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At least 1,027 records · Page 57

Modeling of Large Latticed Surfaces

GEOMLLS program determines dimensions and coordinates of flat segmented triangular surfaces that approximate spherical and paraboloidal surfaces of revolution, where vertexes of triangles lie on true surface. GEOMLLS calculates complete geometry of segmented surface and quantities that measure surface accuracy, such as maximum deviation and root-mean-square deviation from true surface.

Anderson, M. S.↗

The Atacama Cosmology Telescope: DR4 maps and cosmological parameters

We present new arcminute-resolution maps of the Cosmic Microwave Background temperature and polarization anisotropy from the Atacama Cosmology Telescope, using data taken from 2013{2016 at 98 and 150 GHz. The maps cover more than 17,000 deg(^2), the deepest 600 deg(^2) with noise levels below 10µK-arcmin. We use the power spectrum derived from almost 6,000 deg(^2) of these maps to constrain cosmology. The ACT data enable a measurement of the angular scale of features in both the divergence-like polarization and the temperature anisotropy, tracing both the velocity and density at last-scattering. From these one can derive the distance to the last-scattering surface and thus infer the local expansion rate, H0. By combining ACT data with large-scale information from WMAP we measure H0 = 67:6±1:1 km/s/Mpc, at 68% confidence, in excellent agreement with the independently measured Planck satellite estimate (from ACT alone we find H0 = 67:9± 1:5 km/s/Mpc). The ΛCDM model provides a good fit to the ACT data, and we find no evidence for deviations: both the spatial curvature, and the departure from the standard lensing signal in the spectrum, are zero to within 1σ; the number of relativistic species, the primordial Helium fraction, and the running of the spectral index are consistent with ΛCDM predictions to within 1.5{2.2σ. We compare ACT, WMAP, and Planck at the parameter level and find good consistency; we investigate how the constraints on the correlated spectral index and baryon density parameters readjust when adding CMB large-scale information that ACT does not measure. The DR4 products presented here will be publicly released on the NASA Legacy Archive for Microwave Background Data Analysis.

Simone Aiola↗

Evidence of isospin-symmetry violation in high-energy collisions of atomic nuclei

Strong interactions preserve an approximate isospin symmetry between up (u) and down (d) quarks, part of the more general flavor symmetry. In the case of K meson production, if this isospin symmetry were exact, it would result in equal numbers of charged (K + and K − ) and neutral (K 0 and ${\overline{K}}^{0}$) mesons produced in collisions of isospin-symmetric atomic nuclei. Here, we report results on the relative abundance of charged over neutral K meson production in argon and scandium nuclei collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 11.9 GeV per nucleon pair. We find that the production of K + and K − mesons at mid-rapidity is (18.4 ± 6.1)% higher than that of the neutral K mesons. Although with large uncertainties, earlier data on nucleus-nucleus collisions in the collision center-of-mass energy range $2.6 \, < \, \sqrt{{s}_{NN}} \, < \, 200$ GeV are consistent with the present result. Using well-established models for hadron production, we demonstrate that known isospin-symmetry breaking effects and the initial nuclei containing more neutrons than protons lead only to a small (few percent) deviation of the charged-to-neutral kaon ratio from unity at high energies. Thus, they cannot explain the measurements. The significance of the flavor-symmetry violation beyond the known effects is 4.7σ when the compilation of world data with uncertainties quoted by the experiments is used. New systematic, high-precision measurements and theoretical efforts are needed to establish the origin of the observed large isospin-symmetry breaking.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

Accuracy of power spectra in dissipationless cosmological simulations

Abstract We exploit a suite of large N-body simulations (up to N = 40963) performed with abacus, of scale-free models with a range of spectral indices n, to better understand and quantify convergence of the matter power spectrum. Using self-similarity to identify converged regions, we show that the maximal wavenumber resolved at a given level of accuracy increases monotonically as a function of time. At 1 per cent level it starts at early times from a fraction of $k_\Lambda$, the Nyquist wavenumber of the initial grid, and reaches at most, if the force softening is sufficiently small, ${\sim}2{-}3 k_\Lambda$ at the very latest times we evolve to. At the $5{{\ \rm per\ cent}}$ level, accuracy extends up to wavenumbers of order $5k_\Lambda$ at late times. Expressed as a suitable function of the scale-factor, accuracy shows a very simple n-dependence, allowing a extrapolation to place conservative bounds on the accuracy of N-body simulations of non-scale-free models like LCDM. We note that deviations due to discretization in the converged range are not well modelled by shot noise, and subtracting it in fact degrades accuracy. Quantitatively our findings are broadly in line with the conservative assumptions about resolution adopted by recent studies using large cosmological simulations (e.g. Euclid Flagship) aiming to constrain the mildly non-linear regime. On the other hand, we remark that conclusions about small-scale clustering (e.g. concerning the validity of stable clustering) obtained using PS data at wavenumbers larger than a few $k_\Lambda$ may need revision in light of our convergence analysis.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Regime dependence of cloud condensate variability observed at the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement Sites

Microphysical processes and cloud–radiation interaction occur on spatial scales of variability smaller than those represented explicitly in global weather forecasting and climate models. It is therefore necessary to parametrize the unresolved heterogeneity of humidity and cloud condensate in order to predict process rates accurately. Ground‐based observations from the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement sites located in various climatic regions of the world provide a source of high‐temporal‐resolution observations of cloud condensate. A number of different retrieval products for cloud condensate are assessed for the different geographical regions, years and seasons. The retrieval reliability varies with cloud type, but for cloud categories largely unaffected by precipitation a comparison across sites and longer time periods is possible. These observations confirm previously documented variability behaviour as a function of cloud fraction, but also reveal a systematic regime dependence that is not captured by existing parametrizations. Condensate variability measured as a fractional standard deviation (FSD) in warm boundary‐layer clouds is greater in the Tropics than in mid and high latitudes for scenes with comparable cloud type and fraction, with the observed FSD varying from 1.2 in the Tropics to 0.4 in the Arctic. A parametrization of the FSD of cloud liquid condensate based on the grid‐box mean total water amount and cloud fraction is formulated and shown to capture the observed range of FSD values better across different geographical sites and different seasons. The regime dependence of FSD for cirrus cloud is less pronounced than that for liquid clouds and is found largely to agree with FSD values previously derived from satellite observations.

Ahlgrimm, Maike↗

Conical scan tracking system employing a large antenna

A conical scan tracking system for tracking spacecraft and distant radio sources is described. The system detects small sinusoidal modulation in received power from a source that is off target with a frequency equal to a very low scan rate, an amplitude proportional to angular deviation of the source from the target, and a phase directly related to the direction the source is off target. The sinusoid is digitally correlated with inphase and out-of-phase scan sinusoids to obtain azimuth/elevation and hour angle/declination signals which are digitally integrated over exactly one scan period to obtain correction signals for an antenna pointing subsystem.

Ohlson, J. E.↗

The G‐JF Thermostat for Accurate Configurational Sampling in Soft‐Matter Simulations

Abstract We implement the statistically sound G‐JF thermostat for Langevin dynamics simulations into the ESPResSo molecular package for large‐scale simulations of soft‐matter systems. The implemented integration method is tested against the integrator currently used by the molecular package in simulations of a fluid bilayer membrane. While the latter exhibits deviations in the sampling statistics that increase with the integration time step dt , the former reproduces near‐correct configurational statistics for all dt within the stability range of the simulations. We conclude that, with very modest revisions to existing codes, one can significantly improve the performance of statistical sampling using Langevin thermostats.

Arad, Evyatar↗

Probing late-stage hadronic interactions at high baryon density via $K^{⁎0}$ production in the RHIC beam energy scan program

A precision measurement of the $K^{⁎0}$ meson yield is reported in Au+Au collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}$ = 7.7, 11.5, 14.6, 19.6, and 27 GeV using the high-statistics data sample collected by the STAR experiment during the Beam Energy Scan II (BES-II) program at RHIC. The transeverse momentum (p T )-integrated yield ratios $\large{(}K^{⁎0} + \overline{K^{⁎0}}\large{)}/(K^+ + K^{-})$ in central collisions show a suppression relative to peripheral collisions at the (1.7–3.6) σ level, while a thermal model without final-stage rescattering overpredicts this ratio with a deviation of (6.9–8.2) σ. These results indicate a loss of the measured $K^{⁎0}$ signal in central collisions due to re-scattering of its hadronic decay products in the hadronic phase. The p T -integrated yield of charged kaons exhibits an approximate scaling with charged-particle multiplicity, independent of collision energy and system size. A similar trend is observed for the short-lived $K^{⁎0}$ resonance, although significant deviations emerge at lower energies. At BES energies, the $K^{⁎0}/K$ ratio shows stronger suppression than at the highest RHIC and LHC energies within a given multiplicity bin, particularly in central and mid-central collisions. This behavior is consistent with changes in the effective hadronic interaction cross section and is supported by transport model calculations, which indicate dominant meson–baryon interactions at lower energies and meson–meson interactions at higher energies.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗

Transformation of electronic properties and structural phase transition from HfN to Hf 3 N 4

Here, we report investigation of the structural phase transition and electronic properties of Hf 1-x N (0 <= x <= 0.25) using first principles calculations. The defective NaCl-type structure with Hf vacancies (V Hf ) is found to be stable over a large phase region. Hf 3 N 4 with the Zr 3 N 4 -type structure is only stable in relative small region and readily destabilized when the stoichiometric ratio of N to Hf deviates from 4/3. The electronic and optic properties of Hf 1-x N are controlled by the concentration of V Hf . Finally, the full depletion of excess free electrons from Hf atoms results in the structural phase transition of Hf 3 N 4 .

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

A General N -Moment Normalization Method for Deriving Raindrop Size Distribution Scaling Relationships

A general drop size distribution (DSD) normalization method is formulated in terms of generalized power series relating any DSD moment to any number and combination of reference moments. This provides a consistent framework for comparing the variability of normalized DSD moments using different sets of reference moments, with no explicit assumptions about the DSD functional form (e.g., gamma). It also provides a method to derive any unknown moment plus an estimate of its uncertainty from one or more known moments, which is relevant to remote sensing retrievals and bulk microphysics schemes in weather and climate models. Herein, the approach is applied to a large dataset of disdrometer-observed and bin microphysics-modeled DSDs. As expected, the spread of normalized moments decreases as the number of reference moments is increased, quantified by the logarithmic standard deviation of the normalized moments, σ. Averaging σ for all combinations of reference moments and normalized moments of integer order 0–10, 42.9%, 81.3%, 93.7%, and 96.9% of spread are accounted for applying one-, two-, three-, and four-moment normalizations, respectively. Thus, DSDs can be well characterized overall using three reference moments, whereas adding a fourth reference moment contributes little independent information. The spread of disdrometer-observed DSD moments from uncertainty associated with drop count statistics generally lies between values of σ using two- and three-moment normalizations. However, this uncertainty has little impact on the derived DSD scaling relationships or σ when considered.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

Theoretical Understanding of the Linear Relationship between Convective Updrafts and Cloud-Base Height for Shallow Cumulus Clouds. Part II: Continental Conditions

This is the Part II of a two-part study that seeks a theoretical understanding of an empirical relationship for shallow cumulus clouds: subcloud updraft velocity covaries linearly with the cloud-base height. This work focuses on continental cumulus clouds that are more strongly forced by surface fluxes and more deviated from equilibrium than those over oceans (Part I). We use a simple analytical model for shallow cumulus that is well tested against a high-resolution (25 m in the horizontal) large-eddy simulation model. Consistent with a conventional idea, we find that surface Bowen ratio is the key variable that regulates the covariability of both parameters: under the same solar insolation, a drier surface allows for stronger buoyancy flux, triggering stronger convection that deepens the subcloud layer. We find that the slope of the Bowen-ratio-regulated relationship between the two parameters (defined as λ) is dependent on both the local time and the stability of the lower free atmosphere. The value of λ decreases with time exponentially from sunrise to early afternoon and linearly from early afternoon to sunset. The value of λ is larger in a more stable atmosphere. In addition, continental λ in the early afternoon more than doubles the oceanic λ. Validation of the theoretical results against ground observations over the Southern Great Plains shows a reasonable agreement. Physical mechanisms underlying the findings are explained from the perspective of different time scales at which updrafts and cloud-base height respond to a surface flux forcing.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Measurements of magnetic fluxes and field strengths in the photospheric network

Digital pictures of an active-region network cell are presented in five quantities measured simultaneously: continuum intensity, line-center intensity, equivalent width, magnetogram signal, and magnetic-field strength. These maps are derived from computer analysis of circularly polarized line profiles of Fe I 5250.2-A; spectral and spatial resolution are 1/40 A and 1.5 arcsec, respectively. Measured Zeeman splittings show the existence of strong magnetic fields (1000-1800 G) at nearly all points with a magnetogram signal exceeding 125 G. The mean and rms deviation of the field strengths change by less than 20% over a factor-of-four range of fluxes. From the significant disparity between measured fluxes and field strengths, it is concluded that large flux patches (up to 4 arcsec across) consist of closely-packed unresolved filaments. The smallest filaments must be less than 0.7 arcsec in diameter. The dark component of the photospheric network, which appears to contain sizable transverse fields, is also observed.

Tarbell, T. D.↗

Notes on the meteorology of the intertropical convergence zone during the July 1977 experiment

The stratosphere and troposphere are large-scale open systems which exchange mass and trace constituents. If averaged over all longitudes, mass exchange can be expressed as products of the means and the mean of the product of the deviations from the mean. At high latitudes, the mass exchange is dominated by the deviations from the mean. At low latitudes, in the tropics, it is generally assumed that the mass exchange is caused by the mean motion. Figures are presented which depict: Northern Hemisphere mean motion; Convergence Zone motion; clouds and their motions; surface pressure variations; and meteorological parameters such as temperature, relative humidity, and ozone mixing ratios.

Danielson, E. F.↗

Binary Oscillatory Crossflow Electrophoresis

Electrophoresis has long been recognized as an effective analytic technique for the separation of proteins and other charged species, however attempts at scaling up to accommodate commercial volumes have met with limited success. In this report we describe a novel electrophoretic separation technique - Binary Oscillatory Crossflow Electrophoresis (BOCE). Numerical simulations indicate that the technique has the potential for preparative scale throughputs with high resolution, while simultaneously avoiding many problems common to conventional electrophoresis. The technique utilizes the interaction of an oscillatory electric field and a transverse oscillatory shear flow to create an active binary filter for the separation of charged protein species. An oscillatory electric field is applied across the narrow gap of a rectangular channel inducing a periodic motion of charged protein species. The amplitude of this motion depends on the dimensionless electrophoretic mobility, alpha = E(sub o)mu/(omega)d, where E(sub o) is the amplitude of the electric field oscillations, mu is the dimensional mobility, omega is the angular frequency of oscillation and d is the channel gap width. An oscillatory shear flow is induced along the length of the channel resulting in the separation of species with different mobilities. We present a model that predicts the oscillatory behavior of charged species and allows estimation of both the magnitude of the induced convective velocity and the effective diffusivity as a function of a in infinitely long channels. Numerical results indicate that in addition to the mobility dependence, the steady state behavior of solute species may be strongly affected by oscillating fluid into and out of the active electric field region at the ends of the cell. The effect is most pronounced using time dependent shear flows of the same frequency (cos((omega)t)) flow mode) as the electric field oscillations. Under such conditions, experiments indicate that solute is drawn into the cell from reservoirs at both ends of the cell leading to a large mass build up. As a consequence, any initially induced mass flux will vanish after short times. This effect was not captured by the infinite channel model and hence numerical and experimental results deviated significantly. The revised model including finite cell lengths and reservoir volumes allowed quantitative predictions of the time history of the concentration profile throughout the system. This latter model accurately describes the fluxes observed for both oscillatory flow modes in experiments using single protein species. Based on the results obtained from research funded under NASA grant NAG-8-1080.S, we conclude that binary separations are not possible using purely oscillatory flow modes because of end effects associated with the cos((omega)t) mode. Our research shows, however, that a combination of cos(2(omega)t) and steady flow should lead to efficient separation free of end effects. This possibility is currently under investigation.

Molloy, Richard F.↗

Laboratory characterization of silicon avalanche photodiodes (APD) for pulse position modulation (PPM) detection

Two commercially available large area silicon avalanche photodiodes (APD) were characterized in the laboratory. Specifically, the response of the APD’s to a sequence of 8-bit pulse position modulated (256-PPM) laser pulses, with and without background noise, was recorded and stored for post analysis. Empirical probability distribution functions (pdf) were constructed from the signal and noise slot data and compared to pdf’s predicted by an analytical model based on Webb/Gaussian statistics. The limited pulse sequence was also used to generate bit-error rate (BER) versus signal photons per pulse values, albeit with large error bars. These BER measurements were also compared to results predicted using the Gaussian and Webb/Gaussian models for APD channel statistics. While the measurements qualitatively reflect features predicted by theory, significant quantitative deviations are displayed between the measurements and theory. The source of these discrepancies is not currently well understood, but it is surmised that inaccurate knowledge of detector parameters such as gain and noise equivalent temperature models may explain the discrepancies.

Biswas, A.↗

The impact of the $\text{WHIM}$ on the $\text{IGM}$ thermal state determined from the low- z Lyman $\alpha$ forest

At z ≲ 1, shock heating caused by large-scale velocity flows and possibly violent feedback from galaxy formation, converts a significant fraction of the cool gas (T ~ 10 4 K) in the intergalactic medium (IGM) into warm–hot phase (WHIM) with T > 10 5 K, resulting in a significant deviation from the previously tight power-law IGM temperature–density relationship, T = T 0 (P/$\bar{p}$) γ-1 ⁠. This study explores the impact of the WHIM on measurements of the low-z IGM thermal state, [T 0 , γ], based on the b–NH 1 distribution of the Ly α forest. Exploiting a machine learning-enabled simulation-based inference method trained on Nyx hydrodynamical simulations, we demonstrate that [T 0 , γ] can still be reliably measured from the b–NH 1 distribution at z = 0.1, notwithstanding the substantial WHIM in the IGM. To investigate the effects of different feedback, we apply this inference methodology to mock spectra derived from the IllustrisTNG and Illustris simulations at z = 0.1. The results suggest that the underlying [T 0 , γ] of both simulations can be recovered with biases as low as |Δlog(T 0 /K)| ≲ 0.05 dex, |Δγ| ≲ 0.1, smaller than the precision of a typical measurement. Given the large differences in the volume-weighted WHIM fractions between the three simulations (Illustris 38 percent, IllustrisTNG 10 percent, and Nyx 4 per cent), we conclude that the b–N H1 distribution is not sensitive to the WHIM under realistic conditions. Finally, we investigate the physical properties of the detectable Ly α absorbers, and discover that although their T and Δ distributions remain mostly unaffected by feedback, they are correlated with the photoionization rate used in the simulation.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Detectability of cosmic dark flow in the type ia supernova redshift-distance relation

We reanalyze the detectability of large-scale dark flow (or local bulk flow) with respect to the CMB background based upon the redshift–distance relation for SN Ia. We made two independent analyses: one based upon identifying the three Cartesian velocity components; and the other based upon the cosine dependence of the deviation from Hubble flow on the sky. We apply these analyses to the Union2.1 SN Ia data and to the SDSS-II supernova survey. For both methods, results for low redshift, z<0.05, are consistent with previous searches. We find a local bulk flow of v {sub bf} ∼ 300 km s{sup −1} in the direction of (l, b) ∼ (270, 35)°. However, the search for a dark flow at z>0.05 is inconclusive. Based upon simulated data sets, we deduce that the difficulty in detecting a dark flow at high redshifts arises mostly from the observational error in the distance modulus. Thus, even if it exists, a dark flow is not detectable at large redshift with current SN Ia data sets. We estimate that a detection would require both significant sky coverage of SN Ia out to z = 0.3 and a reduction in the effective distance modulus error from 0.2 mag to ≲0.02 mag. We estimate that a greatly expanded data sample of ∼10{sup 4} SN Ia might detect a dark flow as small as 300 km s{sup −1} out to z = 0.3 even with a distance modulus error of 0.2 mag. This may be achievable in a next generation large survey like LSST.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

A new coupling of a GPU-resident large-eddy simulation code with a multiphysics wind turbine simulation tool

The development of new wind farm control strategies can benefit from combined analysis of flow dynamics in the farm and the behavior of individual turbines within one simulation environment. In this work, we present such an environment by developing a new coupling between the large-eddy simulation (LES) code GRASP and the multiphysics wind turbine simulation tool OpenFAST via an actuator line model (ALM). In addition, the implementation of the recently proposed filtered actuator line model (FALM) within the coupling is described. The new ALM implementation is cross-verified with results from four other commonly used research LES codes. The results for the blade loads and the near wake obtained with the new coupling are consistent with the other codes. Deviations are observed in the far wake. The results further indicate that the FALM is able to reduce the lift and power overprediction from which the traditional ALM suffers on coarse LES grids. This new simulation environment paves the way for future wind farm simulations under realistic weather conditions by leveraging GRASP's ability to impose data from large-scale meteorological models as boundary conditions.

17 WIND ENERGY↗