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At least 1,801 records · Page 100

Quantum Simulation of Molecular Dynamics Processes─A Benchmark Study Using a Classical Simulator and Present-Day Quantum Hardware

Here, we explore how the fundamental problems in quantum molecular dynamics can be modeled using classical simulators (emulators) of quantum computers and the actual quantum hardware available to us today. The list of problems we tackle includes propagation of a free wave packet, vibration of a harmonic oscillator, and tunneling through a barrier. Each of these problems starts with the initial wave packet setup. Although Qiskit provides a general method for initializing wave functions, in most cases it generates deep quantum circuits. While these circuits perform well on noiseless simulators, they suffer from excessive noise on quantum hardware. To overcome this issue, we designed a shallower quantum circuit for preparing a Gaussian-like initial wave packet, which improves the performance of real hardware. Next, quantum circuits are implemented to apply the kinetic and potential energy operators for the evolution of a wave function over time. The results of our modeling on classical emulators of quantum hardware agree perfectly with the results obtained using the traditional (classical) methods. This serves as a benchmark and demonstrates that the quantum algorithms and Qiskit codes we developed are accurate. However, the results obtained on the actual quantum hardware available today, such as IBM’s superconducting qubits and IonQ’s trapped ions, indicate large discrepancies due to hardware limitations. This work highlights both the potential and challenges of using quantum computers to solve fundamental quantum molecular dynamics problems.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

Calculation of the dynamic first electronic hyperpolarizability β(−ω{sub σ}; ω{sub 1}, ω{sub 2}) of periodic systems. Theory, validation, and application to multi-layer MoS{sub 2}

We describe our implementation of a fully analytical scheme, based on the 2n + 1 rule, for computing the coupled perturbed Hartree Fock and Kohn-Sham dynamic first hyperpolarizability tensor β(−ω{sub σ}; ω{sub 1}, ω{sub 2}) of periodic 1D (polymer), 2D (slab), and 3D (crystal) systems in the CRYSTAL code [R. Dovesi et al., Int. J. Quantum Chem. 114, 1287 (2014)], which utilizes local Gaussian type basis sets. The dc-Pockels (dc-P) and second harmonic generation (SHG) tensors are included as special cases. It is verified that (i) symmetry requirements are satisfied; (ii) using LiF as an example, the infinite periodic polymer result agrees with extrapolated finite oligomer calculations and, likewise, for the build-up to a 2D slab and a 3D crystal; (iii) the values converge to the static case for low frequencies; and (iv) the Bishop-deKee dispersion formulas relating dc-P, SHG, and general processes are reproduced through quartic terms. Preliminary SHG calculations on multi-layer MoS{sub 2} satisfactorily reproduce experimental data.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

Power density calculation of spontaneous radiation emission from a finite emittance electron beam in planar undulators

We extend the angular power density formulae for spontaneous radiation emission from planar undulators to include finite emittance and angular misalignment of the electron beam. Then we calculate and compare power densities estimated from integral approach with Gaussian beam distribution and summation approach with macro-particle allocation covering particle beam phase space. After showing that both approaches converge to each other, we apply the macro-particle approach to study power absorbed and transmitted by various apertures at front end of 9-ID beamline at National Synchrotron Light Source-II for misaligned electron beam. Our analysis indicate that the electron beam misalignment could lead to unwarranted power deposition at tighter apertures that would have been otherwise difficult to account for during the aperture design/choice process.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗

Results of an integrated structure-control law design sensitivity analysis

Next generation air and space vehicle designs are driven by increased performance requirements, demanding a high level of design integration between traditionally separate design disciplines. Interdisciplinary analysis capabilities have been developed, for aeroservoelastic aircraft and large flexible spacecraft control for instance, but the requisite integrated design methods are only beginning to be developed. One integrated design method which has received attention is based on hierarchal problem decompositions, optimization, and design sensitivity analyses. This paper highlights a design sensitivity analysis method for Linear Quadratic Cost, Gaussian (LQG) optimal control laws, which predicts change in the optimal control law due to changes in fixed problem parameters using analytical sensitivity equations. Numerical results of a design sensitivity analysis for a realistic aeroservoelastic aircraft example are presented. In this example, the sensitivity of the optimally controlled aircraft's response to various problem formulation and physical aircraft parameters is determined. These results are used to predict the aircraft's new optimally controlled response if the parameter was to have some other nominal value during the control law design process. The sensitivity results are validated by recomputing the optimal control law for discrete variations in parameters, computing the new actual aircraft response, and comparing with the predicted response. These results show an improvement in sensitivity accuracy for integrated design purposes over methods which do not include changess in the optimal control law. Use of the analytical LQG sensitivity expressions is also shown to be more efficient that finite difference methods for the computation of the equivalent sensitivity information.

Gilbert, Michael G.↗

New Insights on Tropical Ozone from SHADOZ (Southern Hemisphere Additional Ozonesondes) Profiles

The SHADOZ (Southern Hemisphere Additional Ozonesondes) ozone sounding network was initiated in 1998 to improve the coverage of tropical in-situ ozone measurements for satellite validation, algorithm development and related process studies. Over 2000 soundings have been archived at the website, , for 12 stations: Ascension Island; Nairobi and Malindi, Kenya; Irene, South Africa; Reunion Island, Watukosek, Java; Fiji; Tahiti; American Samoa; San Cristobal, Galapagos; Natal, Brazil; Paramaribo, Surinam. Key results from SHADOZ will be described from among the following: 1) By using ECC sondes with similar procedures, 5-10% accuracy and precision (1-sigma) of the sonde total ozone measurement was achieved; 2) Week-to-week variability in tropospheric ozone is so great that statistics are frequently not Gaussian; most stations vary up to a factor of 3 in tropospheric column over the course of a year; 3) Longitudinal variability in tropospheric ozone profiles is a consistent feature, with a 10-15 DU column-integrated difference between Atlantic and Pacific sites; this causes a "zonal wave-one" feature in total ozone. 4) The ozone record from Paramaribo, Surinam (6N, 55W) is a marked contrast to southern tropical ozone because Surinam is often north of the Intertropical Convergence Zone; 5) Indian Ocean region pollution may contribute up to half of the excess ozone observed in the south tropical Atlantic paradox in the December-January-February period of the year.

Thompson, Anne M.↗

Systems and methods for determining optimal parameters for dynamic quantum clustering analyses

In the present work, quantum clustering is extended to provide a dynamical approach for data clustering using a time-dependent Schrodinger equation. To expedite computations, we can approximate the time-dependent Hamiltonian formalism by a truncated calculation within a set of Gaussian wave-functions (coherent states) centered around the original points. This allows for analytic evaluation of the time evolution of all such states, opening up the possibility of exploration of relationships among data points through observation of varying dynamical-distances among points and convergence of points into clusters. This formalism may be further supplemented by preprocessing, such as dimensional reduction through singular value decomposition and/or feature filtering. Additionally, the parameters of the analysis can be modified in order to improve the efficiency of the dynamic quantum clustering processes.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

A robust estimator of mutual information for deep learning interpretability

Abstract We develop the use of mutual information (MI), a well-established metric in information theory, to interpret the inner workings of deep learning (DL) models. To accurately estimate MI from a finite number of samples, we present GMM-MI (pronounced ‘Jimmie’), an algorithm based on Gaussian mixture models that can be applied to both discrete and continuous settings. GMM-MI is computationally efficient, robust to the choice of hyperparameters and provides the uncertainty on the MI estimate due to the finite sample size. We extensively validate GMM-MI on toy data for which the ground truth MI is known, comparing its performance against established MI estimators. We then demonstrate the use of our MI estimator in the context of representation learning, working with synthetic data and physical datasets describing highly non-linear processes. We train DL models to encode high-dimensional data within a meaningful compressed (latent) representation, and use GMM-MI to quantify both the level of disentanglement between the latent variables, and their association with relevant physical quantities, thus unlocking the interpretability of the latent representation. We make GMM-MI publicly available in this GitHub repository.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗

Effects of correlated noise on the full-spectrum combining and complex-symbol combining arraying techniques

The process of combining telemetry signals received at multiple antennas, commonly referred to as arraying, can be used to improve communication link performance in the Deep Space Network (DSN). By coherently adding telemetry from multiple receiving sites, arraying produces an enhancement in signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) over that achievable with any single antenna in the array. A number of different techniques for arraying have been proposed and their performances analyzed in past literature. These analyses have compared different arraying schemes under the assumption that the signals contain additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) and that the noise observed at distinct antennas is independent. In situations where an unwanted background body is visible to multiple antennas in the array, however, the assumption of independent noises is no longer applicable. A planet with significant radiation emissions in the frequency band of interest can be one such source of correlated noise. For example, during much of Galileo's tour of Jupiter, the planet will contribute significantly to the total system noise at various ground stations. This article analyzes the effects of correlated noise on two arraying schemes currently being considered for DSN applications: full-spectrum combining (FSC) and complex-symbol combining (CSC). A framework is presented for characterizing the correlated noise based on physical parameters, and the impact of the noise correlation on the array performance is assessed for each scheme.

Vazirani, P.↗

Surface area and particle size distribution of plutonium oxides derived from the direct oxidation of Pu metal (LA-UR-18-22581)

The intent of this paper is to interrogate the physical characteristics of PuO 2 powders and aggregates produced by direct metal oxidation to examine possible relationships between process parameters and the physical characteristics of the product. The majority of the PuO 2 samples considered were generated during the pre-production and production phases of the Advanced Recovery and Integrated Extraction System (ARIES) program at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). Oxide formed passively on Pu metal surfaces at ambient atmospheric conditions is also characterized. Plutonium oxide powders from the ARIES Direct Metal Oxidation (DMO) furnace and muffle furnace process lines are very consistent in terms of their bulk and tapped density, specific surface area (SSA) and particle size distribution (PSD). The SSAs of calcined PuO 2 generated in the ARIES DMO-2 and muffle furnaces are between 0.1 and 0.5 m2/g. Oxides from both the DMO-2 and muffle furnaces also had similar tri-modal PSDs with maxima at 0.73–3.16 μm, 10.9–18.5 μm, and 41.3–63.0 μm. The PSDs of the oxide formed passively on Pu metal surfaces at ambient conditions were unimodal, with near-Gaussian distributions and D50 close to 1 μm. In conclusion, the oxide formed passively at ambient conditions also had significantly higher SSAs (6–8 m 2 /g).

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Flower-shaped 2D crystals grown in curved fluid vesicle membranes

Abstract The morphologies of two-dimensional (2D) crystals, nucleated, grown, and integrated within 2D elastic fluids, for instance in giant vesicle membranes, are dictated by an interplay of mechanics, permeability, and thermal contraction. Mitigation of solid strain drives the formation of crystals with vanishing Gaussian curvature (i.e., developable domain shapes) and, correspondingly, enhanced Gaussian curvature in the surrounding 2D fluid. However, upon cooling to grow the crystals, large vesicles sustain greater inflation and tension because their small area-to-volume ratio slows water permeation. As a result, more elaborate shapes, for instance, flowers with bendable but inextensible petals, form on large vesicles despite their more gradual curvature, while small vesicles harbor compact planar crystals. This size dependence runs counter to the known cumulative growth of strain energy of 2D colloidal crystals on rigid spherical templates. This interplay of intra-membrane mechanics and processing points to the scalable production of flexible molecular crystals of controllable complex shape.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Results of an integrated structure/control law design sensitivity analysis

A design sensitivity analysis method for Linear Quadratic Cost, Gaussian (LQG) optimal control laws, which predicts change in the optimal control law due to changes in fixed problem parameters using analytical sensitivity equations is discussed. Numerical results of a design sensitivity analysis for a realistic aeroservoelastic aircraft example are presented. In this example, the sensitivity of the optimally controlled aircraft's response to various problem formulation and physical aircraft parameters is determined. These results are used to predict the aircraft's new optimally controlled response if the parameter was to have some other nominal value during the control law design process. The sensitivity results are validated by recomputing the optimal control law for discrete variations in parameters, computing the new actual aircraft response, and comparing with the predicted response. These results show an improvement in sensitivity accuracy for integrated design purposes over methods which do not include changes in the optimal control law. Use of the analytical LQG sensitivity expressions is also shown to be more efficient than finite difference methods for the computation of the equivalent sensitivity information.

Gilbert, Michael G.↗

SHADOZ (Southern Hemisphere Additional Ozonesondes): A Project Overview and New Insights on Tropical Tropospheric Ozone

The SHADOZ (Southern Hemisphere Additional Ozonesondes) ozone sounding network was initiated in 1998 to improve the coverage of tropical in-situ ozone measurements for satellite validation, algorithm development and related process studies. Over 2000 soundings have been archived at the website, http://croc.gsfc.nasa.gov/shadoz, for 12 stations: Ascension Island; Nairobi and Malindi, Kenya; Irene, South Africa; Reunion Island; Watukosek, Java; Fiji; Tahiti; American Samoa; San Cristobal, Galapagos; Natal, Brazil; Paramaribo, Surinam. Key results from SHADOZ will be described from among the following: 1) By using ECC sondes with similar procedures, 5-10% accuracy and precision (1-sigma) of the sonde total ozone measurement is achieved; 2) Week-to-week variability in tropospheric ozone is so great that statistics are frequently not Gaussian; most stations vary up to a factor of 3 in tropospheric column over the course of a year; 3) Longitudinal variability in tropospheric ozone profiles is a consistent feature, with a 10-15 DU column-integrated difference between Atlantic and Pacific sites; this causes a "zonal wave-one" feature in total ozone; 4) The ozone record from Paramaribo, Surinam (6N, 55W) is a marked contrast to southern tropical ozone because Surinam is often north of the Intertropical Convergence Zone.

Thompson, Anne M.↗

Triphenylamine based organic dyes for dye sensitized solar cells: A theoretical approach

The geometry, electronic structure and absorption spectra for newly designed triphenylamine based organic dyes were investigated by density functional theory (DFT) and time dependent density functional theory (TD-DFT) with the Becke 3-Parameter-Lee-Yang-parr(B3LYP) functional, where the 6-31G(d,p) basis set was employed. All calculations were performed using the Gaussian 09 software package. The calculated HOMO and LUMO energies show that charge transfer occurs in the molecule. Ultraviolet–visible (UV–vis) spectrum was simulated by TD-DFT in gas phase. The calculation shows that all of the dyes can potentially be good sensitizers for DSSC. The LUMOs are just above the conduction band of TiO{sub 2} and their HOMOs are under the reduction potential energy of the electrolytes (I{sup −}/I{sub 3}{sup −}) which can facilitate electron transfer from the excited dye to TiO{sub 2} and charge regeneration process after photo oxidation respectively. The simulated absorption spectrum of dyes match with solar spectrum. Frontier molecular orbital results show that among all the three dyes, the “dye 3” can be used as potential sensitizer for DSSC.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗

Higher moments of primordial non-Gaussianity and N-body simulations

We perform cosmological N-body simulations with non-Gaussian initial conditions generated from two independent fields. The dominant contribution to the perturbations comes from a purely Gaussian field, but we allow the second field to have local non-Gaussianity that need not be weak. This scenario allows us to adjust the relative importance of non-Gaussian contributions beyond the skewness, producing a scaling of the higher moments different from (and stronger than) the scaling in the usual single field local ansatz. We compare semi-analytic prescriptions for the non-Gaussian mass function, large scale halo bias, and stochastic bias against the simulation results. We discuss applications of this work to large scale structure measurements that can test a wider range of models for the primordial fluctuations than is usually explored.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Iterative reconstruction for CT perfusion with a prior-image induced hybrid nonlocal means regularization: Phantom studies

Purpose: In computed tomography perfusion (CTP) imaging, an initial phase CT acquired with a high-dose protocol can be used to improve the image quality of later phase CT acquired with a low-dose protocol. For dynamic regions, signals in the later low-dose CT may not be completely recovered if the initial CT heavily regularizes the iterative reconstruction process. The authors propose a hybrid nonlocal means (hNLM) regularization model for iterative reconstruction of low-dose CTP to overcome the limitation of the conventional prior-image induced penalty. Methods: The hybrid penalty was constructed by combining the NLM of the initial phase high-dose CT in the stationary region and later phase low-dose CT in the dynamic region. The stationary and dynamic regions were determined by the similarity between the initial high-dose scan and later low-dose scan. The similarity was defined as a Gaussian kernel-based distance between the patch-window of the same pixel in the two scans, and its measurement was then used to weigh the influence of the initial high-dose CT. For regions with high similarity (e.g., stationary region), initial high-dose CT played a dominant role for regularizing the solution. For regions with low similarity (e.g., dynamic region), the regularization relied on a low-dose scan itself. This new hNLM penalty was incorporated into the penalized weighted least-squares (PWLS) for CTP reconstruction. Digital and physical phantom studies were performed to evaluate the PWLS-hNLM algorithm. Results: Both phantom studies showed that the PWLS-hNLM algorithm is superior to the conventional prior-image induced penalty term without considering the signal changes within the dynamic region. In the dynamic region of the Catphan phantom, the reconstruction error measured by root mean square error was reduced by 42.9% in PWLS-hNLM reconstructed image. Conclusions: The PWLS-hNLM algorithm can effectively use the initial high-dose CT to reconstruct low-dose CTP in the stationary region while reducing its influence in the dynamic region.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗

Laser transit anemometer software development program

Algorithms were developed for the extraction of two components of mean velocity, standard deviation, and the associated correlation coefficient from laser transit anemometry (LTA) data ensembles. The solution method is based on an assumed two-dimensional Gaussian probability density function (PDF) model of the flow field under investigation. The procedure consists of transforming the data ensembles from the data acquisition domain (consisting of time and angle information) to the velocity space domain (consisting of velocity component information). The mean velocity results are obtained from the data ensemble centroid. Through a least squares fitting of the transformed data to an ellipse representing the intersection of a plane with the PDF, the standard deviations and correlation coefficient are obtained. A data set simulation method is presented to test the data reduction process. Results of using the simulation system with a limited test matrix of input values is also given.

Abbiss, John B.↗

Digital TV processing system

Two digital video data compression systems directly applicable to the Space Shuttle TV Communication System were described: (1) For the uplink, a low rate monochrome data compressor is used. The compression is achieved by using a motion detection technique in the Hadamard domain. To transform the variable source rate into a fixed rate, an adaptive rate buffer is provided. (2) For the downlink, a color data compressor is considered. The compression is achieved first by intra-color transformation of the original signal vector, into a vector which has lower information entropy. Then two-dimensional data compression techniques are applied to the Hadamard transformed components of this last vector. Mathematical models and data reliability analyses were also provided for the above video data compression techniques transmitted over a channel encoded Gaussian channel. It was shown that substantial gains can be achieved by the combination of video source and channel coding.

Source record↗

Sculpting 2D Crystals via Membrane Contractions before and during Solidification

When phospholipids crystallize within the otherwise fluid membranes of giant unilamellar vesicles, the resulting molecularly thin “2D” solids exhibit great variety in their morphology evolution. For example, within membranes containing moderate amounts of the crystallizing component, crystals grow with a fixed morphology depending on vesicle size. Conversely for membranes containing large amounts of the crystallizing species, we find small compact crystals on vesicles of all sizes. However, on large vesicles, growing crystals sprout flower petals that lengthen progressively. These behaviors result from two combined mechanisms: first, like other 2D solids, the shear rigidity of phospholipid crystals renders them intolerant to morphologies with nonzero Gaussian curvature. As a result and especially at elevated membrane tension, the cost of bending elasticity is reduced at the expense of line energy by the formation of flowers as opposed to compact crystals. Second, the composition-dependent tension rise during cooling relaxes via water permeation of the membrane with a time constant scaling as R2. The amount of crystal formed for a small decrease in temperature determines this composition-dependent increase in stress from thermal contractions versus solidification. Surface Evolver computations were motivated using the predicted tension evolution to develop a processing space that maps to experimental observations for initial and growing crystal morphology. Important variable groups are identified, including a scaled ratio of bending to line energy, a vesicle-size-independent group for membrane contractions, and a time constant for stress relaxation. Though processing stresses ultimately relax, the crystal morphology persists well beyond the processing window.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

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