Colloquia 2016 Fall

FSU Physics Colloquia are held Thursdays at 3:45-4:45 in UPL 101. A reception will precede the colloquium beginning at 3:30. Check back often as the schedule is being continually updated.

  • 9/1/16
    • Speaker Paul Cottle
    • Affiliation
    • Title How Florida is doing in preparing high school students for STEM careers and what to do about it
    • Abstract  Canceled due to the Hurricane
  • 9/8/16
    • Speaker Cristoph Dullman
    • Affiliation Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Germany
    • Title Superheavy elements: their production, nuclear and atomic properties, and how to go beyond Z=118
    • Abstract Studies of the superheavy elements have been a pillar of the research program at the GSI Darmstadt for decades. I will give an introduction to the field and show recent highlights of the richness of the GSI program, which includes studies on their synthesis and nuclear structure, but also their atomic physics including optical spectroscopy and high precision mass measurements. The new elements with Z=113, 115, 117, and 118 were recently officially accepted and named by the IUPAC. Using 48Ca-induced fusion reactions on actinide targets is the dominant pathway to elements with Z>=112, but this is exhausted at Z=118 due to the lack of suitable target materials with sufficiently high proton number to reach elements beyond Z=118. To search for yet heavier elements, experiments with a total running time of over one year were performed at GSI and FLNR so far, studying five different reactions leading to Z=119 and 120. I will use the 50Ti + 249Cf reaction, leading to Z=120 and studied at the gas-filled recoil separator TASCA, to illustrate the current status on the experimental as well as the theoretical side. The latter is of crucial importance to give proper guidance to experimentalists. Besides more detailed studies of fusion reactions, complementary studies - both experimentally as well as theoretically - focusing on entrance channel phenomena like quasifission appear ideal to give better guidance to future search experiments for new elements. I will conclude with an outlook including the developments at HIM Mainz and GSI Darmstadt towards the construction of a new superconducting linac for SHE studies.
  • 9/15/16
    • Speaker Peter Onyisi
    • Affiliation
    • Title Studies and Searches with the 13 TeV LHC
    • Abstract The Large Hadron Collider at CERN is accumulating its first large dataset near its design energy. After the discovery of the Higgs boson, attention is turning to other new features of nature the LHC may be able to shed light on. These include searches for new types of matter (including dark matter) and new forces, leading to tests of grand organizing principles that guide theoretical progress in the field. I will review the problems with our current models that lead us to pursue these searches for new particles and interactions and some of the diverse studies that have been performed with the latest LHC data.
  • 9/22/16
    • Speaker  Welcome back party!
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  • 9/29/16
    • Speaker Hamish Robertson
    • Affiliation
    • Title Solar neutrinos
    • Abstract
  • 10/6/16
    • SpeakerPaul Cottle
    • AffiliationFSU
    • TitleHow Florida is doing in preparing high school students for STEM careers and what to do about it
    • AbstractThe departure point for this talk is this basic principle: Every college-bound student should be prepared to choose any major. While this seems like a principle with which every educator and parent should be able to agree, in practice it would require significant changes in the way Florida educates its high school students in math and science. I will discuss where Florida stands in high school physics relative to other states. I will also describe how high school math and science policies and practices vary to a remarkable degree from district to district and even from school to school. Finally, I will discuss some efforts in which I am engaged at the level of individual districts, schools, teachers, counselors and parents that are intended to change the trajectories of Florida's students.
  • 10/13/16
    • Speaker (none)
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  • 10/20/16
    • Speaker Eugene DePrince
    • AffiliationFSU Chemistry and Biochemistry
    • TitleQuantum chemistry without wave functions
    • AbstractQuantum-chemical computations have become an indispensible and routine component of modern chemical research. However, certain classes of chemical problems require such a sophisticated treatment of the electronic structure that computations become infeasible for large systems. Recent advances in electronic structure theory address the intractable complexity of such problems. I will discuss how one can abandon the wave function as the central variable in electronic structure theory in favor of the two-electron reduced-density matrix. In doing so, we can devise theories and algorithms that enable previously impossible computations on challenging systems.
  • 10/27/16
    • Speaker (none)
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  • 11/3/16
    • Speaker Bob Williams
    • AffiliationSpace Telescope Science Institute
    • Title  The Hubble Deep Field and its Legacy
    • AbstractThe history of how and why the original Hubble Deep Field was undertaken will be described, including the features that made it unique.  The improved characteristics of the subsequent HST deep fields will be explained, including how they helped lead to the discoveries of dark energy, the distribution of dark matter, and the rate of star formation since the Big Bang. The results of all the deep fields combined with recent detailed numerical simulations from supercomputers has now produced a realistic model for galaxy formation and evolution over cosmic time.
  • 11/10/16
    • Speaker Brian Connolly
    • Affiliation Cincinnati Children's Hospital
    • Title From the Observable Universe to the Inner Universe of the Mind:  A Quantitative Analysis of Psychiatric Disorders
    • Abstract The field of psychiatry is currently in the middle of a deep, data-driven transformation.  We are beginning to be able to make assessments of psychiatric disorders based on quantitative measurements of human behavior.  The data can be complex and multi-faceted, and the analyses require many of the same sophisticated analysis techniques that are typically found in high energy physics and astrophysics.   In my talk I will demonstrate how innovative machine learning and statistical techniques can be applied to identify emergency room patients at risk for suicide by analyzing the patients' speech patterns and other linguistic features.  I will also show how some of the novel methods we have developed for analyzing these data can be applied back to specific problems in astrophysics.
  • 11/17/16
    • Speaker Stephan Von Molnar
    • Affiliation FSU
    • Title A random walk to Materials Physics
    • Abstract This is a personal travel log from the arts to a life in science ,specifically Materials Physics. It will describe the origins of a desire to become an actor and the unplanned events that finally led to an interest in and contributions to Materials, principally the Mott transition in semiconductors, magnetic solids, but also soft biological systems and nanoscience. This overview, it is hoped, will encourage young people to explore more than STEM subjects and that an early overriding interest in science is not a necessary condition for a career in this broad subject.
  • 11/24/16
    • Speaker Thanksgiving
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  • 12/1/16
    • Speaker Augusto Machiavelli
    • Affiliation Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory
    • Title Gamma-Ray Tracking and the GRETINA Physics Program
    • Abstract The structure of nuclei far from the stability line is a central theme of research in nuclear physics.  Key to this program has been the worldwide development of radioactive beam facilities and novel detector systems, which provide the tools needed to produce and study these exotic nuclei.  In particular, gamma-ray spectroscopy plays a vital and ubiquitous role in these studies.  The gamma-ray tracking technique, proposed here at LBNL, marks a major advance in the development of gamma-ray detector systems and can provide order-of-magnitude gains in sensitivity compared to existing arrays.  It uses highly-segmented hyper-pure germanium crystals together with advanced signal processing techniques to determine the location and energy o individual gamma-ray interactions, which are then combined ot reconstruct the incident gamma-ray in a process called tracking.  A 4 pi tracking-array will be a powerful instrument needed to accomplish a broad range of experiments that will play an essential role in addressing the intellectual challenges of low-energy nuclear science.  Developments of these instruments are underway in the US (GRETA) and Europe (AGATA). Following an overview of the concept of gamma-ray tracking and its technical requirements, I will discuss GRETINA, a first implementation of these types of arrays, and represent selected examples of exciting physics results.  The future plans for a full 4 pi array, GRETA, will also be discussed.
  • 12/8/16
    • Speaker Jamie Nagle
    • Affiliation University of Colorado, Boulder
    • Title Pushing the limits of the Quark-Gluon Plasma
    • Abstract The Quark-Gluon Plasma is a high temperature state of matter where quarks and gluons are no longer bound in hadrons.  The QGP as created in relativistic heavy ion collisions displays some remarkable properties including near perfect fluidity.  Recent experiments have revealed similar signatures in collisions of smaller systems, including proton-proton and proton-nucleus reactions, and challenge our understanding of the requirements for QGP formation.