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NASA NTRS2010

Analyzing Non Stationary Processes in Radiometers

The lack of well-developed techniques for modeling changing statistical moments in our observations has stymied the application of stochastic process theory for many scientific and engineering applications. Non linear effects of the observation methodology is one of the most perplexing aspects to modeling non stationary processes. This perplexing problem was encountered when modeling the effect of non stationary receiver fluctuations on the performance of radiometer calibration architectures. Existing modeling approaches were found not applicable; particularly problematic is modeling processes across scales over which they begin to exhibit non stationary behavior within the time interval of the calibration algorithm. Alternatively, the radiometer output is modeled as samples from a sequence random variables; the random variables are treated using a conditional probability distribution function conditioned on the use of the variable in the calibration algorithm. This approach of treating a process as a sequence of random variables with non stationary stochastic moments produce sensible predictions of temporal effects of calibration algorithms. To test these model predictions, an experiment using the Millimeter wave Imaging Radiometer (MIR) was conducted. The MIR with its two black body calibration references was configured in a laboratory setting to observe a third ultra-stable reference (CryoTarget). The MIR was programmed to sequentially sample each of the three references in approximately a 1 second cycle. Data were collected over a six-hour interval. The sequence of reference measurements form an ensemble sample set comprised of a series of three reference measurements. Two references are required to estimate the receiver response. A third reference is used to estimate the uncertainty in the estimate. Typically, calibration algorithms are designed to suppress the non stationary effects of receiver fluctuations. By treating the data sequence as an ensemble collection, it is possible to apply temporal algorithms which exacerbate the non stationary effects. By varying the algorithm, information about the properties of the non stationary receiver fluctuations is obtained. Comparisons of analytical calculations and statistical analysis of data demonstrate impressive agreement.

Racette, Paul↗

NASA NTRS1985

Development of thermomechanical life prediction models for thermal barrier coatings

Thermal barrier coatings (TBCs) for turbine airfoils in high-performance engines represent an advanced materials technology with both performance and durability benefits. The foremost TBC benefit is the reduction of heat transferred into air-cooled components. To achieve these benefits, however, the TBC system must be reliable. Mechanistic thermomechanical and thermochemical life models and statistically significant design data are therefore required for the reliable exploitation of TBC benefits on gas turbine airfoils. Garrett's NASA-HOST Program (NAS3-23945) is designed to fulfill these requirements. This program focuses on predicting the lives of two types of strain-tolerant and oxidation-resistant TBC systems that are produced by commercial coating suppliers to the gas turbine industry. The plasma-sprayed TBC system, composed of a low-pressure plasma-spray (LPPS) applied oxidation resistant NiCrAlY bond coating, and an air-plasma-sprayed yttria partially stabilized zirconia insulated layer is applied by both Chromalloy and Klock. The second type of TBC is applied by the electron beam-physical vapor deposition process by Temescal. Thermomechanical life models are being tailored to predict TBC strain tolerance in terms of materials, engine, and mission parameters. Continuum and fracture mechanics approaches and statistical methods are being evaluated to develop tensile and compressive strain functions required to drive a mission analysis capable thermomechanical life model for TBCs. Results of initial testing to calibrate these life models will be presented.

Strangman, T. E.↗

NASA NTRS2007

On the Determination of Poisson Statistics for Haystack Radar Observations of Orbital Debris

A convenient and powerful method is used to determine if radar detections of orbital debris are observed according to Poisson statistics. This is done by analyzing the time interval between detection events. For Poisson statistics, the probability distribution of the time interval between events is shown to be an exponential distribution. This distribution is a special case of the Erlang distribution that is used in estimating traffic loads on telecommunication networks. Poisson statistics form the basis of many orbital debris models but the statistical basis of these models has not been clearly demonstrated empirically until now. Interestingly, during the fiscal year 2003 observations with the Haystack radar in a fixed staring mode, there are no statistically significant deviations observed from that expected with Poisson statistics, either independent or dependent of altitude or inclination. One would potentially expect some significant clustering of events in time as a result of satellite breakups, but the presence of Poisson statistics indicates that such debris disperse rapidly with respect to Haystack's very narrow radar beam. An exception to Poisson statistics is observed in the months following the intentional breakup of the Fengyun satellite in January 2007.

Stokely, Christopher L.↗

DOE OSTI2020

Evolution of an Asteroid Family under YORP, Yarkovsky, and Collisions

Any population of asteroids, like asteroid families, will disperse in semimajor axis due to the Yarkovsky effect. The amount of drift is modulated by the asteroid spin state evolution, which determines the balance between the diurnal and seasonal Yarkovsky forces. The asteroid’s spin state is, in turn, controlled in part by the Yarkovsky–O’Keefe–Radzievskii–Paddack (YORP) effect. The otherwise smooth evolution of an asteroid can be abruptly altered by collisions, which can cause impulsive changes in the spin state and can move the asteroid onto a different YORP track. In addition, collisions may also alter the YORP parameters by changing the superficial features and overall shape of the asteroid. Thus, the coupling between YORP and Yarkovsky is also strongly affected by the impact history of each body. To investigate this coupling, we developed a statistical code modeling the time evolution of semimajor axis under YORP–Yarkovsky coupling. It includes the contributions of NYORP (normal YORP), TYORP (tangential YORP), and collisions whose effects are deterministically calculated and not added in a statistical way. We find that both collisions and TYORP increase the dispersion of a family in semimajor axis by making the spin axis evolution less smooth and regular. We show that the evolution of a family’s structure with time is complex and collisions randomize the YORP evolution. In our test families, we do not observe the formation of a “YORP-eye” in the semimajor axis versus diameter distribution, even after a long period of time. If present, the “YORP-eye” might be a relic of an initial ejection velocity pattern of the collisional fragments.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

DOE OSTI2024

Evaluating downscaled products with expected hydroclimatic co-variances

Abstract. There has been widespread adoption of downscaled products amongst practitioners and stakeholders to ascertain risk from climate hazards at the local scale (e.g., ∼ 5 km resolution). Such products must nevertheless be consistent with physical laws to be credible and of value to users. Here we evaluate statistically and dynamically downscaled products by examining local co-evolution of downscaled temperature and precipitation during convective and frontal precipitation events (two mechanisms testable with just temperature and precipitation). We find that two widely used statistical downscaling techniques (Localized Constructed Analogs version 2, LOCA2, and Seasonal Trends and Analysis of Residuals Empirical Statistical Downscaling Model, STAR-ESDM) generally preserve expected co-variances during convective precipitation events over the historical and future projected intervals as compared to European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts Reanalysis v5 (ERA5) and two observation-based data products (Livneh and nClimGrid-Daily). However, both techniques dampen future intensification of frontal precipitation that is otherwise robustly captured in global climate models (i.e., prior to downscaling) and with process-based dynamical downscaling across five different regional climate models. In the case of LOCA2, this leads to appreciable underestimation of future frontal precipitation event intensity. This study is one of the first to quantify a likely ramification of the stationarity assumption underlying statistical downscaling methods and identify a phenomenon where projections of future change diverge depending on data production method employed. Finally, our work proposes expected co-variances during convective and frontal precipitation as useful evaluation diagnostics that can be universally applied to a wide range of statistically downscaled products.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

NASA NTRS1997

Detection of chaotic determinism in time series from randomly forced maps

Time series from biological system often display fluctuations in the measured variables. Much effort has been directed at determining whether this variability reflects deterministic chaos, or whether it is merely "noise". Despite this effort, it has been difficult to establish the presence of chaos in time series from biological sytems. The output from a biological system is probably the result of both its internal dynamics, and the input to the system from the surroundings. This implies that the system should be viewed as a mixed system with both stochastic and deterministic components. We present a method that appears to be useful in deciding whether determinism is present in a time series, and if this determinism has chaotic attributes, i.e., a positive characteristic exponent that leads to sensitivity to initial conditions. The method relies on fitting a nonlinear autoregressive model to the time series followed by an estimation of the characteristic exponents of the model over the observed probability distribution of states for the system. The method is tested by computer simulations, and applied to heart rate variability data.

Non-NASA Center↗

DOE OSTI2018

Sesame-style decomposition of KS-DFT molecular dynamics for direct interrogation of nuclear models

A common paradigm used in the construction of equations of state is to decompose the thermodynamics into a superposition of three terms: a static-lattice cold curve, a contribution from the thermal motion of the nuclei, and a contribution from the thermal excitation of the electrons. While statistical mechanical models for crystals provide tractable framework for the nuclear contribution in the solid phase, much less is understood about the nuclear contribution above the % melt temperature $(C^{(nuc)}_ν≈3R)$ and how it should transition to the high-temperature limit $(C^{(nuc)}_ν\sim\frac{3}{2}R)$. Here, we describe an algorithm for extracting both the thermal nuclear and thermal electronic contributions from quantum molecular dynamics (QMD) simulations. We then use the VASP QMD package to probe thermal nuclear behavior of liquid aluminum at normal density to compare the results to semi-empirical models – the Johnson generic model, the Chisolm high-temperature liquid model, and the CRIS model. The thermal electronic energy is also calculated from the VASP results and compared to the Kohn-Sham calculations from QE-DFT simulations, Green’s function average atom calculations, and the Thomas-Fermi atomic model.

74 ATOMIC AND MOLECULAR PHYSICS↗

DOE OSTI2018

Modeling the effects of molecular disorder on the properties of Frenkel excitons in organic molecular semiconductors

The Frenkel exciton model offers a convenient framework for simulating electronic excitations in organic conjugated systems that are too large to address with atomistic level electronic structure methods. Parameterization of this model is typically based on analytical expressions that incompletely describe the spatial and temporal correlations that are inherent to many condensed phase molecular systems. In this manuscript, we introduce a general procedure for including these correlations in the Frenkel exciton model, by mapping them directly from all-atom molecular configurations, for instance from classical molecular dynamics. Regardless of system morphology, this mapping automatically captures the spatial and temporal molecular correlations that are otherwise difficult or impossible to represent in terms of low-dimensional correlation functions. We apply this procedure to study the excited state properties of condensed phase materials made up of thiophene oligomers. We demonstrate that Frenkel model parameters can be mapped from a series of single molecule electronic structure calculations, and that for these materials efficient semi-empirical methods are sufficient to accurately reproduce experimental spectral measurements. By analyzing the statistics of model parameters derived from materials with different characteristic morphologies, we highlight failures in some assumptions that are commonly applied when generating model parameters. Finally, by simulating exciton dynamics on a mapped Frenekel exciton model, we demonstrate the ability to quantify the effect of material morphology on the dynamic properties of excitons.

74 ATOMIC AND MOLECULAR PHYSICS↗

DOE OSTI2018

SISTec: Mathematical Calibration of Large Clearance Monitors - 18265

One major path for clearance of large amount of waste arising from the decommission of nuclear power plants is based on measurement with large clearance monitors (also known as free release measurement facilities). These devices utilize multi-detector plastic scintillator arrays (large clearance monitors can consist of up to 24 plastic scintillators) to offer both, extremely low minimum detectable activities (MDA) and short measurement times for waste packages weighing up to one metric ton. However, a major problem with these devices is to obtain nuclide specific efficiencies, especially for geometrically complex large waste packages. Normal procedure for estimating the efficiency is to device dummy waste packages and attach point sources with well-known activities to unfavourable positions in these packages. In accordance with this procedure, calibration factors can be derived in a radiological conservative way. Devising such test dummies is not always possible and the procedure is prone to generating large measurement uncertainties. In this publication, we propose a new method to derive calibration factors by means of the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) simulation tool Monte Carlo N-Particle (MCNP) and a statistical-phenomenological model for the detector characterization. In a multi-step approach, first the detector response for a distribution of activity in a waste package is calculated and subsequently the detectors are mathematically characterized. Applying state of the art statistical and optimizing procedures, parameters for the detector response are derived in a self-consistent way. This also allows to rigorously propagate the uncertainties to the final calculated calibration factors according to the Guide to the Expression of Uncertainty in Measurement (GUM supplement 1). To validate the derived parameters for the detector characterization a minimally invasive experimental setup was devised and installed into the large clearance monitor. It consisted of an aluminum swivel arm which could position point sources to the relevant coordinates. The so collected measurement data not only allowed to investigate the precision of the calculated calibration factors, but also to probe the location of concentrated activity sources in the waste package. Furthermore, data on measurements with dummy waste packages were collected to test the reproducibility of well-known calibration factors. We present the software tool SIStec, which will provide an intuitive user-interface to generate and simulate waste package models and execute the above-mentioned method. Using SIStec, different scenarios for the distribution of activity in the waste package can be probed. This will also allow to optimize the clearance process on various levels. For example, measurement time for pre-measurements can be reduced in exchange for unfavourable calibration factors, which would still allow to meet the regulator limits for clearance. (authors)

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗

NASA NTRS2004

An experimental study of the Richtmyer-Meshkov instability in microgravity

Richtmyer-Meshkov (RM) instability occurs when a planar interface separating two fluids of different density is impulsively accelerated in the direction of its normal. It is one of the most fundamental fluid instabilities and is of importance to the fields of astrophysics and inertial confinement fusion. Because RM instability experiments are normally carried out in shock tubes, where the generation of a sharp, well-controlled interface between gases is difficult, there is a scarcity of good experimental results. The experiments presented here use a novel technique that circumvents many of the experimental difficulties that have previously limited the study of RM instability in shock tubes. In these experiments, the instability is generated incompressibly, by bouncing a rectangular tank containing two liquids off of a fixed spring. These experiments, which utilize PLIF flow visualization, yield time-motion image sequences of the nonlinear development and transition to turbulence of the instability that are of a quality unattainable in shock tube experiments. Measurements obtained from these images, therefore, provide benchmark data for the evaluation of nonlinear models for the late-time growth of the instability. Because the run time in these experiments is limited, new experiments in the NASA Glenn 2.2 second drop tower, capable of achieving longer run times, are currently under way.

Rheology/methods↗

NASA NTRS1980

Development of failure model for nickel cadmium cells

The development of a method for the life prediction of nickel cadmium cells is discussed. The approach described involves acquiring an understanding of the mechanisms of degradation and failure and at the same time developing nondestructive evaluation techniques for the nickel cadmium cells. The development of a statistical failure model which will describe the mechanisms of degradation and failure is outlined.

Gupta, A.↗

NASA NTRS2007

The Empirical Low Energy Ion Flux Model for the Terrestrial Magnetosphere

This document includes a viewgraph presentation plus the full paper presented at the conference. The Living With a Star Ion Flux Model (IFM) is a radiation environment risk mitigation tool that provides magnetospheric ion flux values for varying geomagnetic disturbance levels in the geospace environment. IFM incorporates flux observations from the Polar and Geotail spacecraft in a single statistical flux model. IFM is an engineering environment model which predicts the proton flux not only in the magnetosphere, but also in the solar wind and magnetosheath phenomenological regions. This paper describes the ion flux databases that allows for IFM output to be correlated with the geomagnetic activity level, as represented by the Kp index.

Blackwell, William C.↗

NASA NTRS2022

Introduction to Analysis Methods for Big Earth Data

Big Earth Data are too big to be tractable to simple data inspection. Thus, they typically require models to make sense of all the data. Useful models for Big Earth Data may be physical, statistical, or machine learning based. While physical models are ideal for understanding the data, they are not always feasible, particularly when our ability to observe at finer scales exceeds our ability to incorporate the physics. Statistical models are more generalized, but computationally intensive for many Earth Observation datasets. Machine Learning models generally scale well but are sometimes limited in the physical understanding they can offer. Hybrid models combine attributes—and advantages—of two or more of these types.

Christopher Lynnes↗

DOE OSTI2020

Charge conservation and higher moments of charge fluctuations

Higher moments of distributions of net charge and baryon number in heavy-ion collisions have been proposed as signals of fundamental QCD phase transitions. In order to better understand background processes for these observables, models are presented which enable one to gauge the effects of local charge conservation, decays of resonances and clusters, Bose symmetrization, and volume fluctuations. Monte Carlo methods for generating samplings of particles consistent with local charge conservation are presented and are followed by a review of simple analytic models involving a single type of charge with a constant experimental efficiency. The main model consists of thermal emission superimposed onto a simple parametrization of collective flow, known as a blast wave, with emission being consistent with individual canonical ensembles. The spatial extent of local charge conservation is parameterized by the size and extent over which charge is conserved. Here, the sensitivity of third- and fourth-order moments, skewness and kurtosis, to these parameters, and to beam energy and baryon density is explored. Comparisons with STAR data show that a significant part of the observed non-Poissonian fluctuations in net-proton fluctuations are explained by charge and baryon-number conservation, but that measurements of the STAR collaboration for fluctuations of net electric charge significantly differ from expectations of the models presented here.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗

DOE OSTI2022

Kinetic modeling of neutral transport for a continuum gyrokinetic code

In this work we present the first-of-its-kind coupling of a continuum full- f gyrokinetic turbulence model with a 6D continuum model for kinetic neutrals, carried out using the Gkeyll code. Our objective is to improve the first-principle understanding of the role of neutrals in plasma fueling, detachment, and their interaction with edge plasma profiles and turbulence statistics. Our model includes only atomic hydrogen and incorporates electron-impact ionization, charge exchange, and wall recycling. These features have been successfully verified with analytical predictions and benchmarked with the DEGAS2 Monte Carlo neutral code. We carry out simulations for a scrape-off layer (SOL) with simplified geometry and National Spherical Torus Experiment parameters. We compare these results to a baseline simulation without neutrals and find that neutral interactions reduce the normalized density fluctuation levels and associated skewness and kurtosis, while increasing auto-correlation times. A flatter density profile is also observed, similar to the SOL density shoulder formation in experimental scenarios with high fueling.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

DOE OSTI2022

Characteristic momentum of Hydro + and a bound on the enhancement of the speed of sound near the QCD critical point

Near the critical point in the QCD phase diagram, hydrodynamics breaks down at a momentum where the frequency of the fastest hydrodynamic mode becomes comparable with the decay rate of the slowest nonhydrodynamic mode. Hydro+ was developed as a framework which extends the range of validity of hydrodynamics beyond that momentum value. This was achieved through coupling the hydrodynamic modes to the slowest nonhydrodynamic mode. In this work, analyzing the spectrum of linear perturbations in Hydro+, we find that a slow mode falls out of equilibrium if its momentum is greater than a characteristic momentum value. That characteristic momentum turns out to be set by the branch points of the dispersion relations. These branch points occur at the critical momenta of so-called spectral curves and are related to the radius of convergence of the derivative expansion. The existence of such a characteristic momentum scale suggests that a particular class of slow modes has no remarkable effect on the flow of the plasma. Based on these results, we show that there is an enhancement of the speed of sound due to the Hydro+ corrections compared to the known thermodynamic corrections near the critical point. This enhancement can not exceed a temperature-dependent upper bound which we derive near the critical point in the QCD phase diagram.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

NASA NTRS2004

Characterization of Transport Errors in Chemical Forecasts from a Global Tropospheric Chemical Transport Model

We propose a new methodology to characterize errors in the representation of transport processes in chemical transport models. We constrain the evaluation of a global three-dimensional chemical transport model (GEOS-CHEM) with an extended dataset of carbon monoxide (CO) concentrations obtained during the Transport and Chemical Evolution over the Pacific (TRACE-P) aircraft campaign. The TRACEP mission took place over the western Pacific, a region frequently impacted by continental outflow associated with different synoptic-scale weather systems (such as cold fronts) and deep convection, and thus provides a valuable dataset. for our analysis. Model simulations using both forecast and assimilated meteorology are examined. Background CO concentrations are computed as a function of latitude and altitude and subsequently subtracted from both the observed and the model datasets to focus on the ability of the model to simulate variability on a synoptic scale. Different sampling strategies (i.e., spatial displacement and smoothing) are applied along the flight tracks to search for systematic model biases. Statistical quantities such as correlation coefficient and centered root-mean-square difference are computed between the simulated and the observed fields and are further inter-compared using Taylor diagrams. We find no systematic bias in the model for the TRACE-P region when we consider the entire dataset (i.e., from the surface to 12 km ). This result indicates that the transport error in our model is globally unbiased, which has important implications for using the model to conduct inverse modeling studies. Using the First-Look assimilated meteorology only provides little improvement of the correlation, in comparison with the forecast meteorology. These general statements can be refined when the entire dataset is divided into different vertical domains, i.e., the lower troposphere (less than 2 km), the middle troposphere (2-6 km), and the upper troposphere (greater than 6 km). The best agreement between the observations and the model is found in the lower and middle troposphere. Downward displacements in the lower troposphere provide a better fit with the observed value, which could indicate a problem in the representation of boundary layer height in the model. Significant improvement is also found for downward and southward displacements in the upper troposphere. There are several potential sources of errors in our simulation of the continental outflow in the upper troposphere which could lead to such biases, including the location and/or the strength of deep convective cells as well as that of wildfires in Southeast Asia.

Bey, I.↗

NASA NTRS2019

X-ray Binary Luminosity Function Scaling Relations for Local Galaxies Based on Subgalactic Modeling

We present new Chandra constraints on the X-ray luminosity functions(XLFs)of X-ray binary(XRB)populations, as well as their scaling relations, for a sample of 38 nearby galaxies(D = 3.4–29 Mpc). Our galaxy sample is drawn primarily from the Spitzer Infrared Nearby Galaxies Survey(SINGS)and contains a wealth of Chandra(5.8 Ms total)and multiwavelength data, allowing for star formation rates(SFRs)and stellar masses(M⁎)to be measured on subgalactic scales. We divided the 2478 X-ray-detected sources into 21 subsamples in bins of specific SFR(sSFR ≡ SFR/M⁎)and constructed XLFs. To model the XLF dependence on sSFR, we fit a global XLF model, containing contributions from high-mass XRBs(HMXBs), low-mass XRBs(LMXBs), and background sources from the cosmic X-ray background that respectively scale with SFR, M⁎, and sky area. We find an HMXB XLF that is more complex in shape than previously reported and an LMXB XLF that likely varies with sSFR, potentially due to an age dependence. When applying our global model to XLF data for each individual galaxy, we discover a few galaxy XLFs that significantly deviate from our model beyond statistical scatter. Most notably, relatively low-metallicity galaxies have an excess of HMXBs above≈10^(38)erg/s, and elliptical galaxies that have relatively rich populations of globular clusters(GCs)show excesses of LMXBs compared to the global model. Additional modeling of how the XRB XLF depends on stellar age, metallicity, and GC specific frequency is required to sufficiently characterize the XLFs of galaxies.

Bret D. Lehmer↗