Physics Commons^™

Applications Of Independent And Identically Distributed (Iid) Random Processes In Polarimetry And Climatology, Dan Kestner

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

The unifying theme of this thesis is the characterization of “perfect randomness,” i.e., independent and identically distributed (IID) stochastic processes as these are applied in physical science. Two specific and mathematically distinct applications are chosen: (i) Radar and optical polarimetry; (ii) Analysis of time series in meteorology. In (i), IID process of a special kind, namely, with a distribution defined by symmetry, is used to link its multivariate Gaussian density to uniformity on the Poincaré sphere. This “statistical ellipsometry” approach is then used to relate polarimetric mismatches or imbalances to ellipsometric variables and suitably chosen cross-correlation measures. In (ii), recently …

Les-C Turbulence Models And Fluid Flow Modeling: Analysis And Application To Incompressible Turbulence And Fluid-Fluid Interaction, Kyle J. Schwiebert

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

In the first chapter of this dissertation, we give some background on the Navier-Stokes equations and turbulence modeling. The next two chapters in this dissertation focus on two important numerical difficulties arising in fluid flow modeling: poor mass-conservation and nonphysical oscillations. We investigate two different formulations of the Crank-Nicolson method for the Navier-Stokes equations. The most attractive implementation, second order accurate for both velocity and pressure, is shown to introduce non-physical oscillations. We then propose two options which are shown to avoid the poor behavior. Next, we show that grad-div stabilization, previously assumed to have no effect on the target …

Dependence Of Energy Transfer On Curvature Similarity In Collisions Involving Curved Shock Fronts, Justin Cassell

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

In high-speed collisions of projectiles, pressure exerted by a resulting shock wave is so high that even solids begin to flow and hydrodynamics becomes relevant. Jetting results from hydrodynamic instability driving the evolution of an interface following shock loading. Our emphasis in this dissertation is mitigation of instabilities via several shocks and, specifically, the transfer of energy from a shock wave to another object. To that end, in 2022 and 2023 while on-site, we adapted Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) to explore the effects of shock front geometry on the transfer of energy during shock collisions via numerous computer simulations. …

Study Of Electronic And Magnetic Properties Of Bilayer Graphene Nanoflakes And Bimetallic Chalcogenides Using First-Principles Density Functional Theory And Machine Learning, Dharmendra Pant

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Graphene, a one-atom-thick material, has been a wonder material since its discovery because of its superlative electronic, mechanical, and optical properties. When a layer of graphene is rotated over another layer, it exhibits many intriguing behaviors, ranging from superconductivity to the anomalous Hall effect to ferromagnetism at a magic angle of 1°, and hence the twisted bilayer graphene has been the subject of intense research in recent years. The surge in interest in this moiré structure can be attributed to the emergence of electronic flat minibands near the magic angle. Here, we studied the electronic and magnetic properties of twisted …

Tracing The Most Powerful Galactic Cosmic-Ray Accelerators With The Hawc Observatory, Dezhi Huang

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Since Victor Hess's groundbreaking detection of cosmic rays in the Earth's atmosphere in 1912, the origins of these charged particles have remained an enduring mystery. Recent studies suggest that these cosmic rays are accelerated beyond Peta electronvolts by powerful astrophysical sources within our own galaxy. While the cosmic rays themselves are being deflected in all directions by magnetic fields, the gamma rays produced by them, being electrically neutral, travel to the observer in a straight line. They carry crucial information, allowing us to trace cosmic-ray accelerators within our galaxy. The High Altitude Water Chrenkov (HAWC) Observatory, located on the slopes …

On The Gaussian-Core Vortex Lattice Model For The Analysis Of Wind Farm Flow Dynamics, Apurva Baruah

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Wind power science has seen tremendous development and growth over the last 40 years. Advancements in design, manufacturing, installation, and operation of wind turbines have enabled the commercial deployment of wind power generation systems. These have been due, in a large part, to the expertise in the simulation and modeling of individual wind turbines. The new generation of wind energy systems calls for a need to accurately predict and model the entire wind farm, and not just individual turbines. The commercial deployment of these wind farms depends on model's ability to accurately capture the different physics involved, each at its …

Physical, Optical, And Chemical Properties Of Light Absorbing Aerosols And Their Climatic Impacts, Susan Mathai

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Aerosols are particles suspended in the atmosphere; they are emitted during natural phenomena such as dust storms, wildfires, and volcanic eruptions, and during anthropogenic activities like household wood burning, vehicles operations, and industrial productions, or they can form in the atmosphere from gas to particle partition. Aerosols impact earth’s weather and climate by absorbing and scattering the incoming solar and the outgoing earth thermal radiation and interacting with clouds. The optical properties of aerosols evolve as the chemical and physical properties vary during their residence in the atmosphere. In addition, the aerosols’ properties strongly depend on the vertical distribution in …

Surface Reconstruction In Iron Garnets, Sushree Dash

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

This dissertation presents the results of a study investigating the physical mechanisms underlying an unexpectedly large increase in magneto-optic efficiency observed in iron garnet. Such materials are technologically important for telecommunications due to their nonreciprocal optical action. In the past, our group had found evidence of an enhanced Faraday rotation in bismuth-substituted iron garnet films less than 50 nm thick. Subsequent investigation revealed that this enhancement could be traced to surface effects. This is significant because understanding these phenomena could be used to formulate engineering solutions for device miniaturization. In this dissertation, we present the result of a research project …

Optical And Single Particle Properties Of North Atlantic Free Tropospheric Aerosols And Implications For Aerosol Direct Radiative Forcing, Megan Morgenstern

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Human-induced climate change has steadily become a reality rather than a possibility. One factor that plays into climate change is radiative forcing due to aerosol-radiation interactions (ARI). As such, it is important to understand how aerosols (atmospheric particles) interact with solar radiation. This work looks at seven samples of well-aged aerosols (aerosols traveling in the atmosphere for at least a few days) collected at Pico Mountain Observatory in the summer of 2015. Pico Mountain Observatory is located in a remote, high elevation site in the Azores, in the Eastern-North Atlantic Ocean. The goals of the study were to analyze the …

Design And Analysis Of Marangoni-Driven Robotic Surfers, Mitchel L. Timm

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

We designed and experimentally studied the dynamics of two robotic systems that surf along the water-air interface. The robots were self-propelled by means of creating and maintaining a surface tension gradient resulting from an asymmetric release of isopropyl alcohol (IPA). The imbalance in the distribution of surface tension surrounding the robots generates a propulsive force commonly referred to as Marangoni propulsion. First, we considered a single surfer, which was custom-made with novel control mechanisms that allow for both forward motion and steering to be remotely adjusted solely through the manipulation of local surface stresses. We analyzed the performance of this …

Collective Hydrodynamics Of Robotic Fish, Rohit S. Pandhare

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Many animals in nature travel in groups either for protection, survival, or endurance. Among these, fish do so under the burden of hydrodynamic loads, which incites questions as to the significance of the multi-body fluid-mediated interactions that facilitate collective swimming. We study such interactions in the idealized setting of a rotational array of robotic fish whose tails undergo a prescribed flapping motion, but whose swimming speed is determined as a natural result of the hydrodynamic effects. Specifically, we examine how the measured collective speed of the swimmers varies with the imposed frequency and amplitude of their tail flapping, and with …

A Surrogate Model Of Molecular Dynamics Simulations For Polar Fluids: Supervised Learning Methods For Molecular Polarization And Unsupervised Methods For Phase Classification, Zackerie W. Hjorth

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Molecular Dynamic (MD) simulation is a standard computational tool in soft matter physics. While very powerful, it is computationally expensive, leading to some simulations taking days or even weeks to complete depending on the size of your computer cluster. Finding computationally cheap surrogate models which can learn the output features of MD simulation is therefore highly motivated. In this report I explore the use of deep neural network ensembles as well as support vector machine regressors as surrogate models for MD simulation. From the output of the surrogate models, we can then employ unsupervised learning methods to get insight into …

Searching For Anomalous Extensive Air Showers Using The Pierre Auger Observatory Fluorescence Detector, Andrew Puyleart

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Anomalous extensive air showers have yet to be detected by cosmic ray observatories. Fluorescence detectors provide a way to view the air showers created by cosmic rays with primary energies reaching up to hundreds of EeV . The resulting air showers produced by these highly energetic collisions can contain features that deviate from average air showers. Detection of these anomalous events may provide information into unknown regions of particle physics, and place constraints on cross-sectional interaction lengths of protons. In this dissertation, I propose measurements of extensive air shower profiles that are used in a machine learning pipeline to distinguish …

Theoretical Investigation On Optical Properties Of 2d Materials And Mechanical Properties Of Polymer Composites At Molecular Level, Geeta Sachdeva

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

The field of two-dimensional (2D) layered materials provides a new platform for studying diverse physical phenomena that are scientifically interesting and relevant for technological applications. Theoretical predictions from atomically resolved computational simulations of 2D materials play a pivotal role in designing and advancing these developments. The focus of this thesis is 2D materials especially graphene and BN studied using density functional theory (DFT) and molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. In the first half of the thesis, the electronic structure and optical properties are discussed for graphene, antimonene, and borophene. It is found that the absorbance in (atomically flat) multilayer antimonene (group …

The Variability Of The Saturation Ratio In Clouds, Jesse C. Anderson

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

The saturation ratio determines the growth of cloud droplets by condensation and activation of aerosol particles. In a uniform environment, the interactions between the saturation ratio and cloud droplets are well understood. However, the presence of turbulent mixing causes spatial and temporal variability in the temperature, water vapor and the saturation ratio. When applied to a cloud, the variability in S has been shown to broaden the cloud droplet size distribution through each droplet having its own growth rate and history. When droplets grow by condensation or evaporation, water vapor and heat feedback with the environment, altering the distribution of …

Machine Learning-Driven Surrogate Models For Electrolytes, Tong Gao

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

We have developed a lattice Monte Carlo (MC) simulation based on the diffusion-limited aggregation model that accounts for the effect of the physical properties of ionic liquids (ILs) on lithium dendrite growth. Our simulations show that the size asymmetry between the cation and anion, the dielectric constant, and the volume fraction of ILs are critical factors to significantly suppress the dendrite growth, primarily due to substantial changes in electric-field screening. Specifically, the volume fraction of ILs has the optimal value for dendrite suppression. The present simulation method indicates potential challenges for the model extension to macroscopic systems. Therefore, we also …

Improving The Temporal Accuracy Of Turbulence Models And Resolving The Implementation Issues Of Fluid Flow Modeling, Kyle J. Schwiebert

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

A sizeable proportion of the work in this thesis focuses on a new turbulence model, dubbed ADC (the approximate deconvolution model with defect correction). The ADC is improved upon using spectral deferred correction, a means of constructing a higher order ODE solver. Since both the ADC and SDC are based on a predictor-corrector approach, SDC is incorporated with essentially no additional computational cost. We will show theoretically and using numerical tests that the new scheme is indeed higher order in time than the original, and that the benefits of defect correction, on which the ADC is based, are preserved.

The …

Multiscale Investigation Of Dropwise Condensation On A Smooth Hydrophilic Surface, Shahab Bayani Ahangar

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

The objective of this work is to identify the fundamental mechanism of dropwise condensation on a smooth solid surface by probing the solid-vapor interface during phase-change to evaluate the existence and structure of the thin film and the initial nucleus that develop during condensation. In this work, an automated Surface Plasmon Resonance imaging (SPRi) instrument with the ability to perform imaging in intensity modulation and angular modulation is developed. The SPRi instrument is used to probe (in three dimensions) the adsorbed film that forms on the substrate during dropwise condensation. SPRi with a lateral resolution of ~ 4-10 μm, thickness …

Investigating Ice Nucleation At Negative Pressures Using Molecular Dynamics: A First Order Approximation Of The Dependence Of Ice Nucleation Rate On Pressure, Elise Rosky

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Atmospheric scientists and climate modelers are faced with uncertainty around the process of ice production in clouds. While significant progress has been made in predicting homogeneous and heterogeneous ice nucleation rates as a function of temperature, recent experiments have shown that ice nucleation rates can be enhanced without decreasing temperature, through various mechanical agitations. One hypothesis for these findings is that mechanisms of stretching water and thereby inducing negative pressure in the liquid could lead to an increase in freezing rate. To better understand the viability of this concept, the effect of negative pressure on ice nucleation rates needs to …

Superresolution Enhancement With Active Convolved Illumination, Anindya Ghoshroy

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

The first two decades of the 21st century witnessed the emergence of “metamaterials”. The prospect of unrestricted control over light-matter interactions was a major contributing factor leading to the realization of new technologies and advancement of existing ones. While the field certainly does not lack innovative applications, widespread commercial deployment may still be several decades away. Fabrication of sophisticated 3d micro and nano structures, specially for telecommunications and optical frequencies will require a significant advancement of current technologies. More importantly, the effects of absorption and scattering losses will require a robust solution since this renders any conceivable application of metamaterials …

Light Field Compression And Manipulation Via Residual Convolutional Neural Network, Eisa Hedayati

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Light field (LF) imaging has gained significant attention due to its recent success in microscopy, 3-dimensional (3D) displaying and rendering, augmented and virtual reality usage. Postprocessing of LF enables us to extract more information from a scene compared to traditional cameras. However, the use of LF is still a research novelty because of the current limitations in capturing high-resolution LF in all of its four dimensions. While researchers are actively improving methods of capturing high-resolution LF's, using simulation, it is possible to explore a high-quality captured LF's properties. The immediate concerns following the LF capture are its storage and processing …

Modeling And Numerical Simulations Of The Michigan Tech Convection Cloud Chamber, Subin Thomas

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Understanding atmospheric clouds is essential for human progress, ranging from short-term effects such as when and how much it rains to long-term effects such as how much temperatures would rise due to global climate change. Clouds vary globally and seasonally; also they have length scales ranging from a few nanometers to a few kilometers and timescales from a few nanoseconds to a few weeks. Knowledge gaps in aerosol-cloud-turbulence interactions and a lack of sufficient resolution in observations pose a challenge in understanding cloud systems.

Experimental facilities like the Michigan Tech Cloud Chamber can provide a suitable platform for studying aerosol-cloud …

A Computational Study Of Properties Of Core-Shell Nanowire Heterostructures Using Density Functional Theory, Sandip Aryal

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Nanoscale systems, especially the one-dimensional semiconducting nanowires, have been the subject of immense research interests due to their potential applications in nanoelectronics and optoelectronics that demand cheaper, smaller, faster, and energy-efficient components. In particular, the core/shell nanostructures, in which the core materials are shielded by materials with larger bandgap called shell, have been shown to enhance the performance of field effect transistors (FETs), solar cells, light emitting diodes (LEDs), and thermoelectric devices due to their outstanding features like valence band offset between the core and shell, higher stability against oxidation, reduction in the surface trap states, diminished nonradiative recombination processes, …

Understanding The Effects Of Water Vapor And Temperature On Aerosol Using Novel Measurement Methods, Tyler Jacob Capek

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Aerosol and water are inexorably linked, and both are ubiquitous within our atmosphere and required components for cloud formation. Relative humidity (RH), a temperature dependent quantity, can have a significant influence on the size, shape, and ultimately, the optical properties of the aerosol. RH can vary substantially on small spatial and short temporal scales in turbulent conditions due to rapid fluctuations in temperature and water vapor mixing ratio. Accurate assessment of optical enhancements due to an increase in RH is key for determining the particles’ impact on the climate and visibility.

A humidity-controlled cavity attenuated phase-shift albedometer (H-CAPS-PM_SSA) …

Magnetism In Γ-Fesi2 Nanostructures: A First Principles Study, Sahil Dhoka

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

First-principles calculations are performed on γ-FeSi₂ nanostructures grown on Si (111) and (001) substrate. An attempt to explain the origin of emergent magnetic properties of the metastable gamma phase of iron di-silicide (γ-FeSi₂) is made, which show ferromagnetic behavior on nanoscale, unlike its possible bulk form. Many papers try to explain this magnetism from factors like bulk, epitaxial strain, interface, surface, edges, and corners but doesn’t provide an analytical study for these explanations. Density functional theory is used to analyze the magnetic effects of these factors. The results for the epitaxial structures show no magnetic behavior for …

Optical Dispersion Relations From Three-Dimensional Chiral Gold Nanocubes In Periodic Arrays, Manpreet Boora

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Chiral metamaterials are artificially tailored materials that are composed of nanoparticles that lack in-plane mirror symmetry. Application of chirality to plasmonic nanostructures can lead to chiro-optical effects such as asymmetric transmission of circularly polarized light, circular dichroism and optical activity. When light is incident on metallic nanoparticles, conduction electrons undergo collective oscillations within the nanoparticles, resulting in localized surface plasmon (LSP) resonance. Surface lattice resonances (SLRs) are hybrid plasmonic-photonic modes arising from the radiative coupling between LSPs and electromagnetic waves diffracted in the plane of the periodic array. Because of the collective dipole interactions, SLRs have less radiative losses compared …

Optical Vortex And Poincaré Analysis For Biophysical Dynamics, Anindya Majumdar

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Coherent light - such as that from a laser - on interaction with biological tissues, undergoes scattering. This scattered light undergoes interference and the resultant field has randomly added phases and amplitudes. This random interference pattern is known as speckles, and has been the subject of multiple applications, including imaging techniques. These speckle fields inherently contain optical vortices, or phase singularities. These are locations where the intensity (or amplitude) of the interference pattern is zero, and the phase is undefined.

In the research presented in this dissertation, dynamic speckle patterns were obtained through computer simulations as well as laboratory setups …

Optimization And Control Of Arrays Of Wave Energy Converters, Jianyang Lyu

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Wave Energy Converter Array is a practical approach to harvest ocean wave energy. To leverage the potential of the WEC array in terms of energy extraction, it is essential to have a properly designed array configuration and control system. This thesis explores the optimal configuration of Wave Energy Converters (WECs) arrays and their optimal control. The optimization of the WEC array allows both dimensions of individual WECs as well as the array layout to varying. In the first optimization problem, cylindrical buoys are assumed in the array where their radii and drafts are optimization parameters. Genetic Algorithms are used for …

Energy Transfer Between Eu2+ And Mn2+ For Na(Sr,Ba)Po4 And Ba2mg(Bo3)2, Kevin Bertschinger

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

There is no debate of the affect that solid-state lighting has had on the world we live in. Throughout the centuries, lighting has continued to improve from kerosene lanterns to white light emitting diodes. Even though lighting today is sufficient there is still much room to improve color rendering index and efficiency. An active area of research to improve today's lighting technology is by doping inorganic phosphors with luminescent ion centers. There have been numerous reports of inorganic phosphors showing a variety of emission color and luminescence. In this thesis we discuss two new inorganic phosphors codoped with Eu^{2+ …}

The Solvation Energy Of Ions In A Stockmayer Fluid, Cameron John Shock

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

The solvation of ions in polar solvents has been a long studied system since the early twentieth century. A common technique to calculate the energy associated with ion solvation is the Born Solvation energy equation. This equation assumes an ion is placed in an incompressible, homogeneous dielectric, which is not necessarily representative of a real system. In this work the Stockmayer Fluid Model is used in a molecular dynamics simulation through the software LAMMPS to check the quantitative correctness of the Born equation. It is also shown how solvation energies of ions placed in polymerized and non-polymerized solvents differ. It …