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At least 1,315 records · Page 73

Addendum to “Compact perturbative expressions for neutrino oscillations in matter”

In this Addendum we rewrite the neutrino mixing angles and mass squared differences in matter given in our original paper, in a notation that is more conventiona for the reader. Replacing the usual neutrino mixing angles and mass squared differences in the expressions for the vacuum oscillation probabilities with these matter mixing angles and mass squared differences gives an excellent approximation to the oscillation probabilities in matter. As a result, comparisons for T2K & T2HK, NOvA, T2HKK and DUNE are also given for neutrinos and anti-neutrinos, disappearance and appearance channels, and for both normal and inverted orderings.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

Compact Highly Sensitive Multi-species Airborne Mid-IR Spectrometer

We report on the development and airborne field deployment of a mid-IR laser based spectrometer. The instrument was configured for the simultaneous in-situ detection of formaldehyde (CH2O) and ethane (C2H6). Numerous mechanical, optical, electronic, and software improvements over a previous instrument design resulted in reliable highly sensitive airborne operation with long stability times yielding 90% airborne measurement coverage during the recent air quality study over the Colorado front range, FRAPPÉ 2014. Airborne detection sensitivities of ~ 15 pptv (C2H6) and ~40 pptv (CH2O) were generally obtained for 1 s of averaging for simultaneous detection.

Richter, Dirk↗

Compact feature-aware Hermite-style high-order surface reconstruction

High-order surface reconstruction is now a commonly used technique for mesh generation and adaptation, geometric and physical modeling, and high-order numerical methods for solving partial differential equations (PDEs). However, surface reconstruction from a relatively coarse mesh remained a challenging problem, especially for surfaces with sharp features. Here in this paper, we introduce a new method to address this challenge by improving the previous state of the art, including continuous moving frames (CMF) and weighted averaging of local fittings (WALF) (Eng Comput 28 (2012)), in two aspects. First, we significantly improve the robustness of reconstruction from coarse meshes using a Hermite-style least squares approximation to incorporate normals of the surface and tangents of the feature curves. Second, we ensure both G 0 continuity and high-order accuracy of the reconstruction near sharp features by generating parametric surface elements with an iterative feature-aware parameterization. We present the theoretical framework of our method and compare it against point-based methods in terms of accuracy and stability. We demonstrate the use of the proposed technique in generating high-order meshes for finite element methods, and show that it enables nearly identical solutions as using the meshes generated from exact geometry, while allowing additional flexibility.

42 ENGINEERING↗

A Compact Fusion–Fission Hybrid Reactor

Up today, two hyper research projects to achieve nuclear fusion energy exist; inertial confinement fusion (ICF) driven by laser, called national ignition facility (NIF) and magnetic confinement fusion the international thermonuclear experimental reactor (ITER) project. In reaching the required temperature and pressure, to ignite nuclear fusion reactor, is technologically complex and economically expensive. Thus, a breakthrough and a short cut, other alternative methods should be considered. Pulsed power ICF driver with repetitive pulse operation, mainly dense plasma focus (DPF) machines for high yield fusion neutrons could be taken as drivers for the fission blanket operation. The setup can be a cost-effective and efficient. In this article, we consider a set of two medium energy sizes DPF to produce simultaneously dense plasma columns, operating as thermonuclear plasma driver, to pierce the pellet target for external nuclear fusion reactions. These DPFs produce sufficient fast neutrons for the fission process in the neutral uranium or thorium and/or weak enriched uranium blanket. The drive systems and the concept for delivering thermonuclear plasma to pellets target in the magnetic free zone of central region will be presented. The feasibility of such fusion–fission hybrid reactor will be discussed.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

The Princeton Field-Reversed Configuration for Compact Nuclear Fusion Power Plants

The Princeton Field-Reversed Configuration (PFRC) nuclear fusion reactor concept is an innovative approach to fusion power generation prioritizing low neutron production and small size. Here, a combination of analytical modeling and numerical simulation shows that the novel heating approach generates an FRC with closed field lines. Simulation data from a single-particle Hamiltonian code predicts ms-scale plasma heating in reactor-scale conditions while PIC codes predict formation of warm FRC plasmas from initial mirror fields. The PFRC-1 and PFRC-2 experiments have heated electrons to energies well in excess of 100 eV and plasma durations to 300 ms, more than 10 4 times longer than the predicted tilt instability growth time. From these data, we have created a development plan and anticipated performance metrics for a fusion reactor based on the PFRC concept. The resulting 1–10 MW PFRC reactors would be suitable for diverse applications, from submarines to urban environments to space propulsion. PFRC is a steady-state, driven magnetic confinement device. Plasma, inside a cylindrical array of coils, is confined and heated by external RF antennae. PFRC would be ultra-low radiation due to both its fuel and small size. The choice of advanced fuels, deuterium and helium-3 (D– 3 He), may be enabled by the high-β FRC configuration. The small size of the reactor would enable rapid exhaust of the dangerous tritium ash. Low radiation would make the reactor safer to operate and, in combination with simple geometry and small size, dramatically lowers development and maintenance costs. This review paper gives an introduction to the physics of the PFRC and a summary of the PFRC-2 experiment results to date. It then discusses the future program plan and how PFRC reactors would be commercialized.

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS↗

Ultra-compact low loss electro-optical nanobeam cavity modulator embedded photonic crystal

In this paper, a hybrid electro-optical modulator based on a one-dimensional photonic crystal nanobeam cavity is proposed. The main component of the cavity builder is the indium–tin–oxide that is a transparent conductive oxide. The proposed structure is used to minimize optical losses and also to have a high-quality factor with a tunability from the distributed feedback system. The proposed modulator has a wide range of resonant tunable in a footprint of 1.892 μm{sup 2}. This structure has the ability to shift the wavelength of 1.55 μm using a very small voltage 0.1 V. Simulation results show that the proposed structure has an insertion loss of 0.027 dB, extension ratio 3.484 dB, 119.89 GHz modulation speed, and 0.59 aJ/bit modulation energy. By comparing the proposed method parameters and other modulators based on the one-dimensional photonic crystal nanobeam cavity, a significant improvement in modulation voltage, insertion losses, energy consumption, and footprint have been observed.

77 NANOSCIENCE AND NANOTECHNOLOGY↗

Advanced Manufacturing of Printed Melt Wire Chips for Cheap, Compact Passive In-Pile Temperature Sensors

Melt wires are a passive sensor used to determine peak temperatures during a test. Traditional melt wires are commonly used in test reactor experiments such as in the Advanced Test Reactor (ATR). However, the conditions within a reactor present significant challenges towards test design due to space limitations and the harsh environment. For example, some test capsules have only a couple millimeters in diameter available for instrumentation, which is too small to accommodate a traditional melt wire package, and they are ultimately filled to capacity when they are immersed in molten metal. To enable instrumentation for space limited applications, peak temperature sensing capabilities paired with additive manufacturing options have been utilized to develop printed melt wires for peak irradiation temperature detection. Here, we report on the fabrication of miniaturized melt wire chips with a melting temperature ~960 °C with printed silver nanoparticle ink. This study will advance the development of unique temperature sensors capable of sensing user specified temperature ranges within the harsh environment of irradiation testing.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗

Compact video content representation for video coding using low multi-linear tensor rank approximation with dynamic core tensor order

Tensor is a multi-way representation of an entity that is widely used in many applications of mathematics and physics. The wide range of tensor algebra operations attract the researchers of graphical and vision field to identify unique methods for various applications such as segmentation, compression, indexing and so on. In this paper, low multi-linear rank approximation of a tensor is used for decomposition so as to perform compression on a video that is represented as a 4D tensor. Thus, the encoder has blocks for (1) multilinear rank approximation method so as to aid decomposition, (2) sparsity removal of residual data to reduce the required memory storage to a small level, (3) quantization on the sparse less residual data and (4) LZ77 dictionary coding for the video. The decoder uses a tensor reconstruction block along with residual error correction block that reduces loss/error in the reconstructed video. The size of core tensor is an important factor in rank approximation. It is identified at run time depending on the video contents. This size is determined adaptively using Tikhonov’s regularization method. The best value of core tensor size is identified with the corner of L-curve which preserves the video contents from heavy loss/error. Experimental results of the proposed work on comparison with H.264/AVC compression method indicate that the proposed method achieves up to 10% improvement in compression ratio with the least amount of loss and a maximum signal to noise ratio of 0.14. The proposed system gives better compression ratio than H.265 for videos with more number of frames without compromising quality.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Fabrication of compact and stable perovskite films with optimized precursor composition in the fast-growing procedure

The fast-growing procedure (FGP) provides a simple, high-yield and lead (Pb)-release free method to prepare perovskite films. In the FGP, the ultra-dilute perovskite precursor solution is drop-cast onto a hot (~240 degrees C) substrate, where a perovskite film grows immediately accompanied by the rapid evaporation of the host solvent. In this process, all the raw materials in the precursor solution are deposited into the final perovskite film. The potential pollution caused by Pb can be significantly reduced. Properties of the FGP-processed perovskite films can be modulated by the precursor composition. While CH3NH3Cl (MACl) affects the crystallization process and leads to full surface coverage, CH(NH2)2I (FAI) enhances the thermal stability of the film. Based on the optimized precursor composition of PbI2(1-x)FAI xMACl, x=0.75, FGP-processed planar heterojunction perovskite solar cells exhibit power conversion efficiencies (PCEs) exceeding 15% with suppressed hysteresis and excellent reproducibility.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗

A compact 341 model at TeV scale

We build a gauge model based on the SU(3){sub c}⊗SU(4){sub L}⊗U(1){sub X} symmetry where the scalar spectrum needed to generate gauge boson and fermion masses has a smaller scalar content than usually assumed in literature. We compute the running of its abelian gauge coupling and show that a Landau pole shows up at the TeV scale, a fact that we use to consistently implement those fermion masses that are not generated by Yukawa interactions, including neutrino masses. This is appropriately achieved by non renormalizable effective operators, suppressed by the Landau pole scale. Also, SU(3){sub c}⊗SU(3){sub L}⊗U(1){sub N} models embedded in this gauge structure are bound to be strongly coupled at this same energy scale, contrary to what is generally believed, and neutrino mass generation is rather explained through the same effective operators used in the larger gauge group. Besides, their nice features, as the existence of cold dark matter candidates and the ability to reproduce the observed standard model Higgs-like phenomenology, are automatically inherited by our model. Finally, our results imply that this model is constrained to be observed or discarded soon, since it must be realized at the currently probed energy scale in LHC. - Highlights: • We build a SU(4){sub L}⊗U(1){sub N} electroweak model with a reduced scalar spectrum. • The existence of a Landau pole at TeV scale is investigated. • Fermion masses in this model, including neutrinos, emerge from effective operators. • Imposition of an extra Z{sub 2} symmetry avoids fast proton decay.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

Thermofield-bosonization on compact space

We develop the construction of fermionic fields in terms of bosonic ones to describe free and interaction models in the circle, using thermofielddynamics. The description in the case of finite temperature is developed for both normal modes and zero modes. The treatment extends the thermofield-bosonization for periodic space.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗