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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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All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2024

Color symmetry and confinement as an underlying superconformal structure in holographic QCD

Dedicated to the memory of our colleague, Harald Fritzsch, who, together with Murray Gell-Mann, introduced the color quantum number as the exact symmetry responsible for the strong interaction, thus establishing quantum chromodynamics (QCD) as a fundamental non-Abelian gauge theory. A basic understanding of hadron properties, however, such as confinement and the emergence of a mass scale, from first principles QCD has remained elusive: Hadronic characteristics are not explicit properties of the QCD Lagrangian and perturbative QCD, so successful in the large transverse momentum domain, is not applicable at large distances. In this article, we shall examine how this daunting obstacle is overcome in holographic QCD with the introduction of a superconformal symmetry in anti de Sitter (AdS) space which is responsible for confinement and the introduction of a mass scale within the superconformal group. When mapped to light-front coordinates in physical spacetime, this approach incorporates supersymmetric relations between the Regge trajectories of meson, baryon and tetraquark states which can be visualized in terms of specific SU(3) C color representations of quarks. Finally, we will also briefly discuss here the implications of holographic models for QCD color transparency in view of the present experimental interest.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2020

Water Structure and Properties at Hydrophilic and Hydrophobic Surfaces

The properties of water on both molecular and macroscopic surfaces critically influence a wide range of physical behaviors, with applications spanning from membrane science to catalysis to protein engineering. Yet, our current understanding of water interfacing molecular and material surfaces is incomplete, in part because measurement of water structure and molecular-scale properties challenges even the most advanced experimental characterization techniques and computational approaches. This review highlights progress in the ongoing development of tools working to answer fundamental questions on the principles that govern the interactions between water and surfaces. One outstanding and critical question is what universal molecular signatures capture the hydrophobicity of different surfaces in an operationally meaningful way, since traditional macroscopic hydrophobicity measures like contact angles fail to capture even basic properties of molecular or extended surfaces with any heterogeneity at the nanometer length scale. Resolving this grand challenge will require close interactions between state-of-the-art experiments, simulations, and theory, spanning research groups and using agreed-upon model systems, to synthesize an integrated knowledge of solvation water structure, dynamics, and thermodynamics.

catalysis (heterogeneous)↗
DOE OSTI2021

Exposure to ionizing radiation disrupts normal epigenetic aging in Japanese medaka

Alterations to the epigenome are a hallmark of biological aging and age-dependent patterning of the DNA methylome (“epigenetic aging”) can be modeled to produce epigenetic age predictors. Rates of epigenetic aging vary amongst individuals and correlate to the onset of age-related disease and all-cause mortality. Yet, the origins of epigenetic-to-chronological age discordance are not empirically resolved. Here, we investigate the relationship between aging, DNA methylation, and environmental exposures in Japanese medaka (Oryzias latipes). We find age-associated DNA methylation patterning enriched in genomic regions of low CpG density and that, similar to mammals, most age-related changes occur during early life. We construct an epigenetic clock capable of predicting chronological age with a mean error of 61.1 days (~8.4% of average lifespan). To test the role of environmental factors in driving epigenetic age variation, we exposed medaka to chronic, environmentally relevant doses of ionizing radiation. Because most organisms share an evolutionary history with ionizing radiation, we hypothesized that exposure would reveal fundamental insights into environment-by-epigenetic aging interactions. Radiation exposure disrupted epigenetic aging by accelerating and decelerating normal age-associated patterning and was most pronounced in cytosines that were moderately associated with age. These findings empirically demonstrate the role of DNA methylation in integrating environmental factors into aging trajectories.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2015

Princeton University High Energy Physics Research

This is the Final Report on research conducted by the Princeton Elementary Particles group over the approximately three-year period from May 1, 2012 to April 30, 2015. The goal of our research is to investigate the fundamental constituents of matter, their fields, and their interactions; to understand the properties of space and time; and to study the profound relationships between cosmology and particle physics. During the funding period covered by this report, the group has been organized into a subgroup concentrating on the theory of particles, strings, and cosmology; and four subgroups performing major experiments at laboratories around the world: CERN, Daya Bay, Gran Sasso as well as detector R\&D on the Princeton campus. Highlights in of this research include the discovery of the Higgs Boson at CERN and the measurement of $\sin^22\theta_{13}$ by the Daya Bay experiment. In both cases, Princeton researchers supported by this grant played key roles.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2014

Experimental Studies of the Transport Parameters of Warm Dense Matter

There is a need to establish fundamental properties of matter and energy under extreme physical conditions. Although high energy density physics (HEDP) research spans a wide range of plasma conditions, there is one unifying regime that is of particular importance and complexity: that of warm dense matter, the transitional state between solid state condensed matter and energetic plasmas. Most laboratory experimental conditions, including inertial confinement implosion, fall into this regime. Because all aspects of laboratory-created high-energy-density plasmas transition through the warm dense matter regime, understanding the fundamental properties to determine how matter and energy interact in this regime is an important aspect of major research efforts in HEDP. Improved understanding of warm dense matter would have significant and wide-ranging impact on HEDP science, from helping to explain wire initiation studies on the Sandia Z machine to increasing the predictive power of inertial confinement fusion modeling. The central goal or objective of our proposed research is to experimentally determine the electrical resistivity, temperature, density, and average ionization state of a variety of materials in the warm dense matter regime, without the use of theoretical calculations. Since the lack of an accurate energy of state (EOS) model is primarily due to the lack of experimental data, we propose an experimental study of the transport coefficients of warm dense matter.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2016

MAGIC Cloud Properties from Zenith Radiance Data Final Campaign Summary

Cloud droplet size and optical depth are the most fundamental properties for understanding cloud formation, dissipation and interactions with aerosol and drizzle. They are also a crucial determinant of Earth’s radiative and water-energy balances. However, these properties are poorly predicted in climate models. As a result, the response of clouds to climate change is one of the major sources of uncertainty in climate prediction.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗
DOE OSTI2016

Verification of capillary pressure functions and relative permeability equations for gas production

The understanding of multiphase fluid flow in porous media is of great importance in many fields such as enhanced oil recovery, hydrology, CO 2 sequestration, contaminants cleanup and natural gas production from hydrate bearing sediments. However, there are many unanswered questions about the key parameters that characterize gas and water flows in porous media. The characteristics of multiphase fluid flow in porous media such as water retention curve, relative permeability, preferential fluid flow patterns and fluid-particle interaction should be taken into consideration for a fundamental understanding of the behavior of pore scale systems.

03 NATURAL GAS↗
DOE OSTI2017

Basic of Neutron NDA

The objectives of this presentation are to introduce the basic physics of neutron production, interactions and detection; identify the processes that generate neutrons; explain the most common neutron mechanism, spontaneous and induced fission and (a,n) reactions; describe the properties of neutron from different sources; recognize advantages of neutron measurements techniques; recognize common neutrons interactions; explain neutron cross section measurements; describe the fundamental of 3 He detector function and designs; and differentiate between passive and active assay techniques.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2019

Nanostructured Solar Fuel Systems (Final Technical Report)

The focus of our DOE-supported research has been to explore the principles of artificial photosynthesis, working to understand at a fundamental level both the individual components and their interactions in systems. While this work is inspired by biology in terms of design principles for photoinduced charge separation, ion transport, and electrocatalysis, it involves the synthesis, assembly, and study of nanoscale inorganic and polymeric components that are structurally quite different but functionally analogous. The systems we create are constructed from dyes, electron relay molecules, transition metal oxide nanosheets, porous and nanowire semiconductor oxide films, polyelectrolytes, and catalyst molecules. The lessons learned from interrogating the detailed kinetics of these systems are relevant both to light-driven water splitting and CO 2 reduction, and to dark electrochemical energy conversion systems such as electrolyzers and fuel cells.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
DOE OSTI2019

High Momentum Transfer Nucleon Elastic Electromagnetic Form Factor Measurements Using Super BigBite Spectrometer at Jefferson Lab

The nucleons - protons and neutrons - are the basic building blocks of atomic nuclei. We now know that the nucleon consists of fundamental particles called quarks and gluons. The quarks interact with each other by exchanging gluons via the strong interaction. Understanding the quark-gluon structure of the nucleon, especially the confinement of quarks within the nucleon in its ground state, remains one of the main unsolved puzzles of particle physics. The nucleon electromagnetic form factors are directly related to the internal structure of the nucleon. A new generation of high precision experiments, GEp-V, GEn-II, GEn-RP, and GMn, measuring the ground state nucleon space-like electro-magnetic form factor at high momentum transfer is underway at Jefferson Lab experimental Hall-A as part of the Super Bigbite Spectrometer (SBS) program. This series of experiments will provide a new level of understanding of the nucleon structure. These experiments are highly demanding due to the extremely fast drop off of the elastic cross section with the increasing four-momentum transfer squared(Q2). This thesis provides an overview of the SBS physics program and reports on the extensive R&D program carried out to achieve the high rate running conditions essential for carrying out the SBS experiments. SBS will provide an intermediate solid angle of approximately 35 msr, which is significantly larger than the solid angle of other dipole based spectrometers at Jefferson lab. Of course, there are much larger acceptance spectrometers at Jefferson Lab, CLAS12 for example. What is special about SBS is that it provides a sizable acceptance while operating at the highest possible luminosity at Jefferson Lab. With this combination of medium acceptance and the highest available luminosity, SBS provides an unparalleled opportunity to explore the nucleon in its ground state with unprecedented resolution. The relatively large acceptance of SBS is achieved by using a large gap dipole magnet and placing it close to the target. An unavoidable consequence of this is that the SBS GEM trackers and other detectors have a clear line-of-sight view of the target and a portion of the beam-line. As a result, the background hit rate in the SBS front GEM trackers is expected to be up to 500 kHz/cm2, over the entire active area of 6000 cm2. To the best of our knowledge, this extremely high rate over such a large area is unprecedented in any particle tracking system used anywhere in the world before. Correctly reconstructing the particle tracks of interest in this very high background environment is achieved by using especially adapted high rate techniques at every step of the tracking process: optimizing the GEM module and tracker design at the hardware level, using high bandwidth electronics and real time Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) based background suppression techniques at the Data Acquisition (DAQ) level, and developing highly specialized tracking algorithms to pick out the signal hits from among the vast amount of background hits. In order to ensure a smooth start and running of the SBS experiments, it is extremely crucial that these techniques are developed, implemented, and tested under realistic conditions well before the actual start of the SBS experimental program. A detailed Geant4 simulation of the experiment was combined with a digitization package to generate the detector level pseudodata similar to what is expected in the actual experiments. The digitization procedures were calibrated against actual GEM data from cosmic-ray runs, X-ray tests, beam test runs in experimental Hall-A, and the PRad experiment in Hall B. Then, optimized tracking algorithms were developed and implemented in an analysis program used to analyze these pseudo-data and to extract expected high-level parameters. These extracted quantities were then compared with the input parameters from the simulation to verify and determine the performance characteristics for the SBS tracker. From this work, a final tracking efficiency of 69% at 25% occupancy was achieved, with the required reconstruction accuracy, for the GMn experiment, the first experiment in the SBS program, with background level at 100 kHz/cm2. These demonstrated parameters are adequate for the successful running of not only the GMn experiment but as well as for GEn-RP and GEn-II experiments, the second and third experiments in the program. This work builds the solid ground to further improve the tracking performance for these experiments and achieve similar conditions for the running of the GEp-V experiment, the most demanding experiment in the SBS program, with an expected background level at 500 kHz/cm2.

Di, Danning↗
DOE OSTI2020

Simultaneous Exposure of Cultured Human Lymphoblastic Cells to Simulated Microgravity and Radiation Increases Chromosome Aberrations

During space travel, humans are continuously exposed to two major environmental stresses, microgravity (μG) and space radiation. One of the fundamental questions is whether the two stressors are interactive. For over half a century, many studies were carried out in space, as well as using devices that simulated μG on the ground to investigate gravity effects on cells and organisms, and we have gained insights into how living organisms respond to μG. However, our knowledge on how to assess and manage human health risks in long-term mission to the Moon or Mars is drastically limited. For example, little information is available on how cells respond to simultaneous exposure to space radiation and μG. In this study, we analyzed the frequencies of chromosome aberrations (CA) in cultured human lymphoblastic TK6 cells exposed to X-ray or carbon ion under the simulated μG conditions. A higher frequency of both simple and complex types of CA were observed in cells exposed to radiation and μG simultaneously compared to CA frequency in cells exposed to radiation only. Our study shows that the dose response data on space radiation obtained at the 1G condition could lead to the underestimation of astronauts’ potential risk for health deterioration, including cancer. This study also emphasizes the importance of obtaining data on the molecular and cellular responses to irradiation under μG conditions.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2017

What is the Universe made of?

A team of physicists and astrophysicists at Los Alamos National Laboratory, in collaboration with leading universities around the country, are using the Laboratory’s supercomputers to simulate the Big Bang nucleosynthesis and the early universe to unprecedented precision. These researchers developed a code, called BURST that describes the universe from a time of a few seconds after the Big Bang to several hundred thousand years later. BURST allows physicists to study the microscopic, quantum nature of fundamental particles — like nuclei and the ghostly, weakly interacting neutrinos — by simulating the universe at its largest, cosmological scale. BURST simultaneously describes all the particles present in the early universe as they develop, tracking their evolution, particularly the amounts of light nuclei fused in the cosmic soup.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2024

High-Fidelity Arc-Discharge Model for Hydrogen-Plasma-Smelting-Reduction of Iron Ore

Electrification and use of renewable hydrogen is currently a necessity for decarbonizing the iron-and-steel industry. In this regard, hydrogen plasma smelting reduction (HPSR) is a novel pathway that is being explored for reduction of iron ore. HPSR provides several decarbonization merits compared to conventional blast furnaces. Firstly, the use of renewable hydrogen drastically reduces the CO2 emissions compared to the use of coke. Secondly, renewable electricity in the form of a thermal plasma for making reactive hydrogen species (radicals, ions) are more efficient at reducing iron ore compared to neutral H2. Thirdly, a molten product compatible with downstream processes is obtained from the intense heat transfer from the plasma. However, the scale-up of this technology requires fundamental exploration of hydrogen plasma dynamics and its interaction with complex solid material that include phase changing iron-ore and slag. In this work, we present a first principles continuum scale model for thermal plasmas in Ar/H2 gas mixtures typically used for HPSR. The thermal plasma governing equations for mass, momentum and energy with Lorentz force and Joule heating source terms are solved along with electromagnetic equations for electrostatic and magnetic vector potential. Our solver will be based on Pele, a suite of reacting flow solvers designed for advanced scientific computing architectures (Henry De Frahan et al., Proceedings of SIAM Parallel Processing, 13-25, 2024), and will utilize adaptive mesh generation for enhanced resolutions at locations of intense physicochemical interactions. This study will present the impact of Ar to H2 ratios on excited/dissociated hydrogen species concentrations, plasma temperature and conductivity along with the impact of outgassed species (water, metal vapor, O, OH radicals) from ore surface on gas phase chemistry. Furthermore, the heat and species flux to the surface will be quantified as a function of applied voltages in a transferred arc configuration.

hydrogen plasma↗
DOE OSTI2024

Photo- and Electro-Induced Hadron Production from Nuclei at Jefferson Laboratory

Understanding many-body knockout processes is crucial for nuclear physics, particularly in photo- and electro-induced reactions. In turn, understanding two- and three-body forces, including higher-order forces, is vital for a complete understanding of atoms. We present photo-induced many-proton knockout processes, with multiplicities from 1 to 6, using 12C, CH2, and C4H9OH targets in the g9a FROST dataset. Our analysis covers photon energies from 600 to 4500 MeV, significantly expanding current world data. Comparing our experimental data to the state-of-the-art GiBUU model offers a new challenge in the model’s theoretical description of many-body processes. GiBUU reasonably describes the data at lower photon energies but struggles at higher energies and missing masses, likely due to missing processes, such as initial 3-pion photoproduction. Our results will inform future developments in describing proton knockout processes, indicating GiBUU’s overall reasonable description of many-proton knockout data up to around 2.2 GeV. We also assess various electro-induced reactions using 2D, 12C, and 40Ar targets in the RGM dataset. Our results, obtained at electron beam energies of 2, 4, and 6 GeV, are compared in detail to GENIE and GiBUU, two widely used theory models in neutrino oscillation experiments. Discrepancies between model predictions and experimental data underscore the need for refining the two theoretical models. Despite discrepancies, GiBUU provides a more accurate modelling of electro-induced reactions, especially for 40Ar - crucial for future neutrino oscillation facilities such as DUNE. Understanding the fundamental nuclear physics involved in neutrino-nuclei interactions is essential for reducing the systematic uncertainties in extracting neutrino oscillation parameters. Many-body processes significantly contribute to the background processes observed in neutrino-nuclei interactions, hence the results from both analyses are crucial for developing the theoretical framework for the underlying nuclear physics.

Williams, Rhidian↗
DOE OSTI2016

High-Resolution Infrared Studies of Perdeutero-Spiropentane, C 5 D 8

Perdeutero-spiropentane (C 5 D 8 ) has been synthesized and infrared and Raman spectra are reported for the first time. Wavenumber assignments are made for most of the fundamental vibrational modes. Gas phase infrared spectra were recorded at a resolution (0.002 cm -1 ) sufficient to resolve individual rovibrational lines and show evidence of strong Coriolis and/or Fermi resonance interactions for most bands. However a detailed rovibrational analysis of the fundamental v 15 (b 2 ) parallel band proved possible and a fit of more than 1600 lines yielded a band origin of 1053.84465(10) cm -1 and ground state constants (in units of cm -1 ): B 0 = 0.1120700(9), D J = 1.51(3) x10 -8 , D JK = 3.42(15) x10 -8 . We note that the B 0 value is significantly less than a value of Ba = 0.1140 cm-1 calculated using structural parameters from an earlier electron diffraction (ED) study, whereas one expects B a to be lower than B 0 because of thermal averaging over higher vibrational levels. A similar discrepancy was noted in an earlier study of C 5 H 8 [1]. The structural and spectroscopic results are in good accord with values computed at the anharmonic level using the B3LYP density functional method with a cc-pVTZ basis set.

C5H8 and C5D8↗
DOE OSTI2023

CP-violating axion interactions II: axions as dark matter

Axions provide a solution to the strong CP problem and are excellent dark matter candidates. The presence of additional sources of CP violation, for example to account for the matter/antimatter asymmetry of the universe, can lead to CP-violating interactions between axions and Standard Model fields. In case axions form a coherent dark matter background, this leads to time-oscillating fundamental constants such as the fine-structure constant and particle masses. In this work we compare the sensitivity of various searches for CP-odd axion interactions. These include fifth-force experiments, searches for time-oscillating constants induced by axion dark matter, and direct limits from electric dipole moment experiments. We show that searches for oscillating constants can outperform fifth-force experiments in the regime of small axion masses, but, in general, do not reach the sensitivity of electric dipole moment experiments.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2013

Anharmonic rovibrational calculations of singlet cyclic C{sub 4} using a new ab initio potential and a quartic force field

We report a CCSD(T)/cc-pCV5Z quartic force field (QFF) and a semi-global CCSD(T)-F12b/aug-cc-pVTZ potential energy surface (PES) for singlet, cyclic C{sub 4}. Vibrational fundamentals, combinations, and overtones are obtained using vibrational second-order perturbation theory (VPT2) and the vibrational configuration-interaction (VCI) approach. Agreement is within 10 cm{sup −1} between the VCI calculated fundamentals on the QFF and PES using the MULTIMODE (MM) program, and VPT2 and VCI results agree for the fundamentals. The agreement between VPT2-QFF and MM-QFF results is also good for the C{sub 4} combinations and overtones. The J = 1 and J = 2 rovibrational energies are reported from both VCI (MM) on the PES and VPT2 on the QFF calculations. The spectroscopic constants of {sup 12}C{sub 4} and two C{sub 2v}-symmetry, single {sup 13}C-substituted isotopologues are presented, which may help identification of cyclic C{sub 4} in future experimental analyses or astronomical observations.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
DOE OSTI2025

A geometric perspective on kinetic matter–radiation interaction and moment systems

Here, in this paper, we provide a geometric perspective on the kinetic interaction of matter and radiation, based on a pair bracket approach. We discuss the interaction of kinetic theories via dissipative brackets, with our fundamental example being the coupling of matter, described by the Boltzmann equation, and radiation, described by the radiation transport equation. We explore the transition from kinetic systems to their corresponding moment systems, provide a Hamiltonian description of such moment systems, and give a geometric interpretation of the moment closure problem for kinetic theories. As an application, we discuss in detail diffusion radiation hydrodynamics as an example of a pair bracket formulation on a space of moments corresponding to kinetic matter–radiation interaction. Additionally, using the variable moment closure framework of Burby [J. W. Burby, Variable-moment fluid closures with Hamiltonian structure, Sci. Rep. 13 (2023) 18286, doi:10.1038/s41598-023-45416-5], we show how to construct Hamiltonian moment closures for kinetic transport equations with arbitrary Hamiltonian. Using this general construction, we derive novel Hamiltonian moment closures for pure radiation transport.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗