core records from the Tibetan Plateau and Eastern Europe. According to the predominant atmospheric circulation patterns over the glacier and timing of changes in regional emissions, the post-1950 amplification of rBC concentration in the central Tibetan Plateau most likely reflects increases in emissions in Eastern Europe, former USSR, the Middle East, and South Asia. Despite the low-level background rBC concentrations in the ice cores from the Tibetan Plateau, the present study highlights a remarkable increase in anthropogenic BC emissions in recent decades and the consequent influence on glaciers in the Tibetan Plateau.

Black carbon, Ice core, Tibetan Plateau, Industria↗
DOE OSTI2017

Enhanced photoelectrochemical efficiency and stability using a conformal TiO 2 film on a black silicon photoanode

Black silicon (b-Si) is a surface-nanostructured Si with extremely efficient light absorption capability and is therefore of interest for solar energy conversion. However, intense charge recombination and low electrochemical stability limit the use of b-Si in photoelectrochemical solar-fuel production. Here we report that a conformal, ultrathin, amorphous TiO 2 film deposited by low-temperature atomic layer deposition (ALD) on top of b-Si can simultaneously address both of these issues. Combined with a Co(OH) 2 thin film as the oxygen evolution catalyst, this b-Si/TiO 2 /Co(OH) 2 heterostructured photoanode was able to produce a saturated photocurrent density of 32.3 mA cm –2 at an external potential of 1.48 V versus reversible reference electrode (RHE) in 1 M NaOH electrolyte. The enhanced photocurrent relative to planar Si and unprotected b-Si photoelectrodes was attributed to the enhanced charge separation efficiency as a result of the effective passivation of defective sites on the b-Si surface. The 8-nm ALD TiO 2 layer extends the operational lifetime of b-Si from less than half an hour to four hours.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2013

ACCRETION ONTO BLACK HOLES FROM LARGE SCALES REGULATED BY RADIATIVE FEEDBACK. III. ENHANCED LUMINOSITY OF INTERMEDIATE-MASS BLACK HOLES MOVING AT SUPERSONIC SPEEDS

In this third paper of a series, we study the growth and luminosity of black holes (BHs) in motion with respect to their surrounding medium. We run a large set of two-dimensional axis-symmetric simulations to explore a large parameter space of initial conditions and formulate an analytical model for the accretion. Contrary to the case without radiation feedback, the accretion rate increases with increasing BH velocity v{sub bh} reaching a maximum value at v{sub bh} = 2c{sub s,in} {approx} 50 km s{sup -1}, where c{sub s,in} is the sound speed inside the ''cometary-shaped'' H II region around the BH, before decreasing as v{sub bh}{sup -3} when the ionization front (I-front) becomes R-type (rarefied) and the accretion rate approaches the classical Bondi-Hoyle-Lyttleton solution. The increase of the accretion rate with v{sub bh} is produced by the formation of a D-type (dense) I-front preceded by a standing bow shock that reduces the downstream gas velocity to transonic values. There is a range of densities and velocities where the dense shell is unstable producing periodic accretion rate peaks which can significantly increase the detectability of intermediate-mass BHs. We find that the mean accretion rate for a moving BH is larger than that of a stationary BH of the same mass if the medium temperature is T{sub {infinity}} < 10{sup 4} K. This result could be important for the growth of seed BHs in the multi-phase medium of the first galaxies and for building an early X-ray background that may affect the formation of the first galaxies and the reionization process.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2013

Detection of pulsar beams deflected by the black hole in SGR A*: Effects of black hole spin

Some Galactic models predict a significant population of radio pulsars close to the Galactic center. Beams from these pulsars could be strongly deflected by the supermassive black hole (SMBH) believed to reside at the Galactic center and as a result reach Earth. Earlier work assuming a Schwarzschild SMBH gave marginal chances of observing this exotic phenomenon with current telescopes and good chances with future telescopes. Here we study whether those estimates are significantly affected by SMBH spin. We find that spin effects make a negligible difference in detectability, but the pattern of pulse arrival times is clearly affected. In particular, if strongly deflected beams are detected, the SMBH spin signature could be extracted from pulsar beam times of arrival.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2014

Experimental limits on primordial black hole dark matter from the first 2 yr of Kepler data

We present our analysis on new limits of the dark matter (DM) halo consisting of primordial black holes (PBHs) or massive compact halo objects. We present a search of the first two yr of publicly available Kepler mission data for potential signatures of gravitational microlensing caused by these objects as well as an extensive analysis of the astrophysical sources of background error. These include variable stars, flare events, and comets or asteroids that are moving through the Kepler field. We discuss the potential of detecting comets using the Kepler light curves, presenting measurements of two known comets and one unidentified object, most likely an asteroid or comet. After removing the background events with statistical cuts, we find no microlensing candidates. We therefore present our Monte Carlo efficiency calculation in order to constrain the PBH DM with masses in the range of 2 × 10{sup –9} M {sub ☉} to 10{sup –7} M {sub ☉}. We find that PBHs in this mass range cannot make up the entirety of the DM, thus closing a full order of magnitude in the allowed mass range for PBH DM.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2014

Numerical simulations of optically thick accretion onto a black hole. II. Rotating flow

In this paper, we report on recent upgrades to our general relativistic radiation magnetohydrodynamics code, Cosmos++, including the development of a new primitive inversion scheme and a hybrid implicit-explicit solver with a more general M {sub 1} closure relation for the radiation equations. The new hybrid solver helps stabilize the treatment of the radiation source terms, while the new closure allows for a much broader range of optical depths to be considered. These changes allow us to expand by orders of magnitude the range of temperatures, opacities, and mass accretion rates, and move a step closer toward our goal of performing global simulations of radiation-pressure-dominated black hole accretion disks. In this work, we test and validate the new method against an array of problems. We also demonstrate its ability to handle super-Eddington, quasi-spherical accretion. Even with just a single proof-of-principle simulation, we already see tantalizing hints of the interesting phenomenology associated with the coupling of radiation and gas in super-Eddington accretion flows.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2015

COSMIC EVOLUTION OF BLACK HOLES AND SPHEROIDS. V. THE RELATION BETWEEN BLACK HOLE MASS AND HOST GALAXY LUMINOSITY FOR A SAMPLE OF 79 ACTIVE GALAXIES

We investigate the cosmic evolution of the black hole (BH) mass-bulge luminosity relation using a sample of 52 active galaxies at z ∼ 0.36 and z ∼ 0.57 in the BH mass range of 10{sup 7.4}-10{sup 9.1} M {sub ☉}. By consistently applying multicomponent spectral and structural decomposition to high-quality Keck spectra and high-resolution Hubble Space Telescope images, BH masses (M {sub BH}) are estimated using the Hβ broad emission line combined with the 5100 Å nuclear luminosity, and bulge luminosities (L {sub bul}) are derived from surface photometry. Comparing the resulting M {sub BH} – L {sub bul} relation to local active galaxies and taking into account selection effects, we find evolution of the form M {sub BH}/L {sub bul}∝(1 + z){sup γ} with γ = 1.8 ± 0.7, consistent with BH growth preceding that of the host galaxies. Including an additional sample of 27 active galaxies with 0.5 < z < 1.9 taken from the literature and measured in a consistent way, we obtain γ = 0.9 ± 0.7 for the M {sub BH} – L {sub bul} relation and γ = 0.4 ± 0.5 for the M {sub BH}-total host galaxy luminosity (L {sub host}) relation. The results strengthen the findings from our previous studies and provide additional evidence for host galaxy bulge growth being dominated by disk-to-bulge transformation via minor mergers and/or disk instabilities.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2015

Can direct collapse black holes launch gamma-ray bursts and grow to supermassive black holes?

The existence of black holes (BHs) of mass ∼10{sup 9} M{sub ⊙} at z≳6 is a big puzzle in astrophysics because even optimistic estimates of the accretion time are insufficient for stellar-mass BHs of ∼10 M{sub ⊙} to grow into such supermassive BHs. A resolution of this puzzle might be the direct collapse of supermassive stars with mass M∼10{sup 5} M{sub ⊙} into massive seed BHs. We find that if a jet is launched from the accretion disk around the central BH, the jet can break out of the star because of the structure of the radiation-pressure-dominated envelope. Such ultralong gamma-ray bursts with duration of ∼10{sup 4}–10{sup 6} s and flux of 10{sup −11}–10{sup -8} erg s{sup -1} cm{sup -2} could be detectable by Swift. We estimate an event rate of ≲1 yr{sup −1}. The total explosion energy is ≳10{sup 55}–10{sup 56} erg. The resulting negative feedback delays the growth of the remnant BH by about 70 Myr or evacuates the host galaxy completely.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2017

Gravitational wave signatures of inflationary models from Primordial Black Hole dark matter

Primordial Black Holes (PBH) could be the cold dark matter of the universe. They could have arisen from large (order one) curvature fluctuations produced during inflation that reentered the horizon in the radiation era. At reentry, these fluctuations source gravitational waves (GW) via second order anisotropic stresses. These GW, together with those (possibly) sourced during inflation by the same mechanism responsible for the large curvature fluctuations, constitute a primordial stochastic GW background (SGWB) that unavoidably accompanies the PBH formation. We study how the amplitude and the range of frequencies of this signal depend on the statistics (Gaussian versus χ{sup 2}) of the primordial curvature fluctuations, and on the evolution of the PBH mass function due to accretion and merging. We then compare this signal with the sensitivity of present and future detectors, at PTA and LISA scales. We find that this SGWB will help to probe, or strongly constrain, the early universe mechanism of PBH production. The comparison between the peak mass of the PBH distribution and the peak frequency of this SGWB will provide important information on the merging and accretion evolution of the PBH mass distribution from their formation to the present era. Different assumptions on the statistics and on the PBH evolution also result in different amounts of CMB μ-distortions. Therefore the above results can be complemented by the detection (or the absence) of μ-distortions with an experiment such as PIXIE.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2017

CO-Dark Star Formation and Black Hole Activity in 3C 368 at z = 1.131: Coeval Growth of Stellar and Supermassive Black Hole Masses

We present the detection of four far-infrared fine-structure oxygen lines, as well as strong upper limits for the CO(2–1) and [N ii] 205 μ m lines, in 3C 368, a well-studied radio-loud galaxy at z = 1.131. These new oxygen lines, taken in conjunction with previously observed neon and carbon fine-structure lines, suggest a powerful active galactic nucleus (AGN), accompanied by vigorous and extended star formation. A starburst dominated by O8 stars, with an age of ∼6.5 Myr, provides a good fit to the fine-structure line data. This estimated age of the starburst makes it nearly concurrent with the latest episode of AGN activity, suggesting a link between the growth of the supermassive black hole and stellar population in this source. We do not detect the CO(2–1) line, down to a level twelve times lower than the expected value for star-forming galaxies. This lack of CO line emission is consistent with recent star formation activity if the star-forming molecular gas has low metallicity, is highly fractionated (such that CO is photodissociated throughout much of the clouds), or is chemically very young (such that CO has not yet had time to form). It is also possible, although we argue it is unlikely, that the ensemble of fine-structure lines is emitted from the region heated by the AGN.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2022

Long-term Evolution of Tightly Packed Stellar Black Holes in AGN Disks: Formation of Merging Black Hole Binaries via Close Encounters

We study the long-term evolution of two or more stellar black holes (BHs) on initially separated but unstable circular orbits around a supermassive BH (SMBH). Such a close-packed orbital configuration can naturally arise from BH migrations in the AGN disk. Dynamical instability of the orbits leads to recurring close encounters between two BHs, during which the BH separation r p becomes less than the Hill radius R H . In rare very close encounters, a tight merging BH binary can form with the help of gravitational wave emission. We use N-body simulations to study the time evolution of close encounters of various degrees of closeness. For a typical "SMBH+2BH" system, the averaged cumulative number of close encounters (with r p ≲ R H ) scales approximately as ∝ t 0.5 . The minimum encounter separation r p follows a cumulative distribution P( p ) ∝ r p for r p « R H . We obtain a semi-analytical expression for the averaged rate of binary captures that lead to BH mergers. Our results suggest that close-packed BHs in AGN disks may take a long time (≳10 7 orbits around the SMBH) to experience a sufficiently close encounter and form a bound binary. This time can be shorter if the initial BH orbits are highly aligned. The BH binary mergers produced in this scenario have high eccentricities when entering the LIGO band and broad distribution of orbital inclinations relative to the original AGN disk. We explore the effects of the gas disk and find that simple gas drags on the BHs do not necessarily lead to an enhanced BH binary capture rate.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2014

Search for microscopic black holes and string balls in final states with leptons and jets with the ATLAS detector at s $ \sqrt{s} $ = 8 TeV

A search for an excess of events with multiple high transverse momentum objects including charged leptons and jets is presented, using 20.3 fb -1 of proton-proton collision data recorded by the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider in 2012 at a centre-of-mass energy of $ \sqrt{s} $ = 8 TeV. No excess of events beyond Standard Model expectations is observed. Using extra-dimensional models for black hole and string ball production and decay, exclusion contours are determined as a function of the mass threshold for production and the fundamental gravity scale for two, four and six extra dimensions. For six extra dimensions, mass thresholds of 4.8-6.2 TeV are excluded at 95 % confidence level, depending on the fundamental gravity scale and model assumptions. Upper limits on the fiducial cross-sections for non-Standard Model production of these final states are set.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2020

A review of black carbon in snow and ice and its impact on the cryosphere

Black carbon (BC) has emerged as an important short-lived climate forcer. Due to its light absorption properties, BC can darken the snow/ice surface, affect the energy balance, and further lead to acceleration of the cryospheric melting. By reviewing the recent published literatures, we present an overview of the historical changes, spatial distribution of BC in snow/ice, and how these changes are related to the melting of the cryosphere (e.g., glaciers, snow cover, and sea ice). Ice core records show an abrupt increase of BC concentrations that began in the 1850s and continued throughout the 20th century, which is consistent with an increase in BC emissions owing to industrialization. A decrease in the amount of BC since 1970s in Arctic and European ice cores has been partially attributed to the Clean Air Act. However, in the Himalayas, BC records show a continuous increase during this period. BC concentrations in snow and ice in the mid-latitude regions are one to two orders of magnitude higher than those in the polar regions. In particular, BC concentrations in aged snow and granular ice in ablation areas of mountain glaciers are one to three orders of magnitude higher than those in fresh snow or snowpits in the glacier accumulation areas due to BC accumulation during melting season. BC in the surface snow/ice is responsible for about 20% of the albedo reduction in the Tibetan Plateau during glacier melt season. Globally, observations and modeling results indicate that radiative forcing (RF) induced by BC in snow and ice is highest in the mid-latitudes, ranging from several W m–2 in fresh snow to hundreds of W m–2 in aged snow and granular ice in glacier ablation areas. The large BC-in-snow RF and associated snow albedo feedback lead to an acceleration in the total glacier melt (approximately 20%) and/or a reduction in the duration of the snow cover by several days, resulting in an increase of glacier discharge. Given our limited understanding of the role of BC in cryospheric melting, it is important to synthesize the existing research on the multi-scale processes related to BC in snow and ice to identify the gaps in our understanding of these processes and to propose a path forward to improve the quality of our observations of the aforementioned phenomena to fill these gaps.

Kang, Shichang↗