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At least 487 records · Page 27

TPSAS-NF1676L-20101-DND

Aerosols influence climate through their direct and indirect effects. The aerosol indirect effect is based on the way they interact with surrounding clouds. During cloud formation and development, aerosols act as cloud nucleation nuclei (CCN) or ice nuclei, which modifies cloud micro-, macro-physical and radiative properties, and hence helps to shape the Earth's radiation budget. Dominant sources of ocean-derived aerosols that may serve as CCN include sea spray and biogenic aerosol. In this study, we used 10-years global observations from the A-Train satellites to show seasonal variations of cloud droplet number concentrations (CDNC), ocean chlorophyll concentrations, aerosol angstrom parameter, and rainfall. Potential cloud-aerosol interactions are further discussed based on seasonal and spatial correlations between microphysics of clouds and aerosols. Emphasis for this study is placed on the southern ocean and tropical Pacific.

Shan Zeng↗

Sea Surface Height Anomalies of the Arctic Ocean from Icesat-2: A First Examination and Comparisons with Cryosat-2

Accurately resolving spatio-temporal variations in sea surface height across the polar oceans is key to improving our understanding of ocean circulation variability and change. Here, we examine the first two years (2018-2020) of Arctic Ocean sea surface height anomalies (SSHA) from the photon-counting laser altimeter onboard NASA’s ICE, Cloud, and Land Elevation Satellite-2 (ICESat-2). ICESat-2 SSHA estimates are compared to estimates from ESA’s CryoSat-2 mission, including semi-synchronous along-track measurements from the recent CRYO2ICE orbit alignment campaign. There are documented residual centimeter-scale range biases between the ICESat-2 beams (in release-003 data) and we opted for a single-beam approach in our comparisons. We find good agreement in the along-track estimates (spatial correlation coefficient >0.8 and mean differences <0.03 m) as well as in the gridded monthly SSHA estimates (temporal correlation coefficient of 0.76 and a mean difference of 0.01 m) from the two altimeters, suggesting ICESat-2 adds to the CryoSat-2 SSHA estimates.

ICESat-2↗

Reconstruction of Historical Surface Mass Balance, 1984–2017 from GreenTrACS Multi-offset Ground-penetrating Radar

We present continuous estimates of snow and firn density, layer depth and accumulation from a multi-channel, multi-offset, ground-penetrating radar traverse. Our method uses the electromagnetic velocity, estimated from waveform travel-times measured at common-midpoints between sources and receivers. Previously, common-midpoint radar experiments on ice sheets have been limited to point observations. We completed radar velocity analysis in the upper ~2 m to estimate the surface and average snow density of the Greenland Ice Sheet. We parameterized the Herron and Langway (1980) firn density and age model using the radar-derived snow density, radar-derived surface mass balance (2015–2017) and reanalysis-derived temperature data. We applied structure-oriented filtering to the radar image along constant age horizons and increased the depth at which horizons could be reliably interpreted. We reconstructed the historical instantaneous surface mass balance, which we averaged into annual and multidecadal products along a 78 km traverse for the period 1984–2017. We found good agreement between our physically constrained parameterization and a firn core collected from the dry snow accumulation zone, and gained insights into the spatial correlation of surface snow density.

glacier geophysics↗

Planetary Boundary Layer Height Estimates From ICESat-2 and CATS Backscatter Measurements

The lowest layer of the atmosphere in which all human activity occurs is called the Planetary Boundary Layer (PBL). All physical interactions with the surface, such as heat and moisture transport, pollution dispersion and transport happen in this relatively shallow layer. The ability to understand and model the complex interactions that occur in the PBL is very important to air quality, weather prediction and climate modeling. A fundamental and physically important property of the PBL is its thickness or height. This work presents two methods to obtain global PBL height using satellite lidar data from the Ice, Cloud and land Elevation Satellite-2 (ICESat-2) and the Cloud-Aerosol Transport System (CATS). The first method is a straightforward backscatter threshold technique and the second is a machine learning approach known as a Convolutional Neural Network. The PBL height retrievals from the two methods are compared with each other and with PBL height from the NASA GEOS MERRA-2 reanalysis. The lidar-retrieved PBL heights have a high degree of spatial correlation with the model heights but are generally higher over ocean (∼400 m) and over northern hemisphere high latitude regions (∼1,000 m). Over mid-latitude and tropical land areas, the satellite estimated PBL heights agree well with model mid-day estimates. This work demonstrates the feasibility of using satellite lidar backscatter measurements to obtain global PBL height estimates, as well as determining seasonal and regional variability of PBL height.

Stephen P Palm↗

New Constraints on the Volatile Deposit in Mercury’s North Polar Crater, Prokofiev

There is strong evidence from multi-wavelength, multi-instrument observations and thermal models for the presence of ice and other volatiles in Mercury’s north polar permanently shadowed regions (PSRs)[1-6]. Ground-based radar measurements identified bright regions in some polar craters interpreted to be water ice on or near the surface[1]. The MESSENGER spacecraft found that some radar-bright deposits appeared bright in the optical and near-infrared while others appeared dark[4-6]. The bright regions were interpreted to be exposed surface ice while the dark regions were hypothesized to be complex organic volatile lag deposits overlaying buried ice[3]. One example of the former is in the 112 km diameter crater, Prokofiev, for which the Mercury Dual Imaging System (MDIS) acquired broadband images while in Sun shadow but illuminated by scattered light from the crater walls[5]. These images revealed a relatively high-albedo region spatially correlated with the PSR. Subsequent work[7] found a small offset between the boundary of the radar-bright region and that of the PSR predicted by an illumination model based on the polar digital elevation model (DEM)from the Mercury Laser Altimeter (MLA). Such an offset, if true, could have implications for the ice properties and its delivery and destruction mechanisms. However, the low resolution (1 km/pix) of the polar MLA DEM precluded a definitive conclusion. In the present work, we build new higher-resolution topographic, illumination, and thermal models of Prokofiev to place stronger constraints on its PSR and volatile deposits. We also study the MLA reflectance data in this crater to quantitatively estimate the ice abundance.

Michael K Barker↗

A Transmission Electron Microscopy Study of a Refractory Metal Grain from a Calcium-Aluminum-Rich Inclusion in the Leoville CV3 Chondrite

Introduction: Calcium-aluminum-rich inclusions (CAIs) are an important component of chondritic meteorites. They can contain materials that are thermodynamically predicted and isotopically age dated to be among the first-formed solids in our solar system [1-5]. Observed in some CAIs are micron to sub-micron sized inclusions rich in Fe, Ni, and high-Z elements such as Pt, Os, Ir and W, in the form of refractory metal nuggets (RMNs), fremdlinges, and ‘nugget like objects’ (NLOs) [1,6]. Refractory siderophile elements such as Os, Ir and Ru are thermodynamically predicted to condense at temperatures well in excess of the major CAI phases such as melilite, perovskite, spinel and hibonite [2,7-9]. These refractory metal inclusions in CAIs can therefore serve as probes into the thermodynamic landscape of the early solar protoplanetary disk. Here we report on a refractory grain identified in a CAI of the Leoville CV3 chondrite. This work is part of an ongoing effort to gain insight into the thermochemistry of the early solar system through systematic analyses of the structure and chemistry of various components in CAIs [10-13]. Sample and Analytical Techniques: A fluffy type A CAI (Fig. 1A) was identified in a section of the Leoville, CV3 chondrite (Center for Meteorite Studies, Arizona State University collection, #821_C_3) using a JOEL-JXA 8530F electron microprobe at Arizona State University. Backscattered electron (BSE) imaging and energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS) were used to identify refractory metal grains in the CAI using a Thermo Fisher (formerly FEI) Helios NanoLab 660 G3 focused-ion-beam scanning-electron microscope (FIBSEM) located at the Kuiper Materials Imaging and Characterization Facility (KMICF) at the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, University of Arizona. The FIB is equipped with an EDAX EDS system. We selected one of the larger (micron-sized) refractory metal grains, designated as ‘Spud’ (Fig. 1B) for further analysis. ‘Spud’ was extracted and thinned to electron transparency (<100 nm) using the FIB-SEM located in KMICF, following methods described by [14- 15]. The FIB section was analyzed using a 200 keV Hitachi HF5000 scanning transmission electron microscope (S/TEM) located at KMICF. The HF5000 is equipped with cold-field emission gun, 3rd-order spherical aberration corrector for STEM imaging, and an Oxford Instruments X-Max N 100 TLE energydispersive spectroscopy (EDS) system with dual 100 mm2 windowless silicon-drift detectors (Ω = 2.0 sr). Selected-area electron-diffraction (SAED) patterns were acquired to aid in determination of crystallinity and phase. Results: The mineralogy, texture, and morphology of the CAI are consistent with that of a fluffy type A (FTA) CAI [16]. BSE imaging at high magnifications revealed grains with high contrast, indicative of compositions rich in elements of higher atomic number relative to surrounding material. These high-Z grains have sizes that range from ∼250 nm to 4 µm. EDS analyses confirm that the bright grains are metal-rich inclusions. A minor fraction of the grains are composed of only Fe and Ni, but the majority (∼60%) of the identified inclusions also contained various refractory siderophiles including Os, Ru, Zr, Ir and Mo. EDS analysis on the FIB-SEM of Spud shows that it contains Fe, Ni, Mo and Ru. High-angle annular dark-field (HAAFD) imaging and EDS mapping in the TEM (Fig. 2) show that Spud occurs in melilite (Ca1.9Al1.99Si1.06O7). Spud contains a subhedral to anhedral morphology and is compositionally heterogenous (polyphasic, Fig. 2). Local spatial correlation occurs among Fe, Ni, and Pt, and also among Os, Ru, and Mo. SAED patterns show that the Fe-Ni-Pt, Fe-Os-Mo-Ru and Fe-Pt regions are crystalline. Discussion: CAIs can contain various types of inclusions rich in Fe, Ni and refractory siderophiles such as Os, Ru, W and Pt [1]. RMNs are micron-sized, single phase alloy grains and can contain Os, Ir, Ru and Rh [1,7,17]. NLOs are also micron-sized inclusions, but contain two phases, a refractory metal, and an oxide [6]. Fremdlinge are the largest of such inclusions (tens of microns in size) and are complex aggregates of Fe-Ni alloy, silicates, oxides, and sulfides [1,17]. While the size of Spud matches previous descriptions of RMNs and NLOs, Spud is neither a single-phase alloy like RMNs, nor does it contain one metal phase and one oxide like NLOs. Spud does not match the above described categories of refractory metal inclusions. The presence of refractory siderophiles such as Mo, Os, Ru, and Pt suggests a high-temperature origin. Thermodynamic modelling by [7] indicates condensation temperatures of 1917 K, 1693 K, 1613 K and 1415 K for Os, Mo, Ru and Pt respectively. These models also show that following the initial condensation of a refractory metal, alloying of solutes such as Fe, Ni and W, occurs in levels proportional to their partial pressures in the surrounding gas. Such alloying occurs at temperatures above the condensation temperatures of common CAI phases such as melilite (1529 K), perovskite (1441 K), spinel (197 K) and forsterite (1354 K) [2]. The polyphasic nature of Spud could be the result of such high-temperature alloying, possibly shortly after the condensation of Mo and Ru at 1693 K and 1613 K respectively. That Spud occurs as an inclusion is consistent with it having formed prior to and at temperature above that of its host melilite in this FTA CAI, which is qualitatively consistent with such prior thermodynamic modeling. Further, the polyphasic nature of Spud is similar to refractory grains from a FTA CAI in the Northwest Africa (NWA) 8323, CV3 chondrite [11-13]. These data suggest that such refractory metal grains could have been widespread in the inner and early solar protoplanetary disk and represent some of the earliest formed solids to have condensed. Acknowledgments: Research and instrumentation supported by NASA grants #NNX12AL47G, #NNX15AJ22G and #80NSSC19K0509, and NSF grants #1531243 and #0619599. Fig 2. STEM data on ‘Spud’. HAADF Image (Top) False-color EDS Maps (Bottom) References: [1] MacPherson G. J. (2014) T. of Geochem. Vol I: Met. And Cosmochem. Processes, 139-179. [2] Lodders K. (2003) ApJ, 591, 1220-1247. [3] Ebel D. S. (2006) Met. & the Early S. Sys. II., 253- 277. [4] Amelin Y. (2002) Science, 297, 1678-1683. [5] Connelly J.N. et.al. (2012) Science, 338, 651-655. [6] Schwander D. et al. (2015) GCA, 18, 70-87. [7] Palme H. and Wlotzka F. (1976) EPSL, 33, 45-60. [8] Berg T. et al. (2009) ApJ, 702, 172-176. [9] Liffman K. et al. (2021) Icarus, 221, 89-105. [10] Zega T.J. et al. (2021) PSJ, 2, 115. [11] Ramprasad T. et al. (2020) LPSC LI, Abstract #2472. [12] Ramprasad T. et al. (2021) Microscopy & Microanalysis, S1, 2792-2794. [13] Ramprasad T. et al. (2021) 84th MetSoc, Abstract #6123. [14] Zega T.J. et al. (2007) MAPS, 42, 1373-1386. [15] Ramprasad T. et al. (2022) MAPS, in revision. [16] Grossman L. (1975), GCA, 39, 433-454. [17] El Goresy A. et al. (1978) LPSC IX, Abstract#1100

T. Ramprasad↗

Noise Reduction and Calibration for Aeroacoustic Loads from Unsteady Pressure-Sensitive Paint

Unsteady pressure-sensitive paint (uPSP) is a significant new technology for high spatial resolution measurement of complex dynamic surface pressure loading on a wind tunnel model, to better define flight vehicle buffet and aeroacoustic loads. Compared with the very sparse surface pressure measurements of traditional sensors, the pressure sensitivity of uPSP light reflectivity provides a visual measure of surface pressure fluctuations over a wide area illuminated by high intensity light, captured by a high-speed digital camera. Panda et al (AIAA Journal, May 2019) have shown good data is recoverable up to 10 kHz. In cases where available uPSP luminescence is low for a painted wind tunnel test model, significant noise levels have been observed primarily due to the discrete photon arrival variability of low intensity light (termed “shot noise”). In this case, uPSP measurements can exhibit unusually low signal to noise ratio (SNR of 0.1 or less). This paper will report on latest work to recover calibrated uPSP measurements which are noise free over a useful dynamic range of 10-15 dB. It will be shown how the distinct spatial correlations of both the shot noise and the underlying aeroacoustic surface pressure play an important role in obtaining a reliable measurement.

pressure-sensitive paint↗

Tracing PAH Emission in λ-Orionis Using COBE/DIRBE Data

We use archival COBE/DIRBE data to construct a map of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) emission in the λ-Orionis region. The presence of the 3.3 μm PAH feature within the DIRBE 3.5 μm band and the corresponding lack of significant PAH spectral features in the adjacent DIRBE bands (1.25, 2.2, and 4.9 μm) enable estimation of the PAH contribution to the 3.5 μm data. Having the shortest wavelength of known PAH features, the 3.3 μm feature probes the smallest PAHs, which are also the leading candidates for carriers of anomalous microwave emission (AME). We use this map to investigate the association between the AME and the emission from PAH molecules. We find that the spatial correlation in λ-Orionis is higher between AME and far-infrared dust emission (as represented by the DIRBE 240 μm map) than it is between our PAH map and AME. This finding, in agreement with previous studies using PAH features at longer wavelengths, is in tension with the hypothesis that AME is due to spinning PAHs. However, the expected correlation between mid-infrared and microwave emission could potentially be degraded by different sensitivities of each emission mechanism to local environmental conditions even if PAHs are the carriers of both.

David T. Chuss↗

JWST NIRCam Defocused Imaging Photometric Stability Performance and How It Can Sense Mirror Tilts

We use JWST NIRCam short-wavelength photometry to capture a transit lightcurve of the exoplanet HAT-P-14 b to assess performance as part of instrument commissioning. The short-wavelength precision is 152 ppm per 27 s integration as measured over the full time series compared to a theoretical limit of 107 ppm, after corrections to spatially correlated 1/f noise. Persistence effects from charge trapping are well fit by an exponential function with short characteristic timescales, settling on the order of 5–15 minutes. The short-wavelength defocused photometry is also uniquely well suited to measure the real-time wave-front error of JWST. Analysis of the images and reconstructed wave-front maps indicates that two different hexagonal primary mirror segments exhibited “tilt events,” where they changed orientation rapidly in less than ∼1.4 s. In some cases, the magnitude and timing of the flux jumps caused by tilt events can be accurately predicted with a telescope model. These tilt events can be sensed by simultaneous longer-wavelength NIRCam grism spectral images alone in the form of changes to the point-spread function, diagnosed from the full width at half maximum. They can also be sensed with the fine guidance sensor instrument from difference images. Tilt events possibly from sudden releases of stress in the backplane structure behind the mirrors were expected during the commissioning period because they were found in ground-based testing. Tilt events have shown signs of decreasing in frequency but have not disappeared completely. The detectors exhibit some minor (less than 1%) deviations from linear behavior in the first few groups of each integration, potentially impacting absolute fluxes and transit depths on bright targets, where only a handful of groups are possible. Overall, the noise is within 50% of the theoretical photon noise and read noise. This bodes well for high-precision measurements of transiting exoplanets and other time variable targets.

Everett Schlawin↗

An Unbiased CO Survey Toward the Northern Region of the Small Magellanic Cloud with the Atacama Compact Array. II. CO Cloud Catalog

The nature of molecular clouds and their statistical behavior in subsolar metallicity environments are not fully explored yet. We analyzed data from an unbiased CO (J = 2–1) survey at the spatial resolution of ∼2 pc in the northern region of the Small Magellanic Cloud with the Atacama Compact Array to characterize the CO cloud properties. A cloud-decomposition analysis identified 426 spatially/velocity-independent CO clouds and their substructures. Based on the cross-matching with known infrared catalogs by Spitzer and Herschel, more than 90% CO clouds show spatial correlations with point sources. We investigated the basic properties of the CO clouds and found that the radius–velocity linewidth (R–σ v ) relation follows the Milky Way-like power-law exponent, but the intercept is ∼1.5 times lower than that in the Milky Way. The mass functions (dN/dM) of the CO luminosity and virial mass are characterized by an exponent of ∼1.7, which is consistent with previously reported values in the Large Magellanic Cloud and in the Milky Way.

Local Group↗

Development of High-Resolution Soil Hydraulic Parameters with Use of Earth Observations for Enhancing Root Zone Soil Moisture Product

Regional quantification of energy and water balance fluxes depends inevitably on the estimation of surface and rootzone soil moisture. The simulation of soil moisture depends on the soil retention characteristics, which are difficult to estimate at a regional scale. Thus, the present study proposes a new method to estimate high-resolution Soil Hydraulic Parameters (SHPs) which in turn help to provide high-resolution (spatial and temporal) rootzone soil moisture (RZSM) products. The study is divided into three phases—(I) involves the estimation of finer surface soil moisture (1 km) from the coarse resolution satellite soil moisture. The algorithm utilizes MODIS 1 km Land Surface Temperature (LST) and 1 km Normalized difference vegetation Index (NDVI) for downscaling 25 km C-band derived soil moisture from AMSR-2 to 1 km surface soil moisture product. At one of the test sites, soil moisture is continuously monitored at 5, 20, and 50 cm depth, while at 44 test sites data were collected randomly for validation. The temporal and spatial correlation for the downscaled product was 70% and 83%, respectively. (II) In the second phase, downscaled soil moisture product is utilized to inversely estimate the SHPs for the van Genuchten model (1980) at 1 km resolution. The numerical experiments were conducted to understand the impact of homogeneous SHPs as compared to the three-layered parameterization of the soil profile. It was seen that the SHPs estimated using the downscaled soil moisture (I-d experiment) performed with similar efficiency as compared to SHPs estimated from the in-situ soil moisture data (I-b experiment) in simulating the soil moisture. The normalized root mean square error (nRMSE) for the two treatments was 0.37 and 0.34, respectively. It was also noted that nRMSE for the treatment with the utilization of default SHPs (I-a) and AMSR-2 soil moisture (I-c) were found to be 0.50 and 0.43, respectively. (III) Finally, the derived SHPs were used to simulate both surface soil moisture and RZSM. The final product, RZSM which is the daily 1 km product also showed a nearly 80% correlation at the test site. The estimated SHPs are seen to improve the mean NSE from 0.10 (I-a experiment) to 0.50 (I-d experiment) for the surface soil moisture simulation. The mean nRMSE for the same was found to improve from 0.50 to 0.31.

soil moisture downscaling↗

Robust Adaptive Decentralized Dynamic State Estimation with Unknown Control Inputs using Field PMU Measurements

This paper proposes a robust adaptive decentralized dynamic state estimation method for power system with unknown inputs of the highly detailed synchronous machine model. The temporal and spatial correlations among the unknown inputs are used to derive a vector auto-regressive model. The latter is further integrated together with state transition and measurement models for joint state and unknown inputs estimation. Thanks to the consideration of implicit cross-correlations between the states and the unknown inputs, only generator terminal voltage and current phasors are needed. Test results on the US WECC system using the field PMU measurements show that the proposed method is able to track both the system dynamic states and unknown controller inputs. These information could significantly benefit the validation and calibration of generator controller parameters.

Zhao, Junbo↗

Spatio-Temporal Denoising Graph Autoencoders with Data Augmentation for Missing Photovoltaic Data Imputation

The integration of the global Photovoltaic (PV) market with real time data-loggers has enabled large scale PV data analytical pipelines for power forecasting and long-term reliability assessment of PV fleets. Nevertheless, the performance of PV data analysis heavily depends on the quality of PV timeseries data. This paper proposes a novel Spatio-Temporal Denoising Graph Autoencoder (STD-GAE) framework to impute missing PV Power Data. STDGAE exploits temporal correlation, spatial coherence, and value dependencies from domain knowledge to recover missing data. It is empowered by two modules. (1) To cope with sparse yet various scenarios of missing data, STD-GAE incorporates a domain-knowledge aware data augmentation module that creates plausible variations of missing data patterns. This generalizes STD-GAE to robust imputation over different seasons and environment. (2) STD-GAE nontrivially integrates spatiotemporal graph convolution layers (to recover local missing data by observed “neighboring” PV plants) and denoising autoencoder (to recover corrupted data from augmented counterpart) to improve the accuracy of imputation accuracy at PV fleet level. We have evaluated our proposed model on two realworld PV datasets. Experimental results show that STD-GAE can achieve a gain of 43.14% in imputation accuracy and remains less sensitive to missing rate, different seasons, and missing scenarios, compared with state-of-the-art data imputation methods such as MIDA and LRTC-TNN.

Fan, Yangxin↗

Origin and characterization of single-electron events in Skipper-CCDs for light dark matter searches

This manuscript summarizes the work carried out within the SENSEI (Sub-Electron-Noise Skipper-CCD Experimental Instrument) collaboration, an effort focused on the search for light dark matter using Skipper-CCDs. Firstly, it presents the data acquisition and processing protocol developed to establish a selection criteria for events compatible with the dark matter signal. This protocol also enabled the structure and tools used for the study and characterization of phenomena that impact the quality of measurements made in the search for dark matter (measurement of the Fano factor, determination of the Compton background, and characterization of the high-energy surface background), which were carried out during this work. Secondly, it discusses the comprehensive study conducted on the origin of single-electron events in Skipper-CCDs, which allowed for the selection of detector operating parameters and improved the detection sensitivity in the search for dark matter. It is highlighted the characterization of the spatial correlation between single-electron events and high-energy events, among other developed event selection criteria, and the optimization of the output device to reduce sources of luminescence during its operation. As a result of this study, the lowest levels of dark current and spurious charge ever measured in a CCD are reported. Finally, the latest published results from SENSEI are presented. The obtained limits for the scattering of a light mediator are the best reported to date across the entire investigated mass range, while for the heavy mediator, they are the best for masses below 10 MeV. In terms of dark matter absorption, the most restringent limits below 10 eV are reported. These results, achieved with only a very small fraction of the total projected exposure for SENSEI, position Skipper-CCDs as leaders in the search for light dark matter worldwide.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗

Reply to Smith and Siegel: Most lithium hops in paddlewheel-claimed conductors occur without spatially and temporally correlated anion-group rotations

We appreciate the engagement from Smith and Siegel on the topic of the “paddlewheel effect” and are pleased to see alignment regarding the absence of a paddlewheel effect, in which large-angle anion-group rotations directly propel lithium hops. In our paper, we clearly state the ambiguity surrounding the term “paddlewheel” to describe lithium transport. We believe that science is not well served by this vague term or its regular redefinition which is why we distinguish three types of anion-group rotation events: large-angle rotations (n-fold rotation returning to a rotationally invariant configuration), librations (e.g., rotational vibrations), and static changes of orientation in response to the change of Li occupancy. Here, we directly evaluate the spatial and temporal correlation between such polyanion rotations and Li hops.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

A Bayesian Monte Carlo inversion of spatial auto-correlation (SPAC) for near-surface Vs structure applied to both broad-band and geophone data

SUMMARY We propose a new Bayesian method to reveal the Vs structure of the near surface of the earth using spatial autocorrelation (SPAC) functions and apply this new method to synthetic, broad-band and geophone data sets. The principle of SPAC is introduced, and an implementation of the Bayesian Monte Carlo inversion (BMCI) for modelling SPAC coherency functions is described. To demonstrate its effectiveness, BMCI is applied to synthetic tests, data from 14 SPAC array sites in the Salt Lake Valley (SLV), Utah, and two arrays (one broad-band and one geophone) located in south central Utah. The Vs models derived from previous SPAC analysis of the 14 SLV sites differ by 10 per cent at most from those determined by BMCI and lie within uncertainties determined for the BMCI models. These agreements demonstrate the effectiveness of the BMCI method. The synthetic tests and applications to the SLV SPAC data show BMCI has great potential to resolve Vs structure down to at least 400 m. To achieve resolution for deeper Vs structure, longer duration deployments, wider array apertures, and additional seismometers or geophones can be used. Additionally, when the target frequencies are greater than 0.1 Hz, there is no apparent disadvantage in using geophone data for BMCI compared to broad-band data. Most significantly, BMCI places a quantifiable constraint on the uncertainties of the Vs models as well as Vs30.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗

Reconstructing the spatial structure of quantum correlations in materials

Quantum correlations are a fundamental property of quantum many-body states. Yet they remain experimentally elusive, hindering certification of genuine quantum behavior, especially in quantum materials. Here we show that the momentum-dependent dynamical susceptibility measured via inelastic neutron scattering enables the systematic reconstruction of a general family of quantum correlation functions, which express the degree of quantum coherence in the fluctuations of two spins at an arbitrary mutual distance. Using neutron scattering data for the compound KCuF 3 —a system of weakly coupled S = 1 / 2 Heisenberg chains—and numerically exact quantum Monte Carlo data, we show that quantum correlations possess a radically different spatial structure with respect to conventional correlations. Indeed, they exhibit a different emergent length scale—the quantum coherence length—which is finite at any finite temperature (including when long-range magnetic order develops). Moreover, we show theoretically that coupled Heisenberg spin chains exhibit a form of quantum monogamy, with a trade-off between quantum correlations along and transverse to the spin chains. These results highlight real-space quantum correlators as an informative, model-independent means of probing the underlying quantum state of real quantum materials. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Preliminary investigation of an electrical network model for ultrasonic scattering

The behavior of acoustic attenuation in a solid is related to the electrical transmission line model where the electrical shunt conductance, which is frequency dependent, represents the loss due to the scattering sites in the solid. Results indicate that the absolute value of attenuation at a given frequency depends on both the normalized mean square deviation of the density and bulk modulus of the scattering sites from the ambient medium and the spatial scattering correlation function. Besides establishing the absolute value of attenuation, the spatial correlation function determines the attenuation profile as a function of frequency.

Maisel, J. E.↗