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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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At least 235 records · Page 13

Acceleration of Solvation Free Energy Calculation via Thermodynamic Integration Coupled with Gaussian Process Regression and Improved Gelman–Rubin Convergence Diagnostics

The determination of the solvation free energy of ions and molecules holds profound importance across a spectrum of applications spanning chemistry, biology, energy storage, and the environment. Molecular dynamics simulations are powerful tools for computing this critical parameter. Nevertheless, the accurate and efficient calculation of the solvation free energy becomes a formidable endeavor when dealing with complex systems characterized by potent Coulombic interactions and sluggish ion dynamics and, consequently, slow transition across various metastable states. Here, in the present study, we expose limitations stemming from the conventional calculation of the statistical inefficiency g in the thermodynamic integration method, a factor that can hinder the determination of convergence of the solvation free energy and its associated uncertainty. Instead, we propose a robust scheme based on Gelman–Rubin convergence diagnostics. We leverage this improved estimation of uncertainties to introduce an innovative accelerated thermodynamic integration method based on the Gaussian Process regression. This methodology is applied to the calculation of the solvation free energy of trivalent rare-earth elements immersed in ionic liquids, a scenario in which the aforementioned challenges render standard approaches ineffective. The proposed method proves to be effective in computing solvation free energy in situations where traditional thermodynamic integration methods fall short.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

Accelerating Instanton Theory with the Line Integral Nudged Elastic Band Method and Gaussian Process Regression

Quantum tunneling plays a fundamental role in many chemical reactions, particularly proton transfer processes. Ring polymer instanton theory offers a practical framework for computing tunneling rates in complex molecular systems. However, applying the ring polymer instanton method with a potential energy surface generated on-the-fly using electronic structure calculations can be computationally demanding. Here, in this work, we present a new efficient implementation of the ring polymer instanton method by combining the Line Integral Nudged Elastic Band (LI-NEB) approach with Gaussian Process Regression (GPR). We benchmarked this method on prototypical ground-state proton transfer systems, including the benchmark gas-phase hydrogen abstraction reaction H + CH 4 → H 2 + CH 3 , malonaldehyde, and Z-3-amino-propenal (aminopropenal). Our results show that this approach is an order of magnitude faster than traditional instanton algorithms while maintaining excellent agreement with their tunneling rates. This development opens the door to studying proton transfer in larger systems with improved efficiency.

chemical physics↗

Implementation of McMurchie–Davidson Algorithm for Gaussian AO Integrals Suited for SIMD Processors

We report an implementation of the McMurchie− Davidson evaluation scheme for 1- and 2-particle Gaussian AO integrals designed for processors with Single Instruction Multiple Data (SIMD) instruction sets. Like in our recent MD implementation for graphical processing units (GPUs) [Asadchev, A.; Valeev, E. F.. J. Chem. Phys. 2024, 160, 244109.], variable-sized batches of shellsets of integrals are evaluated at a time. By optimizing for the floating point instruction throughput rather than minimizing the number of operations, this approach achieves up to 50% of the theoretical hardware peak FP64 performance for many common SIMD-equipped platforms (AVX2, AVX512, NEON), which translates to speedups of up to 30 over the state-of-the-art one-shellset-at-a-time implementation of Obara−Saika-type schemes in Libint for a variety of primitive and contracted integrals. As with our previous work, we rely on the standard C++ programming language such as the std::simd standard library feature to be included in the 2026 ISO C++ standard without any explicit code generation to keep the code base small and portable. The implementation is part of the open source LibintX library freely available at https://github.com/ValeevGroup/libintx.

Basis sets↗

Computation of the Thermal Expansion Coefficient of Graphene with Gaussian Approximation Potentials

Direct experimental measurement of thermal expansion coefficient without substrate effects is a challenging task for two-dimensional (2D) materials, and its accurate estimation with large-scale ab initio molecular dynamics is computationally very expensive. Machine learning-based interatomic potentials trained with ab initio data have been successfully used in molecular dynamics simulations to decrease the computational cost without compromising the accuracy. In this work, we investigated using Gaussian approximation potentials to reproduce the density functional theory-level accuracy for graphene within both lattice dynamical and molecular dynamical methods, and to extend their applicability to larger length and time scales. Two such potentials are considered, GAP17 and GAP20. GAP17, which was trained with pristine graphene structures, is found to give closer results to density functional theory calculations at different scales. Further vibrational and structural analyses verify that the same conclusions can be deduced with density functional theory level in terms of the reasoning of the thermal expansion behavior, and the negative thermal expansion behavior is associated with long-range out-of-plane phonon vibrations. Thus, it is argued that the enabled larger system sizes by machine learning potentials may even enhance the accuracy compared to small-size-limited ab initio molecular dynamics.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

Evidence of Skewness and Sub-Gaussian Character in Temperature-Dependent Distributions of One Million Electronic Excitation Energies in PbS Quantum Dots

Obtaining statistical distributions by sampling a large number of conformations is vital for an accurate description of temperature-dependent properties of chemical systems. However, constructing distributions with 105??106 samples is computationally challenging because of the prohibitively high computational cost of performing rst-principles quantum-mechanical calculations. In this work, we present a new technique called the Eective Stochastic Potential Conguration Interaction Singles (ESP-CIS) method to obtain excitation energies. The ESP-CIS method uses random matrix theory for the construction of an eective stochastic representation of the Fock operator and combines it with linear-response theory. Here, we perform excitation calculations on PbS quantum dots (0.75-1.75 nm) at temperatures of 200-400 K. Results from a total of 15 million excitation energy calculations (1 million samples for each of the three dots at ve dierent temperatures) revealed the distributions to be sub-Gaussian in nature with negative skewness. The distributions progressively became red-shifted with increasing temperature. The study shows that random distortions in structure from the minimum-energy geometry of these quantum dots are more likely to lower the excitation energies.

Scher, Jeremy A.↗

Exponential vs Gaussian Correlation Functions in the Characterization of Block Copolymer Grain Structure by Depolarized Light Scattering

Block copolymer (BCP) grain structure affects the mechanical, optical, and electrical properties of BCP materials, making the accurate characterization of this grain structure an important goal. In this study, improved BCP grain parameters were obtained by employing an exponentially decaying correlation function within the ellipsoidal grain model, instead of the Gaussian correlation function that was used in previous work. The exponential correlation function provides a better fit to the experimental depolarized light scattering data, which outweighs the disadvantage that it requires numerical integration to obtain the model scattered intensity.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

On the Finite Nuclear Effect and Gaussian Basis Sets for Four-Component Dirac Hartree-Fock Calculations

In this perspective we describe an overview of Dirac Hartree-Fock theory, which is the foundation of relativistic quantum chemistry methods vital in the molecular modeling of heavy element chemistry and physics. A special emphasis was placed upon the physical connection between the finite nuclear model and the kinetic-balance condition between the large and small components. Additionally, we review the consequences of basis set choices for Dirac Hartree-Fock calculations in the restricted kinetic balance formalism, and show that the basis set limit does not have a hard lower bound due to the nature of the Hamiltonian, referred to in the literature as prolapse. Standard Gaussian basis set contraction schemes can break down in Dirac Hartree-Fock calculations, and special care must be taken for the description of core orbitals near the nucleus. The phenomena described in this perspective are vital for theoreticians and practitioners to understand when selecting a basis set for heavy element quantum chemical calculations using Dirac Hartree-Fock theory.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

Urban Flood Modeling: Uncertainty Quantification and Physics‐Informed Gaussian Processes Regression Forecasting

Abstract Estimating uncertainty in flood model predictions is important for many applications, including risk assessment and flood forecasting. We focus on uncertainty in physics‐based urban flooding models. We consider the effects of the model's complexity and uncertainty in key input parameters. The effect of rainfall intensity on the uncertainty in water depth predictions is also studied. As a test study, we choose the Interconnected Channel and Pond Routing (ICPR) model of a part of the city of Minneapolis. The uncertainty in the ICPR model's predictions of the floodwater depth is quantified in terms of the ensemble variance using the multilevel Monte Carlo (MC) simulation method. Our results show that uncertainties in the studied domain are highly localized. Model simplifications, such as disregarding the groundwater flow, lead to overly confident predictions, that is, predictions that are both less accurate and uncertain than those of the more complex model. We find that for the same number of uncertain parameters, increasing the model resolution reduces uncertainty in the model predictions (and increases the MC method's computational cost). We employ the multilevel MC method to reduce the cost of estimating uncertainty in a high‐resolution ICPR model. Finally, we use the ensemble estimates of the mean and covariance of the flood depth for real‐time flood depth forecasting using the physics‐informed Gaussian process regression method. We show that even with few measurements, the proposed framework results in a more accurate forecast than that provided by the mean prediction of the ICPR model.

Kohanpur, Amir H.↗

Imaging mechanism for hyperspectral scanning probe microscopy via Gaussian process modelling

We investigate the ability to reconstruct and derive spatial structure from sparsely sampled 3D piezoresponse force microcopy data, captured using the band-excitation (BE) technique, via Gaussian Process (GP) methods. Even for weakly informative priors, GP methods allow unambiguous determination of the characteristic length scales of the imaging process both in spatial and frequency domains. We further show that BE data set tends to be oversampled in the spatial domains, with ~30% of original data set sufficient for high-quality reconstruction, potentially enabling faster BE imaging. At the same time, reliable reconstruction along the frequency domain requires the resonance peak to be within the measured band. This behavior suggests the optimal strategy for the BE imaging on unknown samples. Finally, we discuss how GP can be used for automated experimentation in SPM, by combining GP regression with non-rectangular scans.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗

Gaussian process analysis of electron energy loss spectroscopy data: multivariate reconstruction and kernel control

Abstract Advances in hyperspectral imaging including electron energy loss spectroscopy bring forth the challenges of exploratory and physics-based analysis of multidimensional data sets. The multivariate linear unmixing methods generally explore similarities in the energy dimension, but ignore correlations in the spatial domain. At the same time, Gaussian process (GP) explicitly incorporate spatial correlations in the form of kernel functions but is computationally intensive. Here, we implement a GP method operating on the full spatial domain and reduced representations in the energy domain. In this multivariate GP, the information between the components is shared via a common spatial kernel structure, while allowing for variability in the relative noise magnitude or image morphology. We explore the role of kernel constraints on the quality of the reconstruction, and suggest an approach for estimating them from the experimental data. We further show that spatial information contained in higher-order components can be reconstructed and spatially localized.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Deep Gaussian process-based cost-aware batch Bayesian optimization for complex materials design campaigns

The accelerating pace and expanding scope of materials discovery demand optimization frameworks that efficiently navigate vast design spaces with complex response surfaces while judiciously allocating limited evaluation resources. We present a cost-aware, batch Bayesian optimization scheme powered by deep Gaussian process (DGP) surrogates and a heterotopic querying strategy. Our DGP surrogate, formed by stacking GP layers, models complex hierarchical relationships among high-dimensional compositional features and captures correlations across multiple target properties, propagating uncertainty through successive layers. We integrate evaluation cost into an upper-confidence-bound acquisition extension, which, together with heterotopic querying, proposes small batches of candidates in parallel, balancing exploration of under-characterized regions with exploitation of high-mean, low-variance predictions across correlated properties. Applied to refractory high-entropy alloys for high-temperature applications, our framework converges to optimal formulations in fewer iterations with cost-aware queries than conventional GP-based BO, highlighting the value of deep, uncertainty-aware, cost-sensitive strategies in materials campaigns.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Improving resolution and resolvability of single-particle cryoEM structures using Gaussian mixture models

Cryogenic electron microscopy is widely used in structural biology, but its resolution is often limited by the dynamics of the macromolecule. Here, we developed a refinement protocol based on Gaussian mixture models that integrates particle orientation and conformation estimation, and improves the alignment for flexible domains of protein structures. We demonstrated this protocol on multiple datasets, resulting in improved resolution and resolvability, locally and globally, by visual and quantitative measures.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗

Autonomous materials discovery driven by Gaussian process regression with inhomogeneous measurement noise and anisotropic kernels

Abstract A majority of experimental disciplines face the challenge of exploring large and high-dimensional parameter spaces in search of new scientific discoveries. Materials science is no exception; the wide variety of synthesis, processing, and environmental conditions that influence material properties gives rise to particularly vast parameter spaces. Recent advances have led to an increase in the efficiency of materials discovery by increasingly automating the exploration processes. Methods for autonomous experimentation have become more sophisticated recently, allowing for multi-dimensional parameter spaces to be explored efficiently and with minimal human intervention, thereby liberating the scientists to focus on interpretations and big-picture decisions. Gaussian process regression (GPR) techniques have emerged as the method of choice for steering many classes of experiments. We have recently demonstrated the positive impact of GPR-driven decision-making algorithms on autonomously-steered experiments at a synchrotron beamline. However, due to the complexity of the experiments, GPR often cannot be used in its most basic form, but rather has to be tuned to account for the special requirements of the experiments. Two requirements seem to be of particular importance, namely inhomogeneous measurement noise (input-dependent or non-i.i.d.) and anisotropic kernel functions, which are the two concepts that we tackle in this paper. Our synthetic and experimental tests demonstrate the importance of both concepts for experiments in materials science and the benefits that result from including them in the autonomous decision-making process.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Exact Gaussian processes for massive datasets via non-stationary sparsity-discovering kernels

Abstract A Gaussian Process (GP) is a prominent mathematical framework for stochastic function approximation in science and engineering applications. Its success is largely attributed to the GP’s analytical tractability, robustness, and natural inclusion of uncertainty quantification. Unfortunately, the use of exact GPs is prohibitively expensive for large datasets due to their unfavorable numerical complexity of $$O(N^3)$$ O ( N 3 ) in computation and $$O(N^2)$$ O ( N 2 ) in storage. All existing methods addressing this issue utilize some form of approximation—usually considering subsets of the full dataset or finding representative pseudo-points that render the covariance matrix well-structured and sparse. These approximate methods can lead to inaccuracies in function approximations and often limit the user’s flexibility in designing expressive kernels. Instead of inducing sparsity via data-point geometry and structure, we propose to take advantage of naturally-occurring sparsity by allowing the kernel to discover—instead of induce—sparse structure. The premise of this paper is that the data sets and physical processes modeled by GPs often exhibit natural or implicit sparsities, but commonly-used kernels do not allow us to exploit such sparsity. The core concept of exact, and at the same time sparse GPs relies on kernel definitions that provide enough flexibility to learn and encode not only non-zero but also zero covariances. This principle of ultra-flexible, compactly-supported, and non-stationary kernels, combined with HPC and constrained optimization, lets us scale exact GPs well beyond 5 million data points.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Graphical Gaussian Process Regression Model for Aqueous Solvation Free Energy Prediction of Organic Molecules in Redox Flow Battery

The solvation free energy of organic molecules is a critical parameter in determining emergent properties such as solubility, liquid-phase equilibrium constants, and pKa and redox potentials in an organic redox flow battery. In this work, we present a machine learning (ML) model that can learn and predict the aqueous solvation free energy of an organic molecule using Gaussian process regression method based on a new molecular graph kernel. To investigate the performance of the ML model on electrostatic interaction, the nonpolar interaction contribution of solvent and the conformational entropy of solute in solvation free energy, three data sets with implicit or explicit water solvent models, and contribution of conformational entropy of solute are tested. We demonstrate that our ML model can predict the solvation free energy of molecules at chemical accuracy with a mean absolute error of less than 1 kcal/mol for subsets of the QM9 dataset and the Freesolv database. To solve the general data scarcity problem for a graph-based ML model, we propose a dimension reduction algorithm based on the distance between molecular graphs, which can be used to examine the diversity of the molecular data set. It provides a promising way to build a minimum training set to improve prediction for certain test sets where the space of molecular structures is predetermined.

25 ENERGY STORAGE↗

Constraints on primordial non-Gaussianity from the cross-correlation of DESI luminous red galaxies and Planck CMB lensing

We use the angular cross-correlation between a luminous red galaxy (LRG) sample from the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) Legacy Survey data release DR9 and the Planck cosmic microwave background (CMB) lensing maps to constrain the local primordial non-Gaussianity parameter, f NL , using the scale-dependent galaxy bias effect. The galaxy sample covers approximately 40% of the sky, contains galaxies up to redshift z ∼ 1.4, and is calibrated with the LRG spectra that have been observed for DESI Year 1 (Y1). We apply a nonlinear imaging systematics treatment based on neural networks to remove observational effects that could potentially bias the f NL measurement. Our measurement is performed without blinding, but the full analysis pipeline is tested with simulations including systematics. Using the two-point angular cross-correlation between LRG and CMB lensing only, we find f NL = 39 −38 +40 at the 68% confidence level, and our result is robust in terms of systematics and cosmological assumptions. If we combine this information with the autocorrelation of LRG, applying a scale cut to limit the impact of systematics, we find f NL = 24 −21 +20 at the 68% confidence level. Our results motivate the use of CMB lensing cross-correlations to measure f NL with future datasets, given its stability in terms of observational systematics compared to the angular autocorrelation. Furthermore, performing accurate systematics mitigation is crucially important in order to achieve competitive constraints on f NL from CMB lensing cross-correlation in combination with the tracers’ autocorrelation.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Exploration of lattice Hamiltonians for functional and structural discovery via Gaussian process-based exploration–exploitation

Statistical physics models ranging from simple lattice to complex quantum Hamiltonians are one of the mainstays of modern physics that have allowed both decades of scientific discovery and provided a universal framework to understand a broad range of phenomena from alloying to frustrated and phase separated materials to quantum systems. Traditionally, exploration of the phase diagrams corresponding to multidimensional parameter spaces of Hamiltonians was performed using a combination of basic physical principles, analytical approximations, and extensive numerical modeling. However, exploration of complex multidimensional parameter spaces is subject to the classic dimensionality problem, and the behaviors of interest concentrated on low dimensional manifolds remain undiscovered. Here, we demonstrate that a combination of exploration and exploration–exploitation with Gaussian process modeling and Bayesian optimization allows effective exploration of the parameter space for lattice Hamiltonians and effectively maps the regions at which specific macroscopic functionalities or local structures are maximized. We argue that this approach is general and can be further extended well beyond the lattice Hamiltonians to effectively explore the parameter space of more complex off-lattice and dynamic models.

42 ENGINEERING↗