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Read the 2010 Newsletter Here! NEWS OF INTEREST TO FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY PHYSICS ALUMNI Spring 2010 Members of the FSU Physics Department staff gathered for a recent group portrait A special message from our chair It is a pleasure for me to introduce you to the Department of Physics newsletter for Spring 2010! As always our students, staff and faculty have been performing brilliantly and it is always a tough job to select the specific highlights we put into the newsletter. We hope you enjoy this year’s collection and invite you to our homepage at www.physics.fsu.edu for other items as well as the latest exciting news about the world of physics at FSU. As always, please do not hesitate to drop us a line; we would love to hear from you. It would be super to include in the future some news about what our distinguished alumni are doing. One of the greatest strengths of our department is the fantastic staff that we have. They are truly dedicated and really make the depart- ment the special place it is. The group photo above was taken outside the teaching laboratories one cold morning in February. It may have been cold but the sun was still shining! I would like to finish by thanking Drs Yang, Bonesteel and Cao for working on the newsletter and the mega-talented graphic artists Scott Baxter and Ken Ford for putting it together. Very best regards and happy reading! Mark Riley ([email protected]) 2 f SPRING 2010 f RESONANCES Four FSU physicists named outstanding APS referees From left to right: Kirby Kemper, Alex Gurevich, Joseph F. “Jeff” Owens III, Pedro Schlottmann The American Physical Society recently Kemper said that one of the primary things Kemper has taught introductory physics recognized Florida State University’s Vice the APS does is publish scientific journals courses at FSU since he first became a fac- President for Research Kirby Kemper as an that allow cutting edge research to be dis- ulty member in 1971. “Outstanding Referee” for 2010. Kemper was seminated to the physics community at Kemper said he enjoys working with the one of only 130 members chosen to receive large. beginning undergraduate students because the honor out of the society’s 44,000 article “Articles submitted to the journals are he gets to help them figure out what type of reviewers worldwide. sent out to other physicists for review,” science they like best. “The designee of ‘Outstanding Referee’ Kemper said. “The reviewers volunteer their “When I first came to FSU, Kirby and I means that the editors and associate edi- time to work through the papers and pro- taught introductory physics classes together tors of the Physical Review, the major jour- vide an assessment of their results, which for five years or so,” said Mark Riley, FSU nal published by the APS and now probably gets communicated to the editor of the jour- professor of physics. “The students called us recognized as the premiere physics research nal, who then decides whether to publish ‘The Dynamic Duo’ — he was Batman and I journal in the world, feel that my contribu- the article or not based on the referees’ com- was Robin.” tions to the quality of the published research ments.” Riley said that he has known Kemper for have been valuable to them as they consider Kemper said that in addition to pub- almost 20 years since he arrived at FSU from whether to publish papers or not,” Kemper lishing journals, the APS organizes annual the UK in 1991. Riley said that Kemper is an said. “I got an e-mail toward the end of meetings of physicists and works to pro- incredible fellow and an inspiration to all. December telling me I had been selected for duce policy papers that help national and “This is a magnificent and well-deserved this designation and was truly surprised.” state leaders develop plans for the needs of acknowledgment of his contributions to sci- Kemper has been a member of the APS the country. since he was a graduate student in 1962. In addition to his research and service, continued on page 3 RESONANCES f SPRING 2010 f 3 APS referees — continued from page 2 part of my job as a practicing physicist and Field Laboratory. regard it as service to the profession,” Kemper The “Outstanding Referee” award is de- entific publishing,” Riley said. “It is only said. “I will continue to be a member of the signed to recognize scientists who have been because of the untiring efforts and expert APS as long as I live because of its impor- exceptionally helpful in assessing manu- knowledge of dedicated scholars like Dr. tance to furthering our understanding of the scripts for APS journals. Currently, the APS Kemper that the APS journals are considered world around us, as well as its work in fur- has about 42,000 active referees, and it hon- the best physics publications in the world.” thering our understanding of things of great ored 534 of them in 2008 and 340 of them Riley said that it is amazing how Kemper importance to society as a whole.” in 2009. Most of those honored in 2008 and continues to be so involved in the physics APS has also honored three Florida State 2009 — what the APS refers to as the catch- research world given the enormous demands University physicists — Joseph F. “Jeff” Owens up years of the award — have been dedicat- on his time as Vice President for Research. III, Pedro Schlottmann and Alex Gurev- ed reviewers for many years. In future years, “Back in my second year as a physics ich — as “Outstanding Referees” for 2009. the APS plans to honor about 130 referees major, I was spending a great deal of time Owens, an APS fellow, is the Guenter per year. The 2009 honorees, which come not being serious,” said Becky DiBari, a Schwarz Professor of Physics and associate from 35 countries, were chosen for the qual- former student of Kemper’s. “Kirby sat me dean for Research in Florida State’s College ity, number and timeliness of their reports, down for a honest talk, and it turned my path of Arts and Sciences; Schlottmann, a physics whether or not the scientists were members around.” professor who began his career in Germany, of the APS. DiBari said she owes all of her success is a Heisenberg fellow of the German Nation- “Peer review is a vital endeavor within to Kemper and that his award is very well al Science Foundation; and Gurevich, also an the academic and scientific enterprise,” said deserved. APS fellow, is a scholar/scientist and princi- Physics Chairman Mark Riley. “It is wonder- “I don’t keep track of how many papers I pal investigator in the Applied Superconduc- ful that APS has initiated this program to rec- referee and feel that refereeing papers is just tivity Center at the National High Magnetic ognize these previously unsung heroes.” Research on Graphene chosen as APS ‘Editor’s Suggestion’ Assistant Professor Oskar Vafek and Pro- of two cones touching, two parabolic bands fessor Kun Yang, condensed matter theo- touch. rists here at FSU Physics Department, are The authors of this paper argue that co-authors of the article “Many-body insta- such a system is unstable even to infinitesi- bility of Coulomb interacting bilayer gra- mal electron-electron interactions and use phene: Renormalization group approach”, renormalization group to identify the most which was chosen in January 2010 as an likely broken symmetry ground state. In the Editor’s Suggestion and featured in the APS parameter regime studied by the authors journal Physics: Spotlighting Exceptional an interesting new electronic phase, called Oskar Vafek and Kun Yang Research. nematic, was found to have the most diver- Graphene is a new, essentially two tum, is experimentally found to be about gent susceptibility. This phase is character- dimensional, material made entirely of 300 times smaller than speed of light in ized by broken lattice rotational symmetry, carbon atoms. Its remarkable electronic vacuum. This ultra-relativistic-like disper- but unbroken lattice translational symme- properties place it at an intellectual fron- sion gives the system a certain degree of try and the authors propose ways to detect tier of condensed matter physics and at the robustness with respect to (weak) electron- it. At the moment, experiments on the same time as a potential material for novel electron interactions. bilayers are underway to further explore technological applications. The subtle A bilayer graphene is a system of two this system. interference of the electron waves in the carbon honeycomb latices stacked in the “Research on the special properties of presence of the honeycomb potential lead, so called A-B arrangement: atoms in the graphene is red hot right now. So the fact in the single atomic layer graphene, to an first layer and belonging to one of the sub- that the paper by Drs Vafek and Yang was effective loss of the electron mass: near the lattices have atoms directly above them selected as an Editor’s Suggestion and as Fermi level the electrons disperse as mass- in the second layer, while the atoms of the an APS Physics Spotlight featured article less Dirac particles in two spatial dimen- second sublattice sit below (above) the hon- is indeed exceptional! My congratulations sions. Their velocity, which is therefore not eycomb plaquettes. The massless Dirac dis- to them both.” says Mark Riley, chair of the necessarily proportional to their momen- persion in this case is modified and instead physics department. 4 f SPRING 2010 f RESONANCES Hoffman wins 2010 National Dissertation Award A recent doctoral graduate of The Florida State University has earned top honors in his discipline as the author of the nation’s best doctoral dissertation in nuclear physics.
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