• Abstract and Figures
• Public Full-text

THE UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA!SPRING 2010 ΦYAST ΦLYER The Homer L. Dodge Department of Physics and Astronomy Volume 18, Number 1 Homer L. Dodge Department associate professor and immediately became a of Physics and Astronomy highly valued member of our Department—for his internationally known experimental and Celebrates a Century! computational research in chemical physics; for his teaching (while here he won three awards for In 1909, William P. Haseman was appointed the excellence in teaching, and to date he remains the first chair of the university’s Department of only physicist the astronomers have allowed to Physics and Astronomy. Now, 100 years later, we celebrate the start of the department with a celebration this fall for alumni and friends of the department as well as faculty and students, with two main events planned. The first is a production of Michael Frayn’s play Copenhagen by the OU School of Drama. The second is a public lecture by the well-known cosmologist Andrei Linde of Stanford University. The play, presented in OU’s Weizenhoffer L to R: Greg Parker, Tom Mi!er, Xifan Liu. Theater, concerns the famous 1941 meeting Photo credit: John Cowan between Niels Bohr, played by New York actor teach their introductory course for non-majors); Paul Austin, and Werner Heisenberg, played by and for his service to the department—notably Tom Orr, director of OU’s School of Drama. The spending many weekends with Michael Morrison part of Bohr’s wife, Margrethe, has yet to be cast. and Stu Ryan cleaning out the attic, which Performances of Copenhagen will run the contained detritus that apparently pre-dated Isaac evenings of Thursday through Saturday, Sept. 9, Newton, so this space could be turned into offices 10 and 11. A special matinee performance on for graduate students. Sunday, Sept. 12, will be followed by a panel discussion featuring faculty from Physics and In 1990, Tom took a leave of absence to work at the Plasma Chemistry Laboratory at Hanscom Air Please turn to page 3 Force Base, which occupies parts of Lexington, Bedford, and Lincoln, Mass., about a dozen miles Tom Miller Visits Department northwest of Boston. Much to our regret, Tom ultimately chose to remain at the Hanscom lab, A highlight of the Spring 2010 semester was the visit and colloquium by former faculty member Please turn to page 3 Thomas Miller. Tom came to OU in 1978 as an 1 THE UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA!SPRING 2010 From the Chair staff and programs of the Homer L. Dodge Department of Physics and Astronomy. Board The faculty, postdoctoral members shall personally support the Department fellows, staff and students through interactions with current students, faculty, of the Homer L. Dodge staff, alumni and the OU administration and attend Department of Physics and regular meetings of the Board in Norman. Astronomy continue to pursue excellence in We also are happy to announce state matching research, teaching and funds for two and a half of our endowed chairs. building a productive These endowed chairs are part of a generous gift environment that is from the Avenier Foundation. Paul Bell, dean of collegial, supportive and the College of Arts and Sciences, invited us to i n t e r a c t i v e . O u r submit paper work to hire two endowed chairs and postdoctoral fellows, graduate and undergraduate four junior faculty. Our new Vice President for students are actively involved in research and Research, Kelvin Droegemeier, currently is “lining teaching. These individuals collaborate with their up support” from the administration. outstanding faculty mentors to make novel scientific advances, and regularly publish in the Finally, it is a pleasure to be a faculty member and most highly recognized scientific journals. Our current department chair of the Homer L. Dodge faculty seeks and obtains funding from the most Department of Physics and Astronomy. I look prestigious national funding agencies. forward to many successful years ahead. The future of our discipline, scientific worldwide —Greg Parker competitiveness and continued economic growth depends on us and other educators to provide Table of Contents highly educated, exceptionally well-trained •Department Centennial Celebration......................1 students. We are indeed proud of our successful •Tom Miller Visit....................................................1 students and alumni. We recognize the need to •From The Chair.....................................................2 pursue excellence in research and teaching and our •Student, Alumni & Staff News.............................4 department is noted for its excellence in teaching •David Branch Retirement.....................................7 throughout the state. •REU 2010.............................................................8 •Research Programs...............................................9 We have excellent technicians and staff who •Large Hadron Collider........................................16 monitor budgets, manage our network, provide •Yun Wang: Poetry From A Cosmologist.............17 support and information, machine some of the finest scientific instruments, and engineer electrical The ΦYAST ΦLYER is the ofcial newsletter of the Homer L Dodge Department of Physics & circuit boards for faculty and students. Astronomy, University of Oklahoma, and is published each spring. The newsletter staf includes We are delighted to announce the formation of our Dick Henry, Mike Morrison, Howie Baer and Ryan first Board of Advisors. The Board of Advisors Doezema and is printed at a cost of $1.70/copy to the taxpayers of the State of Oklahoma. The includes Chun Lin (Chair), Neal Lane, Ward University of Oklahoma is an equal opportunity Paxton and A. T. Stair. The goal of the Board of institution. All photographs are by Robert Taylor Advisors is to advocate for the students, faculty, unless otherwise noted. 2 THE UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA!SPRING 2010 Centennial Celebration (continued from page 1) use a flowing-afterglow Langmuir-probe (FALP) Astronomy (Kim Milton), Religious Studies (Tom apparatus that was built at OU during 1978-1990. Boyd), History of Science (Peter Barker), (In 2005, Tom described much of this research in a Philosophy (Zev Trachtenberg) and Drama (Kae review in Advances in Atomic, Molecular, and Koger). Also during the same September weekend, Optical Physics.) During this period, Tom directed the first meeting of the department’s new Board of five graduate students: Xifan Liu, Jeff Friedman, Advisors will take place (see From the Chair on Steve Lorentz, Bob Fiegel and Rodney Wetterskog. page 2). Finally, the Sooners host Florida State in a Xifan currently is at the Oklahoma School for football game on Saturday, Sept. 11. So mark your Science and Mathematics; Jeff is a professor at the calendars! University of Puerto Rico-Mayguez; Steve is at NIST in Gaithersburg, Md, Bob works for the FAA The date for Andrei Linde’s in Oklahoma City and is an owner and coach for lecture is yet to be determined, Oklahoma Sport Fencing; and Rodney is director but will occur later in the fall. of development and alumni relations for the Look for more details on both Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer the lecture and the production of Science at UT-Dallas. Copenhagen at our website. We hope you will plan to join us for Currently, Tom and his colleagues are preparing an Andrei Linde these exciting events! article for Science about a newly discovered process. In addition to two-body ion-ion Tom Miller Visit continued from page 1 neutralization, they see a three-body process in where he continues to work under an appointment which the third body is an electron. This at the Institute for Scientific Research at Boston observation raises the important question of how College. Tom’s current research consists in part of the conventional Landau-Zener neutralization is swarm experiments, mostly on electron and ion modified by the extra electron. Although several interactions with molecules in weak plasmas. The mechanisms could explain the observed increases U.S. Air Force funds this work because plasmas are in the ion-ion neutralization rate, the question of important in radiowave communications, including whether any of these mechanisms are sufficiently GPS signals traversing the ionosphere, radar strong to actually explain the experimental data signatures of jet and missile exhausts; and remains open. communications with hypersonic and re-entry vehicles. Lately, Tom and his colleagues have been Between 1998 and 2001 Tom and his colleagues studying ion-ion mutual neutralization, in which also were flying mass spectrometers on NASA the collision of a negative and a positive ion causes aircraft, using chemical ionization (ion-molecule transfer of an electron that results in neutralization reactions) to detect trace gases in the stratosphere. of both ions. This process limits the plasma Knowing the reaction rates from lab work, they density possible in any electric discharge at could determine from measured ion signals the atmospheric pressure or in any situation where free concentrations of trace gases in the atmosphere. electrons attach rapidly to molecules. One of these NASA field campaigns focused on the winter arctic ozone hole and resulted in three two- Like his ion-ion research, many of Tom’s week stays in Kiruna, Sweden, above the arctic experiments on electron attachment to molecules circle. —Mike Morrison 3 THE UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA!SPRING 2010 Student, Alumni, and Sta" News Hats Off to Our Students! Many of the Department’s students were honored for their achievements during the annual awards ceremony held on May 6. Below are listed the students’ names grouped by their scholarships and awards. Homer L. Dodge Departmental Awards Physics and Astronomy Recognition Dodge Prize (junior) Robert Free Walden Bowen Austin Burkett Dodge Prize (sophomore) Nils Schlupp Galen Buttitta Dustin Clouse Fowler Prize Christopher Schroeder Whitney Costello Andrew Do Kalbfleisch Prize (grad. student) Andre Lessa Brandon Doull Darren Erdman Nielsen Prize (PhD Dissertation) Bin Chen Andre Goran Chase Gough Kramer Harrison Mary Hogan Physics and Astronomy Awards Caleb Holt Jim Hopkins J. Clarence Karcher Award Logan Maingi Spencer James Stephen Kane J.

Load more

  16

Copy Link