September 15, 2015
Dung-Hai Lee,
UC Berkeley
Host:
Chyh-Hong Chen
Time: 2:20 pm -3:20 pm
Place: Room 104, CCMS-New
Phys. building
Title:
A novel quantum paramagnetic state
in iron-based superconductors
Abstract
Magnetic states that do not spontaneously break spin rotation symmetry down to zero temperature, namely quantum paramagnet, has been a focal point of condensed matter research in the last twenty years. Searching for realization of such kind states in real materials is one of the most active research area in physics. In this talk I shall introduce a new kind of quantum paramagnet and argue that it is realized in the simplest kind of iron-based superconductors -- FeSe, which was discovered in Taiwan by M.K Wu's group.
Brief Bio
Professor Dung-Hai Lee received his B.S. degree from the National Tsinghua University of Taiwan. He went to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1977 for graduate studies, and received his Ph.D. in physics in 1982. After staying at M.I.T. for another two years, he joined the IBM T.J. Watson Research Center in 1984. Professor Lee spent eleven years at IBM, and came to Berkeley in February 1994. He is a theoretical condensed matter physicist. The principal goal of his research is to learn new organization principles enabling microscopic degrees of freedom to behave cooperatively in fundamentally new manner. Throughout the past ten years, he has worked on problems related to high-transition temperature superconductivity, photoisomerization, the fractional quantum Hall effect, superconducting nano wires, graphene, KxC60 monolayers, strongly correlated one dimensional systems, time-reversal symmetry breaking superconductors, frustrated spin models, carbon nano tubes, and transport of electron in strong magnetic fields and disorder media. Most recently, Prof. Lee was a Keynote speaker at PSROC2015.
September 29, 2015
William Borucki,
Ames Research Center
Canceled due to typhoon!
Host:
Yen-Ting Lin
Time: 2:20 pm -3:20 pm
Place: Room 104, CCMS-New
Phys. building
Title:
Kepler mission results:
discoveries from astrophysical
and exoplanet investigations
Abstract
At the time of the first Kepler proposal, no exoplanets had been discovered. At the conclusion of the Mission, over 4600 planetary candidates had been discovered and a new era of astronomy has opened. Planets have been found with average densities as low as Styrofoam (0.05 gr/cc) and as high as that of tungsten (17 gr/cc), and with sizes between that of the Moon to double that of Jupiter. Planets are found orbiting much closer to their star than Mercury does to the Sun, but Jupiter-size planets in such locations are rare. The high frequency of 4- and 5-planet systems indicates that flat systems are common. However, in about 20% of planetary systems, a planet is found orbiting at a large angle to the stellar equatorial plane. Very compact systems are common and many of the planets are in near-resonant orbits, but seldom in resonant orbits. Planets are found in binary and trinary star systems. Planets in the habitable zone are common. A combination of several observational and modeling techniques is used to deduce the characteristics of the planets and the host stars. Results from the Kepler Mission show that the average number of planets per star exceeds one.
Because Kepler has observed over 170,000 stars nearly continuously for four years, many unusual stars have been found and the information needed for the determination of rotation rates of the cores of giant stars and the identification of those stars that are hydrogen-shell burning versus those that are helium-burning is clear. Examples of the results are presented.
Brief Bio
William Borucki is a space scientist at the NASA Ames Researh Center. He received a master's degree in physics from the University of Wisconsin, Madison in 1962 and has since worked at NASA, first on the Apollo Mission, then on lightning activity in planetary atmospheres and on mathematical models of the interaction of pollutants with ozone in the Earth’s stratosphere. He obtained another master’s degree in meteorology from San Jose State University in 1982. In the 1980s he became interested in detecting extrasolar planets and conceived and led the efforts that resulted in the Kepler mission, which was launched in 2009. Although he retired from the U.S. Civil Service in 2015, he continues his research as a NASA Associate. He is the recipient of 2015 Shaw Prize in Astronomy, and has been recognized by numerous other awards, including Samuel J. Heyman Service to America Medal from U.S. President Obama in 2013, the 2013 Henry Draper Medal from National Academy of Sciences, the 2012 George W. Goddard Award from SPIE, the Lancelot Berkeley Prize from the American Astronomical Society in 2011, and the 2010 NASA Outstanding Leadership Award.
October 6, 2015
Burn J. Lin,
TSMC
Host:
Minghwei Hong
Time: 2:20 pm -3:20 pm
Place: Room 104, CCMS-New
Phys. building
Title:
Principles and Applications of lithography
to 1/20 wavelength
Abstract
Lithography has progressed from intuitive practices in the 80s for delineating multi-micrometer geometry at least an order of magnitude of the imaging wavelength, to delineating a small fraction of the imaging wavelength, i.e. single-digit nanometer dimensions. This lecture will cover several key parameters and concepts to help support this tremendous progress. The topic include, resolution and depth of focus scaling equations, imaging science, aerial and resist images, E-D trees, E-D forest, lithography galaxy, techniques to improve resolution, and immersion lithography.
Brief Bio
Burn J. Lin is a R&D Vice President and Distinguished Fellow at TSMC, Ltd. He hasbeen extending the limit of optical lithography for more than four decades at IBM, Linnovation, and TSMC.
Dr. Lin is a member of the US National Academy of Engineering (美國工程院院士), Academician of Academia Sinica (中央研究院院士), ITRI Laureate (工業研究院院士), IEEE Fellow, and SPIE Fellow. He received the 2013 IEEE Nishizawa Medal, 2009 IEEE Cledo Brunetti Award, 2009 Benjamin G. Lamme Medal, and 2004 SPIE Frits Zernike award.
Dr. Lin has published 1 book, 3 book chapters, 133 articles, and 88 US patents.
October 13, 2015
U-Ser Jeng,
National Synchrotron Radiation Research Center
Host:
Ming-Wen Chu
Time: 2:20 pm -3:20 pm
Place: Room 104, CCMS-New
Phys. building
Title:
From Current TLS SAXS to Future TPS BioSAXS
Abstract
During the last decade, a rapid increase in the use of small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) for non-crystalline biomolecular structures has driven a quick growth of dedicated Bio-SAXS beamlines at synchrotron facilities worldwide. Consequently, increasingly large amount of BioSAXS-related results, complimentary to that from traditional tools of X-ray crystallography, NMR, and/or other spectroscopis, have impacted greatly the research of structural biology. Embroiled with such environment, National Synchrotron Radiation Research Center (NSRRC) together with Academia Sinica have launched a joint project to develop BioSAXS facility for cutting-edge researches on, such as, solution structures of proteins and protein complexes, conformational changes of protein-protein or protein-DNA assemblies under in situ environmental stimulation, protein/membrane structural kinetics, and hierarchical biology textures. This talk will cover a recent upgrade of the current SAXS beamline with the Taiwan light Source (TLS) at NSRRC for immediate BioSAXS applications, and the conceptual design of the dedicated, state-of-the-art 13A-BioSAXS beamline of an undulator X-ray source of the 3-GeV Taiwan photon source (TPS).
Brief Bio
Dr. U-Ser Jeng is Researcher of National Synchrotron Radiation Research Center, and Adjunct Professor of Department of Chemical Engineering, National Tsing-Hua University. He obtained his bachelor's degree from Suchow University in 1985, master's degree from National Tsing Hua University in 1987, and PhD degree from University of Rhode Island in 1996. He has been interested in small/wide angle X-rays scattering instrumentation, and X-ray and Neutron scattering on soft matter and nanomaterials: protein folding-unfolding, polymer crystallization, Lipid vesicles membranes complex, and Langmuir and Langmuir-Blodgett films. His small-angle X-ray beam is among the best in the world and currently the review-panel member of MoST Phys. Division.
Ivan K. Schuller,
University of California, San Diego
Host:
Minn-Tsong Lin
Time: 3:30 pm -4:30 pm
Place: Room 104, CCMS-New Phys. building
Title:
35 Years of Magnetic Heterostructures
Abstract
Hybrid heterostructured materials allow the development of new material properties by creative uses of proximity effects. When two dissimilar materials are in close physical proximity the properties of each one may be radically modified and occasionally a completely new material emerges. In the area of magnetism, controlling the magnetic properties of ferromagnetic thin films without magnetic fields is an on-going challenge with multiple technological implications for low-energy memory and logic devices. All these are based on basic discoveries, which provide the scientific foundation for important applications. Of course like with all basic research discoveries it is difficult to predict where and when these will make it into applications.
Roughly 35 years ago the development of metallic (magnetic in particular) superlattices started a quest to engineer novel properties unlike existing in naturally occurring materials. This has lead to a many studies related to metallic superlattices and led eventually to the development of a whole new field of spintronics. After a brief motivation and historic background I will describe some of the most recent developments in the field. Interesting magnetic proximity effects arise when ferromagnets (FM) are in contact with antiferromagnets (AFM), such as the shift of the hysteresis loop along the field axis. In this "exchange biased" configuration, a variety of unusual phenomena arise unlike in any other magnetic system; i) the reversal of the FM becomes asymmetric, ii) large exchange bias appears in nominally fully compensated surfaces, iii) positive exchange bias emerges for certain classes of bilayers, iv) at fast time scales (<300psec) the reversal is anomalous, and v) the phenomenon is affected by the bulk magnetic structure of the AFM. Another interesting possibility arises when ferromagnets are in proximity to materials that undergo metal-insulator and structural phase transitions. In this case, the coercivities and magnetizations of the ferromagnetic films grown on different oxides oxides are strongly affected by the phase transition in the oxide. Both of these phenomena have presently existing and future potential applications in the spintronics, sensors, magnetic recording and transformers areas.
Brief Bio
Ivan K. Schuller is an American condensed matter experimental physicist. He is best known for his work on superlattices. His interests are focused on thin films, nanostructures, novel materials, magnetism, and superconductivity. Prof. Schuller received his Licenciado (1970) from the University of Chile, MS degree (1972) and PhD (1976) from Northwestern University. From 1978-1987, he was a Senior Physicist and Group Leader at Argonne National Laboratory. Since 1987, he has been a Professor of Physics at the University of California, San Diego; and he held visiting professorships at Pontifical Catholic University of Chile; Universidad del Valle, Colombia; the Catholic University-Leuven, Belgium, and the Rheinisch-Westfaelische Technische Hochschule, Aachen, Germany. Prof. Schuller is the recipient of numerous prizes, including the E.O. Lawrence Award (2004), David Adler Lectureship (2003), Alexander von Humboldt Award (2000), Wheatley Award (1999), DOE Outstanding Scientific Accomplishments (1987), a Doctor Honoris Causa at Universidad Complutense de Madrid (2005) and the 2015 Lise Meitner Lectureship Award. He is also the Fellow of American Physical Society (1985), Belgian Academy of Sciences (1998), and Columbian Academy of Sciences (2014); and Foreign Member of Chilean Academy of Sciences (1992) and Spanish Academy of Sciences (2005).
Slides
October 19, 2015
Pierre Cox,
Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array
Special joint colloquium on Mon.
Host:
Yen-Ting Lin
Time: 2:20 pm -3:20 pm
Place: Room 104, CCMS-New Phys. building
Title:
Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter
Array (ALMA): Status and Development
Abstract
The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) is an aperture synthesis interferometer that currently operates from wavelengths of 3 mm to 350 microns with up to sixty six (66) array elements: fifty four (54) of 12-m diameter and twelve (12) of 7-m diameter. The array is located at the ALMA Array Operations Site (AOS) on the Chajnator plateau (at an altitude of about 5000 meters) in the Atacama desert in northern Chile. While the antennas and most of the hardware for the receivers are on site, array capabilities are still expanding and the observatory is ramping up towards full operations. Early science observations have been ongoing since October 2011 and ALMA started the fourth cycle of Early Science observations. Many exciting, fundamental results have already been obtained. I will review the current status of the project, the array performance, testing, and development projects and present a selection of some of the most exciting scientific results from the solar system to the early universe. In short, I will present ALMA: past, present and future.
Brief Bio
Pierre Cox is well known scientifically in the area of millimeter and infrared observations of star-forming regions, evolved stars and high-redshift galaxies, and has published over 200 papers with more than 10,000 citations in total. He was previously working as Director of IRAM (Institut de Radioastronomie Millimétrique).
In the late 1990s, Pierre Cox was one of the founding ALMA Scientific Advisory Committee and European Scientific Advisory Committee members, who supported and promoted the project both with scientists and funding agencies. Since then he has stayed in close contact with ALMA through various committees. In 2007, he chaired the review committee of the ALMA operations plan. IRAM is responsible for building the ALMA Band 7 receivers and also hosts one of the European ALMA Regional Center nodes.
October 20, 2015
Tommaso Treu,
UCLA
Host:
Yen-Ting Lin
Time: 2:20 pm -3:20 pm
Place: Room 104, CCMS-New
Phys. building
Title:
What's the universe made of?
Abstract
What is the nature of dark energy and dark matter? I will describe two astronomical experiments based on strong gravitational lensing that can address this question in a novel way. In the first experiment, strong gravitational lenses where the background source is variable in time and the foreground deflector is a massive galaxy are used as cosmic "standard rods". I will illustrate recent advances in modelling techniques and data quality that enable a 6-7% measurement of constraints on distance from a single gravitational lens. I will show that results from just two systems yield constraints on the equation of state of dark energy and flatness comparable to those obtained with the best probes. The second experiment uses the flux ratios between multiple images of gravitationally lensed quasars to detect the presence of dark subhalos independent of their stellar content. This tests a fundamental prediction of the cold dark matter model, i.e. that galaxies should be surrounded by large numbers of dark satellite subhalos. Proof that such satellites do not exist would force a revision of the model in favor of more exotic alternatives like warm dark matter. I will show first results from this experiment based on Keck-Adaptive Optics observations. I will then conclude by discussing the bright prospects of studies of the dark sector using gravitational lensing.
Brief Bio
Dr. Tommaso Treu is a Professor of Physics and Astronomy at the University of California at Los Angeles. He received his Ph.D. in Physics from the Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa, Italy, in 2001. He is an observer with broad expertise in extragalactic astronomy and cosmology. He brings knowledge about both ground-based and space-based astronomy, mainly at optical and near-infrared (IR) wavelengths, but also in the X-ray and mid-IR bands. He is the principal investigator of the Grism Lens-Amplified Survey from Space and also the STRong-lensing Insights into Dark Energy Survey, both of which are large state-of-the-art observing programs aimed to understand the first galaxies and evolution of the Universe.
Dr. Treu has been a NASA Hubble Fellow, Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellow, and David and Lucille Packard Research Fellow. He is also the recipient of a US National Science Foundation CAREER award, and of the 2010 Newton Lacy Pierce Prize of the American Astronomical Society. Dr.Treu is a member of the Science Advisory Committee of the Thirty Meter Telescope, the University of California Observatory Advisory Committee, and of the Spitzer Space Telescope Oversight Committee.
Slides
October 27, 2015
Wah Chiu,
Baylor College of Medicine
Host:
Dharma Yu
Time: 2:20 pm -3:20 pm
Place: Room 104, CCMS-New
Phys. building
Title:
Cryo-Electron Microscopy and Tomography:
A Structural Tool for Molecular, Cellular
and Translational Biology
Abstract
Single particle cryo-electron microscopy has undergone a revolutionary advance in resolving the biological structures of molecular machines at atomic resolution previously either difficult to attain or merely unachievable. It can also resolve structures of conformational or compositional heterogeneous molecular machines or biochemical reaction products at medium resolution. This achievement has owned to newly available direct electron detector to record electron images with enhanced signal to noise ratio at a full range of spatial frequencies and different image processing software contributed freely from many academic labs. Our Center has contributed to many of these advances including camera characterization, algorithm and software development for map and model determination and structure validation protocols. Recently, we have solved many cryoEM structures of molecular machines including viruses, chaperonins and transcriptional regulator not only in a single but also different biochemical states to uncover the structural mechanisms of their respective biological functions and assembly principles. Using cryo-electron tomography, we are able to generate 3-D images of protein aggregates and whole cells from bacteria to neurons and cancer cells where we can visualize the spatial and structural organization of subcellular components in both normal and diseased states. Novel structural features are discovered either to answer long standing mechanistic questions or to generate testable hypotheses for understanding structure and function relationship. Furthermore, cryo-electron tomography has the potential to become a structural biomarker for cancers and other diseases.
Brief Bio
Professor Wah Chiu received his B.A. degree in Physics from University of California, Berkeley. He also obtained his PhD in biophysics in 1975 from UC Berkeley. After staying at UC Berkeley for another four years, he joined University of Arizona to start his academic career and became a professor at Baylor College of Medicine in 1998. He has become a Distinguished Service Professor since 2010. He is an elected academician of Academia Sinica, Taiwan and an elected member of National Academy of Sciences,USA.
Prof. Wah Chiu’s research interests are to determine 3-dimensional structures of biological nanomachines by electron cryomicroscopy and computer reconstruction and to relate the structures to their functional mechanisms. Our structural technique complements to those of X ray crystallography and NMR spectroscopy. Our laboratory is uniquely equipped with four intermediate voltage electron cryomicroscopes and supercomputer. His laboratory has pioneered various experimental and computational methods in biological cryo-EM.
November 3, 2015
Henry Tye,
Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
Host:
Wei-Shu Hou
Time: 2:20 pm -3:20 pm
Place: Room 104, CCMS-New
Phys. building
Title:
The Origin of Our Universe
Abstract
How our Universe was created as we understand today.
Brief Bio
Before joining HKUST as the Director of IAS and Chair Professor of Physics in 2011, Prof Henry Tye was the Horace White Professor of Physics at Cornell University. Prof Tye’s research interest is in theoretical particle physics and cosmology. He studies the structure of matter at the sub-atomic level and the fundamental forces in nature. In cosmology, he studies the origin of our universe as well as the properties of today’s universe. He applies superstring theory to link the smallest to the biggest. With the advance of modern science and technology, a number of predictions he made in cosmology may be tested via observation in the near future.
Prof Tye was born in Shanghai and raised in Hong Kong. He graduated from California Institute of Technology in 1970 and received his PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1974. He did research at Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, Stanford University and Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory before moving to Cornell in 1978, where he stayed until last year. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society.
Slides
November 10, 2015
Yu-Min Lin,
TSMC
Host:
Minghwei Hong
Time: 2:20 pm -3:20 pm
Place: Room 104, CCMS-New
Phys. building
Title:
2D Materials for Electronics:
Prospects and challenges
Abstract
Layered two-dimensional (2D) materials exhibit distinct properties from their bulk counterparts because of reduced dimensionality and symmetry, and offers unique opportunities for applications such as nanoelectronics, communication, and energy storage. Graphene is the first 2D system experimentally realized with thickness down to one-atomic layer, and has been attempted in virtually all conceivable applications. However, the absence of a band gap in graphene makes many device-related applications very challenging. Black phosphorus and transitional metal dichalcogenide (TMD), such as MoS2, WSe2, or WS2 (to name a few), are newly discovered 2D materials with sizeable bandgaps ranging from ~ 0.3eV to 2 eV, and this could, in principle, open up practical possibilities for future electronics based on 2D materials. In this talk, I will review the progress of 2D materials and analyze their opportunities in various electronic devices in accordance with their fundamental properties. Key challenges will also be discussed.
Brief Bio
Dr. Yu-Ming Lin (林佑明) is a Deputy Director of R&D Department at TSMC Ltd. He received M.S (2000) and Ph.D (2013) degrees, both in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS), from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. From 2003-11, he was Research Staff Member at IBM T. J. Watson Research Center, and has done extensive research on nanoscale electronic devices based on carbon nanotubes and graphene. Dr. Lin was a co-founder of Bluestone Global Tech Ltd. where he was involved with large-scale graphene production and commercialization of graphene technology between 2011-14.
He is the recipient of Lee Hsun Young Scientist Award (2012) from Institute of Metal Research, China Academy of Science, George E. Smith Award (2011) from IEEE Electron Device Society, and Pat Goldberg Memorial Award (2010) from IBM.
Slides
November 17, 2015
George Zweig,
MIT
Host:
Wei-Shu Hou
Time: 2:20 pm -3:20 pm
Place: Room 104, CCMS-New
Phys. building
Title:
Concrete Quarks
Abstract
A short history of the physics of strongly interacting particles is presented. Events leading to the discovery, and eventual acceptance, of concrete quarks are described.
Brief Bio
George Zweig received his bachelor's degree in mathematics from the University of Michigan and his PhD in physics from the California Institute of Technology with thesis adviser Richard Feynman. He has served as Professor of Physics at Caltech, Group Leader for Special Projects at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, Principal at Renaissance Technologies, Research Associate at the MIT Research Laboratory of Electronics, as well as Founder and President of Signition Inc., a software company developing algorithms for the detection of signals in noise. Mr. Zweig received a MacArthur prize in 1981, the first year it was awarded. He is best known for his discovery of quarks, work for which the American Physical Society has honored him with the 2015 J.J. Sakurai Prize. He is a recipient of the Caltech Distinguished Alumnus Award, a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a member of the National Academy of Sciences.
Slides
November 24, 2015
Olivier Doré,
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Host:
Yen-Ting Lin
Time: 2:20 pm -3:20 pm
Place: Room 104, CCMS-New Phys. building
Title:
From Planck to SPHEREx:
Adding the 3rd Dimension to a
Full-sky Map to Probe Inflation
Abstract
The Planck success leaves cosmology with impressively well established questions and... few answers. Amongst them, the nature of the initial conditions that led to the large-scale structure we observe today is one of the most salient. I will briefly review Planck latest results, and motivate the need for the 3D mapping of an ultra-large volume to directly observe the nature of inflation. From a theoretical point of view, measuring the largest scales promises a powerful and clean probe of the initial conditions. The modeling of these large scales yields interesting (solvable) physics problems. The measurement of these large scales is also feasible: I will present a proposed satellite mission, SPHEREx, that promises to accomplish such a mapping, and much more. By constructing the first all-sky near-infrared spectral survey, SPHEREx will not only constrain the physics of inflation with unprecedented accuracy but also offer new insights on the origin and history of galaxies and build a spectral catalog of 100s of millions of objects for the astronomy community to use.
Brief Bio
Dr. Olivier Doré is conducting his research at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and at the California Institute of Technology. He moved there in 2009 after post-doctoral positions at the Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics in Toronto and at Princeton University. He received his PhD at the Institut d’Astrophysique de Paris, where he defended his thesis in 2001. As a cosmologist, his research interests include probes of large scale structures, the very early universe and the reionization era. He is or has been a member of the following collaborations: WMAP, Planck, Spider, BICEP3, Euclid and most recently SPHEREx. He received several NASA Group Achievement Awards and was a co-recipient of the Gruber 2012 Cosmology Prize awarded to Charles Bennett and the WMAP team.
December 8, 2015
Yifang Wang,
Chinese Academy of Sciences
Host:
Wei-Shu Hou
Time: 2:20 pm -3:20 pm
Place: Room 104, CCMS-New Phys. building
Title:
The vision of CEPC-SppC
Abstract
After the Higgs discovery, the whole HEP community is facing a major question: what is next ? In this talk, I will introduce initiatives of circular colliders, in particular, the proposal from China: CEPC+SppC. I will talk about its science case, the conceptual design, and the prospects for the realization of the project. I will also discuss ideas of international collaboration.
Brief Bio
Dr. Yifang Wang obtained his B.Sc on nuclear physics in 1984 at the Nanjing University, China, and Ph.D on high energy physics in 1991 at the University of Florence, Italy. He worked subsequently in MIT and Stanford University in US and joined IHEP in 2001.
He has been worked for the L3, AMS, Palo Verde, KamLAND, BESII & BESIII, Daya Bay and JUNO experiments.
At IHEP, he led the design, construction and science efforts of the BESIII experiment as the project manager and spokesperson. He initiated the Daya Bay reactor neutrino experiment and led the experimental effort. He is now leading the JUNO reactor neutrino experiment to measure the neutrino mass hierarchy.
He is now the director of IHEP, and served in many advisory panels in the world. He is a recipient of several awards, including the Panofsky Prize for Experimental Particle Physics by APS, and the Nikkei Asia Prize for Science, Technology and Environment.
Slides
Tao Han,
University of Pittsburgh
Host:
Wei-Shu Hou
Time: 3:30 pm -4:30 pm
Place: Room 104, CCMS-New Phys. building
Title:
The Higgs Boson & Beyond
Abstract
With the milestone discovery of the Higgs boson at the CERN LHC, high energy physics has entered a new era. The completion of the “Standard Model” (SM) implies, for the first time ever, that we have a relativistic, quantum-mechanical, self-consistent theoretical framework, valid up to exponentially high energies, perhaps to the Planck scale. Yet, there are compelling reasons to believe that new physics beyond the SM is not far from our reach. I discuss the need for the new physics, and motivate the future colliders beyond the LHC.
Brief Bio
Prof. Tao Han obtained his B.Sc and M.Sc Degree in Physics at the Nankai University, China, and Ph.D in 1990 at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. After three years of postdoctoral research at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, he became Assistant Professor at University of California-Davis, then he moved to University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1997 and became Full Professor in 2001. Now he is Director of Pittsburgh Particle physics, Astrophysics and Cosmology Center (PITT PACC) and Distinguished Professor of High Energy Physics, Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts & Sciences, University of Pittsburgh. His research field is in elementary particle physics theory, focusing on high-energy collider physics and in connection to astro-particle physics and cosmology. Prof. Han is a recipient of Outstanding Researcher Award, Natural Science Foundation of China (2002-05), 1000 Talents Professor, Tsinghua University, P. R. China (2012-15), Fellow of American Physical Society (2003) and Fermilab Frontier Fellowship (2004).
Slides
December 15, 2015
"Canadian Duet on Black Hole Hawking Evaporation"
Don N. Page,
University of Alberta
Host:
Jiwoo Nam
Time: 2:20 pm -3:20 pm
Place: Room 104, CCMS-New Phys. building
Title:
Black Hole Information
Abstract
Stephen Hawking proposed that the formation of a black hole and its subsequent evaporation by the Hawking radiation he discovered would lose information in the sense of converting a pure quantum state to a mixed state with increased von Neumann entropy. Here I wish to summarize some of the arguments for and against information loss and discuss the puzzles that remain.
Brief Bio
Prof. Donald Nelson Page is an American-born Canadian theoretical physicist at the University of Alberta, Canada. He got his BA at William Jewell College in the United States in 1971, attaining an MS in 1972 and a PhD in 1976 at Caltech. His professional career started as a research assistant in Cambridge from 1976-1979, followed by an assistant professorship at Penn State from 1979 to 1983, and then an associate professor at Penn State until 1986 before taking on the title of professor in 1986. Page spent four more years at Penn State before moving to become a professor at the University of Alberta in Canada in 1990. His work focuses on quantum cosmology and theoretical gravitational physics, and he is noted for being a doctoral student of the eminent Professor Stephen Hawking, in addition to publishing several journal articles with him.
Slides
William G. Unruh,
University of British Columbia
Host:
Jiwoo Nam
Time: 3:30 pm -4:30 pm
Place: Room 104, CCMS-New Phys. building
Title:
Hawking radiation in a water stream
Abstract
In 1974 Hawking predicted that black holes were not black but had a quantum instability which caused them to radiate with a thermal spectrum. Unfortunately, for black holes known to exist, that temperature is far to low (tens of micro-Kelvin or lower) to be measured. However, an analogous process was found by me to also take place in fluids flowing so that they developed a sonic horizon (ie, the fluid flows faster than sound or whatever wave one is looking at). This opens the possibility of testing Hawking's prediction in the laboratory. I will report on one such experiment we carried out in Vancouver which showed (via stimulated emission) that surface waves in water in the presense of a surface-wave horizon, would emit with a thermal spectrum, and will also describe some experiments close to practicality where the direct observation of spontaneous emission of this quantum instability is near.
Brief Bio
Prof. William George Unruh is a Canadian physicist at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, who described the hypothetical Unruh effect in 1976. He obtained his B.Sc. from the University of Manitoba in 1967, followed by an M.A. (1969) and Ph.D. (1971) from Princeton University, New Jersey, under the direction of John Archibald Wheeler. Unruh has made seminal contributions to our understanding of gravity, black holes, cosmology, and quantum fields in curved spaces. He received Rutherford Memorial Medal (1982), Herzberg Medal (1983), Steacie Prize (1984), BC Science Council Gold Medal (1990), and Fellowship of American Physical Society and Royal Society of London (2001).
December 22, 2015
"2015 Nobel Laureate"
Takaaki Kajita,
ICRR, Tokyo University
Host:
Wei-Shu Hou
Time: 2:20 pm -3:20 pm
Place: Room 104, CCMS-New
Phys. building
Title:
Atmospheric Neutrino Studies
and Neutrino Oscillation
December 29, 2015
Ue-Li Pen,
Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics
Host:
Keiichi Umetsu
Time: 2:20 pm -3:20 pm
Place: Room 104, CCMS-New Phys. building
Title:
Past, present and future of Fast Radio Bursts:
the brightest events in the universe since the big bang
Abstract
I report on recent progress to understand the nature of fast radio bursts. Most properties are inferred through propagation effects, including dispersion, scattering, scintillation, and rotation measure. I will review the issues, survey some of the proposed candidates ranging from terrestrial to cosmological, and conclude with prospects for the near future.
Brief Bio
Prof. Pen is a world renowned cosmologist, working on a wide variety of topics ranging from cosmic string and topological defects, Sunyaev-Zel'dovich simulations, gravitational lensing, cosmic reionization and MHD simulations. He is also an expert on numerical simulation techniques and parallel computing. He was a NTU undergrad in math, obtained his PhD from Princeton University in 1995, and was a Harvard University Junior Fellow before joining the faculty at the University of Toronto and the Canadian Institute of Theoretical Astrophysics (CITA) in 1998. He is currently a Canadian Institute for Advanced Research senior fellow and the associate director of CITA. Recently his research is focused on cosmological applications of the hydrogen hyperfine transition 21-cm line, and pulsar scattering phenomena.
Slides