Schedule Fall 08

Schedule Spring 09

Feb 6: Prof. Thomas Hemmick Sailing the Perfect Fluid


Colliding heavy ions at the highest possible energies is something of an oxymoron.  As the deBroglie wavelength decreases, one's resolution to the small structure of matter increases.  Indeed, at hundreds of GeV per nucleon, parton-parton collisions entirely dominate the large momentum transfer regime of initial scatters.  This leads one naturally to the connundrum of not being able to see the forest for the trees when colliding heavy ions instead of simple hadrons at these energies.  The resolution to the connundrum lies later in time.  The products of many coincident (in time and space) parton-parton scatterings re-interact with one another, thermalize their energy, and form a small and short-lived droplet of matter in a phase now dubbed the strongly-interacting Quark Gluon Plasma or sQGP.

I will discuss the findings of the PHENIX Experiment at Brookhaven National Laboratory's Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider, among which is the conclusion that the sQPG behaves as a nearly perfect fluid with a viscosity to entropy-density ratio significantly lower than that of superfluid Helium and approaching the quantum mechanical lower limit for this parameter.

Feb 13: Prof. Dmitri Tsybychev Collider-based Particle Physics Research at the Energy Frontier. ATLAS experiment at LHC.


In my talk I will introduce the basic concepts of particle physics and experiments that are used to study particles and their interactions.  The discussion will focus on the ATLAS experiment at Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN and type of studies that will be carried out at the experiment in order to  improve our understanding of Nature. I will also describe Stony Brook involvement in the experiment.

Feb 20th Prof. Peter vanNieuwenhuizen - From Special Relativity to General Relativity and then to SuperGravity

I have a nice talk on how Einstein and others were led from special relativity to general relativity. I would then end by telling you how we discovered supergravity here at Stony Brook. The talk is understandable for any student who is familiar with only special relativity. In the fall I will teach "Modern general relativity" so this is a good occasion for students to see if they would like to follow that course.

Feb 27th Profs. Jiangyong Jia & Roy Lacey - Probing the Quark Gluon Plasma & The Important Role of Graduate Students

A fundamental quest of modern science is the exploration of matter in all its possible states. In recent years, particular focus has been centered on the matter that existed at the extreme temperatures of the early Universe, or when it is compressed well beyond the density of atomic nuclei in the core of neutron stars. The fundamental question to be answered is whether or not there are new states of matter at exceedingly high density and temperature, and if there are, what are there properties.
Our presentations will summarize ongoing experimental efforts to explore the phase diagram and the properties of strongly interacting matter under extreme conditions at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC), located at Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL). We will discuss (i) recent scientific accomplishments, (ii) the important role that students continue to play in this line of research and what they actually do, and (iii) outline new prospects for future student contributions to the exploration of hot and dense QCD matter at both RHIC and the Large Hadron Collider (LHC).

Mar 6th Prof. Thomas Weinacht Strong Field Coherent Control

Our research focuses on using intense ultrafast laser pulses in order to capture and control atomic and molecular dynamics.   We use shaped laser pulses in order to make and break molecular bonds and prepare atoms in specific quantum states.  The ultimate aim of our efforts is to direct and measure the Schroedinger wave function for highly excited molecules on attosecond timescales.  I will discuss some of the experiments we have carried out in the past few years and give a picture of what we plan to do in the future.

Mar 13th Prof. Philip Allen Physics and Solar Fuels

There are three common ways to exploit the sun’s energy.

  1. Let plants do the work. Burn the biomass (maybe process it first).

  2. “Passive” solar heating. Save the heat in a water tank for later use.

  3. Photovoltaic panels. Sell the electricity you don’t use to the grid.

The problem with (1) is that plants are not designed for fuel efficiency. At best, the conversion efficiency from solar to biofuel energy is 1%. The problem with (2) is that it isn’t very portable or convertible into other forms of energy. The problem with (3) is that it is expensive and intermittent. Electric energy is not easily stored. The “solar fuel” idea is to use physics and chemistry to improve on biological photosynthesis. The simplest solar fuel is H2 (hydrogen gas), obtained by using sunlight to split water. There is no law against doing this with greater than 10% energy efficiency, using devices far cheaper than photovoltaic panels. However, no one yet knows how to do it. It is a problem in “photoelectrochemistry,” to use the jargon of chemists. There are some very good niches for physicists at this interface between solid state physics and electrochemistry.

Mar 20th Prof. Jin Koda Unsolved Problem in Astrophysics -- Turbulence and Star formation in Giant Molecular Clouds


Modern astronomy is a relatively young research field, and numerous basic problems have remained unsolved. I will introduce one of the unsolved problems -- the origin of supersonic turbulence and star formation in Giant Molecular Clouds (GMCs).
I will start from the basics (e.g. what is GMC?, what the supersonic turbulence is?, etc), and show my research (or struggle) to address this problem.
I will introduce the project that I am currently working on -- the survey of GMCs in galaxies with the CARMA millimeter-wave interferometer and the Nobeyama 45-meter telescope.
I will also discuss future opportunities and upcoming instruments for studies of GMCs.

Mar 27th Dr. Artem R. Oganov - Predicting new forms of matter and new materials

This talk will focus on the recently developed evolutionary methodology for crystal structure prediction, and its applications. I will explain why crystal structure prediction is a hard problem, how it can be solved, how multidimensional energy landscapes can be quantified and visualized. Recent predictions of exotic phenomena at high pressure will be discussed - (1) ionic phase of an element (boron), (2) transparent non-metallic form of sodium, (3) high-pressure hydride superconductors with high Tc.

Apr 3rd Dr. John Hobbs - Broken Symmetry: W, Z, and Higgs Boson at D0

The standard model of particle physics has been extremely successful at describing experimental results. However, to accomodate the observed masses of the W and Z bosons without destroying the mathematical basis for the standard model, the Higgs boson is required to exist. The Higgs, however, has not been found. At the D0 experiment, our group is participating in two research areas directly related to this issue: (1) the search for the Higgs boson and (2) measurements of the W boson mass which constrain the mass region allowed for the Higgs boson.  These areas will be described.
Apr 17 Dr. Michal Simon - Young stars are closer than you think:  Or, how Mike Simon and his students find happiness (and PhDs) studying star formation at Stony Brook
The majority of stars are multiples, that is members of binary, triple, and higher multiplicity systems.   We are studying the distribution of masses in binaries because this bears on brown dwarf and planet formation.  We are also measuring the masses of young stars with high precision because this is important for "calibrating" the theoretical calculations of their formation and for establishing reliable ages,   We are just beginning 1) to probe how the star formation outcome depends on  the place of birth and 2) to develop a technique to find the closest young stars.

Apr 24th Dr. Daniel Knopf - The Role of Atmospheric Aerosols in Climate and Air Pollution - Underlying Physical and Chemical Processes

It is well known that atmospheric carbon dioxide is rapidly increasing, but most people do not realize that aerosol particles – defined as liquid or solid particles small enough to remain suspended in the atmosphere for a significant length of time – represent the atmospheric constituent contributing to the largest uncertainty for the estimation of the global radiative budget, i.e. the energy balance between Earth and sun that determines Earth’s average temperature in the face of rising CO2. In addition, aerosol particles play a crucial role in air quality related issues such as urban smog episodes which can have a significant impact on human health. To better assess the role of aerosols in the atmosphere their physical and chemical properties have to be well understood. This task is challenging due to the peculiarities of atmospheric particles which will be outlined in this talk. This talk will focus on our research on cloud formation processes, in particular on ice nucleation, and the interaction of aerosol particles with atmospheric trace gases such as ozone, leading to the chemical transformation of the particles. Experimental methods to study cloud formation processes and gas-to-particle reactions in the laboratory will be described and their results discussed within the atmospheric context.

May 1st - Prof. Sergey K. Tolpygo - Advanced materials and processes for superconductive electronics.

Superconductivity is one of the few macroscopic quantum phenomena. Superconducting devices – Josephson junctions – make it possible to build the fastest “classical” digital integrated circuits with clock frequency currently approaching 40 GHz and extremely low energy dissipation. There is a strong desire and need to further increase the speed of superconductive integrated circuits to ~ 100 GHz and bring their complexity to a VLSI level. On the other hand, quantum nature of superconducting state coupled with low intrinsic energy dissipation makes superconducting cells the most promising type of quantum bits (qubits) for the future solid state quantum computers. However, there are serious materials, materials processing, and device physics issues which need to be researched and solved in order to enable superconducting qubits with quantum coherence surviving long enough to make them useful for practical quantum computations.

 

HYPRES, Inc. (see, www.hypres.com), is the only company in the US which develops and commercializes superconductive electronics. I will describe the opportunities that exist for graduate research in the area of advanced materials and process development for the “classical” superconductive electronics and coherent superconducting qubit at HYPRES. HYPRES integrated circuit fabrication facilities present ~3500 sq. ft. clean room with deep—UV optical lithography capabilities down to 0.25 um using a 248-nm Canon stepper, reactive ion etching (RIE) and inductively-coupled plasma (ICP) etching of various superconducting materials and dielectrics, as well as plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) of various interlayer dielectrics such as silicon oxide, silicon nitride, silicon oxinitride, etc., and physical vapor deposition of superconducting layers and test equipment for materials characterization and testing various analog and digital devices from dc to 70 GHz. The proposed research would be most suitable for advanced grad students who completed the course work requirements and passed the comp. exams because most of the experimental work is planned to be done at HYPRES. It would be also most interesting for those who like hands on approach, prefer applied research, and want to see the results of their work implemented in real processes and products.

May 1st - Steve Vigdor - Where’s the Antimatter Gone, Long Time Passing?  (Nuclear and Particle Physics Experiments at BNL) 
I will describe the goals of three quite different nuclear and particle physics experiments that Brookhaven physicists are leading, with a common fundamental theme of illuminating possible sources of the matter-antimatter asymmetry that arose in the early universe.  One of the necessary conditions for the asymmetry is CP-violation:  a difference in the way left-handed (spin opposite momentum) particles and the corresponding right-handed antiparticles behave in Nature.  Two of the experiments are in the planning stages:  a Long Baseline Neutrino Oscillation Experiment with sensitivity to CP-violation among neutrinos, as well as to the possible decay of the proton; and a novel experiment searching for a CP-violating electric dipole moment of the proton. The third experiment is in progress at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider, trying to expose CP-violation in strongly interacting matter that can arise from so-called QCD vacuum fluctuations at high temperature.  These experiments build upon a storied past of Nobel Prizes in Physics at both BNL and Stony Brook.