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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 55 records · Page 3
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2016

Quantum signatures of chaos or quantum chaos?

A critical analysis of the present-day concept of chaos in quantum systems as nothing but a “quantum signature” of chaos in classical mechanics is given. In contrast to the existing semi-intuitive guesses, a definition of classical and quantum chaos is proposed on the basis of the Liouville–Arnold theorem: a quantum chaotic system featuring N degrees of freedom should have M < N independent first integrals of motion (good quantum numbers) specified by the symmetry of the Hamiltonian of the system. Quantitative measures of quantum chaos that, in the classical limit, go over to the Lyapunov exponent and the classical stability parameter are proposed. The proposed criteria of quantum chaos are applied to solving standard problems of modern dynamical chaos theory.

74 ATOMIC AND MOLECULAR PHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2018

A Mechanical Model of Brownian Motion for One Massive Particle Including Slow Light Particles

We provide a connection between Brownian motion and a classical mechanical system. Precisely, we consider a system of one massive particle interacting with an ideal gas, evolved according to non-random mechanical principles, via interaction potentials, without any assumption requiring that the initial velocities of the environmental particles should be restricted to be “fast enough”. We prove the convergence of the (position, velocity)-process of the massive particle under a certain scaling limit, such that the mass of the environmental particles converges to 0 while the density and the velocities of them go to infinity, and give the precise expression of the limiting process, a diffusion process.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2015

Orbit-averaged quantities, the classical Hellmann-Feynman theorem, and the magnetic flux enclosed by gyro-motion

Action integrals are often used to average a system over fast oscillations and obtain reduced dynamics. It is not surprising, then, that action integrals play a central role in the Hellmann-Feynman theorem of classical mechanics, which furnishes the values of certain quantities averaged over one period of rapid oscillation. This paper revisits the classical Hellmann-Feynman theorem, rederiving it in connection to an analogous theorem involving the time-averaged evolution of canonical coordinates. We then apply a modified version of the Hellmann-Feynman theorem to obtain a new result: the magnetic flux enclosed by one period of gyro-motion of a charged particle in a non-uniform magnetic field. These results further demonstrate the utility of the action integral in regards to obtaining orbit-averaged quantities and the usefulness of this formalism in characterizing charged particle motion.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2016

The scientific base of heating water by microwave

This article is based on the master thesis [4] related to our invention which was published in World Intellectual Property Organization (WO/2011/048506) as a microwave water heater. In the project, a prototype was produced to use microwave in industrial heating. In order to produce the prototype, the most appropriate material kind for microwave-water experiments was determined by a new energy loss rate calculation technique. This new energy loss calculation is a determinative factor for material permeability at microwave frequency band (1-100 GHz). This experimental series aim to investigate the rationality of using microwave in heating industry. Theoretically, heating water by microwave (with steady frequency 2.45 GHz) is analyzed from sub-molecular to Classical Mechanic results of heating. In the study, we examined Quantum Mechanical base of heating water by microwave experiments. As a result, we derived a Semi-Quantum Mechanical equation for microwave-water interactions and thus, Wien displacement law can be derived to verify experimental observations by this equation.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2018

Quantum-Field Approach in Classical Physics and Geometrodynamics

A second-quantization treatment of the solution of the equation of classical mechanics is carried out. It is shown that all of the information about the multiparticle process of creation of a pair of scalar particles by a nonstationary potential barrier is contained in the solutions of Newton’s one-particle equation. The corresponding solution does not depend on Planck’s constant. It is shown that for any spatial quantum problem there exists a temporal classical analog. The obtained results can be used in quantum geometrodynamics.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2016

Quantum mechanical expansion of variance of a particle in a weakly non-uniform electric and magnetic field

We have solved the Heisenberg equation of motion for the time evolution of the position and momentum operators for a non-relativistic spinless charged particle in the presence of a weakly non-uniform electric and magnetic field. It is shown that the drift velocity operator obtained in this study agrees with the classical counterpart, and that, using the time dependent operators, the variances in position and momentum grow with time. The expansion rate of variance in position and momentum are dependent on the magnetic gradient scale length, however, independent of the electric gradient scale length. In the presence of a weakly non-uniform electric and magnetic field, the theoretical expansion rates of variance expansion are in good agreement with the numerical analysis. It is analytically shown that the variance in position reaches the square of the interparticle separation, which is the characteristic time much shorter than the proton collision time of plasma fusion. After this time, the wavefunctions of the neighboring particles would overlap, as a result, the conventional classical analysis may lose its validity. The broad distribution of individual particle in space means that their Coulomb interactions with other particles become weaker than that expected in classical mechanics.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
NASA NTRS2021

Modernizing Mechatronics Course With Quantum Engineering

Mechatronics is the synergistic application of mechanics, electronics, control engineering, and computer science in the development of electromechanical products and systems, through integrated design. This paper proposes to extend the mechatronics course beyond traditional engineering topics, and to modernize the mechatronics instructions with complementary quantum engineering topics. With the recent rapid advances in quantum technologies such as quantum communications, sensing, computers, and algorithms, it is imperative to train the next generation of engineers and prepare them for their future careers in the ever-changing industry in such areas. Furthermore, due to such progress and advances in the fields associated with quantum mechanics, the integration of quantum technologies with classical mechanical systems will be inevitable both in terms of educational and technological standpoints in future. To address the educational needs of the future engineers in such areas of significant importance, quantum entanglement and quantum cryptography experiments, as two fundamental topics in quantum mechanics, are brought into the mechatronics course in an initiative that is reported in this paper. The integrated quantum and mechatronics topics also provides opportunities for open discussions on exploring the interface of quantum technologies and classical engineering systems, which can potentially push the engineering boundaries beyond classical possibilities by accessing the quantum advantages. An innovative online remote demonstration of such quantum experiments are developed and presented to the students. This course has been offered to undergraduate students once with successful results. The students were able to remotely access the experiments, perform the experiments and collect data. The successful result of such quantum experiments is also reflected in a course survey, presented in this paper, even though the quantum mechanics topics offered in this course are unfamiliar to engineering students and hence more challenging. The paper reports, and aims to promote, the integration of selected quantum technology topics with the mechatronics course for training engineering students in this rapidly growing area.

Ghazinejad, Maziar↗
DOE OSTI2019

Classical ladder functions for Rosen–Morse and curved Kepler–Coulomb systems

Ladder functions in classical mechanics are defined in a similar way as ladder operators in the context of quantum mechanics. In the present paper, we develop a new method for obtaining ladder functions of one dimensional systems by means of a product of two ‘factor functions’. We apply this method to the curved Kepler–Coulomb and Rosen–Morse II systems whose ladder functions were not found yet. The ladder functions here obtained are applied to get the motion of the systems.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2013

Electric force microscopy of semiconductors: Theory of cantilever frequency fluctuations and noncontact friction

An electric force microscope employs a charged atomic force microscope probe in vacuum to measure fluctuating electric forces above the sample surface generated by dynamics of molecules and charge carriers. We present a theoretical description of two observables in electric force microscopy of a semiconductor: the spectral density of cantilever frequency fluctuations (jitter), which are associated with low-frequency dynamics in the sample, and the coefficient of noncontact friction, induced by higher-frequency motions. The treatment is classical-mechanical, based on linear response theory and classical electrodynamics of diffusing charges in a dielectric continuum. Calculations of frequency jitter explain the absence of contributions from carrier dynamics to previous measurements of an organic field effect transistor. Calculations of noncontact friction predict decreasing friction with increasing carrier density through the suppression of carrier density fluctuations by intercarrier Coulomb interactions. The predicted carrier density dependence of the friction coefficient is consistent with measurements of the dopant density dependence of noncontact friction over Si. Our calculations predict that in contrast to the measurement of cantilever frequency jitter, a noncontact friction measurement over an organic semiconductor could show appreciable contributions from charge carriers.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗
DOE OSTI2016

Healthy degenerate theories with higher derivatives

In the context of classical mechanics, we study the conditions under which higher-order derivative theories can evade the so-called Ostrogradsky instability. More precisely, we consider general Lagrangians with second order time derivatives, of the form L(ϕ{sup ¨a}, ϕ-dot {sup a},ϕ{sup a}; q-dot {sup i},q{sup i}) with a=1,⋯,n and i=1,⋯,m. For n=1, assuming that the q{sup i}’s form a nondegenerate subsystem, we confirm that the degeneracy of the kinetic matrix eliminates the Ostrogradsky instability. The degeneracy implies, in the Hamiltonian formulation of the theory, the existence of a primary constraint, which generates a secondary constraint, thus eliminating the Ostrogradsky ghost. For n>1, we show that, in addition to the degeneracy of the kinetic matrix, one needs to impose extra conditions to ensure the presence of a sufficient number of secondary constraints that can eliminate all the Ostrogradsky ghosts. When these conditions that ensure the disappearance of the Ostrogradsky instability are satisfied, we show that the Euler-Lagrange equations, which involve a priori higher order derivatives, can be reduced to a second order system.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2014

Calculation of anharmonic couplings and THz linewidths in crystalline PETN

We have developed a method for calculating the cubic anharmonic couplings in molecular crystals for normal modes with the zero wave vector in the framework of classical mechanics, and have applied it, combined with perturbation theory, to obtain the linewidths of all infrared absorption lines of crystalline pentaerythritol tetranitrate in the terahertz region (<100 cm{sup −1}). Contributions of the up- and down-conversion processes to the total linewidth were calculated. The computed linewidths are in qualitative agreement with experimental data and the results of molecular dynamics simulations. Quantum corrections to the linewidths in the terahertz region are shown to be negligible.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2025

Geometric adiabatic angle in anisotropic oscillators

We discuss a classical anisotropic oscillator and the Foucault pendulum as examples illustrating non-conservation of action variables in integrable classical mechanical systems with adiabatically slow evolution. We also emphasize the importance of the mass parameter of a harmonic oscillator, alongside its frequency, in explicitly time-dependent situations.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2014

Theory of the nucleus as applied to quantum chaos

A critical analysis of the present-day concept of chaos in quantum systems as nothing but a quantum signature of chaos in classical mechanics is given. It is proposed to specify a regular versus a chaotic behavior on the basis of symmetries of the system being considered and global integrals of motion that are associated with these symmetries in accordance with the Liouville-Arnold theorem rather than on the basis of the concept of Lyapunov’s instability of trajectories. Numerical criteria of quantum chaos that follow from the proposed concept are analyzed.

74 ATOMIC AND MOLECULAR PHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2026

From Quantum Time to Manifestly Covariant QFT: On the Need for a Quantum-Action-Based Quantization

In quantum time (QT) schemes, time is promoted to a degree of freedom, allowing Lorentz covariance to be made explicit for single particles. We ask whether this can be lifted to QFT so that Lorentz covariance becomes manifest at the Hilbert-space level, rather than being hidden as in the standard canonical formulation. We address this question by proposing a second-quantized approach in which the elementary particle is the QT particle itself, leading naturally to the notion of spacetime field algebras and of quantum action. We show, however, that a naive many-body construction runs into inconsistencies. To pinpoint their origin we introduce a classical counterpart of the second-quantized formalism, spacetime classical mechanics (SCM), and prove a no-go theorem: Dirac quantization of SCM collapses back to standard QFT and therefore hides covariance. We circumvent this problem by presenting a quantum-action-based quantization that yields a spacetime version of quantum mechanics (SQM), making covariance manifest for (interacting) QFTs. Finally, we show that this resolution is tied to a genuine spacetime generalization of the notion of a quantum state, required by causality and closely connected to recent “states over time” proposals and, in dS/CFT–motivated settings, to microscopic notions of timelike entanglement and emergent time.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2020

Using FLAC{sup R} Modeling Software to Analyze the Stability of a LLRW Disposal Facility - 20031

Waste Control Specialists (WCS) wished to amend its existing LLRW disposal license such that it might use gravel aggregate instead of concrete as backfill around large component (LC) parts from decommissioned nuclear reactors. A classical mechanics evaluation of the strength of the LCs was presented to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ), demonstrating that the LCs had adequate capacity to withstand the loads within the facilities, and that concrete was unnecessary for structural support. TCEQ requested that additional analyses of the LCs within the facilities be performed using FLAC{sup R} finite difference modeling software. Because FLAC{sup R} has the capability of modeling the support provided by the lateral earth pressures, the factors of safety against failure for the LCs increased. TCEQ found the FLAC{sup R} analyses presented in this report to be satisfactory, and granted WCS' license amendment request. This work demonstrates that FLAC{sup R} may be used advantageously to more accurately represent the complexities of the physical situation being modeled. (authors)

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗
DOE OSTI2012

When physics helps mathematics: Calculation of the sophisticated multiple integral

There exists a remarkable connection between the quantum mechanical Landau-Zener problem and purely classical-mechanical problem of a ball rolling on a Cornu spiral. This correspondence allows us to calculate a complicated multiple integral, a kind of multi-dimensional generalization of Fresnel integrals. A direct method of calculation is also considered but found to be successful only in some low-dimensional cases. As a byproduct of this direct method, an interesting new integral representation for ζ(2) is obtained.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
NASA NTRS1990

Statistical mechanics models for motion and force planning

The models of statistical mechanics provide an alternative to the methods of classical mechanics more traditionally used in robotics. They have a potential to: improve analysis of object collisions; handle kinematic and dynamic contact interactions within the same frmework; and reduce the need for perfect deterministic world model information. The statistical mechanics models characterize the state of the system as a probability density function (p.d.f.) whose time evolution is governed by a partial differential equation subject to boundary and initial conditions. The boundary conditions when rigid objects collide reflect the conservation of momentum. The models are being developed to embedd in remote semi-autonomous systems with a need to reason and interact with a multiobject environment.

Rodriguez, G.↗