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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 1,657 records · Page 92

Microphysically modified magnetosonic modes in collisionless, high-β plasmas

With the support of hybrid-kinetic simulations and analytic theory, we describe the nonlinear behaviour of long-wavelength non-propagating (NP) modes and fast magnetosonic waves in high-β collisionless plasmas, with particular attention to their excitation of and reaction to kinetic micro-instabilities. The perpendicularly pressure balanced polarization of NP modes produces an excess of perpendicular pressure over parallel pressure in regions where the plasma β is increased. For mode amplitudes |δB/B 0 |≳0.3, this excess excites the mirror instability. Particle scattering off these micro-scale mirrors frustrates the nonlinear saturation of transit-time damping, ensuring that large-amplitude NP modes continue their decay to small amplitudes. At asymptotically large wavelengths, we predict that the mirror-induced scattering will be large enough to interrupt transit-time damping entirely, isotropizing the pressure perturbations and morphing the collisionless NP mode into the magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) entropy mode. In fast waves, a fluctuating pressure anisotropy drives both mirror and firehose instabilities when the wave amplitude satisfies |δB/B 0 |≳2β -1 . The induced particle scattering leads to delayed shock formation and MHD-like wave dynamics. Taken alongside prior work on self-interrupting Alfvén waves and self-sustaining ion-acoustic waves, our results establish a foundation for new theories of electromagnetic turbulence in low-collisionality, high-β plasmas such as the intracluster medium, radiatively inefficient accretion flows and the near-Earth solar wind.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

GPU-accelerated dislocation dynamics using subcycling time-integration

Discrete dislocation dynamics (DDD) simulations are being increasingly employed to investigate metal plasticity at the mesoscale. However, in spite of its ability to access beyond the length and time limits of atomistic methods, the DDD model is still limited by its high computational cost, with ranges of achievable strains too low and strain rates too high by several orders of magnitude compared with typical experimental conditions. By combining the efficiency of the recently developed subcycling time-integrator with the highly parallel architecture of graphics processing unit (GPU) devices, we developed a DDD model that provides significant acceleration compared to existing implementations. Our GPU-accelerated implementation enables large-scale DDD simulations that can reach relevant levels of strain using a moderate amount of computational resources.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Autocrine and paracrine interferon signalling as ‘ring vaccination’ and ‘contact tracing’ strategies to suppress virus infection in a host

The innate immune response, particularly the interferon response, represents a first line of defence against viral infections. The interferon molecules produced from infected cells act through autocrine and paracrine signalling to turn host cells into an antiviral state. Although the molecular mechanisms of IFN signalling have been well characterized, how the interferon response collectively contribute to the regulation of host cells to stop or suppress viral infection during early infection remain unclear. Here, we use mathematical models to delineate the roles of the autocrine and the paracrine signalling, and show that their impacts on viral spread are dependent on how infection proceeds. In particular, we found that when infection is well-mixed, the paracrine signalling is not as effective; by contrast, when infection spreads in a spatial manner, a likely scenario during initial infection in tissue, the paracrine signalling can impede the spread of infection by decreasing the number of susceptible cells close to the site of infection. Furthermore, we argue that the interferon response can be seen as a parallel to population-level epidemic prevention strategies such as ‘contact tracing’ or ‘ring vaccination’. Thus, our results here may have implications for the outbreak control at the population scale more broadly.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗

EQSIM—A multidisciplinary framework for fault-to-structure earthquake simulations on exascale computers part I: Computational models and workflow

Computational simulations have become central to the seismic analysis and design of major infrastructure over the past several decades. Most major structures are now “proof tested” virtually through representative simulations of earthquake-induced response. More recently, with the advancement of high-performance computing (HPC) platforms and the associated massively parallel computational ecosystems, simulation is beginning to play a role in increased understanding and prediction of ground motions for earthquake hazard assessments. However, the computational requirements for regional-scale geophysics-based ground motion simulations are extreme, which has restricted the frequency resolution of direct simulations and limited the ability to perform the large number of simulations required to numerically explore the problem parametric space. In this article, recent developments toward an integrated, multidisciplinary earth science-engineering computational framework for the regional-scale simulation of both ground motions and resulting structural response are described with a particular emphasis on advancing simulations to frequencies relevant to engineered systems. This multidisciplinary computational development is being carried out as part of the US Department of Energy (DOE) Exascale Computing Project with the goal of achieving a computational framework poised to exploit emerging DOE exaflop computer platforms scheduled for the 2022–2023 timeframe.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗

Using AI to Reproduce Neutrino Cross Section Analysis - Prototyping the Neutrino Discovery Platform

The Neutrino Discovery Platform (NDP) aims to accelerate DUNE-era science by making the neutrino program's existing datasets analyzable through fast, reproducible, and auditable workflows. We report a working version of two of its layers, data curation and agentic orchestration, built and tested end to end on MINERvA open data. The guiding lesson throughout is that a cross section is a measurement, and not just a plotted shape, only if it carries a defensible systematic-uncertainty budget, a trustworthy unfolding, and a reproducible record. Using a single medium-energy playlist pair from the MINERvA open-data release (about $2.05\times10^{17}$ protons on target of data), we first reproduced the shapes of two published charged-current inclusive $\nu_\mu$ measurements through a complete extraction ladder: selection, background subtraction, D'Agostini unfolding, efficiency correction, and flux normalization. These shape-level reproductions ran and tracked the published results, but they lacked the systematic-uncertainty machinery that defines a MINERvA cross section. To supply it, we vendored and built the MINERvA Analysis Toolkit and developed a many-universe systematic-uncertainty tool that produces a portable covariance artifact, a parallel event-loop runner, and a per-run auditability harness. Validated against a published covariance release, the toolchain reproduces the released statistical, flux, and muon-energy-scale terms and shows that they account for roughly 63\% of the total variance, with the remainder unreleased. Using this same infrastructure, we then performed a measurement of our own design, the hadronic recoil-energy distribution of low-energy ($E_\nu<2.5$~GeV) charged-current inclusive events, and found data/simulation shape agreement of $\chi^2/\mathrm{ndf}=1.26$. Together these results show that the platform supports original physics and not only reproductions.

Breaux, Auto [Tulane U. (main)]↗

HtPIP: High-throughput phage isolation platform increases diversity and reduces isolation time using multiple bacteria

Bacteriophages are ubiquitous in nature, but relatively few have been isolated and characterized compared to the number of bacterial strains. Phage biotechnology applications benefit from a diverse library of isolated phages to kill or transfer genetic material to a bacterium of interest. However, scaling up phage discovery for diverse bacterial hosts can be time-consuming and costly. Here, we developed an approach to capture novel phages for multiple bacterial strains in parallel from an environmental sample using commercially available 0.2-μM filter plates. Using this High-throughput Phage Isolation Platform (HtPIP), 12 novel phages were isolated spanning 9 diverse bacterial host genera. Eleven of the isolated phages define new phage species, with nine also defining new genera. The HtPIP was used to discover both DNA and RNA phages, including a Tectiviridae infecting Pseudomonas putida mt-2 and a Leviviricetes infecting a Microbacterium isolate, which represents the first cultured RNA phage infecting a host outside of Proteobacteria. Using a metagenomic approach, we demonstrate that the HtPIP captures a higher proportion of novel phages compared to traditional low-throughput methods.

High-throughput↗

Neural Networks for Nuclear Reactions in MAESTROeX

We demonstrate the use of neural networks to accelerate the reaction steps in the MAESTROeX stellar hydrodynamics code. A traditional MAESTROeX simulation uses a stiff ODE integrator for the reactions; here, we employ a ResNet architecture and describe details relating to the architecture, training, and validation of our networks. Our customized approach includes options for the form of the loss functions, a demonstration that the use of parallel neural networks leads to increased accuracy, and a description of a perturbational approach in the training step that robustifies the model. We test our approach on millimeter-scale flames using a single-step, 3-isotope network describing the first stages of carbon fusion occurring in Type Ia supernovae. We train the neural networks using simulation data from a standard MAESTROeX simulation, and show that the resulting model can be effectively applied to different flame configurations. This work lays the groundwork for more complex networks, and iterative time-integration strategies that can leverage the efficiency of the neural networks.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Plastic intensity factors for cracked plates subjected to biaxial loading

An elastic-plastic analysis is performed for an infinite plate under plane stress conditions which contains a finite line crack and is subjected to biaxial loading. In the large scale yielding range, the amplitude of the dominant singularity at the crack tip, the plastic stress (or strain) intensity factor, is found to depend on the magnitude of loading parallel to the crack direction. The predicted value for the fracture initiation stress which is based on a plastic intensity factor fracture criterion, increases under lateral, tensile loading. Compressive loading parallel to the crack has the opposite effect on the fracture initiation stress.

Hilton, P. D.↗

Sun angle calculator

A circular computer and system is disclosed for determining the sun angle relative to the horizon from any given place and at any time. The computer includes transparent, rotatably mounted discs on both sides of the circular disc member. Printed on one side of the circular disc member are outer and inner circular sets of indicia respectively representative of site longitude and Greenwich Mean Time. Printed on an associated one of the rotatable discs is a set of indicia representative of Solar Time. Printed on the other side of the circular disc member are parallel lines representative of latitude between diametral representations of North and South poles. Elliptical lines extending between the North and South poles are proportionally disposed on the surface to scale Solar Time in hours.

Flippin, A.↗

Evidence for the presence of quasi-two-dimensional nearly incompressible fluctuations in the solar wind

Assuming that the slab and isotropic models of solar wind turbulence need modification (largely due to the observed anisotropy of the interplanetary fluctuations and the results of laboratory plasma experiments), this paper proposes a model of the solar wind. The solar wind is seen as a fluid which contains both classical transverse Alfvenic fluctuations and a population of quasi-transverse fluctuations. In quasi-two-dimensional turbulence, the pitch angle scattering by resonant wave-particle interactions is suppressed, and the direction of minimum variance of interplanetary fluctuations is parallel to the mean magnetic field. The assumed incompressibility is consistent with the fact that the density fluctuations are small and anticorrelated, and that the total pressure at small scales is nearly constant.

Matthaeus, William H.↗

Enabling Thread Safety and Parallelism in the Program to Optimize Simulated Trajectories II

Development of the Program to Optimize Simulated Trajectories (POST) began in the 1970s. Since then, it has become widely utilized across NASA, industry, and academia to solve a variety of atmospheric ascent and entry problems. Its successor, POST2, has undergone many upgrades since its release in the 1990s. Recently, there has been an increasing desire to take advantage of the advances in parallel computing for both offline and online systems. Thus, modifications were made to allow POST2 to simulate multiple trajectories simultaneously without adversely affecting results. This capability is leveraged to calculate optimization solutions in parallel as opposed to sequentially. A demonstration of the benefits is presented using a small set of POST2 regression tests, as well as a project simulating a human-scale Lunar lander.

R. Anthony Williams↗

Enabling Thread Safety and Parallelism in the Program to Optimize Simulated Trajectories II

Development of the Program to Optimize Simulated Trajectories (POST) began in the 1970s. Since then, it has become widely utilized across NASA, industry, and academia to solve a variety of atmospheric ascent and entry problems. Its successor, POST2, has undergone many upgrades since its release in the 1990s. Recently, there has been an increasing desire to take advantage of the advances in parallel computing for both offline and online systems. Thus, modifications were made to allow POST2 to simulate multiple trajectories simultaneously without adversely affecting results. This capability is leveraged to calculate optimization solutions in parallel as opposed to sequentially. A demonstration of the benefits is presented using a small set of POST2 regression tests, as well as a project simulating a human-scale Lunar lander.

Anthony Williams↗

Toward the Neutrino Discovery Platform: An Auditable, Uncertainty-Bearing Toolchain for MINERvA Open-Data Cross-Section Analysis

The Neutrino Discovery Platform (NDP) aims to accelerate DUNE-era science by making the neutrino program's existing datasets analyzable through fast, reproducible, and auditable workflows. We report a working version of two of its layers, data curation and agentic orchestration, built and tested end to end on MINERvA open data. The guiding lesson throughout is that a cross section is a measurement, and not just a plotted shape, only if it carries a defensible systematic-uncertainty budget, a trustworthy unfolding, and a reproducible record. Using a single medium-energy playlist pair from the MINERvA open-data release (about $2.05\times10^{17}$ protons on target of data), we first reproduced the shapes of two published charged-current inclusive $\nu_\mu$ measurements through a complete extraction ladder: selection, background subtraction, D'Agostini unfolding, efficiency correction, and flux normalization. These shape-level reproductions ran and tracked the published results, but they lacked the systematic-uncertainty machinery that defines a MINERvA cross section. To supply it, we vendored and built the MINERvA Analysis Toolkit and developed a many-universe systematic-uncertainty tool that produces a portable covariance artifact, a parallel event-loop runner, and a per-run auditability harness. Validated against a published covariance release, the toolchain reproduces the released statistical, flux, and muon-energy-scale terms and shows that they account for roughly 63\% of the total variance, with the remainder unreleased. Using this same infrastructure, we then performed a measurement of our own design, the hadronic recoil-energy distribution of low-energy ($E_\nu<2.5$~GeV) charged-current inclusive events, and found data/simulation shape agreement of $\chi^2/\mathrm{ndf}=1.26$. Together these results show that the platform supports original physics and not only reproductions.

Breaux, Auto [Tulane U. (main)]↗

Stability-preserving Lossy Compression for Large-scale Partial Differential Equations

Checkpoint/Restart (C/R) strategies are vital for fault tolerance in PDE-based scientific simulations, yet traditional checkpointing incurs significant I/O overhead. Lossy compression offers a scalable solution by reducing checkpoint data size, but conventional methods often lack control over physical invariants (e.g., energy), leading to instability such as oscillations or divergence in Partial Differential Equations (PDE) systems. This paper introduces a stability-preserving compression approach tailored for PDE simulations by explicitly controlling kinetic and potential energy perturbations to ensure stable restarts. Extensive experiments conducted across diverse PDE configurations demonstrate that our method maintains numerical stability with minimal error magnification—even across multiple checkpoint-restart cycles—outperforming state-of-the-art lossy compressors. Parallel evaluations on the Frontier supercomputer show up to 8.4× improvement in checkpoint write performance and 6.3× in read performance, while maintaining relative L2 errors ∼ 2e-6 throughout continued simulation. These results provide practical guidance for balancing compression accuracy, stability, and computational efficiency in large-scale PDE applications.

Gong, Qian [ORNL] (ORCID:0000000235704142)↗

Imprint of non-linear effects on HI intensity mapping on large scales

Intensity mapping of the HI brightness temperature provides a unique way of tracing large-scale structures of the Universe up to the largest possible scales. This is achieved by using a low angular resolution radio telescopes to detect emission line from cosmic neutral Hydrogen in the post-reionization Universe. We use general relativistic perturbation theory techniques to derive for the first time the full expression for the HI brightness temperature up to third order in perturbation theory without making any plane-parallel approximation. We use this result and the renormalization prescription for biased tracers to study the impact of nonlinear effects on the power spectrum of HI brightness temperature both in real and redshift space. We show how mode coupling at nonlinear order due to nonlinear bias parameters and redshift space distortion terms modulate the power spectrum on large scales. The large scale modulation may be understood to be due to the effective bias parameter and effective shot noise.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Parallel and distributed computation for fault-tolerant object recognition

The distributed associative memory (DAM) model is suggested for distributed and fault-tolerant computation as it relates to object recognition tasks. The fault-tolerance is with respect to geometrical distortions (scale and rotation), noisy inputs, occulsion/overlap, and memory faults. An experimental system was developed for fault-tolerant structure recognition which shows the feasibility of such an approach. The approach is futher extended to the problem of multisensory data integration and applied successfully to the recognition of colored polyhedral objects.

Wechsler, Harry↗

The effect of parallel currents on auroral micropulsations

Field aligned currents play an important role in the global coupling between the magnetosphere and the ionosphere and in their relationship to the auroral phenomena. Moreover, there exists evidence that resonant oscillations are related to large-scale Birkeland currents. The spatial confinement of the field-aligned currents forms an inhomogeneous system susceptible to low-frequency oscillations, which can be excited due to periodic variations in the solar wind pressure or to the Kelvin-Helmholtz (KH) instability. In this paper we present a study of ultralow-frequency (ULF) oscillations in an inhomogeneous magnetic field formed by a large-scale current. We investigate the effects of the field-aligned currents on the generation of localized Alfven waves. The field oscillations are described by an eigenvalue wave equation which includes the effects of the field aligned currents and which produces a discrete spectrum of Alfven waves. These waves are observed mainly in three regions of the magnetosphere: in the magnetosheath, in the polar cusp, and in the plasmasphere. In the present study we limit our investigation to the auroral region.

Tavares, M.↗

A GPU-accelerated package for simulation of flow in nanoporous source rocks with many-body dissipative particle dynamics

Mesoscopic simulations of hydrocarbon flow in source shales are concerning, in part due to the heterogeneous shale pores with sizes ranging from a few nanometers to a few micrometers. Additionally, the sub-continuum fluid–fluid and fluid–solid interactions in nano- to micro-scale shale pores, which are physically and chemically sophisticated, must be captured. To address those challenges, we present a GPU-accelerated package for simulation of flow in nano- to micro-pore networks with a many-body dissipative particle dynamics (mDPD) mesoscale model. Based on a fully distributed parallel paradigm, the code offloads all intensive workloads on GPUs. Other advancements, such as smart particle packing and no-slip boundary condition in complex pore geometries, are also implemented for the construction and the simulation of the realistic shale pores from 3D nanometer-resolution stack images. Our code is validated for accuracy and compared against the CPU counterpart for speedup. In our benchmark tests, the code delivers nearly perfect strong scaling and weak scaling (with up to 512 million particles) on up to 512 K20X GPUs on Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s (ORNL) Titan supercomputer. Moreover, a single-GPU benchmark on ORNL’s SummitDev and IBM’s AC922 suggests that the host-to-device NVLink can boost performance over PCIe by a remarkable 40%. Lastly, we demonstrate, through a flow simulation in realistic shale pores, that the CPU counterpart requires 840 Power9 cores to rival the performance delivered by our package with four V100 GPUs on ORNL’s Summit architecture. This simulation package enables quick-turnaround and high-throughput mesoscopic numerical simulations for exploring complex flow phenomena in nano- to micro-porous rocks with realistic pore geometries.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗