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At least 127 records · Page 7

Spectral studies of soft x-ray radiation of laser-produced plasma of various target materials in a wide spectral range

Here, the work is devoted to experimental study of soft X-ray radiation spectra of laser produced plasma in a wide spectral range 5–100 Å at the “Kamerton” facility (GPI) with pulse duration 70 ps, pulse energy 1–5 J, wavelength 0.53 microns at which the laser intensity (power flux density) of 7×10 14 – 3.5×10 15 W/cm 2 was achieved. A spectrograph was used, which had transmission diffraction gratings with a ratio of the elementary gap to the period of the structure of 0.25 and 0.41. Detection was performed on both UV-4 X-ray photo film and Fuji TR fluorescent imaging plate. Solid samples from Al, Si, Ti, Cu, Ta and W were used as targets. The ionization states of the plasma corresponding to various electron temperatures were calculated, which made it possible to estimate the electron temperature by comparison these calculation results with the experimentally obtained spectra. The estimated electron temperature, which depends on the laser pulse energy and the target material, varied within the range of 100–450 eV. To verify the correctness of the temperature estimations obtained by such comparison a numerical simulation of plasma radiation was carried out by the use of PrismSPECT computer program. It was found that the results of this simulation are in a good agreement with estimations on the base of experimentally obtained spectra. The analysis of these spectra showed that tantalum, tungsten or titanium targets are the best candidates among the tested ones for the use of laser produced plasma as a radiation source in the "water window" spectral range (23–44 Å) for applications in biology and medicine.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

Femtosecond X-Ray Free Electron Laser Pulse Duration Measurement from Spectral Correlation Function

We present a novel method for measuring the duration of femtosecond x-ray pulses from self-amplified spontaneous emission free electron lasers by performing statistical analysis in the spectral domain. Analytical expressions of the spectral correlation function were derived in the linear regime to extract both the pulse duration and the spectrometer resolution. Numerical simulations confirmed that the method can be also used in the nonlinear regime. The method was demonstrated experimentally at the Linac Coherent Light Source by measuring pulse durations down to 13 fs FWHM.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗

Modification of the TASMIP x-ray spectral model for the simulation of microfocus x-ray sources

Purpose: The availability of accurate and simple models for the estimation of x-ray spectra is of great importance for system simulation, optimization, or inclusion of photon energy information into data processing. There is a variety of publicly available tools for estimation of x-ray spectra in radiology and mammography. However, most of these models cannot be used directly for modeling microfocus x-ray sources due to differences in inherent filtration, energy range and/or anode material. For this reason the authors propose in this work a new model for the simulation of microfocus spectra based on existing models for mammography and radiology, modified to compensate for the effects of inherent filtration and energy range. Methods: The authors used the radiology and mammography versions of an existing empirical model [tungsten anode spectral model interpolating polynomials (TASMIP)] as the basis of the microfocus model. First, the authors estimated the inherent filtration included in the radiology model by comparing the shape of the spectra with spectra from the mammography model. Afterwards, the authors built a unified spectra dataset by combining both models and, finally, they estimated the parameters of the new version of TASMIP for microfocus sources by calibrating against experimental exposure data from a microfocus x-ray source. The model was validated by comparing estimated and experimental exposure and attenuation data for different attenuating materials and x-ray beam peak energy values, using two different x-ray tubes. Results: Inherent filtration for the radiology spectra from TASMIP was found to be equivalent to 1.68 mm Al, as compared to spectra obtained from the mammography model. To match the experimentally measured exposure data the combined dataset required to apply a negative filtration of about 0.21 mm Al and an anode roughness of 0.003 mm W. The validation of the model against real acquired data showed errors in exposure and attenuation in line with those reported for other models for radiology or mammography. Conclusions: A new version of the TASMIP model for the estimation of x-ray spectra in microfocus x-ray sources has been developed and validated experimentally. Similarly to other versions of TASMIP, the estimation of spectra is very simple, involving only the evaluation of polynomial expressions.

62 RADIOLOGY AND NUCLEAR MEDICINE↗

Residual analysis of the water resonance signal in breast lesions imaged with high spectral and spatial resolution (HiSS) MRI: A pilot study

Purpose: High spectral and spatial resolution magnetic resonance imaging (HiSS MRI) yields information on the local environment of suspicious lesions. Previous work has demonstrated the advantages of HiSS (complete fat-suppression, improved image contrast, no required contrast agent, etc.), leading to initial investigations of water resonance lineshape for the purpose of breast lesion classification. The purpose of this study is to investigate a quantitative imaging biomarker, which characterizes non-Lorentzian components of the water resonance in HiSS MRI datasets, for computer-aided diagnosis (CADx). Methods: The inhomogeneous broadening and non-Lorentzian or “off-peak” components seen in the water resonance of proton spectra of breast HiSS images are analyzed by subtracting a Lorentzian fit from the water peak spectra and evaluating the difference spectrum or “residual.” The maxima of these residuals (referred to hereafter as “off-peak components”) tend to be larger in magnitude in malignant lesions, indicating increased broadening in malignant lesions. The authors considered only those voxels with the highest magnitude off-peak components in each lesion, with the number of selected voxels dependent on lesion size. Our voxel-based method compared the magnitudes and frequencies of off-peak components of all voxels from all lesions in a database that included 15 malignant and 8 benign lesions (yielding ∼3900 voxels) based on the lesions’ biopsy-confirmed diagnosis. Lesion classification was accomplished by comparing the average off-peak component magnitudes and frequencies in malignant and benign lesions. The area under the ROC curve (AUC) was used as a figure of merit for both the voxel-based and lesion-based methods. Results: In the voxel-based task of distinguishing voxels from malignant and benign lesions, off-peak magnitude yielded an AUC of 0.88 (95% confidence interval [0.84, 0.91]). In the lesion-based task of distinguishing malignant and benign lesions, average off-peak magnitude yielded an AUC 0.83 (95% confidence interval [0.61, 0.98]). Conclusions: These promising AUC values suggest that analysis of the water-resonance in each HiSS image voxel using “residual analysis” could have high diagnostic utility and could be used to enhance current CADx methods and allow detection of breast cancer without the need to inject contrast agents.

62 RADIOLOGY AND NUCLEAR MEDICINE↗

A scalable Euler–Lagrange approach for multiphase flow simulation on spectral elements

Multiphase flow can be difficult to simulate with high accuracy due to the wide range of scales associated with various multiphase phenomena. These scales may range from the size of individual particles to the entire domain of interest. Traditionally, large scale systems can only be simulated using averaging approaches that filter out the locations of individual particles. In this work, the Euler–Lagrange method is used to simulate large-scale dense particle systems in which each individual particle is tracked. In order to accomplish this, the highly scalable spectral element code nek5000 has been extended to handle the multiple levels of multiphase coupling in these systems. These levels include what has been called one-, two-, and four-way coupling. Here, each level has been separated to detail the computational impact of each stage. A binned ghost particle algorithm has also been developed to efficiently handle the challenges of two- and four-way coupling in a parallel processing context. The algorithms and their implementations are then shown to scale to 65,536 Message Passing Interface (MPI) ranks in both the strong and weak limits. After this, validation is performed through simulation of a small-scale fluidized bed. Lastly, a large-scale fluidized bed is simulated with 65,536 MPI ranks and is able to capture the unique physics of the onset of fluidization.

Computer Science↗

Spectral shaping of an ultrafast ytterbium fiber laser via a passive intracavity optical filter: a simple and reliable route to sub-45 fs pulses

We investigate the use of passive intracavity optical filters for controlling the laser output spectrum of a polarization-mode-locked, ultrafast ytterbium fiber laser. The overall lasing bandwidth is increased or extended by strategic choice of the filter cutoff frequency. Overall laser performance, including pulse compression and intensity noise, is investigated for both shortpass and longpass filters with a range of cutoff frequencies. The intracavity filter not only shapes the output spectra, but also provides a route for overall broader bandwidths and shorter pulses in ytterbium fiber lasers. These results demonstrate that spectral shaping with a passive filter is a useful tool to routinely achieve sub-45 fs pulse durations in ytterbium fiber lasers.

Cooper, Nicholas D.↗

THE SPECTRAL SN-GRB CONNECTION: SYSTEMATIC SPECTRAL COMPARISONS BETWEEN TYPE Ic SUPERNOVAE AND BROAD-LINED TYPE Ic SUPERNOVAE WITH AND WITHOUT GAMMA-RAY BURSTS

We present the first systematic investigation of spectral properties of 17 Type Ic Supernovae (SNe Ic), 10 broad-lined SNe Ic (SNe Ic-bl) without observed gamma-ray bursts (GRBs), and 11 SNe Ic-bl with GRBs (SN-GRBs) as a function of time in order to probe their explosion conditions and progenitors. Using a number of novel methods, we analyze a total of 407 spectra, which were drawn from published spectra of individual SNe as well as from the densely time-sampled spectra of Modjaz et al (2014). In order to quantify the diversity of the SN spectra as a function of SN subtype, we construct average spectra of SNe Ic, SNe Ic-bl without GRBs, and SNe Ic-bl with GRBs. We find that SN 1994I is not a typical SN Ic, contrasting the general view, while the spectra of SN 1998bw/GRB 980425 are representative of mean spectra of SNe Ic-bl. We measure the ejecta absorption and width velocities using a new method described here and find that SNe Ic-bl with GRBs, on average, have quantifiably higher absorption velocities, as well as broader line widths than SNe without observed GRBs. In addition, we search for correlations between SN-GRB spectral properties and the energies of their accompanying GRBs. Finally, we show that the absence of clear He lines in optical spectra of SNe Ic-bl, and in particular of SN-GRBs, is not due to them being too smeared-out due to the high velocities present in the ejecta. This implies that the progenitor stars of SN-GRBs are probably free of the He-layer, in addition to being H-free, which puts strong constraints on the stellar evolutionary paths needed to produce such SN-GRB progenitors at the observed low metallicities.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Development of spectral analysis math models and software program and spectral analyzer, digital converter interface equipment design

Spectral analyses of angle-modulated communication systems is studied by: (1) performing a literature survey of candidate power spectrum computational techniques, determining the computational requirements, and formulating a mathematical model satisfying these requirements; (2) implementing the model on UNIVAC 1230 digital computer as the Spectral Analysis Program (SAP); and (3) developing the hardware specifications for a data acquisition system which will acquire an input modulating signal for SAP. The SAP computational technique uses extended fast Fourier transform and represents a generalized approach for simple and complex modulating signals.

Hayden, W. L.↗

Spectral synthesis in the ultraviolet. III - The spectral morphology of normal stars in the mid-ultraviolet

The morphology of 218 mid-UV spectra of stars ranging from O through K in spectral type is examined. Several new line and continuum indices are defined and their usefulness as temperature, luminosity, and metallicity discriminants is discussed. Mid-UV stellar continua are found to be markedly affected by abundance. A UV excess, delta(2600-V), is computed which is more sensitive by a factor of 10 to (Fe/H) than is delta(U-B). The relative strength of spectral lines in the mid-UV is not as strongly affected by abundance. Mid-UV spectra are much more sensitive to the temperature of the stellar population than to either metallicity or the dwarf/giant ratio. Mg II 2800 shows unexpected behavior, displaying no sensitivity to abundance for cool stars and a reversed sensitivity in FG dwarfs such that metal-poor stars have stronger Mg II strengths at the same temperature than more metal-rich stars.

Fanelli, Michael N.↗

Modeling Fire Severity in Black Spruce Stands in the Alaskan Boreal Forest Using Spectral and Non-Spectral Geospatial Data

Biomass burning in the Alaskan interior is already a major disturbance and source of carbon emissions, and is likely to increase in response to the warming and drying predicted for the future climate. In addition to quantifying changes to the spatial and temporal patterns of burned areas, observing variations in severity is the key to studying the impact of changes to the fire regime on carbon cycling, energy budgets, and post-fire succession. Remote sensing indices of fire severity have not consistently been well-correlated with in situ observations of important severity characteristics in Alaskan black spruce stands, including depth of burning of the surface organic layer. The incorporation of ancillary data such as in situ observations and GIS layers with spectral data from Landsat TM/ETM+ greatly improved efforts to map the reduction of the organic layer in burned black spruce stands. Using a regression tree approach, the R2 of the organic layer depth reduction models was 0.60 and 0.55 (pb0.01) for relative and absolute depth reduction, respectively. All of the independent variables used by the regression tree to estimate burn depth can be obtained independently of field observations. Implementation of a gradient boosting algorithm improved the R2 to 0.80 and 0.79 (pb0.01) for absolute and relative organic layer depth reduction, respectively. Independent variables used in the regression tree model of burn depth included topographic position, remote sensing indices related to soil and vegetation characteristics, timing of the fire event, and meteorological data. Post-fire organic layer depth characteristics are determined for a large (N200,000 ha) fire to identify areas that are potentially vulnerable to a shift in post-fire succession. This application showed that 12% of this fire event experienced fire severe enough to support a change in post-fire succession. We conclude that non-parametric models and ancillary data are useful in the modeling of the surface organic layer fire depth. Because quantitative differences in post-fire surface characteristics do not directly influence spectral properties, these modeling techniques provide better information than the use of remote sensing data alone.

Barrett, K.↗

Spectral Invariance Principles Observed in Spectral Radiation Measurements of the Transition Zone

The main theme for our research is the understanding and closure of the surface spectral shortwave radiation problem in fully 3D cloud situations by combining the new ARM scanning radars, shortwave spectrometers, and microwave radiometers with the arsenal of radiative transfer tools developed by our group. In particular, we define first a large number of cloudy test cases spanning all 3D possibilities not just the customary uniform-overcast ones. Second, for each case, we define a "Best Estimate of Clouds That Affect Shortwave Radiation" using all relevant ARM instruments, notably the new scanning radars, and contribute this to the ARM Archive. Third, we test the ASR-signature radiative transfer model RRTMG_SW for those cases, focusing on the near-IR because of long-standing problems in this spectral region, and work with the developers to improve RRTMG_SW in order to increase its penetration into the modeling community.

Marshak, Alexander↗

Implications of Whole-Disc DSCOVR EPIC Spectral Observations for Estimating Earth's Spectral Reflectivity Based on Low-Earth-Orbiting and Geostationary Observations

Earth's reflectivity is among the key parameters of climate research. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)'s Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera (EPIC) onboard National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)'s Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) spacecraft provides spectral reflectance of the entire sunlit Earth in the near backscattering direction every 65 to 110 min. Unlike EPIC, sensors onboard the Earth Orbiting Satellites (EOS) sample reflectance over swaths at a specific local solar time (LST) or over a fixed area. Such intrinsic sampling limits result in an apparent Earth's reflectivity. We generated spectral reflectance over sampling areas using EPIC data. The difference between the EPIC and EOS estimates is an uncertainty in Earth's reflectivity. We developed an Earth Reflector Type Index (ERTI) to discriminate between major Earth atmosphere components: clouds, cloud-free ocean, bare and vegetated land. Temporal variations in Earth's reflectivity are mostly determined by clouds. The sampling area of EOS sensors may not be sufficient to represent cloud variability, resulting in biased estimates. Taking EPIC reflectivity as a reference, low-earth-orbiting-measurements at the sensor-specific LST tend to overestimate EPIC values by 0.8% to 8%. Biases in geostationary orbiting approximations due to a limited sampling area are between −0.7% and 12%. Analyses of ERTI-based Earth component reflectivity indicate that the disagreement between EPIC and EOS estimates depends on the sampling area, observation time and vary between −10% and 23%.

DSCOVR↗