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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 37 records · Page 2

Turbulence statistical analysis of the L-H transition and RMPs in KSTAR

Here, we investigate the turbulence statistics associated with low-to-high confinement (L-H) transitions and externally applied resonant magnetic perturbations (RMPs) in KSTAR. Time-series fluctuations of electron density n e , electron temperature T e , and the time derivative of the poloidal magnetic field dB θ /dt (Mirnov coils) are analysed using information-geometric measures (information rate Γ and information length $\mathcal{L}$ = ∫ Γ dt), together with kurtosis κ and variance σ 2 . In low-density upper single-null plasmas (n e ~ 1.2 x 10 19 m -3 ), a ~80 kHz magnetic mode coupling n e , T e , dB θ /dt and emerges prior to the L-H transition and persists into the edge-localised modes H-mode. Edge-localised RMPs (ERMPs) suppress this coherent mode but enhance intermittency, producing frequent bursts that abruptly reshape the time-dependent probability density functions (PDFs) and generate large spikes in Γ (with smaller changes in κ), signalling ERMP-driven departures from quasi-stationarity. The impact of ERMPs on background fluctuation levels depends on density, radial location, and the fluctuating variable itself ($\tilde{n}$, $\tilde{T}$, $\dot{B}$ θ ), whereas $\mathcal{L}$ provides a robust, regime-agnostic measure of cumulative statistical reorganisation and spatial decorrelation. In particular, at low density we observe weaker coupling between $\tilde{n}$ and $\tilde{T}$, along with a tendency toward decreased radial correlation-most clearly for $\tilde{T}$-under ERMPs. Overall, information geometry cleanly captures intermittent events, quantifies non-equilibrium PDF evolution, and offers a compact, cross-diagnostic metric for assessing resonant magnetic perturbation effects on edge transport and correlation across densities, radial locations, and confinement states.

Kim, Eun-jin [Coventry Univ. (United Kingdom); Seo↗

Statistical analysis of HAADF-STEM images to determine the surface coverage and distribution of immobilized molecular complexes

The surface immobilization of molecular catalysts is attractive because it combines the benefits of homogeneous and heterogeneous catalysis. However, determining the surface coverage and distribution of a molecular catalyst on a solid support is often challenging, inhibiting our ability to design improved catalytic systems. Here, in this work, we demonstrate that the combination of scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM) and image analysis of the individual positions of heavy atoms in transition metal complexes via a convolutional neural network (CNN) allows statistically robust determination of the surface coverage and distribution of immobilized molecular catalysts. These observations provide information about how changes in the functionalization conditions, attachment group, and structure of the molecular catalyst affect the surface coverage and distribution, providing insight into the chemical mechanism of surface immobilization. The method could be generally valuable for correlating the surface coverage and distribution to the activity, selectivity, and stability of a catalytic system.

HAADF-STEM↗

Near-Real-Time Statistical Analysis and Visualization of Streamflow from a Deep-Learning Rainfall-Runoff Model

Near-real-time (NRT) streamflow data are critical importance for timely water resources management. Here, we developed an open-source tool, FlowStats, for NRT streamflow analysis and visualization in Germany, based on NRT meteorological data from the German Weather Service and simulated streamflow from a long short-term memory neural network (LSTM). The LSTM model achieved very good overall performance, median NSE of 0.80 for the test period across 1,479 catchments. FlowStats provides options for deriving various streamflow statistics, from normal and abnormal streamflow detection to drought and flood analyses. An example analysis from FlowStats revealed widespread below-normal to extreme low-flow conditions across Germany from March to May 2025, which weakened from June to September 2025. Drought analysis for September 2025 highlighted severe to extreme drought conditions in northwestern Germany, while flood classifications indicated that high-flow events occurred in southwestern Germany. FlowStats can be used for various hydrological assessments to support water resources management.

Hydrological modeling↗

A statistical analysis of the COHERENT data and applications to new physics

The observation of coherent elastic neutrino nucleus scattering (CEvNS) by the COHERENT collaboration in 2017 has opened a new window to both test Standard Model predictions at relatively low energies and probe new physics scenarios. Our investigations show, however, that a careful treatment of the statistical methods used to analyze the data is essential to derive correct constraints and bounds on new physics parameters. In this manuscript we perform a detailed analysis of the publicly available COHERENT CsI data making use of all available background data. We point out that Wilks’ theorem is not fulfilled in general and a calculation of the confidence regions via Monte Carlo simulations following a Feldman-Cousins procedure is necessary. As an example for the necessity of this approach to test new physics scenarios we quantify the allowed ranges for several scenarios with neutrino non-standard interactions. Furthermore, we provide accompanying code to enable an easy implementation of other new physics scenarios as well as data files of our results.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

Statistical analysis of spatial distribution of pores in metal additive manufacturing

We report mechanical properties of additively manufactured parts are sensitive to the presence of pores form during the manufacturing process. The impact of pores on the mechanical performance has been investigated extensively with respect to different parameters, such as pore volume fraction, shape, and size. However, statistical investigations focusing on the relationships between the spatial distribution of pores and process parameters; and consequently, the performance of the manufactured parts are scattered and limited. Also, these sparse investigations usually suffer from an ambiguous definition of terminologies. For instance, the required criteria to consider a point pattern as complete spatial randomness (CSR) are generally not clarified. Moreover, no numerical formalism is yet developed to show how much the observed spatial results are statistically significant. To address these shortcomings, the statistical definition of CSR in a point pattern and the procedure to quantitatively determine the deviation of a pattern from CSR were discussed. The explained statistical approach was used to investigate the effect of scanning speed parameter on the spatial distribution of gas pores in laser powder bed fusion manufactured stainless steel parts. Furthermore, and to highlight the impact of the spatial distribution of pores on mechanical properties, fatigue performances of parts with clustered and randomly distributed pores were simulated by finite element analysis. It is shown that by reducing the scanning speed, the spatial distribution of gas pores deviated more from CSR, and correspondingly fatigue performance deteriorated.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Statistical analysis of displacement damage in small devices from neutron and ion irradiation

Modern semiconductor devices, such as gate-all-around nanosheet field-effect transistors (GAA NS FETs), are smaller than displacement damage cascades from fission neutrons. In this regime, device failure may occur through low-probability single events, rather than by parametric degradation previously seen in larger devices. Here, we present a statistical model that predicts the probability of a damage event in a small device and the probability distribution of the magnitude, i.e., number of displacements within the device, from each event. The model is developed first for neutron irradiation and then for energetic ion irradiation. The model is consistent with results from recent experiments in which lithium-ion irradiation produced stepwise increases in subthreshold current in GAA NS FETs.

Wampler, W. R.↗

Statistical Analysis of Fermilab’s Safety Data

In the past ten months, since the Safety and Security pauses of May 31$^{st}$ and June 29$^{th}$ of 2023, there has been an increase in the number of Total Recordable Counts to the point that there are already more incidents in ten months that at any given year in the past decade. The purpose of this study is to try to determine if this increase could be explained as a statistical fluctuation. We will show that it is very unlikely (essentially 4$\sigma$ unlikely) that the increase is a fluctuation, and therefore there must be a cause. The Safety and Security pauses of the past May and June, and many events thereafter, have been impactful events at Fermilab, so we should feel an obligation to assess their benefit, or detriment, to the safety of our people.

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS↗

Statistical analysis on random quantum circuit sampling by Sycamore and Zuchongzhi quantum processors

Random quantum circuit sampling, a task to sample bit strings from a random quantum circuit, is considered a suitable benchmark task to demonstrate the outperformance of quantum computers even with noisy qubits. Recently, random quantum circuit sampling was performed on the Sycamore quantum processor with 53 qubits [Nature (London) 574, 505 (2019)] and on the Zuchongzhi quantum processor with 56 qubits [Phys. Rev. Lett. 127, 180501 (2021)]. Here, we analyze and compare the statistical properties of the outputs of the random quantum circuit sampling by the Sycamore and Zuchongzhi processors. Using the Marchenko-Pastur law of random matrices of bit strings and the Wasssertein distances between bit strings, we find that the statistical properties of Sycamore bit strings are quite different from those of Zuchongzhi bit strings, while both processors score similar values of linear cross-entropy fidelity for random circuit sampling. Some bit strings sampled by the Zuchongzhi processor pass the NIST random number tests while both Sycamore and Zuchongzhi processors show similar patterns in the heat maps of bit strings. Zuchongzhi bit strings are much closer to classical uniform random bits than those of Sycamore. It is shown that the statistical properties of bit strings of both random quantum circuits change little as the depth of the random quantum circuits increases. Our findings raise a question about the computational reliability of noisy quantum processors because two quantum processors with similar noise levels and similar qubit structures produced statistically different outputs for the same random quantum circuit sampling.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

Characterization and differentiation of aluminum powders used in improvised explosive devices. Part 2: Micromorphometric method refinement and preliminary statistical analysis

Abstract Aluminum (Al) powder is commonly encountered in improvised explosive devices (IEDs) as a metallic fuel due to its availability and low cost. Although available commercially in powder form, amateur bomb‐makers also produce their own Al powder via simple methods found online. In order to provide investigative leads and forensic intelligence, it is important to evaluate not only the composition of homemade devices, but also to distinguish between the various forms of Al powder they contain. To achieve this goal, a method using automated microscopy in combination with statistical techniques has been demonstrated to have the potential to provide source discrimination and investigative leads in source attribution of Al powders in IEDs. The present research refined this method and investigated 59 industrially and amateurly produced Al powder sources with seven subsamples per source using two traditional linear discriminant analyses (LDA), one with a standard data split for training and testing, and another using leave‐one‐out cross‐validation. Averaging the classification accuracies for the two LDA‐based analyses, LDA has the ability to correctly classify 59.26%, 83.35%, and 80.69% of the samples based on their powder source, type, and production method, respectively. This classification accuracy represents a 3407%, 317%, and 61.38% increase in accuracy from random class assignment, respectively. Further, in most instances of incorrect data attribution to a particular source, the subsample has been misidentified with another sample of the same powder type or production method.

Ommen, Danica M.↗

Magnetic imaging and statistical analysis of the metamagnetic phase transition of FeRh with electron spins in diamond

Magnetic imaging based on nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers in diamond has emerged as a powerful tool for probing magnetic phenomena in fields ranging from biology to physics. A key strength of NV sensing is its local-probe nature, enabling high-resolution spatial images of magnetic stray fields emanating from a sample. However, this local character can also form a drawback for analyzing the global properties of a system, such as a phase transition temperature. Here, we address this challenge by using statistical analyses of magnetic-field maps to characterize the first-order temperature-driven metamagnetic phase transition from the antiferromagnetic to the ferromagnetic state in FeRh. After imaging the phase transition and identifying the regimes of nucleation, growth, and coalescence of ferromagnetic domains, we statistically characterize the spatial magnetic-field maps to extract the transition temperature and thermal hysteresis width. By analyzing the spatial correlations of the maps in relation to the magnetocrystalline anisotropy and external magnetic field, we detect a reorientation of domain walls across the phase transition. The employed statistical approach can be extended to the study of other magnetic phenomena with NV magnetometry or other sensing techniques.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

Design and Construction of a High-Resolution Hodoscope for the GlueX Experiment with High-Statistics Analysis of the p0, ¿, and ¿1 Photoproduction Cross Sections from the RadPhi Experiment

Differential cross sections for forward-angle photoproduction of p0, ¿, and ¿ 1 pseudoscalar mesons were measured using data from the RadPhi experiment conducted in Hall B at Jef ferson Lab. RadPhi utilized a tagged bremsstrahlung photon beam incident on a stationary 9Be target, with a detector system configured to trigger on a recoil proton in coincidence with multiple neutral showers in the calorimeter. Events were reconstructed and subjected to kinematic constraints, with background suppressed via sideband subtraction guided by Monte Carlo modeling of background contributions. Cross sections were extracted over the photon energy range 4.4– 5.4 GeV and binned in invariant momentum transfer t, providing measurements from one of the first high-statistics experiments of forward ¿ and ¿1 pro duction from a nuclear target at these energies. Acceptance corrections were applied using a detailed GEANT-based simulation of the detector geometry and response. The resulting cross sections are consistent with 2020 CLAS results, when scaled by the number of protons in beryllium, and show broad agreement with other data and theoretical models. In parallel, a high-resolution photon tagger detector, the Tagger Microscope (TAGM), was designed, constructed, and commissioned for the GlueX experiment in Hall D at Jefferson Lab. The TAGM was developed to provide high-rate tagging capability in the coherent bremsstrahlung peak by detecting post-bremsstrahlung electrons across a one GeV range along the focal plane of the tagging spectrometer. The detector consists of a 5ˆ102 array of 2ˆ2 mm2 square BCF-20 plastic scintillating fibers thermally fused to BCF-98 light guide fibers optically coupled to silicon photomultipliers. These fibers are mounted in a precision machined framework enabling fine positional adjustments to maintain precise alignment with post-bremsstrahlung electron trajectories, while ensuring mechanical rigidity, thermal stability, optical isolation, minimal inactive area, and radiation shielding for electronics. The construction effort involved extensive testing of fiber quality, light transmission, thermal fusing, radiation hardness, and defect analysis using SEM and EDX techniques. Following its installation and commissioning, the TAGM became a critical component of the GlueX beamline, enabling high-rate tagging essential for studies of hybrid mesons and gluonic ex citations.

McIntyre, James [Univ. of Connecticut, Storrs, CT ↗

Single Gaussian process method for arbitrary tokamak regimes with a statistical analysis

Abstract Gaussian process regression is a Bayesian method for inferring profiles based on input data. The technique is increasing in popularity in the fusion community due to its many advantages over traditional fitting techniques including intrinsic uncertainty quantification and robustness to over-fitting. This work investigates the use of a new method, the change-point method, for handling the varying length scales found in different tokamak regimes. The use of the Student’s t-distribution for the Bayesian likelihood probability is also investigated and shown to be advantageous in providing good fits in profiles with many outliers. To compare different methods, synthetic data generated from analytic profiles is used to create a database enabling a quantitative statistical comparison of which methods perform the best. Using a full Bayesian approach with the change-point method, Matérn kernel for the prior probability, and Student’s t-distribution for the likelihood is shown to give the best results.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

Nanotomographic observation and statistical analysis of overcharging induced cracks in LiCoO 2 single crystalline particles

Particle fracture represents an important mode of battery electrode degradation. Extensive cracking occurs in the layered oxide cathodes of lithium-ion rechargeable batteries when they are charged beyond safe operational voltages. In this paper, we analyze the morphology and distribution of cracks in over 100 overcharged LiCoO 2 (LCO) single-crystalline particles imaged via X-ray nanotomography. Herein, we observe a strong particle size dependence in both nucleation and growth of cracks, with percentage of cracked particles, crack size, and crack surface area per unit volume all increasing significantly with particle volume. Increasing the cutoff voltage above 4.6V is found to trigger much more pronounced crack growth, which we attribute to the large misfit stress caused by the H1-3 to O1 phase transition. This study offers valuable statistical insights into the fracture behavior of layered oxide cathodes and reveals the importance of particle size control on electromechanical degradation of battery electrodes.

25 ENERGY STORAGE↗

Remote sensing and statistical analysis of the effects of hurricane María on the forests of Puerto Rico

Widely recognized as one of the worst natural disaster in Puerto Rico's history, hurricane María made landfall on September 20, 2017 in southeast Puerto Rico as a high-end category 4 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson scale causing widespread destruction, fatalities and forest disturbance. This study focused on hurricane María's effect on Puerto Rico's forests as well as the effect of landform and forest characteristics on observed disturbance patterns. In this work, we used Google Earth Engine (GEE) to assess the severity of forest disturbance using a disturbance metric based on Landsat 8 satellite data composites with pre and post-hurricane María. Forest structure, tree phenology characteristics, and landforms were obtained from satellite data products, including digital elevation model and global forest canopy height. Our analyses showed that forest structure, and characteristics such as forest age and forest type affected patterns of forest disturbance. Among forest types, highest disturbance values were found in sierra palm, transitional, and tall cloud forests; seasonal evergreen forests with coconut palm; and mangrove forests. For landforms, greatest disturbance metrics was found at high elevations, steeper slopes, and windward surfaces. As expected, high levels of disturbance were also found close to the hurricane track, with disturbance less severe as hurricane María moved inland. Results demonstrated that forest and landform characteristics accounted for 34% of the variation in spatial forest spectral disturbance patterns. This study demonstrated an informative regional approach, combining remote sensing with statistical analyses to investigate factors that result in variability in hurricane effects on forest ecosystems.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Statistical analysis and degradation pathway modeling of photovoltaic minimodules with varied packaging strategies

Degradation pathway models constructed using network structural equation modeling (netSEM) are used to study degradation modes and pathways active in photovoltaic (PV) system variants in exposure conditions of high humidity and temperature. This data-driven modeling technique enables the exploration of simultaneous pairwise and multiple regression relationships between variables in which several degradation modes are active in specific variants and exposure conditions. Durable and degrading variants are identified from the netSEM degradation mechanisms and pathways, along with potential ways to mitigate these pathways. A combination of domain knowledge and netSEM modeling shows that corrosion is the primary cause of the power loss in these glass/backsheet PV minimodules. We show successful implementation of netSEM to elucidate the relationships between variables in PV systems and predict a specific service lifetime. The results from pairwise relationships and multiple regression show consistency. This work presents a greater opportunity to be expanded to other materials systems.

electrical measurements↗

How Useful are Conventional I–Vs for Performance Calibration of Single- and Two-Junction Perovskite Solar Cells? A Statistical Analysis of Performance Data on ≈200 Cells from 30 Global Sources

As perovskite photovoltaics (PV) advance from the laboratory to commercial prototypes, their accurate and reliable performance testing is becoming increasingly important. The well-documented dynamic response of perovskite solar cells to an external applied voltage has led to the development of steady-state performance measurement methods; however, these methods have not been widely adopted by the perovskite PV community. A key reason for this is that steady-state measurement methods take tens of minutes to complete, as opposed to conventional "fast" current-voltage (I-V) measurements usually lasting a few seconds. Fast I-Vs arise from a snapshot, almost always not a steady-state condition of the device; however, given their widespread use, the question arises: how do performance parameters of perovskite PV compare when measured with fast I-V and with a steady-state method? Results compiled from approximately 200 perovskite PV cells, including single junction, and two-terminal perovskite-perovskite and perovskite-Si tandems, show that fast I-Vs can provide a useful measure of the open-circuit voltage of the devices, while the short-circuit current and the overall efficiency can be widely misestimated. Here, the implications of these findings on performance testing protocols are discussed and possible options for fast and accurate testing of perovskite PV are proposed.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗