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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 91 records · Page 5
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2021

Simple, general, realistic, robust, analytic tokamak equilibria. Part 2. Pedestals and flow

Part 1 described a wide range of analytic tokamak equilibria modelling smooth limiter surfaces, double- and single-null divertor surfaces, arbitrary aspect ratio, elongation, triangularity and beta. Part 2 generalizes the analysis to further include edge pedestals and toroidal flow. Specifically, edge pedestals are allowed in the pressure, pressure gradient and toroidal current density. Also, an edge-localized contribution to the bootstrap current is treated. In terms of flow, analytic solutions are obtained for two cases: a $\gamma = 2$ adiabatic and a $\gamma = \infty $ incompressible energy conservation relation.

Physics↗
DOE OSTI2025

Simulations of the churning mode: Toroidally symmetric plasma convection and turbulence around the X-points in a snowflake divertor

Using a reduced MHD model, extended to include field-aligned thermal conduction, we present numerical simulations of the churning mode (CM): a toroidally symmetric, non-linear plasma vortex in the vicinity of the null points in a snowflake (SF) divertor [D. D. Ryutov et al., Phys. Scr. 89, 088002 (2014)]. Simulations are carried out across a range of inter-null separations, d xx ⁠, and inter-null orientations, θ⁠, primarily in conditions relevant to the MAST-U tokamak. We find that, when d xx is small, the CM induces additional transport across the X-points when β pm ≳8%, where β pm is the ratio of the plasma pressure in the null region to poloidal magnetic pressure at the midplane. This transport also increases approximately linearly as d xx is reduced. A diffusive model of this transport is shown to predict the total transport across the null points, where diffusion coefficients of up to ∼ 10 2 m 2 s −1 centered on a small region around the X-points are used. However, the CM also results in significant changes to the flux surfaces in the null region, which is not captured by this diffusive model. The changes in magnetic geometry mean the fractional exhaust power delivered to each divertor leg is highly sensitive to β pm ⁠, d xx ⁠, and θ⁠. For small values of θ⁠, the CM can induce a change in topology, redirecting exhaust power from a secondary divertor leg on the high field side to one on the low field side. Similar behavior is found in the fraction of exhaust power going to the inner and outer divertor. Such changes in the flux surfaces may not be captured by Grad–Shafranov solvers and so may be a source of error in the magnetic reconstruction of SF experiments. We consistently find that the fractional exhaust power going to a secondary divertor leg on the high field side is small, consistent with SF experiments.

Computer simulation↗
DOE OSTI2022

Modeling intrinsic galaxy alignment in the MICE simulation

The intrinsic alignment (IA) of galaxies is potentially a major limitation in deriving cosmological constraints from weak lensing surveys. In order to investigate this effect, we assign intrinsic shapes and orientations to galaxies in the light-cone output of the MICE simulation, spanning ~ 5000 deg 2 and reaching redshift Z = 1.4. This assignment is based on a semianalytic IA model that uses photometric properties of galaxies as well as the spin and shape of their host halos. Advancing on previous work, we include more realistic distributions of galaxy shapes and a luminosity-dependent galaxy-halo alignment. The IA model parameters are calibrated against COSMOS and BOSS LOWZ observations. The null detection of IA in observations of blue galaxies is accounted for by setting random orientations for these objects. We compare the two-point alignment statistics measured in the simulation against predictions from the analytical IA models NLA and TATT over a wide range of scales, redshifts, and luminosities for red and blue galaxies separately. We find that both models fit the measurements well at scales above 8h -1 Mpc, while TATT outperforms NLA at smaller scales. The IA parameters derived from our fits are in broad agreement with various observational constraints from red galaxies. Finally, we build a realistic source sample, mimicking DES Year 3 observations and use it to predict the IA contamination to the observed shear statistics. We find this prediction to be within the measurement uncertainty, which might be a consequence of the random alignment of blue galaxies in the simulation.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2020

Aftershocks of a Chemical Explosion in Granite from the Source Physics Experiment Phase I

The Source Physics Experiment (SPE) is a multiphase experiment to better understand explosion source physics and thereby improve explosion monitoring. The rst phase (Phase I) examined the explosion source in a hard-rock medium and took place in a granite outcrop called the Climax Stock section of the Nevada National Security Site (NNSS). This series of chemical explosions are called the Wet Granite Geology (WGG) events, but are usually referred to simply as the SPE events (i.e., SPE-1, SPE-2, etc.). Event information for the chemical explosions is given in Table 1. The study of explosion aftershocks can aid in understanding of in-situ stresses and be used as a discriminant for earthquakes [Ford and Walter, 2010]. Sweeney and Harben reported no observed aftershocks for SPE-1 and -2, respectively. They calculated a minimum magnitude of observation based on the noise oor of the seismic array and predicted at least one or two events in the week after the events using the hard-rock aftershock model from Ford and Labak. Possible explanations for the null observation ranged from instrumental - poor seismometer coupling, to physical - the shallow depth of burial was unable to access the deep tectonic stress that causes some explosion aftershocks. We extend the analysis of Sweeney and Harben to the largest of the SPE Phase I chemical explosions, SPE-5, which was approximately a 5 tonne TNT-equivalent shot at 76.5 m depth. This event registered as an M L 2 on the University of Nevada, Reno seismic network and should produce a measurable aftershock sequence.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2020

The impact of the fiducial cosmology assumption on BAO distance scale measurements

ABSTRACT Standard analysis pipelines for measurements of Baryon Acoustic Oscillations (BAO) in galaxy surveys make use of a fiducial cosmological model to guide the data compression required to transform from observed redshifts and angles to the measured angular and radial BAO peak positions. In order to remove any dependence on the fiducial cosmology from the results, all models compared to the data should mimic the compression and its dependence on the fiducial model. In practice, approximations are made when testing models: (1) There is assumed to be no residual dependence on the fiducial cosmology after reconstruction, (2) differences in the distance–redshift relationship are assumed to match a linear scaling, and (3) differences in clustering between true and fiducial models are assumed to be removed by the free parameters used to null the non-BAO signal. We test these approximations using the current standard measurement procedure with a set of halo catalogues from the aemulus suite of N-body simulations, which span a range of wCDM cosmological models. We focus on reconstruction of the primordial BAO and locating the BAO. For the range of wCDM cosmologies covered by the aemulus suite, we find no evidence for systematic errors in the measured BAO shift parameters α∥ and α⊥ to $\lt 0.1\%$. However, the measured errors $\sigma _{\alpha _{\parallel }}$ and $\sigma _{\alpha _{\bot }}$ show a notable absolute increase by up to +0.001 and +0.002, respectively, in the case that the fiducial cosmology does not match the truth. These effects on the inferred BAO scale will be important, given the precision of measurements expected from future surveys including DESI, Euclid, and WFIRST.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2020

Hidden-charm and bottom tetra- and pentaquarks with strangeness in the hadro-quarkonium and compact tetraquark models

In two recent papers, we used the hadro-quarkonium model to study the properties of hiddencharm and bottom tetraquarks and pentaquarks. Here, we extend the previous results and calculate the masses of heavy-quarkonium-kaon/hyperon systems. We also compute the spectrum of hiddencharm and bottom tetraquarks with strangeness in the compact tetraquark (diquark-antidiquark) model. If heavy-light exotic systems with non-null strangeness content were to be observed experimentally, it might be possible to distinguish among the large variety of available theoretical pictures for tetra- and pentaquark states and, possibly, rule out those which are not compatible with the data.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2021

Dark Energy Survey Year 3 results: Curved-sky weak lensing mass map reconstruction

ABSTRACT We present reconstructed convergence maps, mass maps, from the Dark Energy Survey (DES) third year (Y3) weak gravitational lensing data set. The mass maps are weighted projections of the density field (primarily dark matter) in the foreground of the observed galaxies. We use four reconstruction methods, each is a maximum a posteriori estimate with a different model for the prior probability of the map: Kaiser–Squires, null B-mode prior, Gaussian prior, and a sparsity prior. All methods are implemented on the celestial sphere to accommodate the large sky coverage of the DES Y3 data. We compare the methods using realistic ΛCDM simulations with mock data that are closely matched to the DES Y3 data. We quantify the performance of the methods at the map level and then apply the reconstruction methods to the DES Y3 data, performing tests for systematic error effects. The maps are compared with optical foreground cosmic-web structures and are used to evaluate the lensing signal from cosmic-void profiles. The recovered dark matter map covers the largest sky fraction of any galaxy weak lensing map to date.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2020

Planck 2018 results

We analyse the Planck full-mission cosmic microwave background (CMB) temperature and E -mode polarization maps to obtain constraints on primordial non-Gaussianity (NG). We compare estimates obtained from separable template-fitting, binned, and optimal modal bispectrum estimators, finding consistent values for the local, equilateral, and orthogonal bispectrum amplitudes. Our combined temperature and polarization analysis produces the following final results: f NL local = -0.9 ± 5.1; f NL equil = -26 ± 47; and f NL ortho = -38 ± 24 (68% CL, statistical). These results include low-multipole (4 ≤ ℓ < 40) polarization data that are not included in our previous analysis. The results also pass an extensive battery of tests (with additional tests regarding foreground residuals compared to 2015), and they are stable with respect to our 2015 measurements (with small fluctuations, at the level of a fraction of a standard deviation, which is consistent with changes in data processing). Polarization-only bispectra display a significant improvement in robustness; they can now be used independently to set primordial NG constraints with a sensitivity comparable to WMAP temperature-based results and they give excellent agreement. In addition to the analysis of the standard local, equilateral, and orthogonal bispectrum shapes, we consider a large number of additional cases, such as scale-dependent feature and resonance bispectra, isocurvature primordial NG, and parity-breaking models, where we also place tight constraints but do not detect any signal. The non-primordial lensing bispectrum is, however, detected with an improved significance compared to 2015, excluding the null hypothesis at 3.5 σ . Beyond estimates of individual shape amplitudes, we also present model-independent reconstructions and analyses of the Planck CMB bispectrum. Our final constraint on the local primordial trispectrum shape is g NL local = (-5.8 ± 6.5) × 10 4 (68% CL, statistical), while constraints for other trispectrum shapes are also determined. Exploiting the tight limits on various bispectrum and trispectrum shapes, we constrain the parameter space of different early-Universe scenarios that generate primordial NG, including general single-field models of inflation, multi-field models (e.g. curvaton models), models of inflation with axion fields producing parity-violation bispectra in the tensor sector, and inflationary models involving vector-like fields with directionally-dependent bispectra. Our results provide a high-precision test for structure-formation scenarios, showing complete agreement with the basic picture of the ΛCDM cosmology regarding the statistics of the initial conditions, with cosmic structures arising from adiabatic, passive, Gaussian, and primordial seed perturbations.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2023

A Multi-Armed Bayesian Ordinal Outcome Utility-Based Sequential Trial with a Pairwise Null Clustering Prior

A multi-armed trial based on ordinal outcomes is proposed that leverages a flexible non-proportional odds cumulative logit model and numerical utility scores for each outcome to determine treatment optimality. This trial design uses a Bayesian clustering prior on the treatment effects that encourages the pairwise null hypothesis of no differences between treatments. A group sequential design is proposed to determine which treatments are clinically different with an adaptive decision boundary that becomes more aggressive as the sample size or clinical significance grows, or the number of active treatments decreases. A simulation study is conducted for 3 and 5 treatment arms, which shows that the design has superior operating characteristics (family wise error rate, generalized power, average sample size) compared to utility designs that do not allow clustering, a frequentist proportional odds model, or a permutation test based on empirical mean utilities.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2021

The Polarized Image of a Synchrotron-emitting Ring of Gas Orbiting a Black Hole

Synchrotron radiation from hot gas near a black hole results in a polarized image. The image polarization is determined by effects including the orientation of the magnetic field in the emitting region, relativistic motion of the gas, strong gravitational lensing by the black hole, and parallel transport in the curved spacetime. We explore these effects using a simple model of an axisymmetric, equatorial accretion disk around a Schwarzschild black hole. By using an approximate expression for the null geodesics derived by Beloborodov and conservation of the Walker–Penrose constant, we provide analytic estimates for the image polarization. We test this model using currently favored general relativistic magnetohydrodynamic simulations of M87*, using ring parameters given by the simulations. For a subset of these with modest Faraday effects, we show that the ring model broadly reproduces the polarimetric image morphology. Our model also predicts the polarization evolution for compact flaring regions, such as those observed from Sgr A* with GRAVITY. With suitably chosen parameters, our simple model can reproduce the EVPA pattern and relative polarized intensity in Event Horizon Telescope images of M87*. Under the physically motivated assumption that the magnetic field trails the fluid velocity, this comparison is consistent with the clockwise rotation inferred from total intensity images.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2024

Assessment and validation of NEAMS tools for high-fidelity multiphysics transient modeling of microreactors: Application of NEAMS codes to perform multiphysics modeling analyses of micro-reactor concepts

The NEAMS Multiphysics Applications team aims at providing assessment of code useability and functionality for microreactor design and analyses, together with demonstration of their capabilities to properly capture the steady-state and time-dependent behavior of different microreactor concepts. In FY-24, significant progress was achieved in improving multi-physics models of several microreactors systems: HP-MR, GC-MR and KRUSTY. These efforts focused on solving more complex multiphysics problems enabled by enhanced tools capability, verifying and validating results obtained, providing feedback to developers for suggested improvements, and sharing these models to facilitate user training. A series of new multiphysics transients were completed on the HP-MR (using Griffin/BISON/Sockeye) with core startup transient, control drum inadvertent rotation accident, and hydrogen leakage from hydride moderator (also including SWIFT). On the GC-MR, a new full-core model was developed and analyzed through a series of new multiphysics (Griffin/BISON/SAM) transients to simulate moderator leakage (also including SWIFT), flow blockage and coolant depressurization. Additional and updated TRISO failure analyses were completed on the HP-MR unit-cell and GC-MR assembly models leveraging improved TRISO modeling capabilities. The amount of SiC failure following accidental transients at end-of-life was null. However, GC-MR assembly TRISO analysis highlighted Pd penetration rate can be problematic and may require design changes on the studied microreactor concept. The neutronics discrepancies observed on the KRUSTY model in previous years were resolved using hybrid set of Monte Carlo/Deterministic cross-sections. The multiphysics (Griffin neutronics / BISON thermal-mechanics) 15₵ insertion transient simulation displayed good agreement when comparing with experimental data. Initial modeling of the 30 ₵ reactivity insertion also displays promising results. Such close agreement provides important validation data that can be leveraged by the NEAMS program and by microreactor vendors to support licensing of their technology. Finally, important experience was gathered with the NEAMS tools leading to several user feedback shared with tools developers, especially with regards to MOOSE mesh generator and Griffin. This project led to many publications demonstrating modeling capabilities, and to three models shared on the Virtual Test Bed.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗
DOE OSTI2024

The Atacama Cosmology Telescope DR6 and DESI: structure formation over cosmic time with a measurement of the cross-correlation of CMB lensing and luminous red galaxies

We present a high-significance cross-correlation of CMB lensing maps from the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) Data Release 6 (DR6) with luminous red galaxies (LRGs) from the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) Legacy Survey spectroscopically calibrated by DESI. We detect this cross-correlation at a significance of 38σ; combining our measurement with the Planck Public Release 4 (PR4) lensing map, we detect the cross-correlation at 50σ. Fitting this jointly with the galaxy auto-correlation power spectrum to break the galaxy bias degeneracy with σ 8 , we perform a tomographic analysis in four LRG redshift bins spanning 0.4 ≤ z ≤ 1.0 to constrain the amplitude of matter density fluctuations through the parameter combination S 8 × = σ 8 (Ω m / 0.3) 0.4 . Prior to unblinding, we confirm with extragalactic simulations that foreground biases are negligible and carry out a comprehensive suite of null and consistency tests. Using a hybrid effective field theory (HEFT) model that allows scales as small as k max = 0.6 h/ Mpc, we obtain a 3.3% constraint on S 8 × = σ 8 (Ω m / 0.3) 0.4 = 0.792 +0.024 -0.028 from ACT data, as well as constraints on S 8 × (z) that probe structure formation over cosmic time. Our result is consistent with the early-universe extrapolation from primary CMB anisotropies measured by Planck PR4 within 1.2σ. Jointly fitting ACT and Planck lensing cross-correlations we obtain a 2.7% constraint of S 8 × = 0.776 +0.019 -0.021 , which is consistent with the Planck early-universe extrapolation within 2.1σ, with the lowest redshift bin showing the largest difference in mean. The latter may motivate further CMB lensing tomography analyses at z < 0.6 to assess the impact of potential systematics or the consistency of the ΛCDM model over cosmic time.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2026

Scaling open-weight large language models for hydropower regulatory information extraction: A systematic analysis

Information extraction from regulatory and technical documents using large language models (LLMs) involves practical trade-offs between extraction quality and computational cost. We evaluate eight open-weight LLMs spanning 0.6B–70B parameters on hydropower licensing documents and report deployment-oriented evidence under a unified extraction schema and evaluation protocol. Across the model set, we observe clear scale-dependent trends in both baseline extraction quality and the effectiveness of reflective reasoning (self-checking) under our fixed-prompt, no-augmentation setting. Mid-scale models often provide a favorable balance of accuracy and efficiency, whereas the smallest models show limited or inconsistent gains from the reasoning variants tested. Larger models achieve the highest overall F1 scores but incur substantially greater compute and infrastructure requirements. We further find that reliability failure modes can distort conventional metrics in this domain: in particular, high recall can coincide with systematic extraction errors when models fabricate values for fields that are absent from the source text, underscoring the importance of conservative null handling and evidence-grounded evaluation. Overall, our study provides a reproducible resource–performance comparison for open-weight LLM-based extraction in hydropower regulatory documentation and offers practical guidance for model selection under different deployment constraints.

Evaluation protocol↗
DOE OSTI2021

A classical, non-singular, bouncing universe

We present a model for a classical, non-singular bouncing cosmology without violation of the null energy condition (NEC). The field content is General Relativity plus a real scalar field with a canonical kinetic term and only renormalizable, polynomial-type self-interactions for the scalar field in the Jordan frame. The universe begins vacuum-energy dominated and is contracting at t=-∞. We consider a closed universe with a positive spatial curvature, which is responsible for the universe bouncing without any NEC violation. An Rφ 2 coupling between the Ricci scalar and the scalar field drives the scalar field from the initial false vacuum to the true vacuum during the bounce. The model is sub-Planckian throughout its evolution and every dimensionful parameter is below the effective-field-theory scale M P , so we expect no ghost-type or tachyonic instabilities. This model solves the horizon problem and extends co-moving particle geodesics to past infinity, resulting in a geodesically complete universe without singularities. We solve the Friedman equations and the scalar-field equation of motion numerically, and analytically under certain approximations.

Astronomy & Astrophysics↗
DOE OSTI2023

Investigation of performance enhancement by balanced double-null shaping in KSTAR

We report experimental observations on the effect of plasma boundary shaping towards balanced double-null (DN) configuration on the plasma performance in KSTAR. The transition from a single-null to a DN configuration resulted in improved plasma performance, manifested through changes in the pedestal region, decreased density, and core MHD activity variation. Specifically, the DN transition led to a wider and higher pedestal structure, accompanied by grassy edge-localized modes (ELMs) characteristics. The density decrease was a prerequisite for performance enhancement during DN shaping, increasing fast ion confinement. Optimizing the plasma near the core region was associated with the suppression of sawtooth instabilities and the occurrence of fishbone modes during the DN transition. Integrated modeling demonstrated that secondary effects of the DN shaping could increase core thermal energy confinement.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2021

Influence of up-down asymmetry in plasma shape on RMP response

Shaping effect on the plasma response to the externally applied resonant magnetic perturbation field is investigated for both DIII-D and MAST experiments, utilizing toroidal modeling. The plasma boundary shape is systematically varied ranging from single-null (SN) to double-null (DN) configurations, while other equilibrium quantities are kept largely unchanged. The relative amplitude of the computed plasma surface displacement, between the top/bottom of the torus and the outboard mid-plane, is identified as the most reliable indicator that distinguishes the plasma response between the SN and DN configurations. Here, the underlying physics is the weakening of the edge-peeling component in the plasma response with increasing up-down symmetry of the plasma boundary shape.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2023

Transition in particle transport under resonant magnetic perturbations in a tokamak

Abstract Nonlinear 3D MHD simulations and validations reveal that the hybrid particle-MHD transport is a key process for driving the pump-out in the presence of Resonant Magnetic Perturbations (RMPs) in the KSTAR tokamak. Particle transport and the resulting density pump-out by RMPs are shown to be composed of not only the classical flow convection near magnetic islands due to polarization but also the neoclassical ion diffusion across perturbed magnetic surfaces. The latter is known as the Neoclassical Toroidal Viscosity (NTV) and is integrated into nonlinear MHD simulations here for the first time, revealing that the two-stage pump-outs observed in KSTAR experiments are reproduced only with such integrated nonlinear MHD and transport evolution. Near-resonant responses, which have received less attention than the resonant response, play distinct roles in the pump-out along with the island formation. In addition, this modeling is used to investigate the pump-outs in double-null-like plasmas and numerically capture the effect of the double-null shape on the pump-outs, which may explain the difficulty of Edge Localized Mode (ELM) suppression access in double-like plasmas. This reveals new aspects of the impact toroidal geometry and mode coupling have on 3D physics and reveals the importance of near-resonant components in suppressing ELMs.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2021

Intrinsic alignments of galaxies around cosmic voids

ABSTRACT The intrinsic alignments of galaxies, i.e. the correlation between galaxy shapes and their environment, are a major source of contamination for weak gravitational lensing surveys. Most studies of intrinsic alignments have so far focused on measuring and modelling the correlations of luminous red galaxies with galaxy positions or the filaments of the cosmic web. In this work, we investigate alignments around cosmic voids. We measure the intrinsic alignments of luminous red galaxies detected by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey around a sample of voids constructed from those same tracers and with radii in the ranges: [20–30; 30–40; 40–50] h−1 Mpc and in the redshift range z = 0.4−0.8. We present fits to the measurements based on a linear model at large scales, and on a new model based on the void density profile inside the void and in its neighbourhood. We constrain the free scaling amplitude of our model at small scales, finding no significant alignment at 1σ for either sample. We observe a deviation from the null hypothesis, at large scales, of 2σ for voids with radii between 20 and 30 h−1 Mpc, and 1.5σ for voids with radii between 30 and 40 h−1 Mpc and constrain the amplitude of the model on these scales. We find no significant deviation at 1σ for larger voids. Our work is a first attempt at detecting intrinsic alignments of galaxy shapes around voids and provides a useful framework for their mitigation in future void lensing studies.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗