Events at Physics |
Events on Monday, March 3rd, 2025
- Plasma Physics (Physics/ECE/NE 922) Seminar
- "Multi-fidelity digital models for fusion energy device optimization, design, and operation"
- Time: 12:00 pm - 1:15 pm
- Place: 1227 Engineering Hall
- Speaker: Michael Churchill, Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory
- Abstract: Digital modelling of the physics and engineering of next-step fusion devices will become increasingly important for their successful design and operation. A classical divide exists between modeling relying on pure simulation and pure experimental scaling laws (the so-called “sim2real” gap). High-fidelity modeling can help to close this gap, but often does not fulfill the speed needed for certain workflows such as design optimization and control room analysis. I will present several efforts and techniques including AI/ML and advanced optimization being pursued towards building out faithful digital twins, based on a range of simulations covering differing physics and levels of fidelity. Examples will range from stellarator design optimization with the StellFoundry SciDAC collaboration, to fast simulation-based inference with experimental diagnostics.
- Host: Prof. Adelle Wright
- Theory Seminar (High Energy/Cosmology)
- Cavendish Tests of Millicharged Relics
- Time: 1:00 pm - 2:30 pm
- Place: Chamberlin 5280
- Speaker: Asher Berlin, Fermilab
- Abstract: The simplest cosmologies motivate the consideration of dark matter subcomponents that interact significantly with normal matter. Moreover, such strongly-coupled relics may have evaded detection to date if upon encountering the Earth they rapidly thermalize down to terrestrial temperatures, well below the thresholds of most existing dark matter detectors. This motivates the consideration of alternative detection techniques sensitive to a terrestrial population of slowly-moving dark matter particles. In this talk, I will focus on such a population of millicharged particles, and show how reinterpretations of Cavendish tests of Coulomb's Law, first performed in the late 18th century, provide some of the strongest bounds on this largely unexplored parameter space. Event recording:
- Host: Dan Hooper
- NPAC (Nuclear/Particle/Astro/Cosmo) Forum
- Towards Differentiable Physics Analysis at the High-Luminosity Large Hadron Collider and Beyond
- Time: 4:00 pm - 5:00 pm
- Place: 5280 CH &
- Speaker: Dr. Matthew Feickert, University of Wisconsin - Madison
- Abstract: With the High-Luminosity Large Hadron Collider (HL-LHC) era on the horizon for physics analysis at the LHC experiments, there are multiple data, computing, and analysis challenges to be overcome to efficiently analyze and extract the most scientific value from the unique and valuable data collected. These challenges also offer opportunities for innovation. How can new data science tools maximize analysis efficiency to reduce the time to insight? How can applications of artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) increase analysis sensitivity to reach new results sooner with less data? What previously computationally unfeasible analyses are unlocked by intelligently scaling analysis workflows? In this seminar, I will present an overview for how we can apply powerful new tools and technologies to meet these challenges, advance the frontiers of particle physics, and open doors of collaboration with other fields. We'll explore an ecosystem of modern open source data science tools that is enabling new physics analysis workflows at scale. We'll then discuss how AI/ML techniques and applications from the broader fields of automatic differentiation and differentiable programming are being integrated into analysis at the LHC, offering new opportunities. Finally, I will demonstrate how strategies for enabling analysis reuse can be leveraged to tackle scientific workflows at the HL-LHC scale and beyond, unlocking new approaches to analyses.
- Host: Sridhara Dasu