Search NASA⌕ Search

SEARCH · Search NASA

Results for “nuclear physics properties”

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.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 361 records · Page 20
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2023

Characterization of Aluminum Metal Powders for Plutonium-238 Program

As part of radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG) production for power sources in deep space exploration, Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) produces plutonium-238 ( 238 Pu). To produce 238 Pu, neptunium-237 ( 237 Np) targets are fabricated at ORNL and subsequently irradiated at the High Flux Isotope Reactor (HFIR) at ORNL and the Advanced Test Reactor (ATR) at Idaho National Laboratory (INL). Specifically, current flowsheets utilize neptunium dioxide ( 237 NpO 2 ) targets. Aluminum (Al) powder is blended with 237 NpO 2 target material to improve thermal conductivity during irradiation. The current composition of 237 NpO 2 /Al pellets (i.e., cermets, or ceramic–metallics) is 20% 237 NpO 2 , 70% Al, and 10% void space. Al powders utilized by the 238 Pu program are high-fired under vacuum before blending into targets. The primary objective of this work is to measure the physical, chemical, and thermal properties of Al before and after the high-firing process. Properties of interest include the morphology, surface texture, particle size, crystal phase(s), and thermal conductivity of the material. These properties are measured with existing materials characterization equipment at ORNL, including powder x-ray diffraction (pXRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) with energy-dispersive spectroscopy (EDS), laser flash analysis (LFA), and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). A secondary objective of this work is to compare the Al powders before and after the high-firing procedure to determine the effects of high-firing on chemical, physical, and thermal properties and to determine the efficacy of the high-firing process.

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗
DOE OSTI2025

Nuclear Astrophysics through simulations of neutron star mergers using Monte‐Carlo neutrino radiation transport (DE-SC0020435 Final Technical Report)

Neutron star mergers are an important source of information for nuclear physics. Except for black holes, neutron stars are the densest macroscopic objects known to exist in the Universe. They provide us with a remarkable laboratory to study the poorly understood high-density states of matter, complementing the study of heavy nuclei performed by nuclear physics experiments on Earth. Collisions of neutron stars are of particular interest. They are among the most energetic events observable in the Universe, powering a broad range of signals across the electromagnetic spectrum as well as gravitational wave signals. These signals contain important information about the properties of extremely dense matter. Colliding neutron stars additionally eject large amounts of neutron-rich material into the surrounding interstellar medium -- material that then undergoes rapid neutron-capture (r-process) nucleosynthesis, the mechanism thought to be responsible for the production of about half of the heavy nuclei. In order to understand current and future observations of neutron star mergers, we need reliable models for the signals that they power. An important component in the construction of such models are numerical simulations of colliding neutron stars. These simulations are costly, running for multiple months on supercomputers, and require the inclusion of complex physics (general relativity, magnetohydrodynamics, neutrino physics, nuclear reactions). In this document, we describe the development of new methods for the treatment of neutrinos in merger simulations, as well as the first simulations capable of evolving the equations of neutrino radiation transport directly and their impact on our understanding of neutron star mergers and more broadly in nuclear astrophysics. We also discuss additional work performed in the study of nucleosynthesis and neutrino physics in neutron star mergers as part of Early Career Award DE-SC0020435.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2022

An overview of how parity-violating electron scattering experiments are performed at CEBAF

Parity-violating electron-scattering experiments represent an important focus of the nuclear physics experimental program at the Continuous Electron Beam Accelerator Facility (CEBAF) at Jefferson Lab. These experiments pose significant challenges because the scattering asymmetries can be very small, of the order parts-per-million and smaller. To succeed, the properties of the electron beam such as current, position, size and energy, must be very nearly identical in the two electron-polarization spin states (parallel and anti-parallel relative to the direction of beam motion at the scattering target). This paper describes the origins of unwanted helicity-correlated beam asymmetries present on the electron beam and methods to minimize them to acceptable levels.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
DOE OSTI2024

Benchmarking MELCOR's NAC Package to ABCOVE Tests AB5 and AB6

This report presents analyses of the AB5 and AB6 ABCOVE sodium spray fire experiments with the MELCOR code. This code simulates the progression of accident events for analysis and auditing purposes of nuclear facilities during accident conditions. Historically, the ABCOVE experiments have contributed to the validation of aerosol physics and related phenomena. Given advancements in sodium-cooled reactor designs, characterization of the sodium spray combustion may further the review and validation of newly incorporated sodium properties and physics packages, namely, the sodium equations of state (EOS) and the sodium combustion (NAC) package within MELCOR. By analyzing the AB5 and AB6 experiments with and without the NAC package, sodium specificity for spray combustion and aerosol formation as well as speciation of the combustion products are reviewed with the new packages. This effort provides code users with a demonstration of the current code capabilities. This report provides the current best practices for the NAC package as well as a discussion of any issues observed while performing the presented analyses.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗
DOE OSTI2023

Synthesis and thermophysical property determination of NaCl-PuCl3 salts

Currently, a knowledge gap exists in the available data and understanding of thermophysical properties relating to fresh fuel salts, especially those containing plutonium. These data are necessary for designing, constructing, and licensing future commercial molten-salt reactors. Thermophysical properties, such as melting temperature, salt stability, density, and heat capacity were ascertained using NaCl-PuCl3 (36 mol% PuCl3) and a more sodium rich composition containing 25 mol% PuCl3. The NaCl-PuCl3 salt mixture was synthesized for this study and contained 63.4 mol% NaCl, 36.3 mol% PuCl3 and was 99.7% pure. Upon heating, the NaCl–PuCl3 eutectic was stable at temperatures up to 800 °C. The onset of melting occurred at 451 ± 3 °C, and the enthalpy of fusion was determined to be 23.0 ± 1.4 kJ/mol. Heat capacity measurements in the liquid phase ranged from 107.7 to 91.3 J/mol.K, with an average value of 104.6 ± 11.4 J/mol.K between 500 and 650 °C. Three independent trials of the molten NaCl-PuCl3 salt found the density to be ?(T) = 3.8589 – 9.5342·10-4 T(°C). In addition, ab initio molecular dynamic simulations to calculate density and heat capacity values are included.

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗
DOE OSTI2021

Quasielastic electromagnetic scattering cross sections and world data comparisons in the GENIE Monte Carlo event generator

The usage of Monte Carlo neutrino event generators (MC$\textit{ν}$EGs) is a norm within the high-energy $\textit{ν}$ scattering community. The relevance of quasielastic (QE) energy regimes to $\textit{ν}$ oscillation experiments implies that accurate calculations of $\textit{ν}$A cross sections in this regime will be a key contributor to reducing the systematic uncertainties affecting the extraction of oscillation parameters. In spite of this, many MC$\textit{ν}$EGs utilize highly phenomenological, parametrized models of QE scattering cross sections. Moreover, a culture of validation of MC$\textit{ν}$EGs against prolific electron ($\textit{e}$) scattering data has been historically lacking. In this work, we implement new eA cross sections obtained from nuclear ab initio approaches in GENIE, the primary MC$\textit{ν}$EG utilized by the FNAL community. In particular, we utilize results from quantum MC methods which solve the many-body nuclear problem in the short-time approximation (STA), allowing consistent retention of two-nucleon dynamics which are crucial to explain available nuclear electromagnetic (electroweak) data over a wide range of energy and momentum transfers. This new implementation in GENIE is fully tested against the world QE electromagnetic data, finding agreement with available data below ~2 GeV of beam energy with the aid of a scaling function formalism. The STA is currently limited to study $\textit{A}$ ≤ 12 nuclei, however, its semi-inclusive multibody identity components are exportable to other many-body computational techniques such as auxiliary field diffusion MC which can reach $\textit{A}$ ≤ 40 systems while continuing to realize the factorization contained within the STA’s multinucleon dynamics. Together, these developments promise to make future experiments such as DUNE more accurate in their assessment of MC$\textit{ν}$EG systematics, $\textit{ν}$ properties, and potentially empower the discovery of physics beyond the Standard Model.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2022

Nuclear properties with semilocal momentum-space regularized chiral interactions beyond N 2 LO

We present a comprehensive investigation of few-nucleon systems as well as light and medium-mass nuclei up to A = 48 using the current Low Energy Nuclear Physics International Collaboration two-nucleon interactions in combination with the third-order (N 2 LO) three-nucleon forces. To address the systematic overbinding of nuclei starting from A ≈ 10 found in our earlier study utilizing the N 2 LO two- and three-nucleon forces, we take into account higher-order corrections to the two-nucleon potentials up through fifth order in chiral effective field theory. Here, the resulting Hamiltonian can be completely determined using the A = 3 binding energies and selected nucleon-deuteron cross sections as input. It is then shown to predict other nucleon-deuteron scattering observables and spectra of light p-shell nuclei, for which a detailed correlated truncation error analysis is performed, in agreement with experimental data. Moreover, the predicted ground state energies of nuclei in the oxygen isotopic chain from 14 O to 26 O as well as 40 Ca and 48 Ca show a remarkably good agreement with experimental values, given that the Hamiltonian is fixed completely from the A ≤ 3 data, once the fourth-order (N 3 LO) corrections to the two-nucleon interactions are taken into account. On the other hand, the charge radii are found to be underpredicted by ≈10% for the oxygen isotopes and by almost 20% for 40 Ca and 48 Ca.

20 ≤ A ≤ 38↗
DOE OSTI2020

Nano- to microscale three-dimensional morphology relevant to transport properties in reactive porous composite paint films

The quantitative evaluation of the three-dimensional (3D) morphology of porous composite materials is important for understanding mass transport phenomena, which further impact their functionalities and durability. Reactive porous paint materials are composites in nature and widely used in arts and technological applications. In artistic oil paintings, ambient moisture and water and organic solvents used in conservation treatments are known to trigger multiple physical and chemical degradation processes; however, there is no complete physical model that can quantitatively describe their transport in the paint films. In the present study, model oil paints with lead white (2PbCO 3 ·Pb(OH) 2 ) and zinc white (ZnO) pigments, which are frequently found in artistic oil paintings and are associated with the widespread heavy metal soap deterioration, were studied using synchrotron X-ray nano-tomography and unilateral nuclear magnetic resonance. This study aims to establish a relationship among the paints’ compositions, the 3D morphological properties and degradation. This connection is crucial for establishing reliable models that can predict transport properties of solvents used in conservation treatments and of species involved in deterioration reactions, such as soap formation.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2024

Actinide signatures in low electron fraction kilonova ejecta

ABSTRACT Neutron star (NS) mergers are known to produce heavy elements through rapid neutron capture (r-process) nucleosynthesis. Actinides are expected to be created solely by the r-process in the most neutron-rich environments. Confirming if NS mergers provide the requisite conditions for actinide creation is therefore central to determining their origin in the Universe. Actinide signatures in kilonova (KN) spectra may yield an answer, provided adequate models are available in order to interpret observational data. In this study, we investigate actinide signatures in neutron-rich merger ejecta. We use three ejecta models with different compositions and radioactive power, generated by nucleosynthesis calculations using the same initial electron fraction ($Y_e = 0.15$) but with different nuclear physics inputs and thermodynamic expansion history. These are evolved from 10 to 100 d after merger using the sumo non-local thermodynamic equilibrium (NLTE) radiative transfer code. We highlight how uncertainties in nuclear properties, as well as choices in thermodynamic trajectory, may yield entirely different outputs for equal values of $Y_e$. We consider an actinide-free model and two actinide-rich models, and find that the emergent spectra and light-curve evolution are significantly different depending on the amount of actinides present, and the overall decay properties of the models. We also present potential key actinide spectral signatures, of which doubly ionized $_{89}$Ac and $_{90}$Th may be particularly interesting as spectral indicators of actinide presence in KN ejecta.

Pognan, Quentin (ORCID:0000000152550782)↗
DOE OSTI2024

A Perspective on Scalable AI on High-Performance Computing and Leadership Class Supercomputing Facilities [Industrial and Governmental Activities]

Many scientific applications that support the mission of the US Department of Energy (US-DoE) require modeling complex engineering and/or physical systems. Here, examples of such complex systems arise from: (a) materials science to develop new compounds with exceptional mechanical and thermodynamical properties (e.g., resistance to mechanical stresses and high temperatures), (b) structural and nuclear engineering to model the temporal evolution of the structural damage of concrete shields exposed to continuous neutron and gamma radiations emitted by the nuclear reactor core, (c) urban sciences (e.g., transportation and smart buildings), and (d) power grid systems.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2024

Numerical Simulation of Irradiation Induced Swelling for STAR 4.1 Blanket

Here, this article presents the preliminary results of FEM implementation of irradiation-induced swelling, hardening, and creep effect using ANSYS user programmable features (UPFs) applied to material properties. The first liquid metal breeding blanket model for STAR 4.1 tokamak as a part of the virtual prototyping system is under development at Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL). Intense neutron irradiation produces significant changes in the physical and mechanical properties of Fe-(8%–9%)Cr-based reduced activation ferritic martensitic (RAFM) steels. An ANSYS model of the breeding blanket was built to involve these irradiation-induced material property changes with neutron fluence distribution mapped from the MCNP model. Simulation results show that significant structure deformation forms from nuclear swelling, stress, and plastic strain arising from DPA gradient through wall thickness. The material degradation effect is not negligible. This modeling feature can either assist in analyzing the structural behaviors with the influence of nuclear swelling or provide guidance to design the structure to withstand irradiation.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2024

Data transfers for full core heterogeneous reactor high- fidelity multiphysics studies

Multiphysics simulations for nuclear reactor analysis are usually performed by resorting to operator splitting and fixed point iterations between single-physics solvers. This enables the separate solution of each physics, such as neutronics, fuel performance, and thermal hydraulics, on meshes tailored to the requirements of the respective numerical discretizations of the equations. As the equations are coupled, several fields must be transferred between single-physics solves. Projecting fields between meshes while preserving order of accuracy, conservation properties, and mapping non-overlapping geometries is a complex endeavor. This conference paper will present the transfers as implemented in MOOSE, which can handle arbitrary meshes, arbitrary mappings, conservation of integral quantities, and are made to scale with distributed simulations on both ends of the transfers. Their adequacy for advanced nuclear reactor multiphysics coupling is shown through examples and numerical studies.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗
DOE OSTI2020

Quantifying Uncertainties of Microscopic Nuclear Theories

The goal of this project was to produce modernized nuclear data libraries of light ion fusion reactions and actinide fission product yields. Such libraries are essential input in both stockpile science but also fundamental science (nucleosynthesis, superheavy nuclei). When such libraries are used to model complex processes involving exotic, very short-lived nuclei that have not been measured experimentally, the underlying nuclear data come from theoretical models, the predictive power of which needs to be quantified, together with its uncertainties. By teaming up nuclear theorists and statisticians, we built comprehensive theoretical frameworks based on the most fundamental theories of fusion and fission that we coupled for the first time with a Bayesian framework with machine learning techniques for uncertainty quantification. Our results include: (1) statistical emulators for neutron-alpha scattering, and the fission product mass yields of neutron-induced fission of 239 Pu, which will enable developers to generate random realizations of the corresponding data for uncertainty quantification (UQ) in applications; (2) the first complete and most accurate ab initio prediction of the S-factor for proton capture on 7 Be, which – combined with UQ – may become the recommended value at solar energies in the next review of solar fusion cross sections; (3) statistical emulators for fission mass yields in the neutron-induced fission of 239 Pu; (4) the first quantification of how uncertainties in nuclear forces impact fission properties that are relevant in nucleosynthesis simulations to explain how heavy elements are formed in the Cosmos.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2020

Nuclear effective field theory: Status and perspectives

The nuclear physics landscape has been redesigned as a sequence of effective field theories (EFTs) connected to the Standard Model through symmetries and lattice simulations of Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD). EFTs in this sequence are expansions around different low-energy limits of QCD, each with its own characteristics, scales, and ranges of applicability regarding energy and number of nucleons. We review each of the three main nuclear EFTs---Chiral, Pionless, Halo/Cluster---highlighting their similarities, differences, and connections. Here, in doing so, we survey the structural properties and reactions of nuclei that have been derived from the \abinitio solution of the few- and many-body problem built upon EFT input.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗
NASA NTRS2024

A new spectrally-invariant approach to the remote sensing of inhomogeneous clouds

Current operational satellite retrievals of cloud optical and microphysical properties go back to the Nakajima-King technique developed at the end of the 1980s. This technique is based on library calculations for plane-parallel homogeneous clouds. It often works well for overcast skies but leads to substantial errors for inhomogeneous and broken cloud fields where the plane-parallel-geometry assumption is no longer valid. The basic concept of a new technique was first introduced in nuclear physics to quantify the critical conditions of reactors. Based on the eigenvalues of the radiative transfer equation, their approach provides a powerful means to parameterize the structure of 3D media. This parameterization was later successfully applied to relate surface reflectance spectra to 3D canopy structure and is known as the spectrally-invariant approximation. The proposed approach adapts this technique to the remote sensing of cloud properties such as droplet single scattering albedo and the average number of scatterings (which are the fundamental parameters in radiative transfer theory), with an emphasis on quantifying the associated errors and uncertainties. This retrieval is free from the plane-parallel homogeneous cloud assumption.

clouds↗
DOE OSTI2025

Guiding center equations for the magnetic dipole

Since the discovery of Van Allen radiation belts in the 1960s, observations of energetic ions trapped in the Earth's dipole magnetic field have illustrated the remarkable confinement properties of this configuration. As such, it has been used for confining a hot plasma for nuclear fusion studies, starting from the pioneering work of Bo Lehnert and Akira Hasegawa, in the Levitated Dipole Experiment (LDX) at MIT until 2011 and in the RT-1 experiment at the University of Tokyo. More recently, the dipole has been subject to a renewed interest for fusion studies by a couple of startups and for smaller applications as a cold plasma source. While the equilibrium and magneto-hydrodynamic stability of the dipole have been investigated quite in detail, neoclassical properties of the dipole are comparatively much less known: the dipole is more known in geophysics than in fusion science. For this reason, in this paper, we propose a set of Hamiltonian, guiding-center equations to describe the motion of electrons and ions in a magnetic dipole configuration. We also developed a code, and we show the main features of particle motion, benchmarking our results with the analytical solutions for the bounce and precession motion, which are well documented in the literature. We also draw some general conclusions for the neoclassical transport in usual toroidal confinement schemes, such as the tokamak and the stellarator, pointing out the unique advantages of the dipole in confining energetic particles.

Hamiltonian mechanics↗
DOE OSTI2023

The magnificent ACT of flavor-specific neutrino self-interaction

Here we revisit the cosmology of neutrino self-interaction and use the latest cosmic microwave background data from the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) and the Planck experiment to constrain the interaction strength. In both flavor-universal and nonuniversal coupling scenarios, we find that the ACT data prefers strong neutrino self-interaction that delays neutrino free streaming until just before the matter-radiation equality. When combined with the Planck 2018 data, the preference for strong interaction decreases due to the Planck polarization data. For the combined dataset, the flavor-specific interaction still provides a better fit to the CMB data than ΛCDM. This trend persists even when neutrino mass is taken into account and extra radiation is added. We also study the prospect of constraining such strong interaction by future terrestrial and space telescopes, and find that the upcoming CMB-S4 experiment will improve the upper limit on neutrino self-interaction by about a factor of three.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
DOE OSTI2021

Neutral Pion Electroproduction Cross sections from 12 GeV Jefferson Lab for x B > 0 . 3

Nuclear physics aims at understanding structure of the building blocks of the atom, the protons and neutrons in terms of their constituents, the quarks and gluons. Traditionally, this was accomplished through studies of their static properties and the underlying one-dimensional quark and gluon momentum distributions. Over the last few decades, realization has grown that the true study of the proton dynamical structure has to come from more exclusive reactions. These deep exclusive processes describe a subset of unique inelastic processes in which all particles in their final state are detected. Such processes can allow access to Generalized Parton Distributions, or GPDs, a conceptual mechanism that lies at the root of three-dimensional spatial imaging of the proton?s quark-gluon substructure. In particular, photon electroproduction as well as meson electroproduction are two kinds of deep inelastic processes that can allow access to GPDs. Deeply Virtual Compton Scattering (DVCS) is a type of deep inelastic process, and is known as one of the cleanest ways to access GPDs.

Ali, Salina↗