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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 469 records · Page 26

Muon g-2 Experiment at Fermilab

A new experiment at Fermilab will measure the anomalous magnetic moment of the muon with a precision of 140 parts per billion (ppb). This measurement is motivated by the results of the Brookhaven E821 experiment that were first released more than a decade ago, which reached a precision of 540 ppb. As the corresponding Standard Model predictions have been refined, the experimental and theoretical values have persistently differed by about 3 standard deviations. If the Brookhaven result is confirmed at Fermilab with this improved precision, it will constitute definitive evidence for physics beyond the Standard Model. The experiment observes the muon spin precession frequency in flight in a well-calibrated magnetic field; the improvement in precision will require both 20 times as many recorded muon decay events as in E821 and a reduction by a factor of 3 in the systematic uncertainties. This paper describes the current experimental status as well as the plans for the upgraded magnet, detector and storage ring systems that are being prepared for the start of beam data collection in 2017.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗

Sustainability and affordability of building electrification: A state-by-state holistic approach for multifamily buildings

This paper explores the evolving narrative of building electrification, considering its potential to solve climate change. Previous research has predominantly focused on hybrid renewable energy portfolios and increasing home pricing premiums, overlooking the perspectives of renters burdened by housing costs. Moreover, existing studies have primarily examined the effects of electrification on single-family homes and case studies, neglecting multifamily buildings and their relationship with the grid. This comprehensive study leverages calibrated building energy models to address these gaps and evaluates sustainability through carbon dioxide emissions and affordability through economic performance. The findings demonstrate significant progress in electrification since 2017, with nearly all states showing decreased energy usage in the electrified models. Environmentally, twenty-two states perform better or comparably with the electrified models in the most recent study. Economically, challenges persist, but a sensitivity analysis demonstrates how results could improve soon. Furthermore, the study discusses the outlook of electrified multifamily buildings, considering ongoing decarbonization plans for the electric grid. In three case studies, electrification demonstrates improvements in over half of the states by 2026. Overall, the research highlights the importance of expanding analysis to include multifamily buildings and emphasizes the positive impact of electrification as a viable energy, environmental, and economic solution.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗

Femtosecond laser pulse driven melting in gold nanorod aqueous colloidal suspension: Identification of a transition from stretched to exponential kinetics

Many potential industrial, medical, and environmental applications of metal nanorods rely on the physics and resultant kinetics and dynamics of the interaction of these particles with light. We report a surprising kinetics transition in the global melting of femtosecond laser-driven gold nanorod aqueous colloidal suspension. At low laser intensity, the melting exhibits a stretched exponential kinetics, which abruptly transforms into a compressed exponential kinetics when the laser intensity is raised. It is found the relative formation and reduction rate of intermediate shapes play a key role in the transition. Supported by both molecular dynamics simulations and a kinetic model, the behavior is traced back to the persistent heterogeneous nature of the shape dependence of the energy uptake, dissipation and melting of individual nanoparticles. These results could have significant implications for various applications such as water purification and electrolytes for energy storage that involve heat transport between metal nanorod ensembles and surrounding solvents.

77 NANOSCIENCE AND NANOTECHNOLOGY↗

NMR study of nematic spin fluctuations in a detwinned single crystal of underdoped Ba ( Fe 1 ₋ x Co x ) 2 As 2

Here, we report the experimental details of how mechanical detwinning can be implemented in tandem with high-sensitivity nuclear magnetic resonance measurements and use this setup to measure the in-plane anisotropy of the spin-lattice relaxation rate in underdoped Ba(Fe 1–x Co x ) 2 As 2 with x = 0.048. The anisotropy reaches a maximum of 30% at TN, and the recovery data reveal that the glassy behavior of the spin fluctuations present in the twinned state persist in the fully detwinned crystal. A theoretical model is presented to describe the spin-lattice relaxation rate in terms of anisotropic nematic spin fluctuations.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

Ice Nucleating Particles, Aerosols and Clouds over the Higher Latitude Southern Ocean

Improved understanding of aerosol-cloud-precipitation interactions is a key goal of the DOE-ASR program. Ice Nucleating Particles (INPs) are rare aerosol particles that trigger ice formation in clouds. By doing so they may initiate precipitation in clouds, and this impacts cloud lifetime. Nowhere may the role of INPs be manifested so dramatically as in the Southern Ocean (SO). This vast region was the focus of the DOE-ARM MARCUS (Measurement of Aerosols, Radiation and CloUds over the Southern Oceans) and MICRE (Macquarie Island Cloud and Radiation Experiment) campaigns. In the SO, a deficit of INPs has been a leading hypothesis for why liquid clouds persist, which underlays the bias of global climate models in predicting excess shortwave radiation reaching the ocean surface between 55°S and Antarctica. In this study, we used the 6-month acquisition of INP data on four MARCUS cruises from Hobart, Tasmania, to Antarctica, and the single-location full annual INP cycle observed in MICRE, to gain a holistic, quantitative picture of the INP number concentrations as a function of temperature and their variability over SO latitudes from 43°S to Antarctica. Augmenting initial processing of filter collections of aerosol particles during MARCUS and MICRE, additional freezing studies following thermal treatment (to removes INPs associated with microbes) and peroxide treatment (to remove all organics), as well as ionic chemistry and total organic carbon analysis, were applied to samples to improve time and space resolution, and differentiate marine from terrestrial contributions. We also performed Next Generation Sequencing to determine that bacterial composition can tag periods of enhanced and degraded marine organic INPs and the relative lack of occurrence of land-sourced bio-particles. Through these and other analyses, INP data were categorized into representative source types (e.g., marine versus terrestrially-influenced). The products of our analyses are being used to parameterize ice formation for use in numerical modeling studies to determine if, and when, ocean-derived INPs control the microphysical composition and radiative balance of SO clouds in a manner not presently captured by global models. The specific objectives and approaches proposed were largely accomplished, including: 1) Additional and value-added chemical and biological analyses of archived samples of aerosols were completed to categorize and quantify INP types and concentrations over the SO. 2) Analyses were completed to place INP data in meteorological and aerosol context. 3) Sea spray aerosol INPs were demonstrated to dominate the SO region in all but episodic events. 4) New parameterizations for INP sources relevant to the SO were constructed. 5) Collaborative modeling studies demonstrating the crucial role of INPs in determining cloud radiative and precipitation properties were conducted with MARCUS and MICRE partners. Collaborative publication submissions in this regard ensued within the two year study. This work will advance the science of interactions of aerosols, clouds and precipitation, to improve their representation in regional and global climate models. Results have informed representation of primary ice crystal nucleation, give inference to the role of secondary processes, and improve investigations of aerosol influences on clouds via ice nucleation over SO high latitudes and similar vast ocean regions. Application will improve representation of such interactions for clouds in both regional and global climate models. The data base and analyses methods applied will continue to serve research studies in the future.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗

Assessing Cognitive Impacts of Errors from Machine Learning and Deep Learning Models: Final Report

Due to their recent increases in performance, machine learning and deep learning models are being increasingly adopted across many domains for visual processing tasks. One such domain is international nuclear safeguards, which seeks to verify the peaceful use of commercial nuclear energy across the globe. Despite recent impressive performance results from machine learning and deep learning algorithms, there is always at least some small level of error. Given the significant consequences of international nuclear safeguards conclusions, we sought to characterize how incorrect responses from a machine or deep learning-assisted visual search task would cognitively impact users. We found that not only do some types of model errors have larger negative impacts on human performance than other errors, the scale of those impacts change depending on the accuracy of the model with which they are presented and they persist in scenarios of evenly distributed errors and single-error presentations. Further, we found that experiments conducted using a common visual search dataset from the psychology community has similar implications to a safeguards- relevant dataset of images containing hyperboloid cooling towers when the cooling tower images are presented to expert participants. While novice performance was considerably different (and worse) on the cooling tower task, we saw increased novice reliance on the most challenging cooling tower images compared to experts. These findings are relevant not just to the cognitive science community, but also for developers of machine and deep learning that will be implemented in multiple domains. For safeguards, this research provides key insights into how machine and deep learning projects should be implemented considering their special requirements that information not be missed.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Limits on photospheric Doppler signatures for solar giant cells

Mount Wilson solar-velocity data taken since improvement of the spectrograph in May 1982 are analyzed to search for photospheric traces of persistent velocity patterns that are anticipated in recent model predictions. The method involves time-averaged autocorrelations and cross correlations of the residuals that remain after least-squares fits for differential rotation, limb shift, and meridional circulation are extracted from the daily-magnetogram velocity arrays. It is argued that, owing to the supergranular motions in the photosphere, the sensitivity in applying the present method to the new Mount Wilson data is close to the ultimate sensitivity possible for detection of this phenomenon. The following limits are currently established through this analysis: (1) there is no sharply peaked power spectrum with amplitude above about 1 m/s per wavenumber, and (2) there is no broad-band power spectrum for which the total integrated power is greater than about 10 sq m/sq sec.

Snodgrass, H. B.↗

OH radio observations of Comet Halley

Results of OH observations of P/Halley obtained with the NRAO 43 m antenna between July 1985 and May 1986 are presented. Using Radio Model 1986a, the OH production rate derived from these data follows an rh(-2) law for heliocentric distances in the range 0.6 to 2.1 AU. Comparison of radio OH production rates to those estimated by UV techniques continues to show that the radio technique finds systematically lower production rates. Observations of the OH line shape show that the line width increases as the comet approaches perihelion, and that the broader line widths persist after perihelion out to at least rh = 1AU. Modeling of the profiles suggest that this may be accounted for through an increase in the velocity of the OH parent. The mean velocity of the OH emission (after correction for the OH Greenstein effect) is slightly blue shifted compared to the nucleus velocity and suggests that the outgassing from the nucleus is largely directed sunward.

Schloerb, F. Peter↗

Reporter Concerns in 300 Mode-Related Incident Reports from NASA's Aviation Safety Reporting System

A model has been developed which represents prominent reporter concerns expressed in the narratives of 300 mode-related incident reports from NASA's Aviation Safety Reporting System (ASRS). The model objectively quantifies the structure of concerns which persist across situations and reporters. These concerns are described and illustrated using verbatim sentences from the original narratives. Report accession numbers are included with each sentence so that concerns can be traced back to the original reports. The results also include an inventory of mode names mentioned in the narratives, and a comparison of individual and joint concerns. The method is based on a proximity-weighted co-occurrence metric and object-oriented complexity reduction.

McGreevy, Michael W.↗

El Nino and the Global Ocean Observing System

Until a decade ago, an often-quoted expression in oceanography is that very few observations are recorded throughout the ocean. Now, the sentiment is no longer valid in the uppermost 10% of the tropical Pacific Ocean nor at the surface of the global ocean. One of the remarkable legacies of the 1985-1994 Tropical Oceans Global Atmosphere (TOGA) Program is an in situ marine meteorological and upper oceanographic measurement array throughout the equatorial Pacific to monitor the development and maintenance of El Nino episodes. The TOGA Observing System, which initially consisted of moored- and drifting-buoy arrays, a network of commercial ships, and coastal and island stations, now includes a constellation of satellites and data-assimilating models to simulate subsurface oceanographic conditions. The El Nino and La Nina tropical Pacific Ocean observing system represents the initial phase of an integrated global ocean observing system. Remarkable improvements have been made in ocean model simulation of subsurface currents, but some problems persist. For example, the simulation of the South Equatorial Current (SEC) remains an important challenge in the 2S-2N Pacific equatorial wave guide. During El Nino the SEC at the equator is reduced and sometimes the direction is reversed, becoming eastward. Both conditions allow warm water stored in the western Pacific to invade the eastern region, creating an El Nino episode. Assimilation of data is a tenet of faith to correct simulation errors caused by deficiencies in surface fluxes (especially wind stress) and parameterizations of subgrid-scale physical processes. In the first of two numerical experiments, the Pacific SEC was simulated with and without assimilation of subsurface temperature data. Along the equator, a very weak SEC occurred throughout the eastern Pacific, independent of assimilation of data. However, as displayed in the diagram, in the western Pacific there was no satisfactory agreement between the two simulations. To help determine reliability of the simulated SEC in the western Pacific, current measurements recorded during the 9-19 October 1994 voyage of the French research vessel L'Atalante are also shown in the diagram. With data assimilation, the simulated SEC was in much better agreement with L'Atalante observations. The simulated SEC with data assimilation was far from perfect, in part because of the sparsity of subsurface temperature observations. In the next experiment, TOPEX/POSEIDON sea surface height data in combination with subsurface temperatures will be assimilated to assess further improvement of the simulation of the SEC.

Halpern, David↗

Assessing Impacts of Global Warming on Tropical Cyclone Tracks

A new approach is proposed to assess the possible impacts of the global climate change on tropical cyclone (TC) tracks in the western North Pacific (WNP) basin. The idea is based on the premise that the future change of TC track characteristics is primarily determined by changes in large-scale environmental steering flows. It is demonstrated that the main characteristics of the current climatology of TC tracks can be derived from the climatological mean velocity field of TC motion by using a trajectory model. The climatological mean velocity of TC motion, which is composed of the large-scale steering and beta drift, is determined on each grid of the basin. The mean beta drift is estimated from the best track data, and the mean large-scale steering flow is computed from the NCEP/NCAR reanalysis for the current climate state. The derived mean beta drift agrees well with the results of previous observational and numerical studies in terms of its direction and magnitude. The outputs of experiments A2 and B2 of the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL) R30 climate model suggest that the subtropical high will be persistently weak over the western part of the WNP or shift eastward during July-September in response to the future climate change. By assuming that the mean beta drift in the future climate state is unchanged, the change in the general circulation by 2059 will decrease the TC activities in the WNP, but favor a northward shift of typical TC tracks. As a result, the storm activities in the South China Sea will decrease by about 12%, while the Japan region will experience an increase of TCs by 12-15%. During the period of 2000-2029, the tropical storms that affect the China region will increase by 5-6%, but return to the current level during 2030-2059. It is also suggested that, during the period of 2030-2059 tropical storms will more frequently affect Japan and the middle latitude region of China given that the formation locations remain the same as in the current climate state.

Wu, Li-Guang↗

Aircraft Loss-of-Control Accident Prevention: Switching Control of the GTM Aircraft with Elevator Jam Failures

Switching control, servomechanism, and H2 control theory are used to provide a practical and easy-to-implement solution for the actuator jam problem. A jammed actuator not only causes a reduction of control authority, but also creates a persistent disturbance with uncertain amplitude. The longitudinal dynamics model of the NASA GTM UAV is employed to demonstrate that a single fixed reconfigured controller design based on the proposed approach is capable of accommodating an elevator jam failure with arbitrary jam position as long as the thrust control has enough control authority. This paper is a first step towards solving a more comprehensive in-flight loss-of-control accident prevention problem that involves multiple actuator failures, structure damages, unanticipated faults, and nonlinear upset regime recovery, etc.

Chang, Bor-Chin↗

Quantifying the Influence of Global Warming on Unprecedented Extreme Climate Events

Efforts to understand the influence of historical global warming on individual extreme climate events have increased over the past decade. However, despite substantial progress, events that are unprecedented in the local observational record remain a persistent challenge. Leveraging observations and a large climate model ensemble, we quantify uncertainty in the influence of global warming on the severity and probability of the historically hottest month, hottest day, driest year, and wettest 5-d period for different areas of the globe. We find that historical warming has increased the severity and probability of the hottest month and hottest day of the year at >80% of the available observational area. Our framework also suggests that the historical climate forcing has increased the probability of the driest year and wettest 5-d period at 57% and 41% of the observed area, respectively, although we note important caveats. For the most protracted hot and dry events, the strongest and most widespread contributions of anthropogenic climate forcing occur in the tropics, including increases in probability of at least a factor of 4 for the hottest month and at least a factor of 2 for the driest year. We also demonstrate the ability of our framework to systematically evaluate the role of dynamic and thermodynamic factors such as atmospheric circulation patterns and atmospheric water vapor, and find extremely high statistical confidence that anthropogenic forcing increased the probability of record-low Arctic sea ice extent.

Diffenbaugh, Noah S.↗

Mechanism of shape symmetry breaking in surfactant-mediated crystal growth

We present a dynamical model of crystal growth, in which it is possible to reliably achieve asymmetric products, beginning from symmetric initial conditions and growing within an isotropic environment. The asymmetric growth is the result of a positive feedback mechanism that amplifies the effect of thermal fluctuations in the coverage of surfactants on the growing crystalline facets. Within our simple model, we are able to understand the kinetic and thermodynamic factors involved in both the onset of symmetry breaking and the persistence of anisotropic growth. We demonstrate that the mechanism is general by studying models with increasing complexity. We argue that this mechanism of symmetry breaking underpins observations of colloidal, seed-mediated syntheses of single crystalline metal nanorods capped with strongly interacting surfactants. The parameters within our model are related to experimental observables such as the concentration, hydrophobicity, and binding strength of the surfactants, which suggests a potential route to optimize the yield of asymmetric products in colloidal nanoparticle syntheses.

Oaks-Leaf, Sam↗

Global Validation of a Process-Based Model on Vegetation Gross Primary Production Using Eddy Covariance Observations

Gross Primary Production (GPP) is the largest flux in the global carbon cycle. However, large uncertainties in current global estimations persist. In this study, we examined the performance of a process-based model (Integrated BIosphere Simulator, IBIS) at 62 eddy covariance sites around the world. Our results indicated that the IBIS model explained 60% of the observed variation in daily GPP at all validation sites. Comparison with a satellite-based vegetation model (Eddy Covariance-Light Use Efficiency, EC-LUE) revealed that the IBIS simulations yielded comparable GPP results as the EC-LUE model. Global mean GPP estimated by the IBIS model was 107.50±1.37 Pg C year-1 (mean value ± standard deviation) across the vegetated area for the period 2000–2006, consistent with the results of the EC-LUE model (109.39±1.48 Pg C year-1). To evaluate the uncertainty introduced by the parameter Vcmax, which represents the maximum photosynthetic capacity, we inversed Vcmax using Markov Chain-Monte Carlo (MCMC) procedures. Using the inversed Vcmax values, the simulated global GPP increased by 16.5 Pg C year-1, indicating that IBIS model is sensitive to Vcmax, and large uncertainty exists in model parameterization.

Science & Technology - Other Topics↗

Integrated simulations for fusion research in the 2030's time frame (white paper outline)

This white paper presents the rationale for developing a community-wide capability for whole-device modeling, and advocates for an effort with the expectation of persistence: a long-term programmatic commitment, and support for community efforts. Statement of 2030 goal (two suggestions): (a) Robust integrated simulation tools to aid real-time experimental discharges and reactor designs by employing a hierarchy in fidelity of physics models. (b) To produce by the early 2030s a capability for validated, predictive simulation via integration of a suite of physics models from moderate through high fidelity, to understand and plan full plasma discharges, aid in data interpretation, carry out discovery science, and optimize future machine designs. We can achieve this goal via a focused effort to extend current scientific capabilities and rigorously integrate simulations of disparate physics into a comprehensive set of workflows.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗