UConn STARs Visit Hartford High School
The UConn STARs visited Hartford High School on May 8th and 11th, 2023. We visited junior engineering students in the classroom of Mrs. Melissa Adams and the high school football team lead by Coach Jackson. We taught them all about quantum mechanics, solar telescopes, gravity, and of course electricity and they taught us as well. […]
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Department of Physics is hosting Summer School on Electron-Ion Collider
The Department of Physics is hosting UConn-NSF summer school on Parton Saturation and Electron Ion Collider (EIC). The School will take place in Storrs, from August 1 to August 10, 2023. The school chair is Professor Alex Kovner. The school website can be found at https://indico.phys.uconn.edu/event/4/. The Electron-Ion Collider is the next big experiment in […]
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Remembering Jeff Schweitzer, colleague and mentor
Jeff Schweitzer passed away unexpectedly last year on May 31, 2022 in his home in Ridgefield, CT. Jeff was a faculty member in the physics department for 25 years (1997-2022). Jeff earned his B.S. in Physics from the Carnegie Institute of Technology (1967), and his M.S. (1969) and Ph.D. (1972) in physics from the Purdue […]
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Research of Professor Daniel Angles-Alcazar featured in UConn Today
Galaxy clusters are the most massive objects in the Universe: a single cluster contains anything from a hundred to many thousands of galaxies, alongside collections of plasma, hot X-ray emitting gas, and dark matter. These components are held together by the cluster’s own gravity. Understanding such galaxy clusters is crucial to pinning down the origin […]
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Chapter of Optica, UConn starts up
A University chapter of Optica (formerly known as OSA), the largest professional society for Optics and Photonics, has started at UConn. Physics graduate students Zhanna Rodnova and Kevin Watson, and Electrical and Computer Engineering graduate student Gokul Krishnan started the chapter in the Fall of 2022 to help students, undergraduate, and graduate, learn more about […]
[Read More]Recent Events
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10:00 am: Professor Xiaodong Yan will introduce the work and life of Olga Ladyzhenskaya (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olga_Ladyzhenskaya)., Celebrating Women in Mathematics10:00am
5/12
10:00 am: Professor Xiaodong Yan will introduce the work and life of Olga Ladyzhenskaya (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olga_Ladyzhenskaya)., Celebrating Women in Mathematics
Friday, May 12th, 2023
10:00 AM - 03:00 PM
Storrs Campus MONT 104
10:00 am: Professor Xiaodong Yan will introduce the work and life of Olga Ladyzhenskaya (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olga_Ladyzhenskaya).
10:15 am: screening of the movie Olga Ladyzhenskaya produced and directed by Ekaterina Eremenko.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcvTpbpl8GA
11:00 am: Pathways in Mathematics, presentations hosted by the SLMath (formerly MSRI).
12:00-1:15 pm Panel discussion at the SLMath.
1-15 pm-3:00 pm networking, socializing.
All are welcome! -
Prof.D.M. Basov Columbia University, Charles Reynolds Distinguished Lecture3:30pm
5/5
Prof.D.M. Basov Columbia University, Charles Reynolds Distinguished Lecture
Friday, May 5th, 2023
03:30 PM - 04:30 PM
Storrs Campus GW-002
Prof.D.M. Basov
Columbia University
Optical imaging is pervasive in daily life and in modern technology. Unfortunately, optics encounters problems when it comes to „seeing"objects that are much smaller than the wavelength of light. And that is the task we are commonly facing in the physics of quantum materials hosting various unexplored quantum phases. Interesting effects in these systems often occur at nano-meter length scales that are much shorter than the wavelength of light. Over the last decade, our group deployed a fundamentally different form of optical imaging well suited to extend infrared and optical experiments to the nano-scale. We no longer use free space photons to inquire into the new physics of quantum materials. Instead, our imaging agent is a hybrid quasiparticle know as a polariton that is comprised of a photon and material excitations. Polaritons are extremely compact beating the diffraction by several orders of magnitude. Yet they are mobile and can surf along the sample surfaces over macroscopic distances. As we track „nano-light" polaritonic waves with home-built tools, we learn about the physics of quantum materials supporting these waves. In this talk, I will discuss several examples of progress with the understanding of the electronic phenomena and of topological effects in solids all empowered by nano-light.
References:
A.J. Sternbach, S. L. Moore, A. Rikhter, S. Zhang, R. Jing, Y. Shao, B. S. Y. Kim, S. Xu, S. Liu, J. H. Edgar, A. Rubio, C. Dean, J. Hone, M. M. Fogler, D. N. Basov "Negative refraction in hyperbolic hetero-bicrystals" Science 379, 555 (2023).
A.J. Sternbach, S. H. Chae, S. Latini, A. A. Rikhter, Y. Shao, B. Li, D. Rhodes, B. Kim,P. J. Schuck, X. Xu, X.-Y. Zhu, R. D. Averitt, J. Hone, M. M. Fogler, A. Rubio, and D. N. Basov, "Programmable hyperbolic polaritons in van der Waals semiconductors," Science 371, 617 (2021).
Y. Dong, L. Xiong, I.Y. Phinney, Z. Sun, R. Jing, A.S. McLeod, S. Zhang, S. Liu, F.L. Ruta, H. Gao, Z. Dong, R. Pan, J.H. Edgar, P. Jarillo-Herrero, L.S. Levitov, A.J. Millis, M.M. Fogler, D.A. Bandurin, and D.N. Basov, "Fizeau drag in graphene plasmonics," Nature 594, 513 (2021)
Dmitri N. Basov (PhD 1991) is a Higgins professor and Chair of the Department of Physics at Columbia University [http://infrared.cni.columbia.edu], the Director of the DOE Energy Frontiers Research Center on Programmable Quantum Materials and co-director of Max Planck Society -- New York Center for Nonequilibrium Quantum Phenomena. He has served as a professor (1997-2016) and Chair (2010-2015) of Physics, University of California San Diego. Research interests include: physics of quantum materials, superconductivity, two-dimensional materials, infrared nano-optics. Prizes and recognitions: Sloan Fellowship (1999), Genzel Prize (2014), Humboldt research award (2009), Frank Isakson Prize, American Physical Society (2012), Moore Investigator (2014, 2020), K.J. Button Prize (2019), Vanneva -
Dr. Francisco Villaescusa-Navarro, Princeton University, "Learning fundamental physics with machine learning and virtual universes", SPS Colloquium4:00pm
4/28
Dr. Francisco Villaescusa-Navarro, Princeton University, "Learning fundamental physics with machine learning and virtual universes", SPS Colloquium
Friday, April 28th, 2023
04:00 PM - 05:00 PM
Storrs Campus GW-001
Dr. Francisco Villaescusa-Navarro, Princeton University
Learning fundamental physics with machine learning and virtual universes
In this talk, I will discuss the need for numerical simulations as a powerful tool to study and learn physics. Starting from a cosmological context, I will first describe how large cosmological N-body simulations allow us to improve our knowledge of the laws and constituents of the Universe. Going to smaller scales, I will stress the need for full hydrodynamic simulations that account not only for gravity but also for hydrodynamic and astrophysical processes such as star formation and feedback from supermassive black holes. I will then introduce the largest set of cosmological hydrodynamic simulations ever run: the CAMELS project. Finally, I will show how recent advances in deep learning are enabling us to explore these virtual universes with a level of precision never seen before. -
Dr. Leonardo Civale, Los Alamos National Laboratory, "How to improve the critical currents in REBa2Cu3O7 films and coated conductors by tailoring pinning centers", Condensed Matter Physics Seminar2:00pm
4/26
Dr. Leonardo Civale, Los Alamos National Laboratory, "How to improve the critical currents in REBa2Cu3O7 films and coated conductors by tailoring pinning centers", Condensed Matter Physics Seminar
Wednesday, April 26th, 2023
02:00 PM - 03:00 PM
Storrs Campus GS-117
Dr. Leonardo Civale, Los Alamos National Laboratory
How to improve the critical currents in REBa2Cu3O7 films and coated conductors by tailoring pinning centers
Superconductivity was discovered more than a century ago. The possibility to carry electrical currents without dissipation immediately suggests attractive technological opportunities, but in practice, the very low temperatures required to operate conventional superconductors limited their use to rather limited applications. Three properties of a superconductor that are obviously desirable for applications are high critical temperature (Tc), large upper critical field (Hc2), and strong pinning. The arrival of the cuprate high Tc superconductors represented a huge improvement in the first two conditions. However, the large influence of thermal fluctuations in these materials (orders of magnitude stronger than in conventional superconductors) produces new vortex liquid phases where vortex pinning vanishes, reducing the magnetic field range useful for applications, and induces fast detrimental dynamics in the solid phases (flux creep) that effectively reduces the critical current density (Jc).
In this talk, I will focus on REBa2Cu3O7 films and coated conductors (where RE=Y, rare earth, or a combination of them). These systems exhibit the highest Jc in any known superconductor, making the study of their vortex matter relevant both from fundamental and technological perspectives. Large efforts from many research groups have succeeded in enhancing Jc even further, either by the incorporation of non-superconducting second phases (in the form of self-assembled nanorods or randomly dispersed nanoparticles) or by particle irradiation. I will present our studies aimed at tuning the pinning landscapes for in-field Jc optimization. Finally, I will discuss the effects of thermal fluctuations.
Research supported by US DOE, Office of Science, Basic Energy Sciences, Division of Materials Sciences and Engineering -
Dr. Nobuyuki Matsumoto, Brookhaven National Lab, "Possible use of trivializing maps as a coarse-graining map", Particle, Astrophysics and Nuclear Physics Seminar2:00pm
4/24
Dr. Nobuyuki Matsumoto, Brookhaven National Lab, "Possible use of trivializing maps as a coarse-graining map", Particle, Astrophysics and Nuclear Physics Seminar
Monday, April 24th, 2023
02:00 PM - 03:00 PM
Storrs Campus GS-119
Dr. Nobuyuki Matsumoto, Brookhaven National Lab
Possible use of trivializing maps as a coarse-graining map
In lattice calculation of quantum field theory, we encounter the infamous critical slowing down when approaching the continuum limit. Luscher in 2009 proposed to use a trivializing map in numerical simulations that map a gauge theory to its strong coupling limit. As the gauge configurations can be generated efficiently in the strong coupling, this method can potentially resolve the critical slowing down. However, the original algorithm was tested and asserted to have a fair amount of overhead eliminating the gain [Engel-Schaefer 2011]. This work considers how we can redesign the map so that one overcomes this practical difficulty. In this talk, I report an exploratory effort to use local trivializing maps as a coarse-graining map. The coarse-graining map allows us to use the effective action we obtain after integrating local degrees of freedom. The method is applied to a toy model of 2D U(1) pure gauge theory, for which we can see the gain at least in the unit of Monte Carlo steps. -
UConn chapter of Optica invited speaker: Dr. Gregory Quarles, CEO, Applied Energetics Inc., "Title: Career paths for students and early-career professionals", Dr. Gregory Quarles (UConn Physics Colloquium)3:30pm
4/21
UConn chapter of Optica invited speaker: Dr. Gregory Quarles, CEO, Applied Energetics Inc., "Title: Career paths for students and early-career professionals", Dr. Gregory Quarles (UConn Physics Colloquium)
Friday, April 21st, 2023
03:30 PM - 04:30 PM
Storrs Campus GW-002
UConn chapter of Optica invited speaker: Dr. Gregory Quarles, CEO, Applied Energetics Inc.
Title: Career paths for students and early-career professionals
Abstract: TBD -
Dr. Jim Zickefoose, Senior Research Scientist, Mirion Technologies, "Applying an advanced physics degree to an industrial position ", Graduate Student Seminar12:15pm
4/21
Dr. Jim Zickefoose, Senior Research Scientist, Mirion Technologies, "Applying an advanced physics degree to an industrial position ", Graduate Student Seminar
Friday, April 21st, 2023
12:15 PM - 01:15 PM
Storrs Campus GS-119
Dr. Jim Zickefoose, Senior Research Scientist, Mirion Technologies
Applying an advanced physics degree to an industrial position
I received my PhD from the University of Connecticut in 2010 and since that time have been working in industry as a physicist for Mirion Technologies Inc. (formerly Canberra Industries). There were several skills I gained during my studies as a PhD student that helped me obtain my position in industry as well as progress up the technical ladder. I will briefly discuss my primary PhD research topic, experimental nuclear astrophysics, identifying some of the skills obtained during my research that are vital in industry. Mirion is involved in the detection, quantification, remediation of nuclear radiation on many levels, most notable in the development of High Purity Germanium (HPGe) detectors. I will provide an overview of Mirion's core interests and describe how my current and previous roles there have contributed to those interests. As is true with any sector you will choose to work in, there are benefits and drawbacks to working there. I will discuss a few aspects that are in my opinion assets of industrial work as well as number of points of frustration that I have found in industry. Finally, I have been involved in the hiring of several incoming physicist personnel at Mirion. I will discuss some key points to consider when searching for, applying to, interviewing for, and accepting positions in industry. -
Dr. En-Hung Chao, Columbia University, "The anomalous magnetic moment of the muon from Lattice QCD with coordinate-space formalisms", Particle, Astrophysics and Nuclear Physics Seminar2:00pm
4/17
Dr. En-Hung Chao, Columbia University, "The anomalous magnetic moment of the muon from Lattice QCD with coordinate-space formalisms", Particle, Astrophysics and Nuclear Physics Seminar
Monday, April 17th, 2023
02:00 PM - 03:00 PM
Storrs Campus GS-119
Dr. En-Hung Chao, Columbia University
The anomalous magnetic moment of the muon from Lattice QCD with coordinate-space formalisms
The discrepancy between the experimentally measured value for the anomalous magnetic moment of the muon (\(a_\mu\)) and the Standard Model prediction is a long-standing puzzle in modern particle physics. As of the theory consensus reached in 2020, the tension lies at the 4.2-\(\sigma\) level. Currently, the theory uncertainty is dominated by hadronic contributions. The two most relevant categories of such contributions are the Hadronic Vacuum Polarization (HVP) and the Hadronic Light-by-Light (HLbL), starting at the second and third order in the fine structure constant respectively. Over the past years, Lattice Quantum Chromodynamics (LQCD) has been successfully applied to determine the HVP and the HLbL contributions and the estimates are being continuously improved. With these updates, tensions emerge between LQCD and the data-driven methods, based on which the leading-order HVP contribution of the 2020 theory consensus is given.
In this talk, I will present two \(a_\mu\)-related LQCD activities of the Mainz group. Firstly, I will discuss a recent publication on the calculation of the intermediate window quantity of the HVP [arXiv:2211.15581], where precise comparisons between LQCD and the data-driven methods can be made. Our calculation is done in a covariant coordinate-space framework and performed at an unphysical reference pion mass with a careful treatment for the finite-volume effects. Our result is consistent with the Mainz 2022 result based on another more conventional formalism, the time-momentum representation, interpolated to the same reference pion mass. Secondly, I will review the Mainz endeavor on the direct calculation of the HLbL contribution to \(a_\mu\) [arXiv: 2006.16224, 2104.02632, 2204.08844], where the QED effects are treated in the continuum and infinite volume. This effort includes many different lattice spacings and heavier-than-physical pion masses, allowing for a robust extrapolation to the physical point for the up-, down- and strange-quark contributions. An estimate for the charm quark contribution is also given based on a partially-quenched calculation at the SU(3)-flavor symmetric limit.