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At least 937 records · Page 52

A structural description of the evolution of stakeholders and risk communication in the Department of Energy's defense nuclear facilities: Historical perspective, major stakeholders, and external events

Regulators and policymakers are routinely challenged with explaining complex concepts concerning risk. Part of the challenge is helping external and internal stakeholders to understand the context behind risk-related information and decisions. Here, this paper will describe the historical evolution of the safety and regulatory framework for an important category in the nuclear industry—defense nuclear facilities owned and operated by the US Department of Energy. In parallel with describing this evolution, three major events which occurred external to the complex of defense nuclear facilities will be summarized, and their impact on the maturation of the Department's safety and regulatory framework will be discussed. Finally, integrated with these two threads of discussion will be a chronicle of the changing set of involved organizations and the expanding set of external stakeholders involved in risk decisions—and therefore, the risk communications ecosystem surrounding defense nuclear facilities. It will be noted that this system was once describable as a classic “iron triangle,” but now has progressed to a complex network of federal and state organizations, numerous congressional committees, and expanding sets of external stakeholders. It is hoped that a comprehensive discussion of the context of risk assessment in the defense nuclear facilities complex—addressing historical insights, organizational evolution, and the maturing structure of regulation—will provide enhanced opportunities for building trust and understanding in this complex environment.

98 NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT, SAFEGUARDS, AND PHYSICAL P↗

Characterizing Flow Instabilities During Transient Events in the Turbine Rim Seal Cavity

Abstract Gas turbine engine design requires considerations not only for long-term steady operation but also for critical transient events. Aircraft engines undergo significant stress during takeoff and landing, while power generation turbines must be flexible for hot restarts as renewable energy sources come online and offline. During these transient cycles, engines sustain wear and degradation that can lead to a reduction in the lifespan of their components and more frequent, costly maintenance. Cooling flows are often used to mitigate these effects, but can lead to complex and problematic flow interactions. This study uses high-frequency response pressure probes and heat flux gauges in the rim seal cavity of a one-stage research turbine to characterize the properties of large-scale flow structures during transient operation. A continuous-duration turbine testing facility provides the ability to assess the importance of these transients by first reaching steady-state operation before imposing transient behaviors. Although previous studies have conducted similar measurements for steady purge flows and wheel speeds, varying these parameters to simulate transient effects revealed several unique phenomena not identifiable with discrete steady measurements. The measurement approach connects the varied transient parameter to the behavior of the flow structures to enable a better understanding of the type of instability observed and the root cause of its formation. In particular, a relationship between instability cell formation and rim sealing effectiveness was identified using experimental data and was supported through computational simulations.

Engineering↗

Heating events in the nascent solar system recorded by rare earth element isotopic fractionation in refractory inclusions

Equilibrium condensation of solar gas is often invoked to explain the abundance of refractory elements in planets and meteorites. This is partly motivated, by the observation that the depletions in both the least and most refractory rare earth elements (REEs) in meteoritic group II calcium-aluminum–rich inclusions (CAIs) can be reproduced by thermodynamic models of solar nebula condensation. We measured the isotopic compositions of Ce, Nd, Sm, Eu, Gd, Dy, Er, and Yb in eight CAIs to test this scenario. Contrary to expectation for equilibrium condensation, we find light isotope enrichment for the most refractory REEs and more subdued isotopic variations for the least refractory REEs. This suggests that group II CAIs formed by a two-stage process involving fast evaporation of preexisting materials, followed by near-equilibrium recondensation. The calculated time scales are consistent with heating in events akin to FU Orionis– or EX Lupi–type outbursts of eruptive pre–main-sequence stars.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗

Capturing an Early Gene Induction Event during Wood Decay by the Brown Rot Fungus Rhodonia placenta

Brown rot fungi dominate wood decomposition in coniferous forests, and their carbohydrate-selective mechanisms are of commercial interest. Brown rot was recently described as a two-step, sequential mechanism orchestrated by fungi using differentially expressed genes (DEGs) and consisting of oxidation via reactive oxygen species (ROS) followed by enzymatic saccharification. There have been indications, however, that the initial oxidation step itself might require induction. To capture this early gene regulation event, here, we integrated fine-scale cryosectioning with whole-transcriptome sequencing to dissect gene expression at the single-hyphal-cell scale (tens of micrometers). This improved the spatial resolution 50-fold, relative to previous work, and we were able to capture the activity of the first 100 μm of hyphal front growth by Rhodonia placenta in aspen wood. This early decay period was dominated by delayed gene expression patterns as the fungus ramped up its mechanism. These delayed DEGs included many genes implicated in ROS pathways (lignocellulose oxidation [LOX]) that were previously and incorrectly assumed to be constitutively expressed. These delayed DEGs, which include those with and without predicted functions, also create a focused subset of target genes for functional genomics. However, this delayed pattern was not universal, with a few genes being upregulated immediately at the hyphal front. Most notably, this included a gene commonly implicated in hydroquinone and iron redox cycling: benzoquinone reductase.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗

Search for top squarks in events with a Higgs or Z boson using 139 fb -1 of pp collision data at $\sqrt{s}=13$ TeV with the ATLAS detector

This paper presents a search for direct top squark pair production in events with missing transverse momentum plus either a pair of jets consistent with Standard Model Higgs boson decay into b-quarks or a same-flavour opposite-sign dilepton pair with an invariant mass consistent with a Z boson. The analysis is performed using the proton–proton collision data at √s=13 TeV collected with the ATLAS detector during the LHC Run-2, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 139 fb -1 . No excess is observed in the data above the Standard Model predictions. The results are interpreted in simplified models featuring direct production of pairs of either the lighter top squark ($\tilde{t}_1$) or the heavier top squark ($\tilde{t}_2$), excluding at 95% confidence level $\tilde{t}_1$ and $\tilde{t}_2$ masses up to about 1220 and 875 GeV, respectively.

42 ENGINEERING↗

Investigation of the electrical conduction mechanisms in P-type amorphous germanium electrical contacts for germanium detectors in searching for rare-event physics

For the first time, electrical conduction mechanisms in the disordered material system is experimentally studied for p-type amorphous germanium (a-Ge) used for high-purity Ge detector contacts. The localization length and the hopping parameters in a-Ge are determined using the surface leakage current measured from three high-purity planar Ge detectors. The temperature dependent hopping distance and hopping energy are obtained for a-Ge fabricated as the electrical contact materials for high-purity Ge planar detectors. As a result, we find that the hopping energy in a-Ge increases as temperature increases while the hopping distance in a-Ge decreases as temperature increases. The localization length of a-Ge is on the order of 2.13$^{-0.05}_{+0.07}$A° to 5.07$^{0.83}_{+2.58}$A°,depending on the density of states near the Fermi energy level within bandgap. Using these parameters, we predict that the surface leakage current from a Ge detector with a-Ge contacts can be much smaller than one yocto amp (yA) at helium temperature, suitable for rare-event physics searches.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

Searches for new phenomena in events with two leptons, jets, and missing transverse momentum in 139 fb –1 of √s = 13 TeV $pp$ collisions with the ATLAS detector

Searches for new phenomena inspired by supersymmetry in final states containing an e + e – or μ + μ – pair, jets, and missing transverse momentum are presented. These searches make use of proton–proton collision data with an integrated luminosity of 139 fb –1 , collected during 2015–2018 at a centre-of-mass energy √s = 13 TeV by the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider. Two searches target the pair production of charginos and neutralinos. One uses the recursive-jigsaw reconstruction technique to follow up on excesses observed in 36.1 fb –1 of data, and the other uses conventional event variables. The third search targets pair production of coloured supersymmetric particles (squarks or gluinos) decaying through the next-to-lightest neutralino ($\tilde{χ}$$^{0}_{2}$) via a slepton ($\tilde{ℓ}$) or Z boson into ℓ + ℓ – $\tilde{χ}$$^{0}_{1}$ , resulting in a kinematic endpoint or peak in the dilepton invariant mass spectrum. The data are found to be consistent with the Standard Model expectations. Results are interpreted using simplified models and exclude masses up to 900 GeV for electroweakinos, 1550 GeV for squarks, and 2250 GeV for gluinos.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

Calibration of the light-flavour jet mistagging efficiency of the b -tagging algorithms with Z+jets events using 139 $\textrm{fb}^{-1}$ of ATLAS proton–proton collision data at $\sqrt{s} = 13$ TeV

The identification of b -jets, referred to as b -tagging, is an important part of many physics analyses in the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider and an accurate calibration of its performance is essential for high-quality physics results. This publication describes the calibration of the light-flavour jet mistagging efficiency in a data sample of proton–proton collision events at $\sqrt{s} = 13$ TeV corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 139 fb -1 . The calibration is performed in a sample of Z bosons produced in association with jets. Due to the low mistagging efficiency for light-flavour jets, a method which uses modified versions of the b-tagging algorithms referred to as flip taggers is used in this work. A fit to the jet-flavour-sensitive secondary-vertex mass is performed to extract a scale factor from data, to correct the light-flavour jet mistagging efficiency in Monte Carlo simulations, while simultaneously correcting the b -jet efficiency. With this procedure, uncertainties coming from the modeling of jets from heavy-flavour hadrons are considerably lower than in previous calibrations of the mistagging scale factors, where they were dominant. The scale factors obtained in this calibration are consistent with unity within uncertainties.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

Measurements of jet multiplicity and jet transverse momentum in multijet events in proton–proton collisions at ${\sqrt{s}=13\, \text {TeV}}$

Multijet events at large transverse momentum ($p$ T ) are measured at $\sqrt{s}$ = 13 TeV using data recorded with the CMS detector at the LHC, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 36.3 fb -1 . The multiplicity of jets with $p$ T > 50 GeV that are produced in association with a high-$p$ T dijet system is measured in various ranges of the $p$ T of the jet with the highest transverse momentum and as a function of the azimuthal angle difference Δ$\phi$ 1,2 between the two highest $p$ T jets in the dijet system. The differential production cross sections are measured as a function of the transverse momenta of the four highest $p$ T jets. The measurements are compared with leading and next-to-leading order matrix element calculations supplemented with simula tions of parton shower, hadronization, and multiparton interactions. In addition, the measurements are compared with next-to-leading order matrix element calculations combined with transverse-momentum dependent parton densities and transverse-momentum dependent parton shower.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

Search for pair-produced vector-like top and bottom partners in events with large missing transverse momentum in $pp$ collisions with the ATLAS detector

A search for pair-produced vector-like quarks using events with exactly one lepton ($e$ or $μ$), at least four jets including at least one $b$-tagged jet, and large missing transverse momentum is presented. Data from proton–proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of $\sqrt{s}$ = 13 TeV, recorded by the ATLAS detector at the LHC from 2015 to 2018 and corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 139 fb –1 , are analysed. Vector-like partners $T$ and $B$ of the top and bottom quarks are considered, as is a vector-like $X$ with charge +5/3, assuming their decay into a $W$, $Z$, or Higgs boson and a third-generation quark. No significant deviations from the Standard Model expectation are observed. Upper limits on the production cross-section of $T$ and $B$ quark pairs as a function of their mass are derived for various decay branching ratio scenarios. The strongest lower limits on the masses are 1.59 assuming mass-degenerate vector-like quarks and branching ratios corresponding to the weak-isospin doublet model, and 1.47 TeV (1.46 TeV) for exclusive $T$→$Zt$ ($B/X$→$Wt$) decays. In addition, lower limits on the $T$ and $B$ quark masses are derived for all possible branching ratios.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

Search for Majorana neutrinos in same-sign WW scattering events from pp collisions at $\sqrt{s}=13$ TeV

A search for Majorana neutrinos in same-sign WW scattering events is presented. The analysis uses $\sqrt{s}=13$ TeV proton–proton collision data with an integrated luminosity of 140 fb -1 recorded during 2015–2018 by the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider. The analysis targets final states including exactly two same-sign muons and at least two hadronic jets well separated in rapidity. The modelling of the main backgrounds, from Standard Model same-sign WW scattering and WZ production, is constrained with data in dedicated signal-depleted control regions. The distribution of the transverse momentum of the second-hardest muon is used to search for signals originating from a heavy Majorana neutrino with a mass between 50 GeV and 20 TeV. No significant excess is observed over the background expectation. The results are interpreted in a benchmark scenario of the Phenomenological Type-I Seesaw model. In addition, the sensitivity to the Weinberg operator is investigated. Upper limits at the 95% confidence level are placed on the squared muon-neutrino–heavy-neutrino mass-mixing matrix element |V μN | 2 as a function of the heavy Majorana neutrino’s mass m N , and on the effective μμ Majorana neutrino mass |m μμ |.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

Search for squarks and gluinos in pp collisions at $\sqrt{s} = 13$ TeV and 13.6 TeV in events with $\tau$-leptons, jets and missing transverse momentum using the ATLAS detector

A search for R-parity-conserving supersymmetry in events with large missing transverse momentum, jets and at least one hadronically decaying $\tau$-lepton is presented. Both gluino and squark pair production are considered, with the cascade decay of each gluino or squark producing either a $\tau$-slepton or a $\tau$-sneutrino. Three channels are examined, requiring either exactly one hadronically decaying $\tau$-lepton and no other leptons, exactly one hadronically decaying $\tau$-lepton and at least one other lepton, or two or more hadronically decaying $\tau$-leptons. Analyses in the three channels are optimised independently and combined statistically. Two separate analysis strategies, either a cut-and-count or machine-learning approach, are used. The search uses 140 and 51.8 of pp collision data recorded by the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider during 2015–2018 at TeV and 2022–2023 at TeV, respectively. Gluino masses below 2.25 TeV and squark masses up to 1.7 TeV are excluded

Aad, G. [CNRS/IN2P3] (ORCID:0000000266654934)↗

Reconstruction of cosmic-ray muon events with CUORE

We report the in-situ 3D reconstruction of through-going muons in the CUORE experiment, a cryogenic calorimeter array searching for neutrinoless double beta (0vββ) decay, leveraging the segmentation of the detector. Due to the slow time response of the detector, time-of-flight estimation is not feasible. Therefore, the track reconstruction is performed using a multi-objective optimization algorithm that relies on geometrical information from the detector as a whole. We measure the integral flux of cosmic-ray muons underground at the Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso, and find our value to be in good agreement with other experiments that have performed a similar measurement. To our knowledge, this work represents the first demonstration of 3D particle tracking and reconstruction of through-going muons with per-event angular determination in a millikelvin cryogenic detector array. The analysis performed for this work will be critical for validating the muon-related background in CUPID, a next-generation 0vββ experiment, and for follow-up studies on detector response and on delayed products induced by cosmic-ray muons.

Adams, D. Q. [University of South Carolina]↗

Variational Path Sampling of Rare Dynamical Events

This article reviews the concepts and methods of variational path sampling. These methods allow computational studies of rare events in systems driven arbitrarily far from equilibrium. Based upon a statistical mechanics of trajectory space and leveraging the theory of large deviations, they provide a perspective from which dynamical phenomena can be studied with the same types of ensemble reweighting ideas that have been used for static equilibrium properties. Applications to chemical, material, and biophysical systems are highlighted.

Singh, Aditya N↗

Fracture, Dissolution, and Cementation Events in Ordovician Carbonate Reservoirs, Tarim Basin, NW China

Ordovician carbonate rocks of the Yijianfang Formation in the Tabei Uplift, Tarim Basin, contain deeply buried (>6000 m), highly productive oil and gas reservoirs associated with large cavities (>10 m). Previous workers inferred that large cavities are paleocaves (paleokarst) formed near the surface and subsequently buried. Alternately, caves may have formed by dissolution at depth along faults. Using 227 samples from 16 cores, we document textures and cement compositions bearing on cavity histories with petrographic, high-resolution scanning electron microscopy (SEM), isotopic, and fluid inclusion microthermometric observations. Results show that dissolution occurred at depth and was caused by (1) acidic fluids derived from Middle-Late Silurian and/or Devonian-Permian hydrocarbon generation and maturation, (2) high-temperature fluids, of which some were associated with Late Permian igneous activity, and (3) Mg-rich fluids that accompanied Jurassic-Cretaceous deformation and the formation of partially open fractures and stylobreccias (fault breccias). The relative paragenetic sequence of the structure-related diagenesis suggests seven stages of fracturing, dissolution, and cementation. Mottle fabrics in the Yijianfang Formation contain argillaceous carbonate-rich silt and are bioturbation features formed within the marine environment. Those mottled fabrics differ from clearly karstic features in the overlying Lianglitage Formation, which formed by near-surface dissolution and subsequent infilling of cavities by allochthonous sediment. Mottle fabrics are crosscut by compacted fractures filled with phreatic-vadose marine cements and followed by subsequent generations of cement-filled fractures and vugs indicating that some fractures and vugs became cement filled prior to later dissolution events. Calcite cements in fractures and vugs show progressively depleted values of δ18O documenting cement precipitation within the shallow (~220 m), intermediate (~625 m), and deep (~2000 m) diagenetic environments. Deep (mesogenetic) dissolution associated with fractures is therefore the principal source of the high porosity-permeability in the reservoir, consistent with other pieces of evidence for cavities localized near faults.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗

A Fast VANET-Assisted Scheme for Event Data Recorders

An event data recorder (EDR) is a device installed in a vehicle to record information. Similar to a black box in an airplane, an EDR is used in the study of automobile accidents. Many schemes have been proposed that use vehicle network technology to help record EDR data, including schemes involving storing data on roadside units or nearby vehicles and schemes leveraging blockchain technology. However, these schemes do not take into account the vehicle company’s server; with the increased use of autonomous vehicles, the data related to these vehicles are always uploaded to the vehicle company’s server. In this scenario, we classify the situation into different cases, according to whether or not it is an emergency and whether the vehicle and the server are connected. For these cases, we propose a scheme whereby a vehicle uploads the EDR data to a cloud server and sends the evidence of storage to the nearby vehicle through a vehicular ad hoc network. Our scheme offers a fast response due to the use of symmetric cryptography algorithms while also considering security requirements.

Liu, Wei↗

AL-ASMR: Active Learning of Atomistic Surrogate Models for Rare Events

Atomistic simulation with artificial intelligence (AI) is an emerging tool for understanding materials' properties and behaviors and predicting novel materials with optimized/targeted properties. Neural network potentials (NNPs) are outstanding in this field as they have shown a comparable accuracy to ab initio electronic structure calculations for reproducing potential energy surfaces while being several orders of magnitude faster. However, such NNPs can perform poorly outside of their training domain and typically fail catastrophically in the prediction of rare events in molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. For effective AL loops to distinguish the informative data from enhanced sampled configurations, we developed a decision engine by configurational similarity and uncertainty quantification (UQ) with data augmentation.

Jung, Gang Seob↗

Dual Event Generator Support (dual-evg-support) v1.0

Dual Event Generator Support is an EPICS support module that implements the communication protocol to interface with the Dual EVG projects (already open source at https://github.com/BerkeleyLab/LBNL-Dual-EVG).

Russo, Lucas [Lawrence Berkeley National Laborator↗