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All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2022

A Laboratory-driven Multiscale Investigation of X-Ray Induced Mass Loss and Photochemical Evolution in Cosmic Carbon and Silicate Dust

We present the results of an integrated laboratory and modeling investigation into the impact of stellar X-rays on cosmic dust. Carbonaceous grains were prepared in a cooled (< 200 K) supersonic expansion from aromatic molecular precursors, and were later irradiated with 970 eV X-rays. Silicate (enstatite) grains were prepared via laser ablation, thermally annealed, and later irradiated with 500 eV X-rays. Infrared spectra of the 3.4 μm band of the carbon sample prepared with benzene revealed 84% ± 5% band area loss for an X-ray dose of 5.2 x 10 23 eV.cm -2 . Infrared spectra of the 8 -12 μm Si-O band of the silicate sample revealed band area loss up to 63% ± 5% for doses of 2.3 x 10 23 eV.cm -2 . A hybrid Monte Carlo particle trajectory approach was used to model the impact of X-rays and ensuing photoelectrons, Auger and collisionally ionized electrons through the bulk. As a result of x-ray ionization and ensuing Coulomb explosions on surface molecules, the calculated mass loss is 60% for the carbonaceous sample and 46% for the silicate sample, within a factor of 2 of the IR band loss, supporting an X-ray induced mass-loss mechanism. We apply the laboratory X-ray destruction rates to estimate the lifetimes of dust grains in protoplanetary disks surrounding 1 M ⊙ and 0.1 M ⊙ G and M stars. In both cases, X-ray destruction timescales are short (a few million years) at the disk surface, but are found to be much longer than typical disk lifetimes (≳10 Myr) over the disk bulk.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2025

SUDA: A SUrface Dust Analyser for Compositional Mapping of the Galilean Moon Europa

Abstract The Surface Dust Analyser (SUDA) is a mass spectrometer onboard the Europa Clipper mission for investigating the surface composition of the Galilean moon Europa. Atmosphereless planetary moons such as the Galilean satellites are wrapped into a ballistic dust exosphere populated by tiny samples from the moon’s surface produced by impacts of fast micrometeoroids. SUDA will measure the composition of such surface ejecta during close flybys of Europa to obtain key chemical signatures for revealing the satellite’s composition such as organic molecules and salts, history, and geological evolution. Because of their ballistic orbits, detected ejecta can be traced back to the surface with a spatial resolution roughly equal to the instantaneous altitude of the spacecraft. SUDA is a Time-Of-Flight (TOF), reflectron-type impact mass spectrometer, optimized for a high mass resolution which only weakly depends on the impact location. The instrument will measure the mass, speed, charge, elemental, molecular, and isotopic composition of impacting grains. The instrument’s small size of$268 ~\mathrm {mm} \times 250 ~\mathrm {mm} \times 171$ 268 mm × 250 mm × 171 $~\mathrm {mm}$ mm , radiation-hard design, and rather large sensitive area of 220 cm 2 matches well the challenging demands of the Clipper mission.

Astronomy & Astrophysics↗
DOE OSTI2022

Molecular speciation controls arsenic and lead bioaccessibility in fugitive dusts from sulfidic mine tailings

Communities nearby mine wastes in arid and semi-arid regions are potentially exposed to high concentrations of toxic metal(loid)s from fugitive dusts deriving from impoundments. To assess the relation between potentially lofted particles and human health risk, we studied the relationship between pharmacokinetic bioaccessibility and metal(loid) molecular speciation for mine tailings dust particulate matter (PM), with elevated levels of arsenic and lead (up to 59 and 34 mmol kg -1 , respectively), by coupling in vitro bioassay (IVBA) with X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS). Mine tailing efflorescent salts (PM ES ) and PM from the surface crust (0–1 cm, PM SC ) and near surface (0–25 cm) were isolated to <10 μm and <150 μm effective spherical diameter (PM 10 and PM 150 ) and reacted with synthetic gastric and lung fluid for 30 s to 100 h to investigate toxic metal(loid) release kinetics. Bioaccessible (BAc) fractions of arsenic and lead were about 10 and 100 times greater in gastric than in lung fluid simulant, respectively, and 10–100% of the maximum gastric BAc from PM 10 and PM 150 occurred within 30 s, with parabolic dissolution of fine, highly-reactive particles followed by slower release from less soluble sources. Evaporite salts were almost completely solubilized in gastric-fluid simulants. Arsenate within jarosite and sorbed to ferrihydrite, and lead from anglesite, were identified by XAS as the principal contaminant sources in the near surface tailings. In the synthetic lung fluid, arsenic was released continuously to 100 h, suggesting that residence time in vivo must be considered for risk determination. Analysis of pre- and post-IVBA PM indicated the release of arsenic in lung fluid was principally from arsenic-substituted jarosite, whereas in synthetic gastric fluid arsenic complexed on ferrihydrite surfaces was preferentially released and subsequently repartitioned to jarosite-like coordination at extended exposures. Lead dissolved at 30 s was subsequently repartitioned back to the solid phase as pyromorphite in phosphate rich lung fluid. The bioaccessibility of lead in surface tailings PM was limited due to robust sequestration in plumbojarosite. Kinetic release of toxic elements in both synthetic biofluids indicated that a single IVBA interval may not adequately describe release dynamics.

63 RADIATION, THERMAL, AND OTHER ENVIRON. POLLUTAN↗
DOE OSTI2022

Wash Vehicle Fleet Sizing for Contingency Planning Against Dust Storms

Wash vehicles containing either high- or low-pressure water sprayers, a collection of rotating brushes, or a combination of these, are frequently utilized in concentrating solar power (CSP) plants to maintain a high level of optical efficiency in the solar field. In recent years, multiple modeling approaches have been developed to obtain fleet sizes and mirror-washing schedules that optimize the tradeoff of vehicle capital and use costs and labor versus lost revenues due to soiling. These planning models cover normal operating conditions well but do not consider rare events such as dust storms which can cause a significant reduction in receiver productivity, or shut down operations until most or all of the solar field's mirrors have been cleaned. To that end, we propose a methodology that evaluates whether additional capital should be deployed to hedge against these events by weighing the net present value of the expected benefits against the capital costs. The output of this method is a breakeven frequency, a metric we sue to determine whether an additional vehicle should be purchased to address the contingency of dust storms by comparing it to the expected annual storm frequency We develop a small collection of case studies using commercial-scale CSP tower plants and obtain breakeven frequencies that mostly fall between 0.1 and 1.0 storms per year, depending on the existing fleet size and storm severity.

concentrating solar power↗
DOE OSTI2024

Controlling the charge of dust particles in an afterglow by modulating the plasma power

Abstract A dust particle immersed in a glow-discharge plasma has long been known to have a charge that is negative , while the plasma is powered. However, in the afterglow, following the stopping of the plasma power, a large positive charge can collect on the particle, as was shown recently for particles in a cathodic sheath. While that outcome of positive charging in the afterglow may be common, an experimental discovery reported here reveals that the opposite outcome is also possible: a particle can develop a negative charge in the afterglow, if the plasma had previously been operated with a modulated power. Before stopping the plasma power off altogether, in a run with power modulated at a low duty cycle of 4.5 % , the particle’s residual charge was negative, but it was positive in a control run without modulation. This result points to a way of controlling the charge of dust particles in a decaying plasma, which can be useful for mitigating defects in semiconductor manufacturing.

Physics↗
DOE OSTI2022

Dust and the intrinsic spectral index of quasar variations: hints of finite stress at the innermost stable circular orbit

ABSTRACT We present a study of 9 242 spectroscopically confirmed quasars with multiepoch ugriz photometry from the SDSS Southern Survey. By fitting a separable linear model to each quasar’s spectral variations, we decompose their five-band spectral energy distributions into variable (disc) and non-variable (host galaxy) components. In modelling the disc spectra, we include attenuation by dust on the line of sight through the host galaxy to its nucleus. We consider five commonly used attenuation laws, and find that the best description is by dust similar to that of the Small Magellanic Cloud, inferring a lack of carbonaceous grains from the relatively weak 2175-Å absorption feature. We go on to construct a composite spectrum for the quasar variations spanning 700–8000 Å. By varying the assumed power-law Lν ∝ να spectral slope, we find a best-fitting value α = 0.71 ± 0.02, excluding at high confidence the canonical Lν ∝ ν1/3 prediction for a steady-state accretion disc with a T ∝ r−3/4 temperature profile. The bluer spectral index of the observed quasar variations instead supports the model of Agol & Krolik, and Mummery & Balbus, in which a steeper temperature profile, T ∝ r−7/8, develops as a result of finite magnetically induced stress at the innermost stable circular orbit extracting energy and angular momentum from the black hole spin.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2021

Automatic detection of impact craters on Al foils from the Stardust interstellar dust collector using convolutional neural networks

NASA's Stardust mission utilized a sample collector composed of aerogel and aluminum foil to return cometary and interstellar particles to Earth. Analysis of the aluminum foil begins with locating craters produced by hypervelocity impacts of cometary and interstellar dust. Interstellar dust craters are typically less than one micrometer in size and are sparsely distributed, making them difficult to find. In this paper, we describe a convolutional neural network based on the VGG16 architecture that achieves high specificity and sensitivity in locating impact craters in the Stardust interstellar collector foils. Finally, we evaluate its implications for current and future analyses of Stardust samples.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2021

LBT Reveals Large Dust Particles and a High Mass-loss Rate for K2-22 b

The disintegrating planet candidate K2-22 b shows periodic and stochastic transits best explained by an escaping debris cloud. However, the mechanism that creates the debris cloud is unknown. The grain size of the debris as well as its sublimation rate can be helpful in understanding the environment that disintegrates the planet. Here, we present simultaneous photometry with the g band at 0.48 μm and K {sub S} band at 2.1 μm using the Large Binocular Telescope. During an event with very low dust activity, we put a new upper limit on the size of the planet of 0.71 R {sub ⊕} or 4500 km. We also detected a medium depth transit that can be used to constrain the dust particle sizes. We find that the median particle size must be larger than about 0.5–1.0 μm, depending on the composition of the debris. This leads to a high mass-loss rate of about 3 × 10{sup 8} kg s{sup −1}, which is consistent with hydrodynamic escape models. If they are produced by some alternate mechanism such as explosive volcanism, it would require extraordinary geological activity. Combining our upper limits on the planet size with the high mass-loss rate, we find a lifetime of the planet of less than 370 Myr. This drops to just 21 Myr when adopting the 0.02 M {sub ⊕} mass predicted from hydrodynamical models.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗
DOE OSTI2021

It’s Dust: Solving the Mysteries of the Intrinsic Scatter and Host-galaxy Dependence of Standardized Type Ia Supernova Brightnesses

The use of Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) as cosmological tools has motivated significant effort to understand what drives the intrinsic scatter of SN Ia distance modulus residuals after standardization, characterize the distribution of SN Ia colors, and explain why properties of the host galaxies of the SNe correlate with SN Ia distance modulus residuals. We use a compiled sample of ~1450 spectroscopically confirmed photometric light curves of SNe Ia and propose a solution to these three problems simultaneously that also explains an empirical 11 σ detection of the dependence of Hubble residual scatter on SN Ia color. We introduce a physical model of color where intrinsic SN Ia colors with a relatively weak correlation with luminosity are combined with extrinsic dust-like colors ( E ( B - V )) with a wide range of extinction parameter values ( R V ). This model captures the observed trends of Hubble residual scatter and indicates that the dominant component of SN Ia intrinsic scatter is variation in R V . We also find that the recovered E ( B - V ) and R V distributions differ based on global host-galaxy stellar mass, and this explains the observed correlation ( γ ) between mass and Hubble residuals seen in past analyses, as well as an observed 4.5 σ dependence of γ on SN Ia color. This finding removes any need to ascribe different intrinsic luminosities to different progenitor systems. Finally, we measure biases in the equation of state of dark energy ( w ) up to |Δ w | = 0.04 by replacing previous models of SN color with our dust-based model; this bias is larger than any systematic uncertainty in previous SN Ia cosmological analyses.

Astronomy & Astrophysics↗
DOE OSTI2022

A Quasar Shedding Its Dust Cocoon at Redshift 2

We present the first near-IR spectroscopy and joint analyses of multiwavelength observations for SDSS J082747.14+425241.1, a dust-reddened, weak broad emission-line quasar (WLQ) undergoing a remarkable broad-absorption line (BAL) transformation. The systemic redshift is more precisely measured to be z = 2.070 ± 0.001 using Hβ compared to z = 2.040 ± 0.003 using Mg ιι from the literature, signifying an extreme Mg ιι blueshift of 2140 ± 530 km s –1 relative to Hβ. Using the Hβ-based single-epoch scaling relation with a systematic uncertainty of 0.3 dex, its black hole (BH) mass and Eddington ratio are estimated to be M BH ~ 6.1 × 10 8 M ⊙ and λ Edd ~ 0.71, indicative of being in a rapidly accreting phase. Our investigations confirm the WLQ nature and the LoBAL → HiBAL transformation, along with a factor of 2 increase in the Mg ιι+Fe ιι emission strength and a decrease of 0.1 in E(B – V) over two decades. The kinetic power of this LoBAL wind at R ~ 15 pc from its BH is estimated to be ~43% of the Eddington luminosity, sufficient for quasar feedback upon its host galaxy albeit with an order-of-magnitude uncertainty. This quasar provides a clear example of the long-sought scenario where LoBAL quasars are surrounded by dust cocoons, and wide-angle nuclear winds play a key role in the transition of red quasars evolving into the commonly seen blue quasars.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2023

The Pantheon+ Analysis: Forward Modeling the Dust and Intrinsic Color Distributions of Type Ia Supernovae, and Quantifying Their Impact on Cosmological Inferences

Abstract Recent studies have shown that the observed color distributions of Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) can be well described by a combination of a dust distribution and an intrinsic color distribution. Using the Pantheon+ sample of 1701 SN Ia, we apply a new forward-modeling fitting method (Dust2Dust) to measure the parent dust and color distributions, including their dependence on host-galaxy mass. At each fit step, the SN Ia selection efficiency is determined from a large simulated sample that is reweighted to reflect the proposed distributions. We use five separate metrics to describe the goodness of fit: distribution of fitted light-curve color c , cosmological residual trends with c , cosmological residual scatter with c , fitted color–luminosity relationship β SALT2 , and intrinsic scatter σ int . We present the results and the uncertainty in 12-dimensional space. Furthermore, we measure that the uncertainty on this modeling propagates to an upper threshold uncertainty in the equation of state of dark energy w of 0.014(1) for the Pantheon+ cosmology analysis and contributes negligible uncertainty to the Hubble constant H 0 . The Dust2Dust code is made publicly available at https://github.com/djbrout/dustdriver .

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2026

BICEP/Keck. XX. Component-separated Maps of the Polarized Cosmic Microwave Background and Thermal Dust Emission Using Planck and BICEP/Keck Observations through the 2018 Observing Season

We present component-separated polarization maps of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) and Galactic thermal dust emission, derived using data from the BICEP/Keck experiments through the 2018 observing season and Planck. By employing a maximum-likelihood method that utilizes observing matrices, we produce unbiased maps of the CMB and dust signals. We outline the computational challenges and demonstrate an efficient implementation of the component map estimator. We show methods to compute and characterize power spectra of these maps, opening up an alternative way to infer the tensor-to-scalar ratio from our data. We compare the results of this map-based separation method with the baseline BICEP/Keck analysis. Our analysis demonstrates consistency between the two methods, finding an 84% correlation between the pipelines.

cosmic inflation↗
DOE OSTI2023

The Chocolate Chip Cookie Model: Dust-to-metal Ratio of H ii Regions

Using a sample of face-on star-forming galaxies selected from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, we statistically derive the typical optical depth $\tau$ cl of individual H II regions based on the "Chocolate Chip Cookie" model of Lu et al. (2022). By binning galaxies into stellar mass and gas-phase metallicity bins and interpreting $\tau$ cl as the dust-to-gas ratio (DGR) of H II regions, we further investigate the correlations between DGR and stellar mass and between DGR and gas-phase metallicity, respectively. We find that DGR increases monotonically with the stellar mass of galaxies. At a given stellar mass, DGR shows a linear correlation with the gas-phase metallicity, which implies a constant dust-to-metal ratio (DTM) of galaxies at a given stellar mass. These results adequately indicate that the DTM of galaxies is simply a function of their stellar masses. In terms of gas-phase metallicity, because of the mass–metallicity relation, DTM increases with increasing metallicity with a power-law index 1.45 in the low-metallicity region, while it remains constant at the high-metallicity end.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2021

Wash Vehicle Fleet Sizing for Contingency Planning Against Dust Storms: Preprint

Wash vehicles containing either high- or low-pressure water sprayers, a collection of rotating brushes, or a combination of these, are frequently utilized in concentrating solar power (CSP) plants to maintain a high level of optical efficiency in the solar field. In recent years, multiple modeling approaches have been developed to obtain fleet sizes and mirror-washing schedules that optimize the tradeoff of vehicle capital and use costs and labor versus lost revenues due to soiling. These planning models cover normal operating conditions well but do not consider rare events such as dust storms which can a significant reduction in receiver productivity, or shut down operations until most or all of the solar field’s mirrors have been cleaned. To that end, we propose a methodology that evaluates whether additional capital should be deployed to hedge against these events by weighing the net present value of the expected benefits against the capital costs. The output of this method is a breakeven frequency, a metric we sue to determine whether an additional vehicle should be purchased to address the contingency of dust storms by comparing it to the expected annual storm frequency We develop a small collection of case studies using commercial-scale CSP tower plants and obtain breakeven frequencies that mostly fall between 0.1 and 1.0 storms per year, depending on the existing fleet size and storm severity.

41 EE - Solar Energy Technologies Office (EE-4S)↗
DOE OSTI2020

Long-lasting strong electrostatic attraction and adhesion forces of dust particles on photovoltaic modules

Photovoltaic (PV) energy-yield loss due to solar module soiling has become increasingly important as solar module deployment is now at the hundreds of gigawatts scale and continues to grow rapidly. The electrostatic attraction and adhesion force (F es ) of dust particles by the high voltages from solar panels have been reported to be 1 to 2 orders of magnitude stronger than the van der Waals and water capillary forces, which has been corroborated by observing the increase in system voltage-induced soiling rate by setting up an outdoor test. Here, we report another characteristic of F es on soiling - long-lasting or slow decay after turning off the high voltage applied to solar panels. The F es decay time varies across a wide time range of 1 to 10 h, depending on two factors: 1) whether the cell, the particle, or both were charged with high voltage before the voltages were turned off; and 2) how the cell was connected to the ground after the voltage was turned off - either connected through the power-supply electronics, directly connected to the ground, or electrically floated. The Fes decay is understood in terms of 1) net electrical charge dissipations in both particle and cell, 2) thermal disordering of dipole polarization in the module glass dielectrics, and 3) charge redistribution by the electrostatic interaction of particle and module glass. This long-lasting F es for hours can affect the solar panel soiling after sunset, and it can have an even greater effect when combined with water condensation at night.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2023

The need for multicomponent dust attenuation in modeling nebular emission: Constraints from SDSS-IV MaNGA

A fundamental assumption adopted in nearly every extragalactic study that analyzes optical emission lines is that the attenuation of different emission lines can be described by a single attenuation curve, scaled by a single reddening parameter, usually E(B - V). Here we show this assumption fails in many cases with important implications for derived results. We developed a new method to measure the differential nebular attenuation among three kinds of transitions: the Balmer lines of hydrogen; high-ionization transitions (> 13.6 eV) including [Ne III], [O III], and [S III]; and low-ionization transitions (≲13.6 eV) including [O II], [N II], and [S II]. This method bins the observed data in a multidimensional space spanned by attenuation-insensitive line ratios. Within each small bin, the variations in nebular parameters such as the metallicity and ionization parameter are negligible compared to the variation in the nebular attenuation. This allowed us to measure the nebular attenuation using both forbidden lines and Balmer lines. We applied this method to a sample of 2.4 million star-forming (SF) spaxels from the Mapping Nearby Galaxies at Apache Point Observatory (MaNGA) survey. We found that the attenuation of high ionization lines and Balmer lines can be well described by a single Fitzpatrick (1999, PASP, 111, 63) extinction curve with R V = 3.1. However, no single attenuation curve can simultaneously account for these transitions and the derived attenuation of low-ionization lines. This strongly suggests that different lines have different effective attenuations, likely because spectroscopy at hundreds of parsecs to kiloparsecs of resolution mixes multiple physical regions that exhibit different intrinsic line ratios and different levels of attenuation. As a result, the assumption that different lines follow the same attenuation curve breaks down. Using a single attenuation curve determined by Balmer lines to correct attenuation-sensitive forbidden line ratios could bias the nebular parameters derived by 0.06–0.25 dex at A V = 1, depending on the details of the dust attenuation model. Observations of a statistically large sample of H II regions with high spatial resolutions and large spectral coverage are vital for improved modeling and deriving accurate corrections for this effect.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2020

Decay of Electrostatic Force of Dust Particles on Photovoltaic Modules

Photovoltaic (PV) energy yield loss due to solar module soiling has become increasingly important as solar module deployment is now at the hundreds of gigawatts scale and continues to grow rapidly. We have reported on direct measurements-using atomic force microscopy (AFM)-of strong electric-field-induced attraction and adhesion force (Fes) of dust particles onto solar panel that are 1 to 2 orders of magnitude stronger than the van der Waals and water capillary forces, corroborated by observing the increase in system voltage-induced soiling rate. Here, we report another characteristic of Fes on soiling-long lasting or slow decay after turning off the high voltage applied to solar panels. The Fes decay time varies in a wide time range of 1 to 10 hours, depending on two factors: 1) either/both the cell or/and particle were charged with high voltage before the voltages were turned off; and 2) how the cell was connected to the ground after the voltage was turned off-either connected through the power supply electronics, directly connected to the ground, or electrically floated. The Fes decay is understood in terms of 1) net electrical charge dissipations in both particle and cell, 2) thermal disordering of dipole polarization in the module glass dielectrics, and 3) charge redistribution by the electrostatic interaction of particle and module glass. This long-lasting Fes for hours can significantly affect the solar panel soiling after sunset, especially combined with water condensation.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2020

Warping wormholes with dust: a metric construction of the Python’s Lunch

We show how wormholes in three spacetime dimensions can be customizably warped using pressureless matter. In particular, we exhibit a large new class of solutions in (2 + 1)-dimensional general relativity with energy-momentum tensor describing a negative cosmological constant and positive-energy dust. From this class of solutions, we construct wormhole geometries and study their geometric and holographic properties, including Ryu- Takayanagi surfaces, entanglement wedge cross sections, mutual information, and outer entropy. Finally, we construct a Python’s Lunch geometry: a wormhole in asymptotically anti-de Sitter space with a local maximum in size near its middle.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗