Over the past few years, quantum computers have captivated the popular imagination like never before, as tech giants such as Google, IBM, and Intel race to stake their claim on the first generation of programmable quantum computing hardware. However, while the long theorized quantum computer has indeed begun its transition… Continue reading »
In this talk, I explain where the different groups of threatening objects come from, tracing their story back to the formation of the Solar system. I describe the threat such objects pose to the Earth, and the other planets in the Solar system, before considering what, if anything, we can do… Continue reading »
Quantum information has the potential to revolutionize both communication and computation by utilizing the features of quantum physics to store, process, and transmit information (quantum bits). Trapped atomic ions are one of the leading candidates for applications in quantum information, due to their long storage times… Continue reading »
The 2012 discovery of the Higgs boson during Run I of the Large Hadron Collider was a triumph for particle physics, validating the theory of the weak force and completing the Standard Model framework. Yet, for all the Standard Model can explain, there is much we don’t know about the… Continue reading »
“With the rise of new vehicle technologies, the rapid growth of major urban centers across the globe, and critical environmental concerns, innovative approaches are required to analyze the impacts on our transportation systems and quality of life. Gathering the most current land-use, economic, mobility, development and behavioral data for 330… Continue reading »
EuO1-x is a material of interest for its possible spintronics applications. It exhibits a semiconductor-to-metal transition associated with the onset of ferromagnetism and a large negative magnetoresistance response. Because the transport and magnetic properties of EuO1-x are similar to another class of materials, the perovskite manganites, and phase inhomogeneity is… Continue reading »
When you stretch a piece of rubber, elasticity makes it spring back to its original shape. When you disturb a drop of water, on the other hand, it’s surface tension that makes it round again. Solids have surface tension too, but usually it’s so weak compared to elastic effects that… Continue reading »
Hydrogen atom migration in molecules can result in major structural changes, altering the molecule’s chemical properties. Using ‘ultrafast’ lasers and sophisticated ion imaging techniques, we explore the timescales for hydrogen migration reactions. We study acetylene, a small hydrocarbon, where a hydrogen can migrate to form its vinylidene isomer. We have… Continue reading »
Of the thousands of known extrasolar planets, why are the dozen or so directly imaged exoplanets among the most important despite their apparently anomalous properties within the general exoplanet population (>10 astronomical units, >2x the mass of Jupiter)? What are the prospects for (and recent successes in) detecting younger, lower-mass… Continue reading »
Quantum information processors hold great promise for investigating classically intractable computations, with applications in fields such as quantum simulation, optimization and many others. Trapped atomic ions are leading candidates to serve as the fundamental quantum bits (qubits) in such quantum processors, due to the high-fidelity operations with which their internal… Continue reading »
Exoplanet is the current frontier of astronomy and planetary sciences. In this talk, I will present the evidence of abundant ocean planets and water worlds among exoplanets in our galaxy. Ocean planets are planets similar to our own Earth, on which water covers a significant surface area. Water worlds are… Continue reading »
The role of engineering in addressing some of humanity’s most pressing problems is critical. This talk will focus on a specific problem and technological solution — indoor air pollution from cooking in developing countries — and also discuss the educational activities the speaker is developing at Wellesley College to engage… Continue reading »
Quantum information science studies the implications of quantum mechanics for information processing, communication and computation. Besides being one of the most thriving areas of contemporary research, quantum information science carries an unprecedented transformative potential for 21st century quantum technologies, while providing new tools and perspectives across a wide range of… Continue reading »
Leaving the Earth’s atmosphere was once thought of as entering “empty space”, implying a benign environment other than the absence of an atmosphere. The truth turns out to be entirely different, space being filled with high energy particles and radiation, much of it coming from the Sun, while our safety… Continue reading »
The biological sciences have been/are being revolutionized by high-throughput, quantative measurement technologies. RNA sequencing is a poster-child example. RNAseq data is now widely used for analysis of gene expression, and is widely viewed as simple and quantitatively accurate. “You just count reads. What could go wrong?” A closer look at… Continue reading »
Quantum theory is the great foundation for nearly all of modern physics. Since its discovery in 1925, it has never met a single experimental failure, and without it we could kiss our technological society goodbye. Without quantum theory, there would be no transistors, no lasers, no smart phones — we… Continue reading »
Inside living cells, the inherent probabilistic nature of biochemical processes drives random fluctuations (noise) in the levels of biomolecules, such as RNAs and proteins. Modeling stochastic fluctuations in biomolecule levels is essential to understand how noise affects biological function and phenotype. I will introduce state-of-the-art computational tools for stochastic modeling,… Continue reading »
Some of Nature’s most beautiful phenomena can be seen in the development of an embryo, from a single cell to a complete organism. In fruit flies, this takes just one day. More surprisingly, one can read a blueprint for the body plan of the fully developed organism by measuring the… Continue reading »
Sitting in a quiet room, we can hear sounds that cause our eardrums to vibrate by less than the diameter of an atom. When bacteria have to decide if they are swimming in the right direction to find more food, they count every single molecule that arrives at their surface. Continue reading »
Less than a generation ago, we wondered, as we had for millions of years before, whether there were any other planetary systems at all. Now, we are privileged to be in the first generation of humans to know that many of the points of light dusting our… Continue reading »
Despite the many similarities between nanocrystals and atoms, it has remained unclear since the early 1990s why optical transitions in nanocrystals are so much broader than those of atoms. The spectral line width of an ensemble of nanocrystals arises from size and shape inhomogeneity and the single-nanocrystal spectrum itself. This… Continue reading »
Albert Einstein once dubbed quantum entanglement “spooky actions at a distance,” and the concept remains one of the starkest examples of how quantum theory differs from our usual intutions about space, time, and matter. Physicists have tested quantum entanglement in laboratories for more than forty years, and have always found… Continue reading »
We peer back through the mists of time and extract knowledge about the creation of the universe. One of the greatest mysteries in the cosmos is that it is mostly dark. Astronomers and particle physicists today are seeking to unravel the nature of the mysterious but pervasive dark matter which… Continue reading »
Exoplanets evolve in the radiation environment created by their host stars. Of particular interest is the UV and X-ray emission produced in the chromospheres and coronae of cooler stars such as M dwarfs. I will summarize the results of our HST MUSCLES Treasury Survey, consisting of… Continue reading »
Bacteria and other microbes are essential to human life and industry, catalyzing key biogeochemical cycles, cleaning up toxic pollution, and causing or curing disease. Microbial ecology, the study of microbes’ relationships with one another and their environment, has benefited tremendously from new DNA sequencing technology. However, DNA sequencing data alone… Continue reading »
Optical atomic clocks have made huge improvements in precision and accuracy in the last decade, and led to great advances in time & frequency metrology. However, clocks are good for more than just keeping time. In this talk, I will explain how optical clocks can be used to observe low-frequency… Continue reading »
Astrophysical observations give overwhelming evidence for the existence of dark matter. For over 15 years, the DAMA collaboration has asserted that they observe a dark matter-induced annual modulation signal but their observation has yet to be confirmed. I will describe DM-Ice a low-background NaI(Tl)-based dark matter experiment aimed at understanding… Continue reading »
In imaging applications using visible light and X-rays, information is obtained by measuring electromagnetic waves after they interact with a sample. The sample imparts information in both the wave’s amplitude (which changes due to absorption or scattering within the sample) and phase (a delay of the wave’s oscillation due to… Continue reading »
Somewhere between 1980 and 1996, physics and computer science got together and had a baby called quantum computing. The point? That if you built a computer out of bits that obey quantum physics (“qubits”), it would change the ground rules of computing — i.e., logic. Quantum logic is different from… Continue reading »
The nitrogen-vacancy (NV) center, an atom-like defect in diamond, has recently emerged as a promising platform for applications in quantum information science and quantum metrology. NV centers can be manipulated much like single trapped atoms. They can be isolated and addressed individually using optical microscopy; microwave radiation can be used… Continue reading »
sxRNA: A Trans-Regulated, miRNA Activated, Switch Technology Francis Doyle, Zachary E. Wurz and Scott A. Tenenbaum* Colleges of Nanoscale Science and Engineering, Nanobioscience Constellation, SUNY-Polytechnic Institute, Albany, New York 12203, USA The wide array of vital functions that RNA performs is dependent on… Continue reading »
The study of the interaction between quantum systems and their environment is central to the understanding of a broad range of problems. Important examples include the elusive quantum to classical transition, as illustrated most famously by the Schrödinger cat paradox, and non-equilibrium dynamics, as illustrated by the central spin problem. Continue reading »
The Standard Model of particle physics has reigned triumphant for nearly half a century, confirmed by observation upon observation. Nevertheless, it fails to explain significant aspects of the natural world, such as why our universe is composed of matter rather than antimatter – or equal amounts of… Continue reading »
We give an overview of experimental and theoretical work to elucidate the quantum-classical divide through the investigation of mesoscale mechanical systems. Continue reading »
Notions of geometry, topology, and dimensionality have directed the historical development of quantum-gas physics, as has a relentless search for longer-lived matter-wave coherence and lower absolute temperature. With a toolbox of forces for confinement, guiding, and excitation, physicists have used quantum gases to test fundamental ideas in quantum theory, statistical… Continue reading »
In 2010, a precise measurement of the proton’s charge radius using muonic hydrogen found with high significance a 4% smaller value than expected from previous measurements using electrons. The discrepancy is now greater than 7 standard deviations, and while many theories have been proposed to explain… Continue reading »
Most physicists agree that the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen-Bell paradox exemplifies much of the strange behavior of quantum mechanics, but argument persists over what it really means in terms of an underlying reality. In this talk, I use a set of simple and well-known thought experiments involving two correlated photons to help… Continue reading »
The next generation of electronic and optoelectronic devices will require new materials with new properties. Low-dimensional and nanostructured materials have the unusual electronic, optical, mechanical, and plasmonic characteristics which hold the potential for unconventional device paradigms. So it is crucial to investigate the physical properties,… Continue reading »
Recent forgeries of early modern books using photopolymer plates have attained a high level of sophistication. This talk will examine the long history of book forgery, looking especially at efforts to create convincing artifacts, rather than merely forge texts. The lecture is sponsored by the NASA Massachusetts Space Grant Consortium… Continue reading »
Amateurs and professionals studying birds at the end of the nineteenth century were a contentious, passionate group with goals that intersected, collided and occasionally merged in their writings and organizations. Driven by a desire to advance science, as well as by ego, pride, honor, insecurity, religion and other clashing sensibilities,… Continue reading »
Rocket Stove Technology What started out as research to improve indoor air quality and reduce deforestation in developing countries, has become a growing worldwide realization that, in spite of burning wood since the dawn of civilization, humans are still learning how to build a better fire. Using Rocket Stove technology… Continue reading »
Understanding the behavior of interacting electrons in solids or liquids is at the heart of modern quantum science and necessary for technological advances. However, the complexity of their interactions generally prevents us from coming up with an exact mathematical description of their behavior. Precisely engineered ultracold gases are emerging as… Continue reading »
The resonant interaction between light and individual atoms in a gas can make those atoms heat up, cool down, or come to a nearly-complete stop in midair. With the technique of laser cooling, we can slow atoms from speeds of hundreds of meters per second to… Continue reading »
Atmospheric models: Why you should never ever ever trust them, why some people do, and why you will, too. Dr. Evan Couzo (Williams Class of 2005) Postdoctoral Associate, MIT http://globalchange.mit.edu/about/our-people/personnel/staff_id/391 Since time immemorial, the modeling community has debated the… Continue reading »
Magnetic random access memory (MRAM) would combine the benefits of the hard drive (non-volatile, cheap, high density of bits) with the benefits of RAM (fast, mechanically robust). One proposal for MRAM involves the vortex state of nanorings, a state in which the magnetic moments align circumferentially in the clockwise or… Continue reading »
Many theories that patch holes in the Standard Model of particle physics, such as Supersymmetry, also happen to predict that the electron is asymmetric in shape, giving rise to a permanent electric dipole moment. I’ll describe the ACME collaboration’s recent measurement of this asymmetry using a beam of thorium monoxide… Continue reading »
I will discuss quantum and classical algorithms to search for a hidden item. As aids, the algorithms can access black boxes that give information about the hidden item. The more information a box gives, the higher its cost, so the goal is to create algorithms that find the item cheaply. Continue reading »
Quantum systems with a Hilbert space dimension greater than two (qudits) provide an alternative to qubits as carriers of quantum information, and may prove advantageous for quantum information tasks if good laboratory tools for qudit manipulation and readout can be developed. We have implemented a protocol for arbitrary… Continue reading »
The field of mechanical quantum systems has made great strides in recent years developing the technology to begin eliciting and studying quantum behavior of structures that are normally well- described by classical laws of physics. While the full potential of the field is yet unknown, it’s thought that these mechanical… Continue reading »
Analysts predict that within two to four years electricity generated from photovoltaics will cost less than grid electricity, making it the cleanest, cheapest, and most abundant form of energy generation. The rise of solar energy, however, could fail to materialize if current photovoltaic technologies cannot meet the staggering manufacturing volumes… Continue reading »
We now know of over 1,000 planets orbiting other stars. These extraordinary systems come in a wide variety of shapes and sizes, like planets as big as Jupiter that orbit their stars in just 3 days or an entire solar system worth of planets squeezed inside Mercury’s orbit! Each planet… Continue reading »
Microlensing uses the gravitational bending of light to detect exoplanets. Because the typical timescale of the events is ~20 days and the individual events are not repeated, microlensing is generally thought of as giving only an instantaneous snapshot of the planetary system. In the context of recent microlensing discoveries, I will… Continue reading »
Recent advances in space-based solar observing have enabled unprecedented access to high-cadence, high-resolution observations of the coronal dynamics. This is extremely important, since transient phenomena in the corona usually cover multiple scales – from the current spatial resolution limit in the case of magnetic reconnection during solar flares, to several… Continue reading »
Many critical cellular functions, such as cell division and internal transport in vesicles (“vesicular trafficking”) require cell membranes to change shape. In a viral infection, the virus also must cause previously flat portions of the membrane to form small pouches (“buds”) filled with virus that then detach from the membrane… Continue reading »
Although Copernicus had the courage to imagine an alternate universe in which the Earth rotated and revolved, it took him decades — and lots of encouragement from unexpected quarters — to promulgate his idea for a Sun-centered system of planets. His great work, On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres, published… Continue reading »
Quantum mechanics and acoustics are both wave theories, but the problems encountered, the boundary conditions, and the applications (for example to hearing, voice, and musical instruments) make them deliciously different. This talk will focus on some acoustical phenomena (with demonstrations) which have important lessons for resonance, power, diffraction, interference, and… Continue reading »
I will describe experiments to evaluate the performance of a quantum computing system (hardware plus software), for solving combinatorial optimization problems. This unusual computing platform is manufactured by D-Wave Systems, Burnaby, Canada. It comprises a Linux front end together with an analog hardware chip containing qubits that are capable of… Continue reading »
Every animal, plant, bacteria, and virus on the planet contains DNA. DNA is the molecule that ties us all together and the molecule that encodes our differentiation. One of the most important scientific discoveries in the future will be how to harness the genetic code within DNA to fight disease… Continue reading »
More than 80 years after its proposed existence, the neutrino remains largely mysterious and elusive. Despite this fact, we are closing in on answers to some of the big questions surrounding the “little neutral one”. After an introduction to the neutrino and neutrino mass, I will… Continue reading »
Many gravitationally lensed quasars exhibit flux ratio “anomalies” that cannot be explained under the hypothesis that the lensing potential is smooth on subgalactic scales. Micro-lensing by stars is a natural source of granularity in the lens potential. The character of the expected fluctuations due to micro-lensing… Continue reading »
Dipolar molecules: a new player in the world of ultracold quantum matter In the past years, studies with atoms at nanokelvin temperatures have led to some of the most exciting results in experimental physics. Relying on the exquisite control and accuracy that is unique to atomic physics, ultracold atoms have… Continue reading »
“Searching for New Physics: Neutral B-mixing and Lattice Quantum Chromodynamics” A main goal of particle physics is the search for new particles and interactions. This can be done by combining theory calculations, based on the Standard Model, with precision measurements and looking for inconsistencies. A very active research area,… Continue reading »
“Building a quantum network from self-assembled quantum dots and photonic crystals” Quantum computing offers the potential to speed up information processing as well as completely secure data transfer. Our research effort aims to create a quantum network consisting of site-controlled cavity-coupled QDs interconnected by waveguides in photonic crystals. The spin of… Continue reading »
”Downhole Fluid Analysis at Schlumberger: Current Status and Future Prospects” Schlumberger Limited is the world’s leading oilfield services company supplying technology, information solutions and integrated project management that optimize reservoir performance for customers working in the oil and gas industry. Founded in 1926, today the company employs more than 118,000… Continue reading »
Molecular Dynamics Simulations of RNA tetra loops We report the unbiased folding of hyper-stable RNA tetraloops to less than 1 Å RMSD from their experimentally determined structures using molecular dynamics simulations started from the unfolded state. RNA tetraloops with loop sequences UUCG, GCAA, or CUUG are hyper-stable due to the… Continue reading »
The MIT-Williams Program of Occultation Studies: Pluto and Other Objects in the Outer Solar System A joint MIT-Williams effort has, for over a decade, jointly explored the outer solar system through observing occultations of distant stars by Pluto and objects beyond it. We have monitored changes in Pluto’s atmosphere, which… Continue reading »
A Programmable Quantum Information Processor Quantum information processing promises significant gains for some important computational tasks as well as the potential to simulate interesting physical systems. All the basic techniques required for QIP have been demonstrated using the internal states of trapped atomic ions as a storage medium for… Continue reading »
High Brightness Extreme Ultraviolet Frequency Combs via Intracavity High-Order Harmonic Generation A coherent XUV and soft x-ray light source can be realized through high-order harmonic generation (HHG). HHG transfers the spatial and temporal coherence of laser light to the soft x-ray and extreme ultraviolet (XUV) and is now being used… Continue reading »
A Universe from Nothing “The question, “Why is there something rather than nothing?” has been asked for millenia by people who speculate on the need for a creator of our Universe. Today, exciting scientific advances provide new insight into this cosmological mystery: Not only can something arise from nothing, something will always arise from… Continue reading »
Quantum Optics with Superconducting Circuits: From Single Photons to Schrodinger Cats Over the last decade and a half, superconducting circuits have advanced to the point where we can generate and detect highly-entangled states, and perform universal quantum gates. Meanwhile, the coherence properties of these systems have improved more than 10,000-fold. Continue reading »
Quantize This! This talk explores some of the quirkier aspects of quantum mechanics, including the quantum speed limit, the use of quantum entanglement and quantum codes by living systems, and the quantum mechanics of time travel. Continue reading »
Discovery! How we did it and what we know so far One of the great intellectual achievements of human kind is the standard model of particle physics. This theory describes how fundamental particles like electrons and quarks interact and gives us the building blocks for understanding the universe we see… Continue reading »
“Stay on Target! The origins of persistence in amoeboid society” Directed motion enables neutrophils (white blood cells) to hunt invaders, neural axons to find their targets, and embryonic cells to properly develop into a complete organism. Amoeboid motility has an underlying directional persistence – even in the absence of external signals – which helps… Continue reading »
Modeling the merger of binary black holes requires numerical simulations. Solving the equations of general relativity on the computer, however, presents unique challenges. I will describe some of these challenges and will discuss how these problems were solved. I will then review some recent simulations at the coalescence and merger… Continue reading »
Recent results on the thermodynamics and kinetics of RNA secondary structure Prof. Peter Clote and Kourosh Zarringham Physics & Astronomy Colloquium 2:30 p.m., December 2, 2011 Thompson Physical Laboratory 205 An RNA secondary structure is a type of planar graph, consisting of Watson-Crick and wobble base… Continue reading »
The Early History of Entanglement: EPR before 1935 Louisa Guilder Physics & Astronomy Colloquium 2:30 p.m., October 14, 2011 Thompson Physical Laboratory 205 Heisenberg said that “science is rooted in conversations.” If the conversations aren’t clear, the science can suffer. This is what happened to the foundations… Continue reading »
Why Aren’t There More Stars? The Battle Against Gravity in our Galaxy’s Nurseries Ned Ladd, Bucknell University & Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics Abstract: Stars form via the gravitational collapse of large, diffuse, molecular clouds that occupy much of the disk of our galaxy. However, not all of this cloud… Continue reading »
The Solar System Beyond Sedna Dr. Meg Schwamb – Yale University The discovery of Sedna on a highly eccentric orbit beyond Neptune challenges our understanding of the solar system and suggests the presence of a population of icy bodies residing past the Kuiper belt. With a perihelion of 76 AU,… Continue reading »
“Supersymmetry as a Theoretical Toolbox” Dr. Brian Wecht, ’97 University of Michigan One usually first hears about supersymmetry as the leading candidate for physics beyond the Standard Model. However, many physicists see supersymmetry as useful for an entirely different purpose, namely, as a method of understanding hard problems in… Continue reading »
Glass Transition Temperature of Polymer Films Ophelia K. C. Tsui Department of Physics, Boston University, Boston, MA Abstract Unlike simple liquids, polymers typically transform into a solid-like glassy state by the glass transition – a process in which the liquid viscosity increases rapidly upon cooling past the glass… Continue reading »
Professor Pan Li – University of Albany Title: Effect of Mg2+ ions on mechanical unfolding of a two-base-pair RNA kissing hairpin Structure and function of RNA critically depend on ionic conditions. However, rigorous thermodynamic analysis of metal ions binding to polyelectric RNA remains a daunting task. To reduce complexity of… Continue reading »
Dr. Leonardo DiCarlo – Yale University Harnessing multi-qubit entanglement in superconducting circuits Abstract Entanglement has traditionally played a central role in foundational discussions of quantum mechanics. The measurement of correlations between entangled quantum particles exhibits results at odds with classical behavior. With the ample confirmation of quantum mechanical predictions in… Continue reading »
Prof. Kurt Jacobs – Boston University “Putting the Quantum into Mechanics” In the last few years great advances have been made in the construction and measurement of nano-mechanical resonators and mesoscopic superconducting circuits. To observe quantum behavior of mechanical resonators, one must induce nonlinear dynamics in these systems, or… Continue reading »
Dr. Seth Shostak – SETI Institute Title: “Efficiency in SETI Searches” “When Will We Discover the Extraterrestrials?” The scientific hunt for extraterrestrial intelligence is now into its fifth decade, and we still haven’t uncovered a confirmed peep from the cosmos. For that matter, we still don’t know if life –… Continue reading »
Prof. Jack Harris – Yale University Title: “How an atomic orbital can flow through a resistive wire” One of the most remarkable predictions of the quantum theory of electronic circuits is that a small loop of resistive metal can have a current flowing in it in the absence of any… Continue reading »
Dr. Steve Maxwell – NIST – Gaithersburg, MD Title: “Dynamics of a sodium spinor condensate” In the Laser Cooling and Trapping Group at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, we have an ongoing experimental and theoretical effort to understand the dynamics of Bose-Einstein condensates of atomic sodium in an… Continue reading »
Prof. Jorge Moreno – Haverford College Title: “Do mergers of dark matter halos trigger quasars?” Quasars are extremely bright objects whose light was emitted when the Universe was much younger than today. Some of these objects shine more than all the stars in their host galaxies, which is why we… Continue reading »
Prof. Alain Laederach, Department of Biomedical Sciences & School of Public Health – SUNY Albany Title: “Identifying RNA folding through kinetic model enumeration” Large RNA molecules are known to fold through multiple parallel pathways to achieve their functional conformation. These pathways include stable intermediate structures that we identify using our… Continue reading »
Prof. Laura Cadonati – University of Massachusetts, Amherst Title: “LIGO and its progress towards gravitational wave astronomy” The Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) has the ambitious goal of the first direct detection of gravitational waves, tiny ripples in the fabric of space-time generated by accelerating masses, as predicted by General… Continue reading »
Prof. Jonathan Friedman – Amherst College Title: “Relaxation and Tunneling in Single-Molecule Magnets” A single-molecule magnet is – true to its name – a magnet composed of a single molecule. The magnetic moment of such a system shows hysteresis like a classical magnet, yet it can tunnel between different orientation… Continue reading »
Prof. Christina (Reynolds) Dunn ’97 – Bennington College Title: “Creating the Giant: Fabricating the Mirrors of the European Extremely Large Telescope” Abstract: A new generation of astronomical telescopes is taking shape, giants three or four times larger than the world’s current largest telescopes. Bringing these massive designs from theoretical possibility… Continue reading »
Prof. Anthony Dinsmore – University of Massachusetts Title: “How Crystals Form: Colloids as a Tool to Study Phase Transitions” Abstract: Freezing and melting of crystals are fascinating phenomena that are very common in nature yet difficult to study in the laboratory. Micron-sized particles suspended in solution (colloidal particles) serve as… Continue reading »
Dr. William Fairbrother – Brown University “Mapping Cis-Elements in the Genome: Development of high throughput binding assays to query nucleic acid/protein interactions” My research utilizes computational and experimental methods to understand the sequence determinants of gene expression. Mostly we are concerned with splicing and finding the cis-elements that modulate… Continue reading »
Prof. John Hunt – Columbia University Title: “Tales of two molecular machines” The talk will mix thermodynamics and protein structural dynamics to illustrate a range of physical / dynamic mechanisms employed by proteins mediating different very kinds of molecular processes. Continue reading »
Prof. Froney Crawford ’94 – Franklin and Marshall College “An Observational Test of a Pulsar Spin-down Model Using Radio Polarimetry” Pulsars are highly magnetized rotating neutron stars that are typically modeled as spinning magnetic point dipoles that lose rotational kinetic energy to dipole radiation. However, the spin-down behavior that is… Continue reading »
S. Charles Doret ’02 – Harvard University “Look Ma – no lasers! Towards Bose-Einstein condensation of metastable helium via buffer gas cooling” Advances in the cooling and trapping of atoms and the achievement of quantum degeneracy in dilute atomic gases has led to new developments in many sub-fields of atomic… Continue reading »
Bethany Cobb ’02 – Yale University Title: “Outshining the Universe: the Mystery of Gamma-ray Bursts” Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) have been puzzling astronomers for decades. The 2004 launch of the Swift GRB satellite, with its onboard X-ray and UV/optical telescopes, was meant to help solve the mystery of GRBs. Over 200… Continue reading »
Professor Fred Strauch – Gettysburg College and NIST Title: “Perfect Quantum State Transfer with Superconducting Phase Qubits” In 1980, Tony Leggett argued that the validity of quantum mechanics at the macroscopic legel can and should be to experimental test. Verification would finally force us to accept the radical viewpoint that… Continue reading »
Sarah Nichols ’03 – Stony Brook University Title: “Chemistry with Lasers: Quantum Control in Molecular Systems” Femtosecond laser pulses can be shaped in time and frequency to control chemical reactions in molecules. Our group investigates dynamic resonances in the halomethane family of molecules from both experimental and computational perspectives. We… Continue reading »
Judy Karpen – Naval Research Lab “The Sun through new glasses: what’s hot in solar physics” We study the Sun for many reasons, from purely intellectual and aesthetic to pragmatic. As our nearest star, it is the best-observed example of stellar structure and evolution on a wide range of timescales. Continue reading »
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