Search NASA⌕ Search

SEARCH · Search NASA

Results for “Statistical physics”

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.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 1,531 records · Page 85
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2018

A semi-empirical molecular statistical thermodynamic model for calculating standard molar Gibbs energies of aqueous species above and below the critical point of water

An increasing number of industrial applications rely on controlling solutes in water above and below its critical point. Processes such as hydrothermal synthesis, steam power generation and ultra-high enthalpy geothermal power are all influenced by factors such as mineral precipitation, pH and solute speciation. Here, the supercritical point of water is remarkable in that slight changes in temperature and pressure can cause dramatic changes in some solute properties. Here, it was found that our approach reliant on molecular statistical thermodynamic expressions for hard sphere (HS), ion-dipole and dipole-dipole interactions via mean spherical approximation (MSA) provided excellent agreement to available experimental data. In addition to model parameters having some physical meaning, this approach used less adjustable parameters than the well-known Helgeson-Kirkham-Flowers (HKF) model. Furthermore, the model was used to obtain standard thermodynamic values for HCl 0 (aq), KCl 0 (aq) and NaOH 0 (aq) ion pairs. In total, modeling parameters for 10 different aqueous species were obtained to demonstrate the capabilities of the approach.

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

Measurement of ω meson production in pp collisions at $\sqrt{s}$ = 13 TeV

The p T -differential cross section of ω meson production in pp collisions at $\sqrt{s}$ =13 TeV at midrapidity (|y| < 0.5) was measured with the ALICE detector at the LHC, covering an unprecedented transverse-momentum range of 1.6 < p T < 50 GeV/c. The meson is reconstructed via the ω → π + π − π 0 decay channel. The results are compared with various theoretical calculations: PYTHIA8.2 with the Monash 2013 tune overestimates the data by up to 50%, whereas good agreement is observed with Next-to-Leading Order (NLO) calculations incorporating ω fragmentation using a broken SU(3) model. The ω/π 0 ratio is presented and compared with theoretical calculations and the available measurements at lower collision energies. The presented data triples the p T ranges of previously available measurements. A constant ratio of C ω/π0 = 0.578 ± 0.006 (stat.) ± 0.013 (syst.) is found above a transverse momentum of 4 GeV/c, which is in agreement with previous findings at lower collision energies within the systematic and statistical uncertainties.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2019

Simple Flux-Side Formulation of State-Resolved Thermal Reaction Rates for Ring-Polymer Surface Hopping

Employing the recently developed isomorphic Hamiltonian framework for including nuclear quantum effects in mixed quantum–classical nonadiabatic dynamics, we present a flux-side formulation of state-resolved thermal reaction rates for ring-polymer surface hopping (iso-RPSH). An appealing aspect of the new approach is that calculation of multiple state-resolved nonadiabatic thermal reaction rates is enabled with only a single free-energy surface calculation, whereas previous nonadiabatic flux-side formulations for surface hopping involve multiple free-energy surface calculations. In conclusion, the method is shown to be robust and straightforwardly implemented, and numerical results reveal that RPSH in the isomorphic Hamiltonian framework leads to better dividing surface independence than alternative RPSH methods due to improved preservation of the path-integral statistics.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
DOE OSTI2022

Benchmarking structural evolution methods for training of machine learned interatomic potentials

When creating training data for machine-learned interatomic potentials (MLIPs), it is common to create initial structures and evolve them using molecular dynamics (MD) to sample a larger configuration space. Here, we benchmark two other modalities of evolving structures, contour exploration (CE) and dimer-method (DM) searches against MD for their ability to produce diverse and robust density functional theory training data sets for MLIPs. We also discuss the generation of initial structures which are either from known structures or from random structures in detail to further formalize the structure-sourcing processes in the future. The polymorph-rich zirconium-oxygen composition space is used as a rigorous benchmark system for comparing the performance of MLIPs trained on structures generated from these structural evolution methods. Using Behler–Parrinello neural networks as our MLIP models, we find that CE and the DM searches are generally superior to MD in terms of spatial descriptor diversity and statistical accuracy.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗
DOE OSTI2016

Neutron-$\gamma$ competition for β-delayed neutron emission

Here we present a coupled quasiparticle random phase approximation and Hauser-Feshbach (QRPA+HF) model for calculating delayed particle emission. This approach uses microscopic nuclear structure information, which starts with Gamow-Teller strength distributions in the daughter nucleus and then follows the statistical decay until the initial available excitation energy is exhausted. Explicitly included at each particle emission stage is γ-ray competition. We explore this model in the context of neutron emission of neutron-rich nuclei and find that neutron-γ competition can lead to both increases and decreases in neutron emission probabilities, depending on the system considered. Finally, a second consequence of this formalism is a prediction of more neutrons on average being emitted after β decay for nuclei near the neutron drip line compared to models that do not consider the statistical decay.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2019

α -decay energies of superheavy nuclei: Systematic trends

Background: New superheavy nuclei are often identified through their characteristic α -decay energies, which requires accurate calculations of Q α values. While many Q α predictions are available, little is known about their uncertainties, and this makes it difficult to carry out extrapolations to as-yet-unknown systems. Purpose: This work aims to analyze several models, compare their predictions to available experimental data, and study their performance for the unobserved α-decay chains of 296 120 and 298 120, which are of current experimental interest. Our quantified results will also serve as a benchmark for future, more sophisticated statistical studies. Methods: We use nuclear superfluid density functional theory (DFT) with several Skyrme energy density functionals (EDFs). To estimate systematic model uncertainties, we employ uniform model averaging. Results: We investigated the Q α values for even-even nuclei from Fm to Z = 120 . For well-deformed nuclei between Fm and Ds, we find excellent consistency between different model predictions, and a good agreement with experimental results. For transitional nuclei beyond Ds, intermodel differences grow, resulting in an appreciable systematic error. In particular, our models underestimate Q α for the heaviest nucleus 294 Og. Conclusions The robustness of DFT predictions for well-deformed superheavy nuclei supports the idea of using experimental Q α values, together with theoretical predictions, as reasonable ( Z, A ) indicators. Unfortunately, this identification method is not projected to work well in the region of deformed-to-spherical shape transition as one approaches N = 184 . The use of Q α values in the identification of new superheavy nuclei will benefit greatly from progress in developing both new spectroscopic-quality EDFs and more sophisticated statistical techniques of uncertainty quantification.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2025

Measurement of the Born cross section for 𝑒 +⁢ 𝑒 − → 𝜂⁢ℎ 𝑐 at center-of-mass energies between 4.1 and 4.6 GeV

We measure the Born cross section for the reaction 𝑒 + ⁢𝑒 − → 𝜂⁢ℎ 𝑐 from $\sqrt{𝑠}$ = 4.129 to 4.600 GeV using datasets collected by the BESIII detector running at the BEPCII collider. A resonant structure in the cross-section line shape near 4.200 GeV is observed with a statistical significance of 7⁢𝜎. The parameters of this resonance are measured to be 𝑀 = 4188.8 ± 4.7 ± 8.0 MeV/𝑐 2 and Γ = 49 ± 16 ± 19 MeV, where the first uncertainties are statistical and the second systematic.

exotic mesons↗
DOE OSTI2023

DES-Y3 galaxies & ACT DR4 CMB lensing tomography

We present a measurement of the cross-correlation between the \maglim galaxies selected from the Dark Energy Survey (DES) first three years of observations (Y3) and cosmic microwave background (CMB) lensing from the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) Data Release 4 (DR4), reconstructed over $\sim 436$ $\sqdeg$ of the sky. Our galaxy sample, which covers $\sim 4143$ $\sqdeg$, is divided into six redshift bins spanning the redshift range of $0.20<z<1.05$. We adopt a blinding procedure until passing all consistency and systematics tests. After imposing scale cuts for the cross-power spectrum measurement, we reject the null hypothesis of no correlation at 9.1$\sigma$. We constrain cosmological parameters from a joint analysis of galaxy and CMB lensing-galaxy power spectra considering a flat \LCDM model, marginalized over 23 astrophysical and systematic nuisance parameters. We find the clustering amplitude $S_8\equiv \sigma_8 (\Omega_m/0.3)^{0.5} = 0.75^{+0.04}_{-0.05}$. In addition, we co nstrain the linear growth of cosmic structure as a function of redshift. Our results are consistent with recent DES Y3 analyses and suggest a preference for a lower $S_8$ compared to results from measurements of CMB anisotropies by the \textit{Planck} satellite, although at a mild level ($< 2 \sigma$) of statistical significance.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
NASA NTRS1969

Wave propagation in a random medium

A simple technique is used to derive statistical characterizations of the perturbations imposed upon a wave (plane, spherical or beamed) propagating through a random medium. The method is essentially physical rather than mathematical, and is probably equivalent to the Rytov method. The limitations of the method are discussed in some detail; in general they are restrictive only for optical paths longer than a few hundred meters, and for paths at the lower microwave frequencies. Situations treated include arbitrary path geometries, finite transmitting and receiving apertures, and anisotropic media. Results include, in addition to the usual statistical quantities, time-lagged functions, mixed functions involving amplitude and phase fluctuations, angle-of-arrival covariances, frequency covariances, and other higher-order quantities.

Lee, R. W.↗
DOE OSTI2019

Astrophysical S -factors, Thermonuclear Rates, and Electron Screening Potential for the 3 He(d,p) 4 He Big Bang Reaction via a Hierarchical Bayesian Model

Here, we developed a hierarchical Bayesian framework to estimate S-factors and thermonuclear rates for the 3 He(d,p) 4 He reaction, which impacts the primordial abundances of 3 He and 7 Li. The available data are evaluated and all direct measurements are taken into account in our analysis for which we can estimate separate uncertainties for systematic and statistical effects. For the nuclear reaction model, we adopt a single-level, two-channel approximation of R-matrix theory, suitably modified to take the effects of electron screening at lower energies into account. In addition to the usual resonance parameters (resonance location and reduced widths for the incoming and outgoing reaction channel), we include the channel radii and boundary condition parameters in the fitting process. Our new analysis of the 3 He(d,p) 4 He S-factor data results in improved estimates for the thermonuclear rates. This work represents the first nuclear rate evaluation using R-matrix theory embedded into a hierarchical Bayesian framework, properly accounting for all known sources of uncertainty. Therefore, it provides a test bed for future studies of more complex reactions.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2015

Origin of structure: statistical characterization of the primordial density fluctuations and the collapse of the wave function

The statistical properties of the primordial density perturbations has been considered in the past decade as a powerful probe of the physical processes taking place in the early universe. Within the inflationary paradigm, the properties of the bispectrum are one of the keys that serves to discriminate among competing scenarios concerning the details of the origin of cosmological perturbations. However, all of the scenarios, based on the conventional approach to the so-called ''quantum-to-classical transition'' during inflation, lack the ability to point out the precise physical mechanism responsible for generating the inhomogeneity and anisotropy of our universe starting from and exactly homogeneous and isotropic vacuum state associated with the early inflationary regime. In past works, we have shown that the proposals involving a spontaneous dynamical reduction of the quantum state provide plausible explanations for the birth of said primordial inhomogeneities and anisotropies. In the present manuscript we show that, when considering within the context of such proposals, the characterization of the spectrum and bispectrum turn out to be quite different from those found in the traditional approach, and in particular, some of the statistical features, must be treated in a different way leading to some rather different conclusions.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2015

Minima of the fluctuations of the order parameter of global seismicity

It has been recently shown [N. V. Sarlis, Phys. Rev. E 84, 022101 (2011) and N. V. Sarlis and S.-R. G. Christopoulos, Chaos 22, 023123 (2012)] that earthquakes of magnitude M greater or equal to 7 are globally correlated. Such correlations were identified by studying the variance κ{sub 1} of natural time which has been proposed as an order parameter for seismicity. Here, we study the fluctuations of this order parameter using the Global Centroid Moment Tensor catalog for a magnitude threshold M{sub thres} = 5.0 and focus on its behavior before major earthquakes. Natural time analysis reveals that distinct minima of the fluctuations of the order parameter of seismicity appear within almost five and a half months on average before all major earthquakes of magnitude larger than 8.4. This phenomenon corroborates the recent finding [N. V. Sarlis et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 110, 13734 (2013)] that similar minima of the seismicity order parameter fluctuations had preceded all major shallow earthquakes in Japan. Moreover, on the basis of these minima a statistically significant binary prediction method for earthquakes of magnitude larger than 8.4 with hit rate 100% and false alarm rate 6.67% is suggested.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2015

PADÉ APPROXIMANTS FOR THE EQUATION OF STATE FOR RELATIVISTIC HYDRODYNAMICS BY KINETIC THEORY

A two-point Padé approximant (TPPA) algorithm is developed for the equation of state (EOS) for relativistic hydrodynamic systems, which are described by the classical Maxwell–Boltzmann statistics and the semiclassical Fermi–Dirac statistics with complete degeneracy. The underlying rational function is determined by the ratios of the macroscopic state variables with various orders of accuracy taken at the extreme relativistic limits. The nonunique TPPAs are validated by Taub's inequality for the consistency of the kinetic theory and the special theory of relativity. The proposed TPPA is utilized in deriving the EOS of the dilute gas and in calculating the specific heat capacity, the adiabatic index function, and the isentropic sound speed of the ideal gas. Some general guidelines are provided for the application of an arbitrary accuracy requirement. The superiority of the proposed TPPA is manifested in manipulating the constituent polynomials of the approximants, which avoids the arithmetic complexity of struggling with the modified Bessel functions and the hyperbolic trigonometric functions arising from the relativistic kinetic theory.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2019

A strategy for a general search for new phenomena using data-derived signal regions and its application within the ATLAS experiment

This paper describes a strategy for a general search used by the ATLAS Collaboration to find potential indications of new physics. Events are classified according to their final state into many event classes. For each event class an automated search algorithm tests whether the data are compatible with the Monte Carlo simulated expectation in several distributions sensitive to the effects of new physics. The significance of a deviation is quantified using pseudo-experiments. A data selection with a significant deviation defines a signal region for a dedicated follow-up analysis with an improved background expectation. The analysis of the data-derived signal regions on a new dataset allows a statistical interpretation without the large look-elsewhere effect. The sensitivity of the approach is discussed using Standard Model processes and benchmark signals of new physics. As an example, results are shown for 3.2 fb –1 of proton–proton collision data at a centre-of-mass energy of 13 TeV collected with the ATLAS detector at the LHC in 2015, in which more than 700 event classes and more than 10 5 regions have been analysed. Furthermore, no significant deviations are found and consequently no data-derived signal regions for a follow-up analysis have been defined.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
DOE OSTI2015

Electron beam induced growth of tin whiskers

We have investigated the influence of electron irradiation on tin whisker growth. Sputtered tin samples exposed to electron beam of 6 MeV energy exhibited fast whisker growth, while control samples did not grow any whiskers. The statistics of e-beam induced whiskers was found to follow the log-normal distribution. The observed accelerated whisker growth is attributed to electrostatic effects due to charges trapped in an insulating substrate. These results offer promise for establishing whisker-related accelerated life testing protocols.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2023

Quantum bath augmented stochastic nonequilibrium atomistic simulations for molecular heat conduction

Classical molecular dynamics (MD) has been shown to be effective in simulating heat conduction in certain molecular junctions since it inherently takes into account some essential methodological components which are lacking in the quantum Landauer-type transport model, such as many-body full force-field interactions, anharmonicity effects and nonlinear responses for large temperature biases. However, the classical MD reaches its limit in the environments where the quantum effects are significant (e.g. with low-temperatures substrates, presence of extremely high frequency molecular modes). Here, we present an atomistic simulation methodology for molecular heat conduction that incorporates the quantum Bose–Einstein statistics into an “effective temperature” in the form of a modified Langevin equation. We show that the results from such a quasi-classical effective temperature MD method deviates drastically when the baths temperature approaches zero from classical MD simulations and the results converge to the classical ones when the bath approaches the high-temperature limit, which makes the method suitable for full temperature range. In addition, we show that our quasi-classical thermal transport method can be used to model the conducting substrate layout and molecular composition (e.g. anharmonicities, high-frequency modes). Anharmonic models are explicitly simulated via the Morse potential and compared to pure harmonic interactions to show the effects of anharmonicities under quantum colored bath setups. Finally, the chain length dependence of heat conduction is examined for one-dimensional polymer chains placed in between quantum augmented baths.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
DOE OSTI2015

GenASiS Basics: Object-oriented utilitarian functionality for large-scale physics simulations

Aside from numerical algorithms and problem setup, large-scale physics simulations on distributed-memory supercomputers require more basic utilitarian functionality, such as physical units and constants; display to the screen or standard output device; message passing; I/O to disk; and runtime parameter management and usage statistics. Here we describe and make available Fortran 2003 classes furnishing extensible object-oriented implementations of this sort of rudimentary functionality, along with individual `unit test' programs and larger example problems demonstrating their use. Lastly, these classes compose the Basics division of our developing astrophysics simulation code GenASiS (General Astrophysical Simulation System), but their fundamental nature makes them useful for physics simulations in many fields.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2015

Characterizing the pressure smoothing scale of the intergalactic medium

The thermal state of the intergalactic medium (IGM) at z < 6 constrains the nature and timing of cosmic reionization events, but its inference from the Lyα forest is degenerate with the 3D structure of the IGM on ∼100 kpc scales, where, analogous to the classical Jeans argument, the pressure of the T ≃ 10{sup 4} K gas supports it against gravity. We simulate the IGM using smoothed particle hydrodynamics, and find that, at z < 6, the gas density power spectrum does not exhibit the expected filtering scale cutoff, because dense gas in collapsed halos dominates the small-scale power masking pressure smoothing effects. We introduce a new statistic, the real-space Lyα flux, F{sub real}, which naturally suppresses dense gas, and is thus robust against the poorly understood physics of galaxy formation, revealing pressure smoothing in the diffuse IGM. The F{sub real} power spectrum is accurately described by a simple fitting function with cutoff at λ{sub F}, allowing us to rigorously quantify the pressure smoothing scale for the first time: we find λ{sub F} = 79 kpc (comoving) at z = 3 for our fiducial thermal model. This statistic has the added advantage that it directly relates to observations of correlated Lyα forest absorption in close quasar pairs, recently proposed as a method to measure the pressure smoothing scale. Our results enable one to quantify the pressure smoothing scale in simulations, and ask meaningful questions about its dependence on reionization and thermal history. Accordingly, the standard description of the IGM in terms of the amplitude T{sub 0} and slope γ of the temperature–density relation T=T{sub 0}(ρ/ ρ-bar ){sup γ−1} should be augmented with a third pressure smoothing scale parameter λ{sub F}.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗