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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 145 records · Page 8
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2020

Hidden sector monopole dark matter with matter domination

The thermal freeze-out mechanism for relic dark matter heavier than O (10 – 100 TeV) requires cross-sections that violate perturbative unitarity. Yet the existence of dark matter heavier than these scales is certainly plausible from a particle physics perspective, pointing to the need for a non-thermal cosmological history for such theories. Topological dark matter is a well-motivated scenario of this kind. Here the hidden-sector dark matter can be produced in abundance through the Kibble-Zurek mechanism describing the non-equilibrium dynamics of defects produced in a second order phase transition. We revisit the original topological dark matter scenario, focusing on hidden-sector magnetic monopoles, and consider more general cosmological histories. We find that a monopole mass of order (1–10 5 ) PeV is generic for the thermal histories considered here, if monopoles are to entirely reproduce the current abundance of dark matter. In particular, in a scenario involving an early era of matter domination, the monopole number density is always less than or equal to that in a pure radiation dominated equivalent provided a certain condition on critical exponents is satisfied. This results in a larger monopole mass needed to account for a fixed relic abundance in such cosmologies.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2023

3D Quantum Anomalous Hall Effect in Magnetic Topological Insulator Trilayers of Hundred‐Nanometer Thickness

Magnetic topological states refer to a class of exotic phases in magnetic materials with the non-trivial topological property determined by magnetic spin configurations. An example of such states is the quantum anomalous Hall (QAH) state, which is a zero magnetic field manifestation of the quantum Hall effect. Current research in this direction focuses on QAH insulators with a thickness of less than 10 nm. Here, molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) is employed to synthesize magnetic TI trilayers with a thickness of up to ≈106 nm. It is found that these samples exhibit well-quantized Hall resistance and vanishing longitudinal resistance at zero magnetic field. By varying the magnetic dopants, gate voltages, temperature, and external magnetic fields, the properties of these thick QAH insulators are examined and the robustness of the 3D QAH effect is demonstrated. The realization of the well-quantized 3D QAH effect indicates that the nonchiral side surface states of the thick magnetic TI trilayers are gapped and thus do not affect the QAH quantization. The 3D QAH insulators of hundred-nanometer thickness provide a promising platform for the exploration of fundamental physics, including axion physics and image magnetic monopole, and the advancement of electronic and spintronic devices to circumvent Moore's law.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2018

Energy-momentum tensor of a ferromagnet

The energy-momentum tensor of a ferromagnet derived according to the standard prescription of Noether's theorem has a major flaw: the term originating from the spin Berry phase is gauge dependent. As a consequence, some physical quantities computed from the tensor show unphysical behavior. For example, the presence of a spin-polarized current does not affect the energy of the domain wall in the commonly accepted gauge, which implies, incorrectly, the absence of the adiabatic spin torque. In other gauges, the spin torque shows unphysical glitches occurring when the plane of magnetization crosses the Dirac string associated with a magnetic monopole in spin space. We derive a gauge-invariant energy-momentum tensor that is free from these artifacts but requires the addition of an extra spatial dimension, with the ferromagnet living on its boundary. As a result, it can be obtained most directly from the Wess-Zumino action for spins, which relies on the same extra dimension.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2022

Anomalous magnetic noise in an imperfectly flat landscape in the topological magnet Dy 2 Ti 2 O 7

Noise generated by motion of charge and spin provides a unique window into materials at the atomic scale. From temperature of resistors to electrons breaking into fractional quasiparticles, “listening” to the noise spectrum is a powerful way to decode underlying dynamics. Here, we use ultrasensitive superconducting quantum interference device (SQUIDs) to probe the puzzling noise in a frustrated magnet, the spin-ice compound Dy 2 Ti 2 O 7 (DTO), revealing cooperative and memory effects. DTO is a topological magnet in three dimensions—characterized by emergent magnetostatics and telltale fractionalized magnetic monopole quasiparticles—whose real-time dynamical properties have been an enigma from the very beginning. We show that DTO exhibits highly anomalous noise spectra, differing significantly from the expected Brownian noise of monopole random walks, in three qualitatively different regimes: equilibrium spin ice, a “frozen” regime extending to ultralow temperatures, and a high-temperature “anomalous” paramagnet. We present several distinct mechanisms that give rise to varied colored noise spectra. In addition, we identify the structure of the local spin-flip dynamics as a crucial ingredient for any modeling. Thus, the dynamics of spin ice reflects the interplay of local dynamics with emergent topological degrees of freedom and a frustration-generated imperfectly flat energy landscape, and as such, it points to intriguing cooperative and memory effects for a broad class of magnetic materials.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2026

Influence of controlled disorder on the dipolar spin-ice state of Ho-based pyrochlores

Pyrochlore magnets of the form 𝑅 2 ⁢𝐵 2 ⁢O 7 , in which rare-earth ions on the 𝑅 site form a three-dimensional network of corner-sharing tetrahedra, provide a canonical setting for geometrical frustration. Ho-based pyrochlores host a dipolar spin-ice ground state, characterized by Ising moments constrained by the ice rules and elementary excitations analogous to magnetic monopoles. Here, in this work, we examine how controlled chemical disorder influences this state by introducing site mixing on the nonmagnetic 𝐵 site in two compounds. Ho 2⁢ GaSbO 7 contains only Ga 3+ /Sb 5+ charge disorder, whereas Ho 2 ⁢ScSbO 7 exhibits both charge and substantial size disorder arising from the large ionic-radius mismatch between Sc 3+ and Sb 5+ . Although both materials retain the pyrochlore structure, neutron-scattering measurements reveal a reduced correlation length for the 𝑅/𝐵-site cation ordering and enhanced local structural distortions in Ho 2 ⁢ScSbO 7 . Despite these structural differences, bulk thermodynamic measurements and magnetic diffuse scattering demonstrate that both systems exhibit the defining signatures of a dipolar spin-ice state. Low-energy inelastic neutron spectroscopy further uncovers broad magnetic excitations that develop within the dipolar spin-ice regime, a feature absent in pristine Ho pyrochlores and indicative of disorder-induced splitting of the non-Kramers ground-state doublet. Together, these results show that controlled disorder generates tunable transverse-field-driven quantum fluctuations in Ho-based pyrochlores, although the dipolar spin-ice state is remarkably robust to this disorder.

magnetic anisotropy↗
DOE OSTI2015

Evolution of the Fermi surface of Weyl semimetals in the transition metal pnictide family

Topological Weyl semimetals (TWSs) represent a novel state of topological quantum matter which not only possesses Weyl fermions (massless chiral particles that can be viewed as magnetic monopoles in momentum space) in the bulk and unique Fermi arcs generated by topological surface states, but also exhibits appealing physical properties such as extremely large magnetoresistance and ultra-high carrier mobility. Here, by performing angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) on NbP and TaP, we directly observed their band structures with characteristic Fermi arcs of TWSs. Furthermore, by systematically investigating NbP, TaP and TaAs from the same transition metal monopnictide family, we discovered their Fermiology evolution with spin-orbit coupling (SOC) strength. Our experimental findings not only reveal the mechanism to realize and fine-tune the electronic structures of TWSs, but also provide a rich material base for exploring many exotic physical phenomena (for example, chiral magnetic effects, negative magnetoresistance, and the quantum anomalous Hall effect) and novel future applications.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2016

Bridging soft-hard transport properties of quark-gluon plasmas with CUJET3.0

A new model (CUJET3.0) of jet quenching in nuclear collisions coupled to bulk data constrained (VISH2+1D) viscous hydrodynamic backgrounds is constructed by generalizing the perturbative QCD based (CUJET2.0) model to include two complementary non-perturbative chromodynamical features of the QCD con_nement cross-over phase transition near Tc ≈ 160 MeV: (1) the suppression of quark and gluon chromo-electric-charged (cec) degrees of freedom and (2) the emergence of chromo-magnetic-monopole (cmm) degrees of freedom. Such a semi Quark Gluon Monopole Plasma (sQGMP) microscopic scenario is tested by comparing predictions of the leading hadron nuclear modification factors, R AA h (pT > 10GeV=c;√s), and their azimuthal elliptic asymmetry v 2 h (pT > 10GeV=c;√s) with available data on h =π, D;B jet fragments from nuclear collisions at RHIC (√s = 0.2 ATeV) and LHC(√s = 2.76 ATeV). The cmm degrees of freedom in the sQGMP model near T c are shown to solve robustly the long standing R AA vs v 2 puzzle by predicting a maximum of the jet quenching parameter field g(E; T)/T 3 near T c . The robustness of CUJET3.0 model to a number of theoretical uncertainties is critically tested. Moreover the consistency of jet quenching with observed bulk perfect uidity is demonstrated by extrapolating the sQGMP qˆ down to thermal energy E ~ 3T scales and showing that the sQGMP shear viscosity to entropy density ratio η/s ≈ T 3 /qˆ falls close to the unitarity bound, 1/4π, in the range (1–2)Tc. Detailed comparisons of the CUJET2.0 and CUJET3.0 models reveal the fact that remarkably different qˆ(T) dependence could be consistent with the same R AA data and could only be distinguished by anisotropy observables. Furthermore, these findings demonstrate clearly the inadequacy of focusing on the jet path averaged quantity as the only relevant medium property to characterize jet quenching, and point to the crucial roles of other essential factors beyond just the , such as the chromo electric and magnetic composition of the plasma, the screening masses and the running couplings at multiple scales which all strongly influence jet energy loss.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2023

Higher Flavor Symmetries in the Standard Model

Abstract A study of the generalized global flavor symmetries of the Standard Model is initiated. The presence of nonzero triangle diagrams between the U (3) 5 flavor currents and the hypercharge current intertwines them in the form of a higher‐group which mixes the zero‐form flavor symmetries with the one‐form magnetic hypercharge symmetry. This higher symmetry structure greatly restricts the possible flavor symmetries that may remain unbroken in any ultraviolet completion that includes magnetic monopoles. In the context of unification, this implies tight constraints on the combinations of fermion species which may be joined into multiplets. Three of four elementary possibilities are reflected in the classic unification models of Georgi–Glashow, , and Pati–Salam. The final pattern is realized non‐trivially in trinification, which exhibits the sense in which Standard Model Yukawa couplings which violate these flavor symmetries may be thought of as spurions of the higher‐group. Such modifications of the ultraviolet flavor symmetries are possible only if new vector‐like matter is introduced with masses suppressed from the unification scale by the Yukawa couplings.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2017

Conformal solids and holography

We argue that a SO( d ) magnetic monopole in an asymptotically AdS space-time is dual to a d -dimensional strongly coupled system in a solid state. In light of this, it would be remiss of us not to dub such a field configuration solidon . In the presence of mixed boundary conditions, a solidon spontaneously breaks translations (among many other symmetries) and gives rise to Goldstone excitations on the boundary — the phonons of the solid. We derive the quadratic action for the boundary phonons in the probe limit and show that, when the mixed boundary conditions preserve conformal symmetry, the longitudinal and transverse sound speeds are related to each other as expected from effective field theory arguments. We then include backreaction and calculate the free energy of the solidon for a particular choice of mixed boundary conditions, corresponding to a relevant multi-trace deformation of the boundary theory. We find such free energy to be lower than that of thermal AdS. This suggests that our solidon undergoes a solid-to-liquid first order phase transition by melting into a Schwarzschild-AdS black hole as the temperature is raised.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2015

Spin wave vortex from the scattering on Bloch point solitons

The interaction of a spin wave with a stationary Bloch point is studied. The topological non-trivial structure of the Bloch point manifests in the propagation of spin waves endowing them with a gauge potential that resembles the one associated with the interaction of a magnetic monopole and an electron. By pursuing this analogy, we are led to the conclusion that the scattering of spin waves and Bloch points is accompanied by the creation of a magnon vortex. Interference between such a vortex and a plane wave leads to dislocations in the interference pattern that can be measurable by means of magnon holography.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2018

Confinement and asymptotic freedom with Cooper pairs

One of the most profound aspects of the standard model of particle physics, the mechanism of confinement binding quarks into hadrons, is not sufficiently understood. The only known semiclassical mechanism of confinement, mediated by chromo-electric strings in a condensate of magnetic monopoles still lacks experimental evidence. Here we show that the infinite resistance superinsulating state, which emerges on the insulating side of the superconductor insulator transition in superconducting films offers a realization of confinement that allows for a direct experimental access. We find that superinsulators realize a single-color version of quantum chromodynamics and establish the mapping of quarks onto Cooper pairs. We reveal that the mechanism of superinsulation is the linear binding of Cooper pairs into neutral “mesons” by electric strings. Here, our findings offer a powerful laboratory for exploring and testing the fundamental implications of confinement, asymptotic freedom, and related quantum chromodynamics phenomena via the desktop experiments on superconductors.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2020

Direct Probe of the Interior of an Electric Pion in a Cooper Pair Superinsulator.

The nature of hadrons is one of the most fundamental mysteries of physics. It is generally agreed that they are made of "colored" quarks, which move nearly free at short scales but are confined inside hadrons by strong interactions at large distances. Because of confinement, quarks are never directly observable and, experimentally, their properties can be tested only indirectly, via high energy collisions. Here we show that superinsulating films realize a complete, one-color model system of hadron physics with Cooper pairs playing the role of quarks. We report measurements on highly controlled NbTiN films that provide a window into the interior of "Cooper pair mesons" and present the first direct evidence of asymptotic freedom, `t Hooft's dual superconductivity confinement mechanism, and magnetic monopoles.

Diamantini, M. C.↗
DOE OSTI2016

Effective field theory for deformed atomic nuclei

In this paper, we present an effective field theory (EFT) for a model-independent description of deformed atomic nuclei. In leading order this approach recovers the well-known results from the collective model by Bohr and Mottelson. When higher-order corrections are computed, the EFT accounts for finer details such as the variation of the moment of inertia with the band head and the small magnitudes of interband E2 transitions. Finally, for rotational bands with a finite spin of the band head, the EFT is equivalent to the theory of a charged particle on the sphere subject to a magnetic monopole field.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2019

Geometrothermodynamics in planar artificial spin ices

In this work, we explore a kind of geometrical effect in the thermodynamics of artificial spin ices (ASI). In general, such artificial materials are athermal. Here, We demonstrate that geometrically driven dynamics in ASI can open up the panorama of exploring distinct ground states and thermally magnetic monopole excitations. It is shown that a particular ASI lattice will provide a richer thermodynamics with nanomagnet spins experiencing less restriction to flip precisely in a kind of rhombic lattice. This can be observed by analysis of only three types of rectangular artificial spin ices (RASI). Denoting the horizontal and vertical lattice spacings by $a$ and $b$, respectively, then, a RASI material can be described by its aspect ratio $γ \equiv a/b$ . The rhombic lattice emerges when $γ = \sqrt{3}$. So, by comparing the impact of thermal effects on the spin flips in these three appropriate different RASI arrays, it is possible to find a system very close to the ice regime.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗
DOE OSTI2017

Phonon-mediated spin-flipping mechanism in the spin ices Dy 2 Ti 2 O 7 and Ho 2 Ti 2 O 7

To understand emergent magnetic monopole dynamics in the spin ices Ho 2 Ti 2 O 7 and Dy 2 Ti 2 O 7 , it is necessary to investigate the mechanisms by which spins flip in these materials. Presently there are thought to be two processes: quantum tunneling at low and intermediate temperatures and thermally activated at high temperatures. We identify possible couplings between crystal field and optical phonon excitations and construct a strictly constrained model of phonon-mediated spin flipping that quantitatively describes the high-temperature processes in both compounds, as measured by quasielastic neutron scattering. We support the model with direct experimental evidence of the coupling between crystal field states and optical phonons in Ho 2 Ti 2 O 7 .

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗
DOE OSTI2020

Numerical relativity in spherical coordinates: A new dynamical spacetime and general relativistic MHD evolution framework for the Einstein Toolkit

We present SphericalNR, a new framework for the publicly available Einstein Toolkit that numerically solves the Einstein field equations coupled to the equations of general relativistic magnetohydrodynamic (GRMHD) in a 3+1 split of spacetime in spherical coordinates without symmetry assumptions. The spacetime evolution is performed using reference-metric versions of either the Baumgarte-Shapiro-Shibata-Nakamura equations or the fully covariant and conformal Z4 system with constraint damping. We have developed a reference-metric version of the Valencia formulation of GRMHD with a vector potential method, guaranteeing the absence of magnetic monopoles during the evolution. In our framework, every dynamical field (both spacetime and matter) is evolved using its components in an orthonormal basis with respect to the spherical reference metric. Furthermore, all geometric information about the spherical coordinate system is encoded in source terms appearing in the evolution equations. This allows for the straightforward extension of Cartesian high-resolution shock-capturing finite volume codes to use spherical coordinates with our framework. To this end, we have adapted GRHydro, a Cartesian finite volume GRMHD code already available in the Einstein Toolkit, to use spherical coordinates. We present the full evolution equations of the framework, as well as details of its implementation in the Einstein Toolkit. Finally, we validate SphericalNR by demonstrating it passes a variety of challenging code tests in static and dynamical spacetimes.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2025

High-quality axions from higher-form symmetries in extra dimensions

The extradimensional axion solves the strong C P problem while largely circumventing the quality problem that plagues its four-dimensional counterparts. Such high quality can be clearly understood in terms of the generalized global symmetries of the higher-dimensional theory. We emphasize that an electric one-form symmetry is entirely responsible for protecting the potential of axions arising from 5D gauge theories and use this to systematically characterize the extradimensional axion quality problem. We identify three ways of breaking this one-form symmetry to generate an axion potential: adding electrically charged matter, gauging a magnetic higher-form symmetry, and turning on an Adler-Bell-Jackiw anomaly. In the latter case, we identify new ways of generating an axion potential via extradimensional magnetic monopoles. We also discuss how the axion is modified if the protective electric one-form symmetry is itself gauged. Finally, we relate these effects to gravitational expectations for the quality problem via generalized weak gravity conjectures. The clarity that generalized symmetries bring to the extradimensional axion quality problem highlights their relevance to particle phenomenology. Published by the American Physical Society 2025

Craig, Nathaniel↗
DOE OSTI2017

Axion detection via topological Casimir effect

We propose here a new table-top experimental configuration for the direct detection of dark matter QCD axions in the traditional open mass window 10 - 6 eV ≲ m a ≲ 10 - 2 eV using nonperturbative effects in a system with nontrivial spatial topology. Different from many experimental setups found in literature on direct dark matter axion detection, which relies on θ ˙ or ∇ → θ , we found that our system is in principle sensitive to a static θ ≥ 10 - 14 and can also be used to set limit on the fundamental constant θ QED which becomes the fundamental observable parameter of the Maxwell system if some conditions are met. Furthermore, the proposed experiments can probe entire open mass window 10 - 6 eV ≲ m a ≲ 10 - 2 eV with the same design, which should be contrasted with conventional cavity-type experiments being sensitive to a specific axion mass. Connection with Witten effect when the induced electric charge e ' is proportional to θ and the magnetic monopole becomes the dyon with nonvanishing e ' = - e θ 2 π is also discussed.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗