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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 973 records · Page 54
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2011

Barriers in the transition to global chaos in collisionless magnetic reconnection. II. Field line spectroscopy

The transitional phase from local to global chaos in the magnetic field of a reconnecting current layer is investigated. The identification of the ridges in the field of the finite time Lyapunov exponent as barriers to the field line motion is carried out adopting the technique of field line spectroscopy to analyze the radial position of a field line while it winds its way through partial stochastic layers and to compare the frequencies of the field line motion with the corresponding frequencies of the distinguished hyperbolic field lines that are the nonlinear generalizations of linear X-lines.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2011

Barriers in the transition to global chaos in collisionless magnetic reconnection. I. Ridges of the finite time Lyapunov exponent field

The transitional phase from local to global chaos in the magnetic field of a reconnecting current layer is investigated. Regions where the magnetic field is stochastic exist next to regions where the field is more regular. In regions between stochastic layers and between a stochastic layer and an island structure, the field of the finite time Lyapunov exponent (FTLE) shows a structure with ridges. These ridges, which are special gradient lines that are transverse to the direction of minimum curvature of this field, are approximate Lagrangian coherent structures (LCS) that act as barriers for the transport of field lines.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2011

Progress Report on Computing Excited-State Hadron Masses in Lattice QCD

Our progress in computing the spectrum of excited baryons and mesons in lattice QCD is described. Sets of spatially-extended hadron operators with a variety of different momenta are used. A new method of stochastically estimating the low-lying effects of quark propagation is utilized which allows reliable determinations of temporal correlations of both single-hadron and multi-hadron operators. The method is tested on the isoscalar mesons in the scalar, pseudoscalar, and vector channels, and on the two-pion system of total isospin I = 0,1,2.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2011

Analysis of Real Ship Rolling Dynamics under Wave Excitement Force Composed of Sums of Cosine Functions

The ship motion equation with a cosine wave excitement force describes the slip moments in regular waves. A new kind of wave excitement force model, with the form as sums of cosine functions was proposed to describe ship rolling in irregular waves. Ship rolling time series were obtained by solving the ship motion equation with the fourth-order-Runger-Kutta method. These rolling time series were synthetically analyzed with methods of phase-space track, power spectrum, primary component analysis, and the largest Lyapunove exponent. Simulation results show that ship rolling presents some chaotic characteristic when the wave excitement force was applied by sums of cosine functions. The result well explains the course of ship rolling's chaotic mechanism and is useful for ship hydrodynamic study.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2011

Corona Discharge in Nuclear Excited Dusty Plasma

We considered the possibility of using a corona discharge in a nuclear excited dusty plasma to provide the stability of well ordered dusty plasma structures from a fissionable material and to accomplish a more efficient conversion of nuclear energy into radiation.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2011

Stochastic Dynamics of Charge Fluctuations in Dusty Plasma

Dust particles immersed in plasma acquire charge by collecting electrons and ions and also by emitting electrons. The grain charge fluctuates due to the discrete nature of the charge. The rates of ions and electrons capturing depend on the grain charge and therefore on the history of the absorption. Memory effects can be introduced into stochastic charging dynamics by generalizing the standard Langevin equation to fractional Langevin equation with shifted fractional derivative. The temporal autocorrelation function of grain charge fluctuation is derived and average amplitude of fluctuations is determined.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2011

Demixing-stimulated lane formation in binary complex plasma

Recently lane formation and phase separation have been reported for experiments with binary complex plasmas in the PK3-Plus laboratory onboard the International Space Station (ISS). Positive non-additivity of particle interactions is known to stimulate phase separation (demixing), but its effect on lane formation is unknown. In this work, we used Langevin dynamics (LD) simulation to probe the role of non-additivity interactions on lane formation. The competition between laning and demixing leads to thicker lanes. Analysis based on anisotropic scaling indices reveals a crossover from normal laning mode to a demixing-stimulated laning mode. Extensive numerical simulations enabled us to identify a critical value of the non-additivity parameter {Delta} for the crossover.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2011

Designing a Stochastic Adaptive Impulsive Observer for Stochastic Linear and Nonlinear Impulsive Systems

State observation (estimation) is a very important issue in system analysis and control. This paper develops a new observer called Stochastic Adaptive Impulsive Observer (SAIO) for the state estimation of impulsive systems. The proposed observer is applicable to linear and nonlinear stochastic impulsive systems. In addition, the effect of parametric uncertainty is considered and unknown parameters of the system are estimated by suitable adaptation laws. Impulsive system theory, particularly stochastic Lyapunov-like function, is used to analyze the stability and convergence of the state estimations. The main advantages of the proposed observer are: 1) it gives continuous estimation from discrete time measurements of the system output, and 2) it is useful for state estimation when continuous measurements are impossible or expensive. Simulation results show the effectiveness of the proposed observer and we believe that it has many applications in control and estimation theories.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2011

Electron Transport Behavior on Gate Length Scaling in Sub-50 nm GaAs Metal Semiconductor Field Effect Transistors

Short channel GaAs Metal Semiconductor Field Effect Transistors (MESFETs) have been fabricated with gate length to 20 nm, in order to examine the characteristics of sub-50 nm MESFET scaling. Here the rise in the measured transconductance is mainly attributed to electron velocity overshoot. For gate lengths below 40 nm, however, the transconductance drops suddenly. The behavior of velocity overshoot and its degradation is investigated and simulated by using a transport model based on the retarded Langevin equation (RLE). This indicates the existence of a minimum acceleration length needed for the carriers to reach the overshoot velocity. The argument shows that the source resistance must be included as an internal element, or appropriate boundary condition, of relative importance in any model where the gate length is comparable to the inelastic mean free path of the carriers.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2012

Quantification of errors in large-eddy simulations of a spatially evolving mixing layer using polynomial chaos

A stochastic approach based on generalized polynomial chaos (gPC) is used to quantify the error in large-eddy simulation (LES) of a spatially evolving mixing layer flow and its sensitivity to different simulation parameters, viz., the grid stretching in the streamwise and lateral directions and the subgrid-scale (SGS) Smagorinsky model constant (C{sub S}). The error is evaluated with respect to the results of a highly resolved LES and for different quantities of interest, namely, the mean streamwise velocity, the momentum thickness, and the shear stress. A typical feature of the considered spatially evolving flow is the progressive transition from a laminar regime, highly dependent on the inlet conditions, to a fully developed turbulent one. Therefore, the computational domain is divided in two different zones (inlet dependent and fully turbulent) and the gPC error analysis is carried out for these two zones separately. An optimization of the parameters is also carried out for both these zones. For all the considered quantities, the results point out that the error is mainly governed by the value of the C{sub S} constant. At the end of the inlet-dependent zone, a strong coupling between the normal stretching ratio and the C{sub S} value is observed. The error sensitivity to the parameter values is significantly larger in the inlet-dependent upstream region; however, low-error values can be obtained in this region for all the considered physical quantities by an ad hoc tuning of the parameters. Conversely, in the turbulent regime the error is globally lower and less sensitive to the parameter variations, but it is more difficult to find a set of parameter values leading to optimal results for all the analyzed physical quantities. A similar analysis is also carried out for the dynamic Smagorinsky model, by varying the grid stretching ratios. Comparing the databases generated with the different subgrid-scale models, it is possible to observe that the error cost function computed for the streamwise velocity and for the momentum thickness is not significantly sensitive to the used SGS closure. Conversely, the prediction of the shear stress is much more accurate when using a dynamic subgrid-scale model and the variance of the error is lower in magnitude.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2012

Theoretical approach for plasma series resonance effect in geometrically symmetric dual radio frequency plasma

Plasma series resonance (PSR) effect is well known in geometrically asymmetric capacitively couple radio frequency plasma. However, plasma series resonance effect in geometrically symmetric plasma has not been properly investigated. In this work, a theoretical approach is made to investigate the plasma series resonance effect and its influence on Ohmic and stochastic heating in geometrically symmetric discharge. Electrical asymmetry effect by means of dual frequency voltage waveform is applied to excite the plasma series resonance. The results show considerable variation in heating with phase difference between the voltage waveforms, which may be applicable in controlling the plasma parameters in such plasma.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2012

Simulation of microtearing turbulence in national spherical torus experiment

Thermal energy confinement times in National Spherical Torus Experiment (NSTX) dimensionless parameter scans increase with decreasing collisionality. While ion thermal transport is neoclassical, the source of anomalous electron thermal transport in these discharges remains unclear, leading to considerable uncertainty when extrapolating to future spherical tokamak (ST) devices at much lower collisionality. Linear gyrokinetic simulations find microtearing modes to be unstable in high collisionality discharges. First non-linear gyrokinetic simulations of microtearing turbulence in NSTX show they can yield experimental levels of transport. Magnetic flutter is responsible for almost all the transport ({approx}98%), perturbed field line trajectories are globally stochastic, and a test particle stochastic transport model agrees to within 25% of the simulated transport. Most significantly, microtearing transport is predicted to increase with electron collisionality, consistent with the observed NSTX confinement scaling. While this suggests microtearing modes may be the source of electron thermal transport, the predictions are also very sensitive to electron temperature gradient, indicating the scaling of the instability threshold is important. In addition, microtearing turbulence is susceptible to suppression via sheared E Multiplication-Sign B flows as experimental values of E Multiplication-Sign B shear (comparable to the linear growth rates) dramatically reduce the transport below experimental values. Refinements in numerical resolution and physics model assumptions are expected to minimize the apparent discrepancy. In cases where the predicted transport is strong, calculations suggest that a proposed polarimetry diagnostic may be sensitive to the magnetic perturbations associated with the unique structure of microtearing turbulence.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2012

Measurement of turbulent flow upstream and downstream of a circular pipe bend

We measured velocity distribution in cross sections of a fully developed turbulent pipe flow upstream and downstream of a 90 degree sign bend by synchronizing two sets of a particle image velocimetry (PIV) system. Unsteady undulation of Dean vortices formed downstream from the bend was characterized by the azimuthal position of the stagnation point found on the inner and outer sides of the bend. Linear stochastic estimation was applied to capture the upstream flow field conditioned by the azimuthal location of the stagnation point downstream from the bend. When the inner-side stagnation point stayed below (above) the symmetry plane, the conditional streamwise velocity upstream from the bend exhibited high-speed streaks extended in a quasi-streamwise direction on the outer side of the curvature above (below) the symmetry plane.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2012

Two-dimensional measurement of edge impurity emissions using space-resolved extreme ultraviolet spectrometer in Large Helical Device

A space-resolved extreme ultraviolet (EUV) spectrometer working in wavelength range of 50-500 A has been developed to measure two-dimensional distribution of impurity spectral lines emitted from edge plasma of Large Helical Device (LHD), in which the magnetic field is formed by stochastic magnetic field with three-dimensional structure called ergodic layer. The two-dimensional measurement of edge impurity line emissions is carried out by scanning horizontally the observation chord of the space-resolved EUV spectrometer during single LHD discharge. Images of CIV (312.4 A) and HeII (303.78 A) are presented as the first result. The results are compared with ones calculated from the edge chord length in the ergodic layer of LHD plasma.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
DOE OSTI2012

Stochastic fluctuations of dust particle charge in RF discharges

In addition to RF oscillations, intrinsic stochastic fluctuations due to the discreteness of electrons and ions could be important to the charging of a dust particle in RF discharges. These fluctuations are studied in the present work for three cases [M. Bacharis et al., Plasma Sources Sci. Technol. 19, 025002 (2010)] relevant to RF discharges employing a recently proposed model [B. Shotorban, Phys. Rev. E 83, 066403 (2011)] valid for stochastic charging at nonstationary states. The cases are concerned with a time varying electron number density relevant to sheaths, a time varying electric field relevant to the bulk plasma, and a time-dependent bi-Maxwellian distribution of electrons in a low pressure discharge. Two dust particles with different sizes are individually studied in each case. The radius of one is ten times larger than the radius of the other. In all of the cases, for the larger dust particle, the root-mean-squre of charge stochastic fluctuations is about an order of magnitude smaller than the amplitude of RF charge oscillations, while for the smaller dust particle, they are comparable in magnitude.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2012

The onset of impulsive bursty reconnection at a two-dimensional current layer

The sudden reconnection of a non-force free 2D current layer, embedded in a low-beta plasma, triggered by the onset of an anomalous resistivity, is studied in detail. The resulting behaviour consists of two main phases. First, a transient reconnection phase, in which the current in the layer is rapidly dispersed and some flux is reconnected. This dispersal of current launches a family of small amplitude magnetic and plasma perturbations, which propagate away from the null at the local fast and slow magnetosonic speeds. The vast majority of the magnetic energy released in this phase goes into internal energy of the plasma, and only a tiny amount is converted into kinetic energy. In the wake of the outwards propagating pulses, an imbalance of Lorentz and pressure forces creates a stagnation flow which drives a regime of impulsive bursty reconnection, in which fast reconnection is turned on and off in a turbulent manner as the current density exceeds and falls below a critical value. During this phase, the null current density is continuously built up above a certain critical level, then dissipated very rapidly, and built up again, in a stochastic manner. Interestingly, the magnetic energy converted during this quasi-steady phase is greater than that converted during the initial transient reconnection phase. Again essentially all the energy converted during this phase goes directly to internal energy. These results are of potential importance for solar flares and coronal heating, and set a conceptually important reference for future 3D studies.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2012

Ion stochastic heating by obliquely propagating magnetosonic waves

The ion motions in obliquely propagating Alfven waves with sufficiently large amplitudes have already been studied by Chen et al.[Phys. Plasmas 8, 4713 (2001)], and it was found that the ion motions are stochastic when the wave frequency is at a fraction of the ion gyro-frequency. In this paper, with test particle simulations, we investigate the ion motions in obliquely propagating magnetosonic waves and find that the ion motions also become stochastic when the amplitude of the magnetosonic waves is sufficiently large due to the resonance at sub-cyclotron frequencies. Similar to the Alfven wave, the increase of the propagating angle, wave frequency, and the number of the wave modes can lower the stochastic threshold of the ion motions. However, because the magnetosonic waves become more and more compressive with the increase of the propagating angle, the decrease of the stochastic threshold with the increase of the propagating angle is more obvious in the magnetosonic waves than that in the Alfven waves.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2012

Mechanism of heating of pre-formed plasma electrons in relativistic laser-matter interaction

The role of the longitudinal ambipolar electric field, present inside a pre-formed plasma, in electron heating and beam generation is investigated by analyzing single electron motion in the presence of one electromagnetic plane wave and 'V' shaped potential well (constant electric field) in a one dimensional slab approximation. It is shown that for the electron confined in an infinite potential well, its motion becomes stochastic when the ratio of normalized laser electric field a{sub 0}, to normalized longitudinal electric field E{sub z}, exceeds unity, i.e., a{sub 0}/E{sub z} Greater-Than-Or-Equivalent-To 1. For a more realistic potential well of finite depth, present inside the pre-formed plasma, the condition for stochastic heating of electrons gets modified to 1 Less-Than-Or-Equivalent-To a{sub 0}/E{sub z} Less-Than-Or-Equivalent-To {radical}(L), where L is the normalized length of the potential well. The energy of electron beam leaving such a potential well and entering the solid scales {approx}a{sub 0}{sup 2}/E{sub z}, which can exceed the laser ponderomotive energy ({approx}a{sub 0}) in the stochastic regime.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗