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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 289 records · Page 16
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2025

Positron Beam Loading and Acceleration in the Blowout Regime of a Plasma Wakefield Accelerator

Plasma wakefield acceleration in the nonlinear blowout regime has achieved marked milestones in electron beam acceleration, demonstrating high acceleration gradients and energy efficiency while preserving excellent beam quality. However, this regime is deemed unsuitable for achieving positron acceleration of comparable results, which is vital for future compact electron–positron colliders. In this article, we find that an intense positron beam loaded at the back of beam-driven blowout cavity can self-consistently induce the focusing field and flatten the longitudinal wakefield, leading to stable, high-efficiency, and high-quality positron acceleration. This is achieved through the formation of an on-axis electron filament induced by positron beam load, which shapes the plasma wakefield in a distinct way compared to electron beam load in the blowout regime. Via a nonlinear analytic model and numerical simulations, we explain the novel beam loading effects of the interaction between the on-axis filament and the blowout cavity. High-fidelity simulations show that a high-charge positron beam can be accelerated with >20% energy transfer efficiency, ~1% energy spread, and ~1 mm·mrad normalized emittance, while considerably depleting the energy of the drive beam. The concept can also be extended to simultaneous acceleration of electron and positron beams and high transformer ratio positron acceleration as well. This development offers a new route for the application of plasma wakefield acceleration into particle physics.

Science & Technology - Other Topics↗
DOE OSTI2025

Ultra-sensitive radon assay using an electrostatic chamber in a recirculating system

Rare event searches such as neutrinoless double beta decay and Weakly Interacting Massive Particle detection require ultra-low background detectors. Radon contamination is a significant challenge for these experiments, which employ highly sensitive radon assay techniques to identify and select low-emission materials. This work presents the development of ultra-sensitive electrostatic chamber (ESC) instruments designed to measure radon emanation in a recirculating gas loop, for future lower background experiments. Unlike traditional methods that separate emanation and detection steps, this system allows continuous radon transport and detection. This is made possible with a custom-built recirculation pump. A Python-based analysis framework, PyDAn, was developed to process and fit time-dependent radon decay data. Radon emanation rates are given for various materials measured with this instrument. A radon source of known activity provides an absolute calibration, enabling statistically-limited minimal detectable activities of 20 uBq. These devices are powerful tools for screening materials in the development of low-background particle physics experiments.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
DOE OSTI2026

Quantum simulation of massive Thirring and Gross--Neveu models for arbitrary number of flavors

The study of fermionic quantum field theories is an important problem for realizing the standard model of particle physics on a quantum computer. As a step towards this goal, we consider the massive Thirring and Gross--Neveu models with arbitrary number of fermion flavors, $N_f$, discretized on a spatial one-dimensional lattice of size $L$ in the Hamiltonian formulation. We compute the gate complexity using the higher-order product formula and using block-encoding/qubitization and quantum singular value transformations in the limit of large $N_f$ and $L$. We also prepare the ground states of both models with excellent fidelity for system sizes up to 20 qubits with $N_f = 1,2,3,4$ using the adaptive-variational quantum imaginary time algorithm. In addition, we also classify the dynamical Lie algebras of these relativistic fermionic models and show that they belong to the same isomorphism class. Our work is a concrete step towards the quantum simulation of real-time dynamics of large $N_f$ fermionic quantum field theories models relevant for chiral symmetry breaking, understanding dimensional transmutation, and exploring the conformal window of field theories on near-term and early fault-tolerant quantum computers.

FOS: Physical sciences↗
DOE OSTI2025

Teaching sterile neutrinos in an undergrad laboratory: a sterile-neutrino search using data from the MicroBooNE liquid-argon time projection chamber performed in an undergraduate teaching laboratory

Dataset associated with "A sterile-neutrino search using data from the MicroBooNE liquid-argon time projection chamber performed in an undergraduate teaching laboratory" an educational paper to teach data analisys within particle physics for 3-4 yr physics major undergrads. Data format are csv, h5 and pkl

Gramellini, Elena [Manchester U.] (ORCID:000000031↗
DOE OSTI2026

leblanc-lab/EnergyFlow.jl

A julia-based OT solver for high-energy particle physics, inspired by the EnergyFlow package.

LeBlanc, Matt [Brown Univ., Providence, RI (United↗
DOE OSTI2024

HGQ: High Granularity Quantization for Real-time Neural Networks on FPGAs

Neural networks with sub-microsecond inference latency are required by many critical applications. Targeting such applications deployed on FPGAs, we present High Granularity Quantization (HGQ), a quantization-aware training framework that optimizes parameter bit-widths through gradient descent. Unlike conventional methods, HGQ determines the optimal bit-width for each parameter independently, making it suitable for hardware platforms supporting heterogeneous arbitrary precision arithmetic. In our experiments, HGQ shows superior performance compared to existing network compression methods, achieving orders of magnitude reduction in resource consumption and latency while maintaining the accuracy on several benchmark tasks. These improvements enable the deployment of complex models previously infeasible due to resource or latency constraints. HGQ is open-source and is used for developing next-generation trigger systems at the CERN ATLAS and CMS experiments for particle physics, enabling the use of advanced machine learning models for real-time data selection with sub-microsecond latency.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
DOE OSTI2024

Study of neutron beta decay with the Nab experiment

The current three sigma tension in the unitarity test of the Cabbibo-Kobayashi-Maskawa (CKM) matrix is a notable problem with the Standard Model of elementary particle physics. A long-standing goal of the study of free neutron beta decay is to better determine the CKM element Vud through measurements of the neutron lifetime and a decay correlation parameter. The Nab collaboration intends to measure a, the neutrino-electron correlation, with accuracy sufficient for a competitive evaluation of Vud based on neutron decay data alone. This paper gives a status report and an outlook.

Baessler, Stefan↗
DOE OSTI2024

Studies of e+e- Pair Photo-Production on Proton Target at 8 GeV in the GlueX Experiment

Lepton pair production has played an important role in both nuclear and particle physics, being among the earliest calculations utilizing QED, and seen most famously in the discovery of the J= at BNL. A technique is presented for measuring the linear polarization of GeV scale photon beams through the detection of e+e? pairs photo-produced in the target. This technique is applied to the analysis of GlueX data on proton target. Simulation predicts the analyzing power for pair production to be :5725 ? 0:0025 for the GlueX data, and the analysis of experimental data gives a linear polarization of approximately 35%, in good agreement with other measurements of beam polarization. The pair production technique is complementary to other electromagnetic and hadronic measurements of beam polarization, and is generally applicable in experiments that allow for forward angle electron and positron identi?fication and tracking. To facilitate this study, a neural net was trained for e=? separation to eliminate the pion background. Further, it is demonstrated that these e+e? pairs are sensitive to the proton charge form factor, which opens up the possibility for a new method to measure the proton RMS charge radius.

Schick, Andrew↗
DOE OSTI2024

Design and optimization of higher order mode couplers for the superconducting cavities of the PERLE energy recovery linac

The Powerful Energy Recovery Linac for Experiments (PERLE) is an energy recovery linac (ERL) facility based on superconducting radio-frequency (SRF) technology to be hosted at the Laboratoire de Physique des 2 Infinis Irène Joliot-Curie (IJCLab) in France. With a target beam power of 10 MW, PERLE aims to demonstrate the high-current, continuous wave, multi-pass operation to validate options for future high-energy machines, such as the 50 GeV ERL proposed for the Large Hadron electron Collider (LHeC) and the Future Circular electron-hadron Collider (FCC-eh), and host dedicated particle physics and nuclear experiments. In high-current ERLs, the regenerative Beam Breakup (BBU), emerging from the beam and cavity Higher Order Modes (HOMs) interaction, is a major concern for their stable operation. Beam-induced HOMs can increase the cavity heat load at cryogenic temperature and cause beam instabilities. HOM couplers are installed in the cavity beam pipes to absorb HOM energy and mitigate these effects. This thesis presents the design and optimization of several coaxial HOM couplers for the 5-cell 801.58 MHz elliptical Nb cavities of the 500 MeV PERLE ERL configuration. The RF transmission of the HOM couplers was optimized to enhance the damping of the most dangerous HOMs. The optimized HOM couplers were integrated into endgroups to simulate their damping performance and thermal behavior. The optimized HOM couplers were 3D-printed in epoxy and copper-coated. Low-power RF measurements were conducted on the produced HOM couplers installed in copper PERLE-type cavities to validate their damping performance and propose several endgroups for the PERLE 5-cell cavity to mitigate HOMs below the BBU instability limits.

Barbagallo, Carmelo↗
DOE OSTI2025

Mu2e Tracker Electronics - Construction of a Straw Tracker

The Mu2e experiment, currently under construction at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (FNAL) in Batavia, Illinois, is a particle physics experiment designed to detect Charged Lepton Flavor Violation (CLFV) via muon-to-electron conversion, a process beyond the Standard Model (BSM). One of the primary Mu2e detectors is the Straw Tracker, whose purpose is to measure the momentum of the electron, identify the signal, and reject background. The straw tubes are being read out by a total of 20,736 preamplifiers (preamps) within 36 planes that make up the Tracker. In this presentation, the installation of electronics into the Tracker, the implementation of anti-oscillation copper clips, and the process of installing fully constructed planes into the frame will be discussed in depth.

Lynch, Alec [UC, Berkeley]↗
DOE OSTI2025

Accelerator-Based Neutrino Beams

Over the past six decades, accelerator-based neutrino beams have revolutionized particle physics. Neutrinos created with accelerators have been used to discover the muon neutrino and tau neutrinos was discovered and to confirm the existence of neutrino oscillations. More recently, long-baseline experiments have offered the first experimental hint of CP violation in the neutrino sector. Building and operating such beams is an enormous technical challenge, yet they remain our most versatile tool for studying neutrinos. With new experiments such as DUNE and Hyper-Kamiokande, and ideas such as neutrino factories, the next generation of beams will address open questions about neutrino mass ordering, CP violation, and possible physics beyond the standard model.

Fields, Laura [Notre Dame U.] (ORCID:0000000182813↗
DOE OSTI2025

Possible $ν$ Source Class: 3-sigma Detection of High-Energy Neutrinos from Supermassive Black Hole Binary Candidates

Identifying the sources of high-energy (TeV-PeV) astrophysical neutrinos is crucial for studies in both astrophysics and particle physics. Despite extensive searches for more than a decade, which revealed several individual potential sources and only one potential source class, the origins of these neutrinos remain largely unresolved; thus, more source classes should be investigated. In this work, we conduct the first search for high-energy neutrino emission from a new source class, supermassive black hole binaries (SMBHBs), which are also theoretically motivated. We perform an unbinned maximum-likelihood-ratio analysis on our constructed catalog of 693 SMBHB candidates and 10 years of IceCube public data. Our results show positive correlations, with higher significance in more physically motivated scenarios and the highest significance at 3.0$σ$. In addition, we also study potential connections between SMBHBs' high-energy neutrino and nano-Hz gravitational-wave emissions, the latter being the main target of pulsar timing arrays. Our results provide the first evidence of SMBHBs being high-energy neutrino emitters.

Pugazhendhi A. D, Pugazhendhi D [Bangalore, Indian↗
DOE OSTI2025

Mu2e Tracker Electronics - Construction of a Straw Tracker

The Mu2e experiment, located at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (FNAL), also known as Fermilab, in Batavia, Illinois, is an in-progress particle physics experiment aiming to detect Charged Lepton Flavor Violation (CLFV) via the $\mu^-Al\rightarrow e^-Al$ interaction, a Beyond the Standard Model (BSM) process. One of the sections of the Mu2e experiment is the Tracker, which aims to identify the signal and reject the background while the experiment is running. A total of 20,736 Calibration (CAL) and High-Voltage (HV) preamplifiers (preamps) are being installed within 36 planes that make up the Tracker. During this process, MHz oscillations were discovered on the CAL preamps, obscuring desired signal detection in the \~kHz range. To solve this issue, copper clips are installed onto the CALs to remove the MHz oscillations. The installation of electronics into the Tracker will be discussed in depth.

Lynch, Alec Michael [UC, Berkeley; Fermilab]↗
DOE OSTI2026

No Quantum Utility from Hadron Masses? No, Quantum Utility from Hadron Masses!

Is there a quantum utility in establishing the masses of hadrons? Here we show that the best response is that of Farrés, Capó, and Davis: perhaps, perhaps, perhaps. This is interesting given the general case that particle physics demands quantum computers. For stable hadrons, classical LQCD has achieved sub-percent precision with no sign problem, and quantum computers offer no advantage. For resonances, the Maiani-Testa theorem is an obstruction that quantum simulation is immune to. For nuclei, Wick contractions and signal-to-noise are genuine classical barriers. Underlying these cases is a unified picture connecting the sign problem to Wigner negativity and T gate cost. This manuscript was drafted from extensive interaction with \textsc{Claude}.

Lamm, Henry [Fermilab] (ORCID:0000000330330791)↗
DOE OSTI2025

A Solution to the Hierarchy Problem with Non-Linear Quantum Mechanics

We argue that the hierarchy problem of the standard model of particle physics can be solved by adding a state-dependent term to the Higgs sector. We present an example of a scalar field with a Higgs-like potential with an additional term proportional to the expectation value of the squared Higgs field operator. We show that the mass can be parametrically lighter than the theory's energy-momentum cutoff without fine tuning. We find the Higgs mass can be technically natural, even with a Planck-scale cutoff. The simplest version of the theory may not be distinguishable from the standard model at colliders, but other versions might. In addition, some aspects of cosmological evolution can be different in this model, in some cases radically.

Kaplan, David E. [Johns Hopkins U.; Tokyo U., IPMU↗
DOE OSTI2026

PIP-II Particle Accelerator Project

The PIP-II project is an essential upgrade of Fermilab’s particle accelerator complex. Groundbreaking occurred in March 2019. The upgrade will enable Fermilab’s accelerators to generate an unprecedented stream of neutrinos—subtle, subatomic particles that could hold the key to understanding the universe’s evolution—by creating the world’s most intense high-energy neutrino beams. This capability positions Fermilab to be the world leader in accelerator-based neutrino research. It enables the scientific program for the international, Fermilab-hosted Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) and Long-Baseline Neutrino Facility (LBNF). The key to PIP-II is power. When the PIP-II project is complete, Fermilab will be able to generate proton beams greater than 1 megawatt—60 percent higher than current capabilities. These powerful beams of protons will in turn create intense beams of neutrinos. Future PIP-II upgrades will triple the lab’s current beam power. PIP-II’s high-intensity proton beams will provide a flexible platform for the long-term future of the Fermilab accelerator complex and the U.S. accelerator-based particle physics program.

Fermilab, Fermilab↗
DOE OSTI2026

Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory

Particle physicists aim to discover what the universe is made of and how it works. They study the smallest building blocks of matter using some of the largest and most complex machines in the world. Fermilab hosts a range of cutting-edge experiments and develops and builds technologies that support particle physics research at locations around the world, including deep underground laboratories in South Dakota and Canada, the Large Hadron Collider in Europe, and the South Pole Telescope. Together with our international partners, we expand humankind’s understanding of matter, energy, space and time, capturing imaginations and inspiring future generations.

Fermilab, Fermilab↗
DOE OSTI2026

US Participation in the Higgs Discovery

On July 4, 2012, scientists at CERN announced the discovery of an essential part of the Standard Model of particle physics: the Higgs boson. The search for the Higgs at experiments at the Large Hadron Collider was an international effort involving thousands of people, with physicists and engineers from US institutions playing a significant role throughout.

Fermilab, Fermilab↗