Colloquium
Junior and senior physics majors attend our biweekly colloquium series, held on Tuesday afternoons at 4:30 pm in Shanahan B460. The talks are open to all students and to the public, and are frequently attended by scientists from the other Claremont Colleges, Cal Poly Pomona, and others. The series features speakers from a broad range of institutions and fields of physics.
| April 17, 2012 | Peter Goldreich, Caltech Physics in Everyday Life |
Examples will be drawn from human metabolism, sports, flight, and weather. | |
| April 3, 2012 | Maria Spiropulu, Caltech Results from the Highest Energy Proton Collisions at the LHC |
The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is the largest and most complex scientific undertaking ever attempted. Its results will determine the future directions of high-energy physics. The LHC produced 7 TeV proton-proton collisions in 2010 and 2011, and it is expected to produce 14 TeV proton-proton collisions in 2014. Currently it is ramping up for the upcoming run at 8 TeV … | |
| March 27, 2012 | Jeanie Lau, University of California at Riverside One, Two, Three — Quantum Transport Suspended Graphene Devices |
Graphene, a two-dimensional single atomic layer of carbon, has recently emerged as a promising candidate for electronic materials, as well as a new model system for condensed matter physics. In this talk I will present our work on mechanical, thermal, and electrical properties of suspended graphene devices, such as ripple texturing, negative thermal expansion, spontaneous symmetry breaking and gap formation … | |
| March 6, 2012 | John M. Martinis, University of California at Santa Barbara Design of a Superconducting Quantum Computer |
The computational power of a quantum computer arises from the superposition of quantum states, which gives a net parallel-processing size that exceeds the number of atoms in the universe for even a modest 300-qubit processor. To build such a computer, many groups around the world are exploring whether experimental systems can be controlled sufficiently well and with enough quantum coherence. … | |
| Feb. 21, 2012 | Ann Esin, Richard Haskell, and Richard Mawhorter, Harvey Mudd College Recent Developments in Physics |
Measuring the universe using black holes (Esin); Biological-cell lasers: novelty or useful tool (Haskell); Electrons remaining stubbornly spherical (Mawhorter). | |
| Feb. 7, 2012 | Charlie Doret, Georgia Tech Research Institute Milking Superposition: Processing Information Using the Quantum States of Trapped Calcium Ions |
Two-state quantum systems may be used for encoding information in ways analogous to the bits of a conventional computer. Unlike discrete classical bits, however, quantum bits (qubits) may occupy superposition states in which they are simultaneously both 0 and 1. By manipulating such qubits it is possible to store and process information in new and powerful ways. Computation utilizing these … | |
| Jan. 24, 2012 | David Hoogerheide, Harvard University Solid State Nanopores as Nanoscale Detectors: Single Molecules, Fast Kinetics, and Ionic Liquids |
The advent of nanotechnology has created new possibilities for understanding the world and developing technologies to shape it. Nanoscale devices are useful for studying the behavior of very small numbers of molecules; because of their small size, however, nanodevices are particularly sensitive to fluctuations. One such device is the solid state nanopore, which is a promising platform for next-generation DNA … | |
| Jan. 17, 2012 | Daniel Wagenaar, Caltech Multisensory Integration in an Invertebrate Predator |
Obtaining information from the environment to guide behavior is one of the most fundamental functions of nervous systems. Since individual cues are rarely 100% reliable, many animals (including humans) combine cues across sensory modalities to improve the quality of their decisions and make their behavior more robust under variable circumstances. In mammals, this "multisensory integration" involves many billions of neurons … | |
| Nov. 22, 2011 | Peter N. Saeta, Harvey Mudd College Enhancing Light Absorption in Solar Cells |
Photovoltaics are the fastest-growing renewable energy source over the last three years and have the potential to supply a significant fraction of our electricity needs. Conventional silicon cells are made of thick crystals because silicon is a weak absorber in the infrared and much of the visible. Thin solar cells require less energy and material to make and may lead … | |
| Nov. 8, 2011 | E. Sterl Phinney, Caltech Mergers and Liquidations Among White Dwarf and Neutron Star Binaries |
This year’s Nobel prize in physics was given for using Type Ia supernovae as standard candles to discover that dark energy now dominates the dynamics of the universe. Disconcertingly, recent research has uncovered problems with both of the two popular models for Type Ia supernovae. One is in trouble with observational data, and the other with careful theoretical calculations, which … | |
| Oct. 25, 2011 | A. J. Shaka (’80), University of California at Irvine Deep Green: Long-Term Zero-Carbon Power for the 21st Century |
It is becoming more and more obvious that continued burning of fossil fuels, with the large influx of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, could prove to be an enormous and expensive future problem. Furthermore, even if such changes could be weathered, the fossil fuels themselves will be exhausted, become expensive, and require more and more destructive methods to extract. For … | |
| Oct. 4, 2011 | Bruce McCandless II, NASA Life in Interesting Times |
Captain McCandless, the first person to perform an untethered spacewalk, will review the current status of our human spaceflight program — with its uncertainties, ongoing activities, opportunities, and long-term goals. He will also present a scholarship from the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation to Paul Riggins ’12. Riggins is one of only 26 students nationwide this year to receive the prestigious award. | |
| Sept. 20, 2011 | Eric Fullerton (’84), University of California at San Diego Exploiting the Spin Angular Momentum to Control Magnetism at the Nanoscale |
In most magnetic applications the orientations of the magnetic elements are controlled by external magnetic fields. However, it has recently been appreciated that the relative orientations of nano-magnets can be controlled directly by the injection of spin-polarized currents known as spin-transfer effects. This results fundamentally from the transfer of angular momentum from the spin current to the magnetic material. While … | |
| Sept. 6, 2011 | Eleven HMC Physics Majors, Harvey Mudd College Summer 2011 Off-Campus Research |
Lucas Brady, Cameron Conti, Jake Fish, Chris Gage, Robert Hoyt, Erik Littleton, Laura Maguire, Shaun Pacheco, Carola Purser, Brad Perfect, Wylie Rosenthal, and Sophie Waldman will briefly describe their summer research experiences. |
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| April 19, 2011 | Persis S. Drell, SLAC The Turn On of LCLS: The X-Ray Free-Electron Laser at SLAC |
On April 10, 2009, the world’s first hard X-ray free-electron laser was brought to lasing. Producing an X-ray beam with more than a billion times higher peak brightness than the most powerful existing synchrotron sources, it marked the beginning of a new era of science. Since October 2009, users have been performing experiments at the SLAC Linac Coherent Light Source … |
