Asymptotic analysis of the spatial discretization of radiation absorption and re-emission in Implicit Monte Carlo

We perform an asymptotic analysis of the spatial discretization of radiation absorption and re-emission in Implicit Monte Carlo (IMC), a Monte Carlo technique for simulating nonlinear radiative transfer. Specifically, we examine the approximation of absorption and re-emission by a spatially continuous artificial-scattering process and either a piecewise-constant or piecewise-linear emission source within each spatial cell. We consider three asymptotic scalings representing (i) a time step that resolves the mean-free time, (ii) a Courant limit on the time-step size, and (iii) a fixed time step that does not depend on any asymptotic scaling. For the piecewise-constant approximation, we show that only the third scaling results in a valid discretization of the proper diffusion equation, which implies that IMC may generate inaccurate solutions with optically large spatial cells if time steps are refined. However, we also demonstrate that, for a certain class of problems, the piecewise-linear approximation yields an appropriate discretized diffusion equation under all three scalings. We therefore expect IMC to produce accurate solutions for a wider range of time-step sizes when the piecewise-linear instead of piecewise-constant discretization is employed. We demonstrate the validity of our analysis with a set of numerical examples.     

The Darwin Direct Implicit Particle-in-Cell (DADIPIC) Method for Simulation of Low Frequency Plasma Phenomena

We describe a new algorithm for simulating low frequency, kinetic phenomena in plasmas. Darwin direct implicit particle-in-cell (DADIPIC), as its name implies, is a combination of the Darwin and direct implicit methods. Through the Darwin method the hyperbolic Maxwell's equations are reformulated into a set of elliptic equations. Propagating light waves do not exist in the formulation so the Courant constraint on the time step is eliminated. The direct implicit method is applied only to the electrostatic field with the result that electrostatic plasma oscillations do not have to be resolved for stability. With the elimination of these constraints spatial and temporal discretization can be much larger than that possible with explicit, electrodynamic PIC. We discuss the algorithms for pushing the particles and solving for the fields in 2D cartesian geometry. We also detail boundary conditions for conductors and dielectrics. Finally, we present two test cases, electron cyclotron waves and collisionless heating in inductively coupled plasmas. For these test cases DADIPIC shows agreement with analytic kinetic theory and good energy conservation characteristics.     

A flux-form version of the conservative semi-Lagrangian multi-tracer transport scheme (CSLAM) on the cubed sphere grid

A conservative semi-Lagrangian cell-integrated transport scheme (CSLAM) was recently introduced, which ensures global mass conservation and allows long timesteps, multi-tracer efficiency, and shape preservation through the use of reconstruction filtering. This method is fully two-dimensional so that it may be easily implemented on non-cartesian grids such as the cubed-sphere grid. We present a flux-form implementation, FF-CSLAM, which retains the advantages of CSLAM while also allowing the use of flux-limited monotonicity and positivity preservation and efficient tracer sub-cycling. The methods are equivalent in the absence of flux limiting or reconstruction filtering.FF-CSLAM was found to be third-order accurate when an appropriately smooth initial mass distribution and flow field (with at least a continuous second derivative) was used. This was true even when using highly deformational flows and when the distribution is advected over the singularities in the cubed sphere, the latter a consequence of the full two-dimensionality of the method. Flux-limited monotonicity preservation, which is only available in a flux-form method, was found to be both less diffusive and more efficient than the monotone reconstruction filtering available to CSLAM. Despite the additional overhead of computing fluxes compared to CSLAM’s cell integrations, the non-monotone FF-CSLAM was found to be at most only 40% slower than CSLAM for Courant numbers less than one, with greater overhead for successively larger Courant numbers.     

Millimeter Wave Gunn Diode Oscillator Design Based on FDTD Method*

In this paper, a millimeter wave Gunn diode oscillator is analyzed and designed by the finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method. The design results indicate that the oscillator has an oscillation frequency of 45.0GHz and a higher oscillation voltage. Based on the circuit equations and an integral transform, an improved matrix method is utilized for the oscillator design. This method is also extended to model the hybrid network which is constructed by the high order linear elements and the nonlinear elements with arbitrary connections. The experience shows that the improved FDTD method is stable with the time step length Δt based on the Courant condition. *This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China.     

Mechanisms of mineral scaling in oil and geothermal wells studied in laboratory experiments by nuclear techniques

Two independent nuclear methods have been developed and tested for studies of mineral scaling mechanisms and kinetics related to the oil and geothermal industry. The first is a gamma transmission method to measure mass increase with a 30 MBq source of ¹³³Ba. The other method applies radioactive tracers of one or more of the scaling components. CaCO₃-precipitation has been used as an example here where the main tracer has been ⁴⁷Ca²⁺. While the transmission method is an indirect method, the latter is a direct method where the reactions of specific components may be studied. Both methods are on-line, continuous and non-destructive, and capable to study scaling of liquids with saturation ratios approaching the solubility product. A lower limit for detection of CaCO₃ with the transmission method in sand-packed columns with otherwise reasonable experimental parameters is estimated to be <1 mg in a 1 cm section of the tube packed with silica sand while the lower limit of detection for the tracer method with reasonable experimental parameters is estimated to <1 μg in the same tube section.     

High order Lagrangian velocity statistics in turbulence

We report measurements of the Lagrangian velocity structure functions of orders 1 through 10 in a high Reynolds number (Taylor microscale Reynolds numbers of up to R(lambda) = 815 ) turbulence experiment. Passive tracer particles are tracked optically in three dimensions and in time, and velocities are calculated from the particle tracks. The structure function anomalous scaling exponents are measured both directly and using extended self-similarity and are found to be more intermittent than their Eulerian counterparts. Classical Kolmogorov inertial range scaling is also found for all structure function orders at times that trend downward as the order increases. The temporal shift of this classical scaling behavior is observed to saturate as the structure function order increases at times shorter than the Kolmogorov time scale.     

CFL Conditions for Runge–Kutta discontinuous Galerkin methods on triangular grids

We study time step restrictions due to linear stability constraints of Runge–Kutta Discontinuous Galerkin methods on triangular grids. The scalar advection equation is discretized in space by the Discontinuous Galerkin method with either the Lax–Friedrichs flux or the upwind flux, and integrated in time with various Runge–Kutta schemes designed for linear wave propagation problems or non-linear applications. Von–Neumann-like analyses are performed on structured periodic grids made up of congruent elements, to investigate the influence of element shape on the stability restrictions. We assess CFL conditions based on different element size measures, among which only the radius of the inscribed circle and the shortest height prove appropriate, although they are not totally independent of the triangle shape. We explain their general behaviour with respect to element quality, and report the corresponding Courant numbers with both types of flux and polynomial order p ranging from 1 to 10, for use as guidelines in practical simulations. We also compare the performance of the Lax–Friedrichs flux and the upwind flux, and we draw general conclusions about the relative computational efficiency of RK schemes. The application of CFL conditions to two examples involving respectively an unstructured and a hybrid grid confirms our results, although it shows that local stability criteria tend to yield too restrictive conditions.     

High order finite difference methods with subcell resolution for advection equations with stiff source terms

A new high order finite-difference method utilizing the idea of Harten ENO subcell resolution method is proposed for chemical reactive flows and combustion. In reaction problems, when the reaction time scale is very small, e.g., orders of magnitude smaller than the fluid dynamics time scales, the governing equations will become very stiff. Wrong propagation speed of discontinuity may occur due to the underresolved numerical solution in both space and time. The present proposed method is a modified fractional step method which solves the convection step and reaction step separately. In the convection step, any high order shock-capturing method can be used. In the reaction step, an ODE solver is applied but with the computed flow variables in the shock region modified by the Harten subcell resolution idea. For numerical experiments, a fifth-order finite-difference WENO scheme and its anti-diffusion WENO variant are considered. A wide range of 1D and 2D scalar and Euler system test cases are investigated. Studies indicate that for the considered test cases, the new method maintains high order accuracy in space for smooth flows, and for stiff source terms with discontinuities, it can capture the correct propagation speed of discontinuities in very coarse meshes with reasonable CFL numbers.     

Time-parallel multiscale/multiphysics framework

We introduce the time-parallel compound wavelet matrix method (tpCWM) for modeling the temporal evolution of multiscale and multiphysics systems. The method couples time parallel (TP) and CWM methods operating at different spatial and temporal scales. We demonstrate the efficiency of our approach on two examples: a chemical reaction kinetic system and a non-linear predator–prey system. Our results indicate that the tpCWM technique is capable of accelerating time-to-solution by 2–3-orders of magnitude and is amenable to efficient parallel implementation.     

From chaos of lines to Lagrangian structures in flux conservative fields

A numerical method is proposed in order to track field lines of three-dimensional divergence free fields. Field lines are computed by a locally valid Hamiltonian mapping, which is computed using a symplectic scheme. The method is theoretically valid everywhere but at points where the field is null or infinite. For any three dimensional flux conservative field for which problematic points are sufficiently sparse, a systematic procedure is proposed and implemented. Construction of field lines is achieved by means of tracers and the introduction of various Hamiltonians adapted to the “geometrical state” each line or tracer is. The states are artificially defined by an a priori given frame of reference and Cartesian coordinates, and refer to a Hamiltonian which is locally valid at the time step to be computed. This procedure ensures the preservation of the volume (flux condition) during the iteration. This method is first tested with an ABC-type flow. Its benefits when compared to typical Runge-Kutta scheme are demonstrated. Potential use of the method to exhibit “coherent” Lagrangian structures in a chaotic setting is shown. An illustration to the computation of magnetic field lines resulting from a three-dimensional MHD simulation is also provided.     

Artificial acoustic stiffness reduction in fully compressible,direct numerical simulation of combustion

A pseudo-compressibility method is proposed to modify the acoustic time step restriction found in fully compressible, explicit flow solvers. The method manipulates terms in the governing equations of orderMa², whereMais a characteristic flow Mach number. A decrease in the speed of acoustic waves is obtained by adding an extra term in the balance equation for total energy. This term is proportional to flow dilatation and uses a decomposition of the dilatational field into an acoustic component and a component due to heat transfer. The present method is a variation of the pressure gradient scaling (PGS) method proposed in Ramshawet al(1985 Pressure gradient scaling method for fluid flowwith nearly uniform pressureJ. Comput. Phys.58 361–76). It achieves gains in computational efficiencies similar to PGS: at the cost of a slightly more involved right-hand-side computation, the numerical time step increases by a full order of magnitude. It also features the added benefit of preserving the hydrodynamic pressure field. The original and modified PGS methods are implemented into a parallel direct numerical simulation solver developed for applications to turbulent reacting flows with detailed chemical kinetics. The performance of the pseudo-compressibility methods is illustrated in a series of test problems ranging from isothermal sound propagation to laminar premixed flame problems.     

Lattice models of advection-diffusion

We present a synthesis of theoretical results concerning the probability distribution of the concentration of a passive tracer subject to both diffusion and to advection by a spatially smooth time-dependent flow. The freely decaying case is contrasted with the equilibrium case. A computationally efficient model of advection-diffusion on a lattice is introduced, and used to test and probe the limits of the theoretical ideas. It is shown that the probability distribution for the freely decaying case has fat tails, which have slower than exponential decay. The additively forced case has a Gaussian core and exponential tails, in full conformance with prior theoretical expectations. An analysis of the magnitude and implications of temporal fluctuations of the conditional diffusion and dissipation is presented, showing the importance of these fluctuations in governing the shape of the tails. Some results concerning the probability distribution of dissipation, and concerning the spatial scaling properties of concentration fluctuation, are also presented. Though the lattice model is applied only to smooth flow in the present work, it is readily applicable to problems involving rough flow, and to chemically reacting tracers. (c) 2000 American Institute of Physics.     

Diffusing passive tracers in random incompressible flows: Statistical topography aspects

The paper studies statistical characteristics of the passive tracer concentrations and of its spatial gradient, in random incompressible velocity fields from the viewpoint of statistical topography. The statistics of interest include mean values, probability distributions, as well as various functionals characterizing topographic features of tracers. The functional approach is used. We consider the influence of the mean flow (the linear shear flow) and the molecular diffusion coefficient on the statistics of the tracer. Most of our analysis is carried out in the framework of the delta-correlated (in time) approximation and conditions for its applicability are established. But we also consider the diffusion approximation scheme for finite correlation radius. The latter is applied to a diffusing passive tracer that undergoes sedimentation in a random velocity field.     

A low communication and large time step explicit finite-volume solver for non-hydrostatic atmospheric dynamics

An explicit finite-volume solver is proposed for numerical simulation of non-hydrostatic atmospheric dynamics with promise for efficiency on massively parallel machines via low communication needs and large time steps. Solving the governing equations with a single stage lowers communication, and using the method of characteristics to follow information as it propagates enables large time steps. Using a non-oscillatory interpolant, the method is stable without post-hoc filtering. Characteristic variables (built from interface flux vectors) are integrated upstream from interfaces along their trajectories to compute time-averaged fluxes over a time step. Thus we call this method a Flux-Based Characteristic Semi-Lagrangian (FBCSL) method. Multidimensionality is achieved via a second-order accurate Strang operator splitting. Spatial accuracy is achieved via the third- to fifth-order accurate Weighted Essentially Non-Oscillatory (WENO) interpolant.We implement the theory to form a 2-D non-hydrostatic compressible (Euler system) atmospheric model in which standard test cases confirm accuracy and stability. We maintain stability with time steps larger than CFL = 1 (CFL number determined by the acoustic wave speed, not advection) but note that accuracy degrades unacceptably for most cases with CFL > 2. For the smoothest test case, we ran out to CFL = 7 to investigate the error associated with simulation at large CFL number time steps. Analysis suggests improvement of trajectory computations will improve error for large CFL numbers.     

Parallelization of the polarizable embedding scheme for higher-order response functions

We present a parallel implementation of the Polarizable Embedding (PE) method, an advanced quantum mechanics/molecular mechanics (QM/MM) approach, for Hartree–Fock (PE-HF) and density functional theory (PE-DFT). The parallelization includes calculations of energies and linear, quadratic, and cubic response functions. The couplings to the QM system due to the polarizable embedding potential have been implemented using a master/slave approach. The implementation shows good scaling behaviour, demonstrated through calculations on a small (a water molecule in a bulk of water molecules) and a larger system (Green Fluorescent Protein (GFP)).     

Paramagnetic Tracer Concentration Evolution by NMR Relaxation Time Mapping: Application to Aris-Taylor Dispersion

A procedure to study tracer dispersion was proposed and tested for the case of tracer spreading in tube flow. Concentration maps of paramagnetic tracers Gd³⁺ were measured in time through direct measurements of spin lattice relaxation time T₁ obtained by using a two-point stimulated echo pulse sequence. The procedure was used to test the linear dependence of Peclet number on inverse velocity in the range of flow rates 0.3–1.2 cc/min.     

Three-dimensional polarized Monte Carlo atmospheric radiative transfer model (3DMCPOL): 3D effects on polarized visible reflectances of a cirrus cloud

A polarized atmospheric radiative transfer model for the computation of radiative transfer inside three-dimensional inhomogeneous mediums is described. This code is based on Monte Carlo methods and takes into account the polarization state of the light. Specificities introduced by such consideration are presented. After validation of the model by comparisons with adding-doubling computations, examples of reflectances simulated from a synthetic inhomogeneous cirrus cloud are analyzed and compared with reflectances obtained with the classical assumption of a plane parallel homogeneous cloud (1D approximation). As polarized reflectance is known to saturate for optical thickness of about 3, one could think that they should be less sensitive to 3D effects than total reflectances. However, at high spatial resolution (80 m), values of polarized reflectances much higher than the ones predicted by the 1D theory can be reached. The study of the reflectances of a step cloud shows that these large values are the results of illumination and shadowing effects similar to those often observed on total reflectances. In addition, we show that for larger spatial resolution (10 km), the so-called plane-parallel bias leads to a non-negligible overestimation of the polarized reflectances of about 7–8%.     

Experimental study on the local similarity scaling of the turbulence spectrum in the turbulent boundary layer

The streamwise fluctuating velocity in the turbulent boundary layer is measured under approximately medium Reynolds Number by hot wire in order to investigate the scaling properties of the overlapped turbulent spectrum among energy-containing area, inertial subrange and dissipation range based on FFT analysis. The experiment indicates that the high Reynolds flow reported before is not indispensable to produce −1 scaling. So far as the measured position is provided with much higher spatial resolution and enough closing to the wall, −1 scaling is determinate to exist when approaching medium Reynolds. The scaling ranges are supposed to begin at inner scale and end in outer scale, which reveals the local similarity of the energy spectrum over the energy-containing eddies near the wall. In the logarithmic area (y ⁺ > 130), −5/3 scaling occurs in the energy spectrum, while moving away from the wall with Reynolds numbers increasing, the inertial subrange extends to the lower wavenumbers. On the condition k ₁ η ≫ 0.1, the curves of the turbulence spectrum in the logarithmic layer are superposed, which expresses the similarity of turbulence energy distributed in Komogorov scaling area and exhibits local isotropy characteristics by virtue of the viscous dissipation. Supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 10832001 and 10872145), the Program for New Century Excellent Talents in Universities of Education Ministry of China, and the Plan of Tianjin Science and Technology Development (Grant No. 06TXTJJC13800)     

Relative distance between tracers as a measure of diffusivity within moving aggregates

Tracking of particles, be it a passive tracer or an actively moving bacterium in the growing bacterial colony, is a powerful technique to probe the physical properties of the environment of the particles. One of the most common measures of particle motion driven by fluctuations and random forces is its diffusivity, which is routinely obtained by measuring the mean squared displacement of the particles. However, often the tracer particles may be moving in a domain or an aggregate which itself experiences some regular or random motion and thus masks the diffusivity of tracers. Here we provide a method for assessing the diffusivity of tracer particles within mobile aggregates by measuring the so-called mean squared relative distance (MSRD) between two tracers. We provide analytical expressions for both the ensemble and time averaged MSRD allowing for direct identification of diffusivities from experimental data.     

Yb:YAG晶体性能实验测量

为了测量脉冲时间宽度小于20 ns时的射线时间分辨图像,发展了新型无机闪烁体Yb:YAG,并实验测量了晶体的发光衰减时间、X射线激发发光光谱、相对发光效率和空间分辨等性能,研究了Yb:YAG晶体的发光性能。实验表明,Yb:YAG发光有三种衰减成分,快成分衰减常数为1.2 ns,慢成分衰减常数与射线种类有关;X射线激发发光光谱在250~800 nm范围,有三个发光峰,分别为320,380和500 nm,且320 nm处强度最大;相对发光效率为1900 ph/MeV;使用钨分辨卡测得Yb: YAG空间分辨能力为2 lp/m,使用刀口法测得空间调制传递函数为0.5时的频率为0.7 lp/mm。结果说明Yb:YAG晶体性能能够满足所需测量要求。