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DOE OSTI2012

NEAMS Update: Quarterly Report for October - December 2011

The Advanced Modeling and Simulation Office within the DOE Office of Nuclear Energy (NE) has been charged with revolutionizing the design tools used to build nuclear power plants during the next 10 years. To accomplish this, the DOE has brought together the national laboratories, U.S. universities, and the nuclear energy industry to establish the Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) Program. The mission of NEAMS is to modernize computer modeling of nuclear energy systems and improve the fidelity and validity of modeling results using contemporary software environments and high-performance computers. NEAMS will create a set of engineering-level codes aimed at designing and analyzing the performance and safety of nuclear power plants and reactor fuels. The truly predictive nature of these codes will be achieved by modeling the governing phenomena at the spatial and temporal scales that dominate the behavior. These codes will be executed within a simulation environment that orchestrates code integration with respect to spatial meshing, computational resources, and execution to give the user a common 'look and feel' for setting up problems and displaying results. NEAMS is building upon a suite of existing simulation tools, including those developed by the federal Scientific Discovery through Advanced Computing and Advanced Simulation and Computing programs. NEAMS also draws upon existing simulation tools for materials and nuclear systems, although many of these are limited in terms of scale, applicability, and portability (their ability to be integrated into contemporary software and hardware architectures). NEAMS investments have directly and indirectly supported additional NE research and development programs, including those devoted to waste repositories, safeguarded separations systems, and long-term storage of used nuclear fuel. NEAMS is organized into two broad efforts, each comprising four elements. The quarterly highlights October-December 2011 are: (1) Version 1.0 of AMP, the fuel assembly performance code, was tested on the JAGUAR supercomputer and released on November 1, 2011, a detailed discussion of this new simulation tool is given; (2) A coolant sub-channel model and a preliminary UO{sub 2} smeared-cracking model were implemented in BISON, the single-pin fuel code, more information on how these models were developed and benchmarked is given; (3) The Object Kinetic Monte Carlo model was implemented to account for nucleation events in meso-scale simulations and a discussion of the significance of this advance is given; (4) The SHARP neutronics module, PROTEUS, was expanded to be applicable to all types of reactors, and a discussion of the importance of PROTEUS is given; (5) A plan has been finalized for integrating the high-fidelity, three-dimensional reactor code SHARP with both the systems-level code RELAP7 and the fuel assembly code AMP. This is a new initiative; (6) Work began to evaluate the applicability of AMP to the problem of dry storage of used fuel and to define a relevant problem to test the applicability; (7) A code to obtain phonon spectra from the force-constant matrix for a crystalline lattice has been completed. This important bridge between subcontinuum and continuum phenomena is discussed; (8) Benchmarking was begun on the meso-scale, finite-element fuels code MARMOT to validate its new variable splitting algorithm; (9) A very computationally demanding simulation of diffusion-driven nucleation of new microstructural features has been completed. An explanation of the difficulty of this simulation is given; (10) Experiments were conducted with deformed steel to validate a crystal plasticity finite-element code for bodycentered cubic iron; (11) The Capability Transfer Roadmap was completed and published as an internal laboratory technical report; (12) The AMP fuel assembly code input generator was integrated into the NEAMS Integrated Computational Environment (NiCE). More details on the planned NEAMS computing environment is given; and (13) The NEAMS program website (neams.energy.gov) is nearly ready to launch.

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗

DOE OSTI2013

Commercialization Assistance to Awardees in the SBIR Program

The Technology Niche Analysis ® , named after our method, provides a commercialization plan. It examines the market in depth for a technology that is at or beyond the proof-of-concept stage. As part of the market analysis, it includes interviews with experts and end-users. It goes on to present recommendations for an entry strategy and launch tactics. It also includes at least one interview with a potential commercialization partner or investor expressing interest in the technology. A revenue projection is provided.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗

DOE OSTI2017

Prospects and Challenges in the Management of Non-Retrievable Radioactive Waste in the Russian Federation - 17212

In 2011, the Federal Law 'On the Management of Radioactive Waste' was enacted in the Russian Federation setting a framework for the Unified State System for Radioactive Waste Management and establishing a mandatory requirement for safe radioactive waste (RW) disposal. Particular category of 'non-retrievable RW' was defined given the amount of RW generated by that time, the issues associated with relevant sites, as well as the experience gained during the implementation of nuclear legacy programs. It was specified that in situ disposal is the preferred management option for this category of waste rather than RW retrieval and re-disposal due to relevant radiation and financial aspects. In 2011 - 2015, a set of high-priority tasks on taking the inventory of accumulated RW was accomplished. This work also provided for demonstrating the feasibility and making key decisions on the final stages on their lifecycle and relevant end-state strategies. Facilities holding non-retrievable RW were divided into two categories: - subject to transition into near-surface storage facilities by constructing additional safety barriers; - subject to controlled long-term storage followed by remediation. Efforts on a number of surface liquid RW storage water reservoirs falling under the first category launched back in the 20. century were completed. The new federal program provides for a set of follow-up efforts to be completed at 12 facilities. As it comes to the second category, the main task was to develop a set of safety management options, as well as some computational methods to demonstrate the feasibility of the selected end-state strategies. The most considerable efforts were made at the Techa Cascade of water reservoirs being the largest liquid radioactive waste (LRW) storage facility in the world that holds over 360 million m{sup 3} of waste with uncertain legal status, the lack of relevant computational models to predict its state. The paper summarizes the data on defining the end states of non-retrievable RW, completed and scheduled efforts on implementing relevant long-term safety strategies. The paper focuses on subsurface repositories and near-surface LRW storage reservoirs considered as common types of facilities holding non-retrievable RW. (authors)

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗

DOE OSTI2017

Magnetohydrodynamic simulation study of plasma jets and plasma-surface contact in coaxial plasma accelerators

Recent experiments by Loebner et al. [IEEE Trans. Plasma Sci. 44, 1534 (2016)] studied the effect of a hypervelocity jet emanating from a coaxial plasma accelerator incident on target surfaces in an effort to mimic the transient loading created during edge localized mode disruption events in fusion plasmas. In this study, we present a magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) numerical model to simulate plasma jet formation and plasma-surface contact in this coaxial plasma accelerator experiment. The MHD system of equations is spatially discretized using a cell-centered finite volume formulation. The temporal discretization is performed using a fully implicit backward Euler scheme and the resultant stiff system of nonlinear equations is solved using the Newton method. The numerical model is employed to obtain some key insights into the physical processes responsible for the generation of extreme stagnation conditions on the target surfaces. Simulations of the plume (without the target plate) are performed to isolate and study phenomena such as the magnetic pinch effect that is responsible for launching pressure pulses into the jet free stream. The simulations also yield insights into the incipient conditions responsible for producing the pinch, such as the formation of conductive channels. The jet-target impact studies indicate the existence of two distinct stages involved in the plasma-surface interaction. A fast transient stage characterized by a thin normal shock transitions into a pseudo-steady stage that exhibits an extended oblique shock structure. A quadratic scaling of the pinch and stagnation conditions with the total current discharged between the electrodes is in qualitative agreement with the results obtained in the experiments. Finally, this also illustrates the dominant contribution of the magnetic pressure term in determining the magnitude of the quantities of interest.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

DOE OSTI2021

Three practical workflow schedulers for easy maximum parallelism

Runtime scheduling and workflow systems are an increasingly popular algorithmic component in HPC because they allow full system utilization with relaxed synchronization requirements. There are so many special-purpose tools for task scheduling, one might wonder why more are needed. Use cases seen on the Summit supercomputer needed better integration with MPI and greater flexibility in job launch configurations. Preparation, execution, and analysis of computational chemistry simulations at the scale of tens of thousands of processors revealed three distinct workflow patterns. A separate job scheduler was implemented for each one using extremely simple and robust designs: file-based, task-list based, and bulk-synchronous. Comparing to existing methods shows unique benefits of this work, including simplicity of design, suitability for HPC centers, short startup time, and well-understood per-task overhead. All three new tools have been shown to scale to full utilization of Summit, and have been made publicly available with tests and documentation. This work presents a complete characterization of the minimum effective task granularity for efficient scheduler usage scenarios. Here, these schedulers have the same bottlenecks, and hence similar task granularities as those reported for existing tools following comparable paradigms.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

DOE OSTI2017

A facile route towards large area self-assembled nanoscale silver film morphologies and their applications towards metal enhanced fluorescence

Here, we present a facile method for fabricating nanostructured silver films containing a high density of nanoscopic gap features through a surface directed phenomenon utilizing nanoporous scaffolds rather than through traditional lithographic patterning processes. This method enables tunability of the silver film growth by simply adjusting the formulation and processing conditions of the nanoporous film prior to metallization. We further demonstrate that this process can produce nanoscopic gaps in thick (100 nm) silver films supporting localized surface plasmon resonance with large field amplification within the gaps while enabling launching of propagating surface plasmons within the silver grains. These enhanced fields provide metal enhanced fluorescence with enhancement factors as high as 21 times compared to glass, as well as enable visualization of single fluorophore emission. This work provides a low-cost rapid approach for producing novel nanostructures capable of broadband fluorescence amplification, with potential applications including plasmonic and fluorescence based optical sensing and imaging applications.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

DOE OSTI2012

Paraxial Wentzel-Kramers-Brillouin method applied to the lower hybrid wave propagation

The paraxial Wentzel-Kramers-Brillouin (pWKB) approximation, also called beam tracing method, has been employed in order to study the propagation of lower hybrid waves in a tokamak plasma. Analogous to the well-know ray tracing method, this approach reduces Maxwell's equations to a set of ordinary differential equations, while, in addition, retains the effects of the finite beam cross-section, and, thus, the effects of diffraction. A new code, LHBEAM (lower hybrid BEAM tracing), is presented, which solves the pWKB equations in tokamak geometry for arbitrary launching conditions and for analytic and experimental plasma equilibria. In addition, LHBEAM includes linear electron Landau damping for the evaluation of the absorbed power density and the reconstruction of the wave electric field in both the physical and Fourier space. Illustrative LHBEAM calculations are presented along with a comparison with the ray tracing code GENRAY and the full wave solver TORIC-LH.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

DOE OSTI2012

Paraxial WKB method applied to the lower hybrid wave propagation

The paraxial WKB (pWKB) approximation, also called beam tracing method, has been employed in order to study the propagation of lower hybrid (LH) waves in a tokamak plasma. Analogous to the well-know ray tracing method, this approach reduces Maxwell's equations to a set of ordinary differential equations, while, in addition, retains the effects of the finite beam cross-section, and, thus, the effects of diffraction. A new code, LHBEAM (Lower Hybrid BEAM tracing), is presented, which solves the pWKB equations in tokamak geometry for arbitrary launching conditions and for analytic and experimental plasma equilibria. In addition, LHBEAM includes linear electron Landau damping for the evaluation of the absorbed power density and the reconstruction of the wave electric field in both the physical and Fourier space. Illustrative LHBEAM calculations are presented along with a comparison with the ray tracing code GENRAY and the full wave solver TORIC-LH.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

DOE OSTI2014

Shallow Water Offshore Wind Optimization for the Great Lakes (DE-FOA-0000415) Final Report: A Conceptual Design for Wind Energy in the Great Lakes

The primary objective of the project was to develop a innovative Gravity Base Foundation (GBF) concepts, including fabrication yards, launching systems and installation equipment, for a 500MW utility scale project in the Great Lakes (Lake Erie). The goal was to lower the LCOE by 25%. The project was the first to investigate an offshore wind project in the Great Lakes and it has furthered the body of knowledge for foundations and installation methods within Lake Erie. The project collected historical geotechnical information for Lake Erie and also used recently obtained data from the LEEDCo Icebreaker Project (FOA DE-EE0005989) geotechnical program to develop the conceptual designs. Using these data-sets, the project developed design wind and wave conditions from actual buoy data in order to develop a concept that would de-risk a project using a GBF. These wind and wave conditions were then utilized to create reference designs for various foundations specific to installation in Lake Erie. A project partner on the project (Weeks Marine) provided input for construction and costing the GBF fabrication and installation. By having a marine contractor with experience with large marine projects as part of the team provides credibility to the LCOE developed by NREL. NREL then utilized the design and construction costing information as part of the LCOE model. The report summarizes the findings of the project; Developed a cost model and “baseline” LCOE; Documented Site Conditions within Lake Erie; Developed Fabrication, Installation and Foundations Innovative Concept Designs; Evaluated LCOE Impact of Innovations; Developed Assembly line “Rail System” for GBF Construction and Staging; Developed Transit-Inspired Foundation Designs which incorporated: Semi-Floating Transit with Supplemental Pontoons Barge mounted Winch System; Developed GBF with “Penetration Skirt”; Developed Integrated GBF with Turbine Tower; Developed Turbine, Plant Layout and O&M Strategies. The report details lowering LCOE by 22.3% and identified additional strategies that could further lower LCOE when building an utility scale wind farm in the Great Lakes.

17 WIND ENERGY↗

DOE OSTI2022

NREL Fleet Analysis Support Through Technology Integration Collaboration

This study leveraged the partnership between the United States Department of Energy's (DOE) Clean Cities Coalition Network and the Association for the Work Truck Industry (NTEA) to launch a vehicle and fleet analysis project that assisted fleets in identifying opportunities to save energy, improve efficiency, reduce costs, and meet environmental goals via short term data logging and analysis. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) sought to establish a process that included initial data acquisition, provided data storage, and developed analytic methods to inform fleets of areas of opportunity based on approximately 30 days of in use vehicle performance data. However, long-term the project will require ongoing funding to fully develop and maintain the data sharing platform and to produce more complex analysis.

33 ADVANCED PROPULSION SYSTEMS↗

DOE OSTI2015

Methods and apparatus for mid-infrared sensing

A chip-scale, air-clad semiconductor pedestal waveguide can be used as a mid-infrared (mid-IR) sensor capable of in situ monitoring of organic solvents and other analytes. The sensor uses evanescent coupling from a silicon or germanium waveguide, which is highly transparent in the mid-IR portion of the electromagnetic spectrum, to probe the absorption spectrum of fluid surrounding the waveguide. Launching a mid-IR beam into the waveguide exposed to a particular analyte causes attenuation of the evanescent wave's spectral components due to absorption by carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, and/or nitrogen bonds in the surrounding fluid. Detecting these changes at the waveguide's output provides an indication of the type and concentration of one or more compounds in the surrounding fluid. If desired, the sensor may be integrated onto a silicon substrate with a mid-IR light source and a mid-IR detector to form a chip-based spectrometer.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

DOE OSTI2011

Insulin-Like Growth Factor-Type 1 Receptor Inhibitor NVP-AEW541 Enhances Radiosensitivity of PTEN Wild-Type but Not PTEN-Deficient Human Prostate Cancer Cells

Purpose: During the past decade, many clinical trials with both monoclonal antibodies and small molecules that target the insulin-like growth factor-type 1 receptor (IGF-1R) have been launched. Despite the important role of IGF-1R signaling in radioresistance, studies of such agents in combination with radiotherapy are lagging behind. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate the effect of the small molecule IGF-1R kinase inhibitor NVP-AEW541 on the intrinsic radioresistance of prostate cancer cells. Methods and Materials: The effect of NVP-AEW541 on cell proliferation, cell viability, IGF-1R signaling, radiosensitivity, cell cycle distribution, and double strand break repair was determined in three human prostate cancer cell lines (PC3, DU145, 22Rv1). Moreover, the importance of the PTEN pathway status was explored by means of transfection experiments with constitutively active Akt or inactive kinase-dead Akt. Results: NVP-AEW541 inhibited cell proliferation and decreased cell viability in a time-and dose-dependent manner in all three cell lines. Radiosensitization was observed in the PTEN wild-type cell lines DU145 and 22Rv1 but not in the PTEN-deficient PC3 cell line. NVP-AEW541-induced radiosensitization coincided with downregulation of phospho-Akt levels and high levels of residual double strand breaks. The importance of PTEN status in the radiosensitization effect was confirmed by transfection experiments with constitutively active Akt or inactive kinase-dead Akt. Conclusions: NVP-AEW541 enhances the effect of ionizing radiation in PTEN wild-type, but not in PTEN-deficient, prostate cancer cells. Proper patient selection based on the PTEN status of the tumor will be critical to the achievement of optimal results in clinical trials in which the combination of radiotherapy and this IGF-1R inhibitor is being explored.

62 RADIOLOGY AND NUCLEAR MEDICINE↗

DOE OSTI2014

SU-E-T-488: An Iso-Dose Curve Based Interactive IMRT Optimization System for Physician-Driven Plan Tuning

Purpose: In treatment plan optimization for Intensity Modulated Radiation Therapy (IMRT), after a plan is initially developed by a dosimetrist, the attending physician evaluates its quality and often would like to improve it. As opposed to having the dosimetrist implement the improvements, it is desirable to have the physician directly and efficiently modify the plan for a more streamlined and effective workflow. In this project, we developed an interactive optimization system for physicians to conveniently and efficiently fine-tune iso-dose curves. Methods: An interactive interface is developed under C++/Qt. The physician first examines iso-dose lines. S/he then picks an iso-dose curve to be improved and drags it to a more desired configuration using a computer mouse or touchpad. Once the mouse is released, a voxel-based optimization engine is launched. The weighting factors corresponding to voxels between the iso-dose lines before and after the dragging are modified. The underlying algorithm then takes these factors as input to re-optimize the plan in near real-time on a GPU platform, yielding a new plan best matching the physician's desire. The re-optimized DVHs and iso-dose curves are then updated for the next iteration of modifications. This process is repeated until a physician satisfactory plan is achieved. Results: We have tested this system for a series of IMRT plans. Results indicate that our system provides the physicians an intuitive and efficient tool to edit the iso-dose curves according to their preference. The input information is used to guide plan re-optimization, which is achieved in near real-time using our GPU-based optimization engine. Typically, a satisfactory plan can be developed by a physician in a few minutes using this tool. Conclusion: With our system, physicians are able to manipulate iso-dose curves according to their preferences. Preliminary results demonstrate the feasibility and effectiveness of this tool.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗

DOE OSTI2014

SU-E-T-314: The Application of Cloud Computing in Pencil Beam Scanning Proton Therapy Monte Carlo Simulation

Purpose: Monte Carlo simulation plays an important role for proton Pencil Beam Scanning (PBS) technique. However, MC simulation demands high computing power and is limited to few large proton centers that can afford a computer cluster. We study the feasibility of utilizing cloud computing in the MC simulation of PBS beams. Methods: A GATE/GEANT4 based MC simulation software was installed on a commercial cloud computing virtual machine (Linux 64-bits, Amazon EC2). Single spot Integral Depth Dose (IDD) curves and in-air transverse profiles were used to tune the source parameters to simulate an IBA machine. With the use of StarCluster software developed at MIT, a Linux cluster with 2–100 nodes can be conveniently launched in the cloud. A proton PBS plan was then exported to the cloud where the MC simulation was run. Results: The simulated PBS plan has a field size of 10×10cm{sup 2}, 20cm range, 10cm modulation, and contains over 10,000 beam spots. EC2 instance type m1.medium was selected considering the CPU/memory requirement and 40 instances were used to form a Linux cluster. To minimize cost, master node was created with on-demand instance and worker nodes were created with spot-instance. The hourly cost for the 40-node cluster was $0.63 and the projected cost for a 100-node cluster was $1.41. Ten million events were simulated to plot PDD and profile, with each job containing 500k events. The simulation completed within 1 hour and an overall statistical uncertainty of < 2% was achieved. Good agreement between MC simulation and measurement was observed. Conclusion: Cloud computing is a cost-effective and easy to maintain platform to run proton PBS MC simulation. When proton MC packages such as GATE and TOPAS are combined with cloud computing, it will greatly facilitate the pursuing of PBS MC studies, especially for newly established proton centers or individual researchers.

07 ISOTOPE AND RADIATION SOURCES↗

DOE OSTI2026

Fokker-Planck simulations of fast ion ICRF and electron EC heating in a mirror plasma using CQL3D-m

The CQL3D-m continuum bounce-average Fokker-Planck code is adapted for magnetic mirror plasmas [1] and is now routinely used in no-free-parameter classical integrated modeling of mirror devices [2, 3]. In the present effort, we report on two RF methods of plasma heating in mirror machine. The fast ions (FI) are heated by Fast waves at 2nd-4th harmonic, where FIs originate from neutral beam injection at 45 degrees to the magnetic field. The scenario shows an efficient ion heating near the FI bouncing point. The electrons are heated by X-mode launched from the high magnetic field side towards the resonance. Different from the tokamak applications, CQL3D-m provides an evolving self-consistent ambipolar parallel electric field, which determines the shape of the loss cone and hence an accurate confinement time of both ions and electrons. Also, it includes a description of ion and electron sources and sinks (related to charge exchange and impact ionization) which are updated at every time step. CQL3D-m utilizes a fully nonlinear Coulomb collision operator that is important for the significantly non-Maxwellian ion distributions typically established in mirror plasmas.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

DOE OSTI2026

Planetary Boundary-Layer Height (PBLHT) Value-Added Product: Remote-Sensing Retrievals

The planetary boundary layer (PBL) is fundamental to numerous atmospheric processes, including aerosol mixing and transport, cloud evolution, and precipitation formation. A critical parameter in these studies is the PBL height (PBLHT). This vertical depth is essential for characterizing PBL structures in numerical simulations and serves as a primary metric for estimating flux exchanges between the Earth’s surface and the atmosphere. Radiosonde (SONDE) observations provide high-vertical-resolution measurements of temperature and moisture profiles and are widely used to estimate PBLHT (Liu and Liang 2010, Seidel et al. 2010). The U.S. Department of Energy Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) User Facility’s PBLHT value-added product (VAP) for radiosonde measurements, known as PBLHTSONDE, applies three commonly used methods—the Heffter (1980) method, the Liu and Liang (2010) method, and the bulk Richardson number approach (Seibert et al. 2000)—to derive PBLHT. The PBLHTSONDE VAP operates routinely at ARM observatories and mobile facilities, with data available from the ARM Data Center shortly after sounding observations are collected (Sivaraman et al. 2013). However, radiosonde observations are limited by their low temporal resolution. Most stations launch soundings only twice daily, which constrains the ability to investigate and characterize the temporal evolution of the PBL using radiosonde data alone. The use of continuous remote-sensing observations provides high temporal resolution of PBLHT estimates. These observations include aerosol lidars (Dang et al. 2019, Su et al. 2020), Doppler lidar (DL; Tucker et al. 2009, Krishnamurthy et al. 2021), and water vapor and/or temperature lidars and radiometers (Turner et al. 2014). These observations provide valuable data on the PBL’s thermodynamic properties (e.g., water vapor and/or temperature lidars and radiometers), dynamic properties (e.g., DL), and distribution of tracer substances (e.g., aerosol lidars), all of which can be used to estimate PBLHT. ARM developed PBLHT estimates from the micropulse lidar (MPL; PBLHTMPL), Doppler lidar (PBLHTDL), and combined Raman lidar (RL)/atmospheric emitted radiance interferometer (AERI) thermodynamic profiles (PBLHTTHERMO). Each estimate captures different physical characteristics of the boundary layer—aerosol tracers, vertical velocity turbulence, and thermodynamic structure—and exhibits distinct strengths and limitations depending on the PBL regime and time of day. In addition, the ARM ceilometer (CEIL) provides three potential PBLHT candidates derived from the vendor's built-in algorithm. Building on these individual retrievals, ARM developed the PBLHTBEML VAP, which combines the four remote-sensing-based estimates with ancillary meteorological variables using the machine learning approach of Zhang et al. (2025) to produce a best-estimate PBLHT at 10-minute resolution.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

DOE OSTI2016

CENTRAL ENGINE MEMORY OF GAMMA-RAY BURSTS AND SOFT GAMMA-RAY REPEATERS

Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are bursts of γ-rays generated from relativistic jets launched from catastrophic events such as massive star core collapse or binary compact star coalescence. Previous studies suggested that GRB emission is erratic, with no noticeable memory in the central engine. Here we report a discovery that similar light curve patterns exist within individual bursts for at least some GRBs. Applying the Dynamic Time Warping method, we show that similarity of light curve patterns between pulses of a single burst or between the light curves of a GRB and its X-ray flare can be identified. This suggests that the central engine of at least some GRBs carries “memory” of its activities. We also show that the same technique can identify memory-like emission episodes in the flaring emission in soft gamma-ray repeaters (SGRs), which are believed to be Galactic, highly magnetized neutron stars named magnetars. Such a phenomenon challenges the standard black hole central engine models for GRBs, and suggest a common physical mechanism behind GRBs and SGRs, which points toward a magnetar central engine of GRBs.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

DOE OSTI2014

Time-resolved characterization and energy balance analysis of implosion core in shock-ignition experiments at OMEGA

Time-resolved temperature and density conditions in the core of shock-ignition implosions have been determined for the first time. The diagnostic method relies on the observation, with a streaked crystal spectrometer, of the signature of an Ar tracer added to the deuterium gas fill. The data analysis confirms the importance of the shell attenuation effect previously noted on time-integrated spectroscopic measurements of thick-wall targets [R. Florido et al., Phys. Rev. E 83, 066408 (2011)]. This effect must be taken into account in order to obtain reliable results. The extracted temperature and density time-histories are representative of the state of the core during the implosion deceleration and burning phases. As a consequence of the ignitor shock launched by the sharp intensity spike at the end of the laser pulse, observed average core electron temperature and mass density reach T ~ 1100 eV and ρ ~ 2 g/cm 3 ; then temperature drops to T ~ 920 eV while density rises to ρ ~ 3.4 g/cm 3 about the time of peak compression. Compared to 1D hydrodynamic simulations, the experiment shows similar maximum temperatures and smaller densities. Simulations do not reproduce all observations. Differences are noted in the heating dynamics driven by the ignitor shock and the optical depth time-history of the compressed shell. Time-histories of core conditions extracted from spectroscopy show that the implosion can be interpreted as a two-stage polytropic process. Furthermore, an energy balance analysis of implosion core suggests an increase in total energy greater than what 1D hydrodynamic simulations predict. This new methodology can be implemented in other ICF experiments to look into implosion dynamics and help to understand the underlying physics.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗