tag:physics.nd.edu,2005:/news-events/newsDepartment of Physics and Astronomy | News2024-03-27T11:50:00-04:00tag:physics.nd.edu,2005:News/1608142024-03-27T11:50:00-04:002024-03-27T11:50:59-04:00Notre Dame as a leading research university<p>The University of Notre Dame has experienced transformational growth in research over the past decade. The evidence is everywhere on campus, both in the talent of the faculty and the resources devoted to making Notre Dame a leading research institution.</p> <p>In this episode of <em>Notre Dame Stories</em>,…</p><p>The University of Notre Dame has experienced transformational growth in research over the past decade. The evidence is everywhere on campus, both in the talent of the faculty and the resources devoted to making Notre Dame a leading research institution.</p>
<p>In this episode of <em>Notre Dame Stories</em>, host Jenna Liberto talks to <a href="https://research.nd.edu/people/jeffrey-rhoads/">Vice President for Research Jeff Rhoads</a>, who shares his plans for expanding the University's impact globally.</p>
<p><a href="https://stories.nd.edu/podcasts/notre-dame-as-a-leading-research-university/?_gl=1*1ydtflq*_gcl_au*Nzc2Mjg2OTkuMTcwNDgxNjgxMQ.." class="btn">Watch now</a></p>
<p class="attribution">Originally published by <span class="rel-author">Office of Brand Content</span> at <span class="rel-source"><a href="https://news.nd.edu/news/notre-dame-as-a-leading-research-university/">news.nd.edu</a></span> on <span class="rel-pubdate">March 22, 2024</span>.</p>Office of Brand Contenttag:physics.nd.edu,2005:News/1607432024-03-25T10:13:00-04:002024-03-25T10:15:48-04:00Nearly half of the tap water in the US is contaminated with ‘forever chemicals,’ government study finds<p><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/05/health/pfas-nearly-half-us-tap-water-wellness/index.html">Full story here-CNN.</a></p> <p>Almost half of the tap water in the United States is contaminated with chemicals known as “forever chemicals,” according to <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160412023003069?via%3Dihub"></a>…</p><p><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/05/health/pfas-nearly-half-us-tap-water-wellness/index.html">Full story here-CNN.</a></p>
<p>Almost half of the tap water in the United States is contaminated with chemicals known as “forever chemicals,” according to <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160412023003069?via%3Dihub" target="_blank" rel="noopener">a study from</a> the US Geological Survey.</p>
<p>The number of people drinking contaminated water may be even higher than what the study found, however, because the researchers weren’t able to test for all of these per- and polyfluorinated alkyl substances, or <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/02/health/epa-proposes-pfas-hazardous-wellness/index.html">PFAS</a>, chemicals that are considered dangerous to human health. There are more than <a href="https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2020/EM/D0EM00291G" target="_blank" rel="noopener">12,000 types</a> of PFAS, according to the <a href="https://www.niehs.nih.gov/health/topics/agents/pfc/index.cfm#:~:text=More%20than%209%2C000%20PFAS%20have%20been%20identified." target="_blank" rel="noopener">National Institutes of Health</a>, but this study looked at only 32 of the compounds.</p>
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<p>If PFAS is in 45% of US water systems, the country will have a lot of work to do, said <a href="https://physics.nd.edu/people/faculty/graham-peaslee/">Dr. Graham Peaslee, a professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy</a> and concurrent professor of chemistry and biochemistry who does PFAS research at the University of Notre Dame.</p>
<p>“I think that we should try our best to work on how to clean this up. My fear is that this is, global warming aside, this is probably the most expensive environmental problem we’re ever going to face,” said Peaslee, who was not involved in the 2023 study. ”There’s nothing that will magically fix it. It’s fairly expensive to clean this up. And it’s a recurring cost, and there’s no permanent solutions to it for any particular utility. It looks frightening.”</p>
<p>But the cleanup will have to be done, he said, because these chemicals <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2022/07/28/health/pfas-testing-guidelines-wellness/index.html">carry real health consequences</a>, and people can’t exactly avoid drinking water.</p>
<p>“It’s really insidious, this poison,” Peaslee said. “We are going to have to get inventive on how to filter it out for all of our days.”</p>
<p><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/05/health/pfas-nearly-half-us-tap-water-wellness/index.html">Full story here-CNN.</a></p>By Jen Christensen, CNNtag:physics.nd.edu,2005:News/1607312024-03-25T08:54:00-04:002024-03-27T10:53:13-04:00Aprahamian participates in a panel and discussion on empowerment of women<div> <a href="https://physics.nd.edu/people/faculty/ani-aprahamian/">Freimann Professor of Physics Ani Aprahamian</a> participated in a panel and discussion on Women Empowerment on Sunday, March 24, that was organized by the University of Notre Dame's Pasquerilla West residence hall. Aprahamian was joined on the panel by…</div><div>
<a href="https://physics.nd.edu/people/faculty/ani-aprahamian/">Freimann Professor of Physics Ani Aprahamian</a> participated in a panel and discussion on Women Empowerment on Sunday, March 24, that was organized by the University of Notre Dame's Pasquerilla West residence hall. Aprahamian was joined on the panel by Dr. Tse Man Vanessa Chan, Department of Psychology, and Prof. Martina Bukaĉ, Department of Applied and Computational Mathematics and Statistics. This year's panel and discussion was held in the Hesburgh Library Carey Auditorium, and was part of Pasquerilla West's Women's Empowerment week first launched in 2020.</div>Shelly Goethalstag:physics.nd.edu,2005:News/1606392024-03-20T12:42:00-04:002024-03-20T12:42:56-04:00Manukyan delivers plenary talk at 2024 International Topical Meeting on Nuclear Applications of Accelerators<div class="gmail_default"> <p> </p> <figure class="image image-right"><a href="https://physics.nd.edu/people/faculty/khachatur-manukyan/"><img src="https://physics.nd.edu/assets/562493/img_2409.jpg" alt="Dr. Manuykan delivering a plenary talk at the 2024 International Topical Meeting on Nuclear Applications of Accelerators ." width="600" height="450"></a></figure>
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<figure class="image image-right"><a href="https://physics.nd.edu/people/faculty/khachatur-manukyan/"><img src="https://physics.nd.edu/assets/562493/img_2409.jpg" alt="Dr. Manuykan delivering a plenary talk at the 2024 International Topical Meeting on Nuclear Applications of Accelerators ." width="600" height="450"></a></figure>
<a href="https://physics.nd.edu/people/faculty/khachatur-manukyan/">Dr. Khachatur Manukyan</a> delivered an invited plenary talk at the 2024 International Topical Meeting on Nuclear Applications of Accelerators (<a href="https://www.jlab.org/conference/AcceleratorApplications2024" target="_blank" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.jlab.org/conference/AcceleratorApplications2024&source=gmail&ust=1711036367606000&usg=AOvVaw2RaiFLVinGNd4NonCL6Jb0" rel="noopener">AccelApp24</a>), summarizing cultural heritage research from Notre Dame’s Nuclear Science Laboratory in the Department of Physics and Astronomy. Manukyan’s presentation featured advancements in ion-beam analysis, vibrational spectroscopy, electron microscopy, and diffraction methods, all applied to studying ancient alloys, historical currencies, medieval manuscripts, and artworks. Hosted by Jefferson Lab and supported by the American Nuclear Society’s Accelerator Applications Division, the DOE Office of Radiological Security, the International Atomic Energy Agency, and other key organizations, AccelApp24 serves as a forum for nuclear application experts.
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<div class="gmail_default"> </div>Shelly Goethalstag:physics.nd.edu,2005:News/1603992024-03-06T14:04:24-05:002024-03-06T14:04:24-05:00IrishSat wins first place in NASA Starshade Challenge<p>IrishSat, a student club dedicated to the development of space technology, has been awarded first place in the nationwide NASA-sponsored Starshade Undergraduate Challenge. The competition tasks students groups with contributing to the design of a space structure that blocks starlight, allowing telescopes…</p><p>IrishSat, a student club dedicated to the development of space technology, has been awarded first place in the nationwide NASA-sponsored Starshade Undergraduate Challenge. The competition tasks students groups with contributing to the design of a space structure that blocks starlight, allowing telescopes to observe distant planets.</p>
<p>Notre Dame’s <a href="https://physics.nd.edu/">Department of Physics and Astronomy</a> initiated and provided academic mentorship to the winning team, all of whom are engineering majors. Team members were senior Grace Conneely, the project’s chief engineer, sophomore Sean Kerr and freshmen Orianna Saade and Joseph Muraski took home the $10,000 prize.</p>
<p>“The ideas we’ve developed by participating in the Starshade Challenge may one day evolve into real world technologies,” said Conneely. “It's provided us with a design experience we may never have had otherwise.”</p>
<p>Ground-based telescopes are limited to seeing the light emitted by giant planets the size of Jupiter, said <a href="https://physics.nd.edu/people/jeffrey-chilcote/">Jeffrey Chilcote</a>, assistant professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Notre Dame and faculty advisor for the starshade project. This limitation necessitates the need for a starshade.</p>
<p>“With a starshade, the next generation of extremely large telescopes currently under construction could discover and then observe the water and oxygen on the closest earth-like planets,” he said.</p>
<p>NASA’s recently designed starshade resembles a giant sunflower—24 light-diffracting “petals” surround a dark, light-blocking center. Once deployed in the earth’s orbit, the structure aligns itself between the target star and a ground-based telescope. To function properly, the starshade must be slightly larger than a football field, which makes it too heavy and bulky to be launched or deployed cost-effectively.</p>
<p>NASA’s Starshade Challenge asked students to address this problem.</p>
<p>“Our starshade had to be rigid enough to withstand launch vibrations, acceleration, and three years in orbit, while remaining very lightweight,” said Conneely.</p>
<p>In the team’s winning design, compressed air inflates a web of tubes, causing the starshade to open in space like a flat parasol. Auto-locking hinge mechanisms secure the structure in place, and a lightweight aluminum composite reinforces the edges of the starshade’s thin plastic petals.</p>
<p>Competition rules required each design decision—from structural dimensions to the choice of materials—be justified with hand calculations (i.e. without the aid of computers). This ensured a simpler, more verifiable approach to the design. Once their design was complete, the team built a model, 1/33 the size of the real object.</p>
<p>“The best instrumentation engineers are those who understand the science behind what they are building,” said Chilcote. “IrishSat's interest in building hardware and desire to understand the drivers behind the engineering work they are doing made them an ideal team to work with.”</p>
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<p class="attribution">Originally published by <span class="rel-author">Karla Cruise</span> at <span class="rel-source"><a href="https://science.nd.edu/news-and-media/news/irishsat-wins-first-place-in-nasa-starshade-challenge/">science.nd.edu</a></span> on <span class="rel-pubdate">March 06, 2024</span>.</p>Karla Cruisetag:physics.nd.edu,2005:News/1603962024-03-06T14:02:46-05:002024-03-11T13:21:42-04:00Special colloquium at GSI to honor Wiescher's 75th birthday<figure class="image image-left"><img src="https://isnap.nd.edu/assets/560974/600x/20240312_gsi_fair_colloquium_withcalendar.jpg" alt="Colloquium Wiescher" width="600" height="871"></figure> <p>A Special Colloquium on the occasion of <a href="https://physics.nd.edu/people/faculty/michael-wiescher/">Professor Michael Wiescher</a>'s…</p><figure class="image image-left"><img src="https://isnap.nd.edu/assets/560974/600x/20240312_gsi_fair_colloquium_withcalendar.jpg" alt="Colloquium Wiescher" width="600" height="871"></figure>
<p>A Special Colloquium on the occasion of <a href="https://physics.nd.edu/people/faculty/michael-wiescher/">Professor Michael Wiescher</a>'s 75th birthday will be held on March 12, 2024 in the main lecture hall at GSI in Germany. Plenary presentations will be made by Marialuisa Aliotta (University of Edinburgh) and Hendrick Schatz (Michigan State University). More information is available at <a href="https://indico.gsi.de/event/19456/" target="_blank" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://indico.gsi.de/event/19456/&source=gmail&ust=1709826118223000&usg=AOvVaw3pbBHmYfXyYo3PoXTKuGu-" rel="noopener">https://indico.gsi.de/<wbr>event/19456/</wbr></a>. </p>
<p>Zoom link: https://gsi-fair.zoom.us/j/61440781471<br>Meeting ID: 614 4078 1471<br>Passcode: Coll-1203</p>
<p>The Colloquim will also be shown in NSH 184 (on campus at the University of Notre Dame) at 11:15 EDT for those who would like to watch in a group setting.</p>
<p class="attribution">Originally published by <span class="rel-author">Janet Weikel</span> at <span class="rel-source"><a href="https://isnap.nd.edu/news/a-special-colloquium-in-honor-of-wieschers-75th-birthday-at-gsi/">isnap.nd.edu</a></span> on <span class="rel-pubdate">March 06, 2024</span>.</p>Janet Weikeltag:physics.nd.edu,2005:News/1601492024-02-23T15:59:00-05:002024-02-23T16:03:15-05:00Bardayan comments on recent discovery at FRIB<figure class="image image-left"><img src="https://isnap.nd.edu/assets/558989/300x/daniel_bardayan_copy.jpg" alt="Bardayan" width="300" height="368"></figure> <p>Less than a year after its opening, the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams produced five never-before-seen isotopes for observation, a success…</p><figure class="image image-left"><img src="https://isnap.nd.edu/assets/558989/300x/daniel_bardayan_copy.jpg" alt="Bardayan" width="300" height="368"></figure>
<p>Less than a year after its opening, the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams produced five never-before-seen isotopes for observation, a success that researchers say highlights the discovery potential of the facility. The University of Notre Dame's Nuclear Science Laboratory director <a href="https://sites.nd.edu/dan-bardayan/" target="_blank" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://sites.nd.edu/dan-bardayan/&source=gmail&ust=1708442520272000&usg=AOvVaw0p6qN_PVB3NiD97W2b-zNa" rel="noopener">Dan Bardayan</a> was interviewed for the American Physical Society News of the week about the discovery. He was quoted as saying “One of the fundamental observables of nuclear physics is whether a given nucleus exists or whether it simply falls apart into its constituents".</p>
<p>Read the full article text at <a href="https://physics.aps.org/articles/v17/28" target="_blank" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://physics.aps.org/articles/v17/28&source=gmail&ust=1708442520272000&usg=AOvVaw29BKMainsskOef0lzSw7Im" rel="noopener">https://physics.aps.org/<wbr>articles/v17/28</wbr></a>.</p>
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<p class="attribution">Originally published by <span class="rel-author">Janet Weikel</span> at <span class="rel-source"><a href="https://isnap.nd.edu/news/bardayan-interviewed-about-recent-discovery-at-frib/">isnap.nd.edu</a></span> on <span class="rel-pubdate">February 19, 2024</span>.</p>Janet Weikeltag:physics.nd.edu,2005:News/1600392024-02-20T08:04:41-05:002024-02-20T08:04:41-05:00Globular cluster within our galaxy shows signs that heavy metals may have formed there<p>Globular clusters, some of the oldest objects discovered in our galaxy, are more than just simple concentrations of stars around the same age. They may also be involved in the creation of about half of the elements heavier than iron, including elements that our bodies require for life, according to…</p><p>Globular clusters, some of the oldest objects discovered in our galaxy, are more than just simple concentrations of stars around the same age. They may also be involved in the creation of about half of the elements heavier than iron, including elements that our bodies require for life, according to an astrophysicist at the University of Notre Dame and collaborators.</p>
<p><a href="https://physics.nd.edu/people/evan-kirby/">Evan Kirby, associate professor of physics and astronomy</a>, verified a dispersion of elements — meaning the abundance of some key elements in one star is different from the abundance in another star — in the globular cluster Messier 92 (M92). This confirms that the cluster may be one of the few areas of the galaxy where a rare process called the rapid neutron capture process, or “r-process,” has formed heavy metals.</p>
<p>His paper was published recently in <em><a href="https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-4357/acf309">the Astrophysical Journal</a></em>. The discovery opens up the range of places where scientists can look for where important elements were created.</p>
<p>“For me, I want to know where every single item on the periodic table comes from. I want to know what makes the ingredients for life,” Kirby said about his impetus for working through the data about various stars in M92, a process that was tedious.</p>
<p>The r-process is a set of nuclear reactions that is responsible for the creation of approximately half of the atomic nuclei heavier than iron. The r-process usually synthesizes neutron-rich stable isotopes of each heavy element.</p>
<p>Kirby’s research began as a Covid-era project in 2020. He reviewed spectra of 35 stars in M92, which is about 28,000 light years away. Preliminary research about 12 years ago had shown there could be dispersion of heavy elements in M92, but Kirby was unsure how important that could be. After he began looking through the data for the stars, he noticed a pattern typical of globular clusters: areas of increasing sodium and decreasing magnesium, which are made separately from the r-process.</p>
<p>The timeline works like this: The first stars to form in the cluster have little sodium and copious magnesium. As stars fused lighter elements into heavier elements, the amount of sodium in later-forming stars increases, and the amount of magnesium decreases, Kirby described. Physicists refer to low-sodium (or high-magnesium) stars as “first generation,” and the other stars as “second generation.” In M92, Kirby noticed that stars in the first generation showed variability in their concentrations of europium, which is the hallmark signature of the r-process. On the other hand, stars in the second generation had identical concentrations of europium.</p>
<p>Because the stars in any globular cluster are within a few tens of millions of years apart in age, the differences in the amounts of the elements showed that there were different “doses” of elements at different times while the first generation of stars were forming, like a pot of soup that hasn’t yet been stirred. Second-generation stars that formed later (after the cluster was “stirred”) do not show a dispersion of r-process elements.</p>
<p>“Until this paper, there hadn’t been a real convincing piece of evidence to point to, to say there was a sequence of time that has to do with the r-process in a globular cluster,” he said.</p>
<figure class="image image-left"><img src="https://science.nd.edu/assets/559014/image_1_.png" alt="Ba and Eu (r-process) absorption lines" width="600" height="199">
<figcaption>The Ba and Eu (r-process) absorption lines vary from star to star. Image: Evan Kirby</figcaption>
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<p>The r-process has been explicitly confirmed only in neutron star mergers, but Kirby’s work expands the possibility of the r-process occurring in supernovae, some of which exploded in globular clusters like M92. At Notre Dame, other researchers, including Professor Rebecca Surman, are investigating whether the formation of heavy metals could also have emerged from magnetorotational supernovae — stars that are spinning rapidly before they explode.</p>
<p>Discovering the source of heavy metals is not only important to understand how life formed, but also has implications for understanding fundamental physics, cosmological models, and the formation of exoplanets.</p>
<p>“Finding out that the r-process originated from multiple events is a step forward for future research,” Kirby said.</p>
<p>In addition to Kirby, other collaborators include Alexander P. Ji, of the University of Chicago, and Mikhail Kovalev, of Yunnan Observatories.</p>
<p>The research was funded by the National Science Foundation.</p>
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<p class="attribution">Originally published by <span class="rel-author">Deanna Csomo Ferrell</span> at <span class="rel-source"><a href="https://science.nd.edu/news-and-media/news/globular-cluster-within-our-galaxy-shows-signs-that-heavy-metals-may-have-formed-there/">science.nd.edu</a></span> on <span class="rel-pubdate">February 19, 2024</span>.</p>Deanna Csomo Ferrelltag:physics.nd.edu,2005:News/1599622024-02-15T12:29:00-05:002024-02-15T12:29:18-05:00Seeing Stars: How postdoctoral fellow William Cramer investigates light in galaxy systems<p>What’s really out there? William Cramer, a postdoctoral research fellow with the <a href="https://physics.nd.edu">Department of Physics and Astronomy</a>, has been asking this question since he was 10 years old, reading all the books about astronomy that his library offered.</p> <p>“Several rocky…</p><p>What’s really out there? William Cramer, a postdoctoral research fellow with the <a href="https://physics.nd.edu">Department of Physics and Astronomy</a>, has been asking this question since he was 10 years old, reading all the books about astronomy that his library offered.</p>
<p>“Several rocky physics courses later, I survived.” Survived is one way to put it: Cramer studied physics at University of Chicago, followed that by earning his doctoral degree in astronomy at Yale University, and continued his postdoctoral studies at Arizona State University before coming to the University of Notre Dame this year.</p>
<p>At Notre Dame he is excited to research galaxies with the other astronomers in the department. “A lot of astronomy is broken up into wavelength regimes . . . light can span frequencies from radio, at the low end of the spectrum — all the way to really high, like x-ray. I was mostly doing stuff with radio astronomy. Now I'm more in the optical to infrared range.”</p>
<p>Specifically, Cramer explores what is going on in and around galaxies: the gaseous movement. Gas, explained Cramer, informs researchers about what is going on with the galaxy. Is it old? New? Dying? The gas that moves around galaxies can tell a bigger story about the “health” of the galaxy.</p>
<p>Cramer explained one class of galaxy he has been researching since graduate school: a Ram Pressure Stripped Galaxy. These galaxies live in clusters of other galaxies, surrounded by a hot, gaseous medium. As galaxies move through this medium, the gas within the galaxy can be stripped off and lost. Since galaxies use gas to form new stars, losing all of its gas results in a galaxy slowly dying as stars burn out and are not replenished. At Notre Dame, Cramer is focusing more on the gas around galaxies, called the circumgalactic medium, and how it contributes to the lifecycle of stars and galaxies.</p>
<p>Cramer and the other astronomers interested in these galaxies rely on images for their work.</p>
<p>“All astronomy data is a raw image, and there is a bunch of processing to turn that into what we use for science, using data reduction. It's a process,” Cramer said. The team needs to use programming to analyze the image to find out what makes it special: object brightness, heat, density, phase of matter, and what elements are in the gas.</p>
<p>“It’s not always easy to know what you’ll write a paper about,” he continued. That’s because there are many different things that can show up in telescope images that would alter the direction of his research interests.</p>
<p>As for the images themselves, astronomers get these from telescopes like the James Webb or Hubble, and can propose to have certain areas of the sky imaged. These telescopes capture high-quality images researchers like Cramer use to field advancements.</p>
<p>“I have done some observing — I think I had a really romantic notion of what it would be like, you know, night sky, I would just be sitting there with a telescope,” joked Cramer. “What I should have realized is that you don't want any outside light, so you sit in a windowless room, sealed in from 10 pm to 6 am. It’s a slog. But it’s worth it when you get your images.”</p>
<p>In coming years, Cramer said he hopes to continue his research, and follow in his parents’ footsteps to eventually become a professor. “I take it a year at a time . . . I want to continue to work on cool stuff in the future — I am always proposing to keep looking.”</p>
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<p class="attribution">Originally published by <span class="rel-author">Madeline Schlehuber</span> at <span class="rel-source"><a href="https://science.nd.edu/news-and-media/news/seeing-stars-how-postdoctoral-fellow-william-cramer-investigates-light-in-galaxy-systems/">science.nd.edu</a></span> on <span class="rel-pubdate">February 14, 2024</span>.</p>Madeline Schlehubertag:physics.nd.edu,2005:News/1598442024-02-12T08:06:10-05:002024-02-12T08:06:10-05:00Four Notre Dame physicists receive Department of Energy grant to enhance understanding of superconductors<p>Four University of Notre Dame physics professors studying inversion symmetry breaking (ISB) in superconductors were jointly granted nearly $1 million from the U.S. Department of Energy for their research. Their work will contribute to the search for better superconductors that can be used in quantum…</p><p>Four University of Notre Dame physics professors studying inversion symmetry breaking (ISB) in superconductors were jointly granted nearly $1 million from the U.S. Department of Energy for their research. Their work will contribute to the search for better superconductors that can be used in quantum technologies.</p>
<p><a href="https://physics.nd.edu/people/badih-assaf/">Assistant Professors Badih Assaf</a>, <a href="https://physics.nd.edu/people/xiaolong-liu/">Xiaolong Liu</a>, and <a href="https://physics.nd.edu/people/yi-ting-hsu/">Yi-Ting Hsu</a>, along with Associate Research Professor <a href="https://physics.nd.edu/people/xinyu-liu/">Xinyu Liu</a>, will determine through experimental and theoretical methods how to tune and enhance Berry curvature in superconductors — materials that conduct electricity without any lost energy. Berry curvature is a twist in the quantum world that affects an electron’s behavior as it moves around or reacts to changes in its environment.</p>
<p>In order to do this, the researchers will synthesize and study materials that have a crystal structure that breaks inversion (up-and-down) symmetry.</p>
<p>Improved superconductors can allow for better energy transmission, faster electronics, more efficient transportation systems, improved medical imaging, and other benefits. Breaking the inversion symmetry will create a special type of superconductor that has a finite and large Berry curvature. Extremely rare in nature, this property may lead to the development of novel quantum electronic devices, Assaf said.</p>
<p>“Our project aims to reveal how the lack of symmetry, by atomic-level design, in superconductors can cause unconventional properties that may be beneficial to search for extremely rare unconventional superconductors that might be useful platforms for error-free quantum computers,” said Assaf, who, along with Xinyu Liu and Xiaolong Liu, is affiliated with <a href="https://nano.nd.edu/">NDNano.</a></p>
<p>Each researcher brings different strengths to the project. Hsu is an expert in symmetry analysis, which is a theoretical method of inferring the properties of a material from the geometric symmetries of its crystal structure. Assaf and Xinyu Liu can design and synthesize materials, and Xiaolong Liu will study these superconductors using atomic resolution scanning tunneling microscopy to extract information about their quantum mechanical electronic structure and their pairing symmetry.</p>
<p>The grant funds research through August 2026.</p>
<p><em>William McManus, Ph.D., contributed to this article.</em></p>
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<p class="attribution">Originally published by <span class="rel-author">Deanna Csomo Ferrell</span> at <span class="rel-source"><a href="https://science.nd.edu/news-and-media/news/four-notre-dame-physicists-receive-department-of-energy-grant-to-enhance-understanding-of-superconductors/">science.nd.edu</a></span> on <span class="rel-pubdate">February 08, 2024</span>.</p>Deanna Csomo Ferrelltag:physics.nd.edu,2005:News/1597252024-02-06T15:15:00-05:002024-02-06T16:24:58-05:00Microfluidic environments alter microbe behaviors, opening potential for engineering social evolution <p>A research group led by <a href="https://physics.nd.edu/people/dervis-vural/">Dervis Can Vural</a>, an associate professor in the <a href="https://physics.nd.edu/">Department of Physics and Astronomy</a> at the University of Notre Dame, explored how the social evolution of microbes can be manipulated by tuning the physical parameters of the environment in which they live. The results were <a href="https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1iVue1SPT7rrG">recently published in Biophysical Journal</a>.</p><p>Microbes are social beings.</p>
<p>Much like humans, they communicate and cooperate with each other to solve problems bigger than themselves. In a microbial community, there will even be free riders, and others that police them.</p>
<p>So, what if researchers could influence their social evolution to promote certain behaviors? Doing so can be vital to solving many of today’s challenges such as combating infection and antibiotic resistance, developing microbial strategies for wastewater treatment or harvesting alternative energy sources.</p>
<p>A research group led by <a href="https://physics.nd.edu/people/dervis-vural/">Dervis Can Vural</a>, an associate professor in the <a href="https://physics.nd.edu/">Department of Physics and Astronomy</a> at the University of Notre Dame, explored how the social evolution of microbes can be manipulated by tuning the physical parameters of the environment in which they live. The results were <a href="https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1iVue1SPT7rrG">recently published in Biophysical Journal</a>.</p>
<p>“Fluid dynamics changes everything,” Vural said. “What we wanted to know was whether we could engineer the social structure of microbial communities. Based on our models, the answer is yes.”</p>
<p>Microorganisms communicate and cooperate using various secretions that are costly to produce, yet provide a benefit to the whole community. These products are called “public goods.” For example, they might secrete digestive enzymes, which then break down the food around them, and this benefits all.</p>
<p>Then there are cheaters. These free riders don’t contribute to the pool of public goods as much, but they still benefit from the contributions of others — and they are a detriment to the system.</p>
<p>“Cheaters care more about their own success than that of the community,” Vural explained. “Since they contribute less to the public goods, they can dedicate more resources to self-reproduction. So, they multiply faster than others and eventually, they will dominate the population. The act of cheating spreads and you see very few microbes actually doing the work — and when nobody does the work, the whole population collapses.”</p>
<p>Through physically and biologically realistic computational models, the researchers set out to understand how to control the interaction structure to “help utilize the full potential of microbial populations,” they wrote in the study.</p>
<p>Fluid flow creates shear forces, a kind of motion that pulls microbial clusters apart and causes them to fragment. “If clusters fragment more often than the rate at which cheating mutants show up, cooperation prevails,” Vural said. “So, by controlling the pattern of flow, we can control the pattern of cooperation.”</p>
<p>Vural’s team looked at multiple means of controlling the evolution of social behavior, including applying different flow patterns through various chambers, funnels, microchannels, filters and chemicals, and in some cases in periodic pulses. Some models were designed to create a vortex, which, through its shear pattern, localized cooperators within a ring while pushing cheaters to the outer rim of the environment — essentially localizing cooperation.</p>
<p>“You can have microbes cooperate within one vicinity but nowhere else,” Vural explained. “You can promote cooperative behavior so there are no cheaters popping up and threatening the population. You can do the opposite — encourage cheaters to kill off a population of microorganisms if desired. And you can do anything in between. You can fine-tune the degree of cooperation.”</p>
<p>Vural’s approach doesn’t attempt to inhibit microbes’ ability to secrete a public good or waste or act as a cheater — instead, it creates an environment that causes the microorganisms to evolve in one way or the other. “We’re not dealing with individuals,” he said. “We’re making a whole population evolve by adjusting the physics in a way that incentivizes them to cheat or cooperate.”</p>
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<p>The study is the latest research from Vural on the potential of engineering social evolution in microfluidic environments. “Turning these ideas into experimental reality will be a complex undertaking,” he admitted, saying that it will require a very fine-tuned device fixed with microscopic tubes, filters and flow chambers. But he said the results are very promising and motivate “evolutionary engineering” as a new field of study.</p>
<p>“Our work is typically theoretically driven, but in this case, we were motivated by the very real possibility of engineering social evolution,” Vural said. “Experiments will be complicated but there is huge potential for practical use.”</p>
<p>The simulations were carried out by Vural’s former PhD student Gurdip Uppal, who is now at Harvard Medical School.</p>
<p>Link to BPS feature and cover: <a href="https://www.biophysics.org/blog/towards-controlling-social-evolution" target="_blank" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.biophysics.org/blog/towards-controlling-social-evolution&source=gmail&ust=1707340902700000&usg=AOvVaw1rzeNto4SaePCFoy4X9AKu" rel="noopener">https://www.biophysics.org/<wbr>blog/towards-controlling-<wbr>social-evolution</wbr></wbr></a></p>
<p><em><strong>Contact: </strong>Jessica Sieff, associate director, media relations, 574-631-3933, <a href="mailto:jsieff@nd.edu">jsieff@nd.edu</a></em></p>
<p class="attribution">Originally published by <span class="rel-author">Jessica Sieff</span> at <span class="rel-source"><a href="https://news.nd.edu/news/microfluidic-environments-alter-microbe-behaviors-opening-potential-for-engineering-social-evolution/">news.nd.edu</a></span> on <span class="rel-pubdate">February 06, 2024</span>.</p>Jessica Siefftag:physics.nd.edu,2005:News/1596882024-02-05T08:24:00-05:002024-02-05T08:27:00-05:00Garnavich elected Fellow of the American Astronomical Society<p><a href="https://physics.nd.edu/people/faculty/peter-garnavich/">Peter Garnavich</a>, professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Notre Dame, has been elected as a Fellow of the <a href="https://aas.org/">American Astronomical Society</a> (AAS).</p> <p>He was elected for “innovative work on…</p><p><a href="https://physics.nd.edu/people/faculty/peter-garnavich/">Peter Garnavich</a>, professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Notre Dame, has been elected as a Fellow of the <a href="https://aas.org/">American Astronomical Society</a> (AAS).</p>
<p>He was elected for “innovative work on supernovae, gamma-ray bursts, and cataclysmic variables that has proven essential to furthering our understanding of various astrophysical phenomena,” the American Astronomical Society described in a press release.</p>
<p>“It is particularly gratifying that the award also notes my 'tireless devotion' to students, as I am proud of the graduates and undergraduates that I have mentored in research,” said Garnavich.</p>
<p>Garnavich is also a Fellow in the American Physical Society as well as the American Association for the Advancement of Science for his contributions to innovation.</p>
<p>He earned his master’s degree from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a doctorate from the University of Washington.</p>
<p>Garnavich has won the Gruber Prize in Cosmology, the Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics, and was part of the team that earned a Nobel Prize in Physics.</p>
<p>“But being named an AAS Fellow recognizes my contributions to astronomy over my entire career — sort of a life-time achievement award,” he said. “I discovered a nova when I was in high school, so I've been doing astro research for a very long time!</p>
<p>“It is great to have this recognition from my peers for my accumulated work.”</p>
<p>Established in 1899, the American Astronomical Society is a major international organization of professional astronomers, astronomy educators, and amateur astronomers. The AAS Fellows program began four years ago, and fewer than .0.5% of AAS members are named fellows each year.</p>
<p>“I think having AAS Fellows at ND reflects well on the research being done here and on the investment ND has made in astronomy. It also raises the profile of ND in the eyes of other research universities,” Garnavich said.</p>
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<p class="attribution">Originally published by <span class="rel-author">Madeline Schlehuber</span> at <span class="rel-source"><a href="https://science.nd.edu/news-and-media/news/department-of-physics-and-astronomy-professor-peter-garnavich-elected-fellow-of-the-american-astronomical-society/">science.nd.edu</a></span> on <span class="rel-pubdate">February 02, 2024</span>.</p>Madeline Schlehubertag:physics.nd.edu,2005:News/1596482024-02-01T16:05:33-05:002024-02-05T09:24:10-05:00Eclipse-focused events on Notre Dame campus lead up to watch party on April 8<p>Plan on rocking some eclipse glasses on the afternoon of Monday, April 8, as Notre Dame and the surrounding community experience an almost total solar eclipse.</p> <p>The College of Science at the University of Notre Dame has public lectures and eclipse-themed planetarium shows planned both on and…</p><p>Plan on rocking some eclipse glasses on the afternoon of Monday, April 8, as Notre Dame and the surrounding community experience an almost total solar eclipse.</p>
<p>The College of Science at the University of Notre Dame has public lectures and eclipse-themed planetarium shows planned both on and off campus in the weeks and days leading up to the eclipse. An eclipse watch party is scheduled on April 8. Each event is free and open to the public.</p>
<p>“We’re excited to bring everyone together to learn about eclipses, and then enjoy the event together,” said Keith Davis, director of the <a href="https://science.nd.edu/about/facilities/digital-visualization-theater/">Digital Visualization Theater</a> at Notre Dame. “The next total solar eclipses in North America won’t happen until 2044 and 2045, so this will be a rare opportunity for many of us.”</p>
<p>More details about each event can be found on the <a href="https://science.nd.edu/events/special-events/">College of Science website</a> for the following:</p>
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<p>Planetarium show at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, February 13 in the Digital Visualization Theater, 100 Jordan Hall of Science</p>
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<p>Discussion of historical solar eclipses at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, March 19, 105 Jordan Hall of Science</p>
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<p>Lecture, “What if the Sun doesn’t come back?” Talk begins at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, March 27 at the St. Joe County Public Library</p>
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<p>Lecture, “Eclipses in Outer Space?” Talk begins at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, April 2 at the St. Joe Public Library</p>
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<p>Three planetarium shows April 4 and 5</p>
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<p>Eclipse watch party on the Irish Green from 1-4:30 p.m. on Monday, April 8. The entire eclipse event in South Bend will begin at 1:53 p.m., reach 97 percent at 3:09 p.m., and end at 4:08 p.m.</p>
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<p>At each event, you’ll have the opportunity to pick up some eclipse glasses, which are crucial for viewing the eclipse. Davis emphasized that people should never look at the sun directly, not even during a partial eclipse, or they can permanently damage their eyesight. The eclipse on April 8 will reach 97 percent of totality, so glasses have to remain on whenever you’re taking a peek.</p>
<p>During a total solar eclipse, the moon passes directly between the earth and the sun, casting the darkest parts of its shadow on regions of the earth. This completely blocks the face of the sun from those regions. Although the moon is between the sun and earth during every New Moon, it’s usually not perfectly aligned, so the shadow doesn’t usually land on the earth.</p>
<p>During this year’s eclipse, the moon will block the sun in certain areas from Mexico to Maine, and the sky will darken as if it were dawn or dusk. Indiana will experience totality, or 100 percent blockage of the sun, in an approximately 115-mile wide stretch diagonally from Evansville to just south of Fort Wayne.</p>
<p class="attribution">Originally published by <span class="rel-author">Deanna Csomo Ferrell</span> at <span class="rel-source"><a href="https://science.nd.edu/news-and-media/news/eclipse-focused-events-on-notre-dame-campus-lead-up-to-watch-party-on-april-8/">science.nd.edu</a></span> on <span class="rel-pubdate">February 01, 2024</span>.</p>Deanna Csomo Ferrelltag:physics.nd.edu,2005:News/1592922024-01-19T15:42:00-05:002024-01-22T09:10:51-05:00Manukyan presents invited talk in honor of Benjamin Franklin's 318th birthday<figure class="image image-right"><img src="https://isnap.nd.edu/assets/554526/400x/photo_1_web..jpg" alt="Photo 1 Web" width="400" height="310"></figure> <p>Dr. <a href="https://physics.nd.edu/people/faculty/khachatur-manukyan/">Khachatur Manukyan</a>, Associate Research Professor at the Nuclear Science Laboratory in the…</p><figure class="image image-right"><img src="https://isnap.nd.edu/assets/554526/400x/photo_1_web..jpg" alt="Photo 1 Web" width="400" height="310"></figure>
<p>Dr. <a href="https://physics.nd.edu/people/faculty/khachatur-manukyan/">Khachatur Manukyan</a>, Associate Research Professor at the Nuclear Science Laboratory in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Notre Dame, recently delivered a talk at the American Philosophical Society (APS) in Philadelphia, marking the 318th birthday of Benjamin Franklin. His talk, titled "<a href="https://www.amphilsoc.org/events/bucking-counterfeiters-science-behind-franklins-money-printing#:~:text=Franklin%20used%20natural%20graphite%20pigments,printed%E2%80%9D%20patterns%20and%20paper%20watermarks." target="_blank" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.amphilsoc.org/events/bucking-counterfeiters-science-behind-franklins-money-printing%23:~:text%3DFranklin%2520used%2520natural%2520graphite%2520pigments,printed%25E2%2580%259D%2520patterns%2520and%2520paper%2520watermarks.&source=gmail&ust=1705770747206000&usg=AOvVaw0hd2ii8SbbhzWelxYFYpI9" rel="noopener">Bucking Counterfeiters: The Science Behind Franklin's Money Printing</a>," delved into Franklin's anti-counterfeiting techniques of money printing in the 18th century. Manukyan's presentation highlighted Franklin's innovative use of new material for currency protection, offering a historical and scientific viewpoint on his contributions to financial security. The event drew a varied audience, which underscored the APS's commitment to promoting knowledge across sciences and humanities, a mission rooted in its founding by Franklin in 1743. </p>
<figure class="image image-left"><img src="https://isnap.nd.edu/assets/554528/400x/photo_3_web.jpg" alt="Photo 3 Web" width="287" height="222">
<figcaption>Prof. Yury Gogotsi, Drexel University (left), Dr. Manukyan (center-left), Michelle McDonald, Library Director of APS (center-right), and Robert M. Hauser, Executive Officer of APS (right)</figcaption>
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<figure class="image image-left"><img src="https://isnap.nd.edu/assets/554527/350x/photo_2_web.jpg" alt="Photo 2 Web" width="350" height="298">
<figcaption>Dr. Manukyan (left) and Robert M. Hauser, Executive Officer of APS (right)</figcaption>
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<p class="attribution">Originally published by <span class="rel-author">Janet Weikel</span> at <span class="rel-source"><a href="https://isnap.nd.edu/news/manukyan-presents-an-invited-talk-in-honor-of-benjamin-franklins-318th-birthday/">isnap.nd.edu</a></span> on <span class="rel-pubdate">January 19, 2024</span>.</p>Janet Weikeltag:physics.nd.edu,2005:News/1588702023-12-20T10:26:00-05:002023-12-20T10:26:56-05:00ISNAP graduate students make waves at HAW2023<figure class="image image-right"><img src="https://isnap.nd.edu/assets/551901/400x/students_in_hawaii.jpg" alt="Students In Hawaii" width="400" height="300"></figure> <p>The 6<sup>th</sup> Joint Meeting of the APS Division of Nuclear Physics and the Physical Society of Japan (HAW23) was held at the…</p><figure class="image image-right"><img src="https://isnap.nd.edu/assets/551901/400x/students_in_hawaii.jpg" alt="Students In Hawaii" width="400" height="300"></figure>
<p>The 6<sup>th</sup> Joint Meeting of the APS Division of Nuclear Physics and the Physical Society of Japan (HAW23) was held at the Hilton Waikoloa Village on Hawaii’s Big Island. This year’s meeting was relocated to the Big Island at the last minute due to the devastating wildfires that so badly affected Maui. ISNAP student researchers, graduate and undergraduate, were able to present their research to colleagues from around the world during a busy and active meeting. The quality and strong representation of ISNAP research was noted throughout the sessions, with lively and impactful discussions generated at every level.</p>
<p>The high level of student research being presented was described as “…a credit to the amazing work being performed at Notre Dame…”.</p>
<p class="attribution">Originally published by <span class="rel-author">Janet Weikel</span> at <span class="rel-source"><a href="https://isnap.nd.edu/news/isnap-graduate-students-make-waves-at-haw2023/">isnap.nd.edu</a></span> on <span class="rel-pubdate">December 19, 2023</span>.</p>Janet Weikeltag:physics.nd.edu,2005:News/1588692023-12-20T10:25:00-05:002023-12-20T10:25:48-05:00First of its kind study lead astrophysicists to rewrite the story of how planets form<p>A team of astrophysicists led by <a href="https://physics.nd.edu/people/lauren-weiss/">Lauren Weiss</a>, professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Notre Dame, created the first-ever catalog of small, earth-like planets with Jupiter-like siblings (planets that share the same star) — a critical…</p><p>A team of astrophysicists led by <a href="https://physics.nd.edu/people/lauren-weiss/">Lauren Weiss</a>, professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Notre Dame, created the first-ever catalog of small, earth-like planets with Jupiter-like siblings (planets that share the same star) — a critical component in the search for life elsewhere in our universe. </p>
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<p>Forthcoming in the <a href="https://iopscience.iop.org/journal/0067-0049">Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series</a>, the Kepler Giant Planet Search took a decade to complete.</p>
<p>“This catalog is the first of its kind and an unprecedented opportunity to explore the diversity of planetary systems that are out there with things that are like the solar system, but not exactly the solar system, and it gives us a chance to rewrite the story of how the planets form,” Weiss said. “The science question that I’ve been trying to answer over the past decade is: Of the other small planets like Earth that are out there, which of them have Jupiter siblings? Because this might be an important characteristic to look for, if we want to figure out where to find life.”</p>
<p>Previous research over the past several years has singled out Jupiter as one of the reasons for life on earth. During the formation of the solar system, Jupiter slingshotted rocky and icy debris and embryonic planets toward Earth’s current location. Jupiter still hurls debris in Earth’s direction today. The debris may have carried water to our planet intact, creating the oceans and later, fostering life.</p>
<p>Based on data collected from the W.M. Keck Observatory on Mauna Kea in Waimea, Hawaii, Weiss and collaborators recorded almost 3,000 radial velocities of 63 stars like our sun that host 157 known, small planets. The 157 small planets range from the size of Mars to the size of Neptune, and some of them have rocky surfaces that might be suitable for life. During the study, the team discovered 13 Jupiter-like planets, eight planets closer to the size of Neptune, and three companion stars.</p>
<p>Perhaps counterintuitively, large, gas-filled giant planets outside of our solar system are difficult to find because some common detection methods don’t work. The Kepler space telescope, which retired after nine years in 2018 after it ran out of fuel, had been an excellent tool for scientists to find small exoplanets that orbited close to their stars. It used the transit method, which measures tiny dips in the brightness of the companion star to indicate the presence of a planet as it orbits its star.</p>
<p>Gas giants, however, are usually much farther from their stars, and don’t cross in front of them with any practical regularity for astronomers. Jupiter, for instance, takes 12 years to orbit the sun. Also, unlike planets close to their stars, distant planets often have slightly tilted orbits as seen from earth, making the dips in brightness less prominent.</p>
<p>Weiss and collaborators used the radial velocity method, which uses Doppler spectroscopy. The team measured the “wobble” of a star as the waves appear to pull slightly closer and away from earth based on the gravitational tug from a large, orbiting planet.</p>
<p>“Jupiters are large and they pull a lot on the stars we can measure. We can find them if we take many, many measurements over time, which is exactly what I had to do,” Weiss said. For every star in the sample, she and collaborators observed the Doppler shift of the star’s light waves for a minimum of 10 nights and in some cases up to hundreds of nights.</p>
<p>“It varies depending on the star,” she said, adding that “observing” the stars wasn’t done by directly looking through the telescope. Astronomers control the Keck telescope from remote observing stations worldwide, including at Notre Dame.</p>
<p>Papers such as this are exciting because they require patience, forethought and belief in the scientific spirit in order to complete, said <a href="https://astro.berkeley.edu/people/howard-isaacson/">Howard Isaacson</a>, a research scientist in astronomy at the University of California, Berkeley. Scientists beginning long projects don’t know if they will ever be finished, and the projects may be multi-generational—several people join in and leave the project over time.</p>
<p>“Even if we participate for the entire project, we have to work on other projects in the meantime, while these slowly building projects simmer in the background gathering meaning,” said Isaacson, who was one of the project co-leaders. “And eventually the time is right, and we can say something profound about the universe, like how many solar systems out there have both small planets that may have rocky, Earth-like surfaces, and how many have massive Jupiter-like planets that command their own planetary systems.</p>
<p>“In the process we are putting our own place in the Galaxy into perspective.”</p>
<p>The sheer size of the and duration of collection of the dataset will allow other astronomers to answer important questions about the relationship between close-in planets and giants that are distant from their stars, said <a href="https://www.pa.ucla.edu/faculty-websites/petigura.html">Erik Petigura</a>, assistant professor of astronomy and astrophysics at the University of California-Los Angeles. He was part of the observation team and also designed the data management and visualization system that allowed the team to make sense of the large amount of data.</p>
<p>Currently, finding Jupiter-like plants is rare, only occurring around less than 10 percent of stars, according to Petigura.</p>
<p>“To answer questions about Jovian planets you need to observe stars for a decade or longer,” he said. “These datasets do not come into existence by accident, and require the audacity and long-term vision to see them through to completion.</p>
<p>“This is a testament to Prof. Weiss’s leadership and vision.”</p>
<p>Though Weiss was excited about the discovery of the Jupiter-like planets, the catalog of earth-and-Jupiter-like planetary systems is the aspect that will help astronomers in years to come. This paper, for instance, is the primary paper in the Kepler Giant Planet Search for which future papers will be based. Some will describe architectural patterns observed in planetary systems, the efficiency of detection of planets, and the joint occurrence of giant and small transiting planets.</p>
<p>“Probably the thing I'm most excited about is revisiting this story of how the Earth formed,” Weiss said. “Now that we have more information about what other kinds of planetary systems are out there, we’re looking for patterns, finding new discoveries, and these possibilities really excite me.”</p>
<p>In addition to Weiss, other collaborators on the study include astronomers from the University of California, Berkeley; the University of Southern Queensland, Australia; California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California; IPAC-NASA Exoplanet Science Institute, Pasadena, California; University of California-Los Angeles, California; University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois; University of the Pacific, Stockton, California; University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Nevada; Nevada Center for Astrophysics, Las Vegas, Nevada; The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania; University of California, Irvine, California; University of Hawaii, Honolulu, Hawaii; Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey; University of California-Riverside, California; University of California-Santa Cruz, California; Gemini Observatory/National Science Foundation’s NOIRLab, Hilo, Hawaii; and the University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas.</p>
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<p class="attribution">Originally published by <span class="rel-author">Deanna Csomo Ferrell</span> at <span class="rel-source"><a href="https://science.nd.edu/news-and-media/news/first-of-its-kind-study-lead-astrophysicists-to-rewrite-the-story-of-how-planets-form/">science.nd.edu</a></span> on <span class="rel-pubdate">December 18, 2023</span>.</p>Deanna Csomo Ferrelltag:physics.nd.edu,2005:News/1588682023-12-20T10:24:00-05:002023-12-20T10:24:11-05:00Notre Dame researchers discover rapid changes in white-dwarf pulsar <p>The white-dwarf system AR Scorpii (AR Sco), which consists of a cool, dim star interacting with a rapidly spinning, highly magnetic white dwarf, has been an object of fascination for University of Notre Dame Physics Professor <a href="https://physics.nd.edu/people/peter-garnavich/">Peter Garnavich</a> since the announcement…</p><p>The white-dwarf system AR Scorpii (AR Sco), which consists of a cool, dim star interacting with a rapidly spinning, highly magnetic white dwarf, has been an object of fascination for University of Notre Dame Physics Professor <a href="https://physics.nd.edu/people/peter-garnavich/">Peter Garnavich</a> since the announcement of its discovery in 2016. </p>
<figure class="image image-right"><img src="https://science.nd.edu/assets/551751/issue12_depiction_of_the_strange_object_of_ar_scorpii.jpeg" alt="Issue12 Depiction Of The Strange Object Of Ar Scorpii">
<figcaption>Artist depictions of AR Sco created by Mark Garlick</figcaption>
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<p><a href="https://exoplanets.nasa.gov/news/1408/mysterious-white-dwarf-pulsar-discovered/">The first binary star pulsar astronomers discovered, AR Sco</a> is unique because all previous pulsars documented were neutron stars. And during just nine years — a microscopic period of time for the field of astrophysics — Garnavich and collaborators, including researcher and undergraduate physics student Anousha Greiveldinger, have already noticed a variation in the pulses of light from the system. The discovery, published in the <a href="https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/2041-8213/ad0be7">Astrophysical Journal Letters,</a> could indicate that the white dwarf’s rotational axis is rapidly changing, a process called precession. </p>
<p>“It came as kind of a surprise,” Garnavich said about the changes he and his collaborators found. “People had seen some random variability, but when we took some data this summer and started looking at the older data, we saw that it’s been quite a smoothly evolving trend.”</p>
<p>AR Sco is 384 light years away, in the constellation Scorpius. From earth, the flashes of light from AR Sco look like a beacon from a lighthouse. The binary system appears to generate two pulses per rotation, likely from two magnetic poles. The changes Garnavich and Greiveldinger pinpointed have occurred in the amplitude — in this case, the intensity of the light energy — of the primary and secondary pulses. When astronomers first discovered the system, the amplitude of the primary pulse was about twice the strength of the secondary pulse. But by 2023, the light curve showed nearly equal amplitudes from the pulses coming from each magnetic pole (as shown in the figure).</p>
<p>“Precession is something that hasn't been explored much in white dwarfs, so this is exciting,” said Greiveldinger, a senior also majoring in French in addition to physics and astronomy.</p>
<p>Precession is the gradual change in a star’s or planet’s rotational axis over time. For instance, the earth’s tilt is 23.5 degrees, and this obliquity is the reason that we experience seasons as the earth orbits the sun. However the direction of the earth’s tilt makes one cycle about every 24,000 years, with the precession occurring the same way a spinning top wobbles slightly as it spins. In the earth’s case, this occurs because of the forces that the moon and sun have on the earth.</p>
<figure class="image image-left"><img src="https://science.nd.edu/assets/551749/changesinamplitude.jpg" alt="Changesinamplitude"></figure>
<p>AR Sco’s precession, with its rapidly spinning white dwarf, is much faster. If this is the cause of these changes, Greiveldinger and Garnavich expect the amplitudes will become more equal over the next 10 years, then will become asymmetrical again.</p>
<p>AR Sco was thought to be a solitary star until 2016, when researchers discovered the highly variable flashes of light. <a href="https://science.nd.edu/news-and-media/news/notre-dame-researchers-determine-spin-down-rate-of-rare-white-dwarf-pulsar/">A Notre Dame student used a sensitive electronic camera attached to the Krizmanich telescope atop Jordan Hall of Science</a> to take long sets of images in the spring and summer, when the star was visible above the horizon. The student captured the flashes and recorded them, and noted tiny changes in the spin rate of the star.</p>
<p>With this latest discovery, also completed using the Krizmanich telescope, “we think its spin axis is cockeyed to its orbital plane of its binary star, which is producing a torque and causing it to precess,” Garnavich said. “So the beams are changing their direction over that precession cycle, and the pole that was pointed away is slowly being aimed in our direction.”</p>
<p>Because AR Sco barely rises more than 25 degrees above our horizon in the Northern Hemisphere, the team combined their observations with data going back to 2015 from researchers in South Africa, Garnavich said. In the Southern hemisphere, the binary system tracks overhead. </p>
<figure class="image image-right"><img src="https://science.nd.edu/assets/551755/img_7433.jpeg" alt="Img 7433">
<figcaption>Undergraduate physics student Anousha Greiveldinger</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Seeing a change in this system has been exciting for Garnavich because it’s rare that an astronomer will notice such a dramatic difference during a lifetime.</p>
<p>“It certainly is cool, and as it turns out, precession isn’t something that’s often seen in stars,” he said. “It’s mostly that it takes so long, but the narrow beams emitted by this unusual star magnify the impact of changes in the direction of the spin axis.”</p>
<p>Garnavich will continue studying AR Sco with students, because they have already gleaned so much information from it in less than a decade, and yet there is more to learn.</p>
<p>“It’s a star that keeps on giving,” he said, half jokingly.</p>
<p>In addition to Garnavich and Greiveldinger, other researchers include Colin Littlefield, formerly of Notre Dame, as well as researchers from the South African Astronomical Observatory, Cape Town, South Africa, the University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg, South Africa, University of Cape Town, Rondebosch, South Africa, the University of Free State, Bloemfontein, South Africa, and the Bay Area Environmental Research Institute, Moffett Field, California.</p>
<p> </p>
<p class="attribution">Originally published by <span class="rel-author">Deanna Csomo Ferrell</span> at <span class="rel-source"><a href="https://science.nd.edu/news-and-media/news/notre-dame-researchers-discover-rapid-changes-in-white-dwarf-pulsar/">science.nd.edu</a></span> on <span class="rel-pubdate">December 18, 2023</span>.</p>Deanna Csomo Ferrelltag:physics.nd.edu,2005:News/1587112023-12-12T10:37:00-05:002023-12-12T10:37:13-05:00Wiescher awarded honorary professorship at University of Edinburgh<figure class="image image-right"><a href="https://physics.nd.edu/people/faculty/michael-wiescher/"><img src="https://isnap.nd.edu/assets/551241/500x/bj_9.13.22_michael_wiescher_7176.jpg" alt="Bj 9" width="500" height="333"></a></figure> <p><a href="https://physics.nd.edu/people/faculty/michael-wiescher/">Michael Wiescher</a>, Freimann Professor…</p><figure class="image image-right"><a href="https://physics.nd.edu/people/faculty/michael-wiescher/"><img src="https://isnap.nd.edu/assets/551241/500x/bj_9.13.22_michael_wiescher_7176.jpg" alt="Bj 9" width="500" height="333"></a></figure>
<p><a href="https://physics.nd.edu/people/faculty/michael-wiescher/">Michael Wiescher</a>, Freimann Professor of Physics, was awarded an honorary professorship at the University of Edinburgh in the United Kingdom. This title is conferred only upon individuals of high academic distinction who hold leading roles in organizations with which the University has a close working relationship in research, teaching or research infrastructure support.</p>
<p> </p>
<p class="attribution">Originally published by <span class="rel-author">Janet Weikel</span> at <span class="rel-source"><a href="https://isnap.nd.edu/news/wiescher-awarded-honorary-professorship-at-university-of-edinburgh/">isnap.nd.edu</a></span> on <span class="rel-pubdate">December 12, 2023</span>.</p>Janet Weikeltag:physics.nd.edu,2005:News/1586172023-12-07T15:43:00-05:002023-12-07T15:43:31-05:00Aprahamian appointed to Armenia Prime Minister's advisory council<p><a href="https://physics.nd.edu/people/faculty/ani-aprahamian/">Ani Aprahamian</a>, Freimann Professor of Physics and concurrent Professor of Chemistry and BioChemistry at the University of Notre Dame has been appointed to the advisory council of the Prime Minister of the Republic of Armenia focusing on the formulation…</p><p><a href="https://physics.nd.edu/people/faculty/ani-aprahamian/">Ani Aprahamian</a>, Freimann Professor of Physics and concurrent Professor of Chemistry and BioChemistry at the University of Notre Dame has been appointed to the advisory council of the Prime Minister of the Republic of Armenia focusing on the formulation of strategies for the advancement of science and technologies. The council will be chaired by the Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan. It includes the Vice President of the National Assembly, Ministers of Education, Science, Culture and Sport, the High Tech Minister, the Minister of Economy, a number of scientists including the 2022 Biology Nobel prize winner Patapoutian, and founders and CEOs of several high tech companies. Professor Aprahamian was the former director of the A. Alikhanyan National Science Laboratory of Armenia. Aprahamian is an experimental nuclear physicist with research interests in nuclear astrophysics, origin of the heavy elements, quantum dynamics in nuclei, and applications of nuclear science.</p>
<p class="attribution">Originally published by <span class="rel-author">Janet Weikel</span> at <span class="rel-source"><a href="https://isnap.nd.edu/news/aprahamian-appointed-to-armenia-prime-ministers-advisory-council/">isnap.nd.edu</a></span> on <span class="rel-pubdate">December 07, 2023</span>.</p>Janet Weikeltag:physics.nd.edu,2005:News/1582002023-11-21T09:39:00-05:002023-11-21T09:39:42-05:00Reading the stellar history book: Roman Gerasimov’s work with globular clusters<p>Roman Gerasimov, a postdoctoral research fellow in the <a href="https://physics.nd.edu/">Department of Physics and Astronomy</a> at the University of Notre Dame, studies structures in our galaxy called globular clusters to examine the origins of elements — like reading a stellar history book.…</p><p>Roman Gerasimov, a postdoctoral research fellow in the <a href="https://physics.nd.edu/">Department of Physics and Astronomy</a> at the University of Notre Dame, studies structures in our galaxy called globular clusters to examine the origins of elements — like reading a stellar history book.</p>
<p>“We want to find out how the galaxy evolved to get the necessary building blocks for planets like Earth — and ultimately life,” said Gerasimov. “It’s presumably a very complicated journey, but since they’re so old, globular clusters allow us to reconstruct part of that history early on.”</p>
<p>Stars are born together in clusters of hundreds, thousands, or even millions, packed closely. Many of the “smaller” structures, such as the one that birthed our sun 4.6 billion years ago, were not dense enough to keep all the stellar siblings together — and over a relatively short period of time, galactically speaking, the lack of sufficiently strong gravity dispersed these stars far and wide. However, much larger clusters known as globular clusters, from earlier on in the universe, contained enough gravitational force to stay together and ultimately became some of the oldest observable objects in the universe. They appear as fuzzy globes in a telescope, hence their name. Gerasimov noted that the clusters he studies date back to the earliest days of the Milky Way, some 10 billion years ago.</p>
<p>Besides their age that provides an unspoiled window into the past, globular clusters have a different characteristic that makes them ideal for astronomical research.</p>
<p>“For science in general, you like to vary one of the variables and keep the rest,” added Gerasimov. He described how astronomers don’t get to do that most of the time: “You can’t just build a star with specific parameters in the lab. You get what you get.”</p>
<p>Yet, for Gerasimov and other astronomers, globular clusters represent an ideal framework to conduct research since their stars are about the same age and chemical composition. It’s not perfect, Gerasimov noted, but it’s as close as he can get to an experimental setup.</p>
<p>Gerasimov’s interest in stellar research began at University College London, where he studied astronomy. From there, he spent five years at the University of California at San Diego, working on the same globular cluster research that he is currently doing at Notre Dame. After that, he connected to Notre Dame through <a href="https://physics.nd.edu/people/faculty/evan-kirby/">Evan Kirby</a>, associate professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy.</p>
<p>“From the very first conversation that we had, it was pretty apparent to me that there was a good amount of overlap in our interests and a good level of compatibility, so that seemed like a good reason to accept the postdoc offer when I got it,” Gerasimov said.</p>
<p>He’s most excited to work on the large-scale projects that Notre Dame gives him access to.</p>
<p>“Another project I’m working on has to do with very old stars,” he said. “Not globular clusters, but the idea’s exactly the same: puzzling together the history of the galaxy from its older stars…It’s going to be a big survey using one of the largest telescopes in the world in Hawaii. This is a project that Notre Dame has access to that very few institutions do.”</p>
<p>Gerasimov’s contribution to this project, which is called the <a href="https://pfs.ipmu.jp/">Subaru Prime Focus Spectrograph</a>, involves writing code to decipher the input coming in from the telescope.</p>
<p>While working at UCSD, Gerasimov had a keen interest in alpine mountaineering, although he described that his recent move to Indiana — with no mountains in sight — forced him to take up running and biking instead.</p>
<p>“I’m in the process of actively reconsidering my hobbies,” he joked.</p>
<p class="attribution">Originally published by <span class="rel-author">John LeSage</span> at <span class="rel-source"><a href="https://science.nd.edu/news-and-media/news/reading-the-stellar-history-book-roman-gerasimovs-work-with-globular-clusters/">science.nd.edu</a></span> on <span class="rel-pubdate">November 20, 2023</span>.</p>John LeSage