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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 1,297 records · Page 72
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS2006

Discovery of a 3.6-hr Eclipsing Luminous X-Ray Binary in the Galaxy NGC 4214

We report the discovery of an eclipsing X-ray binary with a 3.62-hr period within 24 arcsec of the center of the dwarf starburst galaxy NGC 4214. The orbital period places interesting constraints on the nature of the binary, and allows for a few very different interpretations. The most likely possibility is that the source lies within NGC 4214 and has an X-ray luminosity of up to 7e38. In this case the binary may well be comprised of a naked He-burning donor star with a neutron-star accretor, though a stellar-mass black-hole accretor cannot be completely excluded. There is no obvious evidence for a strong stellar wind in the X-ray orbital light curve that would be expected from a massive He star; thus, the mass of the He star should be <3-4 solar masses. If correct, this would represent a new class of very luminous X-ray binary----perhaps related to Cyg X-3. Other less likely possibilities include a conventional low-mass X-ray binary that somehow manages to produce such a high X-ray luminosity and is apparently persistent over an interval of years; or a foreground AM Her binary of much lower luminosity that fortuitously lies in the direction of NGC 4214. Any model for this system must accommodate the lack of an optical counterpart down to a limiting magnitude of 22.6 in the visible.

Ghosh, Kajal K.↗
NASA NTRS2016

On the Nature of the Enigmatic Object IRAS 19312+1950: A Rare Phase of Massive Star Formation?

IRAS19312+1950 is a peculiar object that has eluded firm characterization since its discovery, with combined maser properties similar to an evolved star and a young stellar object (YSO). To help determine its true nature, we obtained infrared spectra of IRAS19312+1950 in the range 5-550 microns using the Herschel and Spitzer space observatories. The Herschel PACS maps exhibit a compact, slightly asymmetric continuum source at 170 microns, indicative of a large, dusty circumstellar envelope. The far-IR CO emission line spectrum reveals two gas temperature components: approx. = 0.22 Stellar Mass of material at 280+/-18 K, and ≈1.6 Me of material at 157+/-3 K. The OI 63 micron line is detected on-source but no significant emission from atomic ions was found. The HIFI observations display shocked, high-velocity gas with outflow speeds up to 90 km/s along the line of sight. From Spitzer spectroscopy, we identify ice absorption bands due to H2O at 5.8 microns and CO2 at 15 microns. The spectral energy distribution is consistent with a massive, luminous (approx. 2 × 10(exp 4) Stellar Luminosity) central source surrounded by a dense, warm circumstellar disk and envelope of total mass approx. 500-700 Stellar Mass with large bipolar outflow cavities. The combination of distinctive far-IR spectral features suggest that IRAS19312+1950 should be classified as an accreting, high-mass YSO rather than an evolved star. In light of this reclassification, IRAS19312+1950 becomes only the fifth high-mass protostar known to exhibit SiO maser activity, and demonstrates that 18 cm OH maser line ratios may not be reliable observational discriminators between evolved stars and YSOs.

ISM: molecules aEuro" masers aEuro" stars↗
DOE OSTI2011

New Prospects in High Energy Astrophysics

Recent discoveries using TeV, X-ray and radio telescopes as well as Ultra High Energy Cosmic Ray arrays are leading to new insights into longstanding puzzles in high energy astrophysics. Many of these insights come from combining observations throughout the electromagnetic and other spectra as well as evidence assembled from different types of source to propose general principles. Issues discussed in this general overview include methods of accelerating relativistic particles, and amplifying magnetic field, the dynamics of relativistic outflows and the nature of the prime movers that power them. Observational approaches to distinguishing hadronic, leptonic and electromagnetic outflows and emission mechanisms are discussed along with probes of the velocity field and the confinement mechanisms. Observations with GLAST promise to be very prescriptive for addressing these problems.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗
DOE OSTI2020

NCBI’s Virus Discovery Codeathon: Building “FIVE” —The Federated Index of Viral Experiments API Index

Viruses represent important test cases for data federation due to their genome size and the rapid increase in sequence data in publicly available databases. However, some consequences of previously decentralized (unfederated) data are lack of consensus or comparisons between feature annotations. Unifying or displaying alternative annotations should be a priority both for communities with robust entry representation and for nascent communities with burgeoning data sources. To this end, during this three-day continuation of the Virus Hunting Toolkit codeathon series (VHT-2), a new integrated and federated viral index was elaborated. This Federated Index of Viral Experiments (FIVE) integrates pre-existing and novel functional and taxonomy annotations and virus–host pairings. Variability in the context of viral genomic diversity is often overlooked in virus databases. As a proof-of-concept, FIVE was the first attempt to include viral genome variation for HIV, the most well-studied human pathogen, through viral genome diversity graphs. As per the publication of this manuscript, FIVE is the first implementation of a virus-specific federated index of such scope. FIVE is coded in BigQuery for optimal access of large quantities of data and is publicly accessible. Many projects of database or index federation fail to provide easier alternatives to access or query information. To this end, a Python API query system was developed to enhance the accessibility of FIVE.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2015

THE DISCOVERY OF THE FIRST “CHANGING LOOK” QUASAR: NEW INSIGHTS INTO THE PHYSICS AND PHENOMENOLOGY OF ACTIVE GALACTIC NUCLEI

SDSS J015957.64+003310.5 is an X-ray selected, z = 0.31 active galactic nucleus (AGN) from the Stripe 82X survey that transitioned from a Type 1 quasar to a Type 1.9 AGN between 2000 and 2010. This is the most distant AGN, and first quasar, yet observed to have undergone such a dramatic change. We re-observed the source with the double spectrograph on the Palomar 5 m telescope in 2014 July and found that the spectrum is unchanged since 2010. From fitting the optical spectra, we find that the AGN flux dropped by a factor of 6 between 2000 and 2010 while the broad Hα emission faded and broadened. Serendipitous X-ray observations caught the source in both the bright and dim state, showing a similar 2–10 keV flux diminution as the optical while lacking signatures of obscuration. The optical and X-ray changes coincide with g-band magnitude variations over multiple epochs of Stripe 82 observations. We demonstrate that variable absorption, as might be expected from the simplest AGN unification paradigm, does not explain the observed photometric or spectral properties. We interpret the changing state of J0159+0033 to be caused by dimming of the AGN continuum, reducing the supply of ionizing photons available to excite gas in the immediate vicinity around the black hole. J0159+0033 provides insight into the intermittency of black hole growth in quasars, as well as an unprecedented opportunity to study quasar physics (in the bright state) and the host galaxy (in the dim state), which has been impossible to do in a single sources until now.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2020

The STRong lensing Insights into the Dark Energy Survey (STRIDES) 2017/2018 follow-up campaign: discovery of 10 lensed quasars and 10 quasar pairs

Here, we report the results of the STRong lensing Insights into the Dark Energy Survey (STRIDES) follow-up campaign of the late 2017/early 2018 season. We obtained spectra of 65 lensed quasar candidates with ESO Faint Object Spectrograph and Camera 2 on the NTT and Echellette Spectrograph and Imager on Keck, confirming 10 new lensed quasars and 10 quasar pairs. Eight lensed quasars are doubly imaged with source redshifts between 0.99 and 2.90, one is triply imaged (DESJ0345-2545, z = 1.68), and one is quadruply imaged (quad: DESJ0053-2012, z = 3.8). Singular isothermal ellipsoid models for the doubles, based on high-resolution imaging from SAMI on Southern Astrophysical Research Telescope or Near InfraRed Camera 2 on Keck, give total magnifications between 3.2 and 5.6, and Einstein radii between 0.49 and 1.97 arcsec. After spectroscopic follow-up, we extract multi-epoch grizY photometry of confirmed lensed quasars and contaminant quasar + star pairs from DES data using parametric multiband modelling, and compare variability in each system’s components. By measuring the reduced χ 2 associated with fitting all epochs to the same magnitude, we find a simple cut on the less variable component that retains all confirmed lensed quasars, while removing 94 per cent of contaminant systems. Based on our spectroscopic follow-up, this variability information improves selection of lensed quasars and quasar pairs from 34-45 per cent to 51–70 per cent, with most remaining contaminants being star-forming galaxies. Using mock lensed quasar light curves we demonstrate that selection based only on variability will over-represent the quad fraction by 10 per cent over a complete DES magnitude-limited sample, explained by the magnification bias and hence lower luminosity/more variable sources in quads.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
NASA NTRS1992

Hard x ray observations of Vela X-1 and A0535+26 with HEXE: Discovery of cyclotron lines

The X ray pulsars Vela X-1 (4U 0900-40) and A0535+26) were observed with the High Energy X ray Experiment (HEXE) onboard the Mir space station at energies above 20 keV. The pulse profiles of Vela X-1 (P = 283.22 s for JD 244 7486) and A0535+26 (P = 103.27 s for JD 244 7626) were measured up to at least 100 keV. The time averaged pulse profiles of the two sources both show a clear double peak structure with an asymmetric main pulse and a more symmetric secondary pulse. The spectrum of the main pulse is significantly harder than that of the secondary. Pulse phase resolved spectra show absorption features at 54 keV and possibly 27 keV for Vela X-1 and around 100 keV for A0535+26. If these features are interpreted as second and first harmonic (fundamental) cyclotron absorption lines, lower limits are derived of 2.6 x 10(exp 12) and 4.3 x 10(exp 12) Gauss for the magnetic fields of the neutron stars in Vela X-1 and A0535+26, respectively.

Kendziorra, E.↗
DOE OSTI2015

The detector system of the Daya Bay reactor neutrino experiment

The Daya Bay experiment was the first to report simultaneous measurements of reactor antineutrinos at multiple baselines leading to the discovery of ν¯e oscillations over km-baselines. Subsequent data has provided the world's most precise measurement of sin 2 2θ 13 and the effective mass splitting Δm 2 ee . The experiment is located in Daya Bay, China where the cluster of six nuclear reactors is among the world's most prolific sources of electron antineutrinos. Multiple antineutrino detectors are deployed in three underground water pools at different distances from the reactor cores to search for deviations in the antineutrino rate and energy spectrum due to neutrino mixing. Instrumented with photomultiplier tubes, the water pools serve as shielding against natural radioactivity from the surrounding rock and provide efficient muon tagging. Arrays of resistive plate chambers over the top of each pool provide additional muon detection. The antineutrino detectors were specifically designed for measurements of the antineutrino flux with minimal systematic uncertainty. Relative detector efficiencies between the near and far detectors are known to better than 0.2%. With the unblinding of the final two detectors’ baselines and target masses, a complete description and comparison of the eight antineutrino detectors can now be presented. This study describes the Daya Bay detector systems, consisting of eight antineutrino detectors in three instrumented water pools in three underground halls, and their operation through the first year of eight detector data-taking.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2024

Reaction Discovery Using Spectroscopic Insights from an Enzymatic C–H Amination Intermediate

Engineered hemoproteins can selectively incorporate nitrogen from nitrene precursors like hydroxylamine, O-substituted hydroxylamines, and organic azides into organic molecules. Although iron-nitrenoids are often invoked as the reactive intermediates in these reactions, their innate reactivity and transient nature have made their characterization challenging. Here we characterize an iron-nitrosyl intermediate generated from NH 2 OH within a protoglobin active site that can undergo nitrogen-group transfer catalysis, using UV–vis, electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spectroscopy, and high-resolution electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (HR-ESI-MS) techniques. The mechanistic insights gained led to the discovery of aminating reagents—nitrite (NO 2 – ), nitric oxide (NO), and nitroxyl (HNO)—that are new to both nature and synthetic chemistry. Based on the findings, we propose a catalytic cycle for C–H amination inspired by the nitrite reductase pathway. Furthermore, this study highlights the potential of engineered hemoproteins to access natural nitrogen sources for sustainable chemical synthesis and offers a new perspective on the use of biological nitrogen cycle intermediates in biocatalysis.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
DOE OSTI2020

Expeditious synthesis of covalent organic frameworks: a review

Covalent organic frameworks (COFs), a burgeoning class of crystalline porous materials constructed by covalently connecting organic building blocks, have garnered tremendous attention. The predominant solvothermal synthesis of COFs usually requires high temperature and long reaction times (three days or longer), which creates substantial obstacles for their accelerated discovery and exploration in practical applications. Hence, the expeditious synthesis of COFs without compromising their inherent properties is exceedingly appealing from the viewpoint of cost, time, and energy footprint. To overcome the sluggishness of the synthesis, considerable efforts have been invested in the rapid synthesis of high-quality COFs through innovations in energy source, catalyst, solvent, monomer, nucleation, and workup activation, leading to a drastic reduction of reaction time from multiple days to a few hours, and even to seconds in some cases. In this contribution, we provide a comprehensive overview of the advances in expediting the synthesis science of COFs. Though a nascent effort, six prevalent strategies have been identified for the rapid synthesis of COFs, which have led to intriguing applications in a diverse range of areas including gas adsorption, separation, heterogeneous catalysis, environmental remediation, and photodynamic therapy. We also outline the major challenges and perspectives on the future directions empowered by expeditious COF synthesis.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
DOE OSTI2015

Untangling the recombination line emission from H ii regions with multiple velocity components

H ii regions are the ionized spheres surrounding high-mass stars. They are ideal targets for tracing Galactic structure because they are predominantly found in spiral arms and have high luminosities at infrared and radio wavelengths. In the Green Bank Telescope H ii Region Discovery Survey (GBT HRDS), we found that >30% of first Galactic quadrant H ii regions have multiple hydrogen radio recombination line (RRL) velocities, which makes determining their Galactic locations and physical properties impossible. Here we make additional GBT RRL observations to determine the discrete H ii region velocity for all 117 multiple-velocity sources within 18{sup ∘}<ℓ<65{sup ∘}. The multiple-velocity sources are concentrated in the zone 22{sup ∘}<ℓ<32{sup ∘}, coinciding with the largest regions of massive star formation, which implies that the diffuse emission is caused by leaked ionizing photons. We combine our observations with analyses of the electron temperature, molecular gas, and carbon recombination lines to determine the source velocities for 103 discrete H ii regions (88% of the sample). With the source velocities known, we resolve the kinematic distance ambiguity for 47 regions, and thus determine their heliocentric distances.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2014

The high-z quasar Hubble Diagram

Two recent discoveries have made it possible for us to begin using high-z quasars as standard candles to construct a Hubble Diagram (HD) at z > 6. These are (1) the recognition from reverberation mapping that a relationship exists between the optical/UV luminosity and the distance of line-emitting gas from the central ionizing source. Thus, together with a measurement of the velocity of the line-emitting gas, e.g., via the width of BLR lines, such as Mg II, a single observation can therefore in principle provide a determination of the black hole's mass; and (2) the identification of quasar ULAS J1120+0641 at z = 7.085, which has significantly extended the redshift range of these sources, providing essential leverage when fitting theoretical luminosity distances to the data. In this paper, we use the observed fluxes and Mg II line-widths of these sources to show that one may reasonably test the predicted high-z distance versus redshift relationship, and we assemble a sample of 20 currently available high-z quasars for this exercise. We find a good match between theory and observations, suggesting that a more complete, high-quality survey may indeed eventually produce an HD to complement the highly-detailed study already underway (e.g., with Type Ia SNe, GRBs, and cosmic chronometers) at lower redshifts. With the modest sample we have here, we show that the R{sub h} = ct Universe and ΛCDM both fit the data quite well, though the smaller number of free parameters in the former produces a more favorable outcome when we calculate likelihoods using the Akaike, Kullback, and Bayes Information Criteria. These three statistical tools result in similar probabilities, indicating that the R{sub h} = ct Universe is more likely than ΛCDM to be correct, by a ratio of about 85% to 15%.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2016

Spectral and temporal properties of the ultra-luminous X-ray pulsar in M82 from 15 years of Chandra observations and analysis of the pulsed emission using NuSTAR

The recent discovery by Bachetti et al. of a pulsar in M82 that can reach luminosities of up to 10{sup 40} erg s{sup −1}, a factor of ∼100 times the Eddington luminosity for a 1.4 M{sub ⊙} compact object, poses a challenge for accretion physics. In order to better understand the nature of this source and its duty cycle, and in light of several physical models that have been subsequently published, we conduct a spectral and temporal analysis of the 0.5–8 keV X-ray emission from this source from 15 years of Chandra observations. We analyze 19 ACIS observations where the point-spread function (PSF) of the pulsar is not contaminated by nearby sources. We fit the Chandra spectra of the pulsar with a power-law model and a disk blackbody model, subjected to interstellar absorption in M82. We carefully assess for the effect of pile-up in our observations, where four observations have a pile-up fraction of >10%, which we account for during spectral modeling with a convolution model. When fitted with a power-law model, the average photon index when the source is at high luminosity (L{sub X} > 10{sup 39} erg s{sup −1}) is Γ = 1.33 ± 0.15. For the disk blackbody model, the average temperature is T{sub in} = 3.24 ± 0.65 keV, the spectral shape being consistent with other luminous X-ray pulsars. We also investigated the inclusion of a soft excess component and spectral break, finding that the spectra are also consistent with these features common to luminous X-ray pulsars. In addition, we present spectral analysis from NuSTAR over the 3–50 keV range where we have isolated the pulsed component. We find that the pulsed emission in this band is best fit by a power-law with a high-energy cutoff, where Γ = 0.6 ± 0.3 and E{sub C}=14{sub −3}{sup +5} keV. While the pulsar has previously been identified as a transient, we find from our longer-baseline study that it has been remarkably active over the 15-year period, where for 9/19 (47%) observations that we analyzed, the pulsar appears to be emitting at a luminosity in excess of 10{sup 39} erg s{sup −1}, greater than 10 times its Eddington limit.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2016

ON THE NATURE OF THE ENIGMATIC OBJECT IRAS 19312+1950: A RARE PHASE OF MASSIVE STAR FORMATION?

IRAS 19312+1950 is a peculiar object that has eluded firm characterization since its discovery, with combined maser properties similar to an evolved star and a young stellar object (YSO). To help determine its true nature, we obtained infrared spectra of IRAS 19312+1950 in the range 5–550 μ m using the Herschel and Spitzer space observatories. The Herschel PACS maps exhibit a compact, slightly asymmetric continuum source at 170 μ m, indicative of a large, dusty circumstellar envelope. The far-IR CO emission line spectrum reveals two gas temperature components: ≈0.22 M {sub ⊙} of material at 280 ± 18 K, and ≈1.6 M {sub ⊙} of material at 157 ± 3 K. The O i 63 μ m line is detected on-source but no significant emission from atomic ions was found. The HIFI observations display shocked, high-velocity gas with outflow speeds up to 90 km s{sup −1} along the line of sight. From Spitzer spectroscopy, we identify ice absorption bands due to H{sub 2}O at 5.8 μ m and CO{sub 2} at 15 μ m. The spectral energy distribution is consistent with a massive, luminous (∼2 × 10{sup 4} L {sub ⊙}) central source surrounded by a dense, warm circumstellar disk and envelope of total mass ∼500–700 M {sub ⊙}, with large bipolar outflow cavities. The combination of distinctive far-IR spectral features suggest that IRAS 19312+1950 should be classified as an accreting, high-mass YSO rather than an evolved star. In light of this reclassification, IRAS 19312+1950 becomes only the fifth high-mass protostar known to exhibit SiO maser activity, and demonstrates that 18 cm OH maser line ratios may not be reliable observational discriminators between evolved stars and YSOs.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
NASA NTRS1993

Discovery of the candidate Kuiper belt object 1992 QB1

The discovery of a new faint object in the outer solar system, 1992 QB1, moving beyond the orbit of Neptune is reported. It is suggested that the 1992 QB1 may represent the first detection of a member of the Kuiper belt (Edgworth, 1949; Kuiper, 1951), the hypothesized population of objects beyond Neptune and a possible source of the short-period comets, as suggested by Whipple (1964), Fernandez (1980), and Duncan et al. (1988).

Jewitt, David↗
DOE OSTI2024

AMIA KDDM Working Group Collaborative Workshop: Enriching Electronic Health Records with Social Determinants of Health to Improve Outcomes and Health Equity

Prior research has demonstrated that social determinants of health (SDoH) are major drivers of health outcomes and contributors to widespread health inequities. It was estimated that, in the United States, SDoH could be responsible for up to 40% of all preventable deaths, significantly higher than the 10-15% for which better medical care is responsible. Public health interventions that target SDoH are instrumental for improving health outcomes and reducing long-standing health inequities. Currently, most mainstream EHR vendors have implemented SDoH screeners in their EHR systems. However, the utility of the screeners is low, rendering patient-level SDoH still widely unavailable in the structured fields. SDoH are sometimes mentioned in free-text clinical notes (e.g., social context section) where natural language processing (NLP) can be applied to extract relevant information. Contextual-level SDoH can be identified from multiple data sources, many of which are publicly available and spatiotemporally linked to EHR data. As such, there is an opportunity for the KDDM research community to create innovative solutions to draw meaningful insights by creating and using rich data with SDoH to improve health outcomes while reducing disparities. In this workshop organized by AMIA Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining Working Group (AMIA KDDM WG), we will invite world-leading experts from academia, national laboratories, and life science industry with varied backgrounds in biomedical informatics, epidemiology, data science, machine learning, natural language processing, and pediatric cardiology to discuss the best practice of capturing, standardizing, and using SDoH information in various applications aiming at improving outcomes and health equity.

He, Zhe↗
NASA NTRS2012

A Suzaku View of Cyclotron Line Sources and Candidates

Seventeen accreting neutron star pulsars, mostly high mass X-ray binaries with half of them Be-type transients, are known to exhibit Cyclotron Resonance Scattering Features (CRSFs) in their X-ray spectra, with characteristic line energies from 10 to 60 keY. To date about two thirds of them, plus a few similar systems without known CRSFs, have been observed with Suzaku. We present an overview of results from these observations, including the discovery of a CRSF in the transient IA1118-61 and pulse phase resolved spectroscopy of OX 301-2. These observations allow for the determination of cyclotron line parameters to an unprecedented degree of accuracy within a moderate amount of observing time. This is important since these parameters vary - e.g., with orbital phase, pulse phase, or luminosity - depending on the geometry of the magnetic field of the pulsar and the properties of the accretion column at the magnetic poles. We briefly introduce a spectral model for CRSFs that is currently being developed and that for the first time is based on these physical properties. In addition to cyclotron line measurements, selected highlights from the Suzaku analyses include dip and flare studies, e.g., of 4U 1907+09 and Vela X-I, which show clumpy wind effects (like partial absorption and/or a decrease in the mass accretion rate supplied by the wind) and may also display magnetospheric gating effects.

Pottschmidt, K.↗
DOE OSTI2024

Challenges, progress, and future perspectives for cyanobacterial polyhydroxyalkanoate production

Polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHA) are a promising bio-based alternative to traditional plastics derived from petroleum. Cyanobacteria are photosynthetic organisms that produce PHA from CO 2 and sunlight, which can potentially reduce production costs and environmental footprint in comparison to heterotrophic bacteria cultures because (1) they utilize inorganic carbon sources for growth and (2) they do not require intensive aeration for oxygenation. Moreover, supplementing precursors such as propionate, acetate, valerate, etc., can be used to obtain various copolymers with plastic customizable properties in comparison to the classical homopolymers, such as polyhydroxybutyrate, PHB. This critical review covers the latest advances in PHA production, including recent discoveries in the metabolism interplay between PHA and glycogen production, and new insights into cultivation strategies that enhance PHA accumulation, and purification processes. This review also addresses the challenges and suggests potential solutions for a viable industrial PHAs production process.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗