Title: The Impact of Nuclear Physics on Society Abstract: Born in war, nuclear science was first revealed to the world in horror. The Cold War, power plant disasters, and current political tensions continue to play into people’s fears of everything nuclear. But what is the scientist’s role? The author uses public scholarship to help address…
Title: Galaxies as Probes of the Particle Physics Nature of Dark Matter Abstract: The hypothesis of Cold Dark Matter (CDM) has been spectacularly confirmed on the largest scales of the Universe and must now be stress-tested on sub-galactic scales. Many well-motivated and generic alternatives to CDM can leave spectacular signatures on precisely these scales, affecting the evolution of galaxies as well as their population statistics. Excitingly, over the course of the…
Title: Quantum Networks Abstract: I discuss a few ideas at the interface of network science and quantum physics. A key idea in this interface is the notion of a quantum walk, which is a generalization of a classical random walk. I will discuss the use of quantum walks to measure the importance (i.e., centrality) of…
Rui Sun, NC State University Title: Control Over Spin with Chirality Abstract: Spintronics, an emerging field at the intersection of condensed matter physics and materials science, harnesses the spin degree of freedom of electrons for novel electronic functionalities beyond conventional charge-based electronics, such as spin-orbit torque magnetic random-access memory (SOT-MRAM). In the last decade, a…
Dan Scolnic, Duke University Title: The Lingering Hubble Tension and New Puzzling Measurements of Dark Energy Abstact: The standard model of cosmology has passed every test over the last twenty years. Yet it remains unsatisfactory, with 95% of the universe being dark components, whose nature we did not understand. Now, there are possible 'cracks' in the…
Gleb Finkelstein, Duke University Title: Multiterminal Graphene-based Josephson Junctions — a Playground for Non-linear and Quantum Physics Abstract: Josephson junctions are at the heart of many quantum devices, including superconducting qubits. In the recently developed multi-terminal Josephson junctions, several superconducting contacts are made to a common non-superconducting region. It has been predicted that these devices…
Kim Venn, University of Victoria Title: Exploring the Faintest Milky Way Satellites Abstract: Star clusters and dwarf galaxies are known to cohabit the outer Milky Way halo, occasionally as tidally disrupted streams. It is useful to distinguish these objects, as the "ultra faint" dwarf galaxies probe the low mass end of the dark matter halo…
Jonah Miller, Los Alamos National Lab Title: What High Fidelity Supercomputer Simulations Can Teach Us About Matter at the Highest Densities and the Origin of Heavy Elements Abstract: The 2017 detection of the in-spiral and merger of two neutron stars was a landmark discovery in astrophysics. Through a wealth of multi-messenger data, we now know…
Geraldine Cochran, The Ohio State University Title: Rethinking What it Means to be Underprepared in Physics Abstract: Dominant narratives in introductory physics education often focus on student preparation in mathematics. Students who have not reached a certain level of proficiency as determined by math placement tests are often labeled as underprepared. In this presentation, I…
Qiang Cui, Boston University Title: Lipid Membrane Remodeling by Proteins and Peptides: Mechanistic insights from multi-scale analysis Abstract: We will discuss the analysis of membrane remodeling by proteins and peptides using multi-scale computational methods; these include mainly molecular dynamics simulations at atomistic and coarse-grained levels, although we will also touch upon analyses using lattice models…
