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At least 397 records · Page 22

Inclusive curvaturelike framework for describing dissipation: Metriplectic 4-bracket dynamics

An inclusive framework for joined Hamiltonian and dissipative dynamical systems that are thermodynamically consistent, i.e., preserve energy and produce entropy, is given. The dissipative dynamics of the framework is based on the metriplectic 4-bracket , a quantity like the Poisson bracket defined on phase space functions, but unlike the Poisson bracket has four slots with symmetries and properties motivated by Riemannian curvature. Metriplectic 4-bracket dynamics is generated using two generators, the Hamiltonian and the entropy, with the entropy being a Casimir of the Hamiltonian part of the system. The formalism includes known previous binary bracket theories for dissipation or relaxation as special cases. Rich geometrical significance of the formalism and methods for constructing metriplectic 4-brackets are explored. Many examples of both finite and infinite dimensions are given.

Physics↗

Charge Density Wave in Kagome Lattice Intermetallic ScV 6 Sn 6

Materials hosting kagome lattices have drawn interest for the diverse magnetic and electronic states generated by geometric frustration. In the AV 3 Sb 5 compounds (A=K, Rb, Cs), stacked vanadium kagome layers give rise to unusual charge density waves (CDW) and superconductivity. In this work, we report single-crystal growth and characterization of ScV 6 Sn 6 , a hexagonal HfFe 6 Ge 6 -type compound that shares this structural motif. We identify a first-order phase transition at 92 K. Single crystal x-ray and neutron diffraction reveal a charge density wave modulation of the atomic lattice below this temperature. This is a distinctly different structural mode than that observed in the AV 3 Sb 5 compounds, but both modes have been anticipated in kagome metals. The diverse HfFe 6 Ge 6 family offers more opportunities to tune ScV 6 Sn 6 and explore density wave order in kagome lattice materials.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

A multi-length-scale investigation of the applicability of ductility laws for annealed and work-hardened copper

Small-scale mechanical testing provides unique advantages over conventional testing in investigating the mechanical response of nuclear materials. While small-scale testing enables accelerated materials research, it raises the question of comparability to large-scale properties for engineering design considerations. Among different mechanical properties for structural design considerations such as yield and ultimate tensile stress, ductility is of critical importance with respect to structural component health. The effectiveness of using small-scale mechanical testing for probing these mechanical properties is dictated by understanding how the mechanical responses translate from the microscale to the engineering scale. Therefore, a better understanding of size scaling effects via gathering and analysis of experimental data is required to bridge length-scales. Further, this work builds upon previous reports to provide statistical data on how mechanical response changes as the size of the specimens are reduced from conventional sizes. One hundred twenty mesoscale tensile coupons of oxygen-free high thermal conductivity (OFHC) copper in work-hardened and annealed state have been manufactured using micro-wire electrical discharge machining (EDM) and tested under uniaxial tension. The mesoscale specimens have dimensions dictated by pre-selected geometric ratios (i.e., gauge section length over the square root of the cross-section area) with gauge length dimensions of 3 mm (or less) and sub-millimeter gauge widths and thicknesses. The mesoscale responses were compared to bulkscale properties to reveal the effect of specimen size on the mechanical response as a function of grain size and material state for a single phase face-centered cubic metal.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Geometric and topological entropies of sphere packing

Here, we present a statistical mechanical description of randomly packed spherical particles, where the average coordination number is treated as a macroscopic thermodynamic variable. The overall packing entropy is shown to have two contributions: geometric, reflecting statistical weights of individual configurations, and topological, which corresponds to the number of topologically distinct states. Both of them are computed in the thermodynamic limit for isostatic and weakly underconstrained packings in 2D and 3D. The theory generalizes concepts of granular and glassy configurational entropies for the case of nonjammed systems. It is directly applicable to sticky colloids and predicts an asymptotic phase behavior of sticky spheres in the limit of strong binding.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

The impact of mineral reactive surface area variation on simulated mineral reactions and reaction rates

Reactive transport modeling is an essential tool to simulate complex geochemical reactions in porous media that can impact formation properties including porosity and permeability. However, simulating these reactions is challenging due to uncertainties in model parameters, particularly mineral surface areas. Imaging has emerged as a powerful means of estimating model parameters including porosity and mineral abundance, accessibility and accessible surface area. However, these parameters, particularly mineral accessible surface area, vary with image resolution. This work aims to enhance understanding of the impact of image resolution and other means of estimating mineral reactive surface area on simulated mineral reactions and reaction rates. Mineral surface areas calculated from images with resolutions of 0.34 μm and 5.71 μm were used to simulate mineral reactions in the context of geologic CO 2 sequestration in the Paluxy formation at the continuum scale. Additional simulations were carried out using BET surface areas collected from the literature and geometric surface areas. Simulations were run for 7300 days and mineral volume fractions and effluent ion concentrations tracked and compared. Variations in mineral surface areas measured from images are within 1 order of magnitude and yield similar simulation results, indicating the impact of image resolution on simulated reactions and reaction rates is minimum for the resolutions and sample considered. In comparison, surface areas obtained from BET and geometric approaches are 1–4 orders of magnitude higher than image-obtained surface areas and result in greater simulated reaction rates and extents. Minerals with high reaction rates (calcite and siderite) are most impacted by surface area values at short times where simulated mineral volume fractions at longer times agree relatively well, even for simulations with several orders of magnitude variation in surface area. Phases with lower reaction rates, such as K-feldspar and muscovite, are predominantly impacted over longer times where variations in surface areas impact reaction extents and porosity evolution. Overall, variations in surface areas due to image resolution are small and result in little variation in simulated reactions and reaction rates while there are significant variations in simulation results when other surface area estimates are used. These variations, however, depend on the reactivity of the mineral phase where surface areas of fast-reacting phases largely impact simulations at short (hours to days) timescales and surface areas of slower-reactive phases impact longer term simulations (years).

58 GEOSCIENCES↗

Mechanism of Stoichiometrically Governed Titanium Oxide Brownian Tree Formation on Stepped Au(111)

Previously observed formation of substoichiometric titanium oxide dendritic structures across terraces of Au(111) is computationally studied and shown to follow the classical fractal formation mechanism of diffusion-limited aggregation (DLA). Globally optimized gas-phase oxide cluster structures are sampled in a variety of landing formations on gold surfaces and shown to favor isomers driving polymerization to Brownian tree fractal structures. Mobility of Ti 3 O 5 monomers is shown to be extremely high, with diffusion barriers of 0.21 eV or less. Through bonding stabilization, polymerization of these monomers is energetically favorable and irreversible on the 111 terrace but geometrically impossible to propagate along the step edge. Simulated scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) images show strong similarity to experiment. By contrast, observation of Ti 3 O 6 aggregating as wires along step edges is explained by the affinity of oxygen to step edges and statistical arguments for aggregation entropy at the step, in addition to low barriers for monomer diffusion and polymerization.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Anisotropic magnetism and Kondo-lattice behavior in the frustrated antiferromagnet Ce 3 ⁢MgBi 5

Here, we report the synthesis and physical characterization of single-crystalline Ce 3 ⁢MgBi 5 , a previously unexplored member of the Ce 3 ⁢𝑀⁢𝑃⁢𝑛 5 family. This compound crystallizes in the hexagonal 𝑃⁢6 3 /𝑚⁢𝑐⁢𝑚 structure, featuring an anisotropic Ce sublattice composed of zigzag chains along the 𝑐 axis and a distorted kagome-like network in the basal plane. Magnetization measurements reveal antiferromagnetic order below 𝑇 𝑁 ≈ 4.2K with strong magnetic anisotropy and multiple field-induced metamagnetic transitions for fields applied perpendicular to [001], leading to a dome-shaped 𝐻–𝑇 phase diagram. Electrical transport exhibits characteristic signatures of a Ce-based Kondo lattice, including broad resistivity maxima and pronounced field-dependent anomalies in the magnetoresistance and Hall response that track the magnetic phase boundaries. Specific-heat measurements confirm the magnetic transition and show that the full R ⁢ln⁡ 2 entropy expected for a Ce 3+ Kramers doublet is recovered by 20 K, indicating an extended temperature range of magnetic fluctuations consistent with Kondo correlations. Our results establish Ce 3 ⁢MgBi 5 as a platform within the Ce 3 ⁢𝑀⁢𝑃⁢𝑛 5 family for exploring the interplay of geometric frustration, magnetic anisotropy, and Kondo-lattice physics under applied magnetic fields.

Kondo effect↗

Precise Experimental Test of the Luttinger Theorem and Particle-Hole Symmetry for a Strongly Correlated Fermionic System

A fundamental concept in physics is the Fermi surface, the constant-energy surface in momentum space encompassing all the occupied quantum states at absolute zero temperature. In 1960, Luttinger postulated that the area enclosed by the Fermi surface should remain unaffected even when electron-electron interaction is turned on, so long as the interaction does not cause a phase transition. Understanding what determines the Fermi surface size is a crucial and yet unsolved problem in strongly interacting systems such as high-$T_c$ superconductors. Here we present a precise test of the Luttinger theorem for a two-dimensional Fermi liquid system where the exotic quasiparticles themselves emerge from the strong interaction, namely, for the Fermi sea of composite fermions (CFs). Via direct, geometric resonance measurements of the CFs’ Fermi wave vector down to very low electron densities, we show that the Luttinger theorem is obeyed over a significant range of interaction strengths, in the sense that the Fermi sea area is determined by the density of the minority carriers in the lowest Landau level. Our data in this work also address the ongoing debates on whether or not CFs obey particle-hole symmetry, and if they are Dirac particles. We find that particle-hole symmetry is obeyed, but the measured Fermi sea area differs quantitatively from that predicted by the Dirac model for CFs.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗

Design Optimization of Medium-Frequency Transformer for DAB Converters With DC Bias Capacity

Medium-frequency transformer (MFT) dc bias is critical for the safe operation of dual-active-bridge (DAB) converters. To analyze the dc bias, expressions of dc bias are derived for SiC MOSFET DAB converters. It shows that the dc bias is a current source in steady state; thus, a dc bias current capacity is defined and used as a design constraint in the optimization of MFT. The dc bias current capacity is related to core materials, geometric parameters, and flux density, which is analyzed with analytical expression. Optimization equations with geometric variables are derived, which can be solved theoretically or numerically for both interleaved winding (IW) and separated winding (SW) MFT without and/or with leakage inductance design. Based on the optimization equations, different MFT designs for a 150-kW SiC MOSFET DAB converter are compared on the aspects of core materials, winding structures, and without/with leakage inductance design. The combination of IW structure MFT with auxiliary phase shift inductors is chosen, and the assembled prototype is tested with the 150-kW DAB converter. Here, the designed dc bias capacity, temperature rise, and efficiency are verified.

42 ENGINEERING↗

Super-resolution within a one-dimensional phononic crystal of resonators using time reversal in an equivalent circuit model

An equivalent circuit model has been developed to model a one-dimensional waveguide with many side-branch Helmholtz resonators. This waveguide constitutes a phononic crystal that has been shown to have decreased phase speed below the resonance frequency of an individual resonator. This decreased phase speed can be exploited to achieve super-resolution using broadband time reversal focusing techniques. It is shown that the equivalent circuit model is capable of quantifying this change in phase speed of the crystal and also the small-scale wave-resonator interactions within the crystal. The equivalent circuit model enables the parameterization of the physical variables and the optimization of the focusing bandwidth by balancing the combination of increasing resolution and decreasing amplitude near the resonance frequency. It is shown that the quality factor—in this case, the quality factor determined by the geometric shape of each resonator—controls the range of frequencies that are strongly affected by the Helmholtz resonators.

Kingsley, Adam D.↗

Magnetism and metallicity in moiré transition metal dichalcogenides

The ability to control the properties of twisted bilayer transition metal dichalcogenides in situ makes them an ideal platform for investigating the interplay of strong correlations and geometric frustration. Of particular interest are the low energy scales, which make it possible to experimentally access both temperature and magnetic fields that are of the order of the bandwidth or the correlation scale. In this manuscript, we analyze the moiré Hubbard model, believed to describe the low energy physics of an important subclass of the twisted bilayer compounds. We establish its magnetic and the metal–insulator phase diagram for the full range of magnetic fields up to the fully spin-polarized state. We find a rich phase diagram including fully and partially polarized insulating and metallic phases of which we determine the interplay of magnetic order, Zeeman-field, and metallicity, and make connection to recent experiments.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Phase 1 Specifications and preliminary sensitivity analyses of the OECD-NRC liquid metal fast reactor core thermal-hydraulics benchmark

The developments in wire-wrapped fuel bundle thermal-hydraulics research have become increasingly diverse and this makes comparisons across studies difficult. This paper describes an ongoing benchmark that will address this issue by directly comparing computational results with experimental data from two unique wire-wrapped thermal-hydraulic facilities. Preliminary subchannel sensitivity / uncertainty analyses show largely expected behavior for the presented cases, where rod diameter and friction factor show the greatest sensitivities to geometrical perturbations. Guidelines for computational fluid dynamics evaluations have been prepared and highlight the need for consolidated modeling strategies. (authors)

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS↗

Geometric control of emergent antiferromagnetic order in coupled artificial spin ices

Artificial spin ices (ASIs) composed of coupled nanomagnets offer the possibility to create designer geometrical frustration and manipulate inter-nanomagnet interactions. In particular, by using a dimer motif consisting of two strongly coupled single-domain nano magnets as a building block, we can control and realize intriguing antiferromagnetic physical states in which the magnetic charge is not conserved. Here we create a dimer kagome ASI system within which the antiferromagnetic order is controlled by tuning lattice geometry. Different disordered antiferromagnetic phases and the inter-nanomagnet interactions are visualized directly in demagnetized lattices with different lattice parameters. Monte Carlo simulations establish that the collective ground state consists of disordered antiferromagnetic dimers across the lattice when the intra-dimer interaction is dominant. However, for lattices governed by intra-triad-unit interactions, the ground state exhibits a longrange spin-ordered state in which the vertex magnetic charge is uniform across all triads.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Noise-resistant Landau-Zener sweeps from geometrical curves

Landau-Zener physics is often exploited to generate quantum logic gates and to perform state initialization and readout. The quality of these operations can be degraded by noise fluctuations in the energy gap at the avoided crossing. We leverage a recently discovered correspondence between qubit evolution and space curves in three dimensions to design noise-robust Landau-Zener sweeps through an avoided crossing. In the case where the avoided crossing is purely noise-induced, we prove that operations based on monotonic sweeps cannot be robust to noise. Hence, we design families of phase gates based on non-monotonic drives that are error-robust up to second order. In the general case where there is an avoided crossing even in the absence of noise, we present a general technique for designing robust driving protocols that takes advantage of a relationship between the Landau-Zener problem and space curves of constant torsion.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

Design of High-Power Polyphase PCB Coil Systems for Wireless Power Transfer

Printed circuit board (PCB) coils have been proposed prior for implementation as inductive wireless charging coils to minimize size and cost. Utilization of PCBs can allow for a reduced cost, improved manufacturability, and a wide range of geometric customization options. To circumvent material limitations on insulation and thermal performance, parallel paths can be implemented to divide the current per path accordingly. Within this paper, an unconventional high-power PCB coil is designed employing all possible techniques for wiring with axial and radial parallel paths with equivalent transposition to minimize circulating currents. Design studies are simulated in 3D finite element analysis (FEA) to evaluate imbalance between phases with and without transposition. Two experimental prototype coils were fabricated with measurements for self-inductance and mutual inductance between phases. These measurements were validated to be sufficiently consistent with FEA results. Additionally, a method is proposed for a two-step optimization of coupling coefficient and coil losses.

Lewis, Donovin D.↗

Nonlinear dynamics, bifurcations, and multi-stability in a vibro-impact system with geometric and multi-segmented freeplay nonlinearities

Freeplay is a common type of piecewise-smooth nonlinearity in dynamical systems, and it can cause discontinuity-induced bifurcations and other behaviors that may bring about undesirable and potentially damaging responses. Prior research has focused on piecewise-smooth systems with two or three distinct regions, but less attention is devoted to systems with more regions (i.e., multi-segmented systems). In this work, numerical analysis is performed on a dynamical system with multi-segmented freeplay, in which there are four stiffness transitions and five distinct regions in the phase space. Here, the effects of the multi-segmented parameters are studied through bifurcation diagram evolution along with induced multi-stable behavior and different bifurcations. These phenomena are interrogated through various tools, such as harmonic balance, basins of attraction, phase planes, and Poincaré section analysis. Results show that among the three multi-segmented parameters, the asymmetry has the strongest effect on the response of the system.

42 ENGINEERING↗

Design and performance evaluation of a dual-circuit thermal energy storage module for air conditioners

We present experimental results and a validated numerical model of a dual-circuit phase-change thermal energy storage module for air conditioners. The module incorporates a phase-change material encapsulated in compressed expanded natural graphite foam. We used n-tetradecane as the PCM with a transition temperature (~4.5 °C) suitable for air-conditioning applications. Heat exchange to and from the module is accomplished through two fluid loops operating as a heat source and sink embedded inside multiple slabs of the composite material. This dual-circuit design enables easier integration with air-conditioning equipment and provides enhanced flexibility in system operation as compared to the state-of-the-art thermal storage systems. When integrated with an air-conditioner, this design will enable peak-load shaving and enhances operational efficiency. The thermal storage device was designed for a nominal storage capacity of ~ 3.5 kWh. We evaluated the heat transfer and energy storage performance of this device using standalone heat transfer experiments to estimate key thermal resistances and identify design improvements before integration with an air conditioner. The numerical model of the heat exchanger uses a combination of discretized and lumped parameter approaches to maintain a balance between accuracy and computational expense. Our analyses show that the geometric features and integration of fluid tubes are key contributors to the thermal contact resistance between the fluid and the thermal storage material, and consequently, to the overall performance of the thermal storage module. Our standalone experiments also identified important operating scenarios in which this thermal storage module can be used for air-conditioning in buildings.

25 ENERGY STORAGE↗

A unified system for Coleman–De Luccia transitions

Highlights: • Monotonicity controls whether radius of CDL bounce is negative mode direction. • Decays from de Sitter and Anti-de Sitter analyzed in single geometric framework. • de Sitter to Anti-de Sitter instantons come in two types, similar to type-A vs type-B. We show that the presence or absence of negative modes associated with the expansion or contraction of Coleman–De Luccia instantons is controlled by the monotonicity properties of a single function parameterized by the tension and two vacuum energies. This approach simplifies and unifies certain aspects of phase transitions between two de Sitter vacua, between two Anti-de Sitter, and between one of each. This strategy may serve as a guide for identifying negative modes in more complicated gravitational theories, for instance supergravity.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗