Events at Physics |
Events During the Week of November 23rd through November 29th, 2008
Monday, November 24th, 2008
- NPAC (Nuclear/Particle/Astro/Cosmo) Forum
- The Fermilab to Homestake Long Baseline Experiment
- Time: 2:00 pm
- Place: 4274 Chamberlin
- Speaker: Milind Diwan, BNL
- Abstract: I will describe the scientific and technical issues concerning building a very large detector at the new Homestake deep underground science and engineering laboratory and a new intense neutrino beam from Fermilab.
- Host: Albrecht Karle
- Physics Department Colloquium
- D.W. Kerst Lecture
- Studying Astrophysics in the Laboratory: How is Angular Momentum Rapidly Transported in Accretion Disks?
- Time: 4:00 pm
- Place: 2241 Chamberlin Hall (Coffee and cookies at 3.30 pm)
- Speaker: Hantao Ji, Center for Magnetic Self-Organization in Laboratory and Astrophysical Plasmas, Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, Princeton University
- Abstract: Rapid angular momentum transport in accretion disk plasmas has been a longstanding astrophysical puzzle. Since Keplerian flows are linearly stable in hydrodynamics, there exist only two viable mechanisms for the required turbulence: nonlinear hydrodynamic instability or linear magnetorotational instability (MRI). The latter is considered operating in hot disks ranging from quasars and X-ray binaries to cataclysmic variables. The former has been proposed mainly for cooler protoplanetary disk plasmas, whose Reynolds numbers are enormous. Despite their popularity, however, both candidate mechanisms have been rarely demonstrated and studied in the laboratory. In this talk, I will describe a novel laboratory experiment in a short Taylor-Couette flow geometry intended for such purposes. The experiments in water have shown, rather surprisingly, that quasi-Keplerian flows at Reynolds numbers as large as two millions are essentially laminar, effectively ruling out hydrodynamic turbulence as a candidate mechanism. The experiments in liquid gallium eutectic by imposing an axial magnetic field have shown the emergence of nonaxisymmetric modes identified as magnetocoriolis waves, one branch of which should become the MRI at higher speeds.
- Host: Forest
- High Energy Seminar
- Search for Anomalous Wtb Couplings in Single Top Quark Production
- Time: 4:00 pm - 4:00 pm
- Place: 4274 Chamberlin (Coffee and Cookies at 3:45 pm)
- Speaker: Liang Li, Search for Anomalous Wtb Couplings in Single Top Quark Production
- Host: Wesley Smith
Tuesday, November 25th, 2008
- Chaos & Complex Systems Seminar
- Clouds and aerosol: their role and impact in the atmospheric and global climate processes
- Time: 12:05 pm
- Place: 4274 Chamberlin (Refreshments will be served)
- Speaker: Pao K. Wang, UW Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences
- Abstract: Atmospheric clouds have great impact on the global climate process mainly due to their ability to influence the radiative budget of the earth system. But because of their high variability, they also make climate predictions complicated and unreliable so far. In addition, cloud formation is closely related to the aerosol in the atmosphere. This further complicates the climate predictions because we don't yet fully understand how clouds and aerosol interact and meanwhile human activities keep injecting large amount of aerosol into the atmosphere. In this talk I would like to discuss fundamental cloud and aerosol interactions and how they may impact the global climate process.
- Astronomy Colloquium
- Fueling Galaxies at z = 0
- Time: 3:30 pm
- Place: 6515 Sterling Hall
- Speaker: Mary Putnam, Columbia University
- Abstract: Spiral galaxies are thought to have a source of incoming star formation fuel through the majority of their lifetimes. This fuel source includes satellite galaxies captured by the galaxy and possibly clouds condensing within the galaxies extended hot gaseous halo. Some galaxies may also be fueling themselves by transferring gas from the outer regions to the inner star forming disk. The evidence for various fueling mechanisms and the future fueling prospects for the galaxies of the Local Group will be discussed.
- Host: Professor Snezana Stanimirovic
Wednesday, November 26th, 2008
- Special Plasma Physics Seminar
- The Effect of Plasma Triangularity on Turbulent Transport: Modeling TCV Experiments by Linear and Non Linear Gyrokinetic Simulations
- Time: 12:00 pm
- Place: 5280 Chamberlin Hall
- Speaker: Alessandro Marinoni, Ecole Polytechinique Federale de Lausanne, Switzerland
Thursday, November 27th, 2008
- Thanksgiving
Friday, November 28th, 2008
- Physics Department Colloquium
- No Colloquium--Thanksgiving Recess