Finding Our Way in the Cosmos Physics Faculty Named AAAS Fellows

March 2012

Finding our way in the cosmos In the spring semester the physics department hosted a three- part lecture series that explored the universe and our place in it.

The first event was Wednesday, February 15, when Father José Funes, SJ, Director of the Vati- can Observatory presented a Nieuwland Lec- ture titled, “Why Science and Faith Matter to Each Other.” Dr. Brian Schmidt lecture in Jordan Science Hall on February 27. Father Funes participates in the Inside this issue: unique work for the Catholic church in Rome: the Vatican ating Universe,” was part of the Nobel Prize in Physics, jointly Faculty news & notes 2 Observatory. In this lecture, he Lynch Lecture Series. with Adam Riess and Saul spoke about this crossroads of Perlmutter. Schmidt, who led Research featured on journal 3 science and faith and how im- In 1998, two teams traced back the High-Redshift Supernova covers portant it is to promote dialogue the expansion of the universe Search Team, described this Alumnus launches video series 4 between them. over billions of years and dis- discovery and explained how covered that it was accelerat- astronomers have used obser- NDeRC Forum V 4 The second event featured the ing, a startling discovery that vations to trace our universe's recipient of the 2011 Nobel suggests that more than 70% of history back more than 13 billion years, leading them to Contact information Prize in Physics. Dr. Brian the cosmos is contained in a Schmidt, of Australian National previously unknown form of ponder the ultimate fate of the Phone: 574-631-6386 matter, called Dark Energy. His cosmos. Fax: 574-631-5952 University, spoke Monday, Feb- work was awarded the 2011 E-mail: [email protected] ruary 27. His talk, “The Acceler- Continued on page 2

225 Nieuwland Science Hall Notre Dame, IN 46556 Physics faculty named AAAS fellows Three Department of Physics The new Notre Dame AAAS C.S.C., Professor of Web site: physics.nd.edu faculty are among five Universi- fellows from physics are: Mark Physics; and Jacek

ty of Notre Dame faculty who Alber, Vincent J. Duncan Family Furdyna, professor Alumni—let us know about your recent achievements and have been named fellows of the Professor of Applied Mathemat- of physics, Aurora appointments. We look forward American Association for the ics, concurrent professor of and Thomas to hearing from you! Advancement of Science (AAAS) physics and computer science Marquez Professor in honor of their scientifically or and engineering, director, Inter- of Information The- Mitchell Wayne, socially distinguished efforts to disciplinary Center for the Study ory and Computer Department Chair advance science or its applica- of Biocomplexity and adjunct Technology. Kathie Newman, tions. AAAS, founded in 1848, is professor of medicine, Indiana Director of Graduate Studies the world’s largest scientific University School of Medicine; Anthony Hyder, Director of society and publisher of the Margaret Dobrowolska, the Undergraduate Studies prestigious journal Science. Rev. John Cardinal O’Hara, Page 2 Notre Dame Physics Tracks

Faculty news & notes Ani Aprahamian, the Frank M. February issue of Nature Mate- mingham (UK), the Paul Scher- Freimann Professor of Physics, rials in an article, “Controlling rer Institute (Switzerland), Uni- has been elect- Curie temperature in (Ga,Mn)As versity of Montreal (Canada), ed chair of the through location of the Fermi Brookhaven National Laborato- American Physi- level within the impurity band” ry and Los Alamos National cal Society's by M. Dobrowolska, K. Tiva- Laboratory. ("Vortex Lattice Division of kornasithorn, Y.-Y. Zhou, X. Liu, Studies in CeCoIn5 with H⊥c"). Nuclear Physics. and J.K Furdyna (Notre Dame), The APS DNP is M. Berciu (University of British A new, state-of-the-art instru- composed of scientists and Columbia, and K.M. Yu and W. ment, the AP-XPS (ambient educators who study fundamen- Walukiewicz (Berkeley Law- pressure X-ray photoelectron tal problems related to the rence National Laboratory. spectrometer), was recently nature of matter—the properties installed in the Radiation Labor- of nuclei and of their ultimate In a recent paper published in atory. The project brought to- constituents, quarks and Physical Review Letters, Notre gether faculty in the depart- gluons. Dame gradu- ments of physics and chemistry Margaret Dobrowolska, profes- ate student in a collaboration that included sor of physics, has led a team Pinaki Das and the Radiation Laboratory, the of collaborators Associate Pro- Department of Energy, the Of- from Notre fessor Morten fice of the Vice President for Dame, the Uni- Eskildsen re- Research, and versity of British port results of the College of Columbia, and their latest small-angle neutron Science. Sylwia Berkeley Law- scattering studies of the vortex Ptasinska, the rence National lattice studies in the heavy fer- first faculty Laboratory in an effort which mion superconductor Ce- member at has succeeded in identifying CoIn5. In particular they investi- Notre Dame with the mechanisms responsible for gated the detailed interplay a joint appointment in physics ferromagnetism in the semicon- between superconductivity and and the Radiation Lab, will use ductor GaMnAs. This new un- magnetism in this material, the instrument to study chemi- derstanding provides a handle which show very strong Pauli cal changes in biomolecules for planning new strategies paramagnetic effects on the such as proteins or DNA when aimed at increasing its critical vortex cores. Studies of Pauli they are irradiated. The AP-XPS temperature, with an eye of paramagnetic effects in super- will allow her to introduce water making it ferromagnetic at and conductors were been pio- into the system to observe its above room temperature, and neered by the Eskildsen group. effects during the radiation, thus opening the way toward The present results were ob- rather than observing the DNA realistic spintronic devices. This tained in collaboration with alone. colleagues at University of Bir- achievement is featured in the Professor Jonathan Sapirstein has been named as an Out- standing Refer- ee by the Ameri- can Physical Society for 2012. The APS initiated the highly selective award program in 2008 to rec- ognize scientists who have been exceptionally helpful in Nobel Laureate Dr. Brian Schmidt held informal discussions with the physics graduate assessing manuscripts for pub- students during his visit to Notre Dame in February. lication in the APS journals. Notre Dame Physics Tracks Page 3

Cosmos lecture series, continued The third event featured “To me it feels like the work Dr. Brian Greene of Columbia that we’re doing is so vital that University and author of The for it to be hidden behind the Elegant Universe and The Fab- doors of the academy is tragic. ric of the Cosmos. Dr. Greene People need to have an input, presented “The Fabric of the as opposed to shy away from Cosmos” on Tuesday, March 6, joining the conversation be- sponsored by the Building cause of a fear of science.” Bridges lecture series, the Nieu- Greene has worked diligently to wland Lecture Series, and the reach the non-physics public Glynn Family Honors program. through a number of books as This public lecture was well as two NOVA television designed for a non-scientific series. audience. Greene also gave a physics department colloquia earlier that afternoon titled “The State of String Theory.”

Greene told a Notre Dame Ob- server writer “My goal is to make science accessible, excit- Dr. Brian Greene presented a ing, and wondrous, because standing-room only physics that’s what it is,” said Greene colloquium on March 6 in concerning his unique interest Jordan Hall of Science. in conveying matters of physics to the general public.

Faculty research featured on two journal covers

“Optimization hardness as tran- reveal counterfeit art work, with- sient chaos in an analog ap- out the destruction of any sam- proach to constraint satisfac- ple as required in some chemi- tion,” is the title of the article. cal analysis.

Constraint-satisfaction prob- Their research is featured on lems are among the computa- the front cover of the January tionally hardest tasks: solutions 2012 issue of Physics Today in are efficiently checkable, but no an article titled, “Accelerated efficient algorithms are known ion beams for art forensics.” to compute those solutions. Wiescher and Collon say, “Art Fresh insight might come from experts play an important role physics. A study mapping opti- in identifying the style, history, Professors Philippe Collon and The research work of Prof. mization hardness onto the and context of a painting, but a Michael Wiescher are using Zoltán Toroczkai and former phenomena of turbulence and solid scientific basis for the accelerated ion beams to pin- Notre Dame postdoc Mária chaos suggests that constraint- proper identification and classi- point the age and origin of ma- Ercsey-Ravasz was featured on satisfaction problems can be fication of a piece of art must terial used in pottery, painting, the cover of the 2011 Decem- tackled using analog devices. rely on information from other metalwork and other art. The ber issue of Nature Physics. sources.” results of their tests can serve as powerful forensic tools to Notre Dame Physics Tracks Page 4

Alumnus launches video series of scientists César Hidalgo, who earned a Others were Juan Pérez Mer- Two filmmakers at the lab as- Ph.D. in Physics at Notre Dame cader of Harvard on the origins sist with the low-budget project, in 2008, has started an online of life and astrobiology; Mar- with most guests from Harvard video series of scientists, shall Van Alstyne of Boston University a taxi drive away or “Cambridge Nights: Conversa- University on information mar- visitors in town for research tions About a Life in Science.” kets; Luis Bettencourt of the collaborations. The academics The series is produced at the Santa Fe Institute on the sci- in the first season were friends M.I.T. Media Lab that he joined ence of cities and on scientific of Hidalgo. Marta Gonzalez, last year. Hidalgo is the ABC productivity; Ricardo Hausmann Rosalind Picard, Steven Pinker, Career Development Professor on what differentiates nations Nicholas Christakis and Joe at The Media Lab and a faculty at different levels of develop- Loscalzo are already scheduled associate at the Center for In- ment and on economic “black for the second season. The ternational Development at matter”; Marc Vidal of Harvard site has received more than Harvard University. on systems biology; and Geof- 15,000 visitors, including some frey West of the Santa Fe Insti- from the United Kingdom, Cana- Hidalgo’s first guest last Octo- tute on the fractal nature of the da, Chile, Spain, and other ber was Albert-László Barabási, metabolism and the scaling countries. laws of life. his advisor at Notre Dame who The site is: is now at Northeastern Universi- cambridgenights.media.mit.edu ty, on the science of networks.

NDeRC holds Forum V

On Saturday, February 25 the Notre Dame extended Research Community (NDeRC) gathered education and research profes- sionals for the fifth annual Col- laborating for Education and Research Forum in the Jordan Hall of Science.

The event fosters interaction among K-12 teachers and ad- ministrators; university faculty, graduate students and staff; and local industry specialists in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

Presenters included representa- tives from NDeRC, the Institute for Educational Initiatives, the Center for Sustainable Energy at Notre Dame, ETHOS (Encouraging Technology & Hands On Science), Riverbend Community Math Center, and others.