Title: Topological Stars and Gravity Abstract: In this colloquium, I will discuss aspects of microscopic degrees of freedom of gravity and the physical motivation of quantum gravity. While the generic states are quantum mechanical, our goal will be to understand a class of them that are coherent enough to admit classical descriptions in Einstein gravity.…
Title: Flow, Fluctuate and Freeze: Modeling Collective Cell Motion Using Soft Active Matter Abstract: Active or living materials are made out of agents that can move on their own, such as birds, fish, or artificial systems such as robots or active colloids. Cells are a core active material, and the two-dimensional tissues known as epithelial…
Title: Self-assembly Across Scales: From Cytoskeletal Dynamics to Evolution of Multicellularity Abstract: Self-assembly is a fundamental process that drives organization and function across biological systems, from molecular complexes to multicellular structures. In this talk, I will present our recent research on the role of self-assembly in actin cytoskeletal dynamics and the evolution of multicellularity. At…
Title and Abstract details are forthcoming. Host: Steve Reynolds
Title: Direct Measurements of Capture Reactions Abstract: Capture cross sections (both for charged particles and neutrons) are required not only for nuclear astrophysics modeling, but also for a variety of applications ranging from nuclear energy, stockpile stewardship to national security. A variety of techniques have been utilized to perform such measurements to ensure low uncertainty…
Title: Studying Chromosome Conformation and Dynamics Using Chemically Induced Chromosomal Interaction (CICI) Abstract: Chemically Induced Chromosomal Interaction (CICI) method developed in our lab enables induction of stable chromosome interactions. This method allows us to accurately measure the encounter time, or the “first passage time (FPT)” of two targeted loci on the chromosome. Here, we extracted…
Title: Distributed Quantum Computing with Shared Quantum Gate Processing Unit Abstract: Due to many physical constraints, it is extremely challenging to build a monolithic fully connected quantum computer with a very large number (N) of qubits, in which a direct control gate operation can be performed between two arbitrary qubits. Extending from N to N+1…
Title and abstract details are forthcoming. Host: Alexander Kemper
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…