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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 757 records · Page 42
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2019

Black hole in a superconducting plasma

The generalized vortical formalism provides an electrodynamic description for superconducting states—in the generalized vortical formalism, a superconducting state may be defined by the vanishing of an appropriate generalized vorticity and characterized by zero generalized helicity for incompressible fluids. In this article, we investigate these states for incompressible plasmas in black hole spacetime geometries using the curved spacetime generalization of the grand generalized vortical formalism. If the magnetic field is axisymmetric and the thermodynamic properties are symmetric about the equatorial plane, the resulting states are characterized by a vanishing skin depth and a complete expulsion of the magnetic field at the equator of the black hole horizon. Moreover, if the thermodynamic properties of the plasma are uniform at the horizon, we find that the magnetic field is completely expelled from the horizon, and the plasma behaves as a perfect superconductor near the horizon. Here, this result is independent of the spin of a black hole, holding even for a (nonrotating) Schwarzschild black hole, and demonstrates that the geometry near black hole horizons can have a significant effect on the electrodynamics of surrounding plasmas.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
NASA NTRS2009

Combined Modeling of Acceleration, Transport, and Hydrodynamic Response in Solar Flares: The Numerical Model - 1

Acceleration and transport of high-energy particles and fluid dynamics of atmospheric plasma are interrelated aspects of solar flares, but for convenience and simplicity they were artificially separated in the past. We present here self consistently combined Fokker-Planck modeling of particles and hydrodynamic simulation of flare plasma. Energetic electrons are modeled with the Stanford unified code of acceleration, transport, and radiation, while plasma is modeled with the Naval Research Laboratory flux tube code. We calculated the collisional heating rate directly from the particle transport code, which is more accurate than those in previous studies based on approximate analytical solutions. We repeated the simulation of Mariska et al. with an injection of power law, downward-beamed electrons using the new heating rate. For this case, a -10% difference was found from their old result. We also used a more realistic spectrum of injected electrons provided by the stochastic acceleration model, which has a smooth transition from a quasi-thermal background at low energies to a non thermal tail at high energies. The inclusion of low-energy electrons results in relatively more heating in the corona (versus chromosphere) and thus a larger downward heat conduction flux. The interplay of electron heating, conduction, and radiative loss leads to stronger chromospheric evaporation than obtained in previous studies, which had a deficit in low-energy electrons due to an arbitrarily assumed low-energy cutoff. The energy and spatial distributions of energetic electrons and bremsstrahlung photons bear signatures of the changing density distribution caused by chromospheric evaporation. In particular, the density jump at the evaporation front gives rise to enhanced emission, which, in principle, can be imaged by X-ray telescopes. This model can be applied to investigate a variety of high-energy processes in solar, space, and astrophysical plasmas.

STOCHASTIC ACCELERATION MODEL↗
NASA NTRS2009

Hall-Effect Thruster Simulations with 2-D Electron Transport and Hydrodynamic Ions

A computational approach that has been used extensively in the last two decades for Hall thruster simulations is to solve a diffusion equation and energy conservation law for the electrons in a direction that is perpendicular to the magnetic field, and use discrete-particle methods for the heavy species. This "hybrid" approach has allowed for the capture of bulk plasma phenomena inside these thrusters within reasonable computational times. Regions of the thruster with complex magnetic field arrangements (such as those near eroded walls and magnets) and/or reduced Hall parameter (such as those near the anode and the cathode plume) challenge the validity of the quasi-one-dimensional assumption for the electrons. This paper reports on the development of a computer code that solves numerically the 2-D axisymmetric vector form of Ohm's law, with no assumptions regarding the rate of electron transport in the parallel and perpendicular directions. The numerical challenges related to the large disparity of the transport coefficients in the two directions are met by solving the equations in a computational mesh that is aligned with the magnetic field. The fully-2D approach allows for a large physical domain that extends more than five times the thruster channel length in the axial direction, and encompasses the cathode boundary. Ions are treated as an isothermal, cold (relative to the electrons) fluid, accounting for charge-exchange and multiple-ionization collisions in the momentum equations. A first series of simulations of two Hall thrusters, namely the BPT-4000 and a 6-kW laboratory thruster, quantifies the significance of ion diffusion in the anode region and the importance of the extended physical domain on studies related to the impact of the transport coefficients on the electron flow field.

plasma↗
DOE OSTI2015

Rarefaction solitons initiated by sheath instability

The instability of the cathode sheath initiated by the cold energetic electron beam is studied by the one-dimensional fluid model. Numerical simulations show the generation of travelling rarefaction solitons at the cathode. It is obtained that the parameters of these solitons strongly depend on the parameters of electron beam. The “stretched” variables are derived using the small-amplitude analysis. These variables are used in order to obtain the Korteweg-de Vries equation describing the propagation of the rarefaction solitons through the plasma with cold energetic electron beam.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2018

A neoclassical drift-magnetohydrodynamical fluid model of the interaction of a magnetic island chain with a resonant error-field in a high temperature tokamak plasma

A two-fluid, neoclassical theory of the interaction of a single magnetic island chain with a resonant error-field in a quasi-cylindrical, low-β, tokamak plasma is presented. The plasmas typically found in large hot tokamaks lie in the so-called weak neoclassical flow-damping regime in which the neoclassical ion stress tensor is not the dominant term in the ion parallel equation of motion. Nevertheless, flow-damping in such plasmas dominates ion perpendicular viscosity, and is largely responsible for determining the phase velocity of a freely rotating island chain (which is in the ion diamagnetic direction relative to the local E × B frame at the rational surface). The critical vacuum island width required to lock the island chain is mostly determined by the ion neoclassical poloidal flow damping rate at the rational surface. The stabilizing effect of the average field-line curvature, as well as the destabilizing effect of the perturbed bootstrap current, is the same for a freely rotating, a non-uniformly rotating, and a locked island chain. The destabilizing effect of the error-field averages to zero when the chain is rotating and only manifests itself when the chain locks. The perturbed ion polarization current has a small destabilizing effect on a freely rotating island chain, but a large destabilizing effect on both a non-uniformly rotating and a locked island chain. Finally, this behavior may account for the experimentally observed fact that locked island chains are much more unstable than corresponding freely rotating chains.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2023

Machine learning of hidden variables in multiscale fluid simulation

Solving fluid dynamics equations often requires the use of closure relations that account for missing microphysics. For example, when solving equations related to fluid dynamics for systems with a large Reynolds number, sub-grid effects become important and a turbulence closure is required, and in systems with a large Knudsen number, kinetic effects become important and a kinetic closure is required. By adding an equation governing the growth and transport of the quantity requiring the closure relation, it becomes possible to capture microphysics through the introduction of ‘hidden variables’ that are non-local in space and time. The behavior of the ‘hidden variables’ in response to the fluid conditions can be learned from a higher fidelity or ab-initio model that contains all the microphysics. In our study, a partial differential equation simulator that is end-to-end differentiable is used to train judiciously placed neural networks against ground-truth simulations. We show that this method enables an Euler equation based approach to reproduce non-linear, large Knudsen number plasma physics that can otherwise only be modeled using Boltzmann-like equation simulators such as Vlasov or particle-in-cell modeling.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2026

Collaborative Research: Enabling multi-scale studies of magnetic reconnection with interpretable data-driven models

The development of accurate reduced descriptions and improved closures for magnetic reconnection is an important and a long‐standing challenge in plasma physics. The four‐fluid approach, and associated closures, that were investigated have the potential to improve the accuracy of plasma fluid models, capturing physical effects which would otherwise require a kinetic description. If successful, this approach could have an important impact for the modeling of laboratory and space plasmas. The major goals of this project were to develop new machine learning (ML) tools based on sparse and symbolic regression techniques, and to extract interpretable and generalizable reduced models (e.g., in the form of partial differential equations - PDEs) from data generated by first principles plasma simulations. Preserving interpretability of such data‐driven models is key to addressing the long‐standing theoretical and numerical challenges. Prior proof‐of‐principle studies have demonstrated the enormous potential of this approach, by recovering the well‐established hierarchy of plasma equations (from Vlasov to MHD) from data produced by particle‐in‐cell (PIC) simulations. Our goal in this project was to extend and apply these new tools to construct better kinetic closures for magnetic reconnection; to derive better models of particle injection and acceleration by this fundamental plasma process; and to use this understanding to accelerate the development of multi‐scale plasma algorithms. While our immediate focus was on the problem of magnetic reconnection, the tools that were will developed are general and applicable to other areas of plasma physics, and more broadly to many‐body phenomena. We anticipate that the development of these multi‐scale models will have a significant impact across different areas of plasma science, from fusion to space and astrophysical plasmas.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2023

Physics-based adaptivity of a spectral method for the Vlasov–Poisson equations based on the asymmetrically-weighted Hermite expansion in velocity space

We propose a spectral method for the 1D-1V Vlasov–Poisson system where the discretization in velocity space is based on asymmetrically-weighted Hermite functions, dynamically adapted via a scaling α and shifting u of the velocity variable. Specifically, at each time instant an adaptivity criterion selects new values of α and u based on the numerical solution of the discrete Vlasov–Poisson system obtained at that time step. Once the new values of the Hermite parameters α and u are fixed, the Hermite expansion is updated and the discrete system is further evolved for the next time step. The procedure is applied iteratively over the desired temporal interval. The key aspects of the adaptive algorithm are: the map between approximation spaces associated with different values of the Hermite parameters that preserves total mass, momentum and energy; and the adaptivity criterion to update α and u based on physics considerations relating the Hermite parameters to the average velocity and temperature of each plasma species. For the discretization of the spatial coordinate, we rely on Fourier functions and use the implicit midpoint rule for time stepping. The resulting numerical method possesses intrinsically the property of fluid-kinetic coupling, where the low-order terms of the expansion are akin to the fluid moments of a macroscopic description of the plasma, while kinetic physics is retained by adding more spectral terms. Moreover, the scheme features conservation of total mass, momentum and energy associated in the discrete, for periodic boundary conditions. A set of numerical experiments confirms that the adaptive method outperforms the non-adaptive one in terms of accuracy and stability of the numerical solution.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2022

The role of plasma instabilities in relativistic radiation-mediated shocks: stability analysis and particle-in-cell simulations

ABSTRACT Relativistic radiation-mediated shocks are likely formed in prodigious cosmic explosions. The structure and emission of such shocks are regulated by copious production of electron–positron pairs inside the shock-transition layer. It has been pointed out recently that substantial abundance of positrons inside the shock leads to a velocity separation of the different plasma constituents, which is expected to induce a rapid growth of plasma instabilities. In this paper, we study the hierarchy of plasma microinstabilities growing in an electron-ion plasma loaded with pairs and subject to a radiation force. Linear stability analysis indicates that such a system is unstable to the growth of various plasma modes which ultimately become dominated by a current filamentation instability driven by the relative drift between the ions and the pairs. These results are validated by particle-in-cell simulations that further probe the non-linear regime of the instabilities, and the pair-ion coupling in the microturbulent electromagnetic field. Based on this analysis, we derive a reduced-transport equation for the particles via pitch-angle scattering in the microturbulence and demonstrate that it can couple the different species and lead to non-adiabatic compression via a Joule-like heating. The heating of the pairs and, conceivably, the formation of non-thermal distributions, arising from the microturbulence, can affect the observed shock-breakout signal in ways unaccounted for by current single-fluid models.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2013

Dust acoustic solitary waves in a magnetized electron depleted superthermal dusty plasma

A theoretical investigation has been made on the oblique propagation of arbitrary dust-acoustic solitary waves in an electron depleted magnetized dusty plasma which consists of kappa distributed ions and negatively charged warm dust fluid. The electron number density is assumed to be sufficiently depleted owing to the electron attachment during the dust charging process, i.e., n{sub e} Much-Less-Than n{sub i}. The propagation properties of two possible modes (in the linear regime) are investigated. It is found that deviation of ions from thermodynamic equilibrium leads to a decrease of the phase velocity of both modes. A nonlinear pseudopotential approach is employed to derive an energy-like equation which admits to investigate the occurrence of stationary solitary wave solution for the propagation of arbitrary amplitude. The effects of superthermality, obliqueness, and external magnetic field on the existence domain and nature of these solitary waves are discussed. Only negative polarity of solitary waves is found to exist. It is shown that an increase of ion superthermality leads to the appearance of the solitary waves with smaller Mach numbers. The influence of dust temperature on the existence domain of solitary structures is increase of the permitted Mach number. It is also found that the superthermality supports the solitary structures with larger amplitude.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2015

A reanalysis of a strong-flow gyrokinetic formalism

We reanalyse an arbitrary-wavelength gyrokinetic formalism [A. M. Dimits, Phys. Plasmas 17, 055901 (2010)], which orders only the vorticity to be small and allows strong, time-varying flows on medium and long wavelengths. We obtain a simpler gyrocentre Lagrangian up to second order. In addition, the gyrokinetic Poisson equation, derived either via variation of the system Lagrangian or explicit density calculation, is consistent with that of the weak-flow gyrokinetic formalism [T. S. Hahm, Phys. Fluids 31, 2670 (1988)] at all wavelengths in the weak flow limit. The reanalysed formalism has been numerically implemented as a particle-in-cell code. An iterative scheme is described which allows for numerical solution of this system of equations, given the implicit dependence of the Euler-Lagrange equations on the time derivative of the potential.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
NASA NTRS2012

Chemical and Hydrodynamical Models of Cometary Comae

Multi-fluid modelling of the outflowing gases which sublimate from cometary nuclei as they approach the Sun is necessary for understanding the important physical and chemical processes occurring in this complex plasma. Coma chemistry models can be employed to interpret observational data and to ultimately determine chemical composition and structure of the nuclear ices and dust. We describe a combined chemical and hydrodynamical model [1] in which differential equations for the chemical abundances and the energy balance are solved as a function of distance from the cometary nucleus. The presence of negative ions (anions) in cometary comae is known from Giotto mass spectrometry of 1P/Halley. The anions O(-), OH(-), C(-), CH(-) and CN(-) have been detected, as well as unidentified anions with masses 22-65 and 85-110 amu [2]. Organic molecular anions such as C4H(-) and C6H(-) are known to have a significant impact on the charge balance of interstellar clouds and circumstellar envelopes and have been shown to act as catalysts for the gas-phase synthesis of larger hydrocarbon molecules in the ISM, but their importance in cometary comae has not yet been fully explored. We present details of new models for the chemistry of cometary comae that include atomic and molecular anions and calculate the impact of these anions on the coma physics and chemistry af the coma.

Charnley, Steven↗
DOE OSTI2012

Electron cyclotron current drive modelling with parallel momentum correction for tokamaks and stellarators

The electron cyclotron current drive (ECCD) is described by the solution of a drift-kinetic equation (DKE) with the quasi-linear heating term which is highly localised in phase space. Within the adjoint approach, an equivalent DKE must be solved without this highly localised source, and the ECCD is described by a straightforward convolution in phase space. The parallel momentum correction technique [Maassberg et al., Phys. Plasmas 16, 072504 (2009)] reduces the problem to the solution of a simplified mono-energetic DKE. The mono-energetic distribution functions are calculated by the DKES code [W. I. van Rij and S. P. Hirshman, Phys. Fluids B 1, 563 (1989)]. Parallel momentum correction, requiring only an energy-dependent weighting factor, is applied to these distribution functions allowing for the direct estimation of the EC-driven current. For small yet finite collisionalities, a rather simple model for ECCD is presented. In this approach, the symmetric portion of the electron distribution function with respect to v{sub Parallel-To} (the Ware pinch contribution) is neglected and an 'off-set' only in the passing particle domain adds to the collisionless (anti-symmetric) distribution function. For this approximation, only the mono-energetic parallel conductivity coefficient as function of the collisionality is needed. The impact of small yet finite collisionalities on ECCD is shown for X2- and O2-scenarios at W7-X.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2016

Dynamic compression of dense oxide (Gd 3 Ga 5 O 12 ) from 0.4 to 2.6 TPa: Universal Hugoniot of fluid metals

Materials at high pressures and temperatures are of great current interest for warm dense matter physics, planetary sciences, and inertial fusion energy research. Shock-compression equation-of-state data and optical reflectivities of the fluid dense oxide, Gd 3 Ga 5 O 12 (GGG), were measured at extremely high pressures up to 2.6 TPa (26 Mbar) generated by high-power laser irradiation and magnetically-driven hypervelocity impacts. Above 0.75 TPa, the GGG Hugoniot data approach/reach a universal linear line of fluid metals, and the optical reflectivity most likely reaches a constant value indicating that GGG undergoes a crossover from fluid semiconductor to poor metal with minimum metallic conductivity (MMC). These results suggest that most fluid compounds, e.g., strong planetary oxides, reach a common state on the universal Hugoniot of fluid metals (UHFM) with MMC at sufficiently extreme pressures and temperatures. Lastly, the systematic behaviors of warm dense fluid would be useful benchmarks for developing theoretical equation-of-state and transport models in the warm dense matter regime in determining computational predictions.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2018

Saturation scalings of toroidal ion temperature gradient turbulence

The emerging understanding of instability-driven plasma-turbulence saturation in terms of energy transfer to stable modes in the same scale range as the instability is employed to derive a saturation theory for the toroidal branch of ion temperature gradient turbulence that provides the scaling of turbulence and zonal flow levels for all physical parameters. The theory is based on the eigenmode decomposition of a nonlinear fluid model, which is subjected to a statistical closure and simplified via an ordering expansion consistent with zonal-flow catalyzed energy transfer from the unstable mode to the stable mode at large scale. Solution of the closed energy balance equations yields a turbulence level that is proportional to the ratio of the zonal flow damping rate and the inverse of the triplet correlation time of the zonal-flow catalyzed wavenumber triplet interaction. The zonal flow energy is proportional to the ratio of the growth rate and the inverse triplet correlation time. The saturation scalings are applied to the ion heat flux, showing that it has a factor proportional to the quasilinear heat flux and a correction factor that includes the inverse of the triplet correlation time and a reduction due to the stable mode.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2012

Parallel transport of long mean-free-path plasma along open magnetic field lines: Parallel heat flux

In a long mean-free-path plasma where temperature anisotropy can be sustained, the parallel heat flux has two components with one associated with the parallel thermal energy and the other the perpendicular thermal energy. Due to the large deviation of the distribution function from local Maxwellian in an open field line plasma with low collisionality, the conventional perturbative calculation of the parallel heat flux closure in its local or non-local form is no longer applicable. Here, a non-perturbative calculation is presented for a collisionless plasma in a two-dimensional flux expander bounded by absorbing walls. Specifically, closures of previously unfamiliar form are obtained for ions and electrons, which relate two distinct components of the species parallel heat flux to the lower order fluid moments such as density, parallel flow, parallel and perpendicular temperatures, and the field quantities such as the magnetic field strength and the electrostatic potential. The plasma source and boundary condition at the absorbing wall enter explicitly in the closure calculation. Although the closure calculation does not take into account wave-particle interactions, the results based on passing orbits from steady-state collisionless drift-kinetic equation show remarkable agreement with fully kinetic-Maxwell simulations. As an example of the physical implications of the theory, the parallel heat flux closures are found to predict a surprising observation in the kinetic-Maxwell simulation of the 2D magnetic flux expander problem, where the parallel heat flux of the parallel thermal energy flows from low to high parallel temperature region.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
NASA NTRS1986

A model of Comet P/Giacobini-Zinner

A computer model of Comet P/Giacobini-Zinner is presented which contains photoprocesses, gas-phase chemical kinetics, energy balance, multifluid hydrodynamics with a transition to free molecular flow, and solar wind interaction. Recently the physics for electrons in the model has been improved by including electron impact ionization and dissociation and separately accounting for electron energetics. Electron heating and cooling mechanisms include photoprocesses, recombination processes, inelastic and elastic collisions with heavy molecules, and expansion cooling. The model incorporates an internally consistent interaction of the solar wind with the coma gas using the axisymmetric ideal fluid dynamic equations. The nuclear size and composition have been chosen to make the calculations relevant to the September 11, 1985 International Cometary Explorer (ICE) encounter with Comet P/Giacobini-Zinner. Model profiles of the temperature, velocity, and number density of the electrons are in good agreement with measurements along ICE's trajectory. The results indicate the probe passed through a region of the coma at the onset of the plasma tail.

Boice, D. C.↗