Measurement of the perpendicular energy component and the plasma decay time during high frequency heating
Perpendicular energy component measurement, and plasma decay time during high frequency heating
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Perpendicular energy component measurement, and plasma decay time during high frequency heating
Baryon number violation is a key ingredient of baryogenesis. It has been hypothesized that there could also be a parity-conjugated copy of the standard model particles, called mirror particles. The existence of such a mirror universe has specific testable implications, especially in the domain of neutral particle oscillation, viz. the baryon number violating neutron to mirror-neutron (n−n′) oscillation. Consequently, there were many experiments that have searched for n−n′ oscillation, and imposed constraints upon the parameters that describe it. Recently, further analysis on some of these results have identified anomalies which could point to the detection of n−n′ oscillation. All the previous efforts searched for n−n′ oscillation by comparing the relative number of ultracold neutrons that survive after a period of storage for one or both of the two cases: (i) comparison of zero applied magnetic field to a non-zero applied magnetic field, and (ii) comparison where the orientation of the applied magnetic field was reversed. However, n−n′ oscillations also lead to variations in the precession frequency of polarized neutrons upon flipping the direction of the applied magnetic field. Precession frequencies are measured, very precisely, by experiments searching for the electric dipole moment. For the first time, we used the data from the latest search for the neutron electric dipole moment to constrain n−n′ oscillation. After compensating for the systematic effects that affect the ratio of precession frequencies of ultracold neutrons and cohabiting 199Hg-atoms, chief among which was due to their motion in non-uniform magnetic field, we constrained any further perturbations due to n−n′ oscillation. We thereby provide a lower limit on the n−n′ oscillation time constant of τnn′/|cos(β)|>5.7s,0.36T′
The Fermilab E989 Muon $g-2$ experiment measures the muon's anomalous magnetic moment to a precision of 127 parts per billion, as reported in June 2025. The value is proportional to the difference between the muon's cyclotron frequency and the spin precession frequency in the presence of a uniform magnetic field, for muons contained within the $g-2$ storage ring. Spin precession frequency is extracted from the time distribution of the muon's decay positrons recorded by 24 electromagnetic calorimeters positioned around the inner circumference of the storage ring. The anomalous precession frequency is one of the primary experimental inputs necessary to estimate the anomalous magnetic moment, the other being the measurement of the magnetic field. This dissertation details the anomalous precession frequency extraction, including reconstruction, time-distribution fitting, and treatment of systematic uncertainties for the final three data-collection runs: Run-4, Run-5, and Run-6. This data represents a fourfold increase in statistics over the previous analysis release, halving the statistical uncertainty. The residual slow term from previous analyses is now well understood and documented in a systematic treatment. As of the writing of this dissertation, the theoretical prediction for the SM estimate of the muon's anomalous magnetic moment is under debate, with two competing prediction methods, so a definitive comparison with theory is not available. The results submitted for experimental release use the kernel-ratio asymmetry method, contributing 115 parts per billion to the statistical uncertainty and 34 parts per billion to the systematic uncertainty. When combined with the previous analyses in earlier data runs, this thereby improves the measurement beyond the experimental goal and sets the world's most precise measurement of the muon's anomalous magnetic moment.
The Fermilab E989 Muon $g-2$ experiment measures the muon's anomalous magnetic moment to a precision of 127 parts per billion, as reported in June 2025. The value is proportional to the difference between the muon's cyclotron frequency and the spin precession frequency in the presence of a uniform magnetic field, for muons contained within the $g-2$ storage ring. Spin precession frequency is extracted from the time distribution of the muon's decay positrons recorded by 24 electromagnetic calorimeters positioned around the inner circumference of the storage ring. The anomalous precession frequency is one of the primary experimental inputs necessary to estimate the anomalous magnetic moment, the other being the measurement of the magnetic field. This dissertation details the anomalous precession frequency extraction, including reconstruction, time-distribution fitting, and treatment of systematic uncertainties for the final three data-collection runs: Run-4, Run-5, and Run-6. This data represents a fourfold increase in statistics over the previous analysis release, halving the statistical uncertainty. The residual slow term from previous analyses is now well understood and documented in a systematic treatment. As of the writing of this dissertation, the theoretical prediction for the SM estimate of the muon's anomalous magnetic moment is under debate, with two competing prediction methods, so a definitive comparison with theory is not available. The results submitted for experimental release use the kernel-ratio asymmetry method, contributing 115 parts per billion to the statistical uncertainty and 34 parts per billion to the systematic uncertainty. When combined with the previous analyses in earlier data runs, this thereby improves the measurement beyond the experimental goal and sets the world's most precise measurement of the muon's anomalous magnetic moment.
The Fermilab E989 Muon g − 2 experiment measures the muon’s anomalous magnetic moment to a precision of 127 parts per billion, as reported in June 2025. The value is proportional to the difference between the muon’s cyclotron frequency and the spin precession frequency in the presence of a uniform magnetic field, for muons contained within the g − 2 storage ring. Spin precession frequency is extracted from the time distribution of the muon’s decay positrons recorded by 24 electromagnetic calorimeters positioned around the inner circumference of the storage ring. The anomalous precession frequency is one of the primary experimental inputs necessary to estimate the anomalous magnetic moment, the other being the measurement of the magnetic field. This dissertation details the anomalous precession frequency extraction, including reconstruction, time-distribution fitting, and treatment of systematic uncertainties for the final three data-collection runs: Run-4, Run-5, and Run-6. This data represents a fourfold increase in statistics over the previous analysis release, halving the statistical uncertainty. The residual slow term from previous analyses is now well understood and documented in a systematic treatment. As of the writing of this dissertation, the theoretical prediction for the SM estimate of the muon’s anomalous magnetic moment is under debate, with two competing prediction methods, so a definitive comparison with theory is not available. The results submitted for experimental release use the kernel-ratio asymmetry method, contributing 115 parts per billion to the statistical uncertainty and 34 parts per billion to the systematic uncertainty. When combined with the previous analyses in earlier data runs, this thereby improves the measurement beyond the experimental goal and sets the world’s most precise measurement of the muon’s anomalous magnetic moment.
Experiments performed at the Kennedy Space Center, Florida during TRIP-78 identified sources of the strongest RF radiation from lightning in the HF-VHF frequency range. Measurements were made of electric field changes associated with RF radiation using a field change system triggered on the output of an RF detector. The field changes associated with the strongest RF radiation are very fast (10 - 20 microseconds), bipolar pulses having an initial negative going half-cycle followed by a positive overshoot. These fast pulses consistently produced more RF radiation than was associated with return strokes, and their shape was remarkably consistent, independent of frequency.
A method was developed to deduce dynamic interfacial properties of liquid drops. The method involves measuring the frequency and damping of free quadrupole oscillations of an acoustically levitated drop. Experimental results from pure liquid-liquid systems agree well with theoretical predictions. Additionally, the effects of surfactants is considered. Extension of these results to a proposed microgravity experiment on the drop physics module (DPM) in USML-1 are discussed. Efforts are also underway to model the time history of the thickness of the fluid layer between two pre-coalescence drops, and to measure the film thickness experimentally. Preliminary results will be reported, along with plans for coalescence experiments proposed for USML-1.
VLF noise phenomena observed with satellite electric dipole antennas compared with lower hybrid resonance frequency of ionospheric medium in vicinity
Radio frequency indigenous noise measurement in urban areas
Abstract. Riming of ice crystals by supercooled water droplets is an efficient ice growth process, but its basic properties are still poorly known. While it has been shown to contribute significantly to surface precipitation at mid-latitudes, little is known about its occurrence at high latitudes. In Antarctica, two competing effects can influence the occurrence of riming: (i) the scarcity of supercooled liquid water clouds due to the extremely low tropospheric temperatures and (ii) the low aerosol concentration, which may lead to the formation of fewer and larger supercooled drops potentially resulting in an enhanced riming efficiency. In this work, by exploiting the deployment of an unprecedented number of multiwavelength remote sensing systems (including triple-frequency radar measurements) in West Antarctica, during the Atmospheric Radiation Measurements West Antarctic Radiation Experiment (AWARE) field campaign, we evaluate the riming incidence at McMurdo Station and find that riming occurs at much lower temperatures when compared to previous results in the mid-latitudes. This suggests the possible occurrence of a common atmospheric state over Antarctica that includes a rather stable atmosphere inhibiting turbulent mixing, and a high riming efficiency driven by large cloud droplets. We then focus on a peculiar case study featuring a persistent layer with a particularly pronounced riming signature in triple-frequency radar data but only a relatively modest amount of supercooled liquid water. In-depth analysis of the radar observations suggests that such signatures can only be explained by the combined effects of moderately rimed aggregates or similarly shaped florid polycrystals and a narrow particle size distribution (PSD). Simulations of this case study performed with a one-dimensional bin model indicate that similar triple-frequency radar observations can be reproduced when narrow PSDs are simulated. Such narrow PSDs can in turn be explained by two key factors: (i) the presence of a shallow homogeneous droplet or humidified aerosol freezing layer aloft seeding an underlying supercooled liquid layer, and (ii) the absence of turbulent mixing throughout a stable polar atmosphere that sustains narrow PSDs, as hydrometeors grow from the nucleation region aloft to ice particles of several millimeters in size, by vapor deposition and then riming.
The experimental behavior of spinning, pre-twisted laminated composite plates was investigated. The purpose of these experiments was to establish an experimental database consisting of strain, deflections, and natural frequencies as a function of rotational velocity. Six different plate sets were tested, that included three different stacking sequences (two symmetric, one asymmetric), two different initial twist levels (0 deg, 30 deg), and two different initial twist axis locations (midchord, quarter-chord). The plates were spin tested at four different combinations of pitch and sweep. It was observed that the location of the pretwist axis and the level of pretwist greatly affects the strain and deflections of the spinning plate, while only the pretwist level affects the measured natural frequencies.
A scramjet isolator model test apparatus is being assembled in the Isolator Dynamics Research Lab (IDRL) at the NASA Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. The test apparatus is designed to support multiple measurement techniques for investigating the flow field in a scramjet isolator model. The test section is 1-inch high by 2-inch wide by 24-inch long and simulates a scramjet isolator with an aspect ratio of two. Unheated, dry air at a constant stagnation pressure and temperature is delivered to the isolator test section through a Mach 2.5 planar nozzle. The isolator test section is mechanically back-pressured to contain the resulting shock train within the 24-inch isolator length and supports temperature, static pressure, and high frequency pressure measurements at the wall. Additionally, nonintrusive methods including laser-induced thermal acoustics (LITA), spontaneous Raman scattering, particle image velocimetry, and schlieren imaging are being incorporated to measure off-wall fluid dynamic, thermodynamic, and transport properties of the flow field. Interchangeable glass and metallic sidewalls and optical access appendages permit making multiple measurements simultaneously. The measurements will be used to calibrate computational fluid dynamics turbulence models and characterize the back-pressured flow of a scramjet isolator. This paper describes the test apparatus, including the optical access appendages; the physics of the LITA method; and estimates of LITA measurement uncertainty for measurements of the speed of sound and temperature.
We examine both Voyager and Advanced Composition Explorer magnetic field measurements at frequencies that characterize the inertial range and evaluate the anisotropy of the fluctuations as they relate to both the compressive component and underlying wavevector anisotropy of the turbulence. The magnetic fluctuation anisotropy as it relates to the compressive component is directly dependent upon both the plasma beta of the thermal proton component and the ratio of magnetic fluctuation magnitude to the strength of the mean magnetic field. This has been seen before at 1 au. The magnetic fluctuation anisotropy in the plane perpendicular to the mean magnetic field, which is a measure of the anisotropy of the underlying wavevector distribution, should depend on the angle between the mean magnetic field and the radial direction and should be confined to values between one and the index of the power spectrum, which is typically 5/3. Our results show that the average of this anisotropy exceeds the value of the spectral index and is out of bounds with the theory. Although the results are suggestive of past analyses, we find that spherical expansion of the turbulence may offer at least a partial explanation of the apparent amplification of this measured anisotropy.
Multiple-channel microwave radiometric measurements made over Alaska at aircraft (near 90 and 183 GHz) and satellite (at 37 and 85 GHz) altitudes are used to study the effect of atmospheric absorption on the estimation of snow depth. The estimation is based on the radiative transfer calculations using an early theoretical model of Mie scattering of single-size particles. It is shown that the radiometric correction for the effect of atmospheric absorption is important even at 37 GHz for a reliable estimation of snow depth. Under a dry atmosphere and based on single-frequency radiometric measurements, the underestimation of snow depth could amount to 50 percent at 85 GHz and 20-30 percent at 37 GHz if the effect of atmospheric absorption is not taken into account. The snow depths estimated from the 90-GHz aircraft and 85-GHz satellite measurements are found to be in reasonable agreement. However, there is a discrepancy in the snow depths estimated from the 37-GHz (at both vertical and horizontal polarizations) and 85-GHz satellite measurements.
Ultrasonic radio frequency tone-bursts are launched into a sample of material tested. The amplitude of the tone-bursts and the slope of the resulting static displacement pulses are measured. These measurements are used to calculate the nonlinearities of the materials.
This data and code package supports the analysis presented in “Beyond Surface Cooling: Comprehensive Field Assessment of Reflective Pavement Thermal Performance in Phoenix, Arizona” and provides fully reproducible workflows for evaluating the thermal performance of cool pavement treatments in a hot urban environment. The dataset integrates multi-modal field measurements collected across residential and nonresidential settings, including mobile air temperature traverses, stationary air temperature monitoring, residential mean radiant temperature (MRT) measurements, subsurface temperature profiles, and controlled testbed observations. The data package contains raw and processed datasets in comma-separated value (CSV) format, accompanying metadata files describing site characteristics and measurement protocols, and R scripts (.R files) used for data cleaning, time synchronization, spatial and temporal matching, quality control filtering, statistical comparison, and figure generation. All analyses were conducted using R (version ≥ 4.2.0) with commonly available packages (e.g., tidyverse, lubridate, data.table, ggplot2). No proprietary software is required to reproduce results. Field campaigns were designed to quantify the effects of high-reflectance pavement coatings on surface temperature, near-surface air temperature, subsurface heat propagation, and radiative heat exposure. Temporal alignment procedures include standardized timestamp conversion and nearest-neighbor matching of high-frequency sensor measurements to stop-based metadata within defined tolerance windows to ensure comparability across instruments. The workflows generate summary statistics, treatment–control contrasts, depth-dependent thermal gradients, and time-series visualizations used in the associated publication. By integrating mobile, stationary, radiative, and subsurface measurements within a unified and transparent processing framework, this package enables comprehensive evaluation of cool pavement performance across multiple thermal exposure pathways and supports reuse in future urban heat mitigation and climate resilience studies.
Pressure and temperature data from eight superpressure balloon flights at 26 km in the southern hemisphere stratosphere are analyzed. The balloons, which float on a constant density surface, travel steadily westward during summer and eastward during winter, as expected from local climatology. Two types of fluctuations are observed: neutral buoyancy oscillations (NBO) of around 4 min, and 0.1- to 1-hour oscillations that are characterized as small-amplitude density surface fluctuations. Lapse rates and densities are calculated and found to agree well with the expected values. Examples of wave damping and simultaneous fluctuation at two nearby balloons are presented. Spectral analysis is performed clearly showing the NBO and that the majority of the power is in the mesoscale range. Spectral slopes of power versus frequency are measured to be on the average -2.18 + or - 0.24 for pressure and -1.72 + or - 0.24 for temperature. These slopes are compared to the predictions of turbulence theories and the theory of a universal gravity wave spectrum.
Gravitational waves enable tests of general relativity in the highly dynamical and strong-field regime. Using events detected by LIGO-Virgo up to 1 October 2019, we evaluate the consistency of the data with predictions from the theory. We first establish that residuals from the best-fit waveform are consistent with detector noise, and that the low- and high-frequency parts of the signals are in agreement. We then consider parametrized modifications to the waveform by varying post-Newtonian and phenomenological coefficients, improving past constraints by factors of ∼2; we also find consistency with Kerr black holes when we specifically target signatures of the spin-induced quadrupole moment. Looking for gravitational-wave dispersion, we tighten constraints on Lorentz-violating coefficients by a factor of ∼2.6 and bound the mass of the graviton to m(g)≤1.76 x 10^(-23) eV/sq. c with 90% credibility. We also analyze the properties of the merger remnants by measuring ringdown frequencies and damping times, constraining fractional deviations away from the Kerr frequency to δ{\hat {f}}(220)=0.03(+0.38,-0.35) for the fundamental quadrupolar mode, and δ{\hat {f}}(221)=0.04(+0.27,-0.32) for the first overtone; additionally, we find no evidence for postmerger echoes. Finally, we determine that our data are consistent with tensorial polarizations through a template-independent method. When possible, we assess the validity of general relativity based on collections of events analyzed jointly. We find no evidence for new physics beyond general relativity, for black hole mimickers, or for any unaccounted systematics.