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At least 1,297 records · Page 72

Characterization of high thermal conductivity fuel surrogates before and after ion irradiation

High thermal conductivity nuclear fuels offer important potential advantages over traditional oxide-based fuels such as higher burnup, reduction in fission gas release, and better overall safety of the system. One proposed approach to high thermal conductivity fuels utilizes high thermal conductivity nonfissile additives with UO 2 fuel to lower the fuel operating temperature and thereby take advantage of the highly favorable radiation resistance of UO 2 at lower operating temperatures. However, differential swelling in the matrix and high conductivity additive phases during high dose irradiation could lead to internal cracking and poor performance. In the current study, ceria (CeO 2 ) and zirconia (ZrO 2 ) surrogate matrices were used to model UO2 behavior. Additives of 10 vol. % Al 2 O 3 or SiC in the form of short fibers or platelets were used for the high conductivity second phase. The nuclear fuel surrogates were sintered to achieve densities greater than 93% of the ideal values. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) imaging and X-ray diffraction confirmed the uniform distribution of the second phase and that no intermetallic second phase was formed during sintering. The thermal conductivity of the sintered samples was measured from 50 °C to 900 °C and confirmed the desirable increase compared to pure CeO 2 /ZrO 2 pellets. Samples were irradiated with 20 MeV Ni 6+ ions at midrange doses ranging from 1 to 15 displacements per atom (dpa) and temperatures from 300 °C to 700 °C. Post irradiation characterization revealed a good stability of the samples at low to medium doses with matrix lattice parameter swelling of < 0.14 % but showed a significant microstructural deterioration and decrease of the mechanical properties at 15 dpa.

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗

Biophysical principles of choanoflagellate self-organization

Inspired by the patterns of multicellularity in choanoflagellates, the closest living relatives of animals, we quantify the biophysical processes underlying the morphogenesis of rosette colonies in the choanoflagellate Salpingoeca rosetta . We find that rosettes reproducibly transition from an early stage of 2-dimensional (2D) growth to a later stage of 3D growth, despite the underlying variability of the cell lineages. Our perturbative experiments demonstrate the fundamental importance of a basally secreted extracellular matrix (ECM) for rosette morphogenesis and show that the interaction of the ECM with cells in the colony physically constrains the packing of proliferating cells and, thus, controls colony shape. Simulations of a biophysically inspired model that accounts for the size and shape of the individual cells, the fraction of ECM, and its stiffness relative to that of the cells suffices to explain our observations and yields a morphospace consistent with observations across a range of multicellular choanoflagellate colonies. Overall, our biophysical perspective on rosette development complements previous genetic perspectives and, thus, helps illuminate the interplay between cell biology and physics in regulating morphogenesis.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗

3D TRISO particle-explicit compact meshing

The TRI-structural ISOtropic (TRISO) layered fuel particle is a robust nuclear fuel form offering enhanced safety and performance for advanced reactor concepts, including high-temperature gas-cooled reactors and other Generation IV designs. These poppy-seed-sized particles are embedded in a graphite matrix to form fuel elements that must withstand elevated temperatures and high burn-up levels. The heterogeneous nature of these fuel elements — comprising thousands of randomly distributed TRISO particles — produces complex stress fields and thermal gradients that one- and two-dimensional models cannot accurately capture. While three-dimensional modeling has improved predictions of dimensional changes, internal pressure buildup, and fission product transport under irradiation, current approaches rely on homogenized material properties that are known to have considerable divergence from experimental observations. This work presents a methodology for optimized random packing of TRISO fuel compacts and full three-dimensional mesh generation within the BISON fuel performance code, with each particle coating layer individually discretized. The resulting mesh was demonstrated through heat conduction simulations under representative in-reactor operating conditions, showing strong agreement with expected behavior. This capability enables detailed analysis of particle-to-particle interactions, matrix cracking mechanisms, and the statistical distribution of coating layer failures — all of which directly govern fuel performance and safety margins.

11 - NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗

Time evolution of ML-MCTDH wavefunctions. II. Application of the projector splitting integrator

The multi-layer multi-configuration time-dependent Hartree (ML-MCTDH) approach can suffer from numerical instabilities whenever the wavefunction is weakly entangled. These instabilities arise from singularities in the equations of motion (EOMs) and necessitate the use of regularization of the EOMs. The Projector Splitting Integrator (PSI) has previously been presented as an approach for evolving ML-MCTDH wavefunctions that is free of singularities. Here, we will discuss the implementation of the multi-layer PSI with a particular focus on how the steps required relate to those required to implement standard ML-MCTDH. We demonstrate the efficiency and stability of the PSI for large ML-MCTDH wavefunctions containing up to hundreds of thousands of nodes by considering a series of spin-boson models with up to 106 bath modes and find that for these problems, the PSI requires roughly 3–4 orders of magnitude fewer Hamiltonian evaluations and 2–3 orders of magnitude fewer Hamiltonian applications than standard ML-MCTDH and 2–3/1–2 orders of magnitude fewer evaluations/applications than approaches that use improved regularization schemes. Finally, we consider a series of significantly more challenging multi-spin-boson models that require much larger numbers of single-particle functions with wavefunctions containing up to ~1.3×10 9 parameters to obtain accurate dynamics.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

Quantification of the 35 Cl($\textit{n, p}$) reaction channel

The evaluated 35 Cl($\textit{n, p}$) cross sections in the ENDF/B-VIII.0 nuclear data library remain uncertain because of the lack of measured data in the neutron energy range between 100-600 keV. In this energy region, the R-matrix analysis relies heavily on estimated ($\textit{n, p}$) partial widths and level density information. This resulted in significant differences of the evaluated cross sections and predicted reactivity in nuclear reactor applications with respect to previous nuclear data libraries. Here, we present a methodology to quantify the cross sections for the 35 Cl($\textit{n, p}$) reaction channel from the combination of measured total cross sections and model calculations.

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS↗

Exploring Transport Behavior in Hybrid Perovskites Solar Cells via Machine Learning Analysis of Environmental-Dependent Impedance Spectroscopy

Hybrid organic–inorganic perovskites are one of the promising candidates for the next-generation semiconductors due to their superlative optoelectronic properties. However, one of the limiting factors for potential applications is their chemical and structural instability in different environments. Herein, the stability of (FAPbI3)0.85(MAPbBr3)0.15 perovskite solar cell is explored in different atmospheres using impedance spectroscopy. An equivalent circuit model and distribution of relaxation times (DRTs) are used to effectively analyze impedance spectra. DRT is further analyzed via machine learning workflow based on the non-negative matrix factorization of reconstructed relaxation time spectra. This exploration provides the interplay of charge transport dynamics and recombination processes under environment stimuli and illumination. The results reveal that in the dark, oxygen atmosphere induces an increased hole concentration with less ionic character while ionic motion is dominant under ambient air. Under 1 Sun illumination, the environment-dependent impedance responses show a more striking effect compared with dark conditions. In this case, the increased transport resistance observed under oxygen atmosphere in equivalent circuit analysis arises due to interruption of photogenerated hole carriers. The results not only shed light on elucidating transport mechanisms of perovskite solar cells in different environments but also offer an effective interpretation of impedance responses.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Instruction Roofline: An insightful visual performance model for GPUs

The Roofline performance model provides an intuitive approach to identify performance bottlenecks and guide performance optimization. However, the classic FLOP-centric approach is inappropriate for the emerging applications that perform more integer operations than floating point operations. In this article, we reintroduce our Instruction Roofline Model on NVIDIA GPUs and expand our evaluation of it. The Instruction Roofline incorporates instructions and memory transactions across all memory hierarchies together, and provides more performance insights than the FLOP-oriented Roofline Model, that is, instruction throughput, stride memory access patterns, bank conflicts, and thread predication. We use our Instruction Roofline methodology to analyze eight proxy applications: HPGMG from AMReX, Matrix Transpose benchmarks, ADEPT from MetaHipMer's sequence alignment phase, EXTENSION from MetaHipMer's local assembly phase, CUSP, cuSPARSE, cudaTensorCoreGemm, and cuBLAS. We demonstrate the ability of our methodology to understand various aspects of performance and performance bottlenecks on NVIDIA GPUs and motivate code optimizations.

Ding, N↗

Measurement of the branching fraction of ${\textrm{D}}_{\textrm{s}}^{+}$ → τ + ν τ via τ + → μ+ν μ $\overline{\nu}$τ

Utilizing 7 . 33 fb - 1 of e + e - collision data taken at the center-of-mass energies of 4.128, 4.157, 4.178, 4.189, 4.199, 4.209, 4.219, and 4.226 GeV with the BESIII detector, the branching fraction of the leptonic decay ${D}_s^{+}$ → τ + ν τ via τ + → μ + ν μ $\overline{\nu}$ τ is measured to be ${\mathcal{B}}_{D_s^{+}\to {\tau}^{+}{\nu}_{\tau }}$ = (5 . 37 ± 0 . 17 stat ± 0 . 15 syst )%. Combining this branching fraction with the world averages of the measurements of the masses of τ + and ${D}_s^{+}$ as well as the lifetime of ${D}_s^{+}$, we extract the product of the decay constant of ${D}_s^{+}$ and the c → s Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa matrix element to be ${f}_{D_s^{+}}$ |V cs | = (246 . 7 ± 3 . 9 stat ± 3 . 6 syst ) MeV. Taking |V cs | from a global fit in the standard model we obtain ${f}_{D_s^{+}}$ = (253 . 4 ± 4 . 0 stat ± 3 . 7 syst ) MeV. Conversely, taking ${f}_{D_s^{+}}$ from lattice quantum chromodynamics calculations, we obtain |V cs | = 0 . 987 ± 0 . 016 stat ± 0 . 014 syst .

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

Structural and chemical disorder enhance point defect diffusion and atomic transport in Ni 3 Al-based γ' phase

The ordered L1 2 γ' Ni 3 Al intermetallic inclusions are routinely used as strengthening constituents in Ni-based superalloys and recent high-entropy alloys. As there are different metallic elements relative to the alloy matrix, the composition of γ' phase inclusions usually suffers some variations. In this work, we studied the elemental partition and its influence on atomic transport properties in a model (NiCo) 3 Al γ' phase with chemical and structural disorder. Combining the Monte Carlo and molecular static techniques, we first determined the elemental distribution in such compositionally-complexed γ' phase. The results suggest that Co tends to segregate, which profoundly influences defect energetics and diffusion properties. By modeling thermally activated diffusion by molecular dynamics, we found that chemical disorder induced by Co can enhance vacancy diffusion while significantly suppress diffusion via interstitial atom migration, as compared to the stoichiometric γ' Ni 3 Al. We further reveal that these observations are closely related to the defect energetics in these systems. Furthermore, our results explain the effects of disorder, long- and short-range orders on the diffusion properties in multicomponent intermetallic alloys, which helps to understand the stability and, thus, γ'-phase-assisted strengthening at different conditions including annealing and irradiation.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Scaling of Imbibition Front Dynamics in Heterogeneous Porous Media

Here we report a quantitative study on the dynamics of countercurrent imbibition in fractured rock samples with the application of CO 2 geosequestration, as the rock matrix is saturated with CO 2 and brine exists in the adjacent microfracture. Direct pore-scale simulations of spontaneous and forced imbibition in a three-dimensional heterogeneous porous matrix enable us to capture the effect of microscopic properties on the imbibition dynamics as these pore-level descriptions are ignored in the existing coarse-grained models. We have established new scaling classes for the propagation of the center of mass of the imbibition front and fluid-fluid interface broadening. It has become evident that the wettability is a major factor which leads to anomalies in these scaling laws. While the governing capillarity under the water-wet condition induces fast roughening dynamics of the interface, the adverse effect of capillary pressure under the intermediate-wet condition leads to a damping effect on the imbibition front fluctuations.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗

On the number of stable solutions in the Kuramoto model

We consider a system of n coupled oscillators described by the Kuramoto model with the dynamics given by θ˙=ω+Kf(θ). In this system, an equilibrium solution θ∗ is considered stable when ω+Kf(θ∗)=0, and the Jacobian matrix Df(θ∗) has a simple eigenvalue of zero, indicating the presence of a direction in which the oscillators can adjust their phases. Additionally, the remaining eigenvalues of Df(θ∗) are negative, indicating stability in orthogonal directions. A crucial constraint imposed on the equilibrium solution is that |Γ(θ∗)|≤π, where |Γ(θ∗)| represents the length of the shortest arc on the unit circle that contains the equilibrium solution θ∗. We provide a proof that there exists a unique solution satisfying the aforementioned stability criteria. This analysis enhances our understanding of the stability and uniqueness of these solutions, offering valuable insights into the dynamics of coupled oscillators in this system.

Arenas, Alex (ORCID:0000000309370334)↗

Machine Learning–Augmented Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy for Spectral Discrimination of Iron Oxalates

Enhanced characterization and phase identification of post-PUREX Pu Oxalates (PuOXA) are pivotal for nonproliferation and pre-detonation nuclear forensics. Despite significant advances in the characterization of PuO 2 samples, little is known about the impact of both the chemical structure and oxidation states of PuOXA (i.e., Pu(III) and Pu(IV)) have on optical emission signatures. Here, we demonstrate the analytical capabilities of laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) applied to Fe(II) and Fe(III) oxalate samples as surrogates for PuOXA, highlighting the discriminating features in the LIBS emission spectra arising from differences in the oxidation states within mixed FeOXA samples. We report the enhancement of spectral feature selection using Principal Component Analysis (PCA), which enables the analytical superiority of machine learning algorithms such as Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA), Quadratic Discriminant Analysis (QDA), Partial Least Squares Regression (PLSR), Support Vector Regression (SVR), and Random Forest Regression (RFR) over conventional univariate techniques for phase discrimination and chemometric analysis. Cluster analysis revealed how both matrix effects and laser ablation influence cluster separability by introducing spectral artifacts that misdirect the maximization of variance. PCA-selected emission lines were used in the regression models, demonstrating that both univariate and multivariate linear regression models (i.e., PLSR and SVR) can achieve acceptable performance, with machine learning models outperforming conventional calibration regressions. Furthermore, the application of non-linearly activated PCA-selected emission lines illustrates how simplifying the data while retaining captured variance enables the use of less complex and more computationally efficient models. Furthermore, this is particularly evident in the underperformance of RFR, which suffers from increased computational costs and overfitting owing to its high complexity.

Oxalates↗

Aging heat treatment design for Haynes 282 made by wire-feed additive manufacturing using high-throughput experiments and interpretable machine learning

Wire-feed additive manufacturing (WFAM) produces superalloys with complex thermal cycles and unique microstructures, often requiring optimized heat treatments. To address this challenge, we present a hybrid approach that combines high-throughput experiments, precipitation simulation, and machine learning to design effective aging conditions for the WFAM Haynes 282 superalloy. Our results demonstrate that the γ’ radius is the critical microstructural feature for strengthening Haynes 282 during post-heat treatment compared with the matrix composition and γ’ volume fraction. New aging conditions at 770°C for 50 hours and 730°C for 200 hours were discovered based on the machine learning model and were applied to enhance yield strength, bringing it on par with the wrought counterpart. This approach has significant implications for future AM alloy production, enabling more efficient and effective heat treatment design to achieve desired properties.

CALPHAD↗

An end-to-end trainable hybrid classical-quantum classifier

Abstract We introduce a hybrid model combining a quantum-inspired tensor network and a variational quantum circuit to perform supervised learning tasks. This architecture allows for the classical and quantum parts of the model to be trained simultaneously, providing an end-to-end training framework. We show that compared to the principal component analysis, a tensor network based on the matrix product state with low bond dimensions performs better as a feature extractor for the input data of the variational quantum circuit in the binary and ternary classification of MNIST and Fashion-MNIST datasets. The architecture is highly adaptable and the classical-quantum boundary can be adjusted according to the availability of the quantum resource by exploiting the correspondence between tensor networks and quantum circuits.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Dimerization and spin decoupling in a two-leg Heisenberg ladder with frustrated trimer rungs

We study the antiferromagnetic spin-half Heisenberg ladder in the presence of an additional frustrating rung spin which is motivated and relevant also for the description of real two-dimensional materials such as the two-dimensional trimer magnet Ba 4 Ir 3 O 10 . We study the zero-temperature phase diagram, where we combine numerical and analytical methods into an overall consistent description. All numerical simulations are also accompanied by studies of the dynamical spin structure factor obtained via the density matrix renormalization group. Overall, we find in the regime of strong rung coupling a gapped dimerized phase related to competing symmetry sectors in Hilbert space that ultimately results in frustration-driven spin-Peierls transition. In the weak rung-coupling regime, the system is uniform, yet shows a gapped spinon continuum together with a sharp coherent low-energy branch which renders the system critical overall. In either case, the additional rung spin quickly get sidelined and nearly decouple in the regime when their bare coupling to the ladder is weakened

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗

Quasiprobabilistic Readout Correction of Midcircuit Measurements for Adaptive Feedback via Measurement Randomized Compiling

Quantum measurements are a fundamental component of quantum computing. However, on present-day quantum computers, measurements can be more error prone than quantum gates and are susceptible to nonunital errors as well as nonlocal correlations due to measurement crosstalk. While readout errors can be mitigated in postprocessing, this is inefficient in the number of qubits due to a combinatorially large number of possible states that need to be characterized. In this work, we show that measurement errors can be tailored into a simple stochastic error model using randomized compiling, enabling the efficient mitigation of readout errors via quasiprobability distributions reconstructed from the measurement of a single preparation state in an exponentially large confusion matrix. We demonstrate the scalability and power of this approach by correcting readout errors without matrix inversion on a large number of different preparation states applied to a register of eight superconducting transmon qubits. Moreover, we show that this method can be extended to midcircuit measurements used for active feedback via quasiprobabilistic error cancellation, and we demonstrate the correction of measurement errors on an ancilla qubit used to detect and actively correct bit-flip errors on an entangled memory qubit. Our approach enables the correction of readout errors on large numbers of qubits and offers a strategy for correcting readout errors in adaptive circuits in which the results of midcircuit measurements are used to perform conditional operations on nonlocal qubits in real time.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗