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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 73 records · Page 4
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2020

Collisional effects on resonant particles in quasilinear theory

A careful examination of the effects of collisions on resonant wave–particle interactions leads to an alternate interpretation and deeper understanding of the quasilinear operator originally formulated by Kennel & Engelmann ( Phys. Fluids , vol. 9, 1966, pp. 2377–2388) for collisionless, magnetized plasmas, and widely used to model radio frequency heating and current drive. The resonant and nearly resonant particles are particularly sensitive to collisions that scatter them out of and into resonance, as for Landau damping as shown by Johnston ( Phys. Fluids , vol. 14, 1971, pp. 2719–2726) and Auerbach ( Phys. Fluids , vol. 20, 1977, pp. 1836–1844). As a result, the resonant particle–wave interactions occur in the centre of a narrow collisional boundary when the collision frequency $\unicode[STIX]{x1D708}$ is very small compared to the wave frequency $\unicode[STIX]{x1D714}$ . The diffusive nature of the pitch angle scattering combined with the wave–particle resonance condition enhances the collision frequency by $(\unicode[STIX]{x1D714}/\unicode[STIX]{x1D708})^{2/3}\gg 1$ , resulting in an effective resonant particle collisional interaction time of $\unicode[STIX]{x1D70F}_{\text{int}}\sim (\unicode[STIX]{x1D708}/\unicode[STIX]{x1D714})^{2/3}/\unicode[STIX]{x1D708}\ll 1/\unicode[STIX]{x1D708}$ . A collisional boundary layer analysis generalizes the standard quasilinear operator to a form that is fully consistent with Kennel–Englemann, but allows replacing the delta function appearing in the diffusivity with a simple integral (having the appropriate delta function limit) retaining the new physics associated with the narrow boundary layer, while preserving the entropy production principle. The limitations of the collisional boundary layer treatment are also estimated, and indicate that substantial departures from Maxwellian are not permitted.

Physics↗
DOE OSTI2021

Reimagining full wave rf quasilinear theory in a tokamak

The velocity dependent resonant interaction of particles with applied radiofrequency (rf) waves during heating and current drive in the presence of pitch angle scattering collisions gives rise to narrow collisional velocity space boundary layers that dramatically enhance the role of collisions as recently shown by Catto ( J. Plasma Phys. , vol. 86, 2020, 815860302). The behaviour is a generalization of the narrow collisional boundary layer that forms during Landau damping as found by Johnston ( Phys. Fluids , vol. 14, 1971, pp. 2719–2726) and Auerbach ( Phys. Fluids , vol. 20, 1977, pp. 1836–1844). For a wave of parallel wave number ${k_{||}}$ interacting with weakly collisional plasma species of collision frequency $\nu$ and thermal speed ${v_{\textrm{th}}}$ , the effective collision frequency becomes of order $\nu {({k_{||}}{v_{th}}/\nu )^{2/3}} \gg \nu $ . The narrow boundary layers that arise because of the diffusive nature of the collisions allow a physically meaningful wave–particle interaction time to be defined that is the inverse of this effective collision frequency. The collisionality implied by the narrow boundary layer results in changes in the standard quasilinear treatment of applied rf fields in tokamaks while remaining consistent with causality. These changes occur because successive poloidal interactions with the rf are correlated in tokamak geometry and because the resonant velocity space dependent interactions are controlled by the spatial and temporal behaviour of the perturbed full wave fields rather than just the spatially local Landau and Doppler shifted cyclotron wave–particle resonance condition associated with unperturbed motion of the particles. The correlation of successive poloidal circuits of the tokamak leads to the appearance in the quasilinear operator of transit averaged resonance conditions localized in velocity space boundary layers that maintain negative definite entropy production.

Physics↗
DOE OSTI2025

Lectures on statistical mechanics

Presented here is a transcription of the lecture notes from Professor Allan N. Kaufman’s graduate statistical mechanics course Physics 212A and 212B at the University of California Berkeley from the 1972–1973 academic year. 212A addressed equilibrium statistical mechanics with topics: fundamentals (micro-canonical and sub-canonical ensembles, adiabatic law and action conservation, fluctuations, pressure, and virial theorem), classical fluids and other systems (equation of state, deviations from ideality, virial coefficients and van der Waals potential, canonical ensemble and partition function, quasistatic evolution, grand-canonical ensemble and partition function, chemical potential, simple model of a phase transition, quantum virial expansion, numerical simulation of equations of state, and phase transition), chemical equilibrium (systems with multiple species and chemical reactions, law of mass action, Saha equation, chemical equilibrium including ionization and excited states), and long-range interactions (including Coulomb, dipole, and gravitational interactions, Debye–Hückel theory, and shielding). 212B addressed nonequilibrium statistical mechanics with topics: fundamentals (definitions: realizations, moments, characteristic function, and discrete variables), Brownian motion (Langevin equation, fluctuation–dissipation theorem, spatial diffusion, Boltzmann’s H-theorem), Liouville and Klimontovich equations, Landau equation (derivation, elaboration, and H-theorem, and irreversibility), Markov processes and Fokker–Planck equation (derivations of the Fokker–Planck equation and a master equation), linear response and transport theory (linear Boltzmann equation, linear response theory of Kubo and Mori, relation of entropy production to electrical conductivity, transport relations and coefficients, normal mode solutions of the transport equations, sketch of a generalized Langevin equation method for transport theory), and an introduction to nonequilibrium quantum statistical mechanics.

plasma dynamics↗
DOE OSTI2021

Temperature and Density on the Forsterite Liquid‐Vapor Phase Boundary

Abstract The physical processes during planet formation span a large range of pressures and temperatures. Giant impacts, such as the one that formed the Moon, achieve peak pressures of 100s of GPa. The peak shock states generate sufficient entropy such that subsequent decompression to low pressures intersects the liquid‐vapor phase boundary. The entire shock‐and‐release thermodynamic path must be calculated accurately in order to predict the post‐impact structures of planetary bodies. Forsterite (Mg 2 SiO 4 ) is a commonly used mineral to represent the mantles of differentiated bodies in hydrocode models of planetary collisions. Here, we performed shock experiments on the Sandia Z Machine to obtain the density and temperature of the liquid branch of the liquid‐vapor phase boundary of forsterite. This work is combined with previous work constraining pressure, density, temperature, and entropy of the forsterite principal Hugoniot. We find that the vapor curves in previous forsterite equation of state models used in giant impacts vary substantially from our experimental results, and we compare our results to a recently updated equation of state. We have also found that due to under‐predicted entropy production on the principal Hugoniot and elevated temperatures of the liquid vapor phase boundary of these past models, past impact studies may have underestimated vapor production. Furthermore, our results provide experimental support to the idea that giant impacts can transform much of the mantles of rocky planets into supercritical fluids.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2025

Remote Sensing of Live Fuel Moisture for Wildfires Using SMAP Satellite Observations

Live Fuel Moisture (LFM) is a critical parameter for wildfire risk assessment, traditionally measured by labor-intensive field sampling. However, sampled LFM data are influenced by site-specific factors, such as local vegetation types and plant traits, and are often collected retrospectively after wildfire events, making it difficult to obtain pre-fire data for predictive applications. Here, we evaluate the relationship between LFM and Vegetation Water Content (VWC) and Soil Moisture (SM) retrieved from SMAP L-band brightness temperature using the Maximum Entropy Production (MEP) approach. The MEP-retrieved VWC exhibited strong correlation with in situ measurements of LFM ( r > 0.6) in the Western U.S. The integration of high-resolution vegetation coverage data enhances the detection of sub-grid vegetation heterogeneity. This study demonstrates the operational potential of remote sensing derived VWC as a scalable proxy of LFM, supporting its application in regional assessment of wildfire risk.

Cho, Kyeungwoo [Georgia Institute of Technology, A↗
DOE OSTI2022

Metriplectic foundations of gyrokinetic Vlasov–Maxwell–Landau theory

Here, this Letter reports on a metriplectic formulation of a collisional, nonlinear full-f electromagnetic gyrokinetic theory compliant with energy conservation and monotonic entropy production. In an axisymmetric background magnetic field, the toroidal angular momentum is also conserved. Notably, a new collisional current, contributing to the gyrokinetic Maxwell–Ampère equation and the gyrokinetic charge conservation law, is discovered.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2023

Proto-neutron star convection and the neutrino-driven wind: implications for the r-process

The neutrino-driven wind from proto-neutron stars is a proposed site for r-process nucleosynthesis, although most previous work has found that a wind heated only by neutrinos cannot produce the third r-process peak. However, several groups have noted that introducing a secondary heating source within the wind can change the hydrodynamic conditions sufficiently for a strong r-process to proceed. One possible secondary heating source is gravito-acoustic waves, generated by convection inside the proto-neutron star. As these waves propagate into the wind, they can both accelerate the wind and shock and deposit energy into the wind. Additionally, the acceleration of the wind by these waves can reduce the total number of neutrino captures and thereby reduce the final electron fraction of the wind. In neutron rich conditions, all of these effects can make conditions more favourable for r-process nucleosynthesis. Here, we present a systematic investigation of the impact of these convection-generated gravito-acoustic waves within the wind on potential nucleosynthesis. We find that wave effects in the wind can generate conditions favourable for a strong r-process, even when the energy flux in the waves is a factor of 10 –4 smaller than the total neutrino energy flux and the wind is marginally neutron rich. Nevertheless, this depends strongly on the radius at which the waves become non-linear and form shocks. We also find that both entropy production after shock formation and the acceleration of the wind due to stresses produced by the waves prior to shock formation impact the structure and nucleosynthesis of these winds.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2022

Dissipation of moving vortices in thin films

In this letter, moving vortices in thin superconducting films are considered within the time-dependent London description. The dissipation due to out-of-core normal excitations for two vortices moving together turns out to have a minimum for the separation vector $\textit{a}$ parallel to the velocity and equal to $a_m$ ≈ 2.2 Λ , where Λ is the Pearl length. The minimum entropy production suggests that moving vortices should have a tendency to form chains along the velocity with a period of the order $a_m$.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗
DOE OSTI2023

Extended linear-in- T resistivity due to electron-phason scattering in moiré superlattices

Due to its incommensurate nature, moiré superlattices host not only acoustic phonons but also another type of soft collective modes called phasons. Here, we investigate the impact of electron-phason scattering on the transport properties of moiré systems. We show that the resistivity can scale linearly with temperature down to temperatures much lower than the Bloch-Grüneisen scale defined by electron kinematics on the Fermi surface. This result stems from the friction between layers, which transfers phason spectral weight to a broad diffusive low-energy peak in the mechanical response of the system. As a result, phason scattering becomes a very efficient channel for entropy production at low temperatures. We also consider the contributions of phasons to thermodynamic properties at low temperatures and find a “metallic-like” linear-in-T behavior for the specific heat, despite the fact that this behavior is due to mechanical and not electronic degrees of freedom. Finally, we discuss the implications of this finding to reports of linear-in-T resistivity in the phase diagram of twisted bilayer graphene.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗
DOE OSTI2022

Transport coefficients of quasiparticle models within a new relaxation time approximation of the Boltzmann equation

We investigate the transport properties of a kinetic theory model that is tuned to describe the thermodynamic properties of QCD at zero chemical potential using a new formulation of the relaxation time approximation. In contrast to previous approaches, the latter is constructed to preserve the fundamental properties of the collision term of the Boltzmann equation for any energy dependence of the relaxation time. A novel choice of matching conditions is implemented to ensure that the background mean-field depends only on the temperature even when the system is out of equilibrium. We provide a consistent analysis of how the transport coefficients of relativistic Navier-Stokes theory vary with the energy dependence of the relaxation time. We also show that the entropy production of this theory is consistent with the second law of thermodynamics and verify that it is independent of the matching conditions employed. We used this fact to calculate the matching independent combination of transport coefficients.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2021

Thermodynamic Phase Transition in Magnetic Reconnection

By examining the entropy production in fully kinetic simulations of collisional plasmas, it is shown that the transition from collisional Sweet-Parker reconnection to collisionless Hall reconnection may be viewed as a thermodynamic phase transition. The phase transition occurs when the reconnection electric field satisfies E = $E_{D}\sqrt{m{e}/{m}_i}$ , where ${m{e}/{m}_i}$ is the electron-to-ion mass ratio and E D is the Dreicer electric field. This condition applies for all ${m{e}/{m}_i}$, including ${m{e}/{m}_i}$ = 1 , where the Hall regime vanishes and a direct phase transition from the collisional to the kinetic regime occurs. In the limit ${m{e}/{m}_i}$ → 0, this condition is equivalent to there being a critical electron temperature $Te ≈ m_iΩ^{2}_{i}δ^{2}$, where $Ω_i$ is the ion cyclotron frequency and δ is the current sheet half-thickness. The heat capacity of the current sheet changes discontinuously across the phase transition, and a critical power law is identified in an effective heat capacity. A model for the time-dependent evolution of an isolated current sheet in the collisional regime is derived.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2025

Effective Action for Relativistic Hydrodynamics from the Crooks Fluctuation Theorem

A new effective theory framework for fluctuating hydrodynamics in the relativistic regime is derived using standard thermodynamical principles and general properties of nonequilibrium stochastic dynamics. For the first time, we establish clear and concise conditions for ensuring that the resulting effective theories are causal, stable, and well-posed within general relativity. Here, these properties are independent of spacetime foliation and are valid in the full nonlinear regime. Out-of-equilibrium fluctuations are constrained by a relativistically covariant version of the Crooks fluctuation theorem, which determines how the entropy production is distributed even when the system is driven by an external force. This leads to an emerging Z 2 symmetry responsible for imposing fluctuation-dissipation relations for n-point correlation functions, which matches the standard constraints for the Schwinger-Keldysh effective action.

Fluctuation theorems↗
DOE OSTI2026

Quark flavor equilibration of the quark-gluon plasma

The early stage of a heavy-ion collision is marked by rapid entropy production and the transition from a gluon saturated initial condition to a plasma of quarks and gluons that evolves hydrodynamically. However, during the early times of the hydrodynamic evolution, the chemical composition of the QCD medium is still largely unknown. We present a study of quark chemical equilibration in the (Q)GP using a novel model of viscous hydrodynamic evolution in partial chemical equilibrium. Motivated by the success of gluon saturated initial condition models, we initialize the QCD medium as a completely gluon dominated state. Local quark production during the hydrodynamic phase is then simulated through the evolution of time-dependent fugacities for each independent quark flavor, with the timescales set as free parameters to compare different rates of equilibration. We present the results of complete heavy-ion collision simulations using this partial chemical equilibrium model, and show the effects on hadronic and electromagnetic observables. In particular, we show that the development of flow is sensitive to the equilibration timescale, providing an empirical way to probe the chemical equilibration of the QCD medium.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2025

Irreversible thermodynamics of curved lipid membranes. II. Permeability and osmosis

We present a theory that combines the framework of irreversible thermodynamics with modified integral theorems to model arbitrarily curved and deforming membranes immersed in bulk fluid solutions. We study the coupling between the mechanics and permeability of a viscous and elastically bendable membrane, and a multicomponent bulk fluid solution. An equation for the internal entropy production for irreversibilities at the membrane is derived, determining the generalized thermodynamic forces and fluxes, from which we identify the deviatoric stress as a novel driving force for permeability. A complete set of equations of motion, constitutive laws, and boundary conditions to model the lipid membrane and bulk fluid system are provided.

Alkadri, Ahmad M↗
DOE OSTI2024

Collaborative Research: Vlasov-Maxwell Simulations to Resolve Electron Heating and Dissipation, in Quasi-Perpendicular Shocks

The major goals of the project are to study three fundamental questions related to collisionless, non-relativistic, quasi-perpendicular shocks by combining continuum Vlasov-Maxwell simulations (the Gkeyll framework) and high resolution, in situ heliospheric observations from the MMS spacecraft. The specific questions are: 1. How and where are electrons energized and heated in a quasi-perpendicular shock, including the ultimate source of entropy production? 2. What role do waves, turbulence, and secondary instabilities play in the conversion of directed flow energy to electron energy? 3. How do the parameters of the shock determine the energization of electrons?

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2025

Dual-unitary shadow tomography

We introduce a classical shadow tomography scheme based on dual-unitary brick-wall circuits termed "dual-unitary shadow tomography" (DUST). For this we study operator spreading and Pauli weight dynamics in one-dimensional qubit systems, evolved by random two-local dual-unitary gates arranged in a brick-wall structure, ending with a final measurement layer. We do this by deriving general constraints on the Pauli weight transfer matrix and specializing to the case of dual-unitarity. We first show that dual-unitaries must have a minimal amount of entropy production. Remarkably, we find that operator spreading in these circuits have a rich structure resembling that of relativistic quantum field theories, with massless chiral excitations that can decay or fuse into each other, which we call left- or right-movers. We develop a mean-field description of the Pauli weight in terms of $\rho(x,t)$, which represents the probability of having nontrivial support at site $x$ and depth $t$ starting from a fixed weight distribution. We develop an equation of state for $\rho(x,t)$, and simulate it numerically using Monte Carlo simulations. Lastly, we demonstrate that the fast-thermalizing properties of dual-unitary circuits make them better at predicting large operators than shallow brick-wall Clifford circuits. Our results are robust to finite-size effects due to the chirality of dual-unitary brick-wall circuits.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2021

Reimagining full wave rf quasilinear theory in a tokamak

The velocity dependent resonant interaction of particles with applied radio frequency (rf) waves during heating and current drive in the presence of pitch angle scattering collisions gives rise to narrow collisional velocity space boundary layers that dramatically enhance the role of collisions as recently shown by Catto (J. Plasma Phys., vol. 86, 815860302, 2020). The behavior is a generalization of the narrow collisional boundary layer that forms during Landau damping as found by Johnston (Phys. Fluids, vol. 14, 1971, pp. 2719-2726) and Auerbach (Phys. Fluids, vol. 20, 1977, pp. 1836-1844). For a wave of parallel wave number k|| interacting with weakly collisional plasma species of collision frequency ν and thermal speed vth , the effective collision frequency becomes of order ν(k_||v_th /ν)^2/3>> ν . The narrow boundary layers that arise because of the diffusive nature of the collisions allows a physically meaningful wave-particle interaction time to be defined that is the inverse of this effective collision frequency. The collisionality implied by the narrow boundary layer results in changes in the standard quasilinear treatment of applied rf fields in tokamaks while remaining consistent with causality. These changes occur because successive poloidal interactions with the rf are correlated in tokamak geometry and because the resonant velocity space dependent interactions are controlled by the spatial and temporal behavior of the perturbed full wave fields rather than just the spatially local Landau and Doppler shifted cyclotron wave-particle resonance condition associated with unperturbed motion of the particles. The correlation of successive poloidal circuits of the tokamak leads to the appearance in the quasilinear operator of transit averaged resonance conditions localized in velocity space boundary layers that maintain negative definite entropy production.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2021

Collisional effects on resonant particles in quasilinear theory

A careful examination of the effects of collisions on resonant wave-particle interactions leads to an alternate interpretation and deeper understanding of the quasilinear operator originally formulated by Kennel and Engelmann (Phys. Fluids vol. 9, 1966, pp. 2377- 2388) for collisionless, magnetized plasmas, and widely used to model radio frequency heating and current drive. The resonant and nearly resonant particles are particularly sensitive to collisions that pitch angle scatter them out of and into resonance. As a result, the resonant particle-wave interactions occur in the center of a narrow collisional boundary when the collision frequency nu is very small compared to the wave frequency omega. The diffusive nature of the pitch angle scattering combined with the wave-particle resonance condition enhances the collision frequency by (omega/nu)2/3 >>1, resulting in an effective resonant particle collision time of tau_int ~ (nu /omega)2/3 nu <<1/ nu . A rigorous collisional boundary layer analysis generalizes the standard quasilinear operator to a form that is fully consistent with Kennel-Englemann, but allows replacing the delta function appearing in the diffusivity with a simple integral (having the appropriate delta function limit) retaining the new physics associated with the narrow boundary layer, while preserving the entropy production principle. The limitations of the collisional boundary layer treatment are also estimated, and indicate that substantial departures from Maxwellian are not permitted.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗