Thinking of energy grids, transportation graphs, and the brain, it becomes clear that networks are ubiquitous in nature and technology. The dynamics of networks is extremely difficult to grasp and exploit technologically because of large numbers of elements involved. A new experimental paradigm could now solve this issue. Recently, visiting graduate student David Rosin, post-doctoral research associate Damien Rontani, and Prof. Daniel Gauthier in the Quantum Electron Lab… read more about Unlocking the Diverse Dynamics of Large-Scale Networks »
Graduate student Georgios Laskaris recently published a paper in Physical Review Letter titled "First measurements of spin-dependent double-differential cross sections and the Gerasimov-Drell-Hearn integrand from 3He(g,n)pp at incident photon energies of 12.8 and 14.7 MeV" under the supervision of his advisor Prof. Haiyan Gao together with the Capture Group at TUNL, other collaborators from Duke and elsewhere, and several theory collaborators from Europe. This is the first paper in… read more about Grad Student Laskaris Published in PRL »
NOTE: LINK HAS BECOME BROKEN Photographs from the 2013 diploma ceremony for the Physics Department can be found online here. Use your Duke NetID and password to access them. Congratulations to Drs. Baolei Li, Abhijit Mehta, Jie Ren and Yingyi Zhang and the graduates the bachelor's program. Thank you to Prof. Richard Palmer for sharing these pictures. read more about 2013 Graduation Ceremony Pictures Now Online »
The World Scientific Publishing has decided to publish an updated and expanded version of the book "Broken Symmetry: Collected Papers of Y. Nambu" and asked Prof. Emeritus Moo-Young Han to be one of two editors for the new book. The original book was published in 1955 and since then Nambu has received the 2008 Nobel Prize in Physics. Han and T. Eguchi of Tokyo are invited to be the editors for the new book. Han is also asked to publish an updated and expanded version of his book "A Story of Light," one of… read more about Han Invited to Co-Edit Y. Nambu Book Update »
NOTE: LINK HAS BECOME BROKEN Former graduate student Mary Kidd (Physics, '10), now a professor of physics at Tennessee Tech University, is collaborating with a medical team and featured in the article "TTU physics professors play key role on woman's medical team." Read it online here. read more about Alumna Mary Kidd Plays Key Role on Woman's Medical Team »
NOTE: LINK HAS BECOME BROKEN Prof. Arlie Petters, along with Prof. Mohamed Noor in Duke's Biology Department, has been named as one of the top 20 Science & Technology Professors in North Carolina. View the story online here. read more about Petters Named in NC's Top 20 »
Prof. Berndt Mueller is featured in a YouTube video called "Smashing Matters" about the Relativistic Heavy-Ion Collider. Watch it by clicking here. read more about Mueller Featured in "Smashing Matters" »
Prof. and Dean Tom Katsouleas, Dean of the Pratt School of Eng- ineering, is in constant motion as he teaches a Tuesday afternoon recitation section for Physics 151. One minute he’s scribbling equations and drawing graphs on the blackboard; the next he’s singing an old Crosby, Stills and Nash song to help students remember that long waves travel faster than short ones. Every 15 minutes or so, he assigns a practice problem and strides out among the tables to interact with students one-on-one. Even though… read more about Dean Katsouleas Teaches Mechanics Recitation Section »
Prof. Mark Kruse gave a talk at the 1st IAS-CERN Workshop on Particle Physics and Cosmology at Nanyang Technical University in Singapore on March 25. He overviewed recent results from the ATLAS experiment at the LHC and discussed what is next in particle physics after the discovery of the Higgs boson. Kruse was subequently featured in an article in Singapore's Sunday Times. You can read it here. read more about Kruse Speaks at First IAS-CERN Workshop »
Prof. Ronen Plesser is the winner of the 2012-2013 Dean's Teaching and Technology Award. Read the DukeToday article "Teaching Excellence In and Outside the Classroom" here. read more about Plesser Wins Dean's Teaching & Technology Award »
The ATLAS group (staff and faculty) is the winner of the inaugural 2012-2013 Dean's leadership award. The group consists of the following faculty and staff (present and past) members: Profs. Ayana Arce, Al Goshaw, Ashutosh Kotwal, Mark Kruse, and Seog Oh, researchers Doug Benjamin, Andrea Bocci, William Ebenstein, Jack Fowler and Chiho Wang. Read the… read more about ATLAS Group Wins Inaugural Dean's Leadership Award »
Physicist Phil Barbeau builds detectors to look for rare events in nuclear and particle physics. He says, “We use very standard particle-detection techniques that are taken to the extreme. In general, all of these experiments are so sensitive that a single fingerprint left behind on the detector can blind it.” Barbeau, currently a post-doc at Stanford, will be joining the Duke Physics faculty and the Triangle University Nuclear Laboratory (TUNL) on August 1. He searches for neutrinoless double beta decay,… read more about New Assistant Professor Phil Barbeau Searches for Rare Events »
James Esterline, a research associate at TUNL, recently published the results of his thesis work (“Analyzing Power Ay(q) of n-3He Elastic Scattering between 1.60 and 5.54 MeV”) in PRL together with thesis advisor Prof. Werner Tornow and two collaborating theoreticians from the University of Lisbon. This work involved the tandem accelerator at TUNL. You can read the article online here. read more about Postdoc Esterline Published in PRL »
NOTE: SOME LINKS HAVE BECOME BROKEN DUE TO WEBSITE REDESIGN Physics graduate students Baolei Li and Huaixiu Zheng have been selected as two of the four Duke students to win the Chinese Government Award for Outstanding Self-Financed Students Abroad by China Scholarship Council (CSC). This award was founded by the Chinese government in 2003 with the purpose of rewarding the academic excellence of self-financed Chinese students studying overseas. Only those with outstanding performance in… read more about Grad Students Li and Zheng Win Chinese Government Award »
Banner headlines—in one-inch tall type—shouted “Duke to Get Nuclear Lab” and “$2.5 Million Nuclear Lab to be Established at Duke.” The date was November 23, 1965, and the occasion was the funding of the Triangle University Nuclear Laboratory (TUNL) by the federal Atomic Energy Commission (AEC). The news was so big that an editorial cartoon in the Durham Morning Herald showed two farmers discussing the equipment that would be in the new lab. Duke professor Henry Newson had succeeded—on his third try… read more about Looking Back at the First 50 Years of TUNL »
Duke University was well represented at the annual APS March Meeting this year: 60 contributed presentations plus 8 invited talks. The APS bills the March Meeting as "the largest physics meeting in the world, focusing on research from industry, universities, and major labs." Using the “affiliation” search function, here is a webpage with a list of all of our papers. You can see that a wide variety of work from several departments at Duke is represented. In particular, the invited talks were: Prof. Patrick… read more about 68 Duke Presentations at the APS March Meeting »
Prof. Ashutosh Kotwal has been appointed the Physics Advisor of the US contingent on the ATLAS Experiment at the Large Hadron Collider. In this role he will be providing leadership on physics issues to US collaborators on ATLAS, numbering about 500 scientists and students from 44 institutions. One of the priorities is preparations for physics analysis of the new data starting 2014-15, to be collected at the substantially higher energy of 13 TeV compared to 8 TeV in 2012. Prof. Kotwal is also leading physics… read more about Prof. Kotwal Appointed Physics Advisor of US ATLAS »
Graduate student Huaixiu Zheng recently published a paper in PRL titled “Persistent Quantum Beats and Long-Distance Entanglement from Waveguide-Mediated Interactions,” together with his advisor Prof. Harold Baranger. This is their second paper in PRL on the topic of waveguide-QED, which explores the interaction between local quantum objects---qubits---and light confined in a one-dimensional waveguide. The key question addressed is how two distant qubits talk to each other via a common waveguide-bus. Zheng… read more about Grad Student Zheng Published in PRL »
Graduate student Kristine Callan recently accepted a position as a Teaching Associate Professor of Physics at Colorado School of Mines in Golden, Colorado. The Physics Department at CSM graduates about 70 Engineering Physics majors each year. The department is also active in Physics Education Research and was recently selected as one of four 2013 recipients of the "Improving Undergraduate Physics Education Award". Kristine is looking forward to starting her new position this August. read more about Grad Student Callan to Become Teaching Associate Professor of Physics at Colorado School of Mines »
Prof. Mark Kruse, with graduate students David Bjergaard and Kevin Finelli, hosted an LHC Outreach event on March 16. It was well attended and DukeToday writer Ashley Yeager wrote an article "Local high-schoolers analyze real LHC data at Duke." You can read it online here. read more about Prof. Kruse Hosts LHC Outreach Event »
In recognition of his ongoing contributions to the KamLAND and KamLAND-Zen experiments in the Kamioka mine in Japan, Prof. Emeritus Werner Tornow has been named affiliate senior scientist of the Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (Kavli IPMU). Profs. Kate Scholberg and Christopher Walter also have appointments with the Kavli IPMU through their work on the Super-Kamiokande experiment. read more about Prof. Tornow Joins Kavli IPMU in Tokyo »
Guangyou Qin, who was a research associate in the Duke QCD Theory Group from 2009 to the end of 2012, has accepted a faculty position at Central China Normal University (CCNU) in Wuhan, China. He will start his new appointment as a professor in the summer of 2013. He was also named as a recipient of the Thousand Young Talents Plan, a government-funded national program of China aimed at attracting outstanding young scholars and professionals from abroad. CCNU has the largest research group in China in the… read more about Guangyou Qin Wins Award and Joins Faculty at Central China Normal University »
Congratulations to graduate student Yingyi Zhang who passed her defense on March 1, 2013. She is pictured at left with her adviser Prof. John Thomas. read more about Grad Student Zhang Passes Defense »
On February 16, Prof. Dan Gauthier teamed up with Rebecca Vidra (Nicholas School of the Environment) and Mine Cetinkaya-Rundel (Statistical Sciences) to present “Integrating Team-Based Learning Across Disciplines: Ideas and Challenges” at the Lilly Conference for University Teaching and Learning in Greensboro. read more about Prof. Gauthier Participates in Conference for Teaching and Learning »
Prof. Thomas Mehen will be hosting the Xth annual Workshop on Soft-Collinear Effective Theory, SCET2013, at Duke University, March 13-16, 2013. The conference webpage can be found here. Soft-Collinear Effective Theory (SCET) is a recently developed theoretical tool for deriving factorization theorems and renormalization group equations that allow one to resum large higher order corrections in theoretical calculations within perturbative Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD). Such theorems and resummed cross… read more about Prof. Mehen to Host Workshop »
The KamLAND-Zen collaboration (with Prof. Werner Tornow) reported in Phys. Rev. Lett. a new neutrino mass limit of mββ < (120 - 250) meV from a neutrinoless double-beta decay search of 136Xe. This limit is based on a range of representative nuclear matrix element calculations, and excludes the Majorana neutrino mass range expected from the neutrinoless double-beta decay claim of 76Ge by the Heidelberg-Moscow Collaboration at more than 97.5 % confidence level. Read the paper online here. read more about KamLAND-Zen Reports New Neutrino Mass Limit »
Graduate student Taritree Wongjirad attended the Aspen Winter Conference “New Directions in Neutrino Physics.” Based on his poster contribution he was the winner of the Block Award, awarded to a promising young physicist. read more about Grad Student Wongjirad Wins Block Award »
One of the department's most distinguished alumni passed away on Feburary 19th at the age of 75. Prof. Robert Richardson obtained his Ph.D. at Duke in 1966 working with Prof. Horst Meyer. A long time faculty member at Cornell University, in 1996 he was awarded Nobel Prize for his work on superfluidity in helium-3. You can read more about his life in this article from Duke today. You can also read an obituary from Cornell's site here and an article in the NY Times here. read more about Distinguished Physics Alumnus and Nobel Laureate Robert Richardson Passes Away »
In conjunction with the DPF-sponsored Long Range Planning Exercise, Prof. Ashutosh Kotwal is hosting a workshop on "Electroweak Measurements at the Energy Frontier" at Duke. The workshop dates are February 18-20, and details can be found online here. The purpose of the workshop is to bring together theorists and experimentalists to explore the sensitivity to extended theories of electroweak symmetry breaking at an upgraded LHC, and future lepton and higher-energy proton colliders. read more about Prof. Kotwal Hosts Electroweak Physics Workshop at Duke »
Profs. Calvin Howell, Roxanne Springer, and Ying Wu received funding from Duke's Office of Global and Strategic Programs, Phillips Endowment, in support of the "International Workshop on Fundamental Physics at a Next Generation Compton Gamma-ray Source (HIGS2)" to take place June 3 and 4 at Duke University. About 70 experimentalists and theorists from the international community, including about 20 local students, are expected to attend the workshop to… read more about Funding For June Workshop from Duke OGSP »