Department Of Energy Office Of Science Research Articles

The United States Department of Energy and National Institutes of Health Collaboration: Medical Care Advances by Discovery in Radiation Detection.

A National Institutes of Health (NIH) and U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science virtual workshop on shared general topics was held in July of 2021 and reported on in this publication in January of 2023. Following the inaugural 2021 joint meeting representatives from the DOE Office of Science and NIH met to discuss organizing a second joint workshop that would concentrate on radiation detection to bring together teams from both agencies and their grantee populations to stimulate collaboration and efficiency. To meet this scientific mission within the NIH and DOE radiation detection space, the organizers assembled workshop sessions covering the state-of-the-art in cameras, detectors, and sensors for radiation external and internal (diagnostic and therapeutic) to human, data acquisition and electronics, image reconstruction and processing, and the application of artificial intelligence. NIH and DOE are committed to continuing the process of convening a joint workshop every 12-24 months. This Special Report recaps the findings of this second workshop. Beyond showing only the innovations and areas of success, important gaps in our knowledge were defined and presented. We summarize by defining four areas of greatest opportunity and need that emerged from the unique, dynamic dialogue the in-person workshop provided the attendees.

Recent H- ion source research and development at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory* *This manuscript has been authored by UT-Battelle, LLC, under contract DE-AC05-00OR22725 with the US Department of Energy (DOE). This research was supported by the DOE Office ofScience, Basic Energy Science, Scientific User Facilities. The US government retains and thepublisher, by accepting the article for publication, acknowledges that

The U.S. Spallation Neutron Source (SNS) is a state-of-the-art neutron scattering facility delivering the world's most intense pulsed neutron beams to a wide array of instruments which are used to conduct investigations in many fields of science and engineering. Neutrons are produced from spallation of liquid Hg by bombardment of short (∼1 μs), intense (∼35 A) pulses of protons delivered at 60 Hz by a storage ring which is fed by a high-intensity, ∼1 GeV H- LINAC. This facility has operated almost continuously since 2006, with ion source performance increasing over those years, and currently providing 50–60 mA of H- ions with a duty-factor of 6% for maintenance-free runs of several months with near 100% availability. Ion source research and development at ORNL has played a key role in enabling and supporting this success: this report provides an update on some of the ongoing ion source research and development efforts which have been undertaken since the previous Negative Ion Beams and Sources (NIBS) conference in 2020. These include significant improvements to H- beam current by extraction from a larger source outlet aperture and improvements to the electron dumping system which should eliminate the gradual loss of electrode voltage over the course of a run which has occasionally impacted SNS operations. Improvement and simplification of the plasma ignition system for the external antenna ion source, a long-standing problem, was also realized. Lastly, RF coupling efficiency was measured for both the SNS internal and external antenna ion sources.

Measurements of dihadron correlations relative to the event plane in Au+Au collisions at GeV * *Supported in part by the Offices of NP and HEP within the U.S. DOE Office of Science, the U.S. NSF, the Sloan Foundation, the DFG cluster of excellence ‘Origin and Structure of the Universe’ of Germany, CNRS/IN2P3, STFC and EPSRC of the United Kingdom, FAPESP

Dihadron azimuthal correlations containing a high transverse momentum ( ) trigger particle are sensitive to the properties of the nuclear medium created at RHIC through the strong interactions occurring between the traversing parton and the medium, i.e. jet-quenching. Previous measurements revealed a strong modification to dihadron azimuthal correlations in Au+Au collisions with respect to p+p and d+Au collisions. The modification increases with the collision centrality, suggesting a path-length or energy density dependence to the jet-quenching effect. This paper reports STAR measurements of dihadron azimuthal correlations in mid-central (20%-60%) Au+Au collisions at GeV as a function of the trigger particle's azimuthal angle relative to the event plane, . The azimuthal correlation is studied as a function of both the trigger and associated particle . The subtractions of the combinatorial background and anisotropic flow, assuming Zero Yield At Minimum (ZYAM), are described. The correlation results are first discussed with subtraction of the even harmonic (elliptic and quadrangular) flow backgrounds. The away-side correlation is strongly modified, and the modification varies with , with a double-peak structure for out-of-plane trigger particles. The near-side ridge (long range pseudo-rapidity correlation) appears to drop with increasing while the jet-like component remains approximately constant. The correlation functions are further studied with the subtraction of odd harmonic triangular flow background arising from fluctuations. It is found that the triangular flow, while responsible for the majority of the amplitudes, is not sufficient to explain the -dependence of the ridge or the away-side double-peak structure. The dropping ridge with could be attributed to a -dependent elliptic anisotropy; however, the physics mechanism of the ridge remains an open question. Even with a -dependent elliptic flow, the away-side correlation structure is robust. These results, with extensive systematic studies of the dihadron correlations as a function of , trigger and associated particle , and the pseudo-rapidity range , should provide stringent inputs to help understand the underlying physics mechanisms of jet-medium interactions in high energy nuclear collisions.

Photoproduction of J/ψ in non-single-diffractive p+p collisions * * Supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (11775213, 11505180, 11675168), the U.S. DOE Office of Science (DE-SC0012704) and MOST (2016YFE0104800)

Significant enhancements of production at very low transverse momenta were recently observed by the ALICE and STAR collaborations in peripheral hadronic A+A collisions. The anomalous excess points to coherent photon-nucleus interactions in violent hadronic heavy-ion collisions, which were conventionally studied only in ultra-peripheral collisions. Assuming that the coherent photoproduction is the underlying mechanism responsible for the excess observed in peripheral A+A collisions, its contribution in p+p collisions with nuclear overlap, i.e. non-single-diffractive collisions, is of particular interest. In this paper, we perform a calculation of exclusive photoproduction in non-single-diffractive p+p collisions at the RHIC and LHC energies based on the pQCD motivated parametrization using the world-wide experimental data, which could be further employed to improve the precision of the phenomenological calculations for photoproduction in A+A collisions. The differential rapidity and transverse momentum distributions of from photoproduction are presented. In comparison with the production from hadronic interactions, we find that the contribution of photoproduction is negligible.

Design, Fabrication, Installation and Commissioning of the Helium Refrigeration system Supporting Superconducting Radio Frequency Testing at Facility for Rare Isotope Beams at Michigan State University

The Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB) will be a scientific user facility for the Office of Nuclear Physics in the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science (DOE-SC). The FRIB linear accelerator (LINAC) will be comprised of cryomodules each with multiple Superconducting Radio Frequency (SRF) cavities operating at 2 K. A helium refrigeration system was designed, fabricated, installed and commissioned in the SRF high bay building to test and certify these cavities and cryomodules before installation in the FRIB LINAC tunnel. The helium refrigeration system includes a helium refrigerator which has nominal capacity of 900 W at 4 K, 5000 L liquid helium storage Dewar, helium gas storage, two room temperature vacuum pumps capable of 2.5 g/s each for 2 K testing, purifier, purifier recovery compressor, and the distribution system for liquid nitrogen and helium. The helium refrigeration system is now operational supporting three below grade cavity testing Dewars and one cryomodule testing bunker meeting the required throughput of 1 cavity per day.

The Exascale Computing Project

The US Department of Energy's (DOE) Exascale Computing Project is a partnership between the DOE Office of Science and the National Nuclear Security Administration. Its mission is to transform today's high-performance computing (HPC) ecosystem by executing a multifaceted plan: developing mission-critical applications of unprecedented complexity; supporting US national security initiatives; partnering with the US HPC industry to develop exascale computer architectures; collaborating with US software vendors to develop a software stack that is both exascale-capable and usable on US industrial- and academic-scale systems; and training the next-generation workforce of computer and computational scientists, engineers, mathematicians, and data scientists.

Facility for Rare Isotope Beams Update for Nuclear Physics News

The Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB) is a major new scientific user facility under construction in the United States for nuclear science research with beams of rare isotopes [1]. FRIB is funded by the United States Department of Energy Office of Science (DOE-SC) and is located on the campus of Michigan State University (MSU), in East Lansing, Michigan, USA. FRIB will support the mission of the Office of Nuclear Physics in the DOE-SC. The total FRIB project cost is $730 million and the facility is scheduled to be completed by 2022. The project has passed the 75% complete mark and is managed toward early completion in 2021. FRIB is estimated to provide access to 80% off all isotopes of elements lighter than uranium.

Battery Materials Exploration with Neutrons and Synchrotron X-Rays

The increasing demands for alternative energy sources and energy storage systems have created a fast growing global market for rechargeable batteries. Extensive research activities are in progress worldwide aiming to develop reliable, cheap, environmentally benign and high-performance materials for advanced rechargeable batteries. Fundamental materials exploration is critical to achieve the next generation battery technology. X-rays and neutrons interact with matter in different ways, thus are frequently used as complementary tools for studying materials at the electronic, atomic and molecular levels. We have been utilizing synchrotron x-ray and neutron techniques to investigate a large variety of materials for energy applications. In this poster, we will present our recent results on both in-situ and ex-situ studies of battery materials using various neutrons and synchrotron x-ray techniques, including diffraction, imaging and spectroscopy. We will also discuss the challenges in battery materials research, and our future experimental approaches and computational modeling. (Use of the Advanced Photon Source was supported by the U.S. DOE Office of Science under Contract No. DE-AC02-06CH11357.)

Rotational band structure inMg32

This material is based upon work supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Nuclear Physics under Contracts No. DE-AC02-05CH11231 (LBNL) and No. DE-AC02-06CH11357 (ANL), by the Department of Energy National Nuclear Security Administration under Award No. DE-N979 and the National Science Foundation (NSF) under PHY-1102511. GRETINA was funded by the U.S. DOE Office of Science. Operation of the array at NSCL is supported by NSF under Cooperative Agreement PHY11-02511 (NSCL) and DOE under Grant No. DE-AC02- 05CH11231 (LBNL). A.P. is partly supported by MINECO (Spain) Grant FPA2014-57196 and Programme “Centros de Excelencia Severo Ochoa” SEV-2012-0249

Parallelization of Diagnostics for Climate Model Development

The parallelization of the diagnostics for climate research has been an important goal in the performance testing and improvement of the diagnostics for the Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Accelerated Climate Modeling for Energy (ACME) project [1]. The primary mission of the ACME project is to build and test the next-generation Earth system model for current and future generations of computing systems operated by the DOE office of science computing facilities, including the envisioned exascale systems foreseen in the early part of the next decade. As part of the underpinning workflow environment, a diagnostics, model metrics, and intercomparison Python framework, called UVC Metrics was created to aid in testing and production execution of the model. This framework builds on common methods and similar metrics to accommodate and diagnose individual component models, such as atmosphere, land, ocean, sea ice, and land ice. This paper reports on initial parallelization of UVC Metrics for the atmosphere model component using two popular frameworks: MPI and SPARK. A timing study is presented to assess the performance of each method in which significant improvement was achieved for both frameworks despite I/O contentions with NFS. The advantages and disadvantages of each framework are also presented.

BREAKING: Obama announces nominees for NSF deputy director, head of DOE Office of Science

BREAKING: Obama announces nominees for NSF deputy director, head of DOE Office of Science

Determining the Diffusivity of Nitrous Oxide in Soil using In Situ Tracers

Soil Sci. Soc. Am. J. 78: 79–88 doi:10.2136/sssaj2013.05.0181 The following acknowledgments should be included in the article: Funding was provided by the US National Science Foundation Long-term Ecological Research (DEB 1027253) and Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant (DEB 1110683) programs, the US DOE Office of Science (DE-FCO2-07ER64494) and Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (DE-ACO5-76RL01830), and MSU AgBioResearch.

Whole-Profile Soil Carbon Stocks: The Danger of Assuming Too Much from Analyses of Too Little

Soil Sci. Soc. Am. J. 75:235–240 doi:10.2136/sssaj2010.0076 The following acknowledgments should be included in the article: Financial support was provided by the U.S. National Science Foundation LTER Program (DEB 1027253), the U.S. DOE Office of Science (DE-FCO2-07ER64494) and Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (DE-ACO5-76RL01830), and MSU AgBioResearch.

TEST OF MODELS OF THE COSMIC INFRARED BACKGROUND WITH MULTIWAVELENGTH OBSERVATIONS OF THE BLAZAR 1ES 1218+30.4 IN 2009

grants from the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science, the U.S. National Science Foundation, and the Smithsonian Institution, by NSERC in Canada, by Science Foundation Ireland (SFI 10/RFP/AST2748), and by STFC in the U.K.

Brinkman to step down as head of DOE Office of Science

Brinkman to step down as head of DOE Office of Science

Synthesis of the plant cell wallˈs most complex glycan: pectin ‐ surprises in glycosyltransferase processing and anchoring in the Golgi

Plant cell walls impart structure and identity to plant cells, have roles in growth, development and defense against microbes, and constitute renewal biomass for biofuel and biomaterial production. Plant walls are comprised of cellulose, the matrix polysaccharides pectin and hemicellulose, cell wall proteins and in many secondary walls, lignin. Pectin is the most structurally complex polysaccharide. The Arabidopsis GAUT1‐related gene family encodes 15 GAUT (GAlactUronosylTransferase) and 10 GATL (GAUT‐Like) proteins that are members of CAZy GT8. GAUT1 is a pectin biosynthetic homogalacturonan (HG):galacturononosyltransferase (GalAT) that is part of a Golgilocalized HG:GalAT GAUT1:GAUT7 core complex. GAUT1 is proteolytically processed and its transmembrane domain removed, leaving the question of how GAUT1 is retained in the Golgi lumen. Biochemical and fluorescent fusion‐protein studies show that GAUT1 is anchored in the Golgi lumen by a reducing agent‐sensitive association with GAUT7. Immunoadsorption of the GAUT1:GAUT7 complex and mass spectrometry identified 12 additional putative GAUT protein complex members whose identities suggest that pectin synthesis may occur as domains. The recent identification of a novel wall glycoconjugate structure is consistent with this view. The data support a role for GAUTs in synthesizing diverse pectic cell wall domains in primary and secondary walls. Funding from USDA AFRI 2010‐65115‐20396; NSF‐MCB 0646109, DOE DE‐FG02‐09ER20097 and BioEnergy Science Center grant DE‐PS02‐06ER64304. BioEnergy Science Center is a U.S. Department of Energy Bioenergy Research Center supported by Office of Biological and Environmental Research in DOE Office of Science.

A Ubiquitous Learning Environment For Molecular Biology

There is widespread agreement on the need to integrate education in physical, mathematical, and life sciences. It is now feasible to create a ubiquitous learning and inquiry environment for providing a comprehensive introduction for biology to physical and mathematical scientists, which can be accessed from everywhere using a networked laptop. This paper proposes such an environment. The didactic portion is organized according to the flow of information among biomolecular systems, starting with the genome and continuing with the processes of transcription, translation, and post-translational modification, and the interaction of gene products to give rise to the cellular phenome and to interactions among cells. Reverse information flow via influence of the environment on the cell completes the information loop, with dynamic responses ranging in time scales from fractions of a second for an emergency response to thousands or millions of years for evolutionary change. The textbook level of understanding can be assembled from the NCBI bookshelf. The ability of students to dig deeper in all subjects is achieved through training in the use of Google Scholar and PubMed to assemble functional bibliographies beginning with seminal papers (early papers with many citations) leading up to the most recent advances, punctuated with review papers. Hands-on interaction with the concepts can be introduced with the use of bioinformatics and molecular modeling tools accessible online, leading to an early experience in computational research and in framing meaningful problems to be attacked experimentally. Physical and mathematical scientists also need an introduction to the granting systems in biology, by being guided through the grants and institutional databases other information at the NIH, NSF, DOE Office of Science, and foundations.

Path to Market for Compact Modular Fusion Power Cores

The benefits of an energy source whose reactants are plentiful and whose products are benign is hard to measure, but at no time in history has this energy source been more needed. Nuclear fusion continues to promise to be this energy source. However, the path to market for fusion systems is still regularly a matter for long-term (20 + year) plans. This white paper is intended to stimulate discussion of faster commercialization paths, distilling guidance from investors, utilities, and the wider energy research community (including from ARPA-E). There is great interest in a small modular fusion system that can be developed quickly and inexpensively. A simple model shows how compact modular fusion can produce a low cost development path by optimizing traditional systems that burn deuterium and tritium, operating not only at high magnetic field strength, but also by omitting some components that allow for the core to become more compact and easier to maintain. The dominant hurdles to the development of low cost, practical fusion systems are discussed, primarily in terms of the constraints placed on the cost of development stages in the private sector. The main finding presented here is that the bridge from DOE Office of Science to the energy market can come at the Proof of Principle development stage, providing the concept is sufficiently compact and inexpensive that its development allows for a normal technology commercialization path.

An Evaluation of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory Cray XT3

In 2005, Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) received delivery of a 5294 processor Cray XT3. The XT3 is Cray's third-generation massively parallel processing system. The ORNL system uses a single-processor node built around the AMD Opteron and uses a custom chip—called SeaStar—for interprocessor communication. The system uses a lightweight operating system called Catamount on its compute nodes. This paper provides a performance evaluation of the Cray XT3, including measurements for micro-benchmark, kernel, and application benchmarks. In particular, we provide performance results for strategic Department of Energy applications areas including climate, biology, astrophysics, combustion, and fusion. Our results, on up to 4096 processors, demonstrate that the Cray XT3 provides competitive processor performance, high interconnect bandwidth, and high parallel efficiency on a diverse application workload, typical in the DOE Office of Science.

Thermoacoustics and thermal dissociation of water

Near 2600 K, 10% of water molecules are thermally dissociated at atmospheric pressure, with a reaction time constant below 1 ms. Such temperatures can be reached with focused sunlight. To use this endothermic reaction for the production of hydrogen, the hydrogen must be separated from the oxygen at high temperature, because they would quickly recombine to form water again, if the unseparated mixture were simply returned to lower temperatures. We have considered thermoacoustic mixture separation for this purpose. Our calculations show that the thermal-diffusion ratios are high enough to yield steadily flowing streams of hydrogen-enriched steam and oxygen-enriched steam in a separation channel less than a wavelength long. However, the thermoacoustic power density in 1-bar steam is low, so the required apparatus would be large, needing alot of expensive and fragile high-temperature material, such as calcia-stabilized zirconia. Our estimates show that this approach to solar hydrogen production would be approximately 30 times more expensive than solar-Stirling electricity generation driving traditional water electrolysis. [Work supported by DOE Office of Science.]