FALL 2018 Titans of the Cosmos Exploring the Mysteries of Neutron Star Mergers & Supermassive Black Holes 10 | Educating the next generation of innovators in science and industry 16 | Berkeley leads the way in data science education Research Highlights, Department News & More CONTENTS CHAIR’SLETTER RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS2 Recent breakthroughs in faculty-led investigations PHOTO: BEN AILES PHOTO: TITANS OF THE COSMOS Fall classes are underway, our introductory courses ON THE COVER: Exploring the Mysteries of are packed, and we have good news on several fronts. Berkeley astrophysicist Daniel Kasen's research group uses Neutron Star Mergers and On July 1 we welcomed our newest faculty member, supercomputers at the National Supermassive Black Holes condensed matter theorist Mike Zalatel. In August the Energy Research Scientific Com- puting Center at LBNL to model 2018 Academic Rankings of World Universities were cosmic explosions. See page 4. announced, with Berkeley Physics second, between MIT CHAIR and Stanford – fine company. In September we learned Wick Haxton 4 that Professor Barbara Jacak will be awarded the 2019 MANAGING EDITOR & Tom Bonner Prize of the American Physical Society for DIRECTOR OF DEVELOPMENT her leadership of the PHENIX detector at Brookhaven’s Rachel Schafer Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider, and new graduate stu- CONTRIBUTING EDITOR & dent Nick Sherman will receive the LeRoy Apker Award SCIENCE WRITER for outstanding undergraduate research in theoretical Devi Mathieu PHYSICS INNOVATORS condensed matter and mathematical physics. Most re- DESIGN 10INITIATIVE cently, Assistant Professor Norman Yao has been named Sarah Wittmer Educating the Next a Packard Fellow, one of the most prestigious awards CONTRIBUTORS Generation of Innovators available in STEM disciplines. Morgan Tougas in Science and Industry We are announcing the Physics Innovators Initiative COVER PHOTO (Pi²) – an effort to modernize introductory lab courses Noah Berger Physics 7 and 8, create a new Tinkering Studio, upgrade Send comments, alumni updates, the Student Machine Shop, and create new instructional and change of address or email to: modules. These improvements, part of our efforts to [email protected] support the University’s call for more Discovery Expe- Published annually by the riences, will prepare physics undergraduates to become Department of Physics University of California, Berkeley researchers in faculty laboratories. 366 LeConte Hall #7300 DEALING WITH DATA We find ourselves strengthening our role internation- Berkeley, CA 94720-7300 16 ally: interest in physics is exploding in Pacific Rim nations Phone: 510-642-3355 Data Science in Physics and Beyond like China and Japan, and the Bay Area is admired for its © 2018 Regents of successful integration of university research with Silicon the University of California Valley innovation. We have started Berkeley Partners in Education (BPIE) to host visiting undergraduates from overseas through our concurrent enrollment program. With Engineering, we are exploring the creation of a 13 CALDAY & COMMENCEMENT new Masters program in Engineering Physics to prepare 14 BERKELEY PHYSICS AT A GLANCE physicist-engineers for success in the business world. 1 2017-2018 GIVING This program is expected to draw students from the US 8 and internationally. We are also considering international 19 DEPARTMENT NEWS partnerships that could strengthen our efforts in cos- 24 ALUMNI UPDATES mology and high performance computing – possibilities 25 FAREWELL that will develop further over the next year or so. Thank you for your support of Berkeley Physics! 2 Physics@Berkeley Fall 2018 1 Refaely-Abramson and Felipe H. da Jornada, Precision Spectroscopy identified a new mechanism for a process that could Research of AntiHydrogen lead to dramatic gains in organic solar cell efficiency. The process, called “singlet fission”, holds promise Berkeley physics professors Joel Fajans and Jonathan for converting sunlight’s energy to more electrical Wurtele have spent more than a decade exploring charges instead of losing it to heat. Singlet fission Highlights antihydrogen physics as part of the ALPHA collabora- involves a light-created composite particle (called a tion at CERN. They are pioneers in the development bound electron-hole pair or exciton) composed of and application of plasma physics techniques for an electron with a negative charge, and a “partner Left: A new mechanism that synthesizing, trapping, and manipulating antihydrogen hole” – a vacant electron in a material’s chemical could improve the efficiency atoms. Since 2005, they have worked with more than 20 bonds. The partner hole behaves like a particle with a of organic solar cells was undergraduates, 6 graduate students, 3 postdocs, and positive charge. In some organic solids, this compos- discovered at the Center for physics lecturer to conceptualize Computational Study of Excit- The blackbody attraction be- Andrew Charman ite can rapidly convert into two electron-hole pairs, ed-State Phenomena in Energy tween a hot tungsten cylinder and implement experiments with antihydrogen. doubling the material’s charge-carrying potential and Materials, based at Lawrence and a cesium atom is 20 times The Fajans and Wurtele group recently contributed LABORATORY BERKELEY NATIONAL LAWRENCE PHOTO: reducing heat loss. Berkeley National Laboratory. stronger than the gravitational technical improvements that increased ALPHA’s trap Louie noted that the multidisciplinary team attraction between them. rates by a factor of ten. This enhancement enabled Improving Organic Solar Cells assembled for this study, in the recently established ALPHA to make the most accurate measures yet of an Organic solar cells are made with materials that tend Department of Energy Center for Computational Study important spectroscopic property known as the hyper- to be cheaper, more abundant, and more environ- of Excited-State Phenomena in Energy Materials at fine structure of antihydrogen. mentally friendly than conventional solar cells. They Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, was especially In an April 2018 issue of Nature, the ALPHA collab- also tend to be less efficient. A collaboration co-led capable of applying fresh thinking to a decade-old prob- oration compared their antihydrogen spectral mea- by Berkeley physics professors Steven G. Louie and lem. “This is one of the first important topics that we surements with measurement of the same spectrum Jeffrey B. Neaton, working with postdocs Sivan could address, and now it’s come to fruition,” he said. in ordinary hydrogen atoms and found agreement at a precision of two parts in a trillion. According to all measures made so far, matter and antimatter are perfectly symmetrical opposites – they IMAGE: HOLGER MÜLLER HOLGER IMAGE: are exactly the same except for having opposite elec- trical charges. Finding even the smallest differences Heat-Enhanced Gravitational Attraction would revolutionize our understanding of fundamen- Probing the Nature of Neutrinos tal physics and help unravel the mystery of why the PHOTO: YURY SUVOROV, UCLA AND CUORE COLLABORATION Berkeley physics professor Holger Müller and One of the biggest mysteries in physics – why there is universe is composed almost entirely of matter, even colleagues have used their world-renowned exper- more matter than antimatter in the universe – might though equal amounts of matter and antimatter should, tise in atom interferometry to demonstrate that the be a little closer to a solution, thanks to the CUORE according to theory, have been created in the Big Bang. warm glow of an object augments its gravitational neutrino experiment. ALPHA’s recent success opens up the field of attraction. The phenomenon is related to the physics CUORE (Cryogenic Underground Observatory for precision measurements of neutral antimatter. Future behind devices known as optical tweezers, in which Rare Events) has set the most precise limits yet on the experiments will continue to compare fundamental laser light attracts and traps atoms. likelihood that neutrinos undergo a process called neu- atomic physics quantities of antihydrogen with those of The Müller team’s experiment confirms a theory, trinoless double beta decay in a Tellurium-130 isotope. its matter twin, hydrogen. proposed by others, that ordinary light, or even infra- It’s a theoretical idea that, if shown to be true, would red radiation, can have a similar effect on atoms. The stretch the bounds of the Standard Model. It would team showed that the blackbody radiation of a heated indicate that neutrinos are their own antiparticles, mak- tungsten cylinder attracted a cesium atom with a ing them a source for particle- antiparticle interactions force 20 times greater than gravitation alone. Black- CERN PHOTO: that favor matter over antimatter. body radiation is essentially the infrared radiation If it exists, neutrinoless double-beta decay is so rare given off as an object cools. that Herculean efforts are required to detect it. CUORE The effect is so miniscule that its influence is is a large cryogenic detector – with 750 kg of tellurium usually insignificant. But it’s something that must dioxide crystals cooled down to temperatures around CUORE consists of a block- be taken into account when extraordinarily accurate 10 milliKelvin. It detects subtle temperature variations shaped array of tightly packed measurements are needed. “The blackbody attraction that are created when a tellurium nucleus decays. With tellurium oxide crystals that has an impact