Search NASA⌕ Search

SEARCH · Search NASA

Results for “error fields”

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 379 records · Page 21
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2013

Neutron imaging for geothermal energy systems

Geothermal systems extract heat energy from the interior of the earth using a working fluid, typically water. Three components are required for a commercially viable geothermal system: heat, fluid, and permeability. Current commercial electricity production using geothermal energy occurs where the three main components exist naturally. These are called hydrothermal systems. In the US, there is an estimated 30 GW of base load electrical power potential for hydrothermal sites. Next generation geothermal systems, named Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS), have an estimated potential of 4500 GW. EGSs lack in-situ fluid, permeability or both. As such, the heat exchange system must be developed or engineered within the rock. The envisioned method for producing permeability in the EGS reservoir is hydraulic fracturing, which is rarely practiced in the geothermal industry, and not well understood for the rocks typically present in geothermal reservoirs. High costs associated with trial and error learning in the field have led to an effort to characterize fluid flow and fracturing mechanisms in the laboratory to better understand how to design and manage EGS reservoirs. Neutron radiography has been investigated for potential use in this characterization. An environmental chamber has been developed that is suitable for reproduction of EGS pressures and temperatures and has been tested for both flow and precipitations studies with success for air/liquid interface imaging and 3D reconstruction of precipitation within the core.

Bingham, Philip R↗
DOE OSTI2026

Dissipation Enables Strongly Detuning-Dependent Interference in Pulsed Dynamical Decoupling

One of the defining features of pulsed dynamical decoupling is its suppression of a driven qubit's sensitivity to static detuning errors between the drive field and qubit resonance. In this paper, we show that dissipation, in the form of excited-state decay, can change this behavior entirely, producing an interference signal with a strong detuning dependence. This signal arises from decay during driven evolution and relies on coherence retained by the qubit after such a decay event. We develop analytical and numerical models that capture the underlying mechanism and observe this same dissipation-induced detuning dependence experimentally in both a free-space strontium atom interferometer and a superconducting transmon qubit system. We also use this dissipation-induced detuning dependence as the basis for a new spectroscopic technique called Dissipative Carr-Purcell Spectroscopy (DCPS) and compare it with a traditional Ramsey sequence. Our results establish a regime of pulsed dynamical decoupling in which dissipation reshapes, rather than merely degrades, coherent control, and we expect these dynamics to be relevant to a wide range of quantum systems.

DeRose, Kenneth [Northwestern U.; Fermilab] (ORCID↗
DOE OSTI2015

SU-E-T-483: In Vivo Dosimetry of Conventional and Rotational Intensity Modulated Radiotherapy Using Integral Quality Monitor (IQM)

Purpose: To investigate the accuracy, sensitivity and constancy of integral quality monitor (IQM), a new system for in vivo dosimetry of conventional intensity modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) or rotational volumetric modulated arc therapy (VMAT) Methods: A beta-version IQM system was commissioned on an Elekta Infinity LINAC equipped with 160-MLCs Agility head. The stationary and rotational dosimetric constancy of IQM was evaluated, using five-field IMRT and single-or double-arc VMAT plans for prostate and head-and-neck (H&N) patients. The plans were delivered three times over three days to assess the constancy of IQM response. Picket fence (PF) fields were used to evaluate the sensitivity of detecting MLC leaf errors. A single leaf offset was intentionally introduced during delivery of various PF fields with segment apertures of 3×1, 5×1, 10×1, and 24×1cm2. Both 2mm and 5mm decrease in the field width were used. Results: Repeated IQM measurements of prostate and H&N IMRT deliveries showed 0.4 and 0.5% average standard deviation (SD) for segment-by-segment comparison and 0.1 and 0.2% for cumulative comparison. The corresponding SDs for VMAT deliveries were 6.5, 9.4% and 0.7, 1.3%, respectively. Statistical analysis indicates that the dosimetric differences detected by IQM were significant (p < 0.05) in all PF test deliveries. The largest average IQM signal response of a 2 mm leaf error was found to be 2.1% and 5.1% by a 5mm leaf error for 3×1 cm2 field size. The same error in 24×1 cm2 generates a 0.7% and 1.4% difference in the signal. Conclusion: IQM provides an effective means for real-time dosimetric verification of IMRT/ VMAT treatment delivery. For VMAT delivery, the cumulative dosimetry of IQM needs to be used in clinical practice.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2022

Metrics for Intercomparison of Remapping Algorithms (MIRA) protocol applied to Earth system models

Abstract. Strongly coupled nonlinear phenomena such as those described by Earth system models (ESMs) are composed of multiple component models with independent mesh topologies and scalable numerical solvers. A common operation in ESMs is to remap or interpolate component solution fields defined on their computational mesh to another mesh with a different combinatorial structure and decomposition, e.g., from the atmosphere to the ocean, during the temporal integration of the coupled system. Several remapping schemes are currently in use or available for ESMs. However, a unified approach to compare the properties of these different schemes has not been attempted previously. We present a rigorous methodology for the evaluation and intercomparison of remapping methods through an independently implemented suite of metrics that measure the ability of a method to adhere to constraints such as grid independence, monotonicity, global conservation, and local extrema or feature preservation. A comprehensive set of numerical evaluations is conducted based on a progression of scalar fields from idealized and smooth to more general climate data with strong discontinuities and strict bounds. We examine four remapping algorithms with distinct design approaches, namely ESMF Regrid (Hill et al., 2004), TempestRemap (Ullrich and Taylor, 2015), generalized moving least squares (GMLS) (Trask and Kuberry, 2020) with post-processing filters, and WLS-ENOR (Li et al., 2020). By repeated iterative application of the high-order remapping methods to the test fields, we verify the accuracy of each scheme in terms of their observed convergence order for smooth data and determine the bounded error propagation using challenging, realistic field data on both uniform and regionally refined mesh cases. In addition to retaining high-order accuracy under idealized conditions, the methods also demonstrate robust remapping performance when dealing with non-smooth data. There is a failure to maintain monotonicity in the traditional L2-minimization approaches used in ESMF and TempestRemap, in contrast to stable recovery through nonlinear filters used in both meshless GMLS and hybrid mesh-based WLS-ENOR schemes. Local feature preservation analysis indicates that high-order methods perform better than low-order dissipative schemes for all test cases. The behavior of these remappers remains consistent when applied on regionally refined meshes, indicating mesh-invariant implementations. The MIRA intercomparison protocol proposed in this paper and the detailed comparison of the four algorithms demonstrate that the new schemes, namely GMLS and WLS-ENOR, are competitive compared to standard conservative minimization methods requiring computation of mesh intersections. The work presented in this paper provides a foundation that can be extended to include complex field definitions, realistic mesh topologies, and spectral element discretizations, thereby allowing for a more complete analysis of production-ready remapping packages.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2022

GrainNN: A neighbor-aware long short-term memory network for predicting microstructure evolution during polycrystalline grain formation

High fidelity simulations of grain formation in alloys are an indispensable tool for process-to-mechanical-properties characterization. Such simulations, however, can be computationally expensive as they require fine spatial and temporal discretizations. Their cost becomes an obstacle to parametric studies and ensemble runs and ultimately makes downstream tasks like optimal control and uncertainty quantification challenging. To enable such downstream tasks, we introduce GrainNN, an efficient and accurate reduced-order model for epitaxial grain growth in additive manufacturing conditions. GrainNN is a sequence-to-sequence long-short-term-memory (LSTM) deep neural network that evolves the dynamics of manually crafted features. Its innovations are (1) an attention mechanism with grain-microstructure-specific transformer architecture; and (2) an overlapping combination of several clones of the network to generalize to grain configurations that are different from those used for training. This design enables GrainNN to predict grain formation for unseen physical parameters, grain number, domain size and geometry. Furthermore, GrainNN not only reconstructs the quantities of interest but also can be pointwise accurate. In our numerical experiments, we use a polycrystalline phase field method to both generate the training data and assess GrainNN. For multiparametric, ensemble simulations with many grains, GrainNN can be orders of magnitude faster than phase field simulations, while delivering 5%–15% pointwise error. Additionally, this speedup includes the cost of the phase field simulations for generating training data.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2015

Stillwater Hybrid Geo-Solar Power Plant Optimization Analyses

The Stillwater Power Plant is the first hybrid plant in the world able to bring together a medium-enthalpy geothermal unit with solar thermal and solar photovoltaic systems. Solar field and power plant models have been developed to predict the performance of the Stillwater geothermal / solar-thermal hybrid power plant. The models have been validated using operational data from the Stillwater plant. A preliminary effort to optimize performance of the Stillwater hybrid plant using optical characterization of the solar field has been completed. The Stillwater solar field optical characterization involved measurement of mirror reflectance, mirror slope error, and receiver position error. The measurements indicate that the solar field may generate 9% less energy than the design value if an appropriate tracking offset is not employed. A perfect tracking offset algorithm may be able to boost the solar field performance by about 15%. The validated Stillwater hybrid plant models were used to evaluate hybrid plant operating strategies including turbine IGV position optimization, ACC fan speed and turbine IGV position optimization, turbine inlet entropy control using optimization of multiple process variables, and mixed working fluid substitution. The hybrid plant models predict that each of these operating strategies could increase net power generation relative to the baseline Stillwater hybrid plant operations.

15 GEOTHERMAL ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2016

Effects of non-homogeneous flow on ADCP data processing in a hydroturbine forebay

Observations of the flow conditions in the forebay of a hydroelectric power station indicate significant regions of non-homogeneous velocities near the intakes and shoreline. The effect of these non-homogeneous regions on the velocity measurement of an acoustic Doppler current profiler (ADCP) is investigated. By using a numerical model of an ADCP operating in a velocity field calculated using computational fluid dynamics (CFD), the errors due to the spatial variation of the flow velocity are identified. The numerical model of the ADCP is referred to herein as a Virtual ADCP (VADCP). Two scenarios are modeled in the numerical analyses presented. Firstly the measurement error of the VADCP is calculated for a single instrument adjacent to the short converging intake of the powerhouse. Secondly, the flow discharge through the forebay is estimated from a transect of VADCP instruments at dif- ferent distances from the powerhouse. The influence of instrument location and orientation are investigated for both cases. A velocity error of over up to 94% of the reference velocity is calculated for a VADCP modeled adjacent to an operating intake. Qualitative agreement is observed between the calculated VADCP velocities and reference velocities by an offset of one intake height upstream of the powerhouse.

13 HYDRO ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2020

Improved single-particle phase-space distributions for viscous fluid dynamic models of relativistic heavy ion collisions

Comparison of hydrodynamic calculations with experimental data inevitably requires a model for converting the fluid to particles. For shear viscous fluids, several different conversion models have been proposed, such as the quadratic Grad corrections, the Strickland-Romatschke (SR) ansatz, self-consistent shear corrections from linearized kinetic theory, or corrections from the relaxation time approach. We show, via comparison to nonlinear 2 → 2 kinetic theory evolution, that even for low specific shear viscosities 0.03 ≲ $\textit{η/s}$ ≲ 0.2 , these four models have varying accuracy and still significant errors in reproducing particle phase space densities from hydrodynamic fields. Moreover, we demonstrate that the overall reconstruction error of additive shear viscous $f = f_{eq} + δf$ models dramatically reduces by up to one order of magnitude, if one ensures through exponentiation that $\textit{f}$ is always positive. Further, we also illustrate how even more accurate viscous $\textit{δf}$ models can be constructed by incorporating the first time derivatives of hydrodynamic fields to account for the past evolution of the system. Such time derivatives are readily available in hydrodynamic simulations, though usually not included in the output. Though our comparisons are limited to a one-component massless system undergoing a (0 + 1)-dimensional (0 + 1D) longitudinal boost-invariant expansion, we expect that the improved models will be useful in 2 + 1D and 3 + 1D hydrodynamic studies as well.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2020

Application of radiochromic gel dosimetry to commissioning of a megavoltage research linear accelerator for small–field animal irradiation studies

To develop and implement an efficient and accurate commissioning procedure for small-field static beam animal irradiation studies on an MV research linear accelerator (Linatron-M9) using radiochromic gel dosimetry. The research linear accelerator (Linatron-M9) is a 9 MV linac with a static fixed collimator opening of 5.08 cm diameter. Lead collimators were manually placed to create smaller fields of 2 × 2 cm 2 , 1 × 1 cm 2 , and 0.5 × 0.5 cm 2 . Relative dosimetry measurements were performed, including profiles, percent depth dose (PDD) curves, beam divergence, and relative output factors using various dosimetry tools, including a small volume ionization chamber (A14), GAFCHROMIC™ EBT3 film, and Clearview gel dosimeters. The gel dosimeter was used to provide a 3D volumetric reference of the irradiated fields. The Linatron profiles and relative output factors were extracted at a reference depth of 2 cm with the output factor measured relative to the 2 × 2 cm 2 reference field. Absolute dosimetry was performed using A14 ionization chamber measurements, which were verified using a national standards laboratory remote dosimetry service. Absolute dosimetry measurements were confirmed within 1.4% (k = 2, 95% confidence = 5%). The relative output factor of the small fields measured with films and gels agreed with a maximum relative percent error difference between the two methods of 1.1 % for the 1 × 1 cm 2 field and 4.3 % for the 0.5 × 0.5 cm 2 field. These relative errors were primarily due to the variability in the collimator positioning. The measured beam profiles demonstrated excellent agreement for beam size (measured as FWHM), within approximately 0.8 mm (or less). Film measurements were more accurate in the penumbra region due to the film’s finer resolution compared with the gel dosimeter. Following the van Dyk criteria, the PDD values of the film and gel measurements agree within 11% in the buildup region starting from 0.5 cm depth and within 2.6 % beyond maximum dose and into the fall-off region for depths up to 5 cm. The 2D beam profile isodose lines agree within 0.5 mm in all regions for the 0.5 × 0.5 cm 2 and the 1 × 1 cm 2 fields and within 1 mm for the larger field of 2 × 2 cm 2 . The 2D PDD curves agree within approximately 2% of the maximum in the typical therapy region (1–4 cm) for the 1 × 1 cm 2 and 2 × 2 cm 2 and within 5% for the 0.5 × 0.5 cm 2 field. This work provides a commissioning process to measure the beam characteristics of a fixed beam MV accelerator with detailed dosimetric evaluation for its implementation in megavoltage small animal irradiation studies. Radiochromic gel dosimeters are efficient small-field relative dosimetry tools providing 3D dose measurements allowing for full representation of dose, dosimeter misalignment corrections and high reproducibility with low inter-dosimeter variability. Altogether, radiochromic gels are valuable for fast, full relative dosimetry commissioning in comparison to films for application in high-energy small-field animal irradiation studies.

62 RADIOLOGY AND NUCLEAR MEDICINE↗
DOE OSTI2014

Space Charge Simulation in COSY using The Fast Multipole Method

A method is implemented in COSY Infinity that allows the computation of space charge effects of arbitrary and large distributions of particles in an efficient and accurate way based on a variant of the Fast Multipole Method (FMM). It relies on an automatic multigrid-based decomposition of charges in near and far regions and the use of high-order differential algebra methods to obtain decompositions of far fields that lead to an error that scales with a high power of the order. Given an ensemble of N particles, the method allows the computation of the self-fields of all particles on each other with a computational expense that scales as O(N). Further- more, the method allows the computation of all high-order multipoles of the space charge fields that are necessary for the computation of high-order transfer maps and all resulting aberrations. Space charge effects are crucial in modeling the latter stages of the six-dimensional (6D) cooling channel for the Muon Collider. Results of simulating the 6D cooling channel for the Muon Collider using the FMM method and other tools and improvements implemented for ionization cooling lattices are presented.

Loseth, B.↗
DOE OSTI2013

SEDS: THE SPITZER EXTENDED DEEP SURVEY. SURVEY DESIGN, PHOTOMETRY, AND DEEP IRAC SOURCE COUNTS

The Spitzer Extended Deep Survey (SEDS) is a very deep infrared survey within five well-known extragalactic science fields: the UKIDSS Ultra-Deep Survey, the Extended Chandra Deep Field South, COSMOS, the Hubble Deep Field North, and the Extended Groth Strip. SEDS covers a total area of 1.46 deg{sup 2} to a depth of 26 AB mag (3{sigma}) in both of the warm Infrared Array Camera (IRAC) bands at 3.6 and 4.5 {mu}m. Because of its uniform depth of coverage in so many widely-separated fields, SEDS is subject to roughly 25% smaller errors due to cosmic variance than a single-field survey of the same size. SEDS was designed to detect and characterize galaxies from intermediate to high redshifts (z = 2-7) with a built-in means of assessing the impact of cosmic variance on the individual fields. Because the full SEDS depth was accumulated in at least three separate visits to each field, typically with six-month intervals between visits, SEDS also furnishes an opportunity to assess the infrared variability of faint objects. This paper describes the SEDS survey design, processing, and publicly-available data products. Deep IRAC counts for the more than 300,000 galaxies detected by SEDS are consistent with models based on known galaxy populations. Discrete IRAC sources contribute 5.6 {+-} 1.0 and 4.4 {+-} 0.8 nW m{sup -2} sr{sup -1} at 3.6 and 4.5 {mu}m to the diffuse cosmic infrared background (CIB). IRAC sources cannot contribute more than half of the total CIB flux estimated from DIRBE data. Barring an unexpected error in the DIRBE flux estimates, half the CIB flux must therefore come from a diffuse component.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2017

Solar Field Optical Characterization at Stillwater Geothermal/Solar Hybrid Plant

Concentrating solar power (CSP) can provide additional thermal energy to boost geothermal plant power generation. For a newly constructed solar field at a geothermal power plant site, it is critical to properly characterize its performance so that the prediction of thermal power generation can be derived to develop an optimum operating strategy for a hybrid system. In the past, laboratory characterization of a solar collector has often extended into the solar field performance model and has been used to predict the actual solar field performance, disregarding realistic impacting factors. In this work, an extensive measurement on mirror slope error and receiver position error has been performed in the field by using the optical characterization tool called Distant Observer (DO). Combining a solar reflectance sampling procedure, a newly developed solar characterization program called FirstOPTIC and public software for annual performance modeling called System Advisor Model (SAM), a comprehensive solar field optical characterization has been conducted, thus allowing for an informed prediction of solar field annual performance. The paper illustrates this detailed solar field optical characterization procedure and demonstrates how the results help to quantify an appropriate tracking-correction strategy to improve solar field performance. In particular, it is found that an appropriate tracking-offset algorithm can improve the solar field performance by about 15%. The work here provides a valuable reference for the growing CSP industry.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2014

SU-E-T-291: Sensitivity of a Simple 2D EPID in Vivo Dosimetry

Purpose: As radiotherapy (RT) increases in complexity, so does motivation for in vivo dosimetry (IVD), which may detect errors such as: setup, beam shaping and dose delivered. We have recently developed an easy-toimplement method for two-dimensional IVD based on images taken with the electronic portal imaging device (EPID) in cine mode during treatment. The purpose of this work is to characterize its sensitivity to possible RT delivery errors. Methods: We introduced a series of modifications to a simple RT field (10×10, 100MU, 300RR, 20cm homogeneous phantom) to simulate errors. These modifications included multi-leaf collimator (MLC) position, number of MUs, and collimator angle. We quantified the sensitivity to inhomogeneities by inserting variable amounts of solid lung and bone. Finally we delivered realistic fields to an anthropomorphic phantom to estimate sensitivity to gantry angle and setup errors. Results: Our EPIDIVD is sensitive to MLC positioning errors of 1mm and 3mm in the closed and open directions respectively, and to 3% MU variations. Sensitivity to collimator angle depends on field shape irregularity; in the case of a 10x10 field, we are sensitive to errors of 0.8°. The sensitivity to inhomogeneities is limited by the nature of MV imaging: approximately 1% signal change is noted when switching 5cm of water to equal amounts of bone or lung. This suggests that the EPID-IVD is likely not sensitive to small setup or gantry angle errors, as confirmed by anthropomorphic tests. Conclusion: We have characterized a simple method of 2D dose reconstruction at isocenter depth inside the patient, which is sensitive to possible RT delivery errors. This method may be useful as a secondary safety check, to prevent large errors from being carried on to following fractions, and to record delivered dose. By using readily available hardware, it is easily implemented and may prove especially useful in centers with limited resources.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2013

3D deformation field throughout the interior of materials.

This report contains the one-year feasibility study for our three-year LDRD proposal that is aimed to develop an experimental technique to measure the 3D deformation fields inside a material body. In this feasibility study, we first apply Digital Volume Correlation (DVC) algorithm to pre-existing in-situ Xray Computed Tomography (XCT) image sets with pure rigid body translation. The calculated displacement field has very large random errors and low precision that are unacceptable. Then we enhance these tomography images by setting threshold of the intensity of each slice. DVC algorithm is able to obtain accurate deformation fields from these enhanced image sets and the deformation fields are consistent with the global mechanical loading that is applied to the specimen. Through this study, we prove that the internal markers inside the pre-existing tomography images of aluminum alloy can be enhanced and are suitable for DVC to calculate the deformation field throughout the material body.

Jin, Huiqing↗
DOE OSTI2018

A Positive-Definite, WENO-Limited, High-Order Finite Volume Solver for 2-D Transport on the Cubed Sphere Using an ADER Time Discretization

Modern computer architectures reward added computation if it reduces algorithmic dependence, reduces data movement, increases accuracy/robustness, and improves memory accesses. The driving motive for this study is to develop a numerical algorithm that respects these constraints while improving accuracy and robustness. This study introduces the ADER-DT (Arbitrary DERivatives in time and space-differential transform) time discretization to positive-definite, weighted essentially nonoscillatory (WENO)-limited, finite volume transport on the cubed sphere in lieu of semidiscrete integrators. The cost of the ADER-DT algorithm is significantly improved from previous implementations without affecting accuracy. A new function-based WENO implementation is also detailed for use with the ADER-DT time discretization. While ADER-DT costs about 1.5 times more than a fourth-order, five-stage strong stability preserving Runge-Kutta (SSPRK4) method, it is far more computationally dense (which is advantageous on accelerators such as graphics processing units), and it has a larger effective maximum stable time step. ADER-DT errors converge more quickly with grid refinement than SSPRK4, giving 6.5 times less error in the L ∞ norm than SSPRK4 at the highest refinement level for smooth data. For nonsmooth data, ADER-DT resolves C 0 discontinuities more sharply. For a complex flow field, ADER exhibits less phase error than SSPRK4. In conclusion, improving both accuracy and robustness as well as better respecting modern computational efficiency requirements, we believe the method presented herein is competitive for efficiently transporting tracers over the sphere for applications targeting modern computing architectures.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2021

Discrete modeling of a transformer with ALEGRA

We report progress on a task to model transformers in ALEGRA using the “Transient Magnetics” option. We specifically evaluate limits of the approach resolving individual coil wires. There are practical limits to the number of turns in a coil that can be numerically modeled, but calculated inductance can be scaled to the correct number of turns in a simple way. Our testing essentially confirmed this “turns scaling” hypothesis. We developed a conceptual transformer design, representative of practical designs of interest, and that focused our analysis. That design includes three coils wrapped around a rectangular ferromagnetic core. The secondary and tertiary coils have multiple layers. The tertiary has three layers of 13 turns each; the secondary has five layers of 44 turns; the primary has one layer of 20 turns. We validated the turns scaling of inductance for simple (one-layer) coils in air (no core) by comparison to available independent calculations for simple rectangular coils. These comparisons quantified the errors versus reduced number of turns modeled. For more than 3 turns, the errors are <5%. The magnetic field solver failed to converge (within 5000 iterations) for >10 turns. Including the core introduced some complications. It was necessary to capture the core surfaces in thin grid sheaths to minimize errors in computed magnetic energy. We do not yet have quantitative benchmarks with which to compare, but calculated results are qualitatively reasonable.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2025

Correlation effects in magic-angle twisted bilayer graphene: An auxiliary-field quantum Monte Carlo study

Magic-angle twisted bilayer graphene (MATBG) presents a fascinating platform for investigating the effects of electron interactions in topological flat bands. The Bistritzer-MacDonald (BM) model provides a simplified quantitative description of the flat bands. Introducing long-range Coulomb interactions leads to an interacting BM (IBM) Hamiltonian, a momentum-space continuum description which offers a very natural starting point for many-body studies of MATBG. Accurate and reliable many-body computations in the IBM model are challenging, however, and have been limited mostly to special fillings or smaller lattice sizes. We employ a state-of-the-art auxiliary-field quantum Monte Carlo (AFQMC) method to study the IBM model, which constrains the sign problem to enable accurate treatment of large system sizes. We determine ground-state properties and quantify errors compared to mean-field theory calculations. Our calculations identify correlated metal states and their competition with the insulating Kramers intervalley-coherent state at both half-filling and charge neutrality. Additionally, we investigate one- and three-quarter fillings, and examine the effect of many-body corrections beyond single Slater determinant solutions. We discuss the effect that details of the IBM Hamiltonian have on the results, including different forms of double-counting corrections, and the need to establish and precisely specify many-body Hamiltonians to allow more direct and quantitative comparisons with experiments in MATBG. Published by the American Physical Society 2025

Xiao, Zhi-Yu (ORCID:0000000219531579)↗
DOE OSTI2012

COMPARISON OF TWO EPOCHS OF THE ZEEMAN EFFECT IN THE 44 GHz CLASS I METHANOL (CH{sub 3}OH) MASER LINE IN OMC-2

We present a second epoch of observations of the 44 GHz Class I methanol maser line toward the star-forming region Orion Molecular Cloud 2. The observations were carried out with the Very Large Array, and constitute one of the first successful Zeeman effect detections with the new Wide-band Digital Architecture correlator. Comparing to the result of our earlier epoch of data for this region, we find that the intensity of the maser increased by 50%, but the magnetic field value has stayed the same, within the errors. This suggests that the methanol maser may be tracing the large-scale magnetic field that is not affected by the bulk gas motions or turbulence on smaller scales that is causing the change in maser intensity.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗