Prof. Steffen Bass's class Computational Physics Class, PHY566, has received the Duke Green Classroom Certification. The Duke Green Classroom Certification was created to provide faculty with the opportunity to reduce the environmental impact of their courses and classrooms at Duke University while demonstrating eco-friendly behaviors to students. You can read more about it the program here. read more about Bass Goes Green »
Researchers in the Duke Physics and ECE departments have demonstrated that nanometer-sized antennas can greatly enhance local electromagnetic fields in the ultraviolet. The field of plasmonics explores how to engineer metallic structures to control and concentrate electromagnetic fields, especially in dimensions very small compared to the wavelength of the radiation. It has been known for some time that gold and silver nanostructures act as antennas for infrared and visible wavelength radiation, and the local field… read more about New Nanometer-Sized Antennas Developed »
Alaric Bryant, a freshman, has been awarded the 2013-2014 American Physical Society Scholarship for Minority Undergraduate Physics Majors. The APS Minority Scholarship helps increase the number of underrepresented minorities obtaining degrees in physics. Forty scholarships were awarded to high school seniors, and college freshmen and sophomores. For a complete list of the 2013-2014 APS Minority Scholars, please visit this page. You can learn more about Alaric Bryan here. read more about Freshman Alaric Bryant Wins 2013-2014 APS Minority Scholarship »
Graduate student Abe Clark and his wife Kim welcomed a daughter, Charlotte Renee Clark, on August 22. Graduate student Mengyang Sun and his wife Shu Zhang welcome their baby boy. Drayke Zhang Sun was born on the evening of Wednesday, September 25th. Congratulations Abe and Kim and Mengyang and Shu! read more about Grad Students Welcome Children »
Prof. Ashutosh Kotwal was invited as a plenary speaker at the Large Hadron Collider Physics Conference in Barcelona, Spain, this past summer. He spoke about precision electroweak physics, including his own research leading to the world's most precise measurement of the W boson mass, and the information provided by these measurements to guide theories beyond the Standard Model of particle physics. Some of the big questions addressed by these precision measurements are, whether the presence of… read more about Kotwal Speaks at the Large Hadron Collider Physics Conference »
The Physics Department is pleased to honor three graduate students with Fellowship Awards which are among the most prestigious awards granted to outstanding graduate students in the Physics Department. These awards, announced at the beginning of the Physics Department first colloquium each academic year, were presented on Wednesday, September 18, 2013. Graduate Student Georgios Laskaris, who began his career in the Duke Graduate Physics department in the Fall of 2008, is… read more about 2013-2014 Student Fellowship Awards »
Dr. Rajarshi Raut, former Research Associate in Prof. Werner Tornow’s research group, is the first author of a Physical Review Letter article [PRL 111, 112501 (2013)] about “Cross-Section Measurements of the 86Kr(g,n) Reaction to Probe the s-Process Branching at 85Kr”. This work was carried out at TUNL’s High-Intensity Gamma-ray Source (HIgS ). You can read the PRL article here. read more about Former Researcher First Author of PRL Article »
Prof. Werner Tornow gave the opening talk "Recent experiments involving few-nucleon systems" at the 22nd European Conference on Few-Body Problems in Physics which was held in Krakow, Poland on September 9-13, 2013. Prof. Tornow's abstract can be read here and his PowerPoint presentation can be viewed here. Visit the conference website here. read more about Tornow Opens Conference »
The Fall 2013 Grid Computing Campus Infrastructure Workshop took place September 27-28 at the R. David Thomas Center at Duke University. It was organized by Prof. Steffen A. Bass, Jeff Chase (Duke Computer Science), Rob Gardner (U. of Chicago), John McGee (UNC-RENCI) and John Pormann (Duke OIT). The sold-out workshop, which was designed to connect grid computing experts with local researchers interested in learning how to utilize grid computing for their ongoing reserach, had 65 participants, among them… read more about Bass Co-Organizes Workshop on Grid Computing, Brings Duke onto Open Science Grid »
The 80th Annual Meeting of the Southeastern Section of the American Physics Society (SESAPS) will be held November 20-23, 2013 in Bowling Green, Kentucky at the Sloan Convention Center. Abstract deadline is September 20. Our own Prof. Ronen Plesser will be there on a MOOC panel. The SESAPS website is here. Their Facebook page is here. read more about Save the Date: SESAPS 2013 »
Prof. Robert P. Behringer has won the SESAPS Jesse W. Beams award for pioneering the field of granular media and the development of elegant experimental methods for understanding the fluctuations, dynamics, force transmission and jamming transition in granular materials. The award will be presented to Prof. Behringer at the 80th Annual SESAPS Meeting this November. A description of the award and a list of past winners may be found here. Previous SESAPS Beams award winners from Duke Physics are: … read more about Behringer is 2013 Beams Award Recipient »
Congratulations to Dr. Joshua Powell on the successful defense of his dissertation, “Exotic States in Quarkonium Physics: Effective Theories of Heavy Mesonic Molecules and an AdS/QCD Model of Hybrid Quarkonium.” Dr. Powell defended on Friday, September 6, 2013 and his adviser is Prof. Thomas Mehen. read more about Powell Successfully Defends Dissertation »
On August 25th, at the annual Physics Department Picnic, Prof. Ying K. Wu was awarded the first ever Award for Excellence in Graduate Teaching. The Award for Excellence in Graduate Teaching was created to recognize outstanding instruction of a core graduate physics course. The recipient of this award is selected by graduate students, and it honors an instructor who demonstrates exceptional teaching skills in the classroom as well as an eagerness to help students gain a deeper understanding of the course… read more about Prof. Wu: Winner of Inaugural Award for Excellence in Graduate Teaching in Physics »
In the week of August 26, the Physics department hosted a visit by 12 students and their faculty leaders from Kuang Yaming Honors School, an honors college in natural sciences from Nanjing University. Among the 12 students, 5 are physics majors, 6 chemistry majors, and 1 math major. During this visit, the students attended presentations by chairs of Chemistry (Prof. Steve Craig), Math (Prof. Harold Layton) and Physics (Prof. Haiyan Gao) introducing the three departments. The students also attended research… read more about Physics Hosts Visiting Students from Kuang Yaming Honors School, Nanjing University »
A few photographs from the annual department picnic can now be viewed on Flickr. If you have more to share please write to the News Team. read more about Physics Department Picnic Photos Now Online »
On August 21, 2013, Dr. Kevin Finelli successfully defended his Ph.D. thesis, Duke's first Ph.D. thesis analyzing the data collected by the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). Dr. Finelli’s thesis developed and employed a novel technique, originally developed for CDF by Prof. Mark Kruse, his former grad student Dr. Sebastian Carron, postdoc Dr. Mircea Coca, and senior scientist Doug Benjamin to simultaneously extract the production cross-sections of… read more about Dr. Kevin Finelli, First Duke Grad Student to Defend Thesis on ATLAS »
The Physics Department is happy to welcome Nancy Morgans as our new Assistant to the Director of Graduate Studies. Nancy has worked at Duke in a variety of student services roles administering undergraduate and graduate studies programs in nursing, environmental science and policy, ecology, and neuroscience since 1994, earning her Masters degree in library science at NCCU along the way. Nancy is the point person for graduate student payroll, general questions about graduate study requirements, graduate… read more about Meet the Staff: Nancy Morgans »
During the fall semester 2012 in the categories of Quality of Course and/or Intellectual Stimulation, Prof. Josh Socolar's PHY 264L: Optics and Modern Physics' course evaluations were among the top 5% of all undergraduate instructors at Duke for a medium class (29 - 59 students). During the fall semester 2012 in the categories of Quality of Course and/or Intellectual Stimulation, Prof. Dan Gauthier's PHY 621L: Advanced Optics'… read more about Physics Professors Recognized for Teaching by Students in 2012-2013 Academic Year »
Prof. Shailesh Chandrasekharan was invited last year to write a review article on his new fermion bag approach to fermion lattice field theories. The article was recently published in the "Topical issue on lattice field theory methods in hadron and nuclear physics" of the European Physical Journal A. One of the figures from Chandrasekharan's article was chosen to be the cover page (shown below). The full article can be found here. read more about Chandrasekharan's Article on Fermion Bag Approach Featured on the Cover of European Physical Journal A »
President Barack Obama has nominated alumni John Koskinen (Duke, 1961) as head of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). You can read the article "Koskinen nominated to head IRS" on The Chronicle's website here. Koskinen was recently featured on our news site. You can read the article "Distinguished Alumnus John Koskinen Looks Back Over Varied Career" here. read more about Alum Koskinen Nominated Head of IRS »
NOTE: LINK BROKEN DUE TO WEBSITE REDESIGN The 2013 annual print newsletter is now available! Click on the image below to read the pdf version online. If you would like to be added to our mailing list please email the News Team. read more about 2013 Annual Print Newsletter is Here »
Photo: A 3D view of a candidate electron-neutrino event in the Super-Kamiokande detector. July 19th, 2013: Today at the European Physical Society meeting in Stockholm, the international T2K collaboration announced definitive observation of muon neutrino to electron neutrino transformation. In 2011, the collaboration announced the first indication of this process, a new type of neutrino oscillation. At that time, there was less than a 1% chance that the result could have been due to a… read more about New Results from T2K Conclusively Show Muon Neutrinos Transform to Electron Neutrinos! »
A blog entry on the Smithsonian website features Prof. Patrick Charbonneau's recent glass paper. Read "Scientists Get Best View of the Structure of Glass" here. read more about Charbonneau Featured on Smithsonian Blog »
Prof. Warren S. Warren and collaborators' (Mary Jane Simpson, et al.) work has been described in phy.org. Read "Melanin from Jurassic-era mollusk could lead to new tool for cancer diagnosis" here. read more about Warren's Work Described in phy.org »
The most recent issue of Duke Magazine has featured an article about Duke Physics alumna Colleen Fitzpatrick (PhD '83). You can read the article online here. The Duke Physics News Team also reported on Fitzpatrick in 2010. Re-read "Alumni Profile – From Physics to Forensic Genealogy" here. read more about Alumna Fitzpatrick Featured in Duke Magazine »
“Life here is really busy, but colorful,” says Xiaqing Li, one of five physics majors from Shandong University in China who spent the 2012-2013 academic year at Duke. The students lived on West Campus and took physics classes, electives, and did independent study research. While the five students had five different experiences, they all agree they enjoyed choosing their own classes and schedules, being immersed in a foreign culture, and experiencing new ways of learning. “I think it’s good to study abroad… read more about Students from China’s Shandong University Spend a Year with Duke Physics »
On May 31, 2013, the Department of Defense announced the winners of the annual Multi-disciplinary University Research Initiative (MURI) competition. The project, entitled "Fundamental research on wavelength-agile high-rate quantum key distribution (QKD) in a marine environment," was selected for funding by the Office of Naval Research. This project is lead by Prof. Paul Kwiat from the University of Illinois - Urbanna-Champaign and includes researchers from the University of Arizona and Boston University, as well as… read more about Gauthier & Kim Win MURI Competition »
Today we bid farewell to our Assistant to the Director of Graduate Studies, Donna Ruger, as she retires from Duke University after 28 years of service. Donna came to Duke in July 1985 and began working in the Physics Department in March 1993. The department threw her a farewell party on Wednesday, May 22, 2013. The event was attended by faculty, staff, students, Donna's family as well as past co-workers who returned to bid her adieu. Donna will be very missed here in Physics but we wish her well in the… read more about Farewell, Donna Ruger »
Prof. Stefano Curtarolo and his group have won the competition for the MURI topic#20 "Replacing Strategic Elements in DoD Materials" for the proposal "Topological decompositions and spectral sampling algorithms for element substitution in critical technologies." Instead of discovering novel compounds, the group proposed to explore "mechanisms of phase decompositions" to reproduce functionalities instead of chemistry. Curtarolo is the PI on this new grant. read more about Curtarolo's Group Wins MURI Competition, Grant »
Profs. Steffen A. Bass and Berndt Mueller recently published an article in Physical Review Letters on the structure of the Quark-Gluon-Plasma, a state of ultra-high temperature and density matter created in nuclear collisions at the Relativistic Heavy-Ion Collider and the Large Hadron Collider. The work was done in collaboration with Prof. Masayuki Asakawa of Osaka University, who is a frequent visitor to the Duke QCD group. The article can be found here. read more about Profs. Bass and Mueller Published in PRL »