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In This issue Berkeley’s Space Sciences Laboratory Tabletop Physics Bringing More Women into Physics Alumni News and more! Cover: The MAVEN satellite mission uses instrumentation developed at UC Berkeley's Space Sciences Laboratory to explore the physics behind the loss of the Martian atmosphere. It’s a continuation of Berkeley astrophysicist Robert Lin’s pioneering work in solar physics. See p 7. photo credit: Lockheed Martin Physics at Berkeley 2014 Published annually by the Department of Physics Steven Boggs: Chair Anil More: Director of Administration Maria Hjelm: Director of Development, College of Letters and Science Devi Mathieu: Editor, Principal Writer Meg Coughlin: Design Additional assistance provided by Sarah Wittmer, Sylvie Mehner and Susan Houghton Department of Physics 366 LeConte Hall #7300 University of California, Berkeley Berkeley, CA 94720-7300 Copyright 2014 by The Regents of the University of California features

4 12 18 Berkeley’s Space Tabletop Physics Bringing More Women Sciences Laboratory Berkeley theorists invent into Physics new ways to search for Going on Six Decades UC Berkeley Hosts the 2014 new physics of Education and Space West Coast Conference Exploration Berkeley theoretical physicists Ashvin for Undergraduate Women Vishwanath and Surjeet Rajendran in Physics Since the Space Lab’s inception are developing new, small-scale in 1959, Berkeley physicists have Women physics students from low-energy approaches to questions played important roles in many California, Oregon, Washington, usually associated with large-scale of the nation’s space-based scientific Alaska, and Hawaii gathered on high-energy particle experiments. endeavors while educating hundreds campus to learn how a physics of successful space scientists. degree can lead to satisfying careers in academia and beyond.

Departments

2 letter from the Chair

20 DONOR SPOTLIGHT

22 Department News

30 In Memory

33 Physics in the Media

37 Undergraduate Affairs

40 Graduate Affairs

44 Alumni Affairs Letter from the Chair

photo credit: Ben Ailes

Dear Alumni, Parents, Colleagues and Friends, New Campbell Hall Greetings from Berkeley! As I write, New Campbell Hall construction is winding down and we have started moving into the new building, which will Has it really been a year? Serving as Chair of Berkeley’s be completed by the end of the Fall semester. New Campbell Department of Physics continues to be an incredibly rewarding Hall will then revert to its old moniker – Campbell Hall – as experience. I am proud of the accomplishments of our physics renovations will be complete. While there are boxes everywhere community this past year, and look forward to our new adven- and quite a few construction workers still making final touches tures in 2014-2015. here and there, the new space is really quite amazing. Berkeley Physics Ranks #1 The open layout and third-floor bridge between Campbell The 2014 Academic Ranking of World Universities ranked and LeConte Halls will better integrate the astrophysics communi- Berkeley Physics the #1 physics department worldwide. This ties in the Physics and Astronomy Departments, providing many ranking, also known as the “Shanghai Ranking,” has become opportunities for collaboration. The Berkeley Center for one of the most closely watched and respected rankings since Cosmological Physics (BCCP), will have a new and visible home its first compilation in 2003. It is strongly focused towards on the third floor of Campbell Hall, right beside the bridge to research excellence, and our movement into the top position is LeConte. This arrangement will completely change the dynamic of an incredible achievement – one that reflects the combined LeConte Hall, bringing the open and interactive design of Campbell accomplishments of our students, faculty, and alumni as well as across to LeConte. I am excited to see what new collaborations the support of our friends and staff. and discoveries are enabled by this new infrastructure. I am proud that Berkeley Physics shines in research excel- New Learning Center for Undergraduates lence while also fulfilling our sacred teaching mission – continuing Moving forward, the completion of New Campbell Hall frees up to produce more undergraduate majors of any university in the the construction project management space on the first floor of nation. Thank you for your strong support in making Cal the best LeConte Hall. It's the perfect venue for a new student opportu- place on earth for students to pursue their physics education nity–the Undergrad Collaboration and Learning Center (UCLC). and for faculty to excel in research. The UCLC will provide a visible home for our majors in the department, providing space for quiet study and collaboration, Academic Ranking of World Universities in Physics-2014 social interaction, peer mentoring, as well as dedicated space for 1 University of California-Berkeley our active student groups. The Campus has recently approved our 2 Princeton University plan, and we have begun a detailed design and study phase to 3 Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) optimize use. Your feedback and ideas are welcome, as will be 4 Harvard University your support. We will be actively seeking partners for our official 5 California Institute of Technology UCLC Campaign. Contact our new Development and Communications Director, Susan Houghton at shoughton@ Source: shanghairanking.com berkeley.edu, for more details.

2 Physics at Berkeley | Fall 2014 Undergraduate Physics Degrees: ate student mentor in a semester-long program that includes PhD Degree Institutions 2010-2012 advising, small-group discussions, special events, and excursions. Institution Degrees The goal of the program is to foster closer ties among our undergrad students through small group interactions, ties that University of California-Berkeley 118 will help support them throughout their undergraduate careers Massachusetts Institute of Technology 86 here at Berkeley. This program has already been an incredible Cornell University, All Campuses 80 success. Over 150 students are enrolled for the Fall 2014 semester, University of Washington - Seattle 68 well beyond our expectations. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 64 Focus on Communications Source: American Physical Society At the start of this semester the Berkeley Department of Physics launched a new website. I hope you’ve had a chance to peruse it and Student-Led Initiatives to re-connect with us! Over a year in the making, it is designed to Our students never cease to amaze me with their boundless provide much better accessibility to breaking news and current enthusiasm for physics and their dedication to enhancing the events in the department. The site is very much a work in prog- educational environment for their peers. This past year our ress – please visit physics.berkeley.edu and give us your feedback. students founded IGenSpectrum, an organization to promote We want to hear from all alumni, friends, and colleagues. community and visibility for LGBT students in the department. I am also pleased to welcome Susan Houghton, our new To our knowledge, this is the first university department-level Director of Development and Communications. Susan has a lot LGBT organization in physics in the nation. IGenSpectrum of exciting ideas for expanding the started a speaker series as well as a Berkeley Physics communications pres- peer-mentoring program for summer ence and I look forward to being able to research students. They have already share new discoveries and memorable had a major impact on enhancing the Berkeley continues to events in the department with you as environment of the department. produce more physics they happen. The student-led Career Development Initiative for the Physical Sciences (CDIPS) undergraduates majors Public Events is entering its third year of educating of any university in Berkeley Physics hosts a number of public graduate and postgraduate students for the nation. events throughout the year, and you are careers outside academia, and strength- welcome and encouraged to attend. ening ties between academic science Looking forward to the Spring semester, and industry. These students are run- you are invited to attend the ning an incredibly successful speaker Oppenheimer Lecture on February 23, series that hosts Berkeley PhD alumni 2015. Andrei Linde, Professor of Physics successful in non-academic or non-traditional careers to inform at Stanford, will be talking about inflation in the early universe. the students about the wide variety of careers available to PhD On March 9, Eric Betzig, 2014 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry, students in the physical sciences. I encourage any of our alumni will discuss his revolutionary microscopy techniques in a special who might be interested in sharing their career experiences to be public lecture. in touch with us. Contact Gabe Dunn at [email protected]. Of course we always look forward to a great turnout for the ever-popular Cal Day. Please join us for the next CalDay, on Berkeley Connect Saturday April 18. Physics joined a handful of other departments on campus this I encourage you to learn more in the following pages about past Spring in piloting Berkeley Connect, a new mentoring pro- the outstanding research and exciting activities going on in gram at Cal. Berkeley Connect offers undergraduate students a Berkeley Physics. Your support and participation in our program chance to connect with their peers, graduate students, profes- is appreciated. You play a critical role in creating the opportuni- sors, and alumni based on a shared love of (in our case) physics. ties for our students and faculty to excel. Best wishes for 2014-15! This program pairs a small undergraduate group with a gradu- – Steve Boggs

Fall 2014 | Physics at Berkeley 3 Berkeley’s

Space Sciences

Laboratory

Going on Six Decades

of Education and Space Exploration

4 Physics at Berkeley | Fall 2014 n the tree-shaded hillside high above the Berkeley campus sits a scientific facility created specifical- ly for investigations that must be conducted above Earth’s atmo- sphere. UC Berkeley’s Space O Sciences Laboratory (SSL) was established in 1959, just six months after NASA was created. Operations started up in 1961, and SSL quickly became a world leader in space-based research – a reputation it continues to enjoy today. “Here at SSL we can do virtually everything needed to accomplish a space mission,” says Physics Professor and Department Chair Steven Boggs. “We can design it, engineer it, build it, integrate it into a payload, test it, operate it while in flight, and handle data collection and science analysis.” Missions are prepared as payloads for high-altitude balloons, sounding rockets, and satellites. Physics graduate student Carolyn Kierans talks with NASA Administrator Charles “Any faculty member on campus can look to SSL for space- Bolden about balloon electronics for the Compton Spectrometer Imager (COSI), to be launched over Antarctica in December. Bolden and several of his staff paid based research support,” emphasizes Stuart Bale, Berkeley an informal visit to SSL in May. photo credit: SSL Physics Professor and SSL Director. “We’re an Organized Research Unit that reports to Berkeley’s Vice Chancellor for The late physicist Kinsey Anderson was a major contributor Research.” Though the space lab’s projects have spanned a wide to the formation and early development of SSL, helping establish variety of disciplines over the years – from life sciences, physiol- the space lab’s reputation early on. Anderson initiated some of ogy, and sociology, to physics, astronomy, and earth and plane- the very the first efforts to build instruments specifically for tary science – physics is a primary emphasis. “Throughout SSL’s spacecraft. He joined the Berkeley Department of Physics in history, our strongest ties have always been with physics,” Bale 1960 and served as Director of SSL from 1970-1979. He retired notes. in 1990 but remained active as Emeritus Physics Professor The lab is also a national leader in education. “SSL is one until his death in 2012. of the few places in the country that provides graduate students “Kinsey Anderson is to be thanked on many levels for his with opportunities for in-depth, hands-on experience in virtually pioneering work at the very beginning of the lab,” says Berkeley every aspect of a space science research project,” Bale observes. Emeritus Physics professor Forrest Mozer. “He trained a lot of “By the time they graduate they’ve been through the entire excellent graduate students who went on to be leaders at other process of managing a small mission, developing an instru- universities and who, in many cases, came back to SSL after ment, and analyzing the data. They’re well prepared for a retirement.” Anderson encouraged his students to manage all career, and they go on to positions in all the institutions that aspects of their research and, after graduation, helped many of have space programs.” (see p 10, Training the Next Generation) them establish research efforts elsewhere. It’s an approach that Boggs adds, “Many professors and principal investigators produces world leaders in space science, and it continues at at universities around the country who are leading NASA satel- SSL today. lite missions of their own came through the rocket and balloon “Kinsey produced a group of engineers,” Mozer notes, programs at SSL.” “electrical, mechanical, software – who became the core of the Early Days and Kinsey Anderson very excellent engineering staff we have at the Space Lab he first suggestion for a campus laboratory for today.” space science came in 1958, the year after Boggs points out, “We have a critical mass of space science Russia’s success with the Sputnik satellite. “It projects that allows us to maintain specialists in almost any T was a lofty committee of Berkeley faculty who area required for space exploration – telemetry, power supply, recommended creating a space sciences lab for thermal issues. Individual projects don’t have to do this on the campus,” Bale reports. “They recognized their own.” that access to space was going to be key for cutting-edge exper- According to Bale, SSL’s technical and engineering staff iments.” Those committee luminaries included Nobel laureates deserves significant credit for the lab’s success. “There is very Glenn Seaborg and Melvin Calvin, astronomers Otto Struve strong interaction between our science and engineering teams,” and A.E. Whitford, and physicists Edward Teller, Isadore he says. “A lot of our scientists do engineering, and a lot of our Perlman, Herbert York, and Robert Brode. engineers are physics PhDs.”

Fall 2014 | Physics at Berkeley 5 NASA’s Van Allen Probes orbit through two giant radiation belts surrounding Earth. The probes gather electric field data using techniques developed by Emeritus Physics Professor Forrest Mozer and his team at SSL. photo credit: NASA

Forrest Mozer and the Van Allen Probes around the earth called the Van Allen radiation belts.” Launched mong the innovators who’ve helped build SSL’s in 2012, the mission is already helping solve a longstanding reputation is Mozer himself, who joined the mystery of how particles in the Van Allen belts get accelerated space lab and the Department of Physics in close to light speed. A 1966. Though he retired in 1994, Mozer remains Robert Lin, RHESSI, and MAVEN very active in research and the training of nother scientist whose contributions helped graduate students. He’s currently a Professor in define SSL is the late Robert Lin, considered by the Graduate School and SSL Associate Director. many to be the father of modern high-energy solar When Mozer began his research career, measurements A physics. Lin arrived at SSL in 1962 as a graduate of electric fields in earth’s magnetosphere and interplanetary student in Kinsey Anderson’s research group. space were yet to be made. “I developed the techniques for That team was the first to discover that solar doing that,” he recalls. “We started with them on balloons and flares emit high-energy charged particles observable from earth. rockets, and have flown on many satellites since then.” Lin received his PhD in 1967 and remained at SSL for the Measuring an electric field is relatively simple – separate two rest of his career. He fulfilled leadership roles in dozens of proj- electrodes by some distance and measure the voltage difference ects, including many satellite missions. He was appointed SSL between them. “There is a benefit to long separation distances,” Senior Fellow in 1988, became a Professor in the Physics Mozer explains, “ideally on the order of 100-200 meters, Department in 1991, and served as SSL Director from 1998 to because the effect you want to measure increases linearly with 2008. He was also elected to the National Academy of Sciences distance. That complicates spacecraft structure. How do you in 2006. Lin was extremely active as an Emeritus Physics achieve such long distances on a single spacecraft?” Professor until his death last year; his research continues under “At SSL, with the help of a lot of very good mechanical the care and guidance of colleagues and students. engineers,” he continues, “we developed the technique of using Over the years, Lin’s research teams developed several wire booms held out by the centrifugal force of a spinning generations of instruments for measuring X-rays and gamma spacecraft.” This method can achieve separation distances of rays emitted by electrons, protons, and other particles as they up to 200 meters. accelerate to high speeds in solar flares. “Much of what is known Mozer’s technique has been so successful that it’s still in about astrophysical particle acceleration comes from X-ray and use today, and is presently deployed on twin NASA spacecraft gamma ray measurements,” Bale notes. “The underlying physics known as the Van Allen Probes. “That’s my current work,” was discovered by studying solar flares, and much of that was Mozer adds. “We’re analyzing electric field data in the region Bob’s work.”

6 Physics at Berkeley | Fall 2014 This line of inquiry led to the NASA RHESSI satellite mis- Stuart Bale and Solar Probe Plus sion – the Reuven Ramaty High Energy Solar Spectroscopic n keeping with the solar physics legacy of Robert Imager – with Lin as Principal Investigator. RHESSI is a NASA Lin, Stuart Bale’s research group at SSL is Explorer Mission designed to study processes that take place working on a NASA satellite scheduled for launch in the magnetized atmosphere of the Sun during solar flares. I in the summer of 2018. Solar Probe Plus will be Physics graduate student Nicole Duncan is a student of the first spacecraft to fly directly into the Sun’s Lin’s who now works in Boggs’ research group. She serves on outer atmosphere – its corona. The mission is to RHESSI’s science team at SSL, as well as working on a related discover why the Sun’s corona is so much hotter than the photo- project called GRIPS. “We have a Mission Operations Center sphere below it, and what accelerates the particles that make up here at SSL,” Duncan points out. “Members of our RHESSI the solar wind to velocities approaching light speed. team, including me and a few postdocs, take turns monitoring “It’s an exciting mission,” Bale says. “We’re flying into the the spacecraft and monitoring solar activity. We make adjust- magnetosphere of the Sun, the part of the magnetic field that ments to spacecraft parameters, to the detectors if they’re rotates with the Sun, which has never been done before.” noisy, or we change memory allocation schemes if we see an The photosphere, or visible surface of the Sun, has a tem- increase in solar activity. We also do the science analysis.” perature of about 6000 degrees Kelvin (K). “But the corona above Launched in 2002 and scheduled for a two-year mis- it is much hotter, with temperatures at millions of degrees K,” sion, RHESSI is still in operation, having successfully sailed Bale explains. “That’s a physics problem. A hot object transfers its through NASA administrative reviews every couple of years. heat to a cooler object, not the other way around. The idea behind “We’re gearing up for another review right now,” Duncan adds. the Solar Probe Plus mission is to fly directly into that region and “RHESSI is the only hard x-ray and gamma ray observatory measure the plasma properties, the magnetic and electric fields, and imager up there right now. To lose it would mean losing an to better understand how coronal heating happens.” important eye on the sun.” The mission will also improve understanding of how coronal The RHESSI spacecraft explores the physics of solar flare activity. Its entire heating produces the solar wind. “You pour energy into the payload was designed and constructed at SSL, and many mission operations are corona,” Bale points out, “and get it really hot. As it expands it carried out at the space lab. photo credit: NASA, UC Berkeley starts to accelerate outward, and eventually gets going so fast it detaches from the sun and becomes the solar wind.”

Another area of solar physics pioneered by Lin explores interactions between the solar wind and the magnetic fields of the Earth, Moon, and Mars. This work got its start in the early 1970s, with instrumentation Lin and Anderson designed and built for NASA’s Apollo 15 subsatellite. “Their simple electron instrument aimed at the surface of the Moon detected regions with enhanced electron fluxes,” Bale explains. “They under- stood that these were electrons from the solar wind magneti- cally bouncing off the surface. They also understood that by accurately measuring these electrons they could determine the strength of the Moon’s magnetic fields.” Years later, Lin’s research team participated in NASA’s Lunar Prospector and The Fields Experiment on the Solar Probe Plus spacecraft will measure Mars Global Surveyor missions, mapping magnetic fields on electric fields by extending four metal electrodes directly into the coronal plasma. The magnetometer boom and other instruments, as well as computer the surface of the Moon and Mars. components, are positioned behind the heat shield to protect them from the Those projects evolved into a current NASA mission called corona’s extreme temperatures. MAVEN, Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution. “MAVEN is investigating the loss of the Martian atmosphere,” Bale says. Bale is Principal Investigator for a suite of Solar Probe Plus “It’s thought that Mars once had a really robust atmosphere instruments under construction at SSL called the Fields like Earth’s. But as the planet’s magnetic field died away, its Experiment. The Fields instruments will measure magnetic atmosphere began eroding through interaction with the solar and electric fields, radio emissions, shock waves that move wind. The MAVEN mission is exploring the physics of that loss, through the plasma, and voltage spikes that occur when dust how the solar wind causes atmospheric particles to stream away.” particles strike the spacecraft’s antenna. MAVEN launched in 2012. It entered Mars orbit on A heat shield protects most of the spacecraft’s instrumen- September 21, 2014 and began working right away, detecting tation from the high temperatures of the corona. Exceptions solar energetic particles from a coronal mass ejection that took are the electric field antennae, which extend beyond the shield. place on September 24. The mission will last until at least Bale’s research team developed a new thermal design for this October 2015. component.

Fall 2014 | Physics at Berkeley 7 The NuSTAR spacecraft is almost 11 meters long. X-ray optics located at the one end of the mast provide needed separation from image detectors at the other end. Berkeley astrophysicist Steven Boggs leads NuSTAR’s supernova science group. SSL’s mechanical engineering team helped design the instrumentation, and the space lab is in charge of mission operations. photo credit: NASA

8 Physics at Berkeley | Fall 2014 “We’re using reactor grade refractory metals for these NuSTAR is a large collaboration led by Fiona Harrison of hot antennae,” he explains, “an alloy of niobium formed into California Institute of Technology, one of the first two women hollow tubes about the diameter of a pencil. The walls are so to be selected as PIs for NASA Explorer missions. Harrison is a thin that there’s almost no path for conduction along their Berkeley physics alumna who worked on balloon projects at SSL length.” The far end of each antenna will reach a temperature as a graduate student and received her PhD in 1993. of about 1500 Centigrade (1800 K). The near end, behind the SSL conducts mission operations for NuSTAR and plays shield, rises only to about 100 C (400K). That’s cool enough, several other important roles in the mission. The space lab’s Bale says, to “grab onto it with a wire, hook it up to an amplifier mechanical engineering team was part of the consortium that and take measurements.” built the science instrument. “We also worked on instrument Solar Probe Plus will make seven Venus flybys, each one simulations,” Boggs notes, “which enabled us to develop the giving the spacecraft a gravity assist to bring it closer to the data analysis pipeline. Students and scientists in my research Sun. “I’m hoping we’ll get some science at Venus, too,” says group play a very integral part in the science analysis.” Bale. “Some of those flybys are at low altitude, only 300 km or so from the surface of the planet.” Once and Future Missions ince its inception, Berkeley’s Space Science Steven Boggs and NuSTAR Laboratory has provided instruments for more strophysicist Steven Boggs, a Berkeley alumnus than two dozen rockets, close to 250 balloon who earned his PhD under the tutelage of Robert S flights, and 85 satellites, at least eight of which A Lin, leads research exploring astrophysical phe- were conceived, designed, built, and controlled nomena that emit X-ray and gamma ray radia- at SSL. tion. Projects underway And this list leaves out a great many in Boggs’ group include a ground-based experiments, including the NASA satellite mission called NuSTAR – development of infrared interferometers Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array – NuSTAR has opened up by Nobel laureate and Emeritus Physics launched in 2012 and expected to continue Professor Charles Townes. Since the its mission until at least 2016. the energy band that will 1970s, he and his research teams have NuSTAR is an X-ray telescope that enable us to understand been making observations with the measures high-energy X-rays – so-called how nonthermal Infrared Spatial Interferometer Array, ‘hard’ X-rays, just below gamma rays on processes complement built at SSL and located at the Mt. Wilson the electromagnetic spectrum – emitted Observatory in southern California. Their by extremely violent astrophysical phe- thermal processes. work has led to numerous discoveries about nomena like black holes, neutron stars, the evolution of stars and the environ- and supernovae. ments around them. These days, Townes “Traditional X-ray telescopes study and his colleagues are using the telescopes objects that are very hot,” Boggs explains. “NuSTAR is working at higher X-ray energies that are emitted not because an object to scan exoplanets orbiting nearby stars for possible infrared is hot, but because of nonthermal processes like radioactive laser signals – signals that could indicate the presence of extra- decay or particle acceleration.” NuSTAR is 100 times more terrestrial civilizations. sensitive than previous instruments working at these energies, Activity at SSL shows no signs of slowing down. New with ten times better resolution. “It’s opened up the energy projects are on the drawing board, including experiments that band that will enable us to understand how nonthermal pro- will fly on NASA’s new CubeSat program – shoebox-size satellites cesses complement thermal processes,” Boggs adds. “This gives that piggyback as secondary payloads on commercial and mili- us a much better picture of the full physics going on in these tary launches. very exotic phenomena.” In 2009, on the occasion of SSL’s 50th anniversary sym- NuSTAR has already revealed details about the Cassiopeia posium, Forrest Mozer gave a talk on the space lab’s history. A supernova, showing how shockwaves distorted the dying He concluded with a statement that sums up its extraordinary star’s gas cloud to produce conditions leading to a massive success: explosion (see Physics in the Media p 33). Radioactive materials “In terms of the breadth and depth of its research in atmo- produced in supernova explosions decay into stable elements spheric physics, space physics, astrophysics, cosmology, the that make up stars and planets, including carbon, oxygen, number of missions, the number and quality of its graduates, calcium, gold, and iron. Boggs leads the supernova science and its role in the education of scientists and engineers, the group for NuSTAR, mapping remnants from recent supernovae Space Sciences Laboratory at Berkeley is the premier institu- to better understand how stars explode and how elements are tion of its kind in the world. No other university has been at the formed. forefront of so many different fields of space science.”

Fall 2014 | Physics at Berkeley 9 Training the Next Generation of Space Scientists

n addition to the instruments it supplies to satellite missions, SSL prepares payloads for I high-altitude balloons and sounding rockets. “Those platforms offer access to space at a fraction of the cost of satellites,” Boggs points out. “They allow us to do new science much faster. A satellite mission can take a decade or two from concept to launch. Balloons can do the same within a couple of years.” Balloons and rockets also make less risky testing grounds for innovative ideas, and they are excellent educational investments. “Grad students play a major role in pretty much every aspect of a balloon project,” says physics graduate student Carolyn Kierans. “It’s a wonderful training opportunity.” “Students participate in satellite projects,” Boggs adds, “but there are huge layers of administrative separation between them and the actual hardware. On the other hand, balloon and rocket programs give students the full array of education they need to become experimentalists. They assume full responsibility for an instrument, from designing it to operating it in flight to analyzing COSI’s twelve germanium detectors are housed in an aluminum cryostat, pictured here. the data.” The detectors need to be cold to operate; they are maintained at -185 ºC by a mechanical Students and postdocs in Boggs’ research group are currently heat pump, or cryocooler – the cylindrical object shown to the right of the cryostat. involved in two NASA balloon programs, COSI and GRIPS. “We know that our galaxy is a copious producer of positrons, COSI and that they seem to be concentrated toward our galactic center,” COSI, the Compton Spectrometer and Imager, is a new instrument he adds. “We’ve measured a number of those decays, so we think designed to detect low energy gamma rays. Its science mission is we know how many positrons they produce, but the signal coming to better understand the formation of elements in the universe from the galaxy is much brighter than that. We hope to produce the and to map sources of positron annihilation at the center of the first detailed image of this positron emission to get a better idea of Milky Way galaxy. its origin.” “Mapping gamma rays coming from the radioactive decay of Physics graduate students Alex Lowell, Carolyn Kierans, and atomic nuclei allows us to directly study nuclei produced on Clio Sleator have primary responsibility for the COSI mission. recent time scales in our local universe,” Boggs explains. “This Lowell has worked with COSI since 2010, helping with detector helps us understand how elements are being formed around us design and flight computer development. “It’s through the flight and how that fits in to the overall evolution of the elements in the computer that we do all of our commanding, all of our data universe.” downloading,” he says. “It’s the brain of the whole instrument Another of COSI’s goals is to help solve a decades-long that flies on the balloon gondola.” mystery in gamma-ray astronomy. “One of the brightest signals Kierans began working on COSI in the summer of 2013. “I’ve we see in the sky at this energy band comes from the annihilation been responsible for putting practically the whole mechanical of anti-electrons, or positrons,” Boggs says. Positrons are emitted structure of the gondola together,” she reports, “as well as taking by the radioactive decay of nuclei during element formation. the data for instrument calibrations. This is what drew me to the

10 Physics at Berkeley | Fall 2014 GRIPS GRIPS – Gamma-Ray Imager/Polarimeter for Solar Flares – is a successor to the RHESSI satellite mission, and will look more closely at some of the solar flare physics questions raised by RHESSI’s observations. The lead graduate student in charge of the mission is Nicole Duncan, who also works on RHESSI. She joined Robert Lin’s research group at SSL five years ago, when she first arrived at Berkeley as a graduate student. Boggs became her advisor when Lin passed away. “When I first started, I asked Bob what my role would be on the project,” Duncan recalls, “and he said my job was to be the glue. ‘Eventually there will come a point when a lot of things need to get done and someone just needs to do them,’ he said. He told me that I needed to pick up the pieces and fill in gaps wherever possible. That’s what I’ve tried to do for the past few years.”

Physics graduate students Carolyn Kierans, Alex Lowell, and Clio Sleator Both GRIPS and COSI measure and map hard X-rays and (L to R) spent two months of their summer working in Palestine, Texas, at the gamma rays, but while COSI looks out into the galaxy, GRIPS will Columbia Scientific Ballooning Facility, where the COSI payload was fully integrated and tested for compatibility with the NASA communication system. focus on the Sun. Both missions use similar germanium detec- tors, but GRIPS uses a different kind of imaging system. The Space Sciences Lab in the first place. On a day-to-day basis you GRIPS instrument will be capable of higher angular resolution, get to work with the detectors, you are responsible for them.” which allows better pinpointing of the location from which Sleator joined the COSI team this summer and developed gamma rays originate. A primary goal of the mission is to better the command software used to control the instrument while in understand particle acceleration during solar flares. flight. She is now taking a lead role in the calibrations of the instrument. “Calibration helps us to fully understand the signals we get from the instrument,” she explains, “so that when we get data in flight, we know how to interpret it.” At COSI’s heart is an array of the most advanced gamma ray detectors ever developed. They not only measure the spectra of gamma ray signals, but also map where the signals are coming from. The detectors are a stack of germanium crystals surrounded by heavy scintillator shields that restrict the field of view to only the sky above. Shielding also blocks gamma rays coming from cosmic-ray interactions with the upper atmosphere. “As passive shields, they block background radiation because they’re really massive,” Kierans explains. “But they also act as active shields. If we see a photon count in the shield and see a Physics Graduate Student Nicole Duncan at work on GRIPS. Her responsibilities count in the germanium detectors at effectively the same time, include delivery of GRIPS’ imaging, aspect, and detector systems. then we assume those interactions were caused by the same “We’re trying to separate the footpoints of solar flares,” initial photon, and that it most likely came from the surrounding Duncan explains. A typical solar flare is a loop structure that atmosphere. So we can ignore everything that isn’t directly releases energy through the reconfiguration of magnetic fields. above us.” “Particles get accelerated,” Duncan adds, “and some of them rain COSI will be the first scientific payload to fly on a new NASA back into the solar atmosphere along magnetic lines to foot- balloon technology, UltraLong Duration Balloons. These new bal- points in the chromosphere. Observations from RHESSI showed loons can stay aloft for as long as 100 days, far longer than the that the centroids of emission for hard X-rays, which are associated 3-week maximum of earlier designs. “That duration starts to be with accelerated electrons, are displaced from centroids for comparable to a satellite mission,” says Boggs, “allowing us to do gamma rays, which are associated with ions. Given what we know much more science than a shorter flight.” about electromagnetism and flare physics, we would expect The COSI payload will be delivered to McMurdo Station in them to be in the same place. This mission’s purpose is in large Antarctica later this year, with launch set for sometime in part to address these types of questions.” December. Lowell, Kierans, and Sleator will follow it there, GRIPS is currently in the engineering test phase; the primary remaining in Antarctica for the entire mission. science flight will take place over Antarctica in 2015 or 2016.

Fall 2014 | Physics at Berkeley 11 Tabletop Physics

Berkeley theorists invent new ways to search for new physics

12 Physics at Berkeley | Fall 2014 Tabletop Physics

Much of the physics that makes headlines these days comes from experimental efforts involving huge machines, enormous financial investments, long timelines, and throngs of scientific collaborators. The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is a case in point. The largest machine ever built, it took decades to construct, cost billions, and requires thousands of skilled scientists and engineers to operate.

Fall 2014 | Physics at Berkeley 13 echnical approaches like the LHC and its pre- to the theory proposed 50 years ago that the Higgs field is the decessors have made, and continue to make, mechanism that confers mass on fundamental particles. unparalleled contributions to our knowledge of Detection of the Higgs boson at the LHC in 2012 confirmed T particle physics. Yet many compelling ques- that theory. tions remain unanswered. For example, our “What is exciting more recently,” Vishwanath says, “is that knowledge of the universe could be significantly extended we have found new examples in condensed matter systems of through the direct detection of gravitational waves. But doing so phenomena people would like to see in particle physics experi- requires measuring the small effects of these waves. How can ments but haven’t, despite the higher energies of the LHC. One that be accomplished? Other questions: Can theories of super- example is supersymmetry.” symmetry round out the Standard Model of particle physics? Supersymmetry (SUSY) is an extension of the Standard What is the nature of the particles that make up dark matter? Model of particle physics that predicts a relatively massive The search for answers to questions like these has been supersymmetric partner particle for each of the Standard commonly associated with high-energy collider experiments or Model’s fundamental particles. One of the surest proofs of astrophysical observations. Two of Berkeley’s theoretical phys- SUSY would be the discovery of a SUSY particle in a high- icists are taking a low-energy, high-precision approach instead. energy collider experiment like the LHC. None have been Physics Professor Ashvin Vishwanath and Assistant detected so far. Professor Surjeet Rajendran are working in a realm that’s Vishwanath, along with former Berkeley postdoc Dr. become known as ‘tabletop physics.’ They’re inventing ideas for Tarun Grover (now at the Kavli Institute in Santa Barbara) and small-scale experiments that can be carried out in a single labo- physics professor Donna Sheng of Cal State Northridge, has ratory by a handful of people pushing past precision frontiers. discovered an analog of SUSY that spontaneously arises in a Rajendran is a particle theorist who joined the Berkeley condensed matter system – specifically, a class of materials faculty this summer. “As physicists,” known as topological superconduc- he notes, “whether we’re working this tors. The discovery means that SUSY way or in a large collaboration like the “Whether we’re working this way or potentially can be studied in low- LHC, our goals are the same. We’re in a large collaboration like the LHC, energy lab experiments and perhaps trying to understand if there is new help guide the search for SUSY in col- physics we have not seen yet, laws of our goals are the same. We’re trying lider experiments. nature we don’t yet know about. to understand if there is new physics The team’s calculations apply to Tabletop physics is just a different way we have not seen yet, laws of nature a highly dense condensed matter to address these questions.” medium in which electrons are forced we don’t yet know about. Tabletop Vishwanath is a condensed mat- to interact with one another, as ter theorist who has been a Berkeley physics is just a different way to opposed to the rarefied medium of faculty member since 2004. His pri- address these questions.” the cosmos where particles rarely mary aim is to understand quantum encounter one another. “Our work is phenomena in solids. “We are inter- not a statement about particles at ested in things like the behavior of electrons in fairly common- very high energy in a vacuum,” Vishwanath cautions. “It’s place materials,” he says. “We think about what these electrons important to stress that the context differs from SUSY as the are doing from a fundamental physics point of view. More particle physicists are searching for it in big accelerators. But often than you might guess, it turns out that the same theories mathematically they are completely identical.” that describe the properties of elementary particles – theories important in high-energy particle physics – reappear in this Super Partners in Helium-3 context.” The condensed matter system they’re working with is an ultra- cold atomic liquid – a minority isotope of helium-3 that forms a The Search for Supersymmetry superfluid when cooled to extremely low temperatures. The “For example,” Vishwanath points out, “the very dynamic picture behavior of electrons at the boundary of the fluid gives rise to of the vacuum described by particle physics is seething with the SUSY analog. excitations predicted by quantum mechanics, such as particles Vishwanath explains it this way: “If you were an organism and their antiparticles jumping out of the vacuum and going living on this material, you would find that to every electron back in. A strongly interacting system of electrons in a solid is excitation there is a partner, a super partner, which is a kind of not that different. It’s surprising how many of the tools and sound wave that has all the properties of the electron.” ideas are the same. What unifies them is quantum mechanics.” He and his colleagues have proposed experiments that “This kind of similarity was exploited in the predictions of involve manipulating the magnetic phase transition in He-3 to the Higgs mode,” he continues. “Something very akin to the invoke the SUSY behavior. The experiments are certainly fea- Higgs mechanism appears in superconductors.” He is referring sible, Vishwanath says, but challenging in that they must be

14 Physics at Berkeley | Fall 2014 Fermi Arc Surface BZ

T

“Dirac string”

rc T At a phase transition, matter can realize a higher degree of symmetry than in either of the adjacent phases. In the case of He-3, Vishwanath and colleagues have found supersymmetry is realized when magnetism onsets kz at the surface of a topological state. conducted at extraordinarily low temperatures, on the order of Bulk BZ kx 0.001 degrees above absolute zero.

“It’s kind of paradoxical,” he notes, “that while in high ky energy physics you try to go to higher and higher energies, here the obstacle is to go to lower and lower temperatures. They’re Vishwanath and his colleagues have discovered that excitations in certain solids can mimic particles described by Weyl’s equation – a close cousin of both hard to do.” The team is working with colleagues to design Dirac’s relativistic equation for electrons. the helium-3 experiments, and also looking for solid state systems that exhibit analogous phenomena and would be easier structural, chemical, electronic, and other applications. “We are to work with. proposing materials with properties similar to graphene, but in “We can imagine at least the simplest experimental real- one higher dimension,” Vishwanath reports, “which might have ization in the next few years,” he says, “where we can actually applications, like graphene does, for future electronics. People see this phenomenon occurring. The hope is that these experi- have already found close analogs of what we proposed and there ments will generate interest in SUSY from a different angle. are some promising materials candidates.” They may give us some insight into how our universe may or may not realize SUSY.” The Search for Dark Matter Assistant Professor Surjeet Rajendran is collaborating with Weyl Fermions Berkeley Physics Professor Dmitry Budker, an experimentalist, Vishwanath and colleagues have also come up with another to invent precision techniques that can be used to search for condensed matter realization of a notion that first appeared in axions – theoretical particles that could be a component of cold theoretical particle physics but hasn’t yet been confirmed. dark matter. Dark matter makes up 85 percent of the total mat- Quantum field theory predicts the existence of particles called ter in the universe, but its constituents are unknown. Weyl fermions – particles that have no rest mass and so would “Axions are difficult to detect,” Rajendran explains. “They travel at the speed of light. Neutrinos were considered a candi- have very tiny masses, on the order of ten to 20 orders of magni- date until they were determined to have a very small rest mass. tude less than WIMPS.” WIMPs, weakly interacting massive Weyl fermions have never been observed, but Vishwanath and particles, are another dark matter candidate. Neither WIMPs colleagues have recently come to the conclusion that it might be nor axions have been detected. possible to observe them in condensed matter systems. “The WIMP is presumably very heavy,” Rajendran continues, Vishwanath emphasizes that this discovery was made “with a mass in the range of 100 GeV, so a good way to find it is to quite by accident. “Looking at low energy excitations inside wait for it to hit some particle of ordinary matter. If it does, it will solids,” he explains, “we found that they are described by the deposit some energy that we can see.” Axions cannot be same equation as Weyl fermions. Of course they don’t move at detected using that approach, because their interactions with the speed of light, but once you accept that, they are described ordinary matter would deposit too little energy to detect. But if by exactly the same Weyl equation. We have proposed various axions exist, they are expected to interact with the spins of materials that realize this state of matter.” electrons and atomic nuclei, and detecting those interactions is The team’s findings have garnered plenty of interest, in the approach Rajendran is taking. part because these materials could be viewed as three-dimen- “The only way a particle as light as the axion could be dark sional analogs of graphene. Graphene is a two-dimensional lat- matter is if there is a lot of it around,” he explains. “It helps to tice of carbon atoms with intriguing prospects for a variety of think of it not as an individual particle but more like a wind of

Fall 2014 | Physics at Berkeley 15 particles blowing through the galaxy. What we’re searching for is a collective effect from that wind.” Rajendran and his colleagues have shown how axions would give every atomic nucleus in the universe a small electric µ dipole moment that oscillates at a very high frequency, in the kHz to GHz range. An electric dipole moment is a measure of Bext polarity – the separation between positive and negative charges. In collaboration with Budker, Rajendran developed a measure- ment technique that uses nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) technology and precision magnetometry to detect the time- varying electric dipole moment caused by the axion. “The basic idea of our technique is to take a material whose E nuclear spins are polarized and apply an electric field perpen- The electric dipole moment induced by axion dark matter causes nuclear spins dicular to the direction of spin polarization,” he explains. “If to precess when an electric field is applied. Much like nuclear magnetic the nucleus has an electric dipole moment, it will precess.” resonance, when the frequency of the oscillating electric dipole moment is equal to the Larmor precession frequency of the system (set by an external Precession is a change in the orientation of the spin axis. magnetic field), the spin precession is resonantly enhanced. The precessing spin Since each spin creates a magnetic field, this spin precession changes the magnetization of the sample and is measured with a magnetometer. will change the magnetization of the material and this can be detected with a high-precision magnetometer, such as a SQUID. axions, they plan to use as their sample material a cm-scale SQUIDs – superconducting quantum interference devices – are a chunk of polar crystal – a lattice with an enhanced electric field. high-precision technology Berkeley helped pioneer, through the They are currently working with collaborators in Europe to work of Emeritus Physics Professor John Clarke. fabricate this material. “Our approach is similar to nuclear magnetic resonance,” “So far, the best bounds for QCD axions come from astro- Rajendran continues, “because in NMR tiny magnetic fields can physics,” Rajendran notes. “If they exist, and if they couple with be detected through the spin precession they induce on the ordinary matter, they would be produced in stars and supernovae. large magnetic dipole of the nucleus. In our case, we detect a But we haven’t seen that. By searching for axion dark matter, we can tiny electric dipole moment by observing the spin precession go beyond these astrophysical bounds.” caused by the application of a large Gravitational Waves electric field.” Rajendran is also exploring another Detecting this oscillating electric astrophysics-related phenomenon. dipole moment is feasible in a labora- “Measuring gravitational waves He is part of a collaboration that has tory setting, Rajendran asserts, and is a major goal in astronomy come up with a new method for would prove that axions are indeed a and astrophysics,” Rajendran points detecting gravitational waves – defor- component of dark matter. In some out. “It gives us new eyes into mations in space-time that could sense, Rajendran points out, their reveal details about high-energy cos- work is a continuation of searches for the universe.” mic phenomena, such as black holes the electric dipole moment of the elec- and the earliest moments of the tron pioneered in the campus physics infant universe, which are impossible laboratory of Berkeley Emeritus to observe via the electromagnetic spectrum. Professor Eugene Commins. “Measuring gravitational waves is a major goal in astron- QCD Axions omy and astrophysics,” Rajendran points out. “It gives us new Theorists have proposed several kinds of axions, and the type eyes into the universe.” Predicted by Einstein’s theory of gen- Rajendran and Budker are especially interested in detecting is eral relativity, gravitational waves have been detected only the QCD axion. “The QCD axion was originally suggested as a indirectly, in astrophysical observations. It is difficult to detect way to solve the so-called strong CP problem,” Rajendran says. them directly because of background noise. “The structure of the strong nuclear force should allow nuclei The methodology that Rajendran and colleagues propose to develop electric dipole moments, at a level comparable to would significantly suppress background noise. It’s based on their magnetic dipole. However, the current bound on electric light-pulse atom interferometry in combination with optical dipole moment is about nine orders of magnitude smaller than atomic clock technology. Two columns of atoms are sent into this naive expectation. If the QCD axion existed, it would free-fall, and then laser pulses are used to split the wave functions explain why this dipole moment is so small. This elegant mech- of each column. Free-fall ensures that the system is coupled anism makes the QCD axion a compelling target.” only to gravitational disturbances and not to other disturbances To achieve the level of precision needed to detect QCD such as seismic noise.

16 Physics at Berkeley | Fall 2014 also be observed in this frequency band, well before their violent merger that occurs at higher frequency.” Attempts to detect gravitational waves with lower frequen- Laser cies, 0.5 Hz or below, would need to be deployed in space to completely avoid contamination from terrestrial vibrations. “Gravitational waves at these frequencies are provided by a I variety of known sources, such as the inspirals of white dwarfs 1 ~10 and supermassive black holes,” Rajendran continues. “Further, violent events in the early universe occurring during the conden- sation of the Higgs boson also produce gravitational waves at these frequencies.” So the team is devising a novel approach to a space-based setup that should be able to accomplish the goal at lower cost and with two satellites instead of the three specified in previous proposals. ~1 Making Connections As theorists, both Vishwanath’s and Rajendran’s research efforts are driven by the desire to delve more deeply into fundamental physics. “There is a very big opportunity for interesting appli- cations of tabletop-scale tools that experimentalists have built over the years.” Rajendran notes. “And I do think we need ways to move forward in addition to large-scale experiments. Why I2 ~10 not pursue these new, smaller, more precision-oriented ideas?” Vishwanath emphasizes that uncovering connections between condensed matter physics and particle physics is not the primary motivation for his research. So far, he says, that’s happened more as a side-effect. “But whenever these connec- tions occur,” he reports, “not only do we get people from other Laser fields interested in what we’re doing, we can also borrow from developments in high-energy theory. These obvious linkages are very useful, and great for the physics community as a whole.” This sketch for a terrestrial gravitational wave atom interferometer shows two interferometers (I1 and I2) placed along either end of a km-long vertical mineshaft. The atoms in each interferometer fall for about 10 meters and are operated by common laser beams. A gravitational wave modulates the distance between the interferometers, leading to a measurable effect. Since the same laser beams operate both interferometers, laser noise is common and cancelled. The atoms are in free fall during the experiment, suppressing noise from vibrations and seismic activity.

When the wave functions are recombined, again using laser pulses, interference patterns reveal any changes in accel- eration of the atoms that resulted from gravitational waves moving through the system during free-fall. Since the same lasers are used to run both interferometers, the noise in the laser will be common to both. The difference in the interfer- ence pattern in the two interferometers will thus be free of laser noise, eliminating one of the biggest sources of noise in current gravitational wave detection schemes. Set up as a terrestrial experiment on Earth, Rajendran and his collaborators anticipate the ability to detect gravitational waves with frequencies ranging from one to ten Hz – “frequen- cies characteristic of compact binary star systems such as the inspirals of intermediate mass black holes,” Rajendran notes. “The inspirals of stellar mass black holes and neutron stars can

Fall 2014 | Physics at Berkeley 17 Bringing More Women into Physics UC Berkeley Hosts the 2014 West Coast Conference for Undergraduate Women in Physics

Gabriel Orebi Gann Beate Heinemann Frances Hellman Katayun Kamdin Emily Duffield

n January, 170 female physics majors from West Coast University of Southern California. Hellman was instrumental colleges and universities converged on the UC in marshalling enthusiasm for the Berkeley CUWiP from the Berkeley campus for a three-day conference designed Physics Department, the Division of Letters and Science, and to encourage their pursuit of a degree in physics. The Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. women met and mingled, explored career options, toured labs, listened to research reports from student The ‘Leaky Pipeline’ Women have long been underrepresented in the sciences, espe- peersI and from seasoned scientists, learned facts behind gender disparity in the physical sciences, and heard encouraging stories cially physics and engineering. The percentage of PhDs in physics from women who’ve used their physics degrees to become suc- earned by women was five percent or below in the 1960s, and cessful professionals in academia, industry, and beyond. has hovered around 20 percent for the past 15 years. The West Coast Conference for Undergraduate Women Numbers for undergraduate degrees are similar. Although in Physics (CUWiP) was one of nine regional conferences held women and men each make up about 50 percent of undergraduate in the US simultaneously over the weekend of January 17-19. physics majors these days, only about 19 percent of degree These annual conferences are sponsored by the American recipients are female. Even fewer women go on to pursue Physical Society to provide undergraduate women in physics the graduate studies or postdoctoral work, and fewer still become opportunity to experience a professional conference and inter- physics faculty or industry researchers. act with other women in physics – from fellow undergraduates These statistics point to ‘leaks’ in the education pipeline to grad students, postdocs, faculty, and senior scientists. that are due, at least in part, to unique challenges faced by women Berkeley Assistant Professor Gabriel Orebi Gann, a neutrino pursuing a physics education. Orebi Gann points out that while physicist, chaired the conference organizing committee. The some women discover as undergraduates that they actually prefer goal of the event, she says, was to increase women’s opportuni- another field, many leave physics because of concerns about ties for continuing in physics, both inside and outside academia, entering a male-dominated field. “to show the great breadth of options there are and to encourage “And there are real issues of bias,” Orebi Gann notes. “We students to go out and pursue them.” want women to know that physics is something they can do, The initial idea for Berkeley to host this year’s West Coast and encourage them to pursue it if they’re interested. Gender session came from Physics Professor Beate Heinemann, a particle bias or lack of confidence shouldn’t get in their way.” physicist currently serving as deputy spokesperson for the Katayun Kamdin, now a fourth-year graduate student in ATLAS experiment at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider. Orebi Gann’s research group, gave what some attendees called Heinemann was an invited speaker at a CUWiP hosted by the most important talk of the entire conference. She presented Stanford University in 2012. some statistical realities of the gender gap in physics, along “It was very inspiring to me to see so many young women with research results that help explain why that gap exists. interested in physics all at once,” Heinemann recalls. “I got In her talk, Kamdin described a 1999 research paper showing many enthusiastic questions. One student told me that she is how the cultural stereotype that women perform less well at the only female in her research group and just chatting with math actually affects women’s performance. The research is other women about this field was inspiring. These conferences powerful, Kamdin said, “because it relates the lower scores make an important contribution to helping young women build women generally achieve on ‘hard’ tests to a real effect in the the self-confidence needed to continue in this field.” world.” The study was co-authored by Claude Steele, who is Heinemann’s suggestion fell on the receptive ears of now Berkeley’s Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost. Physics Professor and, at the time, Physics Department Chair The study’s results showed that, when test subjects were Frances Hellman, who had spoken at the 2007 CUWiP at told that women and men do equally well on a test they were

18 Physics at Berkeley | Fall 2014 about to take, there was no gender difference in their test of SWPS are “to encourage women and minorities to study the scores. But when subjects were told that women tend to score physical sciences and to create a friendly and supportive environ- lower than men on the test, or when gender difference wasn’t ment in these departments for all students.” Kamdin came to mentioned at all, the women’s scores were significantly lower. Berkeley after co-founding a similar organization while she was “Explicitly eliminating the stereotype resulted in equiva- an undergraduate at University of Chicago. lent test scores,” Kamdin reported. “When the stereotype was Perhaps the most important work SWPS does is to pair reinforced, women underperformed. Of course no one walks small groups of no more than six undergraduates with a graduate into the room before women take tests and says, ‘Ladies you are student or postdoc mentor. “In the fall, participants answer a set not going to do well on this!’ but the fact that not mentioning of questions about what they hope to get from the experience,” the stereotype gave the same result as reinforcing it shows that, Duffield explains. “Expectations range from wanting to learn to women taking difficult tests, the stereotype that they will about research areas, wanting career advice, or just wanting to perform poorly causes a real and measurable effect.” socialize with other scientists.” The information is used to group Kamdin also described a random, double-blind study in students with similar needs. “In the end,” Duffield continues, “all which two sets of curricula vitae, identical except for the appli- the mentoring groups function differently, some as friends, some cant’s name, were sent to research faculty in biology, physics, and as a professional development tool, and some as a support system.” chemistry. The CV with the female name was consistently rated Orebi Gann points out that mentoring can go a long way lower than the one with the male name. “Application reviewers,” toward repairing the ‘leaky pipeline.’ The relationship encourages Kamdin noted, “regardless of their age, gender, tenure status, or women by giving them a chance to see others who have success- discipline, rejected highly qualified candidates based on gender.” fully faced similar challenges and who have become productive Learning about studies like these bolsters the confidence and respected in their careers. of female students. “It helped me put my own struggles in wider Physics as a Career Foundation context,” Kamdin recalls. Orebi Gann emphasizes that the goals of this year’s West Coast Mentoring Can Slow the Leaks CUWiP did not necessarily include coaxing women to go on to Emily Duffield is a second-year graduate student in physics at graduate school and an academic career once they receive their Berkeley who helped organize the January conference. She physics degree. Rather, the intent was to make sure they have reported not having had the sort of negative experiences with the support and encouragement to do that if they want. And to bias that she heard described by others. recognize that earning a degree in physics does not mean their “I came away from the conference really wanting to help only choice is to enter an academic career path. women who had experienced those issues to overcome them “We wanted students to realize you can do a lot with a and move past them,” she reports. “I love the field of physics. physics degree,” Orebi Gann says, “that it’s a really strong base It gives you the opportunity to do so many different things, from which to start your career.” because a physics degree teaches you how to problem-solve.” “So many of the students came up to me and other members Both Duffield and Kamdin are involved with Berkeley’s of the organizing committee to say what a wonderful time they Society for Women in the Physical Sciences (SWPS), an organi- had,” she continues. “One of their big realizations was just how zation run by female graduate students in physics, astronomy, many women there are in physics. We may be a minority, but biophysics, and earth and planetary sciences. The stated goals there are actually a lot of us out there.”

From Expoplanets to Materials Science to Science Writing Students attending CUWiP at Berkeley were treated to inspiration and encouragement from a variety of speakers and presentations. Keynote speaker was planet hunter Debbie Fischer, former Berkeley postdoc and now a Professor of Astronomy at Yale. She was S a member of the team that discovered the first known multiple-planet system. Saul Perlmutter, Berkeley Professor of Physics, was invited to speak to conference attendees about his Nobel Prize winning research in cosmology. He also discussed the fluctuating gender balance in his research group over the years, commenting on the added value that accrues when men and women work together. Frances Hellman, Berkeley Professor of Physics and former Physics Department Chair, described her work with novel magnetic and superconducting materials and on measurement and transport of heat capacity in thin films. A long-time advocate of women in science, Hellman actively engages in efforts to make physics accessible to ethnic and socioeconomic minorities of both genders as well. More than half of her current research group is female, and she often works with women undergraduates. Other invited speakers spoke about careers outside of academia. Clara Moskowitz, Associate Editor at Scientific American, talked about using her bachelor’s degree in physics and astronomy to launch a career as a science writer. Luisa Bozano, a research scientist at IBM’s Almaden Research Center, discussed working in industry as a materials science researcher.

Fall 2014 | Physics at Berkeley 19 Donor Spotlight

Giving Back-Tahoe Style Alumnus Creates Annual Summit for Berkeley Physicists

It all began with a hunch.

Berkeley alumnus Douglas Tuttle (Physics ’70) and his wife, Lynn Brantley, were already founding donors to the Berkeley Center for Theoretical Physics (BCTP). They already knew the BCTP faculty and were staying abreast of their

Douglas Tuttle (Physics '70) and his wife, Lynn Brantley latest research and accomplishments. photo credit: Cynthia Ferris-Bennett But four years ago Tuttle and Brantley borrowed an idea from their corporate lives to hold an annual off-site retreat for the entire BCTP. Opening up their beautiful home in Lake Tahoe for an extended weekend, they invited BCTP faculty, researchers, post docs, students, and their families to gather, discuss, and review their collective work – all while relaxing in a beautiful environment.

Their initial hunch led to a very successful event. And now, the Brantley-Tuttle Tahoe Summit has become an integral aspect of BCTP’s annual calendar to kick off the academic year and review accomplishments.

20 Physics at Berkeley | Fall 2014 Attendees of the 2014 Summit included BCTP faculty, researchers, post docs, students and their families photo credit: Cynthia Ferris-Bennett

“We both knew how beneficial off-site meetings could be, ence, I wanted to get more involved with the department and and hoped it would be just as successful in an academic setting.” find a way to give back.” says Tuttle. “We also wanted to get more involved, and this As an undergrad, Tuttle used a work-study grant to join a seemed like one thing we could contribute to the BCTP.” research group at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory BCTP Director and Physics Professor Petr Hořava couldn’t (Berkeley Lab), working under Harry Heckman in heavy ion agree more. “Doug and Lynn’s support is truly invaluable. The research. This research area, which was pioneered at Berkeley summits allow us to start the year off in a beautifully inspiring Lab, is a central component of ongoing research at the Large way and to share the excitement about our scientific vision as Hadron Collider at CERN. a group.” After graduation, Tuttle launched a successful career in The three-day extended weekend event offers an opportu- the computer industry as an entrepreneur and consultant. nity for faculty to share their research and for students to present Brantley, who is a lawyer by training, had a successful corporate their ideas. The Summit also offers students an opportunity to career as well – including a lengthy tenure as VP of Sales for the have expanded discussions, not only with Americas for Corbis Corporation. their mentors, but with other faculty. Both are now retired, and the annual “It’s pretty unusual for our grad stu- Tahoe Summit has become a much- dents to be offered extended personal “Physics changes your anticipated weekend in their lives. They time with faculty that’s beyond their life. My time in Physics at invite their neighbors and friends to join everyday research interactions,” notes Berkeley gave me the in on some of the discussions at each Maria Hjelm, Director of Development for summit – offering real-world interaction knowledge and confidence the College of Letters and Sciences. “So that’s invaluable for the participants and when they have a chance to sit next to to tackle anything.” the Tahoe community. someone like our department chair Steve ~Douglas Tuttle “Doug and Lynn are tremendous Boggs at a dinner, it is an experience they friends who have literally opened their never forget.” home to the department,” says Physics Last year, the couple created the Department Chair Steve Boggs. “They Brantley-Tuttle Tahoe Fellowship, which conceived an ingenious program to is awarded to a student, in person, at each summit. This year’s directly inspire community, collaboration, and creative thinking recipient is Brian Henning, who also attended most of the pre- among our theory students, faculty, and researchers. The results vious summits. for our theory group have been transformative.” As a Berkeley Physics alumnus, Tuttle feels strongly about “They understand the challenges of our research,” says ‘paying it back.’ “Physics changes your life,” he says. “My time Hořava. “And their enthusiasm on our progress is unparalleled. in the Physics Department at Berkeley gave me the knowledge Trying to answer the deepest questions about the origin and and confidence to tackle anything. When you see first-hand fate of the Universe is not an easy task. The continuing friendship some of the world’s most difficult problems get solved, you take and support of our research by Doug and Lynn is a big part of that knowledge and confidence with you. To repay that experi- our success.”

Fall 2014 | Physics at Berkeley 21 Department News experiment Freedman conducted with fellow student John Clauser in the Berkeley physics laboratory of Eugene Commins. Measuring ‘Nothing’ and Getting It Right – Both Chu and Freedman received PhDs in physics from Berkeley Symposium Honors Stuart Freedman under the guidance of Commins, who is now Emeritus Professor of Physics. Chu explained how the Clauser-Freedman experiment, by not finding so-called ‘hidden variables’ proposed by Einstein and others, became the first demonstration that quantum mechanical theory could not be disproved by theories of hidden variables. Freedman’s thesis experiment was just the first of many investigations in which he made significant, positive contribu- tions to science by achieving null results. Titles of several talks given during the symposium began with the words “Not Finding….” Symposium presentations also covered Freedman’s guiding influence in the KamLAND and CUORE neutrino experiments, his contributions to measurements of neutrino mass, tests of the standard model at low energies, and his work with gravitation and neutron decay. Stuart Jay Freedman (1944-2012) received BS, MA, and PhD degrees in physics Lindley Winslow, who received her Berkeley PhD in 2008 from Berkeley. He served on the Berkeley physics faculty from 1991 to 2012. as a member of Freedman’s research group, told stories about Colleagues, students, and friends gathered on campus in January being Freedman’s graduate student. Her thesis choice, she said, to remember and celebrate the distinguished career of the late “is an example of how he let us go out and find the problems Stuart Freedman, Berkeley professor and internationally that interest us, because those are the problems we would pur- renowned nuclear physicist. Freedman was widely respected sue and do the best job at. He was an inspiration to all of his for his elegant and rigorous investigations of the fundamental students.” Winslow is now Assistant Professor of Physics and laws of physics. He became especially well known for his work Astronomy at UCLA. in neutrino science, particularly his contributions to the discov- In addition to being an Emeritus Professor in the Berkeley ery that neutrinos, as they propagate through space, oscillate Department of Physics at the time of his death in 2012, from one form, or ‘flavor’, to another and therefore have non- Freedman also held a joint appointment at Lawrence Berkeley zero mass. National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab). Berkeley Lab Director Festivities began Friday, January 10 with a public lecture Paul Alivisatos, in introductory remarks that began the sympo- by Nobel laureate Steven Chu. A scientific symposium called sium on Saturday morning, said of Freedman, “you could “Measuring ‘Nothing’ and Getting It Right”, which featured sense his dedication to going as deeply as he could in under- presentations on the many facets of Freedman’s research, fol- standing a problem, and wanting to find the true correct lowed on January 11 and 12. The weekend was also a birthday answer, no matter how difficult or inconvenient it might be to celebration – Freedman would have turned 70 on January 13. get there.” In his opening “He ultimately became deeply engaged in the laboratory,” talk, “Remembering Alivisatos added, “helping to provide some of the key ideas that Stuart and the shaped large group programs at the lab, including its participa- Freedman Exclusion tion in KamLAND. We were very fortunate to have Stuart here Principle,” Chu remem- in the Berkeley environment, both at the lab and on campus. bered Freedman’s sense He left a great mark and was a truly wonderful human being of humor and scientific in science.” rigor by recalling some of the important key- Charles Townes 99th Birthday Bash note speeches On Monday afternoon, July 28, the Department of Physics Berkeley alumnus and Nobel laureate Steven threw a party to celebrate the 99th birthday of emeritus physics Chu gave the opening talk at the January Freedman made symposium held in honor of Stuart Freedman. throughout his career. professor Charles Townes, and the 50th anniversary of his Chu was the 12th US Secretary of Energy, Nobel Prize in physics. The Faculty Glade was filled with is a former director of Lawrence Berkeley Chu also discussed National Laboratory and a former professor the groundbreaking music and well wishers. And there was cake. Townes attended of physics at Berkeley. He is now the William importance of with his wife Frances. R. Kenan Professor of Physics and Molecular and Cellular Physiology at Stanford Freedman’s PhD thesis, Claude Steele, Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost, University. which described an spoke to the revelers, praising Townes for the discovery of the

22 Physics at Berkeley | Fall 2014 Department News

Frances Hellman Becomes Dean of Math & Science Berkeley physics professor and former department chair Frances Hellman has accepted an appointment as Dean of Mathematical and Physical Sciences for the College of Letters and Science. She will take over the position January 1, 2015, after a previously planned sabbat- ical leave. In the meantime, physics On January 1, Frances professor Christopher McKee is serving Hellman, Physics Professor and former as interim Dean. Hellman is devoting her Department Chair, sabbatical to forging closer ties between becomes Dean in the Division of Math and UC Berkeley and the Exploratorium Physics Emeritus Professor Charles Townes and his wife Frances celebrated Physical Sciences in the in style on July 28. photo credit: Sarah Wittmer science museum in San Francisco. College of Letters and “It’s a great honor to be selected laser and its many applications. Steele took the opportunity Science. for a position like this,” Hellman said in to argue for the importance of basic science research and the a campus press release. As Dean, she says she will work to dangers of divesting from the kinds of research that can lead help strengthen connections among the five departments in to revolutionary discoveries like the laser. the Division of Math and Science – Physics, Astronomy, Remarks were also made by physics chair Steve Boggs Mathematics, Statistics, and Earth and Planetary Science – and by John Seel, Director of Cultural Engagement at the and with Engineering. Templeton Foundation. Townes was awarded the Templeton Hellman takes over from Dean Mark Richards, who served Prize in 2005 for his efforts in reconciling science and religion. in the post from 2002 to 2014. The many contributions he In accepting the prize, awarded for his contributions to made during his tenure included planning and fundraising for ‘affirming life’s spiritual dimension,’ Townes wrote, over $160 million in infrastructure improvements for the physi- “Science tries to understand what our universe is like and cal sciences and spearheading a visionary strategy for increas- how it works, including us humans. Religion is aimed at ing diversity among students and faculty in math and physical understanding the purpose and meaning of our universe, sciences. The number of women faculty in math and science including our own lives. If the universe has a purpose or more than doubled and fundraising tripled. In recognition of meaning, this must be reflected in its structure and function- his accomplishments, Richards was awarded the UC Berkeley ing, and hence in science.” Academic Senate’s Leon Henkin Award. “I hope my tenure In addition to the 1964 Nobel Prize for his discovery of can be marked with as many great things,” Hellman said. the principles behind the laser, Townes is famous for a number Hellman joined the Berkeley physics faculty in 2005, and of firsts in astronomical research, including the first discovery served as chair of the Physics Department from 2007 to 2013. of complex molecules in interstellar space and the first evidence Her research focuses on understanding the physics of novel of a black hole at the center of the galaxy. magnetic, semiconducting, and superconducting materials, A member of the Berkeley physics faculty since 1967, especially in thin film form. In addition to her affiliation Townes is in the process of closing down his campus office. with the Physics Department, Hellman has joint appoint- He plans to continue daily visits to his offices at Berkeley’s ments in UC Berkeley’s Materials Science and Engineering Space Sciences Laboratory, where he conducts research in Department, and in the Materials Sciences Division of the infrared astronomy. He and his colleagues are preparing Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. telescopes to look for possible infrared laser signals from She has served on the Executive Board of the American newly discovered planets circling nearby stars, in search of Physical Society, the National Science Foundation’s Advisory extraterrestrial civilizations. Board for Mathematical and Physical Sciences, the National “Charlie has created an incredible legacy here at Academies’ Board on Physics and Astronomy, the Department of Berkeley, and his accomplishments have direct impact on Energy’s Division of Materials Science and Engineering Council, many different fields in the physics department,” said physics and the American Physical Society’s Committee on the Status of chair Steven Boggs. “We have been fortunate to have had the Women in Physics. She participates in COSMOS, a statewide privilege of his wisdom and insight for so much of his long math and science summer program for high school students. and prestigious career.” Hellman became a fellow of the American Physical Society ~Contributed in part by Robert Sanders, Berkeley Media Relations in 1997 and she was elected as a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2013. She won the American Physics Society Keithley Instrumentation Award in 2006.

Fall 2014 | Physics at Berkeley 23 Department News

New Berkeley Lab Appointment for Ramesh Physics professor Ramamoorthy Ramesh has been named Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s first Associate Laboratory Director for Energy Technologies. The newly created position is charged with accelerating the transla- tion of basic and applied research results

Ramamoorthy Ramesh into real-world energy applications. was recognized this Ramesh also holds joint appoint- year by Thomson Reuters as one of the ments with the Department of Physics world’s most influential and the Department of Materials Science scientists. on campus. He previously served as a Faculty Scientist and as a Faculty Senior Scientist in the Materials Sciences Division at Lawrence Berkeley Lab. Ramesh is internationally known for his contributions to the science and technology of complex functional oxide materials. New Campbell Hall photo credit: Molly Coates This August he was named by Thomson Reuters as one of ground floor lobby is graced with artwork representing the the world’s most influential scientific minds, chosen for the Crab Nebula, created by Los Angeles-based visual artist frequency with which his work has been cited by colleagues. Mungo Thomson. His numerous other awards and distinctions include the The third floor of New Campbell Hall features a bridge Humboldt Senior Scientist Prize and Fellowship to the American joining it with the third floor of Old Le Conte Hall, built to Physical Society in 2001 and the Materials Research Society acknowledge and foster interrelationships among the fields of David Turnbull Lectureship Award in 2007. He was elected a physics, astronomy, astrophysics, and cosmology on campus. Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of The third floor of New Campbell is home to the Berkeley Science in 2005 and a member of the National Academy of Center for Cosmological Physics (BCCP). Eight astrophysicists Engineering in 2011. and cosmologists from the Berkeley physics faculty have offices Ramesh received his PhD in Materials Science from there: Stuart Bale, Steve Boggs, Reinhard Genzel, Dan Kasen, Berkeley in 1987. He joined the Berkeley physics faculty in Saul Perlmutter, Uros Seljak, Martin White, and George Smoot. 2004, and held the Plato-Malozemoff Chair in Materials The basement houses state-of-the-art physics laboratories Science and Physics from 2009-2012. From 2013-2014 he spent collectively called the Center for Integrated Precision and a sabbatical year as Deputy for Science and Technology at Oak Quantum Measurement. Funded by the National Institute of Ridge National Laboratory, returning to Berkeley this fall. Standards and Technology (NIST), an agency of the US Department of Commerce, the labs are specially designed for New Campbell Hall is Complete experiments requiring a low-vibration environment, low sus- Although dedication ceremonies won’t take place until early ceptibility to interference from electromagnetic radiation, low 2015, faculty, graduate students, postdocs, and staff members acoustic noise, and excellent temperature stability. are already moving into their offices in New Campbell Hall. “Part of our vision is to perform high precision research The new building is the home of all campus Astronomy into fundamental physical properties, which is a large part of Department faculty and several Physics Department faculty. what goes on at the NIST laboratories in Maryland,” says Astronomy classes will begin convening in the building’s state- Physics Professor Mike Crommie. “We hope to create a stronger of-the-art classrooms in the spring semester of 2015. connection between research at Berkeley and at NIST through “After more than a decade of planning and construction our activities in the basement laboratories of New Campbell.” and remarkable collaboration between Physics and Astronomy, Physics faculty members whose research groups are now we are thrilled that the building is finally occupied,” says housed in the basement laboratories are: Eleanor Crump, Facilities and Operations Manager for the Mike Crommie, whose group uses atomic and molecular Department of Physics. “We thank our Architect Kevin manipulation to study nanostructures; Crossman of Studios Architecture, Capital Projects Site Manager Jim Wert, and Project Manager Allan Palmer for a Dan Stamper-Kurn, whose Ultracold Atomic Physics Group spectacularly successful project.” studies quantum characteristics of condensed matter; The building features a rooftop teaching observatory that Feng Wang, whose Ultrafast Nano-Optics Group uses optical includes optical and radio telescopes. The ceiling dome of the spectroscopy to probe the properties of novel materials;

24 Physics at Berkeley | Fall 2014 Department News

Holger Müller, whose group makes precision measurements One of the six scientists profiled in the movie is Berkeley using atom interferometry; and alumnus and former Berkeley physics professor Nima Arkani- Irfan Siddiqi, whose Quantum Nanoelectronics Group measures Hamed. He received his PhD in 1997 under the guidance of the electric and magnetic properties of quantum systems. Berkeley theoretical physicist Lawrence Hall. There is also laboratory space for future faculty recruits. Several Berkeley physics faculty make brief appearances New Campbell Hall was constructed in accordance with UC in the film, including Hall, Beate Heinemann, Yasunori Berkeley’s green-building practices, and has a Gold LEED Nomura, Surjeet Rajendran, and Marjorie Shapiro. rating from the US Green Building Council. Once complete, it The Physics Department hosted a special screening of the will be known by its old monniker, Campbell Hall. movie on campus in September. Following the showing, director Levinson joined a panel of particle and theoretical Particle Fever physicists to discuss the film and the science that inspired it. The panel included physics faculty who appear in the film along with Petr Hořava, Director of the Berkeley Center for Theoretical Physics. Academy Award-winning film producer Walter Murch joined the conversation to offer perspective on how the film was made and how the search for the Higgs boson made for exciting film.

David Wineland Gives 2013 Segrè Lecture

Particle Fever Director and Berkeley alumnus Mark Levinson (above left) led an inspiring post-movie discussion with Berkeley physicists (many of whom were in the movie) in September 2014. photo credit: Sarah Wittmer

David Wineland photo credit: Sarah Wittmer

“Superposition, Entanglement, and Raising Schrödinger’s Cat” was the title of the 2013 Segrè Lecture, given by Nobel laureate and Berkeley physics alumnus David Wineland. He and Serge Haroche were awarded the 2012 Nobel Prize in physics for developing experimental methods capable of measuring and manipulating individual quantum systems. Wineland is a research scientist at the National Institute A documentary film about the Large Hadron Collider that for Standards and Technology (NIST), formerly the National chronicles the search for the Higgs boson – and features cameo Bureau of Standards, and a professor of physics at the appearances from several Berkeley physics faculty – was University of Maryland. released last year. But it was the appearance of the filmmakers To begin his talk, Wineland described Erwin Schrödinger’s on campus this year that generated considerable buzz. thought experiment in which a cat is sealed in a box with a Directed by Berkeley physics alumnus-turned-filmmaker radioactive particle and a poison. If the particle decays, the Mark Levinson, Particle Fever was inspired and produced by poison is released and the cat dies. But until the box is opened, David Kaplan, a theoretical particle physicist at Johns Hopkins the cat is both alive and dead. University. Wineland used Schrödinger’s cat to explain the concepts Press materials describe the film as “the inside story of six of quantum superposition and entanglement. Superposition, he brilliant scientists seeking to unravel the mysteries of the uni- said, is the cat in two states at once. Entanglement is the corre- verse, documenting the successes and setbacks in the planet’s lation between the state of the radioactive particle and the most significant and inspiring scientific breakthrough.” state of the cat.

Fall 2014 | Physics at Berkeley 25 Department News

He went on to discuss the evolution of his own career in electrons with selectrons, and so on. He showed how the precision measurement and control. He described how collec- addition of these still-theoretical particles fills blank spaces tions of charged particles – electrons or ions – can be ‘trapped’ in the standard model, much as blanks in Mendeleev’s in an electrode structure that restricts their movement, much original periodic table were filled in by elements later discovered like marbles rolling around at the bottom of a bowl. Trapping, later. combined with laser cooling, enables precise measurement of Gates showed examples of a graphic language for under- the particle’s properties. He and his colleagues realized methods standing superpartners that he and colleague Michael Fox for isolating a single particle in the experiment, which gives the developed. He displayed several animations that graphically highest precision measurements. represent mathematics used in SUSY, and explained how those Wineland also described experiments with trapped single representations enabled him to converse more easily with atoms that realize the concepts of Schrödinger’s cat. “We first mathematicians. This work grew into a collaboration among put the atom in a superposition of its internal ground state physicists and mathematicians that discovered certain forms and the first level of its excited state,” he explained. “Then we of error correction codes – such as those used to stabilize apply laser forces on the atom to excite the atom’s motion. But internet connections – buried deep within SUSY equations. how the motion is excited depends on the internal state of the He pointed out one example in nature that uses error atom, so the atom could be on both the left and right side of the correction codes. “There is evidence that they work within the bowl, the trap, at the same time.” genome to support stability,” he said. “But why would equations Wineland’s experimental techniques have given rise to of physics need error correcting codes? There is only one time increasingly precise atomic clocks and furthered the possibility in the history of the universe that I know about where this of building quantum computers. He explained how quantum may be true – near the time of the Big Bang.” He suggested bits, or qubits, carry exponentially larger amounts of informa- that laws of nature that arose in the intensely fluctuating tion than classical computer bits. He reviewed some of the environment of the Big Bang could have included error correc- algorithms that have been proposed to make use of this enor- tion codes that allowed stable structures to come into existence mous capacity. and maintain themselves in that environment. The Emilio Segrè Lectureship, created in 1987, enables In his conclusion, Gates said, “Error-correcting codes in the Department of Physics to bring some of the world’s most genomics are evidence of evolution. If SUSY is found in nature, important and influential experimental physicists to the then the big philosophical challenge will be to answer the Berkeley campus. It was established by an endowment from question ‘What are these error-correcting codes doing there?’ the Raymond and Beverly Sackler Foundation to honor Segrè, The only answer I know of from a model in nature is a model who shared with Owen Chamberlain the 1959 Nobel Prize in that comes from biology – genomics and evolution.” physics for the discovery of the antiproton. Gates is a Distinguished University Professor and A video of the 2013 Segrè Lecture can be viewed on the University System of Maryland Regents Professor, John S. Toll Department of Physics web site, physics.berkeley.edu. Professor of Physics, and Director of the Center for String and Particle Theory. In 2011 he was awarded the National Medal James Gates Gives 2014 Oppenheimer Lecture of Science and in 2013 received Villanova University’s Mendel On March 18, theoreti- Medal for his groundbreaking work in supersymmetry, super- cal physicist S. James gravity, and string theory. He serves on President Obama’s Gates, Jr. of the Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. University of Maryland Berkeley’s J. Robert Oppenheimer Lectureship, awarded gave this year’s annually, celebrates Oppenheimer’s contributions to science by Oppenheimer Lecture. bringing some of the brightest minds in theoretical physics to In his talk – “Did an the Berkeley campus. It was established in 1998 with support ‘Evolutionary’ Process from Berkeley alumnus Steve Krieger, Arlene Krieger, the Jane lead to Supersymmetry and Robert Wilson Endowment in Physics, and other Friends in Our Universe?” – of Physics. Gates summarized the A video of the 2014 Oppenheimer Lecture can be viewed James Gates photo credit: Sarah Wittmer fundamentals of on the Department of Physics web site, physics.berkeley.edu. supersymmetry (SUSY) and discussed unexpected evidence buried deep in its mathematical structure that suggests it may John Mather Gives Regents’ Lecture have links to a concept in genetics. Nobel laureate and Berkeley physics alumnus John Mather He began his remarks by describing the rationale behind came to campus in February to give the 2014 Regents’ Lecture. SUSY, which predicts a ‘super particle’ for each known sub- Mather is Senior Astrophysicist at NASA Goddard Space Flight atomic particle in the standard model of particle physics – Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and Senior Project Scientist for photons are partnered with photinos, gluons with gluinos, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope.

26 Physics at Berkeley | Fall 2014 Department News

In 2006, the Nobel Cal Day 2014 Prize in physics was awarded to Mather and Berkeley Physics Professor George Smoot for measure- ments of the cosmic microwave background that confirmed the Big Bang theory of the origin of the universe. Both Mather and Smoot received PhDs

John Mather photo credit: Sarah Wittmer from Berkeley while working in the research group of Paul L. Richards, now Emeritus Physics Professor. Physics professor Bob Jacobsen (above, left) led students through a series of In his talk, Mather gave a brief summary of the history of interactive exhibits. photo credit: Sarah Wittmer the universe and how scientists learned about it. He explained that the idea of a Big Bang doesn’t imply that there is a begin- ning of the universe, or a center. “As far as we can tell there is not a center of the universe,” he said. “All we know is that the universe has been changing from one form to another.” Nor is there a definite beginning. “Just because the clock hasn’t ticked more than 13.7 billion years,” he noted, “doesn’t mean there was ever a time zero.” Mather also described the James Webb Telescope, the planned successor to the Hubble Space Telescope, and profiled the man for whom the new instrument is named. President John F. Kennedy tasked NASA in 1962 with getting people to the Moon within a decade, and “James Webb was instrumental in making that possible,” Mather said. “He was a master manager, a master politician. We owe a lot to him. He also made sure we went not only to the moon but also to the planets and out of the solar system with some of the projects he sponsored. And This year’s Cal Day, UC Berkeley’s annual open house, took he started things like the (Berkeley) Space Sciences Laboratory place Saturday, April 12. The Department of Physics offered a up the hill.” wide variety of events, from lectures and lab demonstrations Mather explained that the new Webb telescope, the largest to guided tours and panel discussions. Thousands of visitors ever built, has earned the nickname ‘origami telescope’ got a chance to explore the department. because its mirrors – 25 feet across – must be intricately folded Sparks, explosions, and jaw-dropping lab demonstrations to fit into the top of the launch rocket. The telescope will be were conjured up by physics professor Bob Jacobsen in his Fun used to observe phenomena beyond the capabilities of the with Physics offering. Hands-on Physics featured interactive Hubble Space Telescope, such as seeing inside the dust clouds exhibits and demonstrations for all ages led by physics graduate that have so far obscured our view of star formation. students. Graduate students also led tours of the Quantum The new telescope also will be able to observe how gravi- Nanoelectronics Laboratory, teaching visitors about experi- tational forces contribute to galaxy formation, find out what ments conducted near absolute zero. happens as galaxies collide, and expand the hunt for extraso- In a lecture called Our Origins in Exploding Stars, Assistant lar planets. “It should enable us to tell if an earthlike planet Professor Dan Kasen told the story of stellar life, death and has enough water to have an ocean,” Mather noted. “Not to rebirth – how an ancient generation of massive stars blew say whether it’s alive, but maybe whether there’s a chance.” themselves apart as supernovae, how we were formed from The Regents’ Lecture Program, established more than 50 their ashes, and how remnants of the old giants are still around years ago, brings to the Berkeley campus distinguished speak- in the form of objects like black holes and neutron stars. ers who have pursued careers in arts, letters, science, and Assistant Professor James Analytis described the potential business. A video of the 2014 Regents’ Lecture can be viewed for new physics discoveries in condensed matter in a lecture on the Department of Physics web site, physics.berkeley.edu. called The Importance of New Materials in Science and Technology.

Fall 2014 | Physics at Berkeley 27 Department News

He discussed some of the new physics that emerges in materials, the Materials Research Society, “for explaining and predicting a few key achievements in utilizing the new physics, and how properties of materials and for successfully predicting new technological challenges could be met by discoveries of new materials using microscopic quantum theory.” Cohen has been compounds. invited to speak at the award ceremony, which will take place Students in Physics 111 led visitors through the Glaser in December. Advanced Lab, demonstrating how to build electrical circuits, Reinhard Genzel was awarded the William Herschel Medal of program computers to control experiments, trap atoms at ultra- the Royal Astronomical Society and received the Order Pour low temperatures, and use laser tweezers to measure piconewton Le Mérite for Sciences and Arts. forces. They explained how the Physics 111 course encourages students to apply theoretical understanding to real-world prob- Oscar Hallatschek was selected as a 2014 Simons Investigator in lems and, in the process, become innovators and problem-solvers. the program for Mathematical Modeling of Living Systems. Dark Matter Search was an open laboratory tour that Robert Jacobsen, who was recently taught visitors about what’s happening with WIMPS (weakly named Interim Dean of Undergraduate interacting massive particles), the universe, and the Big Bang. Studies in the College of Letters and Nobel Minds: A Conversation with UC Berkeley’s Most Honored Science, was honored by the National Professors featured a dialogue with four of UC Berkeley’s eight Academic Advising Association living Nobel laureates, including physicists Saul Perlmutter (NACADA), receiving the Excellence in and George Smoot. The panel discussed the role of science in Advising-Faculty Role award. The award modern society and how scientific methods can be applied to ceremony took place at the Region 9 complex global issues. Robert Jacobsen NACADA Conference, held at UC Physics Department Chair Steve Boggs headed a panel of Berkeley in March. faculty advisors, staff, and students that presented an overview Jacobsen has also been selected by the UC Berkeley College of the educational and research opportunities open to physics of Letters and Sciences to hold the Gary and Donna Freedman students. Physics Undergraduate Advisor Claudia Trujillo Chair in Undergraduate Education. This honor is awarded to welcomed drop-in visits from prospective students looking Berkeley’s most distinguished faculty members for their for information about the physics major. efforts in support of the educational mission of the University. Cal Day 2015 is set for Saturday, April 18. Daniel Kasen received a Presidential Faculty Awards Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE). James Analytis was named a Moore Fellow in Materials Synthesis, in support Edgar Knobloch presented an Edward of his materials synthesis and character- L. Reiss Distinguished Lecture at ization laboratory, “which will target the Northwestern University in May. He also discovery, development and advanced spent the spring semester at the Institut de Mécanique de Fluides de Toulouse, characterization of quantum materials.” Assistant Professor Daniel Kasen holding the Chaire d’Excellence Pierre Marvin Cohen was awarded a Doctor de Fermat de la région Midi-Pyrénées. of Science Honoris Causa from Hong Assistant Professor James Analytis Kong University of Science and Kam-Biu Luk was awarded the 2014 W.K.H. Panofsky Prize of Technology in 2013. the American Physical Society and the 2013 Lawrence Berkeley In 2014 he was named National Laboratory Director’s Award for Exceptional Honorary Chair of Achievement in Scientific Area. the International Joel Moore was named a Fellow of the American Physical Conference on the Society (APS). Physics of Semiconductors and Holger Müller was selected as the 2015 APS Francis M. Pipkin received a Doctor of Award, sponsored by the Topical Group on Precision Science Honoris Measurement and Fundamental Constants, “for his contribu- Causa from tions to precision metrology and tests of fundamental laws of Weizmann Institute physics through the development and application of atom interferometry.” The award will be presented at the APS April Marvin Cohen was one of six recipients of hon- of Science. orary doctorates bestowed by the Hong Kong Cohen was also 2015 meeting, which will feature an invited talk by Müller. University of Science and Technology in 2013. Cohen is a member of the International Jockey awarded the 2014 Von Jeff Neaton was named a Fellow of the American Physical Club Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) and an Hippel Award from Society (APS). IAS Visiting Professor.

28 Physics at Berkeley | Fall 2014 Department News

Gabriel Orebi Gann received the Hellman Faculty Fund Award. Presidential Awards Go to Kasen and Yildiz Joe Orenstein has been selected by the Gordon and Betty Daniel Kasen and Ahmet Yildiz, Assistant Professors in Moore Foundation as a Moore Experimental Investigator in Berkeley’s Department of Physics, were each awarded a 2014 Experimental Quantum Materials. The award is part of the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers Moore Foundation’s new Emergent Phenomena in Quantum (PECASE). The award is the highest honor bestowed by the Systems program, which supports outstanding physicists in United States Government on science and engineering profes- the pursuit of “ambitious, high-risk research, including the sionals in the early stages of their independent research development of new experimental techniques. …that could careers. Kasen and Yildiz were among 102 leading researchers transform our understanding of quantum materials.” who received PECASE awards at a Washington DC ceremony on April 15. Following the ceremony, recipients were greeted at Saul Perlmutter was elected a member of the American the White House by President Barack Obama. Philosophical Society. Eliot Quataert was the Halley Lecturer at Oxford University Staff News and Awards for Spring 2014. Maria Hjelm Moves to Letters & Science Ramamoorthy Ramesh was listed as one of the most influential After seven years leading the communi- scientists in the world in 2014 by Thomson Reuters, based on cations and philanthropy efforts of the the number of citations of his work. Department of Physics, Maria Hjelm has assumed a new position as Development Uroš Seljak was named a Fellow of the American Physical Director for the College of Letters and Society (APS). Science. Her appointment was effective Ashvin Vishwanath was named a Fellow of the American in May 2014. She will be working closely Physical Society (APS) and received a 2014 Guggenheim with Berkeley physics professor Frances Fellowship. Maria Hjelm Hellman, who becomes Dean of Math and Physics Sciences in January 2015. Feng Wang was named a Bakar Fellow for 2013-2014. The “I love the people in the physics department,” says Hjelm. Bakar Fellows Program supports innovative research by early “They are incredibly kind, intelligent, and stimulating. I don’t career faculty at UC Berkeley with a special focus on projects have a background in physics and so my tenure there was a great that hold commercial promise. Wang received the award in experience. I had to raise my game a bit and take on the chal- recognition of his use of graphene in development of novel lenge of learning the trends, subfields, and research. I loved it.” optoelectronics. These technologies range from an ultrafast Now, as a development director in the Dean’s office, Hjelm nanophotonic modulator to high-sensitivity infrared cameras. will broaden her philanthropy focus by adding Astronomy, Ahmet Yildiz received a 2014 Presidential Early Career Award Earth and Planetary Science, Mathematics, and Statistics to for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE). her portfolio. She will also maintain her strong connection to Alex Zettl won the 2013 the physics department and its supporters by continuing to Foresight Institute Feynman work with the Berkeley Center for Cosmological Physics (BCCP), Prize for Experimental the Berkeley Center for Theoretical Physics (BCTP), and in Molecular Nanotechnology in other areas. recognition of his “exceptional “I plan to stay connected, and I look forward to the future work in the fabrication of events and opportunities in the physics department,” she says. nanoscale electromechanical “Maria’s work and support of Berkeley Physics has been systems.” Named in honor of incredible,” says Steve Boggs, Physics Department Chair, “and Nobel laureate Richard we are thrilled that she has the opportunity to grow her career Feynman, who was widely in her new position at the Dean’s office. She leaves behind an credited with launching the incredibly talented and creative development and communi- field of nanoscience, the cations office and her support via her new position will help us Feynman prizes annually branch off in new directions.” recognize scientists whose New Faces in the Physics Administration Alex Zettl Credit: Joshua Lee at work has advanced Feynman’s Sunyata Studios Three new senior managers have recently joined the Berkeley vision. Physics support staff. Zettl was also elected to the 2014 class of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Brian Underwood is the new Academic Human Resources (HR) Manager. He has more than ten years of senior level HR experience and most recently served as the Academic HR

Fall 2014 | Physics at Berkeley 29 Department News

Department News

Analyst in the L&S Deans’ Office, and as a Senior HR Business In Memory Partner with UC Berkeley Campus Shared Services. Bruno Zumino (1923-2014) Christopher Marten is the department’s new Financial Bruno Zumino, Professor Emeritus of Services Manager. He previously served in Berkeley’s Research Physics at UC Berkeley, died Sunday, Enterprise Support Services organization and has more than June 22, at his home in Berkeley. He was 12 years of experience in fiscal management, global policy 91. Zumino was best known for his part development, and financial strategic planning and analysis for in developing supersymmetry, an exten- companies such as Oracle Corporation and Sun Microsystems. sion of the Standard Model of particle Susan Houghton has replaced Maria Hjelm as the new physics that is considered a leading Director of Development and Communications. She brings candidate for explaining the fundamental with her more than 25 years of experience in public affairs, forces of nature. communications, and philanthropy. Previous positions include Supersymmetry (SUSY) was developed in the early 1970s serving as the Director of Public Affairs at Lawrence Livermore at the European Center for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Geneva, National Lab, where she managed media relations and Switzerland, by Zumino and Julius Wess. It was conceived to employee communications, community and local government explain particle interactions involving three of the four main relations, science education, and the tour program. forces in nature – the strong, electromagnetic, and weak forces. One consequence of the theory is that every particle we see today has a SUSY partner - the quark has an associated squark, for example, while the electron has a selectron. Zumino and Stanley Deser, and separately Dan Freedman, Sergio Ferrara, and Peter Van Nieuwenhuizen, later extended the so-called “Wess-Zumino model” of SUSY to include gravity, creating a theory called supergravity. To date, none of these superpartners has been detected. Scientists at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider, which in 2012 produced evidence for the Higgs boson – a particle that endows the rest of matter with mass – are now looking for heavier particles that would be evidence of SUSY. Scientists even hold out hope that one of the superpartners will be the elusive dark matter particle that, despite making up one-quarter of the mass of the universe, so far has gone undetected. “Supersymmetry is so beautiful and suggestive that most of us think it has got to show up sometime in nature, although so far it hasn’t,” said Zumino’s friend and colleague Steven Weinberg, a physics professor at the University of Texas, Austin, the 1979 Nobel Laureate in physics, and the author of a major treatise on SUSY. “Bruno had an uncanny ability to work on theories important both for their mathematical structure and for their connection to experiments,” said theoretician Lawrence Hall, UC Berkeley Professor of Physics. “When he introduced super- symmetry, he could have had no idea that 40 years later there would be a laboratory at CERN with more than 4,000 people looking for evidence of the theory.” Symmetries in Nature Zumino was one of the first theoreticians in the 1960s and ‘70s to focus on symmetries in nature and what they might tell us about the fundamental laws of nature. Symmetries are all around us. Circles are rotationally symmetric because they look the same when rotated. Physical laws, according to Einstein’s theory of special relativity, are the same whether you are standing still or moving at a constant velocity. Zumino was seeking a mathematical description of forces that would

30 Physics at Berkeley | Fall 2014 Department News improve on the Standard Model, which precisely describes Zumino’s honors include membership in the National strong and electromagnetic interactions, by including weak Academy of Sciences and fellowship in the American Academy interactions like those involved in the decay of radioactive of Arts and Sciences and the American Physical Society. He nuclei. received numerous awards, including the 1987 Dirac Prize, 1988 “I think Bruno understood earlier than most people how Dannie Heineman Prize for Mathematical Physics, 1989 Max important symmetry was going to be in the development of Planck medal, 1992 Wigner medal, 1992 Humboldt Research physics,” Weinberg said. Award, 1999 Gian Carlo Wick Commemorative Gold Medal and In 1958, Zumino and Gerhart Luders proved the CPT the 2005 Enrico Fermi Prize of the Italian Physical Society. theorem, which said that any realistic theory of nature has to In 2013, UC Berkeley honored Zumino, on the occasion of look the same if the charge and parity of every particle is his 90th birthday, with a symposium dubbed Brunofest. It was flipped and time flows backwards. This theorem was incredibly attended by many well-known theorists from around the important for people trying to understand why the universe world. A memorial in his honor was held on October 24, 2013. contains more normal matter – the stuff from which we are Zumino is survived by his wife, Mary K, and three step- made – than antimatter, Hall said. “It really was an astonishingly children: Alain Gaillard of Strasbourg, France; Dominique important achievement,” he said. Gaillard of Seattle, WA; and Bruno Gaillard of Piedmont, CA. Hall explained that requiring theories to be symmetric Gifts in Zumino’s memory can be made to a graduate “narrows down the number of possible theories, to the point fellowship fund, The Julius Wess and Benjamin Lee Fellowship that eventually there are too few of them to choose from to Fund, in the UC Berkeley Department of Physics. The fund describe nature, which is when you have to break symmetries.” was established by Zumino and Gaillard in honor of their One of Zumino’s important contributions, Weinberg said, scientific collaborators and dear friends. was pointing out the importance of broken symmetry, that is, ~Contributed by Robert Sanders, UC Berkeley Media Relations “when a symmetry of the underlying equations is not reflected Andrew Sessler (1928-2014) in the physical world,” and the real-world implications of sym- metry breaking. The Higgs boson, for example, is a byproduct Andrew Marienhoff Sessler, former of physical processes that break symmetry between the weak Director of Lawrence Berkeley National and electromagnetic forces, Weinberg said. Laboratory, died April 17 following a long illness. He was 85. From Italy to New York, Geneva, and Berkeley Sessler was a visionary in accelerator Zumino was born April 28, 1923, in Rome, Italy. He obtained and energy sciences. He led the scientific his DSc degree from the University of Rome in 1945, and moved research landscape toward new horizons to New York University in 1951, first as a research associate in sustainable energy and the environ- and later as an assistant professor in the Department of ment. And he was instrumental in the worldwide effort to Physics. In 1968, he joined CERN as a senior researcher. He liberate scientists suffering from political oppression. remained there until 1981, when he moved to Berkeley with his “Andy Sessler had exceptional taste in physics, and tried wife, Mary K. Gaillard, who had been hired as the first tenured hard to imbue a similar sensibility in his students,” recalls woman professor in the UC Berkeley Physics Department. He Berkeley physics professor Jonathan Wurtele. “He was an took a cut in salary to accompany her, Gaillard said. excellent advisor and mentor. He demanded that his students, Zumino remained a member of the UC Berkeley physics when explaining their results, never ‘hide behind mathematics.’ faculty from 1982 until his retirement in 1994, though he con- “Andy was practical, informal, and came in 7 days a week,” tinued to be active in the department until early last year, Wurtele adds. “His personal motto was ‘there is never a reason when his health began to fail. not to do physics.’ One never knew what topic might be brought Throughout his career, he pioneered new mathematical up for discussion. It kept his students alert." tools to explain the forces of nature, many of which have had Born on December 11, 1928, Sessler showed an early talent tremendous theoretical ramifications. For example, Zumino and for science, and was one of the first Westinghouse Talent Australian theoretical physicist Julius Wess introduced ideas Search finalists. He received a BA in mathematics from Harvard from geometry and topology into the particle physics that under- and a PhD in physics from Columbia University. He was in the lie the modern treatment of anomalies in field theory. Zumino first group of National Science Foundation postdocs, working at was a leader in the application of modern geometrical ideas. Cornell University with Hans Bethe. From 1954 to 1959 he was In recent years, he collaborated with Gaillard on pioneering on the faculty at Ohio State, after which he joined the Lawrence work about duality, a concept that underlies many of the most Radiation Laboratory, now the Lawrence Berkeley National exciting developments in string theory produced during the Laboratory (Berkeley Lab). He spent the rest of his career there past couple of decades. and served as Berkeley Lab’s third director, from 1973 to 1980. “Bruno was just perpetually young, in terms of his way of Sessler received the Fermi Award from President thinking,” Hall said. Obama in 2014. His many additional honors include the

Fall 2014 | Physics at Berkeley 31 Department News

Ernest Orlando Lawrence Award in 1970, which is the U.S. Human Rights Activist Department of Energy’s highest scientific recognition; the Sessler was an acclaimed humanitarian and public advocate American Physical Society (APS) Dwight Nicholson Medal in for scientific freedom. His activities at the American Physical 1995; the APS Robert R. Wilson Prize in 1997; and the Enrico Society (APS) over many years helped transform its focus on Fermi Award in early 2014. He was APS president in 1998. “physics” to include “physics and society,” with attention to national funding, patterns of employment, science education Accelerator Scientist and Lab Director at all levels, societal issues involving physics, informing the Sessler made several key contributions to physics and acceler- public, international affairs, arms control, and, in particular, ator science. His 1960 paper with J. Emery, together with a the human rights of his physics colleagues. contemporaneous competing paper from Anderson et al., is Intensely concerned about human rights, Sessler focused generally acknowledged as the first to predict the superfluid on scientists caught in political situations beyond their transition of helium-3. control. He wrote letters in support of dissidents in the Soviet His contributions to accelerator science, beginning with Union and other countries. He was active on boards and his association with the Midwestern Universities Research committees that pursued human rights activities within many Association, were pivotal for developing modern high-perfor- organizations, including the APS, the National Academy of mance accelerators. They included a Hamiltonian-based radio- Sciences, the New York Academy of Sciences, the Committee frequency acceleration theory; a method to produce intense of Concerned Scientists, the Union of Concerned Scientists, circulating proton beams by stacking, which made feasible and Amnesty International. He donated large sums of money very high-luminosity proton colliders such as CERN’s Large to charities, including Doctors without Borders, Berkeley Food Hadron Collider; and a systematic study of beam instabilities and Housing, and FINCA (a global charitable microfinance at high intensity, which became the standard for all modern organization). accelerator design. Sessler was instrumental in initiating the APS Committee Sessler’s 1981 proposal for a high-gain free electron laser on International Freedom of Scientists and raising funds to (FEL) amplifier for high-power, mm wave generation helped endow the APS Sakharov Prize for Human Rights. Along with lay the foundation for the emergence of the era of X-ray FELs, his colleague Moishe Pripstein, he was a co-founder of which began in 2009 with the successful startup of the Linac Scientists for Sakharov, Orlov, and Sharansky (SOS). Protests Coherent Light Source at SLAC. His basic concept for a two- by SOS and others led to the release of these Soviet dissidents beam accelerator that mixed high and low energies and currents and to an overall increase in pressure by the scientific commu- was modified to become the Compact Linear Collider project nity in solidarity with their politically oppressed colleagues. at CERN, a candidate technology for a future multi-TeV electron- He also was one of the principal organizers of the “good-faith positron linear collider. witness” exchange, which earned the release of Elena Bonner, As director of Berkeley Lab, Sessler ushered in a new era the wife of Andrei Sakharov, from the Soviet Union to the U.S. of research on energy efficiency and sustainable energy tech- to receive medical care. nology by establishing what would become the Energy and Sessler was an avid outdoor person and loved sharing Environment Division. It was the first such group at any of the physical activities, such as swimming, rowing, skiing, and national laboratories and was instrumental in transforming bicycling, with family and friends. He was a mentor to many their missions from science labs to science, engineering, and younger colleagues and to many his own age who learned energy labs. Under Sessler’s leadership, Berkeley Lab grew to much from him. Later in life, he could be found jogging with its largest size ever, with more than 5,000 employees, and others during lunchtime, sharing jokes and solving physics expanded beyond its leading roles in physics, chemistry and challenges. biology to its current multi-program efforts. Just as he loved sharing the outdoors, he loved sharing Paul Alivisatos, current director of Berkeley Lab, said, knowledge and seldom wrote scientific papers alone. A long-time “Andy Sessler changed the face and character of our laboratory. friend and colleague expressed a sentiment shared by many: “If He successfully made the case for science to aid our country there was ever a scientist for whom the physics community was during its first energy crisis and helped establish the Lab’s at the center of his life and work, it was Andy Sessler.” efforts that brought about important technologies and standards Sessler is survived by three children and six grandchildren. that have improved the way we conserve and consume energy.” Those wishing to make donations in his name are encouraged “Andy was fond of relating how, as Lab Director, he went to consider the Mary and David Sessler Endowment Fund, down to the city and looked up at the lab,” Wurtele remembers. which supports Berkeley graduate students in physics. “Buildings that stood out too much were repainted in brown ~Contributed in part by Lynn Yarris, Berkeley Lab News Center to better blend in with the hillside. In those days the lab was barely noticeable from campus or downtown.” Sessler’s sense of aesthetics also led him to insist on the removal of street signs around the lab that he considered unnecessary.

32 Physics at Berkeley | Fall 2014 PHysics in the Media University of California – Berkeley. Bigger than the discovery of the Higgs boson? I ask him in disbelief. “Oh yeah, no question. Physics in the News There’s a very low probability but an enormous reward if anti- Excerpts from news coverage of UC Berkeley physicists matter were to gravitate differently than we expect.” Last April, Fajans and his colleagues reported results International Linear Collider will search for ‘unifying from the most sensitive test yet on gravity’s influence on anti- theory of everything’ hydrogen, an atom made of antimatter particles. Using the from CNN Nov 5, 2013, by Arion McNicoll ALPHA experiment at CERN, they corralled antihydrogen … CNN Labs with magnets, stopping it from running off and being annihi- spoke to some of lated willy-nilly. Then they simply turned the magnets off. The the world’s top aim was to figure out when and where a controlled antihydro- physicists about gen atom touches the wall and goes poof, so you can calculate what the discov- whether it was being pulled by gravity–and whether it went up ery of the Higgs or down. Boson means, The first results were a solid start: They put some limits and what ques- on how antihydrogen could be behaving. The team found that tions now need antihydrogen could not have been falling down more than 100 to be addressed. times faster than regular hydrogen, and it could not have been … falling up more than 65 times faster than theory predicts. That’s The aim of the International Linear Collider (ILC) is to shed light on the mystery of what makes up most of the Hitoshi the best ALPHA can do for now. universe. Image credit: Monique Rivalland Murayama, a NuSTAR sheds light on supernova mechanisms professor of physics at UC Berkeley, says: “The main question is this: we from CBS News Feb 19, 2014, have never seen an elementary particle without spin. The by William Harwood Higgs boson may actually have spin but it is spinning in extra A space-based X-ray telescope has detected the glow of radioac- dimensions of space we cannot see. We really need to know tive titanium created in the catastrophic death throes of a dis- the true nature and context of this newly discovered particle.” tant star, shedding new light on the mechanisms that may be To answer these questions the Large Hadron Collider responsible for destroying massive suns and creating the heavy will soon be joined by another massive experimental facility – elements that give the cosmos its substance…. the International Linear Collider (ILC). Like the LHC, the Launched in 2012, NASA’s Nuclear Spectroscopic ILC will be a vast machine that stretches for miles beneath Telescope Array, or NuSTAR, satellite is sensitive to high- the earth. A site for the ILC has yet to be determined. energy X-rays generated in extremely violent cosmic events. [Murayama was interviewed about this topic by CNN “The result we’re unveiling today is the first ever map of radio- TV in the U.S., and by TV stations in France and Germany.] active material in the remnants of a star that exploded in an incredibly powerful event called a supernova,” said [UC Does Antimatter Fall Up? Berkeley alumna] Fiona Harrison, NuSTAR principal investi- from slate.com Feb 11, 2014 by Victoria Jaggard gator at the California Institute of Technology. Since the days “This is helping us to untangle the mysteries surrounding of Galileo pur- how stars explode and in particular, what’s happening at the portedly drop- very heart of the explosion. No other telescope could make ping balls off this map.” … Italian towers, Co-author and NuSTAR investigator Steven Boggs at the experiments University of California-Berkeley said the Cas A observations let have suggested scientists study “the fundamental physics of the nuclear explo- that any two sion at the heart of the supernova like we have never been able objects will fall to do before.” down at the “Stars are spherical balls of gas, and so you might think The CERN lab in December 2013. photo credit: Anna same rate, Pantelia/CERN Photo Lab that when they end their lives and explode, that explosion accounting for would look like a uniform ball expanding out with great power,” friction, regardless of their mass and composition. But no one he said in a news release. “Our new results show how the explo- has been able to test this directly for antimatter, which hints at sion’s heart, or engine, is distorted, possibly because the inner the tantalizing possibility that it will do something unexpected. regions literally slosh around before detonating.” “That would be the greatest revolution in physics in the past 20 to 30 years,” says Joel Fajans, a physicist at the

Fall 2014 | Physics at Berkeley 33 Physics in the Media

Does Antimatter Fall Up Or Down? New Device May Despite intensive searches at the Large Hadron Collider, Provide Answer none of these supersymmetric partners have been detected in from Live Science April 1, 2014 by Charles Q. Choi nature yet. However, Tarun Grover, D. N. Sheng, and Berkeley “We don’t really Physics Professor Ashvin Vishwanath proposed in a new understand anti- paper that an analog of supersymmetry could exist in certain matter,” study exotic superconducting systems. By manipulating the charac- author Holger teristics of materials called “topological superconductors,” Müller, a physi- researchers should be able to change particle-like excitations cist at the into their supersymmetric partners. The similarity in the University of physical description of these different systems could provide California at some important insights into the possible nature of supersym- Berkeley, told metry and its violation in nature. Live Science. In George Smoot: We mapped the embryonic universe Holger Müller photo credit: Damon English addition, there from The Observer April 20, 2014 by Zoe Corbyn is much about gravity that remains uncertain. For instance, In 1992, astronomers looking at how galaxies rotate discovered there is [Berkeley] far more gravity holding them together than there should be, cosmologist “which is usually ascribed to gravity from dark matter, but George Smoot nobody knows what that is,” Müller said. and colleagues “The combination of antimatter and gravity has never been announced the directly experimentally tested before.” Now researchers have startling news proposed a device they suggest could help solve the mystery of that they had whether antimatter falls up or down. found and The instrument, a light-pulse atom interferometer works mapped a by studying cold particles – ones cooled to a degree above the pattern of tiny coldest possible temperature, absolute zero. George Smoot photo credit: Berkeley Lab temperature At such cold temperatures, scientists can see particles fluctuations in the CMB using a NASA satellite. “If you’re reli- behaving much like waves, rippling up and down within a gious, it’s like seeing God,” Smoot famously and provocatively chamber. By analyzing how these “matter waves” interfere with said at the press conference to announce the findings. His each other, the researchers can distinguish the force of gravity discovery confirmed the big bang theory of the universe’s each particle is experiencing. origin, explaining how that event could have led to the cosmos Müller and his colleagues are working to construct their looking as it does today. device and integrate into the ALPHA experiment at the CERN physics lab in Geneva, Switzerland. The scientists expect their Has Cern been worth the money? The answer is yes. If you look system will reach an initial accuracy of better than one percent at what the cost is and what it has done – made this progress to for measuring how anti-hydrogen falls, and they noted they really understand how fundamental particles interact with one could eventually improve this accuracy 10,000-fold. another – it has certainly been worth it. It is a legacy for humankind for less cost than a carrier fleet. A sort of particle-free supersymmetry found in exotic What words of advice would you give to a teenager who wants a materials: Behavior of electrons in topological super- career in science? First it is a good choice because the world conductors emulates supersymmetry. needs people with skills in science, engineering and technology from ars technica Apr 3, 2014 by Matthew Francis and will pay for them. It should be something that really drives Many of the great successes of particle physics involve symme- you because there are times when it is hard work and you need tries of nature and the occasional violation of those symmetries. the motivation to push through those difficult periods. Discoveries such as the Higgs boson are strong vindications of Do you have a fantasy experiment or study that you have been this view of the world and of the Standard Model that describes unable to do for logistical/ethical/cost reasons? We are hoping to these particles. launch a new satellite to study gamma ray bursts. We managed An extension to the Standard Model, called supersymme- to scrape together $2m to build instruments and another $4m try, takes this idea further by incorporating symmetries of to build the spacecraft. Everything is ready, yet it is sitting in space-time, as the name suggests. One side effect of super- the clean room waiting for Roscosmos (the Russian Federal Space symmetry in particle physics is the prediction of a partner to Agency) to launch it. each known particle, which (among other things) could help solve the mystery of dark matter.

34 Physics at Berkeley | Fall 2014 Physics in the Media

Astronomers Hedge on Big Bang Detection Claim “We applied an external force to the center-of-mass from Nature News May 29, 2014 by Ron Cowen motion of an ultracold atom cloud in a high-finesse optical Researchers said in March that they had found a faint twisting cavity and measured the resulting motion optically,” says pattern in the polarization of the cosmic microwave background Dan Stamper-Kurn, a physicist with Berkeley Lab’s Materials (CMB), the Big Bang’s afterglow, using a South Pole-based radio Sciences Division and with the UC Berkeley Physics Department. telescope called BICEP2. This pattern, they said, was evidence We achieved a sensitivity that is consistent with theoretical for primordial gravitational waves, ripples in the fabric of space- predictions and only a factor of four above the Standard time generated in the early Universe. The announcement caused Quantum Limit, the most sensitive measurement that can a sensation because it seemed to confirm the theory of cosmic be made.” inflation, which holds that the cosmos mushroomed in size Researchers map most likely trajectory of supercon- during the first fraction of a second after the Big Bang. ducting circuit, illuminate Schrödinger’s cat principle However two independent analyses now suggest that those from the Daily Californian Aug 7, 2014 by Katy Abbott twisting patterns in the CMB polarization could just as easily Researchers have taken a peek into the box containing be accounted for by dust in the Milky Way Galaxy. Schrodinger’s cat with the publication of a study Thursday that “Based on what we know right now… we have no evidence mapped the most likely trajectory of a superconducting circuit. for or against gravitational waves,” says Uroš Seljak, an astro- In the study, co-authored by UC Berkeley researchers and physicist at the University of California, Berkeley, a co-author published in the journal Nature, the team confirmed its theory of one of the latest studies. about the most likely trajectory, which allows scientists to under- Seljak and his Berkeley colleague, Michael Mortonson, stand how quantum systems change until they reach a perma- took a more conservative approach to scrutinizing the BICEP2 nent condition. By probing circuits as they moved from an initial results. With the amount of polarization due to dust in the state to a final state, researchers came to a discovery that rep- south polar region as yet unmeasured, Seljak and Mortonson resents a significant advance for the world of quantum physics. restricted their analysis to a known quantity – the intensity of The metaphorical cat follows a continuous trajectory from microwaves emitted by dust over different spatial scales on its initial state until the lid is opened and its condition is the sky. In assuming that the intensity of dust varies in the revealed – although in this case, the cat is a very cold super- same way over all parts of the sky, including the South Pole, conducting circuit made of aluminum. By probing the system, the researchers found no clear evidence that the BICEP2 signal researchers can determine where on the spectrum the cat lies should be attributed to gravitational waves. between alive or dead without even opening the box. Seljak and Mortonson also re-examined data on how the “The idea that has puzzled and troubled people for a long strength of the signal detected by BICEP2 varied with the time with this postulate is, how is it that, instantaneously, you frequency of the microwaves. The BICEP2 team argued that look at something and suddenly ‘poof,’ it’s either alive or dead?” the intensity of the signal recorded at 150 gigahertz, ...seemed said Irfan Siddiqi, a [Berkeley] campus associate professor of to favour gravitational waves over dust by an 11-to-1 margin. physics who co-authored the paper. “It’s not instantaneous. But Seljak and Mortonson say that the BICEP2 team did not There is information flowing out of the system.” exclude data on small spatial scales in their frequency analysis. Siddiqi said the findings could be applied to the field of That is a problem, Seljak says, because on small scales, gravita- quantum computers, which have the potential to be more tional lensing – the bending of light due to massive objects – powerful than today’s computers, by developing a system to exactly mimics the twisting polarization pattern that gravita- improve continuous error processing. tional waves imprint on larger spatial scales. Accounting for the lensing signal, “the primordial gravity- Watching Schrödinger’s Cat wave signal is preferred to dust with odds of less than 2 to 1 – from Huffington Post Aug 7, 2014 by Robert Sanders in other words, not significant odds at all,” says Seljak. If you put a cat inside an opaque box and make his life depen- 42 Yoctonewtons: Researchers Detect Smallest Force dent on a random event, when does the cat die? When the Ever Measured random event occurs, or when you open the box? University of California, Berkeley, physicists have, for the from NBC News July 1, 2014 by James Eng first time, showed that, in fact, it’s possible to follow the meta- Physicists using a combination of lasers and a unique optical phorical cat through the whole process, whether he lives or trapping system that provides a cloud of ultracold atoms say dies in the end. they have detected what is believed to be the smallest force “Gently recording the cat’s paw prints both makes it die, or ever measured. The researchers, from the Lawrence Berkeley come to life, as the case may be, and allows us to reconstruct its National Laboratory and the University of California Berkeley, life history,” said Irfan Siddiqi, UC Berkeley associate professor measured a force of approximately 42 yoctonewtons. A yoc- of physics, who is the senior author of a cover article describing tonewton is one septillionth (that’s 1 followed by 24 zeroes) of the result in the July 31 issue of the journal Nature. a newton, the standard unit of force.

Fall 2014 | Physics at Berkeley 35 Physics in the Media

The Schrödinger’s cat paradox is a critical issue in quantum this field. It gives an intuitive yet sufficiently detailed and rig- computers, where the input is an entanglement of states ...like orous introduction to light-atom interactions with particular the cat’s entangled life and death ...yet the answer to whether emphasis on the symmetry aspects, especially those associated the animal is dead or alive has to be definite. Siddiqi said. “But with angular momentum of atoms and light. real-time tracking of a quantum system shows that it’s a contin- Quantum Mechanics: An Experimentalist’s Approach uous process, and that we can constantly extract information Eugene D. Commins, Cambridge University Press, 2014. from the system as it goes from quantum to classical. This ISBN 9781107063990 level of detail was never considered accessible by the original founders of quantum theory.” A new book by Berkeley Emeritus A big question regarding quantum computers, Siddiqi said, Physics Professor Eugene Commins is whether you can extract information without destroying the was published in September by quantum system entirely. Cambridge University Press. “This gets around that fundamental problem in a very Quantum Mechanics takes an experi- natural way,” he said. “We can continuously probe a system mentalist’s approach, using concrete very gently to get a little bit of information and continuously physical explanations over formal, correct it, nudging it back into line, toward the ultimate goal.” abstract descriptions to address the needs and interests of a diverse Competition for Graphene group of students. from phys.org Aug 26, 2014 by Lynn Yarris Commins says, “It is an outgrowth of lecture notes I A new argument has just been added to the growing case for developed while teaching Physics 221AB many times between graphene being bumped off its pedestal as the next big thing 1965 and 2010.” Physics 221 is a first-year graduate course. in the high-tech world. Instruction is supported by over 160 challenging problems “We’ve demonstrated, for the first time, efficient charge to illustrate concepts and provide students with ample oppor- transfer in MX2 heterostructures through combined photolu- tunity to test their knowledge and understanding. The book minescence mapping and transient absorption measurements,” covers the many modern developments in quantum physics, says Feng Wang, a condensed matter physicist with Berkeley including Bell’s inequalities, locality, photon polarization corre- Lab’s Materials Sciences Division and the University of lations, the stability of matter, Casimir forces, geometric California (UC) Berkeley’s Physics Department. “...our study phases, Aharonov-Bohm and Aharonov-Casher effects, magnetic suggests that MX2 heterostructures, with their remarkable monopoles, neutrino oscillations, neutron interferometry, the electrical and optical properties and the rapid development of Higgs mechanism, and the electroweak standard model. large-area synthesis, hold great promise for future photonic Ray Tracing and Beyond: Phase Space Methods in and optoelectronic applications.” “We’re also interested in controlling the charge transfer Plasma Wave Theory E. R. Tracy, A. J. Brizard, A. S. Richardson, A. N. Kaufman; process with external electrical fields as a means of utilizing Cambridge University Press, 2014 MX2 heterostructures in photovoltaic devices,” Wang says. Berkeley Emeritus Physics Professor Allan Kaufman is one of Physics in Print four co-authors of a new book published in April by Cambridge Books and articles authored or edited by UC Berkeley physicists University Press. Kaufman describes the book as “an extended Optically Polarized Atoms: Understanding Light-Atom exposition of our joint research program.” Interactions Ray Tracing and Beyond is a resource for graduate students Marcis Auzinsh, Dmitry Budker, Simon M. Rochester; Oxford and researchers in plasma physics. It offers a complete intro- University Press, 2010; 2014. ISBN 978-0-19-870502-4. duction to the use of modern ray tracing techniques in plasma physics, describes the powerful mathematical methods gener- The paperback edition of a book ally applicable to vector wave equations in non-uniform media, co-authored by Berkeley physics and clearly demonstrates the application of these methods to professor Dmitry Budker was released simplify and solve important problems in plasma wave theory. by Oxford University Press this year. It covers variational principles, covariant formulations, The new edition of Optically Polarized caustics, tunnelling, mode conversion, weak dissipation, wave Atoms includes corrections and is also emission from coherent sources, incoherent wave fields, and available as an ebook. collective wave absorption and emission, all within an accessible This in-depth textbook is addressed framework using standard plasma physics notation. to upper-level undergraduates and The book contains over 100 end-of-chapter problems and graduate students involved in research is accompanied by open source Matlab and Raycon code. in atomic, molecular, and optical physics. Written in an easy, accessible style, it is also useful to researchers practicing in

36 Physics at Berkeley | Fall 2014 Undergraduate Affairs David Walrod is an independent investor and entrepreneur with a focus Society for Physics Students on high growth companies in technology, Berkeley’s Society for Physics Students healthcare, and financial services. He (SPS), founded and operated by under- talked with students about some of his graduate physics students, was estab- current ventures, and gave advice on lished to foster a sense of community searching for work and using the leverage in the Departments of Physics and of a physic degree. Walrod received a Astronomy. SPS is a national, profession- BA in physics from Berkeley, a PhD in al organization open to all students physics from MIT, and a JD from Harvard. interested in physics. He has managed equity investments for SPS at Berkeley sponsors a variety Oak Investment Partners, and presently Undergraduates enjoyed lunch with Nobel laureate sits on the boards of Pier 88, SCRx, of social and academic activities during and Berkeley physics alumnus John Mather at a the year. Gatherings range from early Career Roundtable sponsored by SPS in February. Gener8, Lumasense Technologies, evening or Sunday afternoon socials and photo credit: Sarah Wittmer TrustID, and Violin Memory. barbecues, to lab tours, faculty lunches, research instruments corporation. His and noontime career roundtables. Earlier breadth of experience ranges from work this year, the group sponsored tours of at SLAC and Fermilab to NASA. He the Advanced Light Source at Lawrence received his bachelor’s degree from MIT Berkeley Lab and the National Ignition and his PhD in physics from Berkeley. Facility at Lawrence Livermore John Mather, Nobel laureate and National Lab. Berkeley physics alumnus, spoke with Each faculty lunch offers students a students about his current position as chance to talk informally with a physics Project Scientist for the James Webb professor. Lunches held during the Telescope, which will be launched later 2013-2014 academic year featured in this decade. Mather is a senior astro- conversations with Dmitry Budker, physicist at NASA Goddard Space Flight Roger Falcone, Bob Jacobsen,Yury Center and adjunct professor of physics Kolomensky, Adrian Lee, Jeff Neaton, at University of Maryland, College Park. Dan Stamper-Kurn, and Peter Yu. He shared the 2006 Nobel prize in physics The Berkeley SPS also offers an with Berkeley Physics Professor George introductory panel discussion at the Smoot for measurements of fluctuations In April, physics undergraduate Athena Ierokomos (right) talked with fellow students about her beginning of each semester to welcome in the cosmic microwave background. In research – The Structure and Function of entering freshmen, organizes tutoring 2007 Mather was listed among Time mag- Adenylate Kinase – at the annual Undergraduate Poster Session. photo credit: Kathy Lee sessions for lower division students, azine’s 100 most influential people in the helps with annual Cal Day activities on world. In 2012 Time listed him as one of campus, and staffs a booth at the the 25 most influential people in space. Undergraduate Poster Session annual Bay Area Science Festival. Scott Shenker is a professor in the Undergraduate researchers had an Electrical Engineering and Computer opportunity to discuss their work with SPS Career Roundtables Sciences Department at UC Berkeley. fellow students at the 2014 The Berkeley SPS hosted four career He is also chief scientist and leader of Undergraduate Poster Session, held on roundtables during the 2013-2014 the New Initiatives Group at Berkeley’s Wednesday, April 23 in 375 LeConte. academic year. At each of these events, International Computer Science The session was sponsored by the prestigious physics alumni – from Institute. He received a PhD in physics Physics Department and organized by Berkeley or elsewhere – talk with students from University of Chicago, and an hon- Undergraduate Advisors Claudia over lunch about his or her career. SPS orary doctorate from the same univer- Trujillo and Kathy Lee. provides the pizza, and all undergradu- sity in recognition of his contributions Student researchers and the topics ates are welcome. to Internet architecture. A leader in the they presented included: Matt Kowitt shared with students movement toward Software-Defined Loïc Anderegg – Testing Lorentz his unique perspective as a physicist who Networking, Shenker was co-founder Invariance Using a Single Birefringent builds instrumentation hardware for a and chief scientist of Nicira, a company High-Finesse Optical Cavity living. He is a senior design engineer and established in 2007 to focus on network Andrew Berger – Minimum Probability product manager at Stanford Research virtualization that was acquired by Flow Learning on the Ising Model Systems, a major industrial and VMware in 2012.

Fall 2014 | Physics at Berkeley 37 UNDERGRADUATE AFFAIRS

Ayman Bin Kamruddin – A Geometric Course for Physics Transfer Laboratory, where he participated in Crescent Model for Black Hole Images Students assembling COSI – the Compton Anastasia Bizyaeva – Studies of A new course designed to smooth the Spectrometer and Imager – designed Predictions for the Kinematics of Top- transition for transfer students entering to detect low energy gamma rays from Quark Pair Production the Department of Physics at Berkeley the Milky Way galaxy (see p 10). According to a report produced by Thamine N. Dalichaouch – Investigating is now in its second year. Offered for last year’s graduate student instructors the Effects of Electric Field Noise from the first time in Fall 2013, “Physics 198, and the faculty sponsor, Holger Müller, Metallic Surfaces in Ultra-Low Transfer Course for Physics Majors” was students in the course “became com- Temperature Ion Traps so successful that it is being continued at least through 2015. fortable with reading and discussing Akash V. Dixit – Charge Transport in The idea for the course initially arose scientific literature like professionals, mK Germanium Detectors of the Cryogenic through Berkeley De Cal – a student- developed confidence in their ability to Dark Matter Search run program that enables students to join research groups, and learned to foster Isaac Domagalski – Understanding an create their own classes under the their own scientific interests beyond “Undershoot” Effect in the Blue CCD of sponsorship of an academic department what is handed to them in textbooks. the SNIFS Detector on campus. Support for the new There was a sense of security that Joel Grebel – Magnetic Microscopy with transfer course came from the Physics developed over the course; students felt Nitrogen Vacancy Centers in Diamond Department and its Compass Project, a sense of belonging and welcome at Berkeley. Transfer students recognized Sojin Han – Neutrinoless Double Beta the campus-wide Cal NERDS program their prevalence in the department.” Decay (0νββ) with CUORE and TES (New Experiences for Research and Diversity in Science), and Berkeley This fall, the transfer course is being Mandy Huo – Fabrication and physics alumnus Dr. Melvin Pomerantz taught by biophysics graduate student Characterization of High Quality qPlus (see p 44), who endowed the Isidore Trevor Dolinajec and undergraduate Sensors for Non-Contact AFM Pomerantz fund to benefit undergradu- physics student Alvaro Loya Villalpando. Athena Ierokomos – Structure and ates in physics. The faculty sponsor is Christopher Function of Adenylate Kinase The two-unit course meets one McKee. Tanner B. Kaptanoglu – The SNO+ evening a week. It includes group dis- Cherenkov Source cussions on issues important to students Skylar Grant Kerzner – High Mass- who have just transferred to Berkeley, Dimension Lorentz-Symmetry-Violating from community building and managing CorrectionTerms to the Motion of academic course loads to pursuing Moderately High-Energy Bodies in a opportunities for undergraduate research. Gravitational Field Undergrads also work with a graduate student mentor who guides them Gilbert Lopez – Novel Quantum through a scientific reading curriculum Magnetic Phenomena in the Strongly that culminates in student presentations Spin-Orbit Coupled Insulator Na IrO 2 3 to the class. Darius Roohani – The Research and A student in last year’s course, Development for Cherenkov Light Sources Cory Gerrity, transferred as a junior Haoyu Sun – Janus Configurations with from Palomar Community College in SL(2, Z) Duality Twists, Strings on San Diego County. He credits the course Segrè interns Nate Belmore (top) and Ryan Miller Mapping Tori with helping him get to know fellow install the Magneto-Optical and Non-linear students and helping him find an under- Spectroscopy experiment on the new optical table Aditya V. Venkatramani – Implementing donated by Equipco Inc. photo credit: Don Orlando Fast Reset Feedback System for a graduate research position. “I became much more closely acquainted with the Superconducting Qubit using a Field Segrè Summer Interns 2014 Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) people in my year than I would have been otherwise,” Gerrity says. The course Berkeley’s Emilio Segrè Internships, Matteo Vicino – Analysis of Water-Based instructor also put Gerrity in touch made possible by a generous grant from Liquid Scintillators with several graduate students who Arlene and Doug Giancoli, offer physics William Walker – Development of were involved with research projects undergraduates a chance to work for Helium 3 Sorption Fridge for Millimeter and on the lookout for undergraduate eight weeks during the summer in the Wave Experiment researchers. Donald A. Glaser Advanced Physics Lab. Chase Yakaboski – The Quantum As a result, he spent the summer The interns hone their research and Mechanical Principles of Acting working at Berkeley’s Space Sciences technical skills by improving the experi-

38 Physics at Berkeley | Fall 2014 UNDERGRADUATE AFFAIRS ments used in the Physics 111 Advanced taste of what it really means to be an Berkeley Physics Undergraduate Lab course. experimental physicist.” Research Scholars (BPURS) This year’s Segrè internships were After finishing his internship, Fall 2013 awarded to Ryan Miller, who graduated Belmore visited Physics Professor Joel Thamine Dalichaouch in May 2014, and continuing student Fajan’s group at CERN in Switzerland, Joseph DeRose Nate Belmore. Both interns took on the and is now back and continuing his Akash Dixit task of building and installing the new studies at Berkeley. He summarized his Joel Grebel optical table for the Magneto-Optical experience as a Segrè Intern this way: Mandy Huo and Non-linear Spectroscopy (MNO) “Students in the future may never stop Athena Ierokomos experiment. The new optical table was to think about how much time and Tanner Kaptanoglu a generous donation from Equipco Inc. energy goes into preparing and main- Skylar Kerzner in Concord, CA. taining those laboratories, but I know Darius Roohani Work on the MNO experiment that the work we did will benefit the Maria Simanovskaia “required cutting and painting the wood classes for years to come. I am proud Haoyu Sun shelf, drilling into the floor so that the to have been a part of that.” Matteo Vicino brace could be mounted, balancing the – Contributed by Amin Jazaeri, Director air table, installing the experiment, Spring 2014 of Instructional Support Loic Anderegg editing the write-up for the new coil Andrew Berger driver, and various other edits,” Miller Physics Undergraduate Anastasia Bizyaeva says. “I was able to work out more than Scholarships Thamine Dalichaouch half of the experiments, each requiring L. Jackson Laslett Scholarship Sojin Han its own form of improvement.” Brian Edwards Tanner Kaptanoglu “As a Segrè Intern, I was able to gain Maxim Egorov Skylar Kerzner experience in several different aspects of Brianna Grado-White Haoyu Sun experimental physics,” Miller continues. Peter Dotti Aditya Venkatramani “The work I did ranged from assembling Tianyao Xu Matteo Vicino and building parts for experiments to William Walker critically thinking about an experiment, S.M. “Jack” and Avish Holmes Chase Yakaboski so that I could edit the procedure write- Olsen Scholarship up to make it more streamlined and Erik Aldape Andrew Lampinen easier to follow for future students.” Dawei Ding Charles Paul Miller has begun his PhD work at Noah Flemens Zachary Vendeiro the University of New Hampshire in Ali Husain Matteo Vicino Materials Science. He hopes one day Isidore Pomerantz Scholarship to work for a company that aims to Kevin Babb commercialize new forms of energy Emil Barkovich consumption that are more sustainable Joseph DeRose for consumption on a global scale. Fangda Jia In addition to working on the MNO Tian Kang experiment, Belmore and Miller both Skylar Kerzner made LabView program modifications, Caroline Kim in an effort to make experiments more Jihoon Kim robust and error-free. The experiments Rea Kolbl involved were Gamma Ray, Muon Gary Li Lifetime, Quantum Entanglements, Sio Chong Lo Semiconductor Hall Effect, Optical Devlin Mallory Tweezers, Nuclear Magnetic Resonance, Stuart Sherwin and the Magneto Optical experiment. Maria Simanovskaia “It’s one thing to follow the Haoyu Sun instructions and hope to achieve the Aaron Tran expected outcome,” Belmore notes, “but Xinkang Wang to actually construct the lab or debug Kevin Yu problems with the lab gives us a better Yisi Zhu

Fall 2014 | Physics at Berkeley 39 graduate Affairs

The Class of 2014

Physics Department student citation winner Zachary Department of Astronomy Chair Imke de Pater (r) Department of Physics Chair Steven Boggs Vendeiro with Astronomy student speaker Skylar Kerzner. photos credit: Ben Ailes

The UC Berkeley students in Astrophysics, 21 students in with an exam or problem set; some with Departments of Physics Engineering Physics, and 114 students in others, working on a shared homework and Astronomy Physics. Master degrees were awarded or lab assignment, or repairing a broken celebrated the 2014 to five students in Astrophysics and 28 piece of equipment needed to complete Commencement in students in Physics. PhD degrees were some experiment. In my physics career Zellerbach Auditorium awarded to 36 students in Physics and I, too, have experienced frustrating, on May 19. Berkeley Professor of six in Astrophysics. sleepless nights alone trying to solve TPhysics Frances Hellman delivered the some difficult problem, and felt the joy commencement address. Skylar Grant Commencement Address of reaching a solution in collaboration Kerzner was Student Speaker for Commencement speaker Frances with others. Out of those experiences… Astronomy, and Zachary Michael Hellman is a condensed matter experi- comes growth as a person and a scholar, Vendeiro was Student Speaker for mentalist who studies the physics of learning to trust others while also com- Physics. novel magnetic, semiconducting, and mitting to helping them.” superconducting materials. She uses thin “I hope that you will find a way to Commencement Ceremonies film growth techniques to prepare mate- do something that you love and that you Officiating at the commencement were rials not available in bulk, such as amor- will do it well.” she continued. “At the Mark Richards, Dean of Physical phous alloys and multilayers. And she end of your lives, I hope you all can look Sciences in the College of Letters and uses micromachining to fabricate nano- back and be proud of what you have Sciences; Steven E. Boggs, Chair of the calorimeters for measuring the thermo- done, not the things you have acquired Department of Physics, Imke de Pater, dynamic properties of these materials. or how famous you are, but the lives you Chair of the Department of Astronomy, In her commencement address to have touched and the differences you Robert G. Jacobsen, Vice-Chair of the graduating class, Hellman acknowl- have made.” the Department of Physics; Yury G. edged that graduating with a degree Hellman joined the Berkeley Kolomensky, Head Faculty from Berkeley likely involved “times of physics faculty in 2005, and served as Undergraduate Advisor for the great joy and times of great stress. By Department Chair from 2007 to 2013. Department of Physics; and Eugene enrolling and getting a degree here,” she Hellman also holds joint appointments Chiang, Faculty Undergraduate Advisor said, “you chose to undertake something in the Department of Materials Science for the Department of Astronomy. that was not easy, but worthwhile.” and Engineering on campus and the For the 2013-2014 academic year, “Some of your time here was likely Materials Sciences Division at Lawrence bachelor degrees were awarded to 32 spent alone,” she added, “struggling Berkeley National Laboratory.

40 Physics at Berkeley | Fall 2014 GRADUATE AFFAIRS

Lars Commins Award in interests are in condensed matter Experimental Physics experimental physics. During a previous 3-month visit to Berkeley, he worked with Physics Professor Frances Hellman. He says he is eager to gain the per- sonal development and improved under- standing that comes from learning about other cultures. “I would like to contribute to the international atmosphere of the Graduate student Itamar Kimchi receives the campus,” he says, “and share my experi- 2013-2014 Jackson C. Koo Award from Physics Department Chair Steven Boggs ences with other students.” photo credit: Ben Ailes Over thirty donors stepped forward matter physics who focuses on experi- to jointly establish this $250,000 endow- Emeritus Physics Professor Eugene Commins with Sheng-Min Shih, recipient of the 2014 Lars mentally relevant problems. In a 2013 ment in the name of Carl and Betty Commins Award. paper published in Proceedings of the Helmholz. It provides an International Graduate student Sheng-Min Shih has National Academy of Science, Kimchi House room and board award each year been awarded the 2014 Lars Commins showed a surprising result regarding for a first-year doctoral student, with Award in Experimental Physics. Shih, a the realization of Mott insulators on the preference to physics students. member of the biophysics research group graphene lattice. Carl Helmholz was a nuclear of Physics Professor Ahmet Yildiz, is The Jackson C. Koo Award was cre- physicist and former Chair of the UC working to understand the mechanism ated in 2009 by Mrs. Rose Koo in honor Berkeley Department of Physics. His of intraflagellar transport (IFT), a of her husband Jackson Koo, a bright and wife, Betty, has provided distinguished process that is essential for the function hardworking student who received BS service to both International House and of cilia and flagella in cells. and MS degrees in electrical engineering the Department of Physics. and a PhD in physics from UC Berkeley, His research, which has changed Graduate Student Poster Session many established views in the IFT field, under the guidance of physics professor was published in 2013 in eLife, one of the Erwin Hahn. Koo was a member of Phi top journals in biological sciences. Beta Cappa and the Honor Students The Lars Commins award is given Society of UC Berkeley. After graduating, annually to the most deserving graduate he worked at AT&T Bell Laboratories, student in experimental physics. Lars then moved to Lawrence Livermore Commins, the son of Berkeley Emeritus National Laboratory. During his career he Physics Professor Eugene Commins and published numerous papers and was his wife Ulla, was an accomplished engi- listed as an inventor on eight patents. neer with a deep interest in experimental Helmholz Gateway Fellowship physics. The Lars Commins award was created in 2004 as a lasting tribute to The Carl and Betty Helmholz Gateway him, and to help perpetuate the strong Fellowship for tradition of experimental physics that 2014-2015 has 2013 Graduate Student Poster Session has always existed at Berkeley. been granted to entering graduate The Physic Department’s 20th Annual Jackson C. Koo Award in student Niklas Graduate Student Poster Session took Condensed Matter Physics Roschewsky. This place November 15, 2013. Thirty graduate students participated in the event, which Graduate student Itamar Kimchi award provides room and board was organized by graduate students received the 2013-2014 Jackson C. Koo Niklas Roschewsky Jonathan Kohler, Matt Jaffe, and Award in Condensed Matter Physics. in the Residence Caroline Sofiatti. The award is given annually to a high- Hall at the International House, as well Poster exhibits covered a broad achieving physics graduate student in as tuition, fees, and a $5,000 stipend variety of topics. A few examples: condensed matter who has advanced through a special matching program to PhD candidacy. established with n A New Spin on ARPES by Kenny Gotlieb Kimchi is a research student with UC Berkeley’s Graduate Division. (Advisor: Alessandra Lanzara) Physics Professor Ashvin Vishwanath. Roschewsky comes to Berkeley n Direct Dark Matter Detection with LUX He is a theorist in the field of condensed from Germany, where he attended the by Mia Ihm (Advisor: Robert Jacobsen) University of Goettingen. His research

Fall 2014 | Physics at Berkeley 41 GRADUATE AFFAIRS

Astronomy Prizes and Awards n Atom Interferometry in an Optical Compass leadership that interfaces with Astronomy Department Citation Cavity and Applications by Matt Jaffe campus administrators, raises funds, Kevin Yu (Advisor: Holger Müller) and applies for grants. Lynn is a research Dorothea Klumke Roberts Prize n Understanding the SNO+Detector student with Physics Professor Eliot Rea Kolbl by Kate Kamdin (Advisor: Gabriel Quataert. He filed his dissertation in Caleb Carson Levy Orebi-Gann) spring 2014. Mary Elizabeth Uhl Prize n Time Crystals with Trapped Ions Charles Lindsay Hopkins Hull Graduate Student Fellowships by Crystal Noel (Advisor: Hartmut Michael Kingsley McCourt Jr. 2014-2015 Häffner) Outstanding Graduate Student Department of Energy Fellowship n Dark Energy Survey – Supernova Instructor Awards Fabio lunes Sanches Alex Roberts Drummon Buschman Fielding by Caroline Sofiatti (Advisor: Saul James Dennis Gold McBride Perlmutter) Hertz Fellowship Sedonna Price n The Daya Bay Neutrino Experiment by Daniel Lecoanet Mollie Schwartz Lauren Michelle Weiss Henoch Wong (Advisor: Kam-Biu Luk) Katelin Schutz I-House Gateway Fellowship Physics Prizes and Awards Student Service Awards 2013-2014 Physics Department Citation Niklas Roschewsky Christian Schmid Zachary Michael Vendeito Two students in the Department of Physics were honored with Student Nano Graduate Student Research Lars Commins Memorial Award in Fellowship Experimental Physics Service Awards for 2013-2014. Nityan Nair Sheng-Min Shih Natania Antler was recognized for Jackson C. Koo Award in Condensed her service in the leadership role she National Defense Science and Matter Physics took with SWPS, the Society of Women Engineering Graduate Fellowship Itamar Kimchi in the Physical Sciences. She served as Andrew Eddins Sydney Schreppler Student Service Awards the SWPS outreach coordinator, orga- Jonathan Kohler nized the annual SWPS Yogurt outing for Natania Antler Natural Sciences and Engineering prospective women graduate students, Jacob William Lynn Research Council of Canada organized dinners for graduate and Outstanding Graduate Student Fellowship undergraduate women students, and Instructor Awards 2013-2014 Carolyn Kierans Eric Thewalt revitalized the undergraduate mentoring Daniel Rene Dandurand program. National Science Foundation Zachary Kenneth Fisher Antler was also responsible for Fellowship Punit R. Gandhi coordinating Launch Days – UC Alex Anderson Robert McGehee Charles Alexander Hill Berkeley’s welcome reception to new Yasaman Bahri Nityan Nair Carolyn Kierans students in Physics, Astronomy, and Halleh Balch Kelsey Oliver Samuel Joseph Kohn Earth & Planetary Science – which Janos Botyanski Mallory Kandaswamy Paramasivan include presentations by faculty and Raymond Co Diana Qiu Hoi Chun Po advisors as well as lab tours. She also Jennet Dickinson Vinay Ramasesh Abigail E. Polin volunteered many times to run lab tours Parker Fagrelius Katelin Schutz Brian Shevitski for her condensed matter group on Brendan Folie Josiah Schwab Recipients of the Outstanding Graduate CalDay. Antler is a research student Casey Glick Brian Shevitski Student Instructor Awards are recog- with Professor Irfan Siddiqi. She filed Benjamin Horowitz Tess Smidt nized for their dedication and skill in her dissertation this fall. Hilary Jacks Caroline Sofiatti teaching physics undergraduates. Each Jacob Lynn was recognized for his Trinity Joshi Kelly Swanson recipient receives a certificate of com- many contributions to the Compass Kate Kamdin Erik Urban mendation from the Graduate Division, Project. The Compass project is a stu- Sylvia Lewin Jaime Varela a cash award of $250, membership in the dent-led program for students interested Leigh Martin Claire Zukowski American Association of Physics Teachers in the physical sciences. It is designed Sarah Marzen (AAPT), and a subscription to the AAPT to assist entering undergraduates to University of California Fellowship journal from the Friends of Physics fund. successfully transition to college life by Jennet Dickinson Leigh Martin Professor Robert Karplus established creating a strong sense of community Samantha Dixon Alejandro Ruiz the tradition of the AAPT memberships, and academic support. Emily Duffield Katelin Schutz which the Department of Physics Lynn was instrumental in running Anthony Lo continues in his honor. the External Cluster, the branch of

42 Physics at Berkeley | Fall 2014 GRADUATE AFFAIRS

PhD Degrees Fall 2013 Stephan Hoyer Mathew Leonard Badr Albanna Advisors: Birgitta Whaley and Joel Moore Advisor: Michael DeWeese Advisor: Michael DeWeese Understanding and manipulating electronic Working memory and choice encoding in Bounds on the Entropy of a Binary System quantum coherence in photosynthetic light- medial prefrontal cortex of rats performing with Known Mean and Pairwise Constraints harvesting a spatial double alternation task Steven Anton Pei-Chen Kuan Jacob Lynn Advisor: John Clarke Advisor: Holger Mueller Advisor: Eliot Quataert Magnetic flux noise in SQUIDs and qubits Compton clock and recoil frequency measure- Heating and Acceleration of Charged ments using a large momentum transfer Particles by Weakly Compressible Marcelo Baquero-Ruiz atom interferometer Magnetohydrodynamic Turbulence Advisor: Joel Fajans Studies on the Neutrality of Antihydrogen Eli Levenson-Falk Nathan Moore Advisor: Irfan Siddiqi Advisor: Ori Ganor Timur Bazhirov Static and Microwave Transport String Theory, Chern-Simons Theory and Advisor: Marvin Cohen Properties of Aluminum Nanobridge the Fractional Quantum Hall Effect First-principles Studies of Electron-Phonon Josephson Junctions Superconductivity and Beyond Ivan Pechenezhskiy Andrew Myers Advisor: Michael Crommie Calvin Berggren Advisors: Richard Klein and Photomechanical Response of Molecular Advisors: Christian Bauer and Christopher McKee Nanostructures Lawrence Hall Numerical Investigations of Star Formation David Pinner High Precision Monte Carlo Event and Interstellar Clouds Generation for Particle Colliders Advisor: Lawrence Hall Daniel Perez-Becker Naturalness, Dark Matter, and Unification Jonathan Blazek Advisors: Eugene Chiang and with a 125 GeV Higgs Advisor: Uros Seljak Christopher McKee Thaned Pruttivarasin Probing large-scale structure with intrinsic From Dust to Dust: Protoplanetary Disk alignments and galaxy clustering Advisor: Hartmut Haeffner Accretion, Hot Jupiter Climates, and the Spectroscopy, fundamental symmetry tests Gil Young Cho Evaporation of Rocky Planets and quantum simulation with trapped ions Advisor: Joel Moore Michael Rousseas Michael Ramm Quantum field theoretic descriptions of topo- Advisor: Alex Zettl logical phases in two and three dimensions Advisor: Hartmut Haeffner Structure, Mechanics and Synthesis of Quantum Correlations and Energy Sangkook Choi Nanoscale Carbon and Boron Nitride Transport in Trapped Ions Advisor: Steven Louie Allen Sussman First-principles calculations and model Joshua Renner Advisor: Alex Zettl Advisor: James Siegrist Hamiltonian approaches to electronic and Exploring the electronic, vibrational, and optical properties of defects, interfaces and High Pressure Xenon Detectors for Rare chemical sensing properties of graphene, Physics Searches nanostructures nanotubes, nanoparticles, and other nano- Vladimir Rosenhaus Joel Corbo materials Advisors: Birgitta Whaley and Advisor: Raphael Bousso Aritoki Suzuki Dmitry Budker The Holographic Principle and the Advisor: Adrian Lee Emergence of Spacetime Quantum Monte Carlo Simulations of Multichroic Bolometric Detector Sheng-Min Shih Ultracold Bosons in a Double Well Architecture for Cosmic Microwave Advisor: Ahmet Yildiz Sharif Corinaldi Background Polarimetry Experiment Advisor: Michael DeWeese Single-Molecule Studies of Intraflagellar Hopfield nets: Novel uses in Neuroscience PhD Degrees Spring 2014 Transport in Chlamydomonas and Machine Learning Yen-Chia Chen Sheng-Yu Darren Shih Hannah Fakhouri Advisor: Michael Crommie Advisor: Bruno Zumino Advisor: Saul Perlmutter Exploring Graphene Nanoribbons Using A Contemporary Study in Gauge Theory Supernova Ia Spectra and Scanning Probe Microscopy and Spectroscopy and Mathematical Physics: Holomorphic Spectrophotometric Time Series: James Hinton Anomaly in Gauge Theory on ALE Space Recognizing Twins and the Consequences Advisor: Joseph Orenstein and Freudenthal Gauge Theory for Cosmological Distance Measurements Quasiparticle Coherence, Collective Modes, Sebastian Wickenburg Elizabeth George and Competing Order in Cuprate Advisor: Michael Crommie Advisor: William Holzapfel Semiconductors Imaging Individual Chemical Bonds and A polarization sensitive bolometer array Xiaoping Hong Tuning Singe-Molecule Charge States at for the South Pole Telescope and measure- Advisor: Feng Wang Surfaces ments of Cosmic Microwave Background Optical Spectroscopy at the Nanoscale Patrick Zulkowski secondary anisotropies Grant Larsen Advisor: Michael DeWeese Edward “Ned” Henry Advisor: Yasunori Nomura The Geometry of Thermodynamic Control Advisor: Irfan Siddiqi Towards Understanding Fine-Tuning in Development of a Silicon Semiconductor Fundamental Physics Quantum Dot Qubit with Dispersive Microwave Readout

Fall 2014 | Physics at Berkeley 43 ALUMNI Affairs potential savings from cool roofs on ring new materials technology into city-wide and nationwide scales. application. Currently an executive at Alumni News Pomerantz enjoys sharing the Apple, she was co-founder and CEO of her own nanotech start-up company, Pomerantz Helps Support wonders of physics, and has taught courses at IBM, SUNY Purchase, Mercy Koila, Inc., working with thermal appli- Physics Undergraduates College, NY Polytechnic Institute, and cations of nanotubes. She raised ven- Melvin Pomerantz, UC Berkeley. He is a co-founder of the ture capital funding and built an engi- (MS ’55, PhD ’59), Committee of Concerned Scientists, an neering team with the world’s leading currently a Staff organization dedicated to protecting expertise in nanotube growth on copper. Scientist at the human rights and scientific freedom Steven Oliver (BS ’99, PhD ‘05) told Lawrence Berkeley of scientists, physicians, engineers, and students he credited his physics educa- National scholars around the world. tion with making him a skilled problem Laboratory solver. He is a principal on the Business Melvin Pomerantz (Berkeley Lab), has Physics Alumni Offer Strategy and Operations team at generously donated funds to help sup- Career Advice Google, leading strategic projects for port undergraduate physics students In April, four Berkeley physics alumni Google’s senior leaders. Before that, he at Berkeley. came to campus to participate in a panel worked at McKinsey & Company as a In 1988 he honored his father discussion on career choices. The panel management consultant. Isidore by establishing the Isidore was organized by Berkeley Connect in Pomerantz Endowment Fund for under- Physics, part of the new Berkeley Joseph Thurakal (MA ’12) shared infor- graduate scholarships in physics. More Connect program on campus. Called mation with students about his work in recently, he helped establish a new “What Should I Do with My Physics the field of asset management. After course, Physics 198, for incoming phys- Degree – A Career Panel for Students graduating from Columbia University ics transfer students (see p 38). When in the Physical Sciences,” the aim was with a Bachelor’s degree, he worked as a asked about his motivation for donating to expose undergraduates to the types hedge fund trader, a quantitative ana- to Berkeley Physics, Pomerantz said he of nonacademic careers available to lyst, and a portfolio manager. He went was inspired by other scientists. anyone with a degree in the physical on to pursue graduate studies at After receiving his PhD in Physics sciences. Berkeley, and has now returned to asset from Berkeley in 1959 and a subse- Berkeley Connect offers mentoring management. quent Fulbright Fellowship in France, and helps build community among Nicole Carlson (PhD ‘13) is a Field Trip Pomerantz joined the IBM Research undergraduates. It is offered through Explainer for the Exploratorium Laboratory in Yorktown Heights, NY. each academic department on campus. Museum in San Francisco. She also He contributed to research on a variety Professors Bernard Sadoulet and Holger holds a position as Quality Assurance of topics in solid-state physics, includ- Müller direct the Physics Department’s Manager at a startup called Automatic, ing magnetism, phonons, semiconduc- participation in the program. creators of a smart driving assistant app. tors, thin films, superconductivity, “Berkeley Connect is a one-credit Westphal Examines Stardust and nanotechnology. He was elected a seminar course that meets once a week Fellow of the American Physical Society for one hour,” says Sadoulet. “It is Andrew Westphal (PhD ‘92 is lead in 1983. designed to be very low workload but author of a paper, published in the Since 1994, Pomerantz has been with large benefits for undergraduates.” August 15 issue of Science, reporting the a Staff Scientist with the Heat Island Each Connect student is assigned a first analysis of space dust collected Group at Berkeley Lab, working to con- mentor with whom they meet one-on- aboard NASA’s Stardust spacecraft serve air-conditioning energy through one and in small groups during the while it was en route to Comet Wild. the use of light-colored roofs and pave- semester. The course also offers special Westphal is a physicist at Berkeley’s ments. The primary focus of his work events that include not only the panel Space Sciences Laboratory and is also has been the analysis and development on career options but also informal affiliated with the Advanced Light of cool pavement technologies, includ- lectures from faculty and visiting Source (ALS) at Lawrence Berkeley ing estimating the benefits and costs researchers, and visits to laboratories National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), of energy conservation and air-quality and other resources on campus and in where this analysis was conducted. improvements, and investigating the the larger community. “Fundamentally, the solar system collateral effects of light-colored and The April Career Panelists included: and everything in it was ultimately cooler pavements, such as increased Nasreen Chopra (PhD ’96) is an entre- derived from a cloud of interstellar durability and illumination. He also preneur with ten years of experience in gas and dust,” he said. “We’re looking has participated in research to evaluate discovering, developing, and transfer- at material that’s very similar to what

44 Physics at Berkeley | Fall 2014 ALUMNI AFFAIRS made our solar system. The analysis of and were modified in the interstellar Professor Emeritus of Physics in 1993. these particles is our first glimpse into medium. He was a member of NCSU’s Academy the complexity of interstellar dust, and The team is continuing to look for of Outstanding Professors. Following the surprise is that the particles are evidence of more particles as well as retirement, he was an associate editor quite different from each other.” taking the next steps in dust analysis. of the six-volume Cornelius Lanczos The paper, Evidence for interstellar “The highest priority is to measure rela- Collected Published Papers with origin of seven dust particles collected by tive abundance of three stable isotopes Commentaries, published in 1999. the Stardust spacecraft, suggests the tiny of oxygen,” Westphal noted. The iso- In 2011, the Wesley Doggett Award specks, which likely originated from tope analysis could help confirm that for Scholarly Achievement was estab- beyond our solar system, are more the dust originated outside the solar lished at NCSU. complex in composition and structure system, but it’s a process that would Doggett is survived by his wife of than previously imagined. destroy the samples. 60 years, Leonor Pinzón Doggett, eight Westphal and his 61 co-authors The team is honing their isotope children, and 15 grandchildren. found and analyzed a total of seven analysis technique on artificial dust grains of possible interstellar dust. particles called analogs. “We have to be Terence Lee Porter (1935-2013) Their paper presents preliminary find- super careful,” Westphal said. “We’re Terence Lee Porter (PhD ’61) died at ings. All analysis was non-destructive, doing a lot of work on analogs to practice, his home in Maryland on Friday, meaning that it preserved the structural practice, practice.” February 1, 2013. and chemical properties of the particles. ~from an August 14 Berkeley Lab news Born in New Britain Connecticut, While the samples are suspected to be release by Kate Greene Porter attended high school at Phillips from beyond the solar system, Westphal Academy in Andover MA and did his In Memory said, potential confirmation of their undergraduate work at MIT. After origin must come from subsequent tests Wesley Doggett (1931-2013) receiving a PhD in Physics from UC that will ultimately destroy some of the Wesley Doggett (MA, PhD ’57) died Berkeley, he went to work for the particles. December 22, 2013, at his home in National Bureau of Standards in “Despite all the work we’ve done, we Raleigh North Carolina. He was 82. Washington DC. He later worked for the have limited the analyses on purpose,” Born January 24, 1931 in Browns National Science Foundation in support Westphal explained. “These particles Summit, NC, Doggett received BS of science education, including handling are so precious. We have to think very degrees in Nuclear Engineering and NATO science education fellowships. carefully about what we do with each Electrical Engineering from North He retired in 1998 and moved with particle.” Carolina State University (NCSU). He his wife Sharon to Riderwood, MD in The grains of dust are more than a was awarded two of the first pre-doc- 2002. Porter is survived by his wife, a thousand times smaller than a grain of toral fellowships offered by the newly daughter, a son and daughter-in-law, sand. The analysis tapped a variety of created National Science Foundation. and five grandchildren. microscopy techniques, including those The fellowships supported his studies at that rely on synchrotron radiation from UC Berkeley, where he earned his MA Kenneth Eldon Relf (1919-2013) the ALS. and PhD in low-energy experimental Kenneth Eldon Relf (PhD ‘54) passed “Almost everything we’ve known nuclear physics. While at Berkeley he away quietly at the Coliseum Medical about interstellar dust has previously studied with four Nobel laureates: Luis Center in Macon, Georgia on Saturday, come from astronomical observations – Alvarez, Emilio Segrè, Owen December 21, 2013. He was 94. either ground-based or space-based tele- Chamberlain, and Edwin McMillan. Relf received his BS degree in scopes,” said Westphal. But telescopes He served as a commissioned officer Physics from the University of South don’t reveal the diversity or complexity from 1956-1958 in the Air Force Nuclear Dakota Vermillion in 1942. In March of of interstellar dust. Engineering Test Reactor project office that year, Ernest Lawrence invited him The two largest dust particles have at Wright Patterson Air Force Base in to work on the Manhattan Project at the a fluffy composition, similar to that of Ohio. He rose to become its Technical Berkeley Radiation Lab (now Lawrence a snowflake. Models of interstellar dust Project Director and received the Air Berkeley National Laboratory), assign- particles had suggested a single, dense Force Commendation Medal in 1957. ing him the position of chief engineer particle, so the lighter structure was Dogget joined the Physics for the 60-inch cyclotron. He became unexpected. These two particles also Department at NCSU in 1958, becoming widely recognized as an expert on the contain crystalline material called oliv- a full professor in 1962. He served as radio frequency systems of cyclotrons ine, a mineral made of magnesium, iron, Assistant Dean of the College of after authoring a book, The Radio and silicon, which suggest they came Physical and Mathematical Science at Frequency System of the 60-Inch from disks or outflows from other stars NCSU from 1964-1968 and retired as Cyclotron, published in 1950.

Fall 2014 | Physics at Berkeley 45 ALUMNI AFFAIRS

Relf received his PhD in Nuclear Class Notes 2014 Physics from Berkeley in 1954; his thesis ’74 project, A Diffusion Cloud Chamber Class Notes are a great way to keep in Ramamurti Shankar is the John of Unusually Large Dimensions, used touch with old friends. Please update us Randolph Huffman Professor of Physics to study cosmic ray air showers, was about your activities, both professional at Yale University. In 2014, he became a displayed in Switzerland in 1956 for the and personal. Write to us when you have Fellow of the American Academy of first International Atomic Exposition. interesting news or just to let us know Arts and Science and gave one of the Relf met his wife, Jo Ann Helen what you’ve been doing for the past few featured talks at the induction cere- Stepanek, while in Berkeley. They mar- years. We will include your message to mony. Shankar’s research is in theoreti- ried in 1952 and moved to Pittsburgh fellow alumni in the annual edition of cal condensed matter physics but he has in 1955, where Relf worked for Physics at Berkeley. also done work in theoretical particle Westinghouse Atomic Power Division. Updates can be sent by email to physics. His classes, “Fundamentals of While there, he was involved in the [email protected] or by US Physics with Ramamurti Shankar,” can design of the nuclear reactor for the mail to Department of Physics, be viewed online through YaleCourses. world’s first nuclear-powered sub- UC Berkeley, 364 LeConte #7300, marine, the Nautilus, and authored Berkeley, CA 94720-7300. several chapters of a book on nuclear ’75 propulsion systems for naval vessels. ’72 This work earned him a letter of com- Donald Olson is a Professor of Physics mendation from Vice Admiral Hyman Michio Kaku is the Henry Semat at Texas State University at San Marcos. Rickover, Director of the Navy’s Nuclear Professor of Theoretical Physics at the He recently wrote a book called Celestial Reactors Branch. Relf also taught City College of New York. He has written Sleuth: Using Astronomy to Solve classes on reactor physics, core thermal three New York Times bestsellers, Mysteries in Art, History and Literature. design, and the design of industrial including The Future of the Mind: The experiments associated with the Naval Scientific Quest to Understand, Enhance, Reactor Program. and Empower the Mind, published in ’85 In 1959 Relf and his family moved 2014. The book looks into research Aniruddha Das is an Assistant Professor to Melbourne, Florida, where he joined being done in top laboratories around in the Department of Neuroscience at the space program to work on the design the world in neuroscience and physics. Columbia University Medical Center. and operation of the radars and telescopes The San Francisco Chronicle says it’s In a recent interview for the Dana used to track missile launches and satel- “mind-bending…Kaku has a gift for Foundation, entitled “What lites. He participated in an early feasibil- explaining incredibly complex concepts, Neuroimaging Really Measures,” Das ity assessment for the Air Force of what on subjects as far-ranging as nanotech- explained that “the biggest take-away is now known as the Global Positioning nology and space travel, in language idea is that there are multiple types of System, and an early evaluation of optical the lay reader can grasp.” neural activity that are measured by fingerprint identification systems. During Sidney Redner went to MIT after grad- fMRI, and they are not all equal.” the 1960s he was also an adjunct profes- uating from Berkeley, receiving his PhD sor at Florida Institute of Technology in in 1977. He joined the physics depart- Melbourne, where he taught experimen- ment at Boston University where he tal design for six years. He was a member recently completed his 36th year, as of the American Rocket Society, the well as a term as chair of the depart- Institute of Electrical and Electronic ment. This past summer, Sidney took Engineers (IEEE), American Institute the next step in his career by moving to for Astronautics and Aeronautics, the a faculty resident position at Santa Fe American Physical Society, and the Institute where he will work on non- Society of Sigma Xi. He retired in 1994 at equilibrium statistical physics and the age of 75. apply approaches from statistical Relf loved exploring the American physics to social systems. West, the mountains, and photography. He is survived by his wife and two sons.

46 Physics at Berkeley | Fall 2014 ALUMNI AFFAIRS ’90 ’94

Hoover Wong reports that he’s happy to Max Tegmark is a Professor of Physics see the Society for Physics students still at MIT. In 2014, he published Our offers noontime career sessions for stu- Mathematical Universe: My Quest for the dents. “This is the session I initiated Ultimate Nature of Reality, a popular sci- years ago (probably around 2002),” he ence book that takes the reader on a writes, “with Professors Peter Yu and journey through physics, astronomy, Bob Jacobson. I am certainly open to and mathematics, and explains discuss career options with students. Tegmark’s theory that the universe is a Glad to help out!” mathematical structure. The New York Wong works in Engineering Times praises it: “this is science writing Management, serving as Technical at its best–dynamic, dramatic and Director of Quality & Reliability accessible… our Mathematical Universe Engineering at CSR Technology Inc. is nothing if not impressive. Brilliantly for the past four years. He previ- argued and beautifully written, it is ously held a variety of positions, never less than thought-provoking including four years as Director of about the greatest mysteries of our Automotive Product Engineering & existence.” Quality/Reliability at SiRF Technology, three years as Manager of Quality & ’95 Reliability Engineering at PMC Sierra Inc., three years as Manager of Quality Wayne Hu is Professor of Astronomy & Reliability Engineering at Quantum and Astrophysics at the Kavli Institute Effect Devices Inc., two years as for Cosmological Physics at the Manager of Manufacturing University of Chicago. In 2014, he Engineering at Silicon Motion Inc., and became a Fellow of the American six years as Senior Device Analysis & Academy of Arts and Science. Hu’s Reliability Engineer at Analog Devices. research focuses on the theory and phenomenology of structure formation ’93 in the universe as revealed in cosmic microwave background anisotropies, Fiona Harrison is the Benjamin M. gravitational lensing, galaxy clustering Rosen Professor of Physics and and galaxy clusters. Astronomy at the California Institute of Technology. In 2014, she became a ’11 Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Science. She is the Principal Vasudha Shivamoggi started a job as Investigator for NASA’s NuSTAR a physicist at Northrup Grumman in Explorer Mission, a multi-institution Maryland. He will be working on quan- mission that includes researchers from tum computing with superconducting UC Berkeley. In her labs at Caltech, she qubits. develops state-of-the art high energy X-ray detectors and instrumentation for future space missions.

Fall 2014 | Physics at Berkeley 47

CALENDAR OF EVENTS Graduate Student Poster Session Friday, November 14 375 Le Conte Hall The Big Give Thursday, November 20 Midnight until 9:00 p.m. www.berkeley.physics.edu

The 117th Big Game Saturday November 22 California Memorial Stadium UC Berkeley Start of Spring Semester 2015 Tuesday, January 20 Physics Philanthropy Event Thursday, January 29 New Campbell Hall Dedication February, date TBD J. Robert Oppenheimer Lecture in Physics Andrei Linde Professor of Physics, Stanford University Monday February 23 at 5:00 p.m. Chevron Auditorium at I-House 75th anniversary of Nobel Prize awarded to E.O. Lawrence on February 29, 1940 Physics Public Lecture Eric Betzig 2014 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry Professor of Physics Janelia Research Campus Monday, March 9, at 5:00 p.m. Chevron Auditorium at I-House Undergraduate Poster Session April, date TBA 375 Le Conte Hall Cal Day Saturday April 18 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. UC Berkeley berkeley.edu/calday Commencement 2015 Wednesday May 20 Zellerbach Auditorium UC Berkeley Start of Summer Session Monday June 22, 2015 summer.berkeley.edu Fall 2015 Classes Begin Wednesday August 26 Segrè Lecture October 2015, date TBD photos credit: Ben Ailes University of California, Berkeley Non-Profit Org. Department of Physics U.S. Postage 366 LeConte Hall, #7300 PAID Berkeley, CA 94720-7300 University of California, ADDRESS SERVICE REQUESTED Berkeley photo credit: Molly Coates

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