Events at Physics |
Events During the Week of November 9th through November 15th, 2008
Monday, November 10th, 2008
- Plasma Physics (Physics/ECE/NE 922) Seminar
- Improved Confinement at High Current in the MST Reversed-Field Pinch" & "Momentum Transport during Reconnection Events in the MST Reversed-Field Pinch
- Time: 12:05 pm
- Place: 1227 Engineering Hall
- Speaker: Daniel Den Hartog & Alexey Kuritsyn, UW-Madison, Dept of Physics/Plasma
- R. G. Herb Condensed Matter Seminar
- Novel Orders from Geometrical Frustration and Orbital Degeneracy
- Time: 3:00 pm
- Place: 5310 Chamberlin
- Speaker: Ashvin Vishwanath, University of California - Berkeley
- Abstract: In frustrated systems, competing interactions lead to degeneracies - which in turn produce complex phase diagrams and sometimes entirely new states of matter. Frustration often arises from the lattice geometry, and a number of normally weak effects can be important to determining the state of the system. I will discuss how coupling to phonons leads to a complex phase diagram for triangular lattice antiferromagnets and how quantum fluctuations can stabilize a supersolid phase, where the system is at once both a crystal and a superfluid. Frustration can also arise from orbital degrees of freedom, and I will discuss a promising candidate for a quantum liquid state with topological order, in a spin-orbital model.
- Host: Chubukov
- High Energy Seminar
- Diffractive W and Z Boson Production at the Tevatron
- Time: 4:00 pm - 5:00 pm
- Place: 4274 Chamberlin (Coffee and Cookies at 3:45 pm)
- Speaker: Mary Convery, FNAL
- Host: Matt Herndon
Tuesday, November 11th, 2008
- Chaos & Complex Systems Seminar
- Engaging the flow: a creative dialogue
- Time: 12:05 pm
- Place: 4274 Chamberlin (Refreshments will be served)
- Speaker: Harry Webne-Behrman, UW Office of Human Resource Development
- Abstract: Creative conversations don't mechanically follow 'outline form,' they emerge from the synergies and interactions of participants in hard-to-predict ways. Is there a way to facilitate such dialogues, rather than direct them, so 1 + 1 >2? Is there a way to capture the creative ideas that emerge? Building from theories on synchronicity in innovation and the process used by Nathan Myhrvold at Intellectual Ventures, the Chaos & Complexity Seminar will engage in a creative dialogue whose outcome is unknown and whose parameters will be co-created by the group in the weeks ahead. Join us for fascinating conversation and see what happens!
- Astronomy Colloquium
- Breakout: High-Energy Transients from Supernovae and the Mystery of the Dim GRBs
- Time: 3:30 pm
- Place: 6515 Sterling Hall
- Speaker: Chris Matzner, University of Toronto
- Abstract: Since 1998 is has been clear that some long-duration gamma-ray bursts come from broad-lined type Ic supernovae -- energetic explosions of bare stellar cores. For bright, variable GRBs observed at cosmological distances, this means that an ultra-relativistic jet must sweep aside the star's envelope before beaming at Earth. However, a much more populous class of dim bursts, which lack evidence for beaming or highly relativistic flow, has recently become apparent. Are these produced by off-axis jets, or shock breakout? I shall review these two physical models, and argue that dim GRBs and related x-ray transients reveal an unexpected diversity of pre-explosion stellar mass loss behavior.
Wednesday, November 12th, 2008
- No events scheduled
Thursday, November 13th, 2008
- Graduate Introductory Seminar
- Phenomenology Intro Seminar
- Time: 5:30 pm - 6:30 pm
- Place: 2223 Chamberlin Hall
- Speaker: Pheno Group, Physics Department
- Abstract: Introductory Seminar for first year Grad Students (others welcome)
- Host: Pheno Group
Friday, November 14th, 2008
- Theory/Phenomenology Seminar
- Kinematic Constraints and MT2
- Time: 2:30 pm
- Place: 5280 Chamberlin Hall
- Speaker: Zhenyu Han, Univ. of California-Davis
- Host: T. Han
- Physics Department Colloquium
- Experiments on the Newly Functioning Spallation Neutron Source at Oak Ridge National Lab
- Time: 4:00 pm
- Place: 2241 Chamberlin Hall (coffee at 3:30 pm)
- Speaker: Haskell Taub, University of Missouri-Columbia
- Abstract: Abstract: We will discuss the present status of instrumentation for performing neutron scattering experiments on condensed matter at the Spallation Neutron Source (SNS) at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The talk will focus on the high-energy-resolution quasielastic neutron scattering spectrometer BASIS, which can be used for investigating molecular diffusion in both solids and liquids and is one of three instruments currently available in the external user program. With the SNS operating at about 40% of full power on target, we discuss how BASIS in its present configuration complements existing capabilities for quasielastic neutron scattering at steady-state reactors. As an example, we show how measurements on BASIS help to provide a new "spin" on a problem in the dynamics of molecular crystals that dates back to the 1930s: the nature of solid-solid phase transitions to "rotator" phases that precede the melting of alkane crystals.
- Host: Bruch