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Harnessing Coherent-Wave Control For Sensing Applications, Pablo Jara, Arthur Goetschy, Hui Cao, Alexey Yamilov

Physics Faculty Research & Creative Works

Imaging techniques such as functional near-infrared spectroscopy and diffuse optical tomography (DOT) achieve deep, noninvasive sensing in turbid media; however, they are constrained by the photon budget, as most of the injected light is lost to scattering before reaching the detector. Wavefront shaping (WFS) can enhance signal strength via interference at specific locations within scattering media, enhancing light-matter interactions and potentially extending the penetration depth of these techniques. Interpretation of the resulting measurements relies on knowing the optical sensitivity - the relationship between changes in the detected signals and perturbations at a specific location inside the medium; however, conventional diffusion-based …

Living Shoreline Prioritization And Hydrodynamic Habitat Suitability Models For Restoration In The Indian River Lagoon And Lake Worth Lagoon, Florida, Kelly M. Kibler, Melinda J. Donnelly, Vincent Encomio, Madison Giuntoli, Manisha Thenuwara, Brice Bennett, Laura Andrade Barron, Mariam Sonbol, Wynter Raine Seppala, Namritha Ramakrishnan, Jennifer Jordan Báez, Beth Orlando, Irene Arpayoglou, Melissa Meisenburg

Indian River Lagoon Shorelines

The spatial dataset: UCF_shorelinemodel_IRL_LWL.shp, was created with support from the Indian River Lagoon National Estuaries Program and Florida Sea Grant. These projects cumulatively led to creation of a living shoreline restoration prioritization model and hydrodynamic habitat suitability models for 1,550 km (963 miles) of estuarine shorelines in Indian River Lagoon and Lake Worth Lagoon.

The dataset presented herein includes:

1. shoreline data from >15,000 transects collected in the field,
2. shoreline wave climate data created through hydrodynamic modeling and frequency analysis of historic data,
3. categorization of potential risk for shoreline boat wake impact,
4. persistence of seagrass within 210 m of the shoreline, …

Universal Crackling Noise Links Plasticity In Nanoindentation With Compression In Metallic Glasses, Jordan Sickle, Wesley H. Higgins, Kerry A. Baker, Mayisha Nakib, Xiaojun Gu, George M. Pharr, Wendelin Wright, Karin A. Dahmen

Faculty Journal Articles

For decades, compression tests have been a standard method for identifying materials properties. However, these tests are slow, destructive, and require fabricating multiple potentially expensive bulk samples. Nanoindentation is fast, almost non-destructive, and requires only a single sample, to which large numbers of indents can be applied. Furthermore, nanoindentation is widely applicable, even to materials that are too brittle for traditional compression tests. Here, we show that nanoindentation is sufficient for extracting much of the same information that is measured in traditional sample compression tests in metallic glasses. The dynamics and statistics of the plasticity of two types of metallic …

Determination Of Variations In Orbital Parameters Of Sample Of Satellites Through Spacecraft Tracking, Asma Ali Alasmari

Theses

The continues increasing density of Resident Space Objects (RSOs) in Earth’s orbit highlights the crucial need for Space Situational Awareness (SSA). This thesis studies the orbital changes in two regions, active low Earth orbit (LEO) satellites and inactive geostationary Earth orbit (GEO) satellites. For LEO satellites we used publicly available data (two line element TLE from Space-Track) and ASTRIAGraph. We verified the orbital elements series and time ordered them, applied a Hampel (median+MAD) mask to semi-major axis, eccentricity vector and inclination to find outliers and exclude them from event detection. The events are then detected using time normalized slopes and …

The Role Of Atmospheric Turbulence On Cloud Droplet Distribution And Droplet Impaction On An Airfoil, Arash Shad, Hashnayne Ahmed, ‪Nadim Zgheib, S. Balachandar, S. A. Sherif

Mechanical Engineering Faculty Publications

We conduct turbulence-informed Euler–Lagrange simulations of droplet-laden flow to examine the effects of atmospheric turbulence on droplet impingement characteristics on a NACA 0012 airfoil. We implement statistical overloading, whereby we inject millions of droplets, ranging in diameter from 1 to 160 microns, upstream of the airfoil at an average streamwise velocity of 120 m/s. Within a fraction of a second, these droplets would have either impinged on the airfoil or continued downstream. While the incoming air flow is maintained uniform, droplet injection is informed by ambient turbulence, affecting both the droplet velocity distribution as well as the size-dependent preferential concentration …

Gw241011 And Gw241110: Exploring Binary Formation And Fundamental Physics With Asymmetric, High-Spin Black Hole Coalescences, A. G. Abac, I. Abouelfettouh, Teviet Creighton, Mario C. Diaz, R. Espinosa, J. Lawrence, Francisco Llamas Villarreal, Soma Mukherjee, Volker Quetschke, Miriam Ramos Arevalo, Wenhui Wang

Physics & Astronomy Faculty Publications

We report the observation of gravitational waves from two binary black hole coalescences during the fourth observing run of the LIGO–Virgo–KAGRA detector network, GW241011 and GW241110. The sources of these two signals are characterized by rapid and precisely measured primary spins, nonnegligible spin–orbit misalignment, and unequal mass ratios between their constituent black holes. These properties are characteristic of binaries in which the more massive object was itself formed from a previous binary black hole merger and suggest that the sources of GW241011 and GW241110 may have formed in dense stellar environments in which repeated mergers can take place. As the …

Be+ Assisted, Simultaneous Confinement Of More Than 15000 Antihydrogen Atoms, Tim Tharp

Physics Faculty Research and Publications

Antihydrogen, the bound state of a positron and an antiproton, is the only pure anti-atomic system ever studied. It is produced exclusively in the laboratory, as it has never been observed in nature. This unique system is of great interest for searching for tentative differences between matter and antimatter. Antihydrogen has been routinely trapped since 2010 and accumulated since 2017, enabling, for example, the first precision spectroscopic study of the anti-atom in 2018 and the first observation of the influence of gravity in 2023. Here we report an eight-fold increase in the trapping rate of antihydrogen, enabled by sympathetic cooling …

Applying Machine Learning Methods To Laser Acceleration Of Protons: Synthetic Data For Exploring The High Repetition Rate Regime, John J. Felice, Ronak Desai, Nathaniel Tamminga, Joseph R. Smith, Alona Kryshchenko, Christopher M. Orban, Michael L. Dexter, Anil K. Patnaik

Faculty Publications

Advances in ultra‐intense laser technology have increased repetition rates and average power for chirped‐pulse laser systems, which offer a promising solution for many applications including energetic proton sources. An important challenge is the need to optimize and control the proton source by varying some of the many degrees of freedom inherent to the laser‐plasma interactions. Machine learning can play an important role in this task, as our work examines. Building on our earlier work in Desai et al. 2024, we generate a large ∼1.5 million data point synthetic data set for proton acceleration using a physics‐informed analytic model that we …

Constraining Deviations From The Kerr Metric Via A Bumpy Parametrization And Particle Swarm Optimization In Extreme Mass-Ratio Inspirals, Xiaobo Zou, Xingyu Zhong, Wen-Biao Han, Soumya D. Mohanty

Physics & Astronomy Faculty Publications

The measurement of deviations in the Kerr metric using gravitational-wave observations will provide a clear signal of new physics. Previous studies have developed multiple parametrizations (e.g., “bumpy” spacetime) to characterize such deviations in extreme mass-ratio inspirals (EMRIs). These approaches often rely on the Fisher information matrix (FIM) formalism to quantify the constraining power of future space-borne gravitational-wave detectors, such as LISA and Tianqin. For instance, using the analytical kludge waveform model under varying source configurations, such methods have achieved constraint sensitivity levels ranging from 10−4 to 10−2 on the dimensionless bumpy parameter 𝛿⁢˜𝑄 for LISA. In this paper, we advance …

Enzymes Of Calendula Officinalis L. As Affected By Foliar Application Of Nano-Nitrogen And Potassium Fertilizers, Under Water Stress Conditions, Aqeel Abdulabbas Alsudani, Qais Hussain Abbas Al-Semmak

Karbala International Journal of Modern Science

Water stress is a major environmental factor that limits the growth and productivity of Calendula officinalis L. To alleviate its negative effects, recent approaches have increasingly focused on nano-fertilizers that enhance plant antioxidant defenses. This study therefore aimed to evaluate the effect of foliar application of nano-nitrogen (0, 2, and 4 mL L⁻¹) and nano-potassium (0, 2, and 4 g L⁻¹) fertilizers under two irrigation regimes (100% and 50% of field capacity) on the activity of key antioxidant enzymes, including catalase (CAT), superoxide dismutase (SOD), and peroxidase (POD). The results revealed that irrigation at 50% field capacity significantly increased CAT, …

Reliable Detection Of Sf6breakdown Byproducts Using 2d Non-Hexagonal Carbon Allotrope Nanosheets, Pedro Elias Priori Spalenza, Fábio Arthur Leão De Souza, Debora C.M. Rodrigues, Rodrigo G. Amorim, Cesar E.P. Villegas, Wanderlã L. Scopel, Ravindra Pandey

Michigan Tech Publications

Sulfur hexafluoride (SF6), widely used as an insulating gas in the power industry, decomposes during long-term operation into byproducts such as H2S, SO2, SO2F2, and SOF2. Reliable detection of these compounds is essential, since their type and concentration provide diagnostic signatures of faults in gas-insulated switchgear. We employ density functional theory combined with nonequilibrium Green’s function calculations to evaluate pristine two-dimensional carbon allotropes with nonhexagonal rings, namely Graphene+, T-graphene, and Biphenylene, as potential field-effect nanosensors. To characterize the surfaces’ atomic structures, we simulated scanning tunneling microscopy images for filled states. Each surface exhibits a distinct brightness pattern that allows its …

Investigating Characteristic Droplet Size Distributions In Large Eddy Simulations Of Stratocumulus Clouds, Nithin Allwayin, Daniel J. Miller, Kamal Kant Chandrakar, Michael L. Larsen, Raymond A. Shaw

Michigan Tech Publications

Cloud processes relevant to radiative and precipitation properties depend on the shape of the cloud droplet size distribution. Recent holographic observations revealed that cloud droplet populations do not have the same size distribution shapes throughout but form regions of characteristic distributions with similar microphysical properties. We investigate the existence and properties of these characteristic distributions within Large-Eddy Simulations of stratocumulus clouds using Lagrangian and bin microphysics schemes. Distribution types are identified, revealing localized characteristic distributions that vary on the scale of the largest convective cell for simulations with bin microphysics. The results from the Lagrangian microphysics scheme hint at similar …

Assessment Of Tumour Control Probability And Equivalent Uniform Dose In Conventional 3d-Crt Vs. Hypo-Fractionated Imrt, Jumaa D. Kisukari, Mwingereza J. Kumwenda, Khamis O. Amour, Ehab M. Attalla, Emmanuel Lugina

Tanzania Journal of Science

Hypo-fractionated (HF) radiotherapy offers a promising solution to improve access to cancer treatment in resource-limited settings, such as developing countries, by reducing the number of treatment sessions compared to conventional fractionation (CF). For effective implementation, evaluating Equivalent Uniform Dose (EUD) and Tumour Control Probability (TCP) is essential to ensure treatment efficacy across different radiotherapy techniques. This study compares treatment plans generated using Three-Dimensional Conformal Radiation Therapy with Conventional Fractionation (3D-CRT CF) and Intensity Modulated Radiation Therapy with Hypo-fractionation (IMRT HF) in patients with localized prostate cancer. A total of 50 patients were CT-simulated, and their images were imported into a …

Heavy Metal Contamination And Health Risks In Katoro's Artisanal Gold Mining Soils, Tanzania, Innocent J. Lugendo, Venance Mwesiga

Tanzania Journal of Science

This study assessed heavy metal contamination in surface soils from artisanal gold mining areas in Katoro, Tanzania, evaluating ecological and human health risks. Thirty-six soil samples were systematically collected from three mining villages (Bingwa, Isenye, and CCM) at varying distances ranging from 30 to 90 m from active mining pits alongside twelve control samples from a non-mining area for comparison purposes. Concentrations of Cr, Cu, Ni, Zn, Pb, and As in soil samples were analyzed using energy-dispersive X-ray fluorescence spectrometry (EDXRF). Results revealed severe contamination, with Cr (117–1255 mg/kg), Cu (81–104 mg/kg), and Ni (89–271 mg/kg) exceeding permissible limits. The …

Rainwater Harvesting For Domestic Use In Suburb Areas Of Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania: A Case Study Of Wazo Hill, Scholastica S. Ishengoma, Mahir Mohammed Said, Neema O. Msuya

Tanzania Journal of Science

Despite the increasing reliance of rainwater harvesting in semi-urban areas, there is a lack of comprehensive localized data on the safety of harvested rainwater, particularly in areas such as Wazo Hill where communities predominantly depend on it. This study evaluates the quality of harvested rooftop rainwater intended for human consumption and assesses its compliance with the World health Organization (WHO) and Draft East Africa Standards (DEAS) for drinking water. Rainwater samples were collected from various catchment surfaces and storage systems located in Wazo Hill, Tanzania. A stratified random sampling technique was employed to select the households equipped with rainwater harvesting …

Dynamic Lqr Control For Improved Dc Link Voltage Stability In Grid-Integrated Solar Pv System, Peter Makolo, Mwanajuma Gora, Francis Mwasilu, Jackson Justo

Tanzania Journal of Science

The integration of photovoltaic (PV) systems into power grids poses a significant challenge to voltage stability, especially at the DC link. Fluctuations in solar irradiance directly cause power variations and instability in this critical interface. If not properly controlled, this variability can lead to inefficiencies, equipment damage, and widespread grid disturbances. To address the abovementioned challenge, this paper proposes a dynamic converter control strategy designed to enhance DC link voltage stability in grid-integrated solar PV system. The core of the proposed control system is based on a Linear Quadratic Regulator (LQR) mechanism, implemented within a two-stage, PV grid connected system …

Design Of High-Performance Synchronous Reluctance Motor For Hybrid Electric Vehicle Application, Fred Loita, Jackson Justo

Tanzania Journal of Science

This paper presents the simulation-based design of a synchronous reluctance motor (SynRM) coupled electromechanical system suitable for the hybrid electric vehicle. The study considers SynRM with a 75kW power rating with the capability to produce up to 125kW maximum power for the electric vehicle. The focus is mainly on rotor and stator design; the angles of the flux-barrier ends are considered to reduce the torque ripple due to the slot harmonics. Reluctance machines are indeed competitive for applications requiring high efficiency at low cost. However, it is a challenging task to find design solutions that ensure structural integrity of the …

Gw231123: A Binary Black Hole Merger With Total Mass 190–265 M⊙, A. G. Abac, I. Abouelfettouh, Teviet Creighton, Mario C. Diaz, R. Espinosa, J. Lawrence, Francisco Llamas Villarreal, Soma Mukherjee, Volker Quetschke, Miriam Ramos Arevalo, Wenhui Wang

Physics & Astronomy Faculty Publications

On 2023 November 23 the two LIGO observatories both detected GW231123, a gravitational-wave signal consistent with the merger of two black holes with masses and (90\% credible intervals), at luminosity distance 0.7-4.1 Gpc and redshift of , and a network signal-to-noise ratio of 20.7. Both black holes exhibit high spins, and respectively. A massive black hole remnant is supported by an independent ringdown analysis. Some properties of GW231123 are subject to large systematic uncertainties, as indicated by differences in inferred parameters between signal models. The primary black hole lies within or above the theorized mass gap where black holes between …

Effect Of Au Nanoparticles Doping On The Structure, Surface Morphology And Optical Properties Of Znago Nanorods, Mohsin Talib Mohammed, Salah M. Saleh Al-Khazali, Bassam A. Salih, Adel H. Omran Alkhayatt

Karbala International Journal of Modern Science

In this work, nanoparticles (NPs) composed of noble elements (Au and Ag) were prepared using a chemical reduction method and then combined with a spray pyrolysis technique for synthesizing ZnAgO and Au-doped ZnAgO nanorods (NRs). The films were produced by adding 2 wt% of Ag NPs and 2, 4, and 6 wt% of Au NPs at 420°C. The results showed that the films have a polycrystalline ZnO (wurtzite) with a hexagonal structure. Also, all films had a preference orientation along the (002) plane. The crystal size increased with increasing Au doping from 64.4 to 65.33 nm. For ZnO doped with …

Joint Neutrino Oscillation Analysis From The T2k And Nova Experiments, S. Abubakar, M. A. Acero, B. Acharya, P. Adamson, N. Anfimov, A. Antoshkin, E. Arrieta-Diaz, L. Asquith, A. Aurisano, D. Azevedo, A. Back, N. Balashov, P. Baldi, A. Bambah, E. F. Barenboim, A. Bashyal, A. Basti, K. Bromberg, N. Buchanan, Roberto Petti

Faculty Publications

The landmark discovery that neutrinos have mass and can change type (or flavour) as they propagate—a process called neutrino oscillation^1,2,3,4,5,6—has opened up a rich array of theoretical and experimental questions being actively pursued today. Neutrino oscillation remains the most powerful experimental tool for addressing many of these questions, including whether neutrinos violate charge-parity (CP) symmetry, which has possible connections to the unexplained preponderance of matter over antimatter in the Universe^7,8,9,10,11. Oscillation measurements also probe the mass-squared differences between the different neutrino mass states (Δm²), whether there are two light states and a heavier …

Dft Prediction Of Adsorption Properties Of Chrysene On Si(001) Surface, Çağil Kaderoğlu

Turkish Journal of Physics

In this study, DFT calculations were carried out in order to reveal the adsorption properties of chrysene molecule on the Si(001)−(2×1) surface. For this purpose, structural, electronic, and optical properties were calculated for five different adsorption configurations. The results show that the electronic and optical properties vary depending on the adsorption configuration of the molecule. In general, the chrysene molecule was found to reduce the work function of the Si(001)−(2×1) surface and affect its optical absorption and reflection properties in the IR and UV regions. These results indicate that the Chrysene + Si(001) hybrid could be quite useful in molecular …

A Comprehensive Study On The Structural, Electrical And Optical Properties Of Dc Sputtered Molybdenum Thin Films, Fi̇li̇z Keleş, Abdullah Atilgan, Eli̇f Damgaci, Ayşe Seyhan, Abdullah Yildiz

Turkish Journal of Physics

This study investigates the influence of key deposition parameters on the optoelectronic properties of Molybdenum (Mo) films fabricated via DC magnetron sputtering. The results demonstrate that increasing the Argon gas pressure significantly raises the sheet resistance, primarily due to increased porosity and defect formation. In contrast, films deposited at lower pressures exhibit higher conductivity due to their denser morphology. The substrate temperature also plays a critical role in determining crystallographic structure and electrical performance. Mo bilayer films deposited at 250 °C show a much lower sheet resistance compared to room temperature (RT) growth. Additionally, increasing the total film thickness from …

Exact Solution Of The Two-Reflector Optical System Meeting Herschel’S Condition, Giuseppe Orlando

Turkish Journal of Physics

The exact explicit solution of a stigmatic two-reflector optical system under Herschel’s condition is presented Details of how the solution is calculated are reported. A comparison of caustics between an aplanatic optical system and the relevant system meeting Herschel’s condition is also presented. Ray tracing verification on different optical systems validates the obtained results.

On-Chip Ge-Based Refractive Index Sensor Based On Multislot Ge Waveguide, Çi̇çek Boztuğ

Turkish Journal of Physics

On-chip optical sensors have been attracting significant attention of the researchers due to their portability, low cost, and in-situ detection compatibility. The realization of these compact and mass-producible sensors will be possible if all required optical and electronic components are fully integrated on the same chip. However, the main obstacle here is the lack of the room-temperature on-chip light source; therefore, an external source has been utilized for optical sensing applications. Our work introduces a germanium-based optical sensing structure, specifically designed to operate at low refractive indices, with all required optical components integrated on silicon in a CMOS-compatible manner. The …

Charge Asymmetry Phenomenon For The Leptonically Decaying W Γ Pair At Nnlo Qcd, Kadi̇r Saygin

Turkish Journal of Physics

The paper presents for the first time a phenomenological assessment which focuses on the charge asymmetry phenomenon for the W γ production process with subsequent leptonic decay modes W⁺γ → l⁺ν_lγ and W⁻γ → l⁻ν_l^¯γ in proton-proton (pp) collisions. Charge asymmetry for the leptonic W γ process is predicted by the inclusion of genuine next-to-next-to-leading order (NNLO) corrections in the QCD perturbation theory. NNLO predictions of asymmetry distributions are assessed for the key observables, including the decay lepton and photon pseudorapidities η_l and η_γ, …

Enhanced Particle Interactions In Highly Curved Spacetime, Bradley Shapiro

Dartmouth College Ph.D Dissertations

Compact objects, such as black holes and neutron stars, are known to be surrounded by dense clouds of particles, including but not limited to photons, various plasmas, and potentially dark matter and gravitons. These environments are of immense research interest, not only for the purpose of understanding the compact objects they surround, but also in the search to identify new particles, especially dark matter. However, certain particle physics calculations are well developed in flat spacetime but intractable in curved spacetime. In this thesis, I present a formalism by which some of these calculations may be made tractable within a perturbative …

From Statistical Dependence To The Space Of Possible Superdeterministic Theories, Mordecai Waegell, Kelvin J. Mcqueen

Philosophy Faculty Articles and Research

Bell’s theorem demonstrates that any physical theory that is consistent with the predictions of quantum mechanics, and which satisfies some apparently innocuous assumptions, must violate the principle of local causality. It may therefore be possible to maintain local causality by rejecting one of these other assumptions instead. One possibility that has recently received significant attention involves rejecting the principle of statistical independence (SI). In this paper, we consider the frequency interpretation of SI, which states that ρ(λ) ≈ ρ(λ|Z), where ρ(λ) is the relative frequency of an element of an ensemble being in the state λ, and Z is a …

The Perfect Host: Jwst Cepheid Observations In A Background-Free Type Ia Supernova Host Confirm No Bias In Hubble-Constant Measurements, Adam G. Riess, Siyang Li, Gagandeep S. Anand, Wenlong Yuan, Louise Breuval, Stefano Casertano, Lucas M. Macri, Dan Scolnic, Yukei S. Murakami, Alexei V. Filippenko

Physics & Astronomy Faculty Publications

Cycle 1 JWST observations of Cepheids in Type Ia supernova (SN Ia) hosts resolved their red-giant-dominated near-infrared backgrounds, sharply reducing crowding and showing that photometric bias in lower-resolution Hubble Space Telescope (HST) data does not account for the Hubble tension. We present cycle 2 JWST observations of >100 Cepheids in NGC 3447, a unique system that pushes this test to the limit by transitioning from low to no background contamination. NGC 3447, an SN Ia host at D ≈ 25 Mpc, is an interacting pair comprising (i) a spiral with mixed stellar populations, typical of H0 calibrators, and (ii) a …

Collisional Excitation Of Hcn By Co To Refine The Modeling Of Cometary Comae, Francesca Tonolo, Ernesto Quintas-Sánchez, Adrian Batista-Planas, Richard Dawes, François Lique

Chemistry Faculty Research & Creative Works

We present the first dataset of collisional (de)-excitation rate coefficients of HCN induced by CO, one of the main perturbing gases in cometary atmospheres. The dataset spans the temperature range of 5–50 K. It includes both state-to-state rate coefficients involving the lowest ten and nine rotational levels of HCN and CO, respectively, and the so-called "thermalized" rate coefficients over the rotational population of CO at each kinetic temperature. The derivation of these coefficients exploited the good performance of the statistical adiabatic channel model (SACM) on top of an accurate interaction potential computed at the CCSD(T)-F12b/CBS level of theory. The reliability …

Intrinsic Defects (Vacancies And Antisites) In Neutron Irradiated Cdsip2 Crystals, Timothy D. Gustafson, Elizabeth M. Scherrer, Nancy C. Giles, Kevin T. Zawilski, Peter G. Schunemann, Jonathan E. Slagle, Kent L. Averett, Larry E. Halliburton

Faculty Publications

Cadmium silicon phosphide (CdSiP₂) is a nonlinear optical material widely used in optical parametric oscillators. Intrinsic defects (vacancies and antisites) are responsible for unwanted broad optical absorption bands in these crystals that degrade the performance of the devices. In the present work, optical absorption and electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spectra are acquired (at room temperature and 12 K, respectively) from a neutron-irradiated CdSiP₂ crystal. After the irradiation, the crystal is highly absorbing from the band edge near 600 nm to beyond 1.3 μm because of overlapping defect-related absorption bands. Heating to 550 °C removes nearly all the …