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At least 19 records

WHISTLER TURBULENCE FORWARD CASCADE VERSUS INVERSE CASCADE: THREE-DIMENSIONAL PARTICLE-IN-CELL SIMULATIONS

We present the results of the first fully three-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations of decaying whistler turbulence in a magnetized, homogeneous, collisionless plasma in which both forward cascades to shorter wavelengths, and inverse cascades to longer wavelengths are allowed to proceed. For the electron beta β {sub e} = 0.10 initial value considered here, the early-time rate of inverse cascade is very much smaller than the rate of forward cascade, so that at late times the fluctuation energy in the regime of the inverse cascade is much weaker than that in the forward cascade regime. Similarly, the wavevector anisotropy in the inverse cascade regime is much weaker than that in the forward cascade regime.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Ultrafast cascading theory of intersystem crossings in transition-metal complexes

We investigate the cascade decay mechanism for ultrafast intersystem crossing mediated by the spin-orbit coupling in transition-metal complexes. A quantum-mechanical description of the cascading process that occurs after photoexcitation is presented. The conditions for ultrafast cascading are given, which relate the energy difference between the levels in the cascading process to the electron-phonon self energy. These limitations aid in the determination of the cascade path. For Fe{sup 2+} spin-crossover complexes, this leads to the conclusion that the ultrafast decay primarily occurs in the manifold of antibonding metal-to-ligand charge-transfer states. We also give an interpretation why some intermediate states are bypassed.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗

Two-temperature model in molecular dynamics simulations of cascades in Ni-based alloys

In high-energy irradiation events, energy from the fast moving ion is transferred to the system via nuclear and electronic energy loss mechanisms. The nuclear energy loss results in the creation of point defects and clusters, while the energy transferred to the electrons results in the creation of high electronic temperatures, which can affect the damage evolution. We perform molecular dynamics simulations of 30 keV and 50 keV Ni ion cascades in nickel-based alloys without and with the electronic effects taken into account. We compare the results of classical molecular dynamics (MD) simulations, where the electronic effects are ignored, with results from simulations that include the electronic stopping only, as well as simulations where both the electronic stopping and the electron-phonon coupling are incorporated, as described by the two temperature model (2T-MD). Our results indicate that the 2T-MD leads to a smaller amount of damage, more isolated defects and smaller defect clusters.

Zarkadoula, Eva↗

Optimization of a low noise detection circuit for probing the structure of damage cascades with IBIC

Optimal detector / pre-amplifier combinations have been identified for the use of light ion IBIC (ion beam induced charge) to probe the physical structure of electrically active defects in damage cascades caused by heavy ion implantation. The ideal detector must have a sufficiently thin dead layer that incident ions will produce the majority of damage cascades in the depletion region of the detector rather than the dead layer. Detector and circuit noise must be low enough to detect the implantation of a single heavy ion as well as the decrease in the light ion IBIC signal caused by Shockley-Read-Hall recombination when the beam scans regions of the detector damaged by the heavy ion. The IBIC signals from three detectors irradiated with 750 keV He⁺ ions are measured with commercial and bespoke charge sensitive pre-amplifiers to identify the combination with the lowest noise.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗

Survey of Tools for Risk Assessment of Cascading Outages

Cascading failure can cause large blackouts, and a variety of methods are emerging to study this challenging topic. In parts 1 and 2 of this paper, the IEEE task force on cascading failure seeks to consolidate and review the progress of the field towards methods and tools of assessing the risk of cascading failure. Part 2 summarizes and discusses the state of the art in the available cascading failure modeling tools. The discussion integrates industry and research perspectives from a variety of institutions. Strengths, weaknesses, and gaps in current approaches are indicated.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗

Interactions between displacement cascade and dislocation and their influences on Peierls stress in Fe-20Cr-25Ni alloys

The interactions between dislocations and displacement cascades are investigated using molecular dynamics simulations. The primary knock-on atoms (PKAs) are placed at different distances to edge and screw dislocation lines. Specifically, an fcc Fe-20Cr-25Ni system is studied; the alloy is the based alloy for Alloy 709. The number of defects is calculated using Wigner-Seitz analysis in order to illustrate the effect of dislocations on cascades. The displacement cascades in systems containing dislocations tend to generate more total defects compared with bulk systems, but eventually lead to less surviving defects in the materials matrix due to interactions with dislocations. The changes in atomic structures of the dislocations after interacting with cascades are analyzed to understand how the primary damage affects dislocations. The displacement cascade potentially causes dislocation climb in edge dislocations and cross-slip in screw dislocations, which could serve as additional mechanisms contributing to the radiation-induced hardening (RIH) compared with conventional RIH models. To reveal this, Peierls stresses are calculated before and after cascades using molecular static simulations. This study provides critical information of how defect production and dislocations are correlated, especially when total dose is high, which needs to be taken into account in upper scale models, such as mean-field rate theory.

Lu, Zizhe↗

Study of the fragmentation of a displacement cascade into subcascades within the Binary Collision Approximation framework

When a material is subjected to irradiation, many primary defects are created at the atomic level by sequences of ballistic collision events to form highly disordered regions defined as displacement cascades. The long term evolution of materials under irradiation is dictated by the number and the spatial distribution of the surviving defects in the displacement cascade. The peculiar power law shape of collision cross sections is responsible for the fractal feature of atomic trajectories set and then the fragmentation of a displacement cascade into smaller subcascades. We present a criterion to describe the fragmentation of a displacement cascade into subcascades and to calculate the volume fraction of subcascades in the overall cascade due to this fragmentation. Such a volume fraction then provides a natural framework to estimate the efficiency of different projectiles to induce phase transformation or amorphisation in solids under irradiation. From this definition of the fragmentation of a displacement cascade, this work gives some new insights to compare different irradiations performed with different particles.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

A Kinetic Monte Carlo Approach for Simulating Cascading Transmission Line Failure

In this work, cascading transmission line failures are studied through a dynamical model of the power system operating under fixed conditions. The power grid is modeled as a stochastic dynamical system where first-principles electromechanical dynamics are excited by small Gaussian disturbances in demand and generation around a specified operating point. In this context, a single line failure is interpreted in a large deviation context as a first escape event across a surface in phase space defined by line security constraints. The resulting system of stochastic differential equations admits a transverse decomposition of the drift, which leads to considerable simplification in evaluating the quasipotential (rate function) and, consequently, computation of exit rates. Tractable expressions for the rate of transmission line failure in a restricted network are derived from large deviation theory arguments and validated against numerical simulations. Extensions to realistic settings are considered, and individual line failure models are aggregated into a Markov model of cascading failure inspired by chemical kinetics. Cascades are generated by traversing a graph composed of weighted edges representing transitions to degraded network topologies. Numerical results indicate that the Markov model can produce cascades with qualitative power-law properties similar to those observed in empirical cascades.

Kinetic Monte Carlo, rare events, Cascading Failur↗

Energy flow along the medium-induced parton cascade

We discuss the dynamics of parton cascades that develop in dense QCD matter, and contrast their properties with those of similar cascades of gluon radiation in vacuum. We argue that such cascades belong to two distinct classes that are characterized respectively by an increasing or a constant (or decreasing) branching rate along the cascade. In the former class, of which the BDMPS, medium-induced, cascade constitutes a typical example, it takes a finite time to transport a finite amount of energy to very soft quanta, while this time is essentially infinite in the latter case, to which the DGLAP cascade belongs. The medium induced cascade is accompanied by a constant flow of energy towards arbitrary soft modes, leading eventually to the accumulation of the initial energy of the leading particle at zero energy. It also exhibits scaling properties akin to wave turbulence. These properties do not show up in the cascade that develops in vacuum. There, the energy accumulates in the spectrum at smaller and smaller energy as the cascade develops, but the energy never flows all the way down to zero energy. Our analysis suggests that the way the energy is shared among the offsprings of a splitting gluon has little impact on the qualitative properties of the cascades, provided the kernel that governs the splittings is not too singular.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

Nonlinear Transverse Cascade and Sustenance of MRI Turbulence in Keplerian Disks with an Azimuthal Magnetic Field

We investigate magnetohydrodynamic turbulence driven by the magnetorotational instability (MRI) in Keplerian disks with a nonzero net azimuthal magnetic field using shearing box simulations. As distinct from previous studies, we analyze turbulence dynamics in Fourier (k-) space to understand its sustenance. The linear growth of the MRI with the azimuthal field has a transient character and is anisotropic in Fourier space, leading to anisotropy of nonlinear processes in Fourier space. As a result, the main nonlinear process appears to be a new type of angular redistribution of modes in Fourier space—the nonlinear transverse cascade—rather than the usual direct/inverse cascade. We demonstrate that the turbulence is sustained by the interplay of the linear transient growth of the MRI (which is the only energy supply for the turbulence) and the transverse cascade. These two processes operate at large length scales, comparable to the box size (disk scale height); the corresponding small wavenumber area, called the vital area in Fourier space, is crucial for the sustenance, while outside the vital area, direct cascade dominates. The interplay of the linear and nonlinear processes in Fourier space is generally too intertwined for a vivid schematization. Nevertheless, we reveal the basic subcycle of the sustenance that clearly shows the synergy of these processes in the self-organization of the magnetized flow system. This synergy is quite robust and persists for the considered different aspect ratios of the simulation boxes. The spectral characteristics of the dynamical processes in these boxes are qualitatively similar, indicating the universality of the sustenance mechanism of the MRI turbulence.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Search for Astrophysical Sources of Neutrinos Using Cascade Events in IceCube

The IceCube neutrino observatory has established the existence of a flux of high-energy astrophysical neutrinos, which is inconsistent with the expectation from atmospheric backgrounds at a significance greater than 5 σ . This flux has been observed in analyses of both track events from muon neutrino interactions and cascade events from interactions of all neutrino flavors. Searches for astrophysical neutrino sources have focused on track events due to the significantly better angular resolution of track reconstructions. To date, no such sources have been confirmed. Here we present the first search for astrophysical neutrino sources using cascades interacting in IceCube with deposited energies as small as 1 TeV. No significant clustering was observed in a selection of 263 cascades collected from 2010 May to 2012 May. We show that compared to the classic approach using tracks, this statistically independent search offers improved sensitivity to sources in the southern sky, especially if the emission is spatially extended or follows a soft energy spectrum. This enhancement is due to the low background from atmospheric neutrinos forming cascade events and the additional veto of atmospheric neutrinos at declinations ≲−30°.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Modeling and Control of Cascaded Bridgeless Multilevel Rectifier Under Unbalanced Load Conditions

The goal of this project is to model and control a novel unidirectional cascaded multilevel bridgeless rectifier as an active front end in medium and high voltage applications. This topology has many advantages over a conventional cascaded H-bridge rectifier, such as lower implementation cost, higher reliability, and greater flexibility with similar power quality.The steady-state mathematical model is used to develop a method for the voltage balancing of dc cells. Power factor analysis is discussed to achieve unity power factor using fully controlled hbridge cells. Power loss, efficiency, and cost comparison studies between the traditional cascaded H-Bridge converter and the proposed bridgeless converter demonstrate the advantages. A novel control strategy is proposed to achieve dc voltage balancing, fast and robust grid synchronization and power factor correction under unbalanced load conditions. Simulation and experimental results validate the models and control method.

Cascaded Bridgeless Rectifier, Power factor analys↗

Fractal analysis of collision cascades in pulsed-ion-beam-irradiated solids [Collision cascade densities in ion pulsed ion irradiated solids { a fractal approach]

The buildup of radiation damage in ion-irradiated crystals often depends on the spatial distribution of atomic displacements within collision cascades. Although collision cascades have previously been described as fractals, the correlation of their fractal parameters with experimental observations of radiation damage buildup remains elusive. Here, we use a pulsed-ion-beam method to study defect interaction dynamics in 3C-SiC irradiated at 100 °C with ions of different masses. These data, together with results of previous studies of SiC and Si, are analyzed with a model of radiation damage formation which accounts for the fractal nature of collision cascades. Our emphasis is on the extraction of the effective defect diffusion length from pulsed beam measurements. Results show that, for both Si and SiC, collision cascades are mass fractals with fractal dimensions in the range of ~1–2, depending on ion mass, energy, and the depth from the sample surface. Within our fractal model, the effective defect diffusion length is ~10 nm for SiC and ~20 nm for Si, and it decreases with increasing cascade density. These results demonstrate a general method by which the fractal nature of collision cascades can be used to explain experimental observations and predict material’s response to radiation.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Cascade Spectroscopy and Recent {Xi}* Photo-production Results from CLAS

Doubly-strange baryon resonances provide new insights into baryon structure. The standard QCD Lagrangian implies that for every N* and {Delta}* resonance, there should be a corresponding {Xi}(cascade resonance). This is due to the flavor symmetry of the strong force. Therefore, one can investigate baryon structure by observing aspects of the doubly-strange baryons like regularities such as parity doublets. At energies above approximately 1.5 GeV, the light-quark baryon resonances are broad and overlap while the cascades in this range are narrow and therefore more readily observed. An overview of the world cascade spectrum and a comparison to the lighter baryon spectra will be presented. Recent results from an on-going analysis from the G12 (5.4 GeV) photo-production experiment using the CLAS detector at JLab will be highlighted.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗