Events at Physics |
Events During the Week of April 14th through April 21st, 2019
Monday, April 15th, 2019
- Plasma Physics (Physics/ECE/NE 922) Seminar
- Overview of TAE Technologies’ Norman/C-2W Field-Reversed Configuration Experiments
- Time: 12:05 pm
- Place: 2241 Chamberlin Hall
- Speaker: Hiroshi Gota, TAE Technologies
- Abstract: TAE Technologies (formerly named “Tri Alpha Energy”) is based out of state-of-the-art plasma research facilities in California. Over the last 20 years, TAE has continued to build on our early technology and evolve our advanced beam-driven field-reversed configuration (FRC) approach to realize/develop a commercially competitive clean fusion energy. An FRC is a prolate compact toroid (CT) that has many attractive features such as extremely high β value, simple axisymmetric geometry, unrestricted natural divertor, and potentially enabling the use of advanced, aneutronic fuels. The newly constructed C-2W experimental device (also called “Norman”) is the world’s largest CT device and has the following key system upgrades from the preceding C-2U device: (i) higher injected power, optimum and tunable energies, and extended pulse duration of the neutral-beam injection (NBI) system; (ii) installation of inner divertors with upgraded edge-biasing systems; (iii) fast external equilibrium/mirror-coil current ramp-up capability; (iv) installation of trim/saddle coils for active feedback control of the FRC plasma; and (v) extensive upgrade/expansion of plasma diagnostic capability. C-2W has produced dramatically improved initial FRC parameters (good target for effective NBI), thus producing better FRC performance overall compared to C-2U; e.g. higher temperatures (initially and later in a discharge), longer lived plasmas. This talk will review highlights of the C-2W program as well as recently obtained experimental results.
- PGSC Professional Development Seminar
- Opportunities in Entrepreneurship and Medicine with a Physics PhD
- Time: 1:30 pm - 4:00 pm
- Place: B343 Sterling Hall
- Speaker: Rock Mackie, PhD, Chief Innovation Officer, UW Health
- Abstract: After getting his physics PhD, Rock Mackie has gone on to develop novel radiation therapy treatment, inventing the helical tomotherapy concept. He is the founder and Chairman of TomoTherapy, a company in Madison, WI, as well as the leader of the UW Health Innovation Initiative. He will join us Monday to meet with physics graduate students to discuss careers in medical physics and physics entrepreneurship. Pizza will be provided first-come first-serve at 1pm. He will give a presentation at 1:30pm, followed by a Question and Answer session at 3pm.
- Host: Neil Campbell, Graduate Student
Tuesday, April 16th, 2019
- Chaos & Complex Systems Seminar
- Pliocene and Eocene provide best analogs for near-future climates
- Time: 12:05 pm - 1:00 pm
- Place: 4274 Chamberlin (refreshments will be served)
- Speaker: Kevin Burke, UW Department of Geography
- Abstract: As the world warms due to rising greenhouse gas concentrations, the Earth system moves toward climate states without societal precedent, challenging adaptation. Past Earth system states offer possible model systems for the warming world of the coming decades. These include the climate states of the Early Eocene (ca. 50 Ma), the Mid-Pliocene (3.3–3.0 Ma), the Last Interglacial (129–116 ka), the Mid-Holocene (6 ka), preindustrial (ca. 1850 CE), and the 20th century. Here, we quantitatively assess the similarity of future projected climate states to these six geohistorical benchmarks using simulations from the Hadley Centre Coupled Model Version 3 (HadCM3), the Goddard Institute for Space Studies Model E2-R (GISS), and the Community Climate System Model, Versions 3 and 4 (CCSM) Earth system models. Under the Representative Concentration Pathway 8.5 (RCP8.5) emission scenario, by 2030 CE, future climates most closely resemble Mid-Pliocene climates, and by 2150 CE, they most closely resemble Eocene climates. Under RCP4.5, climate stabilizes at Pliocene-like conditions by 2040 CE. Pliocene-like and Eocene-like climates emerge first in continental interiors and then expand outward. Geologically novel climates are uncommon in RCP4.5 (<1%) but reach 8.7% of the globe under RCP8.5, characterized by high temperatures and precipitation. Hence, RCP4.5 is roughly equivalent to stabilizing at Pliocene-like climates, while unmitigated emission trajectories, such as RCP8.5, are similar to reversing millions of years of long-term cooling on the scale of a few human generations. Both the emergence of geologically novel climates and the rapid reversion to Eocene-like climates may be outside the range of evolutionary adaptive capacity.
- Host: Clint Sprott
- Chaos & Complex Systems Seminar
- Pliocene and Eocene provide best analogs for near-future climates
- Time: 12:05 pm - 1:00 pm
- Place: 4274 Chamberlin (refreshments will be served)
- Speaker: Kevin Burke, UW Department of Geography
- Abstract: As the world warms due to rising greenhouse gas concentrations, the Earth system moves toward climate states without societal precedent, challenging adaptation. Past Earth system states offer possible model systems for the warming world of the coming decades. These include the climate states of the Early Eocene (ca. 50 Ma), the Mid-Pliocene (3.3–3.0 Ma), the Last Interglacial (129–116 ka), the Mid-Holocene (6 ka), preindustrial (ca. 1850 CE), and the 20th century. Here, we quantitatively assess the similarity of future projected climate states to these six geohistorical benchmarks using simulations from the Hadley Centre Coupled Model Version 3 (HadCM3), the Goddard Institute for Space Studies Model E2-R (GISS), and the Community Climate System Model, Versions 3 and 4 (CCSM) Earth system models. Under the Representative Concentration Pathway 8.5 (RCP8.5) emission scenario, by 2030 CE, future climates most closely resemble Mid-Pliocene climates, and by 2150 CE, they most closely resemble Eocene climates. Under RCP4.5, climate stabilizes at Pliocene-like conditions by 2040 CE. Pliocene-like and Eocene-like climates emerge first in continental interiors and then expand outward. Geologically novel climates are uncommon in RCP4.5 (<1%) but reach 8.7% of the globe under RCP8.5, characterized by high temperatures and precipitation. Hence, RCP4.5 is roughly equivalent to stabilizing at Pliocene-like climates, while unmitigated emission trajectories, such as RCP8.5, are similar to reversing millions of years of long-term cooling on the scale of a few human generations. Both the emergence of geologically novel climates and the rapid reversion to Eocene-like climates may be outside the range of evolutionary adaptive capacity.
- Host: Clint Sprott
- Council Meeting
- Time: 3:30 pm
- Place: 2314 Chamberlin Hall
Wednesday, April 17th, 2019
- Department Meeting
- Time: 12:15 pm
- Place: B343 Sterling Hall
Thursday, April 18th, 2019
- R. G. Herb Condensed Matter Seminar
- Exciting dynamics in multiple time dimensions
- Time: 10:00 am - 11:00 am
- Place: Chambering 5310
- Speaker: Ivar Martin, Argonne National Laboratory
- Abstract: Externally driving a dynamical system, be it quantum or classical, effectively increases the number of its time dimensions. In this talk I will describe how the extra time dimensions can be harnessed to synthesize topological insulators purely in time domain, describe their possible applications for energy conversion and quantum engineering, and point out connections to localization and chaos.
- Host: Vavilov
- Cosmology Journal Club
- Time: 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm
- Place: 5242 Chamberlin Hall
- Abstract: Please visit the following link for more details:
http://cmb.physics.wisc.edu/journal/index.html
Feel free to bring your lunch!
If you have questions or comments about this journal club, would like to propose a topic or volunteer to introduce a paper, please email Ross Cawthon (cawthon@wisc.edu) and Santanu Das (sdas33@wisc.edu). - Theory Seminar (High Energy/Cosmology)
- Why the Higgs is light, Why it has SM couplings to gauge bosons and fermions, and where there are more Higgses to be found.
- Time: 2:30 pm
- Place: 5280 Chamberlin Hall
- Speaker: Ken Lane, Boston University
- Abstract: Current LHC data indicate that H(125) is either the single Higgs of the Standard Model or, to a good approximation, an “aligned Higgs”. We propose that H is the pseudo-Goldstone dilaton of Gildener and Weinberg. This naturally and, we conjecture, uniquely accounts for its low mass and its alignment. It further implies the existence of additional Higgs bosons in ~200 to ~550 GeV. We illustrate this in a version of a 2HDM of Lee and Pilaftsis. Our version is consistent with all published precision EW (LEP) and LHC (ATLAS & CMS) data. We propose tests to confirm or exclude this model with available LHC data.
- Host: Kevin Black
- Astronomy Colloquium
- Diermier Colloquium Talk- Revealing the Atomic Hydrogen in the small Magellanic cloud with the Australian Square Kilmetre Array Pathfinder"
- Time: 3:30 pm - 5:15 pm
- Place: 4421 Sterling Hall, Coffee and cookies 3:30 PM, Talk begins 3:45 PM
- Speaker: Naomi McClure-Griffiths, The Australian National University
- Abstract: The evolution of galaxies is partially regulated by their infall and outflow of gas. Many simulations of galaxy formation and evolution have highlighted the importance of feedback in reproducing the observable Universe. Huge superbubbles and outflows, formed from the stellar winds and supernovae, dominate the observed structure of neutral hydrogen within many galaxies, including the nearby Small and Large Magellanic Clouds, which we can study with a physical resolution unmatched anywhere else in the Universe. As the most numerous galaxies in the Universe, dwarf galaxies may be important candidates for populating the intergalactic medium with enriched gas. Although star formation rates in dwarf galaxies can be lower than their more massive, starburst counterparts, these low mass systems have small gravitational potential wells and thereby find it difficult to maintain their star-forming material in the presence of intense stellar feedback. In this talk I will present new commissioning atomic hydrogen (HI) data from the Australian SKA Pathfinder (ASKAP) in which we have discovered that the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) has massive stellar feedback driven HI outflows. The outflows are comprised of cold filamentary gas extending up ~2 kpc from the main galaxy, with temperatures of T< 500 K and widths as small as 50 pc. We estimate a significant atomic gas mass flux in the range 0.2 - 1 solar mass per year, which may contribute to feeding the Magellanic Stream. I will also discuss future plans for the Magellanic System with Galactic ASKAP Survey.
- Host: Professor Snezana Stanimirovic
Friday, April 19th, 2019
- Physics Department Colloquium
- Postcards from the Future — The Physics Landscape at the High-Luminosity LHC
- Time: 3:30 pm
- Place: 2241 Chamberlin Hall
- Speaker: Meenakshi Narain, Brown University
- Abstract: The discovery of the Higgs Boson by the ATLAS and CMS experiments at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in Geneva, Switzerland, was one of the most important and exciting moments in particle physics. The field of particle physics has transitioned to a new phase that presents us with the opportunity to gain a deeper understanding of the fundamental nature of matter and our universe. I will discuss some of these implications, which inform the efforts to figure out the roadmap of particle physics in the coming decades. Starting around 2026, the High-Luminosity LHC (HL-LHC) will deliver proton-proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 14 TeV. I will summarize the studies from a comprehensive campaign mounted in 2018, to understand the physics reach of the experiments at the HL-LHC and a possible higher energy LHC (HE-LHC) at 27 TeV.
- Host: Sridhara Dasu