Physics Prof. Tom Blum recognized for Research Excellence
Prof. Thomas Blum is one of two faculty to receive the Research Excellence award from the University of Connecticut in 2022. Tom came to UConn in 2004 and is a professor and associate department head for undergraduate education in the Physics Department. As a theoretical physicist, Blum specializes in making difficult, detailed mathematical calculations concerning […]
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Nobel Prize Winner, Professor Donna Strickland , Katzenstein Distinguished Lecturer
The University of Connecticut, Department of Physics, is proud to announce that on September 23, 2022, Professor Donna Strickland of the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Waterloo will be presenting the 2020 Distinguished Katzenstein Lecture. Prof. Strickland is one of the recipients of the 2018 Nobel Prize in Physics for developing […]
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Prof. Cara Battersby Awarded an NSF CAREER grant
Professor Cara Battersby has been awarded an NSF CAREER grant! “The Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Program is a Foundation-wide activity that offers the National Science Foundation’s most prestigious awards in support of early-career faculty who have the potential to serve as academic role models in research and education and to lead advances in the […]
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Plates that Helped Map the Universe, Now at UConn
UConn is now home to tools that have played an instrumental role in mapping the universe — 10 large aluminum plates used as part of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). Measuring 32 inches across, one-eighth of an inch thick, and with thousands of tiny holes drilled in them, these plates may not be the […]
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Two Physicists are in Project Daedalus that Focuses on Materials for Aerospace in New $4.7 Million Contract
UConn’s collaboration with the Department of Defense Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) is launching a new project. It is titled Multiscale Modeling and Characterization of Metamaterials, Functional Ceramics and Photonics. This is a $4.7 M contract with $1M for Physics. The project’s goal is to explore and advance the understanding of electronic, photonic, magnetic, and […]
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Graduate Student Rasika Dahanayake, Department of Physics, University of Connecticut, "Temperature and Solvent induced coil-globule transition of Polypropylene Oxide in solutions and its behavior within self-assembled nanostructures ", PhD Dissertation Defense12:30pm
6/13
Graduate Student Rasika Dahanayake, Department of Physics, University of Connecticut, "Temperature and Solvent induced coil-globule transition of Polypropylene Oxide in solutions and its behavior within self-assembled nanostructures ", PhD Dissertation Defense
Monday, June 13th, 2022
12:30 PM - 02:30 PM
Storrs Campus GS-119
Graduate Student Rasika Dahanayake, Department of Physics, University of Connecticut
Temperature and Solvent induced coil-globule transition of Polypropylene Oxide in solutions and its behavior within self-assembled nanostructures
Bio-compatible amphiphilic polymers are actively studied due to their many biomedical and industrial applications. Polypropylene oxide (PPO) is a polymer that exhibits an interesting thermal responsiveness. The mechanism of temperature induced coil-globule transition hard to assess with traditional methods, therefore molecular dynamics (MD) simulations can provide new insights. Here using all-atom MD simulations, we investigate the coil-globule transition and demonstrate that it is the temperature-induced increase in the sequence length of monomers that are not hydrogen bonded to water that drives the transition. Longer chains can create longer sequences, which serve as nucleation sites for hydrophobic cluster formation causing the transition to occur at lower temperatures.
Coil-globule transition of PPO can also be induced by addition of isobutyric acid (IBA) to aqueous solution. Adding a very small amount of IBA caused PPO to lose hydrogen bonds with water and create more stable hydrogen bonds with IBA which act as a nucleation site for the polymer collapse. With further addition of IBA, PPO expands and resides at the IBA/water interface to retain some fraction of hydrogen bonds with water along with IBA-water hydrogen bonds. In contrast to polyethylene oxide (PEO), where a significant fraction of water is doubly-bonded to polymer, PPO is mostly hydrated via singly bonded water molecules and loses hydration upon a temperature increase. These results illustrate that hydrogen bonding and a polymer's capability to maintain its hydration shell are the key factors in polymer responsiveness to external triggers.
This polymer responsiveness leads to temperature sensitive micelles used in biomedical applications. The structure and properties of cholesterol-polyethylene oxide-cholesterol micelles were studied using atomistic and coarse-grained MARTINI MD simulations. We also investigated using all-atom MD simulations the structure of di-block PPO-PEO and tri-block Pluronic micelles in aqueous solutions and analyzed micelle interactions with co-solvents such as alcohols and IBA. We found that di-block copolymers were able pack much tighter into spherically symmetric micelles compared to triblock copolymers. Depending on their hydrophobicity, co-solvents can localize at the interface or penetrate within the PPO core of micelles that can affect micelle properties and stability.
Webex URL: https://uconn-cmr.webex.com/uconn-cmr/j.php?MTID=m4eb17cf6a55d389d932d3718106547a6 -
Graduate Student Gloria Fonseca Alvarez, Department of Physics, University of Connecticut, "Mapping the Growth of Black Holes: Masses and Spectral Energy Distributions of Quasars"", PhD Dissertation Defense11:00am
6/8
Graduate Student Gloria Fonseca Alvarez, Department of Physics, University of Connecticut, "Mapping the Growth of Black Holes: Masses and Spectral Energy Distributions of Quasars"", PhD Dissertation Defense
Wednesday, June 8th, 2022
11:00 AM - 01:00 PM
Storrs Campus GS-119
Graduate Student Gloria Fonseca Alvarez, Department of Physics, University of Connecticut
Mapping the Growth of Black Holes: Masses and Spectral Energy Distributions of Quasars"
Supermassive black holes reside at the centers of massive galaxies, yet the processes by which these grow are not fully understood. This has been limited by the availability of accurate measurements of black hole (BH) mass and other fundamental properties for diverse samples across cosmic time. In this dissertation, I investigate BH scaling relations used to estimate mass, and use multi-wavelength SEDs to probe the physical processes that govern the inner environments of supermassive black holes. Time-domain observations of active galactic nuclei (AGN) can be used to measure BH mass through reverberation mapping (RM). RM results have established a tight correlation between the radius of the broad-line region (BLR) and the luminosity of AGN. Recent RM campaigns like the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Reverberation Mapping Project (SDSS-RM) show deviations from this correlation that is widely used to estimate mass from single-epoch observations. We find that these deviations are not accounted for by observational biases, but rather depend on the properties of AGN. This can lead to overestimation of BH masses. SDSS-RM has resulted in BH masses for > 100 quasars spanning a wide range of redshifts (0.1 < z < 3). This sample has multi-wavelength coverage from Pan-STARRS, GALEX TDS, WISE and XMM-Newton. We present contemporaneous UV/Optical SEDs for 32 of these quasars and discuss their UV/Optical and X-ray properties. These UV/Optical SEDs, combined with the BH masses from RM, can be used to measure the accretion rates of a large number of quasars.
Webex URL: https://uconn-cmr.webex.com/meet/gvf17001 -
Dr. Aaron Laforge, Department of Physics, University of Connecticut, "Ultrafast interatomic decay processes induced by quantum fluid dynamics ", Atomic, Molecular, And Optical Physics Seminar3:30pm
5/9
Dr. Aaron Laforge, Department of Physics, University of Connecticut, "Ultrafast interatomic decay processes induced by quantum fluid dynamics ", Atomic, Molecular, And Optical Physics Seminar
Monday, May 9th, 2022
03:30 PM - 04:30 PM
Storrs Campus GS-117
Dr. Aaron Laforge, Department of Physics, University of Connecticut
Ultrafast interatomic decay processes induced by quantum fluid dynamics
Weakly-bound complexes are unique systems to study XUV-mediated decay processes since energy can either be internally converted or exchanged with a neighboring atom or molecule. For larger nanoscale systems, the local environment also plays a critical role in the various interatomic processes. Here, I will discuss how the formation and dynamics of "bubbles" around excited atoms in helium nanodroplets can dramatically enhance interatomic decay. Furthermore, I will discuss how these processes can also be applied to other fluids such as water. -
Dr. Aaron Laforge, Department of Physics, University of Connecticut, "Ultrafast interatomic decay processes induced by quantum fluid dynamics ", RESCHEDULED to May 9 : Atomic, Molecular, And Optical Physics Seminar3:30pm
5/2
Dr. Aaron Laforge, Department of Physics, University of Connecticut, "Ultrafast interatomic decay processes induced by quantum fluid dynamics ", RESCHEDULED to May 9 : Atomic, Molecular, And Optical Physics Seminar
Monday, May 2nd, 2022
03:30 PM - 04:30 PM
Storrs Campus GS-117
Dr. Aaron Laforge, Department of Physics, University of Connecticut
Ultrafast interatomic decay processes induced by quantum fluid dynamics
Weakly-bound complexes are unique systems to study XUV-mediated decay processes since energy can either be internally converted or exchanged with a neighboring atom or molecule. For larger nanoscale systems, the local environment also plays a critical role in the various interatomic processes. Here, I will discuss how the formation and dynamics of "bubbles" around excited atoms in helium nanodroplets can dramatically enhance interatomic decay. Furthermore, I will discuss how these processes can also be applied to other fluids such as water. -
Prof. Jonathan Trump, Department of Physics, University of Connecticut, "New Eyes on the Universe: the James Webb Space Telescope", UConn Physics Colloquium3:30pm
4/29
Prof. Jonathan Trump, Department of Physics, University of Connecticut, "New Eyes on the Universe: the James Webb Space Telescope", UConn Physics Colloquium
Friday, April 29th, 2022
03:30 PM - 04:30 PM
Storrs Campus GW-001
Prof. Jonathan Trump, Department of Physics, University of Connecticut
New Eyes on the Universe: the James Webb Space Telescope
The James Webb Space Telescope is one of the most ambitious physics experiments ever conceived by humanity. The $10B space observatory is a collaborative project involving NASA, ESA, CSA, and other international partners and successfully launched on Dec 25, 2021. After a complex unfolding that included over 300 potential (and terrifying) points of failure, the spacecraft is now completing its final deployment steps and is on track to begin science operations in late June of this year. I will describe how my research group will use some of the telescope's first observations to find the very first galaxies and black holes forming in the early Universe. I will also discuss how the telescope's infrared capabilities unveil a new window on the cold Universe, including dust-enshrouded star formation and the atmospheres of (potentially habitable) exoplanets. The James Webb Space Telescope is such an enormous advance for observational astronomy that it is difficult to predict its full impact: much like the (32-yr-old) Hubble Space Telescope, its key science results are likely to include a great many expected discoveries about the physics of the Universe. -
Mathematical Physics Seminar The Geometry Of String DualitiesStefan Mendez-Diez (Bard College)2:30pm
4/27
Mathematical Physics Seminar The Geometry Of String DualitiesStefan Mendez-Diez (Bard College)
Wednesday, April 27th, 2022
02:30 PM - 04:00 PM
Storrs Campus MONT-313
We will discuss the different supersymmetric string theories and how they are all related to each other. We will further explore how the different physical relationships can be described geometrically. -
Prof. Philip Mannheim, Department of Physics, University of Connecticut, "My time at UConn - a 43 year Odyssey", UConn Physics Colloquium3:30pm
4/22
Prof. Philip Mannheim, Department of Physics, University of Connecticut, "My time at UConn - a 43 year Odyssey", UConn Physics Colloquium
Friday, April 22nd, 2022
03:30 PM - 04:30 PM
Storrs Campus GW-001
Prof. Philip Mannheim, Department of Physics, University of Connecticut
My time at UConn - a 43 year Odyssey
I arrived at UConn on September 1, 1979, and I will retire on July 1, 2022. In this talk I will describe some of the things that I did in between. I will describe some of my departmental and university activities, and will discuss some of the research I have done, research that benefited immeasurably from the supportive environment that my departmental colleagues and students have constantly provided me with.
Talk slides: https://physics.uconn.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/2234/2022/04/odyssey.pdf
Video recording of the talk: https://kaltura.uconn.edu/media/mannheim-colloquium-20220422/1_f0y4vjfw -
Prof. Carlos Trallero, Department of Physics, University of Connecticut, "Quantum times ", Graduate Student Seminar12:15pm
4/22
Prof. Carlos Trallero, Department of Physics, University of Connecticut, "Quantum times ", Graduate Student Seminar
Friday, April 22nd, 2022
12:15 PM - 01:15 PM
Storrs Campus GS-119
Prof. Carlos Trallero, Department of Physics, University of Connecticut
Quantum times
We study quantum dynamics by following light-mater interaction at short time scales from the long wavelength infrared or "heat" wavelength to the soft Xray all using table top sources. In our lab "mater" covers from isolated electrons, to atoms, molecules, nanoparticles, 2D heterostructures and bulk solids. Our time scales range from the pico to the zepto second. I will discuss our new results and proposed experiments on zeptosecond control of light and non-local quantum correlations.