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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

Dipolar molecule emulator of lattice gauge theories (Final Report)

The quantum many-body problem is a great unsolved, cross-cutting challenge in physics that is of fundamental importance. Our understanding of phenomena related to dense quark matter, in particular, is challenged by this practical intractability of classical simulations. Because of the sheer cost and challenge of performing experiments that probe the length and energy scales relevant to such physics, there are practical motivations for finding theoretical methods to address the many-body problem. One promising approach is based on the use of a programmable and controllable analog quantum systems to emulate the physics of many-body problems of interest. While there are currently broad efforts to develop mid- to large-scale quantum computers, we are still likely many years away from such devices outperforming classical supercomputers for useful calculations. Even though digital quantum computers are still at a stage too premature for such tasks, approaches based on analog quantum simulators have advanced rapidly over the past two decades and can now treat many-body problems of interest on small- to medium-scale systems. Tackling the challenging many-body problems of relevance to high energy physics represents one of the great new opportunities and challenges for the field of analog quantum simulation. To address this challenge, this award brought together an interdisciplinary team of physicists with expertise in high energy theory (El-Khadra and Draper), computational and condensed matter physics (Clark), and experimental quantum and atomic, molecular, optical (AMO) science (DeMarco and Gadway), with the goal of developing realistic and optimized strategies for the analog quantum simulation of lattice gauge theories using cold atoms and molecules. This track 1 project included both theoretical and experimental goals, stated as follows. The theory goals were to "develop and verify a novel approach to quantum emulation of (1+1)d quantum link models, based on arrays of trapped quantum spins with long-range interactions." This final project report details the progress made under this award, as well as new research directions developed under this award.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

Transferability of data-driven, many-body models for CO 2 simulations in the vapor and liquid phases

Here, extending on the previous work by Riera et al. [J. Chem. Theory Comput. 16, 2246–2257 (2020)], we introduce a second generation family of data-driven many-body MB-nrg models for CO 2 and systematically assess how the strength and anisotropy of the CO 2 –CO 2 interactions affect the models’ ability to predict vapor, liquid, and vapor–liquid equilibrium properties. Building upon the many-body expansion formalism, we construct a series of MB-nrg models by fitting one-body and two-body reference energies calculated at the coupled cluster level of theory for large monomer and dimer training sets. Advancing from the first generation models, we employ the charge model 5 scheme to determine the atomic charges and systematically scale the two-body energies to obtain more accurate descriptions of vapor, liquid, and vapor–liquid equilibrium properties. Challenges in model construction arise due to the anisotropic nature and small magnitude of the interaction energies in CO 2 , calling for the necessity of highly accurate descriptions of the multidimensional energy landscape of liquid CO 2 . These findings emphasize the key role played by the training set quality in the development of transferable, data-driven models, which, accurately representing high-dimensional many-body effects, can enable predictive computer simulations of molecular fluids across the entire phase diagram.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

Hydrogen bond arrangements in (H 2 O) 20, 24, 28 clathrate hydrate cages: Optimization and many-body analysis

Here we provide a detailed study of hydrogen bonding arrangements, relative stability, residual entropy, and an analysis of the many-body effects in the (H 2 O) 20 (D-cage), (H 2 O) 24 (T-cage), and (H 2 O) 28 (H-cage) hollow cages making up structures I (sI) and II (sII) of clathrate hydrate lattices. Based on the enumeration of the possible hydrogen bonding networks for a fixed oxygen atom scaffold, the residual entropy (S 0 ) of these three gas phase cages was estimated at 0.754 82, 0.754 44, and 0.754 17 · Nk b , where N is the number of molecules and k b is Boltzmann’s constant. A previously identified descriptor of enhanced stability based on the relative arrangement and connectivity of nearest-neighbor fragments on the polyhedral water cluster [strong-weak-effective-bond model] also applies to the larger hollow cages. The three cages contain a maximum of 7, 9, and 11 such preferable arrangements of trans nearest dimer pairs with one “free” OH bond on the donor molecule (t1d dimers). The Many-Body Expansion (MBE) up to the 4-body suggests that the many-body terms vary nearly linearly with the cluster binding energy. Using a hierarchical approach of screening the relative stability of networks starting from optimizations with the TIP4P, TTM2.1-F, and MB-pol classical potentials, subsequently refining at more accurate levels of electronic structure theory (DFT and MP2), and finally correcting for zero-point energy, we were able to identify a group of four low-lying isomers of the (H 2 O) 24 T-cage, two of which are antisymmetric and the other two form a pair of antipode configurations.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

GFCCLib: Scalable and efficient coupled-cluster Green's function library for accurately tackling many-body electronic structure problems

Coupled-cluster Green’s function (GFCC) calculation has drawn much attention in the recent years for targeting the molecular and material electronic structure problems from a many-body perspective in a systematically improvable way. However, GFCC calculations on scientific computing clusters usually suffer from expensive higher di- mensional tensor contractions in the complex space, expensive inter-process communi- cation, and severe load imbalance, which limits it’s routine use for tackling electronic structure problems. Here we present a numerical library prototype that is specifically designed for large-scale GFCC calculations. The design of the library is focused on a systematically optimal computing strategy to improve its scalability and efficiency. The performance of the library is demonstrated by the relevant profiling analysis of running GFCC calculations on remote giant computing clusters. The capability of the library is highlighted by computing a wide near valence band of a fullerene C60 molecule for the first time at the GFCCSD level that shows excellent agreement with the experimental spectrum.

Peng, Bo↗

Problems of stellar dynamics

Many-body problem, continuum, and statistical methods applied to dynamics of star clusters, with bibliography

STAR CLUSTER↗

Predicting nonequilibrium Green’s function dynamics and photoemission spectra via nonlinear integral operator learning

Understanding the dynamics of nonequilibrium quantum many-body systems is an important research topic in a wide range of fields across condensed matter physics, quantum optics, and high-energy physics. However, numerical studies of large-scale nonequilibrium phenomena in realistic materials face serious challenges due to intrinsic high-dimensionality of quantum many-body problems and the absence of time-invariance. The nonequilibrium properties of many-body systems can be described by the dynamics of the correlator, or the Green's function of the system, whose time evolution is given by a high-dimensional system of integro-differential equations, known as the Kadanoff–Baym equations (KBEs). The time-convolution term in KBEs, which needs to be recalculated at each time step, makes it difficult to perform long-time numerical simulation. In this paper, we develop an operator-learning framework based on recurrent neural networks (RNNs) to address this challenge. We utilize RNNs to learn the nonlinear mapping between Green's functions and convolution integrals in KBEs. By using the learned operators as a surrogate model in the KBE solver, we obtain a general machine-learning scheme for predicting the dynamics of nonequilibrium Green's functions. Besides significant savings per each time step, the new methodology reduces the temporal computational complexity from $O(N_t^3)$ to $O(N_t)$ where N t is the number of steps taken in a simulation, thereby making it possible to study large many-body problems which are currently infeasible with conventional KBE solvers. Through various numerical examples, we demonstrate the effectiveness of the operator-learning based approach in providing accurate predictions of physical observables such as the reduced density matrix and time-resolved photoemission spectra. Moreover, our framework exhibits clear numerical convergence and can be easily parallelized, thereby facilitating many possible further developments and applications.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Quantum Ergodicity in the Many-Body Localization Problem

Here, we generalize Page’s result on the entanglement entropy of random pure states to the many-body eigenstates of realistic disordered many-body systems subject to long-range interactions. This extension leads to two principal conclusions: first, for increasing disorder the “shells” of constant energy supporting a system’s eigenstates fill only a fraction of its full Fock space and are subject to intrinsic correlations absent in synthetic high-dimensional random lattice systems. Second, in all regimes preceding the many-body localization transition individual eigenstates are thermally distributed over these shells. These results, corroborated by comparison to exact diagonalization for an SYK model, are at variance with the concept of “nonergodic extended states” in many-body systems discussed in the recent literature.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

Dominant partition method

By use of the L'Huillier, Redish, and Tandy (LRT) wave function formalism, a partially connected method, the dominant partition method (DPM) is developed for obtaining few body reductions of the many body problem in the LRT and Bencze, Redish, and Sloan (BRS) formalisms. The DPM maps the many body problem to a fewer body one by using the criterion that the truncated formalism must be such that consistency with the full Schroedinger equation is preserved. The DPM is based on a class of new forms for the irreducible cluster potential, which is introduced in the LRT formalism. Connectivity is maintained with respect to all partitions containing a given partition, which is referred to as the dominant partition. Degrees of freedom corresponding to the breakup of one or more of the clusters of the dominant partition are treated in a disconnected manner. This approach for simplifying the complicated BRS equations is appropriate for physical problems where a few body reaction mechanism prevails.

Dixon, R. M.↗

Physics

Polar substorm model on auroral effects, algebra of fermi-dirac operators applied to many-body problems, and dynamitron accelerator as thermal neutron source

MANY-BODY PROBLEM↗

Improved structure of calcium isotopes from ab initio calculations

The in-medium similarity renormalization group (IMSRG) is a powerful and flexible many-body method to compute the structure of nuclei starting from nuclear forces. Recent developments have extended the IMSRG from its standard truncation at the normal-ordered two-body level, the IMSRG(2), to a precision approximation including normal-ordered three-body operators, the IMSRG(3)-N 7 . This improvement provides a more precise solution to the many-body problem and makes it possible to quantify many-body uncertainties in IMSRG calculations. We explore the structure of 44,48,52 Ca using the IMSRG(3)-N 7 , focusing on understanding existing discrepancies of the IMSRG(2) to experimental results. We find a significantly better description of the first 2 + excitation energy of 48 Ca, improving the description of the shell closure at N=28. At the same time, we find that the IMSRG(3)-N 7 corrections to charge radii do not resolve the systematic underprediction of the puzzling large charge radius difference between 52 Ca and 48 Ca. We present estimates of many-body uncertainties of IMSRG(2) calculations applicable also to other systems based on the size extensivity of the method.

39 ≤ A ≤ 58↗

Excitons in periodic potentials

The energy band structure of excitons is studied in periodic potentials produced by the short-range interaction between the exciton and electrons of Wigner lattices. Treating the exciton as a pointlike dipole that interacts with the periodic potential, we can solve a simple one-body problem that provides valuable information on excitons in many-body problem settings. By employing group theory, we identify the excitonic energy bands that can couple to light and then quantify their energy shifts in response to a change in the period of the potential. This approach allows us to emulate the response of optically active exciton and trion states to a change in electron density. In agreement with experimental results, the exciton (trion) state shows a relatively strong (weak) energy shift when the electron density increases. This behavior stems from the difficulty of exciton states to remain extended, whereas the trion state remains largely the same as long as its radius is smaller than the average distance between resident electrons. Here, we identify an important relation between the energy blueshift of bright excitons and the presence of a Wigner crystal, where the blueshift magnitude is proportionate to the symmetry of the electron lattice.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗

Tunable-fidelity wave functions for the ab initio description of scattering and reactions

Here, the no-core shell model (NCSM) is an ab initio method that solves the nuclear many-body problem by expanding the many-particle wave function into a (typically) harmonic oscillator basis and minimizing the energy to obtain the expansion coefficients. Extensions of the NCSM, such as its coupling with microscopic-cluster basis states, further allow for an ab initio treatment of light-ion nuclear reactions of interest for both astrophysics and nuclear technology applications. A downside of the method is the exponential scaling of the basis size with increasing number of nucleons and excitation quanta, which limits its applicability to mass A ≲ 16 nuclei, except for variants where the basis is further down-selected via some truncation scheme. We consider a basis selection method for the NCSM that was first introduced in the context of the large-scale shell model and captures the essential degrees of freedom of the nuclear wave function leading to a favorable complexity scaling for calculations and enabling ab initio reaction calculations in sd-shell nuclei. The particle configurations within the NCSM basis are ordered based on their contribution to the first moment of the Hamiltonian matrix that results from the projection onto the many-body basis. The truncation scheme then consists in retaining only the lowest-first-moment configurations, which typically contain only few many-body basis states (Slater determinants). As the energy threshold above which configurations are disregarded is increased, the size of the basis becomes an almost-continuous variable, allowing for tunable fidelity in the obtained wave functions. The resulting wave functions can then be used directly in ab initio reaction calculations. We present calculations for 7 Li and n + 12 C scattering using nucleon-nucleon interactions derived from chiral effective field theory and softened using the similarity renormalization group method. The obtained energy levels invariably demonstrate exponential convergence with the size of the basis, and we find improved convergence in scattering calculations. To demonstrate the possibilities enabled by the approach, we also present a first calculation for the scattering of neutrons from 24 Mg. The method presented in this work appears promising for future studies of nuclei with mass A > 16, opening multiple future research directions impacting both nuclear astrophysics and nuclear technology applications.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗

The Gamow shell model with realistic interactions: a theoretical framework for ab initio nuclear structure at drip-lines

Abstract Ab initio approaches are among the most advanced models to solve the nuclear many-body problem. In particular, the no-core–shell model and many-body perturbation theory have been recently extended to the Gamow shell model framework, where the harmonic oscillator basis is replaced by a basis bearing bound, resonance and scattering states, i.e. the Berggren basis. As continuum coupling is included at basis level and as configuration mixing takes care of inter-nucleon correlations, halo and resonance nuclei can be properly described with the Gamow shell model. The development of the no-core Gamow shell model and the introduction of the Q ¯ ˆ -box method in the Gamow shell model, as well as their first ab initio applications, will be reviewed in this paper. Peculiarities compared to models using harmonic oscillator bases will be shortly described. The current power and limitations of ab initio Gamow shell model will also be discussed, as well as its potential for future applications.

Physics↗

Quantal diffusion approach for multinucleon transfer processes in the 58,64 Ni + 208 Pb reactions: Toward the production of unknown neutron-rich nuclei

In recent years, substantial efforts have been made for the study of multinucleon transfer reactions at energies around the Coulomb barrier both experimentally and theoretically, aiming at the production of unknown neutron-rich heavy nuclei. It is crucial to provide reliable theoretical predictions based on microscopic theories with sufficient predictive power. Purpose: This article aims to clarify the applicability of the quantal diffusion approach based on the stochastic mean-field (SMF) theory for multinucleon transfer processes. Isotope production cross sections are evaluated for the reactions of 64 Ni + 208 Pb at E c.m. = 268 MeV and 58 Ni + 208 Pb at E c.m. = 270 MeV and are compared with available experimental data. Methods: Three-dimensional time-dependent Hartree-Fock (TDHF) calculations are carried out for a range of initial orbital angular momenta with Skyrme SLy4d functional. Quantal diffusion equations, derived based on the SMF theory, for variances and covariance of neutron and proton numbers of reaction products are solved, with microscopic drift and diffusion coefficients obtained from time evolution of occupied single-particle orbitals in TDHF. Secondary de-excitation processes, both particle evaporation and fission, are simulated by a statistical compound-nucleus de-excitation model, gemini++. Dynamics of a fast isospin equilibration process followed by a slow drift toward the mass symmetry are commonly observed, as expected. Various reaction outcomes are evaluated, including average mass and charge numbers of reaction products, total kinetic energy loss (TKEL), scattering angle, contact time, and production cross sections for primary and secondary products. By comparing with the experimental data, we find that SMF and TDHF quantitatively reproduce experimental data for few-nucleon-transfer channels around the average values. In contrast, for many-nucleon-transfer channels, we find that the SMF approach provides much better description of the experimentally measured isotopic distributions. The results underline the importance of beyond-mean-field effects, especially one-body (mean-field) fluctuations and correlations, in describing multinucleon transfer processes. Moreover, through a combined analysis of SMF with a statistical model, gemini++, we find a significant contribution of transfer-induced fission, which is consistent with the experimental observation. In some cases, the SMF approach overestimates the isotopic width, requiring further improvements of the theoretical description. Possible ways to improve the description are discussed. The SMF approach is designed to describe the quantum many-body problem according to an ensemble of mean-field trajectories, taking into account part of many-body correlations in the description. As it requires feasible computational costs comparable to the ordinary TDHF approach, together with further model improvements, it will be a promising tool in the search for optimal reaction conditions to produce yet-unknown neutron-rich heavy nuclei through the multinucleon transfer reaction.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗

Form-factor dependence of neutrino-nucleus cross sections using microscopic methods

To achieve its design goals, the next generation of neutrino-oscillation accelerator experiments requires percent-level predictions of neutrino-nucleus cross sections supplemented by robust estimates of the theoretical uncertainties involved. The latter arise from both approximations in solving the nuclear many-body problem and in the determination of the single- and few-nucleon quantities taken as input by many-body methods. To gauge the sensitivity of realistic nuclear many body methods to these few-nucleon quantities, we compute flux-averaged double-differential cross sections using the Green’s function Monte Carlo and spectral function methods as well as different parameterizations of the nucleon axial form factors based on either deuterium bubble-chamber data or lattice quantum chromodynamics calculations. The cross-section results are compared with available experimental data from the MiniBooNE and T2K collaborations. We also discuss the uncertainties associated with N → Δ transition form factors that enter the two-body current operator. We quantify the relations between neutrino-nucleus cross section and nucleon form factor uncertainties. These relations enable us to determine the form factor precision targets required to achieve a given cross-section precision.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗