Department of Physics Newsletter
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Summer 2012, Number 2 Department of Physics Newsletter Stargazingn Saturday, 21st Phil Marshall January, passers-by on Banbury Road were met with a remarkable sight:O a queue of people stretching from the door of the Denys Wilkinson Building all the artist MarionOxford... Yorston in the were universally positive, with our and wanted to find out more. way to the bottom of the steps. seminar room, blacked out for visitors excited and inspired by The event was planned as one This was “Stargazing Oxford,” our the occasion), and “AstroCrafts” their time spent inside the Oxford of the local activities associated first ever space science festival. (immensely popular with children Physics Department. with the BBC’s “Stargazing Live” Between 2pm and 10pm, we of all ages). We even borrowed programme, which aired on BBC2 This was really the goal of welcomed nearly 1200 people an inflatable Planetarium from the week before Saturday 21st. “Stargazing Oxford”: to reach out into the Physics Department, to the University of Kent, which The series was excellent – not to people in the local community hear about the latest research proved to be a very popular way only for featuring several Oxford who may not have been to a results in astrophysics and in to space science. It was a long, Physicists! University event before, but who planetary science, and to learn tiring but hugely successful day: were interested in astronomy how to get started observing the the feedback forms we collected Continued on page 2... night sky. The rooftop observing sessions, with Abingdon Astronomical Society, were a big hit. Inside, we put on short research talks in the Dennis Sciama lecture theatre, and filled the cafeteria with village fete-style stalls, manned by research staff wearing red T-shirts marked “got questions?”. We told everyone who was queuing to get in that the DWB was a building full of people whose job it was to ask questions, and so they were to ask us anything they wanted. It seemed to work: one office door in the Beecroft Institute (BIPAC) was covered in questions about space, many of them at the research level despite the childish handwriting! How many solar systems are there? How was the first galaxy made? Wouldn’t we all like to know! Other favourite activites included a N “Universe-ity Challenge” (our own version of the popular BBC eph Carua game show), “Dark Matter” (an S installation by local modern © Jo InsIde: VIrtual stargazIng • predIctIng predIctabIlIty • mappIng FermI surFaces oF Iron-based superconductors • nanotechnology & living cells • a state-oF-the-art www.physics.ox.ac.uk buIldIng For oxFord physIcs • WIll.I.am visIts oxFord • eVents • people • and more outreach neWs scIence neWs www.physics.ox.ac.uk/about-us/outreach www.physics.ox.ac.uk/research Virtual stargazing topological Insulators PRedicting... I’ve been developing methods But these days that’s not enough. discuss the evolution of the Andrew Pontzen Yulin Chen, Rahul Roy for turning computer simulations Static images just don’t cut it cosmos. Having seen a movie I’d and John Chalker Astronomy has a of galaxies into images for a in the age of YouTube. And the made based on a previous paper, Predictability gift: whenever we while, as part of my open source cosmos really is a fairly static place the production commissioned One of the successes want to convince project pynbody (http://pynbody. on human timescales; galaxies a series of videos taking us from of physics in the 1930s people we’re googlecode.com). It’s hugely evolve only over billions of years. the Big Bang through to a present was the use of quantum doing good work with telescopes, important in scientific analysis: This is where us computer nerds day ‘Milky Way’-like galaxy. mechanics to understand the difference between metals and insulators we can turn to a rich archive of whether we want to create a have the edge over observers of Using a portion of Oxford’s Berg in terms of electron energy bands. Remarkably, we have discovered gorgeous imagery. While not a literal analogue to a telescopic the real universe: the process of supercomputer, it was possible to over the past few years that a key feature was missing from the picture substitute for good science, it picture, or a more metaphorical simulation involves calculating generate 10TB of data and distill we’ve accepted for nearly eight decades. This is that insulators come in certainly helps. But for those of representation of the contents and storing the state of the it into about 50,000 separate two types, now known as ‘ordinary’ and ‘topological’. Oxford Physics is us who work on modelling the of our virtual universe, distilling computerised cosmos from images to create the final footage closely involved with these developments: one of the leading theorists universe inside a computer, things millions of numbers into an image its early stages through to the in just over six weeks. in the field, Rahul Roy, spent two years in the Oxford Condensed Matter is a critical step. present day. That means there’s are a little harder. Watching the videos has given Theory group as a postdoctoral research fellow before moving to a nothing to stop you from taking me a whole range of ideas for faculty position at UCLA; and Yulin Chen, an expert in the experimental technique (involving stochastic a picture of it at any stage of its Hannah Arnold new science we can do with these techniques used to probe these new materials, has recently joined the mathematics) for representing development. Or, better, taking simulations. We’re inherently Department from Stanford. the small scales in an a whole series of pictures at You want to go visual creatures; nothing atmospheric model, providing subsequent steps. To jazz it up, to the beach at compares to seeing things unfold a physically motivated way of you can start moving the virtual the weekend: in front of our eyes. While you’ve representing model uncertainty. telescope through space. And, which of the missed the chance to see it on live We have found the forecasts before you know it, you have a following do you think is the TV, there’s a digested version here: made using this technique are Hollywood-style movie of how more useful weather forecast: a) http://youtu.be/77zoF7y1pnk. very reliable; if you look at all galaxies form and evolve – but all next weekend will be dry; or b) the occasions when we have based on real physics. next weekend the probability of rain is just 10%? Both are forecast a 10% chance of rain, on Last November, luck sent the possible ways of presenting the average it rains 10% of the time. production team of BBC2’s Follow the same forecast, though only the This is very important for climate Stargazing Live in my direction. astrophysics blog! second acknowledges that our change prediction, where we are They were looking for ways to interested in how the statistics read about our research, and prediction about next weekend’s see our weekly “What’s up?” weather involves uncertainty. of the weather will change due Surface conduction of topological insulators: (A) The spin of electrons to anthropogenic forcing. We Left: The distribution of dark matter column for what to look out for on the surface is correlated with their direction of motion. (B) The There are two main sources must be confident that our over tens of millions of light years in the night sky. lattice structure of Bi Te and the predicted relativistic “Dirac cone” like of uncertainty in our weather during the formation of galaxies. 2 3 model accurately represents http://facebook.com/ electronic structure formed by the surface electrons. (C) The electronic forecast, both of which must today’s climate in order to trust OxfordAstrophysics structure measured by angle-resolved photoemission that confirmed be accurately represented. the climate it predicts for the the theoretical prediction and the topological nature of Bi Te . stargazing oxford 2 3 The first is initial condition future. uncertainty. The atmosphere Continued from page 1... is a chaotic system, so errors In the atmosphere, it has Rahul Roy writes: Imagine taking a block of wood and coating its been found that certain surfaces with silver. Then the block would be a bulk insulator with in the starting conditions for our forecast (i.e. errors in the weather patterns are very Inspired viewers could then look on the BBC “Things to do” website, a metallic conducting surface. A ‘topological insulator’ is similar to measurements we make of the predictable – the errors due and find out about Stargazing Oxford. We thought we might get a coated block, but whereas cutting the wood block would create weather today) can lead to large to initial condition and model quite a lot of interest, but the response was amazing: not many of us new insulating surfaces, cutting a topological insulator creates new deviations in the predicted uncertainty stay small as we had imagined people queuing for 45 minutes in the cold to get into conducting surfaces. My work uses the mathematics of topological weather for the weekend. The look to the future. However, on our building! For us, Stargazing Oxford was incredibly exciting, and invariants to predict that certain insulating materials will have surface second is model uncertainty. other occasions, including these also quite humbling: the public’s delighted fascination with space modes for electrons, which are robust because they are protected In order to make the forecast, representations of uncertainty science made a big impression on us all.