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PHYSICS COLLOQUIUM SCHEDULE
Fall 2013
The Colloquia are in Room 1002 NPB on Thursday at 4:05 PM
Refreshments will be served starting at 3:15 PM in NPB 2205

Contact: P. Ramond (2-5704, ramond@phys.ufl.edu)
Department of Physics Colloquium Committee:
Ramond (chair), Fry, Hebard, Hershfield, Matcheva, Mitselmakher (members)

AUGUST 22

  Graduate Student Meeting with Dr. Dmitrii Maslov
4:00pm in 1002 NPB

AUGUST 29

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SEPTEMBER 5
  Speaker Kevin Pitts, University of Illinois at Urbana
  Title Building a Stronger Undergraduate Physics Program PDF
  Abstract The number of undergraduate physics majors has been on the rise for more than a decade. With this growth, we have seen significant changes in student body composition along with changes in student motivations and goals. In this colloquium, we will discuss some of the steps we have taken at the University of Illinois to adapt to changing student and employer demand. We have been able to make our courses and degree programs relevant to a larger student population while maintaining many of the traditional aspects and benefits of an undergraduate education in physics.
  Host Pierre Ramond

SEPTEMBER 12
  Speaker Diandra Leslie Pelecky, West Virginia University
  Title The Science of Speed: Why Driving Fast isn’t as Easy as You Think
  Abstract Is it really all that hard to drive fast? No – if you assume a spherical racecar. But once you start adding in all those real-world complications we usually dismiss as ‘negligible’, you quickly realize that there is far more to going fast than stepping on the accelerator. Dr. Diandra Leslie-Pelecky, author of The Physics of NASCAR and the motorsports blog Building Speed, set out to learn whether understanding the science of speed would translate into being a good racecar driver. That quest took her from race shops and materials labs all the way to the twenty-four degree banking of the Texas Motor Speedway – where centripetal force suddenly became much more than numbers on a page. This talk covers the basics of driving fast and shows that racecar drivers – even if they don’t use the terminology we like to throw around – really do have to understand some complicated physics. The need for advanced techniques is even more pronounced for the engineers and physicists who must apply computational fluid dynamics and advanced materials development techniques to simultaneously optimize speed and safety. The last part of the talk focuses on how popular culture (such as sports, music and art) can be used to raise interest in math and physics to a large audience and the lessons I’ve learned from working with television, print and satellite radio.
  Host Art Hebard

SEPTEMBER 19
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SEPTEMBER 26
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OCTOBER 3
  Speaker William P. Halperin, Northwestern University
  Title Topological quantum states in condensed matter physics: chiral superfluids
  Abstract New chiral states of 3He have recently been studied at Northwestern and are similarly thought to exist in a number of superconducting compounds, like UPt3 and Sr2RuO4. In the past few years or more, the condensed matter physics community has become enamored of manifestations of long range coherence in these superconductors and superfluids, driven in part from predictions for their potential application to quantum computation. However, I will focus my story on various physical properties which are a consequence of chirality, most clearly in evidence in UPt3 and superfluid 3He. These systems have multiple thermodynamic phases, each with a different order parameter structure, and my discussion of them will be a guided tour of search and discovery.
Host Yoonseok Lee

OCTOBER 10
  Speaker Holger Muller, Univ. of California Berkeley
  Title (Anti-)matter waves for researching time, mass, and gravity PDF
  Abstract What is time? Timekeeping so far has been based on the motion of systems of particles, like the solar system, oscillating crystals, or atoms. Theoretically, however, there should be a simpler way. Quantum mechanics can be formulated by describing a particle of mass m as a wave oscillating at the Compton frequency mc^2/h. When the particle travels in a gravitational field, this frequency is modified by relativistic effects just like the frequency of any standard oscillator. While this picture is equivalent to conventional quantum mechanics, it offers a new, intuitive way of thinking. In particular, time should be measurable using the mass of a single particle as a reference. We have built such a matter-wave clock, based on an atom interferometer whose laser frequency is self-referenced to the interferometer output via a frequency comb generator. The clock measures time, e.g., the duration of this talk, to an accuracy of 4 parts per billion. Used the other way around, it offers a new way of defining the unit of mass, replacing the last unit that is still defined by an artifact with a definition based on the fundamental constants c and h. Matter waves have also been used to test the theory of General Relativity. A proposed application is the detection of gravitational waves. We will compare the major proposals and discuss their promise and challenges. In the future, we hope to perform matter-wave experiments using antiparticles, measuring the gravitational influence on antimatter. As a speculation, maybe clocks can be made of an even stranger creature: the quantum vacuum.
Host Guido Mueller

OCTOBER 17
  Speaker Oleg Shpyrko, UC San Diego
  Title X-ray Nanovision.
  Abstract Attempts to produce focusing x-ray optics date back to the days of Roentgen, however, it was not until the past decade that X-ray Microscopy has finally been able to achieve sub-100 nm resolution. In my talk I will briefly review the history of X-ray Microscopy tools that have been recently applied in a wide range of disciplines, ranging from physics, chemistry and biology to environmental sciences, geophysics and engineering. I will also introduce a novel x-ray microscopy technique developed, which relies on coherent properties of x-ray beams, and eliminates the need for focusing optics altogether, replacing it with a computational algorithm. We have applied this technique to image magnetic stripe domains in GdFe multilayer films, as well as to image the distribution of lattice strain in nanostructures. I will discuss applications of these novel x-ray imaging methods in context of new generation of fully coherent x-ray sources.
Host James Hamlin

OCTOBER 24
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OCTOBER 31
  Speaker Isaac Silvera, Harvard University
  Title Pressing for Metallic Hydrogen
  Abstract
Host James Hamlin

NOVEMBER 7
  Speaker Hai-Ping Cheng
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NOVEMBER 14
  Speaker Richard Zallen, Virginia Tech
Title Fluorescence, Super-Phosphorescence, and the Hound of the Baskervilles
  Abstract New phosphors have been discovered in recent years that glow (after excitation stops) longer and brighter than those previously known. Among other applications, these materials allow for some useful teaching demos, a few of which will be shown. Aspects of the history of fluorescence will be discussed, touching on contributions by Stokes, Einstein, Hopfield, Chalfie, and J. Zallen. The new materials and proposed mechanisms for their long-persistent (> 10 h) luminescence will be described briefly, as will a connection (?) to Sherlock Holmes and "The Hound".
Host David Tanner

NOVEMBER 21

  Speaker Bharat Ratra
  Title The "Standard" Model of Cosmology ... and Open Questions
  Abstract Experiments and observations over the last decade have provided strong support for a "standard" model of cosmology that describes the evolution of the universe from an early epoch of inflation to the complex hierarchy of structure seen today. I review the basic physics, astronomy, and history of ideas on which this model is based. I describe the data which persuade cosmologists that (as yet undetected) dark energy and dark matter are by far the main components of the energy budget of the universe. I conclude with a list of open cosmological questions.
Host Jim Fry

DECEMBER 5

  Speaker George Bissinger, East Carolina University
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Host Yoonseok Lee



PHYSICS COLLOQUIUM SCHEDULE

Spring 2014
The Colloquia are in Room 1002 NPB on Thursday at 4:05 PM
Refreshments will be served starting at 3:15 PM in NPB 2205

P. Ramond (2-5704, ramond@phys.ufl.edu)
Department of Physics Colloquium Committee
Ramond (chair), Fry, Hebard, Hirschfeld, Matcheva, Mitselmakher (members)

JANUARY 9
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JANUARY 16
  Speaker John Klauder
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JANUARY 23
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JANUARY 30
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FEBRUARY 6
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FEBRUARY 13
  Speaker Adrian Melott, University of Kansas
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  Host Jim Fry

FEBRUARY 20
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FEBRUARY 27
  Speaker Rajan Gupta, Los Alamos
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March 6
  Speaker APS March meeting & UF Spring Break
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March 13
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March 20
  Speaker Francis Halzen, University of Wisconsin-Madison
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  Host Pierre Sikivie

March 27

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APRIL 3
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APRIL 10
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APRIL 17
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