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School of Physics & Astronomy
MINERvA: Bringing Neutrinos into Sharp Focus
Neutrinos are the least familiar fundamental particles in the Standard Model, and are currently the focus of many high-energy physics experiments. Most of these experiments are based at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (FNAL) in the United States, and at the CERN facility in Europe. MINERvA is a collaboration of over 100 individuals at 27 universities and government institutions across the world.
Dr. McGowan has been a member of the collaboration since earning his doctorate in 2007.
Early observations of a young supernova at RIT Observatory
Early in the evening of Friday, July 26, messages started to arrive in mailboxes throughout the astronomical community: a new object had appeared near the galaxy M74. Could it be a supernova -- the titanic explosion of a massive star? Possibly ... but more observations were required to confirm the event.
Michael Richmond (School of Physics and Astronomy) was working at the RIT Observatory that evening. He was taking a long series of measurements of a close binary star system in our own Milky Way, as part of a worldwide collaborative effort to study its properties. But when the E-mail arrived, he realized that this was an unusual opportunity for the small telescope at RIT's Observatory: it might be among the first to see if this reported object really was present. more>>>
Advanced Photon Source (APS) User Organization
RIT School of Physics and Astronomy professor Michael Pierce was recently nominated, and subsequently elected by the x-ray science community, to the steering committee for the Advanced Photon Source (APS) User Organization. This committee advises the APS Laboratory Director on several matters related to the science, operation, and improvement of the most intense source of x-rays in North America. The steering committee represents an important link between the community of scientists that use the facility and the team of scientists that maintain and operate the facility. This is a very exciting period of time for the organization as the facility will undergo an upgrade over the next few years to maintain its position as a world leader of x-ray based science.
From the APS website: "The APS is one of the most technologically complex machines in the world. This premier national research facility provides the brightest x-ray beams in the Western Hemisphere to more than 5,000 (and growing) scientists from around the United States and the world. These scientists come to the APS from universities, industry, medical schools, and other research institutions. Our users bring with them ideas for new discoveries in nearly every scientific discipline, from materials science to biology, chemistry, environmental and planetary science, and fundamental physics. They bring their ideas to the APS because our x-ray beams let them collect data in unprecedented detail and in amazingly short time frames. The knowledge our users gain here promises to have real and positive impact on our technologies, our health, our economy, and our fundamental understanding of the materials that make up our world."
Why Astronomy Images Matter
How can scientists present complex images to the public without diminishing their scientific content? This dilemma, routinely faced by researchers from a wide range of fields, is being tackled by education and public outreach experts at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, as described in the space.com article "Spellbinding Cosmic Beauty: Why Astronomy Images Matter." The article makes its point via astronomical X-ray images obtained with NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory by RIT's Joel Kastner and his international team. (An article on the same RIT-led Chandra imaging program, written for the international community of astronomers by Kastner and inaugural RIT AST PhD recipient Rudy Montez, serves as the cover story for the Spring 2013 Chandra X-ray Observatory newsletter.)
Leadership Meeting of the Optical Society of America
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left to right is Zhiping Zhou (editor-in-chief of "Photonics Research") , Shin-Tson Wu( board-of-editors chair), Steven Chu (then Secretary of Energy for President Obama) and Grover Swartzlander (editor-in-chief of J. Opt. Soc. Am. B). |
Rochester Institute of Technology Associate Professor of Imaging Science and Physics, Grover Swartzlander recently attended the Leadership Meeting of the Optical Society of America in Washington DC (6-8 Feb), where he had the opportunity to meet with other editors and discuss topics related to science publishing.
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David Merritt's book, "Dynamics and Evolution of Galactic Nuclei", has been published by Princeton University Press. The 544 page book is the latest volume in the "Princeton Series in Astrophysics"
David Merritt will be in residence at the Institute Henri Poincare in Paris for two months starting September, where he will be a lecturer at a graduate school in astrophysical dynamics.
Hao Shi, a Physics major who recently graduated from the RIT School of Physics and Astronomy has been selected as a Finalist for the LeRoy Apker Award of the American Physical Society which recognizes outstanding achievements in physics by undergraduate students. The finals will be held on September 19 in Washington DC. Hao's selection was based on four research articles published in peer-reviewed journals in collaboration with his advisor Dr. Mishkat Bhattacharya of SOPA. Hao will be joining Cornell for graduate study in Physics this coming Fall.
Undergraduate physics major Hao Shi recently published three peer-reviewed articles with his research advisor Mishkat Bhattacharya.
Hao was first author on publications appearing in the Journal of Modern Optics and in Physical Review A
Robert Teese, Professor in the School of Physics and Astronomy, is the recipient of the 2012-13 Provost's Innovative Teaching with Technology Award.
Astrophysicists to probe dark matter in sunny California. Assistant professor Sukanya Chakrabarti brings together leaders in the field for American Astronomical Society conference.
Sukanya Chakrabarti talked about Jupiter's Big Red Spot on The Weather Channel's "Deadliest Space Weather" series. View Video
Mike Kotlarchyk, Head of the School of Physics & Astronomy, wrote an article providing an overview of Optics at RIT for the Rochester Section of the Optical Society of America.
Physics majors Zachary Howard and Robert Karl Jr. traveled to Baltimore MD for the March Meeting of the American Physical Society. At this meeting, the single largest annual gathering of professional physicists, they each gave a contributed talk based upon their work at RIT. Mr. Howard gave a talk over the results of his capstone project studying the simulation of magnetic domains and how these simulations can be used to help guide and model experimental results. Mr. Karl presented his work on the analysis of x-ray speckle patterns used to study the dynamics of Ag single crystal surfaces.
During the meeting they were also able to attend lectures by 3 different Nobel laureates: Prof. Serge Haroche and Dr. David J. Wineland, both of whom shared the 2012 award for their experimental work with quantum systems, and a separate lecture by U.S. Secretary of Energy, Prof. Steven Chu, that won the 1997 prize for his work cooling and trapping atoms.
Zachary Howard's abstract
Robert Karl Jr.'s abstract
David Merritt received a grant of $448,929 from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to support his research into dynamics of galactic nuclei.
Rochester Institute of Technology professor Grover Swartzlander has been appointed the incoming editor-in-chief of the Journal of the Optical Society of America B.
The international scientific publication of the Optical Society of America has been in print since 1917. It currently publishes approximately 450 papers per year in the area of optical physics.
Read the full story at University News
The paper
"The effect of controllable thin film crystal growth on the aggregation of a
novel high panchromaticity squaring viable for organic solar cells" was accepted for publication in Solar Energy Materials and Solar Cells on 8 January 2013.
The authors are (all RIT except †Department of Physics and Astronomy, Appalachian State University) Students: Susan D. Spencer, Cortney Bougher†, Patrick Heaphy, Victor Murcia, Cameron Gallivan, Amber Monfette,
Faculty: John Andersen, Jeremy A. Cody, Brad Conrad†, Christopher J. Collison
RIT Physics major, John (Jay) Howson, won the college student submission to the RMSC Science. Video of the demonstration can be found on youtube
Science TV Show Invites Middle-School Kids to Prove Their World.
Read the full story at University News
A Young Star Flaunts its X-ray Spots in McNeil's Nebula. Read the full story at University News
Three of Dr. Mishkat Bhattacharya's students made presentations, earlier this year, including Sydney Igbokwe at the McNair Conference, Niagara Falls, NY in July, Hao Shi at the American Physical Society (Division of Atomic, Molecular, and Atomic Physics) meeting in Anaheim, CA 2 in June, and Hao Shi and Michael Eggleston at the Special Undergraduate Symposium, Optical Society of America meeting , Rochester, NY in October.
