At right is a picture showin Prof. Lisa Randall with Duke Physics Professors Kate Scholberg and Haiyan Gao. During the commencement weekend, the physics department hosted a luncheon on Saturday, May 14 in honor of Prof. Lisa Randall, a renowned particle theorist, who received an honorary degree from Duke on Sunday, May 15. Dr. Randall also made a few remarks at the joint Physics and Mathematics diploma ceremony on Sunday following the… read more about Luncheon to honor Prof. Lisa Randall »
NOTE: SOME LINKS WERE BROKEN DUE TO WEBSITE REDESIGN The T2K experiment reports indications of electron neutrino appearance! Read more on Prof. Chris Walter's website here. Read the official T2K press release here and the Duke Today story here. Full list of Duke T2K people: Faculty:Kate Scholberg Chris Walter Postdoc:Roger Wendell Grad Students:Josh Albert Taritree Wongjirad New postdocs starting now:Alex Himmel Tarek Akiri read more about The T2K experiment reports indications of electron neutrino appearance! »
Prof. Ashutosh Kotwal has recently been elected to serve as the Chair of the Nominating Committee for the Division of Particles and Fields of the American Physical Society. Prof. Kotwal writes, "This committee serves as the Search Committee within the Division of particles and fields, to discuss potential candidates for all the other official positions in the division. My role as chair will be to conduct the search for the other officers of the Division and generate a short list of candidates.… read more about Prof. Kotwal to serve as Chair of the Nominating Committe within APS Division »
The 2011 Daphne Chang Memorial Award for the best undergraduate research conducted in the 2010/2011 academic year was awarded to graduating senior Siuyan Sun for his research into the Z' Boson in the Dimuon Decay Channel at the ATLAS experiment. Siuyan's faculty advisor is Prof. Ashutosh Kotwal. Find more information on Daphne Chang and the Daphne Chang Memorial award here. read more about 2011 Daphne Chang Award goes to Siuyan Sun »
On Sunday, May 15, the Physics Department held a ceremony to recognize the 2011 Physics undergraduate and graduate student graduates. Congratulations to all our graduates! More photos from the event may be viewed on Flickr here. read more about 2011 Graduation Ceremony »
Prof. Calvin Howell was highlighted in the newsletter Waves and Packets: A Joint Publication of the African Physical Society, the National Society of Black Physicists, and the South African Institute of Physics in an article entitled "NSBP member Calvin Howell leads project applying nuclear physics to safe ports." Read it online here. read more about Calvin Howell in "Waves and Packets" »
Members of the Duke QCD Theory Group and MADAI collaboration, Chris Coleman-Smith, Robert Wolpert, Prof. Steffen A. Bass and Hannah Petersen, published a paper "Constraining the granularity of heavy ion collisions: Can bulk observables help to quantify the initial state fluctuations in relativistic heavy ion collisions?" in the Journal of Physics G: Nuclear and Particle Physics. Read the article online here. read more about QCD Group Published in Journal of Physics G »
The American Physical Society held their April 2011 meeting in Anaheim, California. Several members of Duke Physics were in attendance: Undergraduate student Ashley Jones: N-16 Capture to Differentiate Between Neutrinos and Antineutrinos in Super-Kamiokande, also received a certificate for notable accomplishments and presentation of research Taritree Wongjirad: T2K Outer Detector Events John Ahearne: Leo Szilard Lectureship Award Talk Prof. Kate Scholberg… read more about Duke Physics at APS April Meeting »
Professor Haiyan Gao’s former student, Xin Qian, has been named the 2011 Jefferson Lab Thesis Award winner. Qian, who came to Prof. Gao’s Medium Energy research group at the age of 19, will receive the prize and present on his thesis at the Jefferson Lab Users Meeting Award ceremony on June 7th, 2011. Qian went on to a postdoctoral position at Caltech in 2010. Qian’s thesis, “Measurement of Single Spin Asymmetry in n↑(e, e′π±)X on Transversely Polarized 3He” was… read more about Xin Qian Named 2011 Jefferson Lab Thesis Award Winner »
NOTE: LINK HAS BROKEN DUE TO WEBSITE REDESIGN Duke researchers at TUNL were surprised to uncover evidence contrary to a long-accepted explanation of how nuclei collide. Duke physicist Prof. Henry Weller and colleagues are featured in a Duke Research blog post from Spring of 2011. See the original article for a short video and more information: read more about Duke Research Blog features TUNL scientists »
Simona Malace, a research scientist under Prof. Haiyan Gao stationed at Jefferson Lab, was the winner of the 2010 JSA Postdoctoral Research Fellowship Award. With this award she successfully organized the 3rd International Workshop on Nucleon Structure at Large Bjorken x. Attendees of the 3rd International Workshop on Nucleon Structure at Large Bjorken x The workshop Nucleon Structure at Large Bjorken x was held at the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator… read more about Postdoc Simona Malace Receives JSA Fellowship Award »
On Friday, May 13th, members of Prof. Dan Gauthier's lab played a prank on him by filling his office with chairs to bid him a fond farewell as Chair of the Physics Department. There was a note reading "We're sad that you will no longer be one of us! ~chairs" and one chair was labeled "Take me with you!" See the group's photos can be viewed here as well as on Flickr. read more about The Chair's Farewell »
At this year's Physics Department undergraduate poster session, a new group of students was inducted into Sigma Pi Sigma, the national Physics Honor Society. Students were nominated by the Physics faculty and by the Director of Undergraduate Studies, Prof. Henry Greenside. Students were nominated based on a combination of academic excellence in physics courses, excellence in physics research, outreach to Duke or to surrounding schools related to physics, and leadership efforts on campus or… read more about 2011 Physics Honor Society Inductees »
At right: Ariana at Monet's garden in Giverny, France--traveling while on her Fulbright Scholarship in Paris After graduating from Duke in 2010 as a primary physics and secondary math major and completing a year of research on the ATLAS experiment through the Fulbright program, Ariana Minot is starting doctorate studies in applied mathematics at Harvard University as an NSF Graduate Fellow. Either incoming or current first-year graduate students in the discipline of mathematics, science… read more about Alumni Update: Ariana Minot, NSF Graduate Fellow »
At right: Senior Ashley Jones discusses her poster with graduate student Abhijit Mehta. The Annual Poster Presentation by Undergraduate Students was held on Thursday, April 28, 2011 under the direction of Director of Undergraduate Studies Prof. Henry Greenside. Presentations were made by: Travis Byington, "Physics of Limit-Periodicity: Defects and Annealing” advisor: Prof. Joshua Socolar Kevin Driscoll, "Einstein Causality in a Fast-Light Medium… read more about 2011 Undergraduate Poster Presentations »
NOTE: THE FIRST LINK WAS BROKEN DUE TO WEBSITE REDESIGN. A public talk given on April 22nd by Professor Mark Kruse's on the origins of the universe and The Large Hadron Collider was recently featured by the Duke Research Blog. This talk, which was very well attended by members of the university community and the public, covered a broad spectrum of topics within High Energy Physics and offered insight into the work being done at CERN. Prof. Kruse discussed both the LHC and ATLAS… read more about Mark Kruse's Talk Featured by Duke Research »
Four undergraduates from the Physics Department will be participating in summer research projects this year thanks to the Duke Endowment fund. The Duke Endowment has funded faculty mentored research for undergraduate students for the past five years. This research is intended to lead to "graduation with distinction" projects. Awards are made for summer programs and academic year programs and funds are awarded on a one-year basis from winning proposals submitted on the department level. The Physics Department's… read more about Duke Endowment Funds Summer Research Fellowships »
Prof. Ashutosh Kotwal and collaborators published a paper in the March 21, 2010 issue of Physical Review Letters titled “Search for High Mass Resonances Decaying to Muon Pairs in √s=1.96 TeV pp̅ Collisions.” In this paper, Prof. Kotwal and his colleagues analyzed the spectrum of energies of pairs of muons produced in proton-antiproton collisions at Fermilab's Tevatron accelerator, and recorded by the CDF experiment. The analysis was designed to search for new gauge bosons, mediators of… read more about Prof. Kotwal Publishes Paper in Physical Review Letters »
This semester many Duke Physics graduate students have progressed in their progress towards their degrees. Below are just a few highlights of their achievements: January 21, 2011: Huaixiu Zheng (G08) passed his preliminary exam. His advisor is Prof. Harold Baranger. March 16, 2011: Abe Clark (G08) passed his preliminary exam. His advisor is Prof. Bob Behringer. April 4, 2011: Taritree Wongjirad (G08) passed his preliminary exam. His advisor is Prof. Kate Scholberg. Adam… read more about Graduate Student News »
Prof. Stefano Curtarolo received the 2011 International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP) Young Scientist Prize in Computational Physics. The Award will be 1000 euros plus a medal and certificate to be provided by IUPAP. As the recipient, Curtarolo will be invited to present a paper and receive his award at the Commission’s 2011 Conference on Computational Physics (CCP2011) being held October 30-November 3, 2011 in Gatlinburg, Tennesse. read more about Prof. Curtarolo recives Young Scientist Prize from IUPAP »
Prof. Robert Behringer was invited to join the new journal AIP Advances. Prof. Behringer's article "Force chains in a two-dimensional granular pure shear experiment" was published in AIP's Chaos and was one of its monthly top 20 most-downloaded articles during 2010. The invitation to join Advances stated that without it "Chaos would not be one of the most highly cited journals in its field." Because of his work, they have invited him to submit his most current research to the first issue of their new… read more about Prof. Behringer to join AIP Advances »
Recently many Duke Physics undergraduates have received awards and recognition for their work. Here is a list of some of the latest achievements: Farzan Beroz, a junior physics major, got an honorable mention for the Goldwater Award, an impressive academic achievement nationwide. Vivek Bhattacharya recently won a prestigious national Goldwater Fellowship which gave him national publicity. He is doing interesting research in theoretical nuclear particle physics with Prof. Steffen… read more about Highlights of Undergraduate Achievements »
This month we have selected the Behringer Group Website as our Website of the Month. This site features the people, research, and publications of the Behringer Lab, led by Professor Bob Behringer. Prof. Behringer, the James B. Duke Professor of Physics, received his PhD from Duke University in 1975. His Lab currently includes postdocs and graduate students. The members of the Behringer Lab research aspects of granular and fluid flows. read more about Website of the Month - Behringer Group Website »
Dr. Rajarshi Raut’s poster “Measurements of the 86Kr(gamma,n) reaction at HIGS” has been chosen the Best Poster Award by the European Physical Society and fifth Nuclear Physics in Astrophysics Organizing Committee. The conference was held in Eilat, Israel, on April 3-8, 2011. Following the declaration of the award, Dr. Raut was invited to make a 10 minutes oral presentation. This award was also complimented by a check of 500 euros. Dr. Raut is a second year Postdoctoral Associate in the Duke physics… read more about Duke postdoc Dr. Raut receives Best Poster Award by EPS »
At the April 18 Hertha Sponer Presidential lecture at Duke, Dean Nancy Allen announced that an English translation of a biography of Hertha Sponer will soon be available online. Hertha Sponer was a physics professor at Duke from 1936 until 1965. Originally from Germany, she fled to the U.S. before the start of the war. Prof. Horst Meyer, one of the organizers of the biography project, says, “Miss Sponer was not Jewish, but she was a woman. In those days, under the Nazis, women were not seen to be fit to have an academic… read more about Duke Physics to Publish Hertha Sponer Biography Online »
After getting a PhD in physics at Duke in 1998 and earning a Director’s Postdoctoral Fellowship at Los Alamos National Laboratory, Scott Zoldi is now Vice President of Analytic Science at FICO (Fair Isaac Corporation) in San Diego, California. “When I was at Duke this was not my first view of where I would end up,” he says, “but it’s actually a natural place for theoretical physicists.” What links all his work together is computational analytics. “Working with data and trying to understand complex systems and… read more about Scott Zoldi, PhD 1998, is Vice President of Analytic Science at FICO »
We received this update from Prof. Al Goshaw: Mia Liu, my post doc, Andrea Bocci and I have made a first measurement with the ATLAS experiment of W and Z boson produced with high energy photons. This probes the structure of the W/Z/photon coupling in a new energy domain, and is sensitive to technicolor mesons decaying to Wg and Zg. The research was done with 2 other colleagues from Oxford and Academia Sinica. Andrea will present the results at the XIX International Workshop on Deep-Inelastic Scattering… read more about Prof. Goshaw's Group's First Measurement with ATLAS Experiment »
Prof. Anton Tonchev’s article “Precision Photo-Induced Cross-Section Measurement Using the Monoenergetic and Polarized Gamma Beams at High Intensity Gamma-Ray Source” was highlighted by the 2011 Stewardship Science Academic Alliances Annual as a “Publication Contest Winner”. Prof. Tonchev received a three-year award of $900,000 through the Stewardship Science Academic Alliances Program in 2009. The aim of this research activity is to use the novel source of γ-radiation at the High Intensity… read more about Prof. Tonchev Highlighted by 2011 Stewardship Science Academic Alliances Annual »
Prof. Haiyan Gao's group and Prof. Henry Weller's group completed a very successful two-week run on March 5th at the HIGS facility on double-polarized three-body photodisintegration of 3He, thanks to the outstanding quality of the beam delivered by the FEL staff under the leadership of Prof. Ying Wu. For more about the HIGS facility's recent achievements, see our news story "HIGS Attracts Worldwide Attention for its Gamma Rays." read more about Recent HIGS Update »
Prof. Patrick Charbonneau has received a five-year award of $450,000 through the National Science Foundation’s Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Program. Charbonneau will use the award to study soft materials, such as colloids, by theory and simulation. Under certain conditions, soft matter can be used to create complex and useful structures at very small scales. Charbonneau plans to investigate ways of controlling the assembly and dynamics of two kinds of soft matter: proteins and colloidal… read more about Charbonneau Received NSF CAREER Award »