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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 541 records · Page 30
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2015

MASS SUBSTRUCTURE IN ABELL 3128

We perform a detailed two-dimensional weak gravitational lensing analysis of the nearby (z = 0.058) galaxy cluster Abell 3128 using deep ugrz imaging from the Dark Energy Camera (DECam). We have designed a pipeline to remove instrumental artifacts from DECam images and stack multiple dithered observations without inducing a spurious ellipticity signal. We develop a new technique to characterize the spatial variation of the point-spread function that enables us to circularize the field to better than 0.5% and thereby extract the intrinsic galaxy ellipticities. By fitting photometric redshifts to sources in the observation, we are able to select a sample of background galaxies for weak-lensing analysis free from low-redshift contaminants. Photometric redshifts are also used to select a high-redshift galaxy subsample with which we successfully isolate the signal from an interloping z = 0.44 cluster. We estimate the total mass of Abell 3128 by fitting the tangential ellipticity of background galaxies with the weak-lensing shear profile of a Navarro–Frenk–White (NFW) halo and also perform NFW fits to substructures detected in the 2D mass maps of the cluster. This study yields one of the highest resolution mass maps of a low-z cluster to date and is the first step in a larger effort to characterize the redshift evolution of mass substructures in clusters.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2015

MEASURING AN ERUPTIVE PROMINENCE AT LARGE DISTANCES FROM THE SUN. II. APPROACHING 1 AU

The physical properties of eruptive prominences are unknown at large distances from the Sun. They are rarely, if ever, measured by in situ spacecraft and until recently our ability to measure them beyond the fields of view of solar imagers has been severely limited. The data quality of heliospheric imaging has reached a point where some quantitative measurements of prominences are now possible. I present the first such measurements of a bright prominence continually out to distances of around 1 AU from the Sun. This work follows on from the preparatory work presented in an accompanying paper, which showed that that the brightness of a prominence can be safely assumed to arise entirely from Thomson scattering in the STEREO/HI fields of view. Measurements of distance, speed, and mass are provided along with those from its accompanying coronal mass ejection (CME) to demonstrate their geometric, kinematic, and mass relationships. I find that the prominence travels with a slower speed than that of the CME, but its location relative to the CME structure does not conform to the expected location for basic geometric expansion. Further, the mass of the prominence was found to decrease by around an order of magnitude while that of the CME increased by an order of magnitude across the same distance.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2015

IMPACT OF ATMOSPHERIC CHROMATIC EFFECTS ON WEAK LENSING MEASUREMENTS

Current and future imaging surveys will measure cosmic shear with statistical precision that demands a deeper understanding of potential systematic biases in galaxy shape measurements than has been achieved to date. We use analytic and computational techniques to study the impact on shape measurements of two atmospheric chromatic effects for ground-based surveys such as the Dark Energy Survey and the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST): (1) atmospheric differential chromatic refraction and (2) wavelength dependence of seeing. We investigate the effects of using the point-spread function (PSF) measured with stars to determine the shapes of galaxies that have different spectral energy distributions than the stars. We find that both chromatic effects lead to significant biases in galaxy shape measurements for current and future surveys, if not corrected. Using simulated galaxy images, we find a form of chromatic “model bias” that arises when fitting a galaxy image with a model that has been convolved with a stellar, instead of galactic, PSF. We show that both forms of atmospheric chromatic biases can be predicted (and corrected) with minimal model bias by applying an ordered set of perturbative PSF-level corrections based on machine-learning techniques applied to six-band photometry. Catalog-level corrections do not address the model bias. We conclude that achieving the ultimate precision for weak lensing from current and future ground-based imaging surveys requires a detailed understanding of the wavelength dependence of the PSF from the atmosphere, and from other sources such as optics and sensors. The source code for this analysis is available at https://github.com/DarkEnergyScienceCollaboration/chroma.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2015

BEYOND ELLIPSE(S): ACCURATELY MODELING THE ISOPHOTAL STRUCTURE OF GALAXIES WITH ISOFIT AND CMODEL

This work introduces a new fitting formalism for isophotes that enables more accurate modeling of galaxies with non-elliptical shapes, such as disk galaxies viewed edge-on or galaxies with X-shaped/peanut bulges. Within this scheme, the angular parameter that defines quasi-elliptical isophotes is transformed from the commonly used, but inappropriate, polar coordinate to the “eccentric anomaly.” This provides a superior description of deviations from ellipticity, better capturing the true isophotal shape. Furthermore, this makes it possible to accurately recover both the surface brightness profile, using the correct azimuthally averaged isophote, and the two-dimensional model of any galaxy: the hitherto ubiquitous, but artificial, cross-like features in residual images are completely removed. The formalism has been implemented into the Image Reduction and Analysis Facility tasks Ellipse and Bmodel to create the new tasks “Isofit,” and “Cmodel.” The new tools are demonstrated here with application to five galaxies, chosen to be representative case-studies for several areas where this technique makes it possible to gain new scientific insight. Specifically: properly quantifying boxy/disky isophotes via the fourth harmonic order in edge-on galaxies, quantifying X-shaped/peanut bulges, higher-order Fourier moments for modeling bars in disks, and complex isophote shapes. Higher order (n > 4) harmonics now become meaningful and may correlate with structural properties, as boxyness/diskyness is known to do. This work also illustrates how the accurate construction, and subtraction, of a model from a galaxy image facilitates the identification and recovery of over-lapping sources such as globular clusters and the optical counterparts of X-ray sources.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2015

DETECTING UNSPECIFIED STRUCTURE IN LOW-COUNT IMAGES

Unexpected structure in images of astronomical sources often presents itself upon visual inspection of the image, but such apparent structure may either correspond to true features in the source or be due to noise in the data. This paper presents a method for testing whether inferred structure in an image with Poisson noise represents a significant departure from a baseline (null) model of the image. To infer image structure, we conduct a Bayesian analysis of a full model that uses a multiscale component to allow flexible departures from the posited null model. As a test statistic, we use a tail probability of the posterior distribution under the full model. This choice of test statistic allows us to estimate a computationally efficient upper bound on a p-value that enables us to draw strong conclusions even when there are limited computational resources that can be devoted to simulations under the null model. We demonstrate the statistical performance of our method on simulated images. Applying our method to an X-ray image of the quasar 0730+257, we find significant evidence against the null model of a single point source and uniform background, lending support to the claim of an X-ray jet.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2015

MORFOMETRYKA—A NEW WAY OF ESTABLISHING MORPHOLOGICAL CLASSIFICATION OF GALAXIES

We present an extended morphometric system to automatically classify galaxies from astronomical images. The new system includes the original and modified versions of the CASGM coefficients (Concentration C{sub 1}, Asymmetry A{sub 3}, and Smoothness S{sub 3}), and the new parameters entropy, H, and spirality σ{sub ψ}. The new parameters A{sub 3}, S{sub 3}, and H are better to discriminate galaxy classes than A{sub 1}, S{sub 1}, and G, respectively. The new parameter σ{sub ψ} captures the amount of non-radial pattern on the image and is almost linearly dependent on T-type. Using a sample of spiral and elliptical galaxies from the Galaxy Zoo project as a training set, we employed the Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA) technique to classify EFIGI (Baillard et al. 4458 galaxies), Nair and Abraham (14,123 galaxies), and SDSS Legacy (779,235 galaxies) samples. The cross-validation test shows that we can achieve an accuracy of more than 90% with our classification scheme. Therefore, we are able to define a plane in the morphometric parameter space that separates the elliptical and spiral classes with a mismatch between classes smaller than 10%. We use the distance to this plane as a morphometric index (M{sub i}) and we show that it follows the human based T-type index very closely. We calculate morphometric index M{sub i} for ∼780k galaxies from SDSS Legacy Survey–DR7. We discuss how M{sub i} correlates with stellar population parameters obtained using the spectra available from SDSS–DR7.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2023

Fringing Analysis and Simulation for the Vera C. Rubin Observatory’s Legacy Survey of Space and Time

Abstract The presence of fringing in astronomical Charge-Coupled Device (CCD) images will have an impact on photometric quality and measurements. Yet its impact on the Vera C. Rubin Observatory’s Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) has not been fully studied. We present a detailed study on fringing for CCDs already implemented on the Rubin Observatory LSST Camera’s focal plane. After making physical measurements and knowing the compositions, we developed a model for the e2v CCDs. We present a method to fit for the internal height variation of the epoxy layer within the sensors based on fringing measurements in a laboratory setting. This method is generic enough that it can be easily modified to work for other CCDs. Using the derived fringing model, we successfully reproduce comparable fringing amplitudes that match the observed levels in images taken by existing telescopes with different optical designs. This model is then used to forecast the expected level of fringing in a single LSST y -band sky background exposure with Rubin telescope optics in the presence of a realistic time-varying sky spectrum. The predicted fringing amplitude in LSST images ranges from 0.04% to 0.2% depending on the location of a CCD on the focal plane. We find that the predicted variation in surface brightness caused by fringing in LSST y -band sky background images is about 0.6 μ Jy arcsec − 2 , which is 40 times larger than the current measurement error. We conclude that it is necessary to include fringing correction in the Rubin’s LSST image processing pipeline.

Astronomy & Astrophysics↗
DOE OSTI2024

Mitigation of the Brighter-fatter Effect in the LSST Camera

Abstract Thick, fully depleted charge-coupled devices are known to exhibit nonlinear behavior at high signal levels due to the dynamic behavior of charges collecting in the potential wells of pixels, called the brighter-fatter effect (BFE). The effect results in distorted images of bright calibration stars, creating a flux-dependent point-spread function that if left unmitigated, could make up a large fraction of the error budget in Stage IV weak-lensing (WL) surveys such as the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST). In this paper, we analyze image measurements of flat fields and artificial stars taken at different illumination levels with the LSST Camera (LSSTCam) at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory in order to quantify this effect in the LSSTCam before and after a previously introduced correction technique. We observe that the BFE evolves anisotropically as a function of flux due to higher-order BFEs, which violates the fundamental assumption of this correction method. We then introduce a new method based on a physically motivated model to account for these higher-order terms in the correction, and then we test the modified correction on both data sets. We find that the new method corrects the effect in flat fields better than it corrects the effect in artificial stars, which we suggest is the result of sub-pixel physics not included in this correction model. We use these results to define a new metric for the full-well capacity of our sensors and advise image processing strategies to further limit the impact of the effect on LSST WL science pathways.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗
DOE OSTI2022

Third data release of the Hyper Suprime-Cam Subaru Strategic Program

This work presents the third data release of the Hyper Suprime-Cam Subaru Strategic Program (HSC-SSP), a wide-field multi-band imaging survey with the Subaru 8.2 m telescope. HSC-SSP has three survey layers (Wide, Deep, and UltraDeep) with different area coverages and depths, designed to address a wide array of astrophysical questions. This third release from HSC-SSP includes data from 278 nights of observing time and covers about 670 deg 2 in all five broad-band filters (grizy) at the full depth (~26 mag at 5σ depending on filter) in the Wide layer. If we include partially observed areas, the release covers 1470 deg 2 . The Deep and UltraDeep layers have ~80% of the originally planned integration times, and are considered done, as we have slightly changed the observing strategy in order to compensate for various time losses. There are a number of updates in the image processing pipeline. Of particular importance is the change in the sky subtraction algorithm; we subtract the sky on small scales before the detection and measurement stages, which has significantly reduced the number of false detections. Thanks to this and other updates, the overall quality of the processed data has improved since the previous release. However, there are limitations in the data (for example, the pipeline is not optimized for crowded fields), and we encourage the user to check the quality assurance plots as well as a list of known issues before exploiting the data. The data release website is https://hsc-release.mtk.nao.ac.jp.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2017

Probing the conformal Calabrese-Cardy scaling with cold atoms

We demonstrate that current experiments using cold bosonic atoms trapped in one-dimensional optical lattices and designed to measure the second-order Rényi entanglement entropy S 2 can be used to verify detailed predictions of conformal field theory (CFT) and estimate the central charge c. We discuss the adiabatic preparation of the ground state at half filling and small hopping parameter J/U, where we expect a CFT with c = 1. We provide two complementary methods to estimate and subtract the classical entropy generated by the experimental preparation and imaging processes. We compare numerical calculations for the classical O(2) model with a chemical potential on a (1 + 1)-dimensional lattice, and the quantum Bose-Hubbard Hamiltonian implemented in the experiments. S 2 is very similar for the two models and follows closely the Calabrese-Cardy scaling, (c/8) ln (N s ) , for N s sites with open boundary conditions, provided that the large subleading corrections are taken into account.

74 ATOMIC AND MOLECULAR PHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2023

Synthesizing pseudo-Kossel lines from neutron transmission data. I. An analytical approach for recovering single-crystal orientation

The energy-dispersive neutron spectra transmitted through single crystals are characterized by sharp Bragg dips at specific wavelengths, where Bragg's law is being fulfilled for certain crystallographic planes. This phenomenon allows for developing methods for crystal-orientation determination techniques similar to electron backscatter diffraction and X-ray diffraction microscopy. This work presents a new procedure to recover the orientation matrix for single crystals using transmission spectra recorded during rotation of a crystal about an axis perpendicular to a polychromatic neutron beam. The proposed method consists of an initial transformation of the as-collected wavelength–rotation maps to a wavevector $\textit{K}$ space, resulting in linear pseudo-Kossel lines that are suitable for analysis and indexing using image-processing procedures. Further, simulated neutron transmission spectra through a copper crystal with known orientations were used to set and prove the numerical approach. This technique may be expanded for cases where the neutron beam intersects multiple single-crystal grains with different orientations.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2018

A convolutional neural network-based screening tool for X-ray serial crystallography

A new tool is introduced for screening macromolecular X-ray crystallography diffraction images produced at an X-ray free-electron laser light source. Based on a data-driven deep learning approach, the proposed tool executes a convolutional neural network to detect Bragg spots. Automatic image processing algorithms described can enable the classification of large data sets, acquired under realistic conditions consisting of noisy data with experimental artifacts. Outcomes are compared for different data regimes, including samples from multiple instruments and differing amounts of training data for neural network optimization.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
DOE OSTI2023

Assessing an aqueous flow cell designed for in situ crystal growth under X-ray nanotomography and effects of radiolysis products

Nucleation and growth of minerals has broad implications in the geological, environmental and materials sciences. Recent developments in fast X-ray nanotomography have enabled imaging of crystal growth in solutions in situ with a resolution of tens of nanometres, far surpassing optical microscopy. Here, a low-cost, custom-designed aqueous flow cell dedicated to the study of heterogeneous nucleation and growth of minerals in aqueous environments is shown. To gauge the effects of radiation damage from the imaging process on growth reactions, radiation-induced morphological changes of barite crystals (hundreds of nanometres to ∼1 µm) that were pre-deposited on the wall of the flow cell were investigated. Under flowing solution, minor to major crystal dissolution was observed when the tomography scan frequency was increased from every 30 min to every 5 min (with a 1 min scan duration). The production of reactive radicals from X-ray induced water radiolysis and decrease of pH close to the surface of barite are likely responsible for the observed dissolution. The flow cell shown here can possibly be adopted to study a wide range of other chemical reactions in solutions beyond crystal nucleation and growth where the combination of fast flow and fast scan can be used to mitigate the radiation effects.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2024

VitroJet: new features and case studies

Single-particle cryo-electron microscopy has become a widely adopted method in structural biology due to many recent technological advances in microscopes, detectors and image processing. Before being able to inspect a biological sample in an electron microscope, it needs to be deposited in a thin layer on a grid and rapidly frozen. The VitroJet was designed with this aim, as well as avoiding the delicate manual handling and transfer steps that occur during the conventional grid-preparation process. Since its creation, numerous technical developments have resulted in a device that is now widely utilized in multiple laboratories worldwide. It features plasma treatment, low-volume sample deposition through pin printing, optical ice-thickness measurement and cryofixation of pre-clipped Autogrids through jet vitrification. This paper presents recent technical improvements to the VitroJet and the benefits that it brings to the cryo-EM workflow. A wide variety of applications are shown: membrane proteins, nucleosomes, fatty-acid synthase, Tobacco mosaic virus, lipid nanoparticles, tick-borne encephalitis viruses and bacteriophages. These case studies illustrate the advancement of the VitroJet into an instrument that enables accurate control and reproducibility, demonstrating its suitability for time-efficient cryo-EM structure determination.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2015

Characterising Encapsulated Nuclear Waste using Cosmic-ray Muon Tomography (MT)

A prototype scintillating-fibre detector system has been developed at the University of Glasgow in collaboration with the UK National Nuclear Laboratory (NNL) for the nondestructive assay of UK legacy nuclear waste containers. This system consists of four tracking modules, two above and two below the container under interrogation. Each module consists of two orthogonal planes of 2 mm-pitch fibres yielding one space point. Per plane, 128 fibres are read out by a single Hamamatsu H8500 64-channel MAPMT with two fibres multiplexed onto each pixel. The configuration allows the reconstruction of the incoming and scattered muon trajectories, thus enabling the container content, with respect to atomic number Z, to be determined. Results are shown from experimental data collected for high-Z objects within an air matrix and within a shielded, concrete-filled container. These reconstructed images show clear discrimination between the low, medium and high-Z materials present, with dimensions and positions determined with sub-centimetre precision. (authors)

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗
DOE OSTI2019

A Two-Tier Convolutional Neural Network for Combined Detection and Segmentation in Biological Imagery

Deep learning techniques have been useful for modern microscopy imaging techniques to further study and analyze biological structures and organs. Convolutional neural networks (CNN) have improved 2D object detection, localization, and segmentation. For imagery containing biological structures with depth, it is especially desirable to perform these tasks in 3D. Traditionally, performing these tasks simultaneously in 3D has proven to be computationally expensive. Currently available methodologies thus largely work to segment 3D objects from 2D images (without context from captured 3D volumes). In this work, we present a novel approach to perform fast and accurate localization, detection, and segmentation of volumes containing cells. Specifically, in our method, we modify and tune two state-of-the-art CNNs, namely 2D YOLOv2 and 3D U-Net, and combine them with a new fusion and image processing algorithms. Annotated volumes in this space are limited, and we have created synthetic data that mimics actual structures for training and testing our proposed approach. Promising results on this test data demonstrate the value of the technique and offers a methodology for 3D cell analysis in real microscopy imagery.

Ziabari, Amir↗
DOE OSTI2017

Snowflake: A Lightweight Portable Stencil DSL

Stencil computations are not well optimized by general-purpose production compilers and the increased use of multicore, manycore, and accelerator-based systems makes the optimization problem even more challenging. In this paper we present Snowflake, a Domain Specific Language (DSL) for stencils that uses a 'micro-compiler' approach, i.e., small, focused, domain-specific code generators. The approach is similar to that used in image processing stencils, but Snowflake handles the much more complex stencils that arise in scientific computing, including complex boundary conditions, higher-order operators (larger stencils), higher dimensions, variable coefficients, non-unit-stride iteration spaces, and multiple input or output meshes. Snowflake is embedded in the Python language, allowing it to interoperate with popular scientific tools like SciPy and iPython; it also takes advantage of built-in Python libraries for powerful dependence analysis as part of a just-in-time compiler. We demonstrate the power of the Snowflake language and the micro-compiler approach with a complex scientific benchmark, HPGMG, that exercises the generality of stencil support in Snowflake. By generating OpenMP comparable to, and OpenCL within a factor of 2x of hand-optimized HPGMG, Snowflake demonstrates that a micro-compiler can support diverse processor architectures and is performance-competitive whilst preserving a high-level Python implementation.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2025

Random Walks With Tweedie: A Unified View of Score-Based Diffusion Models [In the Spotlight]

We present a concise derivation for several influential score-based diffusion models that relies on only a few textbook results. Diffusion models have recently emerged as powerful tools for generating realistic, synthetic signals—particularly natural images—and often play a role in state-of-the-art algorithms for inverse problems in image processing. While these algorithms are often surprisingly simple, the theory behind them is not, and multiple complex theoretical justifications exist in the literature. Here, in this study, we provide a simple and largely self-contained theoretical justification for score-based diffusion models that is targeted towards the signal processing community. This approach leads to generic algorithmic templates for training and generating samples with diffusion models. We show that several influential diffusion models correspond to particular choices within these templates and demonstrate that alternative, more straightforward algorithmic choices can provide comparable results. This approach has the added benefit of enabling conditional sampling without any likelihood approximation.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗