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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 163 records · Page 9
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS1981

The effect of noisy carrier reference on telemetry with baseband arraying

Imperfect carrier reference causes a degradation in detection performance in coherent communication systems. A measure of this degradation is the radio loss, which is the amount of increase in data signal to noise ratio (SNR) per bit required to achieve the same bit error rate when carrier reference is perfect. Performance analysis and numerical results are obtained for the Voyager high rate telemetry link with maximum likelihood convolutional decoding. The arraying of antennas provides not only improved performance due to an increase in effective antenna aperture, but also a decrease in radio loss with respect to a single antenna. This telemetry link performance improvement is a function of the carrier loop SNR and data bit error rate. When the carrier loop SNR's are low, it provides a significant improvement in the telemetry link performance since the decrease in radio loss with respect to a single station is substantial.

Divsalar, D.↗
NASA NTRS1988

Phase Length Optical Phase-Locked-Loop Sensor

The invention is a device that provides a high resolution measurement of the change in optical phase length from the device optical system source to an optical reflector. The invention consists of a optical phase locked loop that uses a laser beam as a carrier of an intensity modulated energy source. The novelty of the invention appears to lie in the overall combination of elements which provide high resolution without loss of wide dynamic range. The invention does not depend on coherent reflection from a target, and thus can measure targets that do not have special preparation or corner reflectors. The use of carrier modulation achieves high resolution without the problems of high speed pulse duration systems. Thus the invention has the advantages of simplicity, low cost, and small size without sacrificing resolution.

Heyman, Joseph S.↗
DOE OSTI2025

Modeling the effects of active wake mixing on wake behavior through large-scale coherent structures

The use of active wake mixing (AWM) to mitigate downstream turbine wakes has created new opportunities for reducing power losses in wind farms. However, many current analytical or semi-empirical wake models do not capture the flow instabilities that are excited through the blade pitch actuation. In this work, we develop a framework, which accounts for the impacts of the large-scale coherent structures and turbulence on the mean flow, for modeling AWM. The framework uses a triple-decomposition approach for the unsteady flow field and models the mean flow and fine-scale turbulence with a parabolized Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes (RANS) system. The wave components are modeled using a simplified spatial linear stability formulation that captures the growth and evolution of the coherent structures. Comparisons with high-fidelity large eddy simulations (LESs) of the turbine wakes showed that this framework was able to capture the additional wake mixing and faster wake recovery in the far-wake regions for both the pulse and helix AWM strategies with minimal computational expense. In the near-wake region, some differences are observed in both the RANS velocity profiles and initial growth of the large-scale structures, which may be due to some simplifying assumptions used in the model.

17 WIND ENERGY↗
NASA NTRS1990

Quasi-coherent structures in the turbulent boundary layer. I - Status report on a community-wide summary of the data

A review is presented of the approach, motivation and early results of a reevaluation of the knowledge collected by the research community during thirty years of research on the structure of turbulent boundary layers. Four distinctions or criteria concerning the need to improve the practices in this field are discussed: data versus inferences, possible versus actual versus significant events, one structure versus many, and one or two flows versus the totality of data. Attention given to the known quasi-coherent structures show that three factors significantly reduce the information available from laboratory data as a basis for forming a complete model of the quasi-coherent structure in the turbulent boundary layer: (1) the necessity to ensemble average probe output with resulting loss of phase information, (2) the inability to see more than one or two of the various types of structures simultaneously, and (3) the inability to see the spatial relations between the various quasi-coherent structures resulting from (1) and (2).

Kline, S. J.↗
DOE OSTI2026

Geometric decoherence time in Lindbladian dynamics

The onset of decoherence in open many-body systems lacks a dynamical timescale grounded in the loss of bipartite entanglement. Here, we introduce the geometric decoherence time, defined as the earliest moment the monotone relation between logarithmic negativity and Rényi-$\frac{1}{2}$ entropy—exactly equal across any bipartition for pure states—breaks down under open-system evolution, signaling entropy growth without accompanying entanglement growth. We establish this criterion in both single-particle Gaussian dynamics and many-body Lindbladian evolution. We show that quantum mutual information provides a complementary long-time diagnostic: Its asymptotic vanishing is equivalent to factorization of the steady state across the bipartition, a condition strictly stronger than separability, and whenever a product steady state is approached exponentially in trace norm, negativity and mutual information share the same decay rate. In the presence of a strong symmetry, this tracking can fail—residual classical correlations can survive after entanglement has vanished. In the Kitaev chain with balanced gain and loss, we derive a closed-form solution and show that the topological phase sustains longer coherence times than the trivial phase at identical dissipation, with a local minimum at the chiral-symmetric point. In the interacting XXZ chain, exact many-body evolution shows that local 𝑍 dephasing preserves residual classical correlations, whereas gain and loss restore the mutual-information tracking of negativity. Furthermore, our results establish the geometric decoherence time as a dynamical scale tracking the onset of decoherence.

74 ATOMIC AND MOLECULAR PHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2023

Magnetic ac susceptibility of superconducting Ta films for quantum computing

Recently, breakthroughs were reported in the long coherence time (>0.5 ms) transmon qubit using tantalum films (Ta). Identifying the loss mechanism in Ta films will help further improve the performance of Ta-based superconducting qubits. We report a study of superconducting properties in two sets of Ta films grown on c-cut and a-cut sapphires respectively using contact transport and noncontact magnetic ac susceptibility measurements. Although the resistive transition appears to be similar in both films, we found strikingly different responses in their complex magnetic susceptibilities χ' + iχ'$^{'}$ .χ'$^{'}$ in the c-cut films exhibits a sharp peak at superconducting transition Tc and becomes featureless below Tc indicating a strongly coupled superconducting state. In contrast, χ'$^{'}$ \ in the a-cut films exhibits a broad peak near Tc and a second peak appears below Tc, indicating granular superconductivity behavior. This second peak χ'$^{'}$ in is associated with the hysteresis loss at weak-link-type grain boundaries, which is believed to be a leading source of decoherence in the a-cut Ta films. The derived magnetic loss tangent in the a-cut films is about one order of magnitude higher than in the c-cut films. This study demonstrates that ac susceptibility is an excellent probe for characterizing bulk superconducting properties of the constituent superconducting materials used in qubits.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗
NASA NTRS1988

Calculating Optical-Transmitter Radiation Pattern s

New formula gives more-accurate gains and pointing losses. Set of approximate formulas predicts angular dependence of far radiation field coherent optical transmitter, telescope having central obscuring disk. Formulas derived without recourse to simplifying assumption of uniform plane-wave illumination used to derive less-accurate traditional formulas.

Marshall, William K.↗
NASA NTRS2008

Millimeter Wave Synthetic Aperture Imaging System with a Unique Rotary Scanning System

In recent years, millimeter wave imaging techniques, using synthetic aperture focusing and holographical approaches, have shown tremendous potential for nondestructive testing applications, involving materials and structures used in space vehicles, including the space shuttle external fuel tank spray on foam insulation and its acreage heat tiles. The ability of signals at millimeter wave frequencies (30 - 300 GHz) to easily penetrate inside of low loss dielectric materials, their relatively small wavelengths, and the possibility of detecting coherent (magnitude and phase) reflections make them suitable for high resolution synthetic aperture focused imaging the interior of such materials and structures. To accommodate imaging requirements, commonly a scanning system is employed that provides for a raster scan of the desired structure. However, most such scanners, although simple in design and construction, are inherently slow primarily due to the need to stop and start at the beginning and end of each scan line. To this end, a millimeter wave synthetic aperture focusing system including a custom-designed transceiver operating at 35 - 45 GHz (Q-band) and unique and complex rotary scanner was designed and developed. The rotary scanner is capable of scanning an area with approximately 80 cm in diameter in less than 10 minutes at step sizes of 3 mm and smaller. The transceiver is capable of producing accurate magnitude and phase of reflected signal from the structure under test. Finally, a synthetic aperture focusing algorithm was developed that translates this rotary-obtained magnitude and phase into a synthetic aperture focusing image of inspected structures. This paper presents the design of the transceiver and the rotary scanning system along with showing several images obtained with this system from various complicated structures.

Ghasr, M. T.↗
DOE OSTI2025

Soft x-ray high-harmonic generation in an anti-resonant hollow core fiber driven by a 3 μ m ultrafast laser

High-harmonic upconversion driven by a mid-infrared femtosecond laser can generate coherent soft x-ray beams in a tabletop-scale setup. Here, we report on a compact ytterbium-pumped optical parametric chirped pulse amplifier (OPCPA) laser system seeded by an all-fiber front-end and employing periodically poled lithium niobate (PPLN) nonlinear media operated near the pulse fluence limits of current commercially available PPLN crystals. The OPCPA delivers 3 µm wavelength pulses with 775 µJ energy at 1 kHz repetition rate, with transform-limited 120 fs pulse duration, diffraction-limited beam quality, and ultrahigh 0.33% rms energy stability over >18 h. Using this laser, we generate soft x-ray high harmonics (HHG) in argon gas by focusing into a low-loss, high-pressure gas-filled anti-resonant hollow core fiber (ARHCF), generating coherent light at photon energies up to the argon L-edge (250 eV) and carbon K-edge (284 eV), with high beam quality and ∼1% rms energy stability. This work demonstrates soft x-ray HHG in a high-efficiency guided-wave phase matched geometry, overcoming the high losses inherent to mid-IR propagation in unstructured waveguides, or the short interaction lengths of gas cells or jets. The ARHCF can operate in the long term without damage and with the repetition rate, stability, and robustness required for demanding applications in spectromicroscopy and imaging. Finally, we discuss routes for further optimizing the soft x-ray HHG flux by driving He at higher laser intensities using either the signal (1.5 μm) or idler wavelengths (3 μm).

Femtosecond lasers↗
NASA NTRS1987

Acoustic transmissibility of advanced turboprop aircraft windows

Advanced turboprop technology allows propeller aircraft to reach cruise speeds comparable to current jet aircraft yet with considerable fuel savings. Due to the higher blade loading and higher tip speed of these propellers, noise levels of up to 150 dB are expected on the outside of the fuselage in the propeller plane. In this study the transmissibility of triple pane windows, designed to provide 69 dB noise transmission loss at the blade propeller frequency of 164 Hz, was experimentally investigated using insertion loss and three-dimensional intensity techniques. A modal analysis on the outer window panes was conducted to determine pane modal frequencies. Coherence and phase relation of outer panes and window frame were established to obtain double/triple wall and lump mass resonance frequencies. Double/triple wall resonances were found to degrade the transmission loss of the two windows. It was shown that, at the blade passage frequency and the first two overtones, the combinations of window plus scratch shield provide less transmission loss than the average transmission loss of the treated fuselage. Strong disagreement was obtained between the experimental transmission loss of this investigation and the theoretical predictions from another study.

Grosveld, Ferdinand W.↗
DOE OSTI2025

Steps toward quantum simulations of hadronization and energy loss in dense matter

A framework for simulating the real-time dynamics of composite particles in a simple model of dense matter that is amenable to quantum computers is developed. As a demonstration, we perform classical simulations of heavy-hadrons propagating through a dense medium in the Schwinger model. Measurements of the time-dependent energy and charge density are used to identify mechanisms responsible for energy loss and hadron production (hadronization). A study of entanglement dynamics highlights the importance of quantum coherence between the particles that make up the dense medium. Throughout this work, care is taken to isolate, and remove, phenomena that arise solely from a finite lattice spacing. It is found that signatures of entanglement are more sensitive to lattice artifacts than other observables. Toward quantum simulations, we present an efficient method and the corresponding quantum circuits for preparing ground states in the presence of heavy mesons. Finally, these circuits are used to estimate the resources required to simulate in-medium energy loss and hadronization in the Schwinger model using quantum computers.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2025

Rheo–Electric Foundations and Engineering of Carbon Slurry Flow Electrodes

Flowable carbon slurry electrodes promise continuous, scalable electrochemical desalination and energy storage when their rheology (flow and stability) and electronic connectivity are jointly optimized. This report integrates six complementary thrusts that we executed under the Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) project: (i) a fast, ex situ, centrifuge-compatible method to quantify pellet (packed slurry) electronic conductivity, with a validated cell constant (“shape factor”) and quantitative structure–property insights for carbon mixtures; (ii) a controlled circulation study showing that peristaltic pumping can irreversibly alter particle size and morphology over laboratory-relevant durations; (iii) development of a miniature jet pump that preserves particle integrity while achieving entrainment ratios of 2–4 at practical flow rates; (iv) a comprehensive mapping of how a representative non-ionic surfactant (Tween 20) collapses the carbon gel network, separating network-percolation losses from intrinsic particle contact resistance; (v) in-situ visualization revealing how gravitational settling and flow-driven mixing compete to control charge transport, with dynamic bed layers preventing saturation while achieving 30-fold local concentration enhancement; and (vi) a simple, widely adoptable fabrication route to structured, gas-nitrided titanium nitride (TiN) titanium current collectors that dramatically lower interfacial losses and enable geometry-driven performance gains. Together, these results provide a coherent toolchain and design rules to accelerate formulation screening, de-risk device prototyping, and standardize characterization for carbon slurry electrodes in flow-electrode capacitive deionization (FCDI), electrochemical flow capacitor (EFC), and related systems.

25 ENERGY STORAGE↗
NASA NTRS1971

Coherent infrared receivers for laser communications and radar.

Review of infrared coherent detection processes. Three receivers are described which were built with the primary goal of exploiting quantum noise limited heterodyne detection in a spectral region where atmospheric transmission characteristics are favorable. The combination of high power, high efficiency carbon dioxide lasers, coherent heterodyne receivers with sensitivities approaching the quantum noise limit, and low-loss atmospheric transmission have presented new possibilities in infrared communications and radar. In particular, high sensitivity 10.6 micrometer heterodyne receivers with wide IF bandwidths have been developed.

Peyton, B.↗
NASA NTRS1986

Molecular catastrophes and the formation of circumstellar dust

Interstellar dust grains are presumed in part to have their origins in the outer atmospheres of red giant and supergiant stars because, despite the efficiency of shock destruction of grains in the interstellar medium (ISM), meteoritic samples possess isotopic signatures that are consistent with nucleosynthetic origin in the interior of evolved stars. There is ample evidence to suggest that once dust grains form near red giants and supergiants, radiation pressure is sufficient to drive them to infinity. The molecular catastrophe description for the conversion of chromospheric gas into molecular masers and circumstellar dust holds promise for a coherent explanation of the formation of these entities and the process of mas loss from cool, high luminosity objects.

Stencel, R. E.↗
DOE OSTI2026

Robust negativity in the quantum-to-classical transition of Kerr dynamics

Here, we quantify the quantum-to-classical transition of the single-mode Kerr nonlinear dynamics in the presence of loss. We establish three timescales that govern the dynamics, each with distinct characteristics. For times short compared with the Ehrenfest time, the evolution is classical, characterized by Gaussian dynamics. For sufficiently long times, as we increase the initial photon number, unitary Kerr evolution would generate macroscopic superpositions of coherent states (so-called kitten states). However, this is severely restricted in the presence of small photon loss, and the expectation values of observables coincide with their classical values. The intermediate timescale, however, shows resilient quantum behavior in the macroscopic limit. We show that in the mean-field non-Gaussian regime, the Kerr Hamiltonian (with small photon loss) generates a significant amount of Wigner-negativity, and classical flow is recovered only if the loss rate grows with system size. Our results broaden the usual understanding of quantum-to-classical transitions and demonstrate the potential for creating robust nonclassical resources for continuous-variable quantum information processing in the presence of loss.

Raza, Mohsin [University of New Mexico, Albuquerqu↗
DOE OSTI2024

Low-loss millimeter-wave resonators with an improved coupling structure

Millimeter-wave superconducting resonators are a useful tool for studying quantum device coherence in a new frequency domain. However, improving resonators is difficult without a robust and reliable method for coupling millimeter-wave signals to 2D structures. We develop and characterize a tapered transition structure coupling a rectangular waveguide to a planar slotline waveguide with better than 0.5 dB efficiency over 14 GHz, and use it to measure ground-shielded resonators in the W band (75–110 GHz). Having decoupled the resonators from radiative losses, we consistently achieve single-photon quality factors above 10 5 , with a two-level-system loss limit above 10 6 , and verify the effectiveness of oxide removal treatments to reduce loss. These values are 4–5 times higher than those previously reported in the W band, and much closer to typical planar microwave resonators. The improved losses demonstrated by these on-chip millimeter-wave devices shed new light on quantum decoherence in a different frequency regime, offer increased selectivity for high-frequency detectors, and enables new possibilities for hybrid quantum experiments integrating millimeter-wave frequencies.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗
NASA NTRS2020

A Framework for Understanding and Quantifying the Loss and Acceleration of Relativistic Electrons in the Outer Radiation Belt During Geomagnetic Storms

We present detailed analysis of the global relativistic electron dynamics as measured by total radiation belt content (RBC) during coronal mass ejection (CME) and corotating interaction region (CIR)-driven geomagnetic storms. Recent work has demonstrated that the response of the outer radiation belt is consistent and repeatable during geomagnetic storms. Here we build on this work to show that radiation belt dynamics can be divided into two sequential phases, which have different solar wind dependencies and which when analyzed separately reveal that the radiation belt responds more predictably than if the overall storm response is analyzed as a whole. In terms of RBC, in every storm we analyzed, a phase dominated by loss is followed by a phase dominated by acceleration. Analysis of the RBC during each of these phases demonstrates that they both respond coherently to solar wind and magnetospheric driving. However, the response is independent of whether the storm response is associated with either a CME or CIR. Our analysis shows that during the initial phase, radiation belt loss is organized by the location of the magnetopause and the strength of Dst and ultralow frequency wave power. During the second phase, radiation belt enhancements are well organized by the amplitude of ultralow frequency waves, the auroral electroject index, and solar wind energy input. Overall, our results demonstrate that storm time dynamics of the RBC is repeatable and well characterized by solar wind and geomagnetic driving, albeit with different dependencies during the two phases of a storm.

Kyle R. Murphy↗
DOE OSTI2022

Stable electron beam propagation in a plasma column

The stability of plasma-based accelerators against transverse misalignments and asymmetries of the drive beam is crucial for their applicability. Without stabilizing mechanisms, even small initial offsets of the drive beam centroid can couple coherently to the plasma wake, grow, and ultimately lead to emittance degradation or beam loss for a trailing witness beam. In this work, we demonstrate the intrinsic stability of a beam propagating in a plasma column. This result is relevant in the context of plasma-based positron acceleration, where a wakefield suitable for the transport and acceleration of a positron witness beam is generated in a plasma column by means of an electron drive beam. The stable propagation of the drive beam is a necessary condition for the experimental implementation of this scheme. The differences and similarities of stabilizing mechanisms in a plasma column compared to a homogeneous plasma are identified via theory and particle-in-cell simulations. Experimental tolerances are given, demonstrating the experimental feasibility of the scheme.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗