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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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DOE OSTI2023

Momentum-Resolved Exciton Coupling and Valley Polarization Dynamics in Monolayer WS 2

Using time- and angle-resolved photoemission, we present momentum- and energy-resolved measurements of exciton coupling in monolayer WS 2 . In this work, we observe strong intravalley coupling between the $B_{1s}$ exciton and $A_{n>1}$ states. Our measurements here indicate that the dominant valley depolarization mechanism conserves the exciton binding energy and momentum. While this conservation is consistent with Coulomb exchange-driven valley depolarization, we do not observe a momentum or energy dependence to the depolarization rate as would be expected for the exchange-based mechanism.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗

NASA NTRS1991

Preliminary comparison of 3.5-cm and 12.6-cm wavelength continuous wave observations of Mars

Radar observations of Mars at Goldstone in 1990 were conducted by transmitting pure sinusoidal signals at 3.5-cm wavelengths and receiving the Doppler-spread echoes from Mars at Earth. Radar transmissions were circularly polarized and the echoes recorded in two senses: depolarized and polarized. Latitudes of the subradar points are between 3.5 deg and 11.1 deg S; longitude coverage is discontinuous. The observed depolarized and polarized echo total cross-sections and their ratios for two wavelengths were compared and discussed.

Moore, H. J.↗

NASA NTRS1980

Observation of dynamic correlations in collisional redistribution and depolarization of light

Theory shows that to explain the polarization of light collisionally redistributed from the far line wings of an atomic transition, one must consider correlated events in which absorption during a collision, and propagation to the final Zeeman-state superposition at the end of the collision is important. Polarizations of up to about 40% have been measured in the far line wings, substantially confirming this prediction, and showing that scattering experiments cannot just be characterized by simple absorption or emission profiles.

Thomann, P.↗

NASA NTRS1992

Preliminary analysis of observations of the Pinatubo volcanic plume with a polarization-sensitive lidar

A dual-polarization lidar aboard the NASA Electra aircraft was used in July 1991 to survey the stratospheric plume from the recent Mt. Pinatubo eruption. Both depolarizing and non-depolarizing volcanic layers were observed, ranging from 17 to 26 km in altitude. Differences in the depolarization signatures of the layers indicates differences in the composition or physical state of the particles in the layers.

Winker, D. M.↗

NASA NTRS1990

Arctic polar stratospheric cloud observations by airborne lidar

Lidar observations obtained from January 24 to February 2, 1989, during the Airborne Arctic Stratospheric expedition (AASE) mission further support the existence of two distinct classes (Types 1 and 2) of polar stratospheric clouds (PSCs). Most of the Type 1 PSCs observed were formed by rapid adiabatic cooling and exhibited very low depolarization ratios and low-to-intermediate scattering ratios. Type 2 PSCs were observed in regions of lowest temperature and showed much larger depolarization and scattering ratios, as would be expected from larger ice crystals. PSCs with low scattering ratios but moderate depolarization ratios were observed near the center of the vortex on one flight. These may have been either sparse Type 2 PSCs or Type 1 PSCs formed by less rapid cooling.

Mccormick, M. P.↗

DOE OSTI2021

Estimation of Possible Primary Biological Particle Emissions and Rupture Events at the Southern Great Plains ARM Site

We use 10 years of data from the Department of Energy (DoE) Atmospheric Radiation Measurements (ARM) United States Southern Great Plains (SGP) site with nearby regional pollen and fungal spore measurements to indirectly estimate the seasonal influence of these two primary biological aerosol particles (PBAP). We estimate possible primary emissions of larger PBAP and PBAP rupture events, which form submicron organic aerosol during precipitation or high relative humidity. High pollen counts at two urban stations near SGP occur during late winter/early spring (day of year (DOY) 50–120) and late summer (DOY 240–310). Around 4–19 days per year show possible pollen events (PPE) when near-surface lidar observations of daily linear particle depolarization ratio >0.1 are coincident with high organic aerosol fraction. For PPE days with rainfall, aerosol size distribution observations show enhanced submicron particle concentrations consistent with pollen rupture events. For fungal spores, high fungal spore counts occur during late spring/early summer (DOY 110–195) and late summer/autumn (DOY 220–340). Based on size distribution observations, up to 7% of days have possible fungal spore rupture events (PFE) with higher aerosol number count specifically over the range expected for fungal spore fragment mobility diameter (20–50 nm). These short-lived PFE correlate with rainfall or occur after prolonged exposure to rainfall (e.g., >10 h). While the SGP site lacks direct measurements of bioaerosol and large particle sizes, this analysis suggests that PBAP primary emissions and rupture events could occur about 32 days per year, representing an important component of the aerosol budget during seasonal emissions.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Airborne High Spectral Resolution Lidar-2 Measurements of Enhanced Depolarization in Marine Aerosols

Airborne NASA Langley Research Center (LaRC) High Spectral Resolution Lidar-2 (HSRL-2) measurements acquired during the recent NASA EVS-3 Aerosol Cloud Meteorology Interactions over the Western Atlantic Experiment (ACTIVATE) revealed enhanced particulate linear depolarization associated with aerosols within the marine boundary layer. These HSRL-2 observations were acquired off the east coast of the United States in February and March 2020 when this lidar was deployed on the NASA LaRC UC-12 aircraft. HSRL-2 measured profiles of aerosol backscattering, extinction,and depolarization at 355 and 532nm and aerosol backscattering and depolarization at 1064nm. Typically HSRL-2 measures low (<5%) linear particulate depolarization associated with marine sea salt aerosols. However, during several ACTIVATE flights, particularly those that occurred with outbreaks of cold, dry air, linear particulate depolarization exceeded 15-20% (532nm) for aerosols within a few hundred meters above the surface. These high values indicated that these particles were nonspherical. Elevated depolarization values were also observed at 355 and 1064 nm. HSRL-2 measured aerosol extinction/backscatter ratio (“lidar ratio”) values around 20-25 sr (355 and 532 nm) that are typically associated with sea salt particles. Coincident measurements of relative humidity from dropsondes released from the UC-12and in situ Diode Laser Hygrometer (DLH) measurements flown on the NASA HU-25 aircraft showed that highest depolarization values of these nonspherical particles were found when the relative humidity (RH)was below 50-60%.These lidar observations of elevated depolarization associated with sea salt aerosol are consistent with previous lidar measurements of sea salt aerosols in dry conditions. We discuss these HSRL-2 measurements also in the context of coincident airborne in situ measurements of particle size and composition acquired on the HU-25 aircraft. We also found that CALIOP satellite measurements observed elevated depolarization during some similar cold air outbreaks. In such cases, the operational CALIOP algorithms attributed the elevated depolarization to nonspherical dust particles rather than the more likely scenario of nonspherical sea salt particles associated with low RH.

aerosols↗

DOE OSTI2025

Polarization-shape alignment of IllustrisTNG star-forming galaxies

In star-forming disk galaxies, the radio continuum emission (1–10GHz) powered by star formation has an integrated polarization direction imperfectly aligned with the apparent disk minor axis. This polarization-shape alignment effect was previously observed in a small sample of local spirals. If this is prevalent for disk galaxies out to cosmological redshifts, novel measurements of cosmic birefringence and cosmic shear will be enabled by leveraging radio continuum surveys such as the Square Kilometre Array synergized with galaxy shape measurements. We calculate the polarization-shape misalignment angle for star-forming galaxies in the IllustrisTNG50 simulation at 0 < z < 2, assuming that additional polarized radio emission from an active galactic nucleus is negligible in at least a sizable fraction of the star-forming galaxies. The alignment found for z = 0 is consistent with local spiral data, but significantly deteriorates as redshift increases. Moreover, it degrades toward lower frequencies due to internal Faraday depolarization. Thanks to cosmic redshifting, observing higher-z galaxies at a fixed frequency greatly mitigates degradation due to reduced Faraday depolarization at the source-frame frequency. We present analytic fits to the non-Gaussian misalignment angle distribution, and evaluate Fisher information per galaxy for measuring a polarization rotation angle induced by cosmic birefringence. For observation at 4.8 GHz, the effective root-mean-square misalignment angle σα,eff is 18°, 23° and 33° at z = 0, 1 and 2, respectively. Analyzing N independent galaxies reduces the uncertainty on an isotropic cosmic birefringence signal to σ α,eff /√(N), providing competitive sensitivity once large samples are available. As accurate observation-driven models are not yet available for cosmological galaxy samples, our results motivate pilot observations to empirically characterize polarization-shape alignment, and can facilitate forecasts of cosmology and fundamental physics applications that exploit this effect.

axions↗

NASA NTRS2023

Single-Scattering Properties of Ellipsoidal Dust Aerosols Constrained By Measured Dust Shape Distributions

Most global aerosol models approximate dust as spherical particles, whereas most remote sensing retrieval algorithms approximate dust as spheroidal particles with a shape distribution that conflicts with measurements. These inconsistent and inaccurate shape assumptions generate biases in dust single-scattering properties. Here, we obtain dust single-scattering properties by approximating dust as triaxial ellipsoidal particles with observationally constrained shape distributions. We find that, relative to the ellipsoidal dust optics obtained here, the spherical dust optics used in most aerosol models underestimate dust single-scattering albedo, mass extinction efficiency, and asymmetry parameter for almost all dust sizes in both the shortwave and longwave spectra. We further find that the ellipsoidal dust optics are in substantially better agreement with observations of the scattering matrix and linear depolarization ratio than the spheroidal dust optics used in most retrieval algorithms. However, relative to observations, the ellipsoidal dust optics overestimate the lidar ratio by underestimating the backscattering intensity by a factor of ∼2. This occurs largely because the computational method used to simulate ellipsoidal dust optics (i.e., the improved geometric optics method) underestimates the backscattering intensity by a factor of ∼2 relative to other computational methods (e.g., the physical geometric optics method). We conclude that the ellipsoidal dust optics with observationally constrained shape distributions can help improve global aerosol models and possibly remote sensing retrieval algorithms that do not use the backscattering signal.

Dust↗

NASA NTRS1986

A polarisation correlation study of the excitation of the H2 d3Piu (v1 = 0, N1 = 1) level by electron impact

Full details are given of an experiment in which the three normalized Stokes' parameters characterizing the decay of the electron impact excited d3Piu (v1 = 0, N1 = 1) rotational level of H2 were determined in an electron-photon coincidence experiment at 25 eV impact energy and over the angular range of 20-60 deg. An analysis shows how these parameters are related to the state multipoles characterizing the excited state. The rather low degree of coherence which was observed is consistent with various depolarizing effects, namely the averaging over magnetic sublevels which occurred in both the excitation and decay channels and also the perturbations due to fine and hyperfine structure relaxations.

Mcconkey, J. W.↗

NASA NTRS2017

Active and Passive Radiative Transfer Modeling with Preferentially-Aligned Particles

The fluid dynamics of falling hydrometeors often results in preferential orientations that can affect both the intensity and polarization of electromagnetic radiation. In order to properly interpret remote sensing observations of ice and snow, such alignments should be considered when constructing databases of scattering particles; however, the inclusion of aligned particles increases the complexity of the scattering data. To demonstrate the use of scattering properties of preferentially-aligned particles, millimeter-wave brightness temperatures and radar observables, including reflectivity and linear depolarization ratio, are modeled using the Atmospheric Radiative Transfer Simulator (ARTS). The necessary scattering parameters for vector radiative transfer, particularly with respect to ARTS, are reviewed, and the exploitation of particle symmetries, as well as scattering reciprocity relationships, are detailed.

radiative transfer↗

NASA NTRS1977

The rings of Saturn - Two-frequency radar observations

Results are reported for a two-frequency dual-polarization radar-echo study of Saturn's rings which involved monostatic operation at a wavelength of 3.5 cm and bistatic operation at 12.6 cm. The radar observations show that the rings effectively depolarize linearly and circularly polarized incident waves at the two wavelengths; that the ring particles are unusually efficient radar reflectors, yielding approximately the same high total cross section at both wavelengths; and that there is an apparent excess of power at the 'central' Doppler shifts when compared with homogeneous scattering models based on the optically observed ring distributions. Several possible explanations for these three radar properties are considered. It is found that a model which hypothesizes a thick cloud of irregular water-ice chunks a few centimeters or larger in radius and a model which postulates a monolayer of multimeter-sized water-frost-coated metallic chunks both seem capable of explaining the first two radar properties. But no consistent explanation is found for the excess low-frequency spectral power.

Goldstein, R. M.↗

NASA NTRS1990

A radar-echo model for Mars

Researchers developed a radar-echo model for Mars based on 12.6 cm continuous wave radio transmissions backscattered from the planet. The model broadly matches the variations in depolarized and polarized total radar cross sections with longitude observed by Goldstone in 1986 along 7 degrees S. and yields echo spectra that are generally similiar to the observed spectra. Radar map units in the model include an extensive cratered uplands unit with weak depolarized echo cross sections, average thermal inertias, moderate normal refelectivities, and moderate rms slopes; the volcanic units of Tharsis, Elysium, and Amazonis regions with strong depolarized echo cross sections, low thermal inertia, low normal reflectivities, and large rms slopes; and the northern planes units with moderate to strong depolarized echo cross sections, moderate to very high thermal inertias, moderate to large normal reflectivities, and moderate rms slopes. The relevance of the model to the interpretation of radar echoes from Mars is discussed.

Thompson, T. W.↗

NASA NTRS1989

H I absorption measurements over the Galactic center Radio Arc region

The compact array of the VLA was used to study H I absorption in a 100-pc region in the center of the Galaxy. An absence of gas was observed at 40-50 km/s across the Radio Arc, suggesting that the '40 km/s molecular cloud' possibly associated with Sgr A is placed behind the Arc. At +20 km/s, the observations show absorption by material which could be depolarizing much of the synchrotron emission from the Arc filaments. The kinematic structure revealed by high-resolution molecular and radio recombination line observations is confirmed by the distribution of H I gas at -10 to -60 km/s.

Lasenby, J.↗

NASA NTRS1986

Lidar measurement of stratospheric aerosol at Syowa Station, Antarctica

Lidar measurement on Antarctic aerosols were made during the Antarctic Middle Atmosphere (AMA) period, 1983 to 1985, at Syowa Station. Topics measured are winter enhancement aerosol layer and volcanic effect of El Chichon on the Antarctic stratosphere aerosols. The large depolarization ratio (maximum value was about 0.8) seems to support sublimation growth of ice crystals. The lidar measurements showed a meaningful time lag between aerosol content increase and depolarization ratio increase. Considering the balloon observations made in early winter, it was speculated that an increase in large particle number concentration also contributed to the winter enhancement. The El Chichon cloud spread to the Antarctic region by the beginning of 1983. The temporal change of integrated backscatter coefficient shows a clear decay pattern, although strong winter enhancement superposes.

Iwasaka, Y.↗

NASA NTRS1994

Polar volatiles on Mercury and the Moon

The possibility that condensed volatiles might be stable in the permanently shadowed polar regions of the Moon and Mercury has been anticipated in a number of theoretical studies. In 1992, VLA-Goldstone and Arecibo observations revealed the presence of bright, depolarized radar features near the poles of Mercury that have been widely interpreted as evidence for the presence of polar ice deposits. Recently acquired high-resolution Arecibo radar images show that the anomalous radar features are concentrated in crater-sized regions whose locations can be made to coincide exactly with the locations of known impact craters in the Mariner-10 images. These new Arecibo images provide an unusual opportunity to learn more about the distribution and history of Mercury's polar ice deposits. We have constructed a thermal model that can predict surface and subsurface temperatures within impact craters on Mercury and the Moon. Included in the calculations are the effects of 1-dimensional subsurface heat conduction, direct sunlight, multiply reflected sunlight within the crater, and re-radiated infrared radiation within the crater. We also use realistic crater topographic profiles for larger flat-floored craters as well as smaller spherical bowl-shaped craters.

Paige, D. A.↗

NASA NTRS1992

Radar depolarization signatures of rain in cumulus clouds measured with a dual-frequency air-borne radar

Experimental data are presented on dual-wavelength scattering characteristics of subtropical rain observed during the convection and precipitation/electrification (CaPE) experiment. Linear depolarization ratios (LDRs) are calculated at both X-band and Ka-band channels. In stratiform rain, the cross-polarized return signal is generally below the noise level except within the melting layer where the maximum LDR at both frequencies is typically between -12 and -10 dB. In convective rain the range profiles of the LDR in X-band and those in Ka-band do not coincide. The X-band LDR values in convective rain typically remain smaller than -25 dB at high altitudes and take somewhat larger values of -25 to -15 dB at low altitudes. The Ka-band LDR values, in contrast, typically increase with radar range, sometimes reaching a level of -3 dB just before the cross-polarized signal falls below the noise level. Such high values of LDR in Ka-band are most likely attributable to multiple scattering effects.

Iguchi, Toshio↗

NASA NTRS2002

Correlations among the Optical Properties of Cirrus-Cloud Particles: Microphysical Interpretation

Cirrus measurements obtained with a ground-based polarization Raman lidar at 67.9 deg N in January 1997 reveal a strong positive correlation between the particle optical properties, specifically depolarization ratio delta(sub par) and extinction- to-backscatter (lidar) ratio S, for delta(sub par) less than approximately 40%, and an anti-correlation for delta(sub par) greater than approximately 40%. Over the length of the measurements the particle properties vary systematically. Initially, delta (sub par) approximately equals 60% and S approximately equals 10sr are observed. Then, with decreasing delta(sub par), S first increases to approximately 27sr (delta(sub par) approximately equals 40%) before decreasing to values around 10sr again (delta(sub par) approximately equals 20%). The analysis of lidar humidity and radiosonde temperature data shows that the measured optical properties stem from scattering by dry solid ice particles, while scattering by supercooled droplets, or by wetted or subliming ice particles can be excluded. For the microphysical interpretation of the lidar measurements, ray-tracing computations of particle scattering properties have been used. The comparison with the theoretical data suggests that the observed cirrus data can be interpreted in terms of size, shape, and, under the assumption that the lidar measurements of consecutive cloud segments can be mapped on the temporal development of a single cloud parcel moving along its trajectory, growth of the cirrus particles: Near the cloud top in the early stage of cirrus development, light scattering by nearly isometric particles that have the optical characteristics of hexagonal columns (short, column-like particles) is dominant. Over time the ice particles grow, and as the cloud base height extends to lower altitudes characterized by warmer temperatures they become morphologically diverse. For large S and depolarization values of approximately 40%, the scattering contributions of column- and plate-like particles are roughly the same. In the lower ranges of the cirrus clouds, light scattering is predominantly by plate-like ice particles. This interpretation assumes random orientation of the cirrus particles. Simulations with a simple model suggest, however, that the positive correlation between S and delta(sub par) which is observed for depolarization ratios less than 40% mainly at low cloud altitudes, can be alternatively explained by horizontal alignment of a fraction of the cirrus particle population.

Reichardt, J.↗