Postings created for publication in the Physics Department web page news feed.
The physics department will be hosting Prof. Geri Richmond from the University of Oregon to give a Special Lecture on Diversity and Inclusion. The talk is Tuesday, November 28, 3:30pm, Physics/Biology Building, Room 131
Talk Poster
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The American Physical Society (APS) has named two UConn Physics faculty as APS Fellows. APS Fellowship is a distinct honor signifying recognition by one’s professional peers and is an honor bestowed by election. The criterion for election is exceptional contributions to the physics enterprise; e.g., outstanding physics research, important applications of physics, leadership in or service to physics, or significant contributions to physics education.
In 2017, Susanne Yelin and Alex Kovner are named Fellows of the American Physical Society.
| APS Fellow Susanne Yelin: For pioneering theoretical work with quantum coherences, such as near-resonant nonlinear quantum optics, for work with hybrid systems, such as molecular and solid state materials, and for work with many-body and cooperative systems and super-radiance. | |
| APS Fellow Alex Kovner: “ For ground-breaking contributions to the physics of strong interactions in high energy hadronic and nuclear collisions, including high parton densities and gluon saturation.” |
The UConn Physics Graduate Student Association sponsored a social event featuring UConn dairy bar ice cream to welcome back students after the summer break. Other regular events throughout the year sponsored by the PGSA include the Holiday Party in December, the Poster Exhibition Competition in April, and the Department Picnic in May.
The Physics Department has recently expanded its research and teaching specialties to include Astronomy with the addition of three new junior faculty: Cara Battersby, Jonathan Trump, and Kate Whitaker. In addition to the expertise in Observational Astronomy using the latest instruments and techniques, they are also spearheading a suite of new courses in Astronomy and Astrophysics. Following on with the popularity of these course with our students, we have now introduced a new minor in Astronomy to give undergraduate majors across a broad range of majors the opportunity to make Astronomy a prominent part of their studies.
Following up on results from Physics education research conducted at MIT and elsewhere, professor Jason Hancock has begun the process of transforming the way Introductory Physics is taught at the University of Connecticut. Starting with the course PHYS 1601Q for physics majors, Prof. Hancock has developed a curriculum that integrates aspects of both lecture and lab components in an active learning environment that introduces students to all of the essential physics covered in the traditional lecture course, but in a format where students work in groups and discover the principles of classical mechanics for themselves using a hands-on approach. Experience gained with PHYS 1601Q will lay the ground work for the eventual conversion of the full suite of calculus-based Introductory Physics courses into an active learning format.
In May, 2017 UConn alumnus Alex Barnes was awarded a postdoctoral fellowship in Nuclear Physics at Carnegie Mellon University, working in the group of Prof. Curtis Meyer. Alex begins this appointment immediately after completing his PhD at the University of Connecticut in April 2017, under the guidance of Prof. Richard Jones.
In his new position, Alex joins a team of 5 other junior scientists working at Jefferson Lab on the analysis of data from the GlueX experiment. He also assumes shared responsibility for operation and calibration of the Central Drift Chamber, and other detector subsystems. In his PhD thesis, Alex showed that a clean sample of exclusive phi(1020) mesons could be reconstructed using the GlueX detector. With the addition of higher statistics data in 2018 and following, he plans to push his investigation into the higher mass region, in search of new exotic particles that are predicted to exist based on the Standard Model of strong interactions.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control lists radon as a primary cause of lung cancer, second only to smoking. The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that 20,000 deaths each year from lung cancer in the U.S. are the result of exposure to radon in the living environment. It is believed that as many as 1 in 15 homes in the continental United States have radon levels that require some form of mitigation. In spite of this, very few homes are equipped with continuous radon monitoring devices and most radiation monitoring facilities only provide feedback on time scales of weeks or even months.
The technology used in standard residential radon monitoring has not changed significantly over the past 50 years. On the other hand, development of fast detectors for particle physics experiments at large international laboratories such as the Large Hadron Collider over the past two decades has opened up new technologies for radiation detection that may result in a significant improvement in the efficiency and response time for radon detection.
UConn undergraduate Mira Varma, pictured above, is holding a part of what she hopes to assemble into a hand-held radon detector capable of detecting changes in radon concentration on the time scale of an hour, close to the time scale of the natural variation in a residential environment, rather than days or weeks. Mira is carrying out this development under the direction of UConn Physics Prof. Richard Jones.
As a research assistant in the physics department at UCONN, I assisted in the alignment, maintenance, and principles of operation of the various apparatuses and measurement techniques used within cold atomic, molecular, and optical (AMO) experimental physics research. This included optical components, laser alignment, laser locking, saturation absorption spectroscopy, and electrodynamic ion trapping. Some specific experiments ran included measuring the fraction of a trapped, sodium atom-cloud (fe) pumped into an optically excited state using laser beams as well as measuring the temperature of a trapped, neutral atom-cloud via spatio-temporal fluorescence imaging.
Attached is our record for the Mw 6.9 earthquake associated with eruptions of the Kilauea volcano on the big island of Hawaii. The large waves arriving after 2300 GMT are surface waves (elastic energy that exponentially decays with depth away from the surface) traveling from the earthquake to us. The beating pattern is characteristic of surface waves interfering from slightly different multi paths as they are refracted by the sharp transition in elastic structure between the ocean and continent.
The amplitude of strain associated with the waves is on the order of 10**-12 (peak particle velocity divided by propagation velocity). For comparison, the strain associated with gravity waves recorded by LIGO is on the order of 10**-21.
Scientists have been rigorously commissioning the experimental equipment to prepare for a new era of nuclear physics experiments. This equipment is at the newly upgraded Continuous Electron Beam Accelerator Facility (CEBAF) at Jefferson Lab in Newport News, Virginia. These activities have already led to the first scientific result. This research demonstrates the feasibility of detecting a potential new form of matter.
The result demonstrates the feasibility of detecting hybrid mesons. These mesons are particles that are built of the same stuff as ordinary protons and neutrons: quarks bound together by the “glue” of the strong force. But unlike ordinary mesons, the glue in hybrid mesons behaves differently. The research provides a window into how mesons and other particles that are smaller than atoms are built by the strong force. The study also offers insights into “quark confinement” — why no quark has ever been found alone.
The first experimental result has been published from the newly upgraded Continuous Electron Beam Accelerator Facility (CEBAF). The 12-GeV CEBAF Upgrade is a $338 million, multi-year project to triple CEBAF’s original operational energy for investigating the quark structure of the atom’s nucleus. The upgrade is scheduled for completion in the fall of 2017. This first result demonstrates the feasibility of detecting a potential new form of matter. It comes from the Gluonic Excitations Experiment, which is staged in the new Experimental Hall D that was built as part of the upgrade. GlueX collaborators are working to produce new particles, called hybrid mesons, which are particles in which both the quarks and the strong-force gluons have a role in the structure. Producing and studying the spectrum of these particles will provide nuclear physicists a window to “quark confinement” — why no quark has ever been found alone. Data were collected over a two-week period following equipment commissioning in the spring of 2016. The experiment produced two ordinary mesons called the neutral pion and the eta, and the production mechanisms of these two particles were carefully studied. The data provided powerful new information on meson production mechanisms, ruling out several, and the data also showed that the GlueX experiment can produce timely results.
Richard Jones
Group Leader, University of Connecticut
richard.t.jones@uconn.edu
This material is based upon work supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation under grant 1508238.
H. Al Ghoul, et al. (GlueX Collaboration), “Measurement of the beam asymmetry Σ for π0 and η photoproduction on the proton at Eγ = 9 GeV” Physical Review C 95, 042201 (2017). [DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevC.95.042201]
Symmetry magazine article: Exploring the universal glue
Jefferson Lab news release: Jefferson Lab accelerator delivers its first 12 GeV electrons
Jefferson Lab news release: Jefferson Lab accelerator upgrade completed: Initial operations set to begin while experimental equipment upgrades continue
This article first appeared under Science Highlights on the Dept. of Energy web site, October 6, 2017.
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