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NASA NTRS2019

Building a Field: The Future of Astronomy with Gravitational Waves

Harnessing the sheer discovery potential of GW Astronomy will require bold, deliberate,and sustained efforts to train and develop the requisite workforce. The next decaderequires a strategic plan to build - from the ground up - a robust, open, andwell-connected GW Astronomy community with deep participation from traditionalastronomers, physicists, data scientists, and instrumentalists. This basic infrastructure issorely needed as an enabling foundation for research. We outline a set ofrecommendations for funding agencies, universities, and professional societies to helpbuild a thriving, diverse, and inclusive new field.

Holley-Bockelman, Kelly↗

NASA NTRS2020

Quantum Speedup for Aeroscience and Engineering

Algorithms and hardware for quantum computing (QC) are reaching a critical stage in their development and have the potential to generate a paradigm shift in computing capability across a range of fields. Opportunities are growing for genuine impact of these systems over a timescale of 10-15 years, and there has been significant investment both from government agencies and private industry in its development. However, utilization of quantum phenomena is extraordinarily challenging due to its delicate nature and difficulties in measurement and control. A clear path exists toward demonstrating the advantages of QC over existing high-performance computing for some physics and materials science problems but addressing practical computational challenges in other fields, though promising, is at an early stage of development. Reaching the next level of development will require strategic coordination between physicists, computer & information scientists, mathematicians, and engineers, in order to transition this technology from the laboratory to robust and scalable computations for practical problems, especially those of interest to the aeroscience and engineering community. This community has been relying on high-performance computing heavily and will surely want to be informed of the developments in QC. This survey introduces the background and current state of the art in QC, as well as its perceived opportunities and challenges.

Peyman Givi↗

NASA NTRS1995

The Solar Wind in the Third Dimension

For many years, solar-wind physicists have been using plasma and field data acquired near the ecliptic plane together with data on the scintillation of radio sources and remote sensing of structures in the solar corona to estimate the properties of the high-latitude solar wind. Because of the highly successful Ulysses mission, the moment of truth is now here. This talk summarizes the principal differences between the Ulysses observations and expectations.

Solar↗

NASA NTRS2019

PSR J0030+0451 Mass and Radius from NICER Data and Implications for the Properties of Neutron Star Matter

Neutron stars are not only of astrophysical interest, but are also of great interest to nuclear physicists because their attributes can be used to determine the properties of the dense matter in their cores. One of the most informative approaches for determining the equation of state (EoS) of this dense matter is to measure both a star’s equatorial circumferential radius Re and its gravitational mass M. Here we report estimates of the mass and radius of the isolated 205.53 Hz millisecond pulsar PSRJ0030+0451 obtained using a Bayesian inference approach to analyze its energy-dependent thermal X-ray waveform, which was observed using the Neutron Star Interior Composition Explorer (NICER). This approach is thought to be less subject to systematic errors than other approaches for estimating neutron star radii. We explored a variety of emission patterns on the stellar surface. Our best-fit model has three oval, uniform-temperature emitting spots and provides an excellent description of the pulse waveform observed using NICER. The radius and mass estimates given by this model are Re = 13.02+1.24-1.06 km andM = 1.44+0.15-0.14 Mmoon (68%). The independent analysis reported in the companion paper by Riley et al. explores different emitting spot models, but finds spot shapes and locations and estimates of Re and M that are consistent with those found in this work. We show that our measurements of Re and M for PSRJ0030+0451 improve the astrophysical constraints on the EoS of cold, catalyzed matter above nuclear saturation density.

M C Miller↗

NASA NTRS2022

Building a Transdisciplinary, Exascale-Capable Workforce for Geospace Science

Key Points: ●First-principles, self-consistent geospace modeling will require at least exascale-level computing capabilities; however, the technical skills necessary to develop such simulation codes are not taught as part of Heliophysics training/PhD programs. ●Developing exascale Heliophysics codes will require transdisciplinary collaborations between physicists, computer scientists, software engineers, data scientists, and applied mathematics. Such teams must be persistent and formed around specific skills, not specific problems. ●We must have stable, positive long-term career outcomes for Heliophysics scientific developers in order to retain knowledge of and promote future innovation in scientific algorithm development and advanced computing techniques. One such way to do this is by funding long-term scientific programming groups, akin to Heliophysics DRIVE Centers. ●We must have a balance between promoting innovation via funding short-term closed-source development and allowing the open-source community to benefit from and build on the newest scientific modeling techniques.

C Bard↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

RadLab Platform: Investigating Space Radiation

The RadLab Project, initiated by the Open Science Data Repository (OSDR) for Space Biology at NASA Ames Research Center (osdr.nasa.gov), aims to be an ongoing compilation of radiation data relevant to human space flight. Sponsored by the NASA Human Research Program, RadLab serves as the latest database in this domain. RadLab is intended to serve the needs of both the space radiation detector and space radiation biology communities. The RadLab architecture is being designed to accommodate data both from low Earth orbit (LEO) and beyond low Earth orbit (BLEO). Our long-term vision entails the establishment of a sustainable database receiving continuous updates through APIs connecting to other databases, as well as individual investigator contributions via a RadLab submission portal, modeled on the OSDR (https://osdr.nasa.gov/bio/submission-sso-login.html). In addition to serving as a resource for space biologists and space radiation physicists, such a database would facilitate the deployment of AI algorithms to study the impact of location in space and within spacecraft on the ambient space radiation field. The ultimate goal is to develop predictive dosimetry algorithms for future BLEO missions.

Sylvain V Costes↗

DOE OSTI2011

Can the Existence of Dark Energy be Directly Detected?

The majority of astronomers and physicists accept the reality of dark energy and also believe that it can only be studied indirectly through observation of the motions of stars and galaxies. In this paper I open the experimental question of whether it is possible to directly detect dark energy through the presence of dark energy density. Two thirds of this paper outlines the major aspects of dark energy density as now comprehended by the astronomical and physics community. The final third summarizes various proposals for direct detection of dark energy density or its possible effects. At this time I do not have a fruitful answer to the question: Can the Existence of Dark Energy Be Directly Detected?

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

DOE OSTI2011

Viewpoint: the End of the World at the Large Hadron Collider?

New arguments based on astrophysical phenomena constrain the possibility that dangerous black holes will be produced at the CERN Large Hadron Collider. On 8 August, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN injected its first beams, beginning an experimental program that will produce proton-proton collisions at an energy of 14 TeV. Particle physicists are waiting expectantly. The reason is that the Standard Model of strong, weak, and electromagnetic interactions, despite its many successes, is clearly incomplete. Theory says that the holes in the model should be filled by new physics in the energy region that will be studied by the LHC. Some candidate theories are simple quick fixes, but the most interesting ones involve new concepts of spacetime waiting to be discovered. Look up the LHC on Wikipedia, however, and you will find considerable space devoted to safety concerns. At the LHC, we will probe energies beyond those explored at any previous accelerator, and we hope to create particles that have never been observed. Couldn't we, then, create particles that would actually be dangerous, for example, ones that would eat normal matter and eventually turn the earth into a blob of unpleasantness? It is morbid fun to speculate about such things, and candidates for such dangerous particles have been suggested. These suggestions have been analyzed in an article in Reviews of Modern Physics by Jaffe, Busza, Wilczek, and Sandweiss and excluded on the basis of constraints from observation and from the known laws of physics. These conclusions have been upheld by subsequent studies conducted at CERN.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗

DOE OSTI2011

Celebrating 30 Years of K-12 Educational Programming at Fermilab

In 1980 Leon Lederman started Saturday Morning Physics with a handful of volunteer physicists, around 300 students and all the physics teachers who tagged along. Today Fermilab offers over 30 programs annually with help from 250 staff volunteers and 50 educators, and serves around 40,000 students and 2,500 teachers. Find out why we bother. Over the years we have learned to take advantage of opportunities and confront challenges to offer effective programs for teachers and students alike. We offer research experiences for secondary school teachers and high school students. We collaborate with educators to design and run programs that meet their needs and interests. Popular school programs include classroom presentations, experience-based field trips, and high school tours. Through our work in QuarkNet and I2U2, we make real particle physics data available to high school students in datadriven activities as well as masterclasses and e-Labs. Our professional development activities include a Teacher Resource Center and workshops where teachers participate in authentic learning experiences as their students would. We offer informal classes for kids and host events where children and adults enjoy the world of science. Our website hosts a wealth of online resources. Funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, the National Science Foundation and Fermilab Friends for Science Education, our programs reach out across Illinois, throughout the United States and even around the world. We will review the program portfolio and share comments from the volunteers and participants.

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS↗

DOE OSTI2012

Self-Assembly by Instruction: Designing Nanoscale Systems Using DNA-Based Approaches (474th Brookhaven Lecture)

In the field of nanoscience, if you can control how nanoparticles self-assemble in particular structures — joining each other, for example, as molecules can form, atom-by-atom — you can design new materials that have unique properties that industry needs. Nature already uses the DNA genetic code to instruct the building of specific proteins and whole organisms in both plants and people. Taking a cue from nature, scientists at BNL devised a way of using strands of synthetic DNA attached to the surface of nanoparticles to instruct them to self-assemble into specific nanoscale structures, clusters, and three-dimensional organizations. Novel materials designed and fabricated this way promise use in photovoltaics, energy storage, catalysis, cell-targeted systems for more effective medical treatments, and biomolecular sensing for environmental monitoring and medical applications. To find out more about the rapid evolution of this nanoassembly method and its applications, join Physicist Oleg Gang of the Center for Functional Nanomaterials (CFN) as he gives the 474th Brookhaven Lecture, titled “Self-Assembly by Instruction: Designing Nanoscale Systems Using DNA-Based Approaches." Gang, who has led this work at the CFN, will explain the rapid evolution of this nanoassembly method, and discuss its present and future applications in highly specific biosensors, optically active nano-materials, and new ways to fabricate complex architectures in a rational manner via self-assembly. Gang and his colleagues used the CFN and the National Synchrotron Light Source (NSLS) facilities to perform their groundbreaking research. At the CFN, the scientists used electron microscopes and optical methods to visualize the clusters that they fabricated. At the NSLS, they applied x-rays to study a particles-assembly process in solution, DNA’s natural environment. Gang earned a Ph.D. in soft matter physics from Bar-Ilan University in 2000, and he was a Rothschild Fellow at Harvard University from 1999 to 2002. After joining BNL as a Goldhaber Fellow in 2002, he became an assistant scientist at the CFN in 2004. He became the CFN’s leader for Soft and Biological Nanomaterials Theme Group in 2006, and earned the title of scientist in 2009. Gang has received numerous honors and recognitions, including the 2010 Gordon Battelle Prize for Scientific Discovery.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

DOE OSTI2012

A QUEST FOR SYSTEM FRIENDLINESS WITH THE SNS ION BEAM BUNCH SHAPE MONITOR

A new system for measuring the SNS ion beam longitudinal profile was recently upgraded to operational status. The hardware for this device was developed and delivered by Institute of Nuclear Research to the SNS as a part of its initial construction. The supplied LabVIEW user interface software was intended for proof-of-operation and initial setup of the instrument. While satisfactory for this, it was tedious to use in a practical context and lacked any form of interface to the SNS EPICS based control system. This paper will describe the software features added to make this instrument both easily tunable to the prevalent beam conditions by system engineers and easily usable by accelerator physicists only interested in its output data.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗

DOE OSTI2012

Intelligent Detector Design

As the complexity and resolution of imaging detectors increases, the need for detailed simulation of the experimental setup also becomes more important. Designing the detectors requires efficient tools to simulate the detector response and reconstruct the events. We have developed efficient and flexible tools for detailed physics and detector response simulation as well as event reconstruction and analysis. The primary goal has been to develop a software toolkit and computing infrastructure to allow physicists from universities and labs to quickly and easily conduct physics analyses and contribute to detector research and development. The application harnesses the full power of the Geant4 toolkit without requiring the end user to have any experience with either Geant4 or C++, thereby allowing the user to concentrate on the physics of the detector system.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗

DOE OSTI2012

The Influence of Accelerator Science on Physics Research

We evaluate accelerator science in the context of its contributions to the physics community. We address the problem of quantifying these contributions and present a scheme for a numerical evaluation of them. We show by using a statistical sample of important developments in modern physics that accelerator science has influenced 28% of post-1938 physicists and also 28% of post-1938 physics research. We also examine how the influence of accelerator science has evolved over time, and show that on average it has contributed to a physics Nobel Prize-winning research every 2.9 years.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗

DOE OSTI2012

LLRF System Upgrade for the SLAC Linac

The Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) at SLAC is in full user operation and has met the stability goals for stable lasing. The 250pC bunch can be compressed to below 100fS before passing through an undulator. In a new mode of operation a 20pC bunch is compressed to about 10fS. Experimenters are regularly using this shorter X-ray pulse and getting pristine data. The 10fS bunch has timing jitter on the order of 100fS. Physicists are requesting that the RF system achieve better stability to reduce timing jitter. Drifts in the RF system require longitudinal feedbacks to work over large ranges and errors result in reduced performance of the LCLS. A new RF system is being designed to help diagnose and reduce jitter and drift in the SLAC linac.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗

DOE OSTI2012

Got Questions About the Higgs Boson? Ask a Scientist

Ask a scientist about the Higgs boson. There's a lot of buzz this week over new data from CERN's Large Hadron Collider (LHC) and the final data from Fermilab's Tevatron about the Higgs boson. It raises questions about what scientists have found and what still remains to be found -- and what it all means. Berkeley Lab's Ian Hinchliffe invites you to send in questions about the Higgs. He'll answer a few of your questions in a follow-up video later this week. Hinchliffe is a theoretical physicist who heads Berkeley Lab's sizable contingent with the ATLAS experiment at CERN. • Post your questions in the comment box • E-mail your questions to askascientist@lbl.gov • Tweet to @BerkeleyLab • Or post on our facebook page: facebook/berkeleylab Update on July 5: Ian responds to several of your questions in this video: http://youtu.be/1BkpD1IS62g. Update on 7/04: Here's CERN's press release from earlier today on the latest preliminary results in the search for the long sought Higgs particle: http://press.web.cern.ch/press/PressReleases/Releases2012/PR17.12E.htm. And here's a Q&A on what the news tells us: http://cdsweb.cern.ch/journal/CERNBulletin/2012/28/News%20Articles/1459460?ln=en. CERN will present the new LHC data at a seminar July 4th at 9:00 in the morning Geneva time (3:00 in the morning Eastern Daylight Time, midnight on the Pacific Coast), where the ATLAS collaboration and their rivals in the CMS experiment will announce their results. Tevatron results were announced by Fermilab on Monday morning. For more background on the LHC's search for the Higgs boson, visit http://newscenter.lbl.gov/feature-stories/2012/06/28/higgs-2012/.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

DOE OSTI2012

Analysis of kicker noise induced beam emittance growth

Over the last few years, physicists have occasionally observed the presence of noise acting on the RHIC beams leading to emittance growth at high beam energies. While the noise was sporadic in the past, it became persistent during the Run-11 setup period. An investigation diagnosed the source as originating from the RHIC dump kicker system. Once identified the issue was quickly resolved. We report in this paper the investigation result, circuit analysis, measured and simulated waveforms, solutions, and future plans.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗

DOE OSTI2012

Physics Opportunities with the 12 GeV Upgrade at Jefferson Lab

We are at the dawn of a new era in the study of hadronic nuclear physics. The non-Abelian nature of Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD) and the resulting strong coupling at low energies represent a significant challenge to nuclear and particle physicists. The last decade has seen the development of new theoretical and experimental tools to quantitatively study the nature of confinement and the structure of hadrons comprised of light quarks and gluons. Together these will allow both the spectrum and the structure of hadrons to be elucidated in unprecedented detail. Exotic mesons that result from excitation of the gluon field will be explored. Multidimensional images of hadrons with great promise to reveal the dynamics of the key underlying degrees of freedom will be produced. In particular, these multidimensional distributions open a new window on the elusive spin content of the nucleon through observables that are directly related to the orbital angular momenta of quarks and gluons. Moreover, computational techniques in Lattice QCD now promise to provide insightful and quantitative predictions that can be meaningfully confronted with, and elucidated by, forthcoming experimental data. In addition, the development of extremely high intensity, highly polarized and extraordinarily stable beams of electrons provides innovative opportunities for probing (and extending) the Standard Model, both through parity violation studies and searches for new particles. Thus the 12 GeV upgrade of the Continuous Electron Beam Accelerator Facility (CEBAF) at Jefferson Lab will enable a new experimental program with substantial discovery potential to address these and other important topics in nuclear, hadronic and electroweak physics.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗

DOE OSTI2012

LIDAR Wind Speed Measurements of Evolving Wind Fields

Light Detection and Ranging (LIDAR) systems are able to measure the speed of incoming wind before it interacts with a wind turbine rotor. These preview wind measurements can be used in feedforward control systems that are designed to reduce turbine loads. However, the degree to which such preview-based control techniques can reduce loads by reacting to turbulence depends on how accurately the incoming wind field can be measured. Past studies have assumed the validity of physicist G.I. Taylor's 1938 frozen turbulence hypothesis, which implies that turbulence remains unchanged as it advects downwind at the mean wind speed. With Taylor's hypothesis applied, the only source of wind speed measurement error is distortion caused by the LIDAR. This study introduces wind evolution, characterized by the longitudinal coherence of the wind, to LIDAR measurement simulations using the National Renewable Energy Laboratory's (NREL's) 5-megawatt turbine model to create a more realistic measurement model. A simple model of wind evolution was applied to a frozen wind field that was used in previous studies to investigate the effects of varying the intensity of wind evolution. LIDAR measurements were also evaluated using a large eddy simulation (LES) of a stable boundary layer that was provided by the National Center for Atmospheric Research. The LIDAR measurement scenario investigated consists of a hub-mounted LIDAR that scans a circle of points upwind of the turbine in order to estimate the wind speed component in the mean wind direction. Different combinations of the preview distance that is located upwind of the rotor and the radius of the scan circle were analyzed. It was found that the dominant source of measurement error for short preview distances is the detection of transverse and vertical wind speeds from the line-of-sight LIDAR measurement. It was discovered in previous studies that, in the absence of wind evolution, the dominant source of error for large preview distances is the spatial averaging caused by the LIDAR's sampling volume. However, by introducing wind evolution, the dominant source of error for large preview distances was found to be the coherence loss caused by evolving turbulence. Different measurement geometries were compared using the bandwidth for which the measurement coherence remained above 0.5 and also the area under the measurement coherence curve. Results showed that, by increasing the intensity of wind evolution, the measurement coherence decreases. Using the coherence bandwidth metric, the optimal preview distance for a fixed-scan radius remained almost constant for low and moderate amounts of wind evolution. For the wind field with the simple wind evolution model introduced, the optimal preview distance for a scan radius of 75% blade span (47.25 meters) was found to be 80 meters. Using the LES wind field, the optimal preview distance was 65 meters. When comparing scan geometries using the area under the coherence curve, results showed that, as the intensity of wind evolution increases, the optimal preview distance decreases.

17 WIND ENERGY↗