Understanding the energy resolution of liquid argon neutrino detectors
Not Available
72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
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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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Phase transitions and dynamic entropy in small two-dimensional systems: Experiment and numerical simulation
The results of experimental and numerical analysis are presented for phase transitions in strongly nonequilibrium small systems of strongly interacting Brownian particles. The dynamic entropy method is applied to analysis of the state of these systems. Experiments are carried out with kinetic heating of the structures of micron-size particles in a laboratory rf discharge plasma. Three phase states of these small systems are observed: crystalline, liquid, and transient. The mechanism of phase transitions in cluster structures of strongly interacting particles is described.
71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
Medium polarization and pairing in asymmetric nuclear matter
The many-body theory of asymmetric nuclear matter is developed beyond the Brueckner–Hartree–Fock approximation to incorporate the medium polarization effects. The extension is performed within the Babu–Brown induced interaction theory. After deriving the particle–hole interaction in the form of Landau–Migdal parameters, the effects of the induced component on the symmetry energy are investigated along with the screening of {sup 1}S{sub 0} proton–proton and {sup 3}PF{sub 2} neutron–neutron pairing, which are relevant for the neutron-star cooling. The crossover from repulsive (screening) to attractive (anti-screening) interaction going from pure neutron matter to symmetric nuclear matter is discussed.
74 ATOMIC AND MOLECULAR PHYSICS↗
New approach to intranuclear cascades with quantum Monte Carlo configurations
Not Available
72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
Particle Engulfment and Pushing By Solidifying Interfaces
The study of particle behavior at solid/liquid interfaces (SLI s) is at the center of the Particle Engulfment and Pushing (PEP) research program. Interactions of particles with SLI s have been of interest since the 1960 s, starting with geological observations, i.e., frost heaving. Ever since, this field of research has become significant to such diverse areas as metal matrix composite materials, fabrication of superconductors, and inclusion control in steels. The PEP research effort is geared towards understanding the fundamental physics of the interaction between particles and a planar SLI. Experimental work including 1-g and mu-g experiments accompany the development of analytical and numerical models. The experimental work comprised of substantial groundwork with aluminum (Al) and zinc (Zn) matrices containing spherical zirconia particles, mu-g experiments with metallic Al matrices and the use of transparent organic metal-analogue materials. The modeling efforts have grown from the initial steady-state analytical model to dynamic models, accounting for the initial acceleration of a particle at rest by an advancing SLI. To gain a more comprehensive understanding, numerical models were developed to account for the influence of the thermal and solutal field. Current efforts are geared towards coupling the diffusive 2-D front tracking model with a fluid flow model to account for differences in the physics of interaction between 1-g and -g environments. A significant amount of this theoretical investigation has been and is being performed by co-investigators at NASA MSFC.
Source record↗
Interactive data exploration and particle tracking for general circulation models
The SCENE environment for interactive visualization of complex data sets is discussed. This environment is used to create tools for graphical exploration of atmospheric flow models. These tools may be extended by the user in a seamless manner, so that no programming is required. A module for accurately tracing field lines and particle trajectories in SCENE is presented. This is used to examine the flowfield qualitatively with streamlines and pathlines and to identify critical points in the velocity field. The paper also describes a visualization tool for general circulation models on which the primary features of the environment are demonstrated.
Rosenbaum, R. I.↗
Particle Engulfment and Pushing By Solidifying Interfaces
The phenomenon of interaction of particles with solid-liquid interfaces (SLI) has been studied since the mid 1960's. While the original interest stemmed from geology applications (frost heaving in soil), researchers soon realized that fundamental understanding of particles behavior at solidifying interfaces might yield practical benefits in other fields, including metallurgy. In materials engineering the main issue is the location of particles with respect to grain boundaries at the end of solidification. Considerable experimental and theoretical research was lately focused on applications to metal matrix composites produced by casting or spray forming techniques, and on inclusion management in steel. Another application of particle SLI interaction is in the growing of Y1Ba2Cu3O(7-delta) (123) superconductor crystals from an undercooled liquid. The oxide melt contains Y2Ba1Cu1O5 (211) precipitates, which act as flux pinning sites. The experimental evidence on transparent organic materials, as well as the recent in situ observations on steel demonstrates that there exist a critical velocity of the planar SLI below which particles are pushed ahead of the interface, and above which particles are engulfment. The engulfment of a SiC particle in succinonitrile is exemplified. However, in most commercial alloys dendritic interfaces must be considered. Indeed, most data available on metallic alloys are on dendritic structures. The term engulfment is used to describe incorporation of a particle by a planar or cellular interface as a result of local interface perturbation, as opposed to entrapment that implies particle incorporation at cells or dendrites boundaries. During entrapment the particles are pushed in the intercellular or interdendritic regions and then captured when local solidification occurs. The physics of these two phenomena is fundamentally different.
Stefanescu, Doru M.↗
Interactions of waves and particles in an inhomogeneous one-dimensional plasma
Inhomogeneous one dimensional plasma in electrostatic normal modes, considering interactions of waves and particles
Kaufman, A. N.↗
Dark Matter Hunt with LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ)
SLAC is helping to build and test the LUX-ZEPLIN or LZ detector, one of the biggest and most sensitive detectors ever designed to catch hypothetical dark matter particles known as WIMPs. Researchers at the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory are on a quest to solve one of physics’ biggest mysteries: What exactly is dark matter – the invisible substance that accounts for 85 percent of all the matter in the universe but can’t be seen even with our most advanced scientific instruments? Most scientists believe it’s made of ghostly particles that rarely bump into their surroundings; that’s why billions of dark matter particles might zip right through our bodies every second without us even noticing. Leading candidates for dark matter particles are WIMPs, or weakly interacting massive particles. Now SLAC is helping to build and test one of the biggest and most sensitive detectors ever designed to catch a WIMP – the LUX-ZEPLIN or LZ detector.
72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
Reimagining full wave rf quasilinear theory in a tokamak
The velocity dependent resonant interaction of particles with applied radiofrequency (rf) waves during heating and current drive in the presence of pitch angle scattering collisions gives rise to narrow collisional velocity space boundary layers that dramatically enhance the role of collisions as recently shown by Catto ( J. Plasma Phys. , vol. 86, 2020, 815860302). The behaviour is a generalization of the narrow collisional boundary layer that forms during Landau damping as found by Johnston ( Phys. Fluids , vol. 14, 1971, pp. 2719–2726) and Auerbach ( Phys. Fluids , vol. 20, 1977, pp. 1836–1844). For a wave of parallel wave number ${k_{||}}$ interacting with weakly collisional plasma species of collision frequency $\nu$ and thermal speed ${v_{\textrm{th}}}$ , the effective collision frequency becomes of order $\nu {({k_{||}}{v_{th}}/\nu )^{2/3}} \gg \nu $ . The narrow boundary layers that arise because of the diffusive nature of the collisions allow a physically meaningful wave–particle interaction time to be defined that is the inverse of this effective collision frequency. The collisionality implied by the narrow boundary layer results in changes in the standard quasilinear treatment of applied rf fields in tokamaks while remaining consistent with causality. These changes occur because successive poloidal interactions with the rf are correlated in tokamak geometry and because the resonant velocity space dependent interactions are controlled by the spatial and temporal behaviour of the perturbed full wave fields rather than just the spatially local Landau and Doppler shifted cyclotron wave–particle resonance condition associated with unperturbed motion of the particles. The correlation of successive poloidal circuits of the tokamak leads to the appearance in the quasilinear operator of transit averaged resonance conditions localized in velocity space boundary layers that maintain negative definite entropy production.
Physics↗
CIR Morphology, Turbulence, Discontinuities, and Energetic Particles
Corotating interaction regions (CIRs) in the middle heliosphere have distinct morphological features and associated patterns of turbulence and energetic particles.
CIRs turbulence discontinuities↗
Reimagining full wave rf quasilinear theory in a tokamak
The velocity dependent resonant interaction of particles with applied radio frequency (rf) waves during heating and current drive in the presence of pitch angle scattering collisions gives rise to narrow collisional velocity space boundary layers that dramatically enhance the role of collisions as recently shown by Catto (J. Plasma Phys., vol. 86, 815860302, 2020). The behavior is a generalization of the narrow collisional boundary layer that forms during Landau damping as found by Johnston (Phys. Fluids, vol. 14, 1971, pp. 2719-2726) and Auerbach (Phys. Fluids, vol. 20, 1977, pp. 1836-1844). For a wave of parallel wave number k|| interacting with weakly collisional plasma species of collision frequency ν and thermal speed vth , the effective collision frequency becomes of order ν(k_||v_th /ν)^2/3>> ν . The narrow boundary layers that arise because of the diffusive nature of the collisions allows a physically meaningful wave-particle interaction time to be defined that is the inverse of this effective collision frequency. The collisionality implied by the narrow boundary layer results in changes in the standard quasilinear treatment of applied rf fields in tokamaks while remaining consistent with causality. These changes occur because successive poloidal interactions with the rf are correlated in tokamak geometry and because the resonant velocity space dependent interactions are controlled by the spatial and temporal behavior of the perturbed full wave fields rather than just the spatially local Landau and Doppler shifted cyclotron wave-particle resonance condition associated with unperturbed motion of the particles. The correlation of successive poloidal circuits of the tokamak leads to the appearance in the quasilinear operator of transit averaged resonance conditions localized in velocity space boundary layers that maintain negative definite entropy production.
70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
New particle pusher with hadronic interactions for modeling multimessenger emission from compact objects
We propose novel numerical schemes based on the Boris method in curved spacetime, incorporating both hadronic and radiative interactions for the first time. Once the proton has lost significant energy due to radiative and hadronic losses, and its gyroradius has decreased below typical scales on which the electromagnetic field varies, we apply a guiding center approximation (GCA). We fundamentally simulate collision processes either with a Monte-Carlo method or, where applicable, as a continuous energy loss, contingent on the local optical depth. To test our algorithm for the first time combining the effects of electromagnetic, gravitational, and radiation fields including hadronic interactions, we simulate highly relativistic protons traveling through various electromagnetic fields and proton backgrounds. We provide unit tests in various spatially dependent electromagnetic and gravitational fields and background photon and proton distributions, comparing the trajectory against analytic results. We propose that our method can be used to analyze hadronic interactions in black hole accretion disks, jets, and coronae to study the neutrino abundance from active galactic nuclei.
72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
A direct particle theory of weak interactions.
A theory of weak interactions is developed in terms of direct particle action. In its simplest form the theory leads to the formulation given by Feynman and Gell-Mann.
Hoyle, F.↗
Particle Engulfment and Pushing by Solidifying Interfaces
The phenomenon of interaction of particles with solid-liquid interfaces (SLI) has been studied since mid 1960's. While the original interest stemmed from geology applications (frost heaving in soil), researchers soon realized that fundamental understanding of particles behavior at solidifying interfaces might yield practical benefits in other fields, including metallurgy. In materials engineering the main issue is the location of particles with respect to grain boundaries at the end of solidification. Considerable experimental and theoretical research was lately focused on applications to metal matrix composites produced by casting or spray forming techniques, and on inclusion management in steel. Another application of particle SLI interaction is in the growing of Y1Ba2Cu3O(7-delta) (123) superconductor crystals from an undercooled liquid. The oxide melt contains Y2Ba1Cu1O5 (211) precipitates, which act as flux pinning sites.
Stefanescu, D. M.↗
Shock wave ignition of metal powders
The interaction between isolated metal particles and shock-induced flowfields is analyzed to characterize physical events and determine experimental feasibility for shock wave ignition studies. Emphasis is placed on incident shock wave phenomenon as opposed to reflected shock wave. A pre-ignition particle-flow interaction is hypothesized which presumes a vapor phase ignition reaction and an absence of significant vaporization prior to particle melting and erosion. Rapid vaporization of eroded mass is expected, with ignition reaction in the particle wakes. Experimental observation of the 6438-A Cd line and the 3721-A MgO band support the ignition mechanism hypothesized. Scattered cloud data are believed to substantiate the hypothesis that ignition delays could be correlated with predicted melting times.
Fox, T. W.↗
Ratchet Effects in Active Matter Systems
Ratchet effects can arise for single or collectively interacting Brownian particles on an asymmetric substrate when a net dc transport is produced by an externally applied ac driving force or by periodically flashing the substrate. Recently, a new class of active ratchet systems that do not require the application of external driving has been realized through the use of active matter; they are self-propelled units that can be biological or nonbiological in nature. When active materials such as swimming bacteria interact with an asymmetric substrate, a net dc directed motion can arise even without external driving, opening a wealth of possibilities such as sorting, cargo transport, or micromachine construction. We review the current status of active matter ratchets for swimming bacteria, cells, active colloids, and swarming models, focusing on the role of particle-substrate interactions. Here, we describe ratchet reversals produced by collective effects and the use of active ratchets to transport passive particles. We discuss future directions including deformable substrates or particles, the role of different swimming modes, varied particle–particle interactions, and nondissipative effects.
75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗
Pairwise interaction extended point-particle model for a random array of monodisperse spheres
This study introduces a new point-particle force model that attempts to account for the hydrodynamic influence of the neighbouring particles in an Eulerian–Lagrangian simulation. In previous point-particle models the force on a particle depends only on Reynolds number and mean volume fraction. Thus, as long as the mean local volume fraction is the same, the force on different particles will be estimated to be the same, even though the precise arrangement of neighbours can be vastly different. From direct numerical simulation (DNS) it has been observed that in a random arrangement of spheres that were distributed with uniform probability, the particle-to-particle variation in force can be as large as the mean drag. Since the Reynolds number and mean volume fraction of all the particles within the array are the same, the standard models fail to account for the significant particle-to-particle force variation within the random array. Here, we develop a model which can compute the drag and lateral forces on each particle by accounting for the precise location of a few surrounding neighbours. A pairwise interaction is assumed where the perturbation flow induced by each neighbour is considered separately, then the effects of all neighbours are linearly superposed to obtain the total perturbation. Faxén correction is used to quantify the force perturbation due to the presence of the neighbours. The single neighbour perturbations are mapped in the vicinity of a reference sphere and stored as libraries. We test the pairwise interaction extended point-particle (PIEP) model for random arrays at two different volume fractions of $\unicode[STIX]{x1D719}=0.1$ and 0.21 and Reynolds numbers in the range $16.5\leqslant Re\leqslant 170$ . The PIEP model predictions are compared against drag and lift forces obtained from the fully resolved DNS simulations performed using the immersed boundary method. Although not perfect, we observe the PIEP model prediction to correlate much better with the DNS results than the classical mean drag model prediction.
Mechanics↗