Cross Sections

DEPARTMENT OF PHYSICS AND ASTRONOMY UNIVERSITY OF ROCHESTER SPRING 2000 Physics and Astronomy SPRING 2000 Message from Our Chair

—Arie Bodek tive programs. A step in this direction Finally, a committee consisting of The previous issue of Cross Sec- is the shift of part of the nuclear faculty members from the department tions (only 10 years ago!) featured a physics program into relativistic and from The Institute of Optics is in story about Okubo Fest, a symposium heavy ions that is leading to the for- the process of searching for an exper- to honor Susumo mation of a combined high energy imenter in the field of atomic physics Okubo’s 60th birthday nuclear and particle physics effort and quantum optics. and to celebrate 40 in the department. Two new faculty This past fall, the department years of Rochester members. Steve Manly and Kevin admitted 33 graduate students, its Conferences in High McFarland joined this broad area largest entering class in 20 years. Energy Physics that this past year. Also, the astrophysics Although we overshot our planned were initiated in the group has initiated a collaboration goal by about about 50 percent, we 1950s by Bob Marshak. This year’s with mechanical engineering and the are certainly pleased with the quality feature story is about Adrian Fest, a Laboratory for Laser Energetics on of the class, and are working on symposium to honor Adrian two programs, one being in high- matching the research interests of the Melissinos’s 70th birthday. energy dense plasmas and the other students with those of advisors inside During the past two years the de- in plasmas in the domain of astro- and outside the department. partment formulated a strategic plan physical phenomena, an area of par- In addition to the resumption of the for faculty recruitment within the ticular interest to our new faculty publication of Cross Sections, to keep University’s Renaissance Plan, which member Eric Blackman, who joined our alumni and friends informed, we provides a reduction in size to 26 the theoretical astrophysics group in have a new and user-friendly Web faculty members in physics and as- January 2000. The condensed matter page, which we urge you to visit at tronomy. As part of this transition, group has a newly appointed faculty www.pas.rochester.edu. the faculty has recognized that, in member, Wenhao Wu, who is expert You can even contribute items to order to maintain excellence, we will in experimental low-temperature the Alumni News by sending a note have to interact more closely and physics, and is maintaining strong to [email protected]. leverage resources in more collabora- collaborative ties with Kodak and Xerox and with chemical engineering.

Cross Sections future directions in particle physics. Editors: Tom Ferbel and Kevin McFarland “Adrian Fest” The proceedings of the symposium Published by the Department of Physics and As- will be published by World Scientific. tronomy of the University of Rochester, and distrib- Honors Adrian was born in Thessaloniki, uted to alumni and friends free of charge. Copies Greece, attended the Greek Naval Acad- may be obtained by writing to CROSS SECTIONS, Career of emy, and then joined Department of Physics and Astronomy, University the Royal Hellenic of Rochester, P.O. Box 270171, Rochester, NY Melissinos Navy in 1948. When 14627-0171; phone (716) 275-4344. his tour of duty was It is hard to imagine that Adrian up, Adrian left the has turned 70! He is vigorous and Greek Navy for the Cover Photo enthusiastic and as impossible to Charles River and MIT, Numerical simulation of a magnetized keep up with as ever. This past Sept- where he earned his master’s degree protostellar jet. Young stars drive high- ember 24–25 we gathered together in 1956 and his Ph.D. in 1958 in the speed beams of plasma into their sur- his former students and colleagues Francis Bitter Lab. He then immedi- roundings. This simulation followed to celebrate his remarkable career. ately joined Rochester, where he worked the evolution of a jet with an embedded More than 125 physicists and col- on problems ranging from cosmic rays, magnetic field. Here we see the jet be- leagues attended the Adrian Fest dynamics and spectroscopy of the ing peeled apart by the interaction of Symposium on Probing Luminous strong interactions to tests of the CPT the magnetic field with the surround- and Dark Matter. Nobel laureate Leon theorem in kaon decay. With Leon ing medium. Simulation performed Lederman, who worked closely with with code written by Tom Gardiner, Adrian, was among the physicists Continued on page 5 a graduate student in Adam Frank’s from around the world who discussed research group.

2 Physics and Astronomy SPRING 2000 Nobel Laureate Chu Joins Koshiba Board of Trustees Wins the

As some of you may recall, Steven 1998, and he now honors the Uni- Wolf Prize Chu, Geballe Professor of Physics at versity through his service on the Stanford University, earned his bache- Board of Trustees. The Wolf Prize for physics, awarded lor’s degree in math and physics at Steve is a very relaxed and gener- by the Wolf Foundation of Israel, will Rochester in 1970. He ous individual, and loves to tell how, be shared this year by Raymond Davis, received his Ph.D. in as an undergraduate, he was regu- Jr. of the University of Pennsylvania, physics at the Univer- larly thrown out of Tom Ferbel’s busy and Masatoshi Koshiba, of the Uni- sity of California at office. Tom recounts that on a recent versity of Tokyo. “Toshi” received his Berkeley with Eugene visit, Steve once again showed up at Ph.D. with Mort Kaplon in our depart- Commins in 1976. He Tom’s office for some brain-picking ment in 1955 on studies of high- won the Nobel Prize about the University. After about 20 energy cosmic rays. (He was also our in 1997 for perfecting techniques to minutes, Tom, always in a hurry to Susumu Okubo’s roommate during slow, trap, and study individual atoms, get somewhere, looked at his watch, graduate school.) The prize will be work that he initiated during his affil- and showed Steve out the door. Steve presented at the Israeli Knesset on iation with Bell Labs. Steve received responded with his usual good humor May 21. an honorary degree from Rochester in that some things never change! Since 1978, the Wolf Foundation has awarded the prestigious prizes, second only to Nobel Prizes, to the world’s outstanding scientists and McFarland Wins Outstand- artists for achievements in the inter- est of mankind. The prizes in science ing Investigator Award are in the fields of agriculture, chem- istry, mathematics, medicine, and Assistant Professor Kevin McFarland, and the increase in luminosity of the physics. Each prize carries a $100,000 appointed in the department about a Tevatron. Kevin is leading the con- award, with the winners selected by year ago, has won an Outstanding struction of a system to analyze data international committees of renowned Junior Investigator award from the from collisions in real time. His team experts in each field. Department of Energy. is building and programming a Toshi pioneered studies of proton This award helps tal- “farm,” or cluster of hundreds of per- decay and of detection of neutrinos ented young physicists sonal computers, to make massively from astrophysical sources. He initi- establish research pro- parallel decisions. The project corre- ated the Kamiokande experiments in grams, and will con- sponds to building a tremendous Japan, where he led the design and tribute $400,000 to supercomputer out of equipment that construction of the detectors that Kevin’s five-year pro- can be purchased at your favorite observed neutrinos emitted from gram of research at the CDF detector computer store. The computer farm Supernova 1987a. Subsequently, he at the Tevatron at Fermilab. Kevin’s will analyze and filter the digitized went on to discover what is now main fascination is with the origin data collected by detectors, and then accepted as the oscillation of neutri- of mass, an issue he hopes to clarify select the most interesting 10 percent nos among their different species, through studies of the details of pro- of the collisions for further analysis. implying that neutrinos have finite duction and decay of the massive top Kevin has approximately 500 col- mass. quarks. leagues on CDF, and so he will have Currently, Kevin and his team of to share the limelight if something seven graduate and postdoctoral stu- unusual is discovered about the top dents, including two from our depart- quark. But it’s a small price to pay ment, are participating in preparations for the possibility of gaining greater for the upgrade of the CDF detector Continued on page 9

3 Physics and Astronomy SPRING 2000 Krishnaswami Receives Apker Award

The American Physical Society has ence on Undergraduate Research ear- Sproull fellowship, one of the most named Govind Krishnaswami the na- lier this past year. prestigious fellowships held by Ph.D. tion’s best undergraduate researcher Govind is the first student from the students at the University. from a Ph.D.-granting university. University to win the Apker Award, Govind is an extraordinary young Govind is one of two recipients of the which coincidentally is named for a man, passionate about physics, with Leroy Apker Award, the APS’s highest 1941 Rochester alumnus. The Depart- enormous enthusiasm and creativity. award for undergraduate research. ment of Physics and Astronomy nom- He came to Rochester four years ago The $5,000 award ranks him among inated Govind based from Madras, India, knowing some- the brightest young scientists in the on research he con- thing about the University: 35 years nation. The department will also re- ducted with Professor prior, his uncle (N. Mukunda) earned ceive $5,000 in support of undergrad- Rajeev, which explored his Ph.D. in theoretical physics from uate research. Govind, who graduated the structure of the our department, and he is now a pro- last May, is now a first-year graduate proton. In particular, fessor in India. Other scientists whom student in physics. He was one of Govind and Rajeev Govind found inspiring include Nobel seven finalists who squared off in studied the momentum distribution laureate Richard Feynman and his Washington, D.C., presenting their of quarks within the proton, which own advisor. In turn, Rajeev is equally research to a panel of the nation’s top they calculated from first principles. impressed by his talented student, scientists. The work he presented to This is one of the key problems in and claims that Govind was the best the APS has already been published understanding the strong interaction. undergraduate that he has seen any- in the journal Physics Letters B, and Now as a graduate student, Govind where. was reported at the National Confer- continues to explore the structure of —Adapted from an article in Currents the proton with Rajeev. He was also by Susan Murphy awarded a Robert L. and Mary L. Undergraduate Research: A Personal Perspective

—by Govind Krishnaswami quarks and gluons. While solving I spent the summer of my sopho- QCD, even within an approximation more year working on the NuTeV scheme, remains a challenging prob- experiment at Fermilab, which stud- lem, Professor Rajeev had made ied the deep inelastic scattering of progress with an approximation to The momentum distribution of valence neutrinos on nuclear targets. Among QCD that is appropriate to the kine- quarks in the proton, xF3, as predicted the many parameters of the Standard matical regime of deep inelastic scat- by Krishnaswami and Rajeev’s work, Model that NuTeV measured, were tering experiments. By finding solu- compared to experimental data the parton distribution functions of tions to this theory, we were able the proton. These describe the shape to calculate the distribution of the tally verifiable predictions. We con- of the proton in terms of the distribu- “valence” quarks in the proton (xF3). tinue to be interested in a theoretical tion of quarks and gluons inside, just This agreed reasonably well with understanding of the structure of the as the wave function of electrons experimental measurements, as can proton. Studying the strong interac- describes the shape of an atom. Sub- be seen in the accompanying figure. tions is particularly exciting since they sequently, when I spoke to Professor In working on this problem, it has are very different from the electromag- Rajeev, the problem of understanding helped us greatly to understand the netic and gravitational interactions. and predicting the structure of the same theory from both the QCD point For instance, the force between quarks proton appealed to me greatly. The of view and a simplified many-body diverges at large distances and van- structure can, in principle, be des- perspective called the parton model. ishes at small distances. Yet, looked cribed by quantum chromodynamics The challenge has also been to put at the right way, the interactions can (QCD), which governs the strong together several pieces of the puzzle appear quite simple. These exciting “color” force that operates between in order to have a consistent picture ideas will occupy us for a long time to that in addition makes experimen- come.

4 Physics and Astronomy SPRING 2000 Melissinos Thorndike Receives Continued from page 2 Panofsky Prize Lederman, he performed several important experiments on muon scat- Edward H. Thorndike won the 1999 pected to be especially sensitive tering at Brookhaven Laboratory. In prestigious W. K. H. Panofsky Prize in to new physics beyond the current the early 1970s, he pioneered studies Experimental Particle Physics from Standard Model of of diffractive production at Fermilab, the Division of Particles and Fields particle physics. and in the late 1970s Adrian sampled of the American Physical Society for After a Ph.D. with the CLEO Collaboration. Since the his research on the “b” or “bottom” Dick Wilson at 1980s, Adrian’s attention has been quark. The award recognizes Thorn- Harvard, Ed joined focused on experimental activity out- dike’s nearly 20-year study of the the University in side the confines of the traditional quark and his leadership of the CLEO 1961 and promptly accelerator environment and on appli- collaboration in its pursuit of its de- established his own research program cation of novel technical ideas to tailed properties. at the 130-inch cyclotron. After that some of the most fundamental issues Since the late 1970s Ed has been closed, Ed chose to work on photon in particle physics, such as axions, focusing his attention on the Cornell physics at Cornell, and subsequently gravitation, sparking of the vacuum, Electron-positron Storage Ring (CESR). on electron-positron collisions at and the use of laser “targets” and As many of you know, this particle CESR. In 1969, he won a National laser acceleration in particle physics. accelerator sits 60 feet beneath an Science Foundation senior postdoc- He was one of the first physicists to athletic field at Cornell University, toral fellowship to work at CERN, forge ahead successfully in these new and is the site of the CLEO detector. where he participated in studies of scientific directions. Although Ed has served many years meson spectroscopy. He took a break Many of us have come to regard as head of the CLEO collaboration, a from the b quark in 1987 to spend a Adrian as a true Renaissance particle group of 200 physicists who use this year at the electron storage ring in physicist. His broad range of interests NSF-supported facility, his greatest Japan as a Guggenheim fellow. and combination of technical skill and enjoyment comes from his direct in- The recognition from the APS came ingenuity have led to many fascinat- volvement in both the construction of as a surprise to Ed, who learned ing and novel investigations. In addi- the hardware and in the analysis of about the prize while answering his tion, he has always been an enthusi- the data. He often competes with his e-mail one Saturday morning. Sus- astic teacher. His books on first-year junior colleagues in figuring out novel pecting a prank, he skeptically read physics, on technology and industry, ways to uncover the properties of the the message requesting the title of on quantum mechanics, and especially b quark. his acceptance speech, and remained on methods in experimental physics Ed is best known for his analysis of unconvinced until the official letter of are classics in demand everywhere. At the rare decay of the b quark into a notification arrived in the mail on last sighting, he was off simultane- strange quark and a photon, a the following Monday. ously to Fermilab, SLAC, and BNL to process thought to proceed through —Adapted from an article in Currents attend to his latest interests. what is known as a “penguin dia- by Susan Murphy gram.” Such penguin decays are ex- University Sesquicentennial Weekend October 12–15, 2000

During the year 2000, the University centennial Weekend highlighting www.rochester.edu/sesqui for any of Rochester is celebrating the 150th quantum optics that will include pre- late-breaking news, and let us know anniversary of its founding. Alumni sentations by Nick Bigelow, Steven if you will be attending the festivities. are invited to attend the many special Chu, and Ian Walmsley. There will celebrations being planned this year. also be an open house for all our Of particular interest to the depart- friends in Bausch & Lomb Hall. Please ment is a session during the Sesqui- check the University’s Web page at

5 Physics and Astronomy SPRING 2000 If It’s Tuesday, This Must Be . . . Minsk?

This past September was a tough exchange in US dollars, thereby sav- month for Dan Green (B.S. ’64, Ph.D. ing a great amount of money for the ’69), currently at Fermilab and serving CMS project. Although he has spent as the Technical Director and Project the past 30 years of his scientific Manager for the U.S. contingent of career accumulating an ensemble of the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) skills completely different from the detector being constructed for the requirements of project management, Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN, he is certainly doing well in this new the European particle physics labora- capacity. It will likely take this kind tory in Geneva, Switzerland. He was of shrewdness to assure that the glad to return from a grand tour that entire LHC will come in on budget saw him on the road for 15 of 20 days, and on time! from Fermilab to the Republic of Bel- Members of our high energy arus to Birmingham, England, and physics group have been working back. The tour was necessitated by a closely with Dan on the construction strike in Bulgaria that prevented de- of a hadron calorimeter for CMS. The ogy was developed in a collaborative livery to Spain of brass plates, required calorimeter is being assembled by effort between Rochester and Fermilab for completion of wedges of absorber technical staff members from Roch- for the upgrade of “plug” calorimeters material to be used in one of the CMS ester and Fermilab under the supervi- for the Collider Detector at Fermilab calorimeters. In dealing with the prob- sion of Rochester’s Senior Research (CDF). The CDF calorimeters, built by lem, Dan relied on one of his newly Associate Pawel de Barbaro (Ph.D. Arie Bodek and his colleagues, served developed skills as commodity broker. ’90), who is serving as the subproject as the prototypes for the CMS calori- He kept a particularly sharp eye on manager. The calorimeter uses the meter. the daily vicissitudes of copper and new technology of scintillating tiles —Adapted from a Fermi News article the Swiss franc, and struck his bar- that are read out with wavelength- by Mike Perricon gain when it was advantageous for shifting optical fibers. That technol-

R.C.Q.I. Holds Workshop on Quantum Information

The Rochester Center for Quantum tanglement and Nonlocality in Phase cation is the development of computers Information (RCQI) at the University Space,” and Peter Knight from Im- that are able to perform more complex of Rochester held a Workshop on Fun- perial College spoke on “Quantum functions that are either impossible or damental Issues in Quantum Informa- Communication and Quantum Infor- too time-consuming with today’s “clas- tion at the end of October. Joe Eberly mation Processing.” Peter is a former sically limited” machines. Another ap- and Carlos Stroud of the Department Rochester postdoc and a recently plication is the transmission of encoded of Physics and Astronomy are two of appointed Fellow of the Royal Society. signals, whose security is guaranteed the principal members of the Center. The workshop was held to provide by the Uncertainty Principle, and has The RCQI is directed by Ian Walmsley an overview of the topic of quantum obvious application in the exchange of of The Institute of Optics. information, and to provide a forum information. Some of the world’s lead- The workshop had two tutorial lec- for discussion of the issues, as well ers in the field of quantum information tures that were open to the University as to identify open questions and and measurement attended the work- community: Krzysztof Wodkiewicz future directions. The subject covers shop and lectured on their specialties. from the University of Warsaw (Ph.D. quantum teleportation, computing, ’77) spoke about “Interference, En- and cryptography. One possible appli-

6 Physics and Astronomy SPRING 2000 Astrophysicists Launch Outreach Program

Thirty years after the NASA launch the complex computer codes that they own instructions, or see what happens that put man on the moon, one of our run every day on supercomputers to when a star squirts out a monstrous astrophysicists and his students plan simulate events like stellar birth and amount of gas in a very short time. a launch of their own. death. The program will be available They might request an explosion twice They’ve won funding for use by the community at a spe- as large, and then learn about the to develop an outreach cially designed kiosk at the Strasen- conditions needed for that to happen, program that will put burgh Planetarium at the Rochester or they might change the velocity of a astrophysics on the Museum & Science Center on East gas jet and see what results from that. desktop, allowing Avenue. The centerpiece will be a per- Adam’s students unveiled a proto- amateur astronomers, sonal computer equipped with the type of the program at the May 1999 students, and others to design and program, dubbed “Astroflow,” sur- meeting of the American Astronomical conduct their own experiments. rounded by several large, striking Society in Chicago, and they hope to A team led by astrophysicist Assis- photos of the heavens taken by the have the final product ready by this tant Professor Adam Frank has Hubble Space Telescope. June when the University and the Roch- secured $650,000 from NASA and the Adam feels that with this program ester Institute of Technology host the National Science Foundation to con- kids will be able to tinker with a star. AAS annual summer meeting. tinue its astrophysical research and For example, they will be able to —Adapted from an article in Currents to develop a stripped-down version of watch stars evolve according to their by Susan Murphy American Astronomical Society to Meet in Rochester

On June 4–8, 2000, the University on measurements with SIRTF, and of University of Rochester astronomers, of Rochester and RIT will co-host the lasting importance to the astronomy led by Professors Bill Forrest, Judy 196th meeting of the American As- community. There has been no propri- Pipher, and Dan Watson, have been tronomical Society (AAS). The event etary period set aside for the release developing sensitive infrared (IR) will be held at the Rochester Conven- of SIRTF Legacy data, and calibrated detector arrays for SIRTF instruments tion Center, and some 1,000 astrono- measurements will therefore be placed since 1984. They have contributed mers are expected to converge on our immediately in a public archive in especially to the construction of near- city. There will be invited speakers order to promote follow-up investiga- IR and mid-IR cameras. In addition to and topical sessions, in addition to tions by guest observers. A large frac- supporting instrument development the usual contributed oral and poster tion of the observing time is expected and testing, they are working on papers. The time of this meeting cor- to be allocated to Legacy. A topical their already guaranteed observing responds to a critical period in plan- session as well as an exhibit is time for their science programs on ning for the Space InfraRed Telescope planned for the AAS meeting around topics ranging from surveys for Facility (SIRTF), to be launched Dec- these programs. brown dwarfs, study of circumstellar ember 2001. The call for SIRTF “Leg- Among other topical sessions pro- disks, halos around spiral galaxies, acy” proposals is essentially contem- posed for the AAS meeting are those starburst galaxies, and the evolution poraneous with that date. devoted to research in laboratory as- of young stellar clusters. Legacy Science Projects are to be trophysics using facilities at the Lab- major coherent investigations based oratory for Laser Energetics, and a session on bipolar outflows—a local specialty.

7 Physics and Astronomy SPRING 2000 Faculty Profile: Wenhao Wu

Wenhao Wu joined the faculty in electrons conduct current in disor- During the past year, Wenhao and December 1997. He received his B.S. dered low-dimensional systems. Not his students have been studying degree in physics from Nanjing Uni- only is this important superconductivity in ultrathin films versity in 1983, his M.S. degree in from the point of view with a thickness of about 10 angstroms. physics from the Chinese Academy of basic research, but These films are made by quench-con- of Science in 1986, and his Ph.D. in understanding elec- densing vapors of metallic elements physics from the University of Chi- tron transport in such onto insulating substrates held near cago in 1992. From 1992 to 1995 he systems is also vital liquid helium temperature. Due to the held postdoctoral positions, first at for technology, be- very low atomic diffusivity at such a Louisiana State University and then cause the microelectronics industry is low temperature, ultrathin and electric- at Michigan State University. being rapidly transformed toward the ally continuous films can be formed to His research interests are mainly fabrication of smaller, thinner, faster, study the physics of highly disordered in the low-temperature behavior of and more sensitive devices. The sec- two-dimensional systems. Currently, disordered and low-dimensional con- ond question concerns the collective Wenhao and his students are measur- densed-matter systems, such as disor- behavior of a large number of parti- ing the transport and tunneling char- dered magnets, ultrathin supercon- cles, of order of 1020, that interact acteristics of ultrathin films of low- ducting films, as well as sub-micron with each other via a long-range force mass superconducting elements. structures of these disordered materi- such as the dipole coupling between Specific questions to be addressed als fabricated through electron-beam magnetic moments or the Coulomb include how superconductivity is sup- lithography. repulsion between electrons. In a pressed in ultrathin films and how the There are two types of fundamental highly disordered system, one of the density of electronic states near the questions Wenhao and his students most challenging questions in physics Fermi energy of these ultrathin films are trying to address. First is how is what is the ground state of such a differs from that of the bulk materials. system. Going Back in Time at RHIC

With the commissioning of the into the state of the very early uni- Relativistic Heavy-Ion Collider (RHIC) verse. Due to its inherent simplicity, at Brookhaven National Laboratory PHOBOS has the potential of making (BNL) in the spring of 2000, Rochester a major scientific discovery during the physicists will start looking back in initial running period of RHIC. time at conditions in the universe The Rochester group is responsible that existed a few microseconds after for several hardware and software the Big Bang. Steve Manly, Frank components of PHOBOS. The group Wolfs, and their research associates received funding from the Major and students are collaborating with Research Infrastructure program of scientists from several other institu- the National Science Foundation for tions on the PHOBOS experiment, One of the PHOBOS time-of-flight sec- the construction of two time-of-flight one of the four approved experiments tions installed at RHIC, replete with the sections, which double the acceptance ready to run at RHIC. PHOBOS will Rochester seal of PHOBOS. This construction project have the first look at the extreme was completed on time and on bud- energy densities that will be created stituents, quarks which carry the get, and the time-of-flight wall (see when relativistic gold nuclei collide charge of the proton and gluons picture) is currently installed at RHIC head-on at RHIC. It is believed that a which carry the force that binds and is waiting for the first collisions. new state of matter, the quark-gluon quarks together into protons, neu- Support for the relativistic heavy-ion plasma (QGP), will be formed in these trons, and nuclei. PHOBOS will study program in the department is provided collisions. In a QGP, the neutrons and this new state of matter, and the by both the Department of Energy and protons of ordinary matter coalesce to observed properties of the QGP are by the National Science Foundation. form a primordial “soup” of their con- expected to provide unique insight

8 Physics and Astronomy SPRING 2000

is an accomplished athlete and a par- areas in astronomy in which such New Faculty ticularly wicked basketball player. He small telescopes can make important plans to take full advantage of the contributions, such as those requiring Profile: Eric new and improved University athletic large fields of view and/or sensitivity facilities. to diffuse emission in observations of Blackman open stellar clusters or interstellar matter in the solar neighborhood. The department is pleased to report Funding for the upgrade was pro- the successful recruitment of an out- Mees vided by the College, our department, standing new member of the faculty. and the Center for Imaging Science at Eric Blackman, a theo- Observatory the Rochester Institute of Technology, retical astrophysicist, our collaborator in this project. The has joined the depart- Gets Face RIT astronomy group is also provid- ment as Assistant Pro- ing a 2048x2048 CCD camera as a fessor of Physics and Lift facility instrument for the upgraded Astronomy. The recent telescope. search for a theoreti- The 24-inch telescope at our C. E. K. cal astrophysicist brought many extra- Mees Observatory is undergoing its ordinarily talented applicants to visit first major upgrade since its installa- Kevin McFarland the department, but Blackman’s cre- tion in 1966. A new pointing and Continued from page 3 ativity, breadth of interests, and talent tracking system, complete with new as a scientist made him a standout. encoders, secondary-mirror (focus) insight into the fundamental nature Eric’s principal interests focus on drive, drive controllers, and a control of matter. problems involving astrophysical computer with pointing, tracking, and Kevin also believes strongly in the plasmas and magnetic fields. His autoguiding software will be completed importance of educating the public work on the origin of magnetic fields by March 2000, just in time for the about the research conducted at Fer- in settings as diverse as the sun, gal- lifting of winter cloud coverage at milab. This past summer, as part of axies, and disks of gas surrounding Rochester. Gone will be the days of the QuarkNet program, a national pro- massive black holes have opened new locating objects by “finding charts” gram that partners high school teach- windows into the nature of interac- and manual offset guiding, tasks that ers and scientists, he served as a men- tions between plasma motion and often require the touch of a profes- tor at Fermilab to two high school fields. Eric has also worked in high sional astronomer. Students as well as teachers from the Rochester area. Next energy astrophysics, including issues experts should be able to use the up- summer, these two teachers will be such as the mysterious gamma ray graded telescope efficiently. The work stationed at the University, one of 12 bursts. is being carried out by DFM Engineer- QuarkNet centers, to show 10 other Eric comes to the department after ing of Longmont, Colorado, which spe- high school teachers how to imple- an impressive period of training at cializes in retrofits to such telescopes. ment physics research projects into some of the world’s finest institutions Most of the incentive for the up- their curricula. in astrophysics. He received his un- grade comes from the teaching needs In addition to winning DOE’s Out- dergraduate degree in physics and of our undergraduate astronomy pro- standing Junior Investigator award, math from MIT in 1990, and a degree gram. The upgrade will make astro- Kevin’s research earned him recog- in applied mathematics at Cambridge nomical results accessible even to nition as a Sloan Research Fellow in University in 1991. He completed his beginning and non-science students. 1998, the same year he joined Roch- Ph.D. in theoretical astrophysics at The improvements will enable our stu- ester. Kevin earned his doctoral degree Harvard in 1995, and has held post- dents to get twice the data in the in physics from the University of Chi- doctoral fellowships at Cambridge and same amount of time. We also plan to cago and his bachelor’s degree in math- at Caltech. Eric also plans to take exploit the simplified telescope opera- ematics and physics from Brown Uni- part in the department’s new program tion in a new Quest course, Astronomy versity. Before coming to Rochester, (with the Laboratory for Laser En- Through Inquiry (AST 171Q and 172Q), he held an appointment as a Leder- ergetics) in high energy-density plas- to be offered for the first time next man Fellow at Fermilab, where he ma astrophysics. fall. The upgraded facility will also be worked on neutrino scattering. It is noteworthy that Eric is a Roch- used during the summer by under- —Adapted from an article in Currents ester native and an alumnus of the graduate students doing research in by Susan Murphy Harley School in Brighton. Along with our department. There are still several his interests in all things cosmic, he Physics and Astronomy SPRING 2000 Graduate Student Research: Towards BEC in Our Own Backyard

—by Ben Weiss In the basement of Bausch & Lomb Hall, in a small vacuum chamber re- sembling a Star Wars warship, atoms are regularly cooled down to tempera- tures one million times colder than lake-effect snow. A few years ago, members of Nick Bigelow’s Cooling and Trapping (CAT) Group would boast that our atom traps were the “coldest spots in the universe.” These days, 100 micro-Kelvin seems down- right sweltering. With the realization of Bose-Einstein Condensation (BEC) in dilute alkali gases, physicists have been able to produce traps with tem- peratures less than 10 nano-Kelvin! At these ultracold temperatures, atomic motion is slowed to a snail’s pace, the thermal deBroglie wave- length becomes comparable to the interatomic spacing, and quantum mechanical effects dominate atomic interactions. BECs have opened the door to a wide range of studies, from matter-wave interference and super- fluid-like vortices to coherence phe- nomena and the atom laser. One might say that BECs are the hottest thing in cold physics today. Graduate students in Bigelow’s CAT Graduate students (l to r) Michael Banks, Pedro Quinto Su, John Janis, and Ben Group are working hard to make BEC Weiss pose in front of the coldest spot in Rochester. a reality here at Rochester. For sev- eral years, the CAT Group has been Multicomponent BECs have unique designed to first capture and cool engaged in studies of heteronuclear features that cannot be observed in atoms from a background gas and ultracold collisions in two species the single species varieties. For exam- then transport them to a low-pressure magneto-optical traps (MOTs) of both ple, interspecies interactions in a region where further cooling leads to Na+Cs and Na+Rb. Recently, this TBEC of sodium and rubidium lead to condensation. The procedure is as fol- work has focused on the production phase-separation between the compo- lows: A MOT is set up in each cham- of heteronuclear molecules of sodium nent species. Probing these ground ber, above and below a vertical con- and rubidium. The hope is to extend state structures might also provide a necting tube. Atoms collected in the this work on two-species traps to a way to observe a macroscopic quan- upper MOT are pushed through the new low-temperature regime by creat- tum transition in this system. tube into the lower chamber with an ing the first two-species BEC (TBEC). The chamber mentioned above is part of a two-chamber apparatus

10 Physics and Astronomy SPRING 2000 on-resonant laser beam, and captured in the lower MOT. This cycle is repeated Update of a Classic Work many times until the lower MOT is completely saturated. At this point, Published Posthumously the lower chamber holds well over one billion atoms at micro-Kelvin temper- This past October, some two years agents, and on differentiating the atures. This is a reasonable starting after receiving the University of Roch- impact of neutrons and gamma rays point for the BEC cooling cycle. ester’s Distinguished Alumni Medal on biological systems. In his new Intuitively, we expect BEC to occur of the College, our capacity as an experimenter, he held when the mean deBroglie wavelength former graduate stu- posts as Chief of the Division of is greater than or equal to the inter- dent Charles E. Swen- Physical Radiobiology and Project particle spacing. This criterion turns berg died at the Mayo Manager in the Radiation Biochem- out to be very difficult to meet with Clinic at the age of 59 istry Department at AFRRI. standard cooling and trapping tech- as a result of compli- Swenberg coauthored a volume on niques. In order to reach BEC, mag- cations due to a 30- medical physics with Arthur Damask netic trapping and evaporative cool- year-long sequence of illnesses. Al- and was planning a new book on ing must be employed. Magnetic most at the same time, the second that subject, an area in which he had trapping is possible because atoms edition of his book with Martin Pope no peers in experience. His former have an intrinsic magnetic dipole entitled Electronic Processes in Or- colleague Jack Dow once described moment, and can therefore be trapped ganic Crystals and Polymers was him as “the true bionic man.” Crohn’s with static B-fields. Evaporative cool- published. Eagerly awaited, the disease had ravaged his intestinal ing takes place in conjunction with 1,328-page volume updates the or- tract and for some time, even while magnetic trapping, and refers to a iginal 1981 edition that had become co-organizing and attending NATO process of “boiling off” the hottest a standard reference for the field. schools, he lived by virtue of a feed- atoms in the trap with radio-frequency Swenberg made his very substantial ing tube inserted into his chest. He radiation. As the atoms rethermalize, contributions to the completion of the bore many other burdens associated their temperature is lowered, slowing new edition largely from the confines with strong pain killers, and had to them down and increasing their of a hospital bed. manage his body chemistry at all deBroglie wavelength. At the same After completing a thesis in theo- times. He earned the admiration of time, the trapping fields are ramped retical condensed-matter with Bob his physicians, who often remarked to provide tighter confinement. In Knox in 1967, Swenberg went to the on his unique and towering courage. this way, both the mean deBroglie University of Illinois for a postdoc Swenberg’s professional interests wavelength and particle density are and on to New York University as a and activities seemed boundless. increased. If this procedure is carried faculty member. Working first with He was instrumental in bringing to- out carefully, the criteria for BEC can organic crystals and later with photo- gether biologists and statisticians to be satisfied. synthetic systems, he pioneered the achieve essential interpretations of It won’t be too long before BEC development of exciton fission and data on membranes, and was keenly makes its Rochester debut. When the fusion as diagnostic tools for uncov- interested in neurobiology and med- setup procedure is completed, our ering structures and mechanisms for ical physics. He was a fellow of APS, apparatus will enable us to carry out energy transport. Moving on to the always kept current on physics, and many interesting experiments, several Armed Forces Radio biological Re- was working on a Ph.D. in math- of which were mentioned above. But search Institute (AFRRI), the only ematics (topology) at the time of scientific curiosity is not all that government laboratory devoted to his death. In all, he authored or motivates us. After all, it seems only studies of the impact of ionizing coauthored 3 books, edited 4, and fitting that the home of the “coldest radiation on biological systems, he wrote 93 research papers and 23 place in the universe” should be right worked on mechanisms of DNA radi- chapters in various other books. here in Rochester. olysis, on improving radioprotective

11 Physics and Astronomy SPRING 2000 “We’ll Take the Physical Challenge”

—by Aaron Reichman Ph.D. meant nothing. Unfortunately, given an opportunity to force one of Showing no respect for the elders the powerhouse team of professors— the opposing team members to answer who taught them about Maxwell’s Nick Bigelow, Tom Ferbel, Steve Manly, a question. Also, teams were given the Equations, wave propagation, and Lynne Orr, Steve Teitel, and Dan Watson opportunity to take a “physical chal- how to correct spherical aberration in —proved worthy of their doctorate lenge” if they did not know the answer a telescope, the SPS seniors slapped status in defeating the undergradu- to a question. While the undergradu- a glove to the face of their professors, ates by a “smallish” margin of 20 ates used this option to advantage, challenging them to a duel of wits. In (+/- 15) points. the professors did not fare quite as a Jeopardy-type quiz bowl, undergrad- Questions were developed by the well. uates Davis Doherty, Nora Macey, department’s graduate students. Ca- So indeed, the faculty was able to Damen Provost, Aaron Reichman, tegories, included Sports, Movies, defeat the team of undergraduates, Nick Rogers, Rich Sarkis, and Jason Art, and the University of Rochester/ but nonetheless, SPS is still proud of Sickler led a Napoleanic charge Bausch & Lomb Hall. In an attempt its effort. After all, the students against the faculty to prove that a to liven up the game, each team was proved to be far better dancers. . . .

The students engage in a misguided attempt to regain their dignity by “Shuffling Off to Buffalo.”

12 In Brief

Initiation of Robert E. Tenured Faculty Member in Spring than 300 scientific papers that have Marshak Postdoctoral 1999. Orr, whose specialty is the phe- had broad impact in areas ranging Fellowships nomenology of particle physics, joined from holography, laser science, med- This past December, the depart- the faculty in 1993. Her interests are ical imaging, ultrasound, cryptogra- ment approved the initiation of a new in understanding the contribution of phy, radio astronomy, the search for postdoctoral program of prestigious gluon radiation to top quark produc- long-buried dinosaurs, and even our fellowships in nuclear and particle tion and to production of jets from understanding of the history and de- physics. Named in honor of Robert E. the perspective of the theory of quan- velopment of the universe. Of course, Marshak, these will be open to both tum chromodynamics. Emil has also been the recipient of experimenters and theorists, reflect- many other prestigious awards in both ing Marshak’s impact and keen inter- Emil Wolf Does It Again! the United States and abroad and is est in all aspects of the field. The Emil Wolf, our distinguished Wil- one of the most revered members of intent is to bring to Rochester excep- son Professor of Optical Physics and this field of physics. tional young individuals to help con- Professor of Optics, received honorary tinue the department’s historic excel- doctorates from the Universite de Magic Flutes lence in nuclear and particle physics. Franche-Compte in France and from For the past several years David While funds to start the program are Aalborg University in Denmark for his Douglass’s Physics of Music class has already available, contributions are broad range of contributions to physi- spread holiday cheer in the foyer of being sought to bring it to its full po- cal optics. His classic book, Principles Bausch & Lomb Hall prior to the an- tential. Anyone interested in contribut- of Optics, which he wrote with Max nual departmental party with their ing should tick off the appropriate Born, has just been republished in an annual “Flute Choir” concert. box on the form printed on the last expanded seventh edition. The recent The students make these flutes, as page of this issue of Cross Sections. awards bring to seven the number of one of the laboratory experiments in honorary degrees Emil has received. the class, out of plastic pipe and corks Frederick Lobkowicz Thesis He has been similarly recognized by from wine bottles. The tone holes are Prize Established universities in England, Canada, Scot- positioned to produce a note to within This prize, established by friends land, the Netherlands, and the Czech half a semi-tone as determined by a and colleagues of Fred Lobkowicz, is Republic. reference tone or spectral analysis. awarded to graduating Ph.D. students Wolf is an expert on the behavior Students in the class compose and in experimental high-energy nuclear and physics of light. His extensive arrange the musical score and conduct or particle physics whose accomplish- contributions are documented in more the choir. ments best reflect the high standards and exceptional quality of research of the late Professor Lobkowicz. The prize includes a monetary award of $600.

Lynne Orr Honored for Excellence in Teaching Particle theorist Lynne Orr, promoted this past summer to Associate Profes- sor in the department, received the G. Graydon and Jane W. Curtis Award for Excellence in Teaching by a Non-

13 Alumni News

Peter Koehler (Ph.D. ’67) has stepped In Memoriam down as Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Pittsburgh. After 12 years of service in that capacity, he is now teaching full time, and finding it both chal- lenging and rewarding.

Rex Adelberger (Ph.D. ’69) has been a leader in developing teaching and research activities at small colleges. He has been Chair at Guilford College, and is the current editor of the Jour- nal of Undergraduate Research. This year he is on sabbatical leave in Ha- waii, working on the Maui Space Sur- veillance Telescope.

If you think you’ve been seeing a younger version of Joel Berlighieri (Ph.D. ’70) on campus lately, you’re right. Son Joel, Jr. is a freshman, majoring in engineering. Dad has for many years been on the physics fac- ulty at The Citadel in Charleston, South Carolina.

After finishing a thesis on particle physics with Fred Lobkowicz, Jon Abramson (Ph.D. ’75) decided to sample the field of biophysics. Follow- ing a stint as a postdoc at the Uni- versity Medical Center, he joined the Physics Department at Portland State University in Portland, Oregon, where he has been professor since the late 1980s. Jon has been the recipient of a highly esteemed Established Invest- igatorship from the American Heart Association and a Fulbright Fellow- Betty Cook with (l to r) students Stephan De Bievre (Ph.D. ’86), Sarah Eno ship for study in Israel. He writes that (Ph.D. ’90), and John Mansour (Ph.D. ’90). he loves biophysics—the experiments

Betty Cook, who retired in July ment. Over that 30-year period, she 1993, died suddenly this past was more “mother-in-residence” to summer (August 21, 1999). Betty our graduate students than just a worked in the department as department administrator. We have Graduate Student Counselor from indeed lost a family member. September 1963 until her retire-

14 Physics and Astronomy SPRING 2000 are far less expensive, and they don’t Cretsinger (Ph.D. ’95) decided to try ester group on the D0 experiment at take a decade to complete. His main Berkeley Law School and a career in Fermilab. She lives in Warrenville, interest is in proteins that transport patent law. Illinois, and periodically joins her calcium and control muscle contrac- former associates for functions at tion in both skeletal and cardiac muscle. Spied on the streets of Georgetown Fermilab. in Washington, D.C., were Eliza Michele Migliuolo (Ph.D. ’88, and Stefaniw (M.S. ’96) and Emile Phil Koehn (Ph.D. ’96) is a post- younger brother to Stefano, Ph.D. Ettedgui (Ph.D. ’95). Emile is current- doctoral fellow at the Ohio State Uni- ’77) just reported that he is the Vice ly with the Rand Corporation. Eliza, versity, where he is building a fast President for Sales and Marketing at after working at NRL (Lab for Comp processor that will provide selective XACTIX, a company located in Pitts- Physics & Fluid Dynamics) and then triggering on charged tracks for the burgh that makes MEMS (micro- in science policy and arms control at upgraded CDF experiment at Fermilab. electromechanical systems) biomed- various government agencies, including ical devices, and special processing the U.S. Patent Office, is now attend- This past fall, Michael G. Nichols equipment. ing law school. She is currently work- (Ph.D. ’96) became Assistant Profes- ing on a degree in patent law. sor of Physics at Creighton University After completing her Ph.D. in 1990 on in Omaha, Nebraska. Prior to joining the AMY experiment in Japan, Sarah Gordon Watts (Ph.D. ’95) has joined Creighton, Mike spent three years as a Eno did a postdoc at the University the physics faculty at the University postdoctoral research associate in the of Chicago on CDF. Subsequently, she of Washington at Seattle, where he laboratory of Watt Webb in Applied joined the physics faculty at the Uni- plans to continue his work on the D0 Physics at Cornell. versity of Maryland and the D0 exper- experiment at Fermilab. iment. She was promoted this past After graduation, Charlie Freeman fall to associate professor. Jianming (Jim) Cao (Ph.D. ’96) joined (Ph.D. ’97) and Diane Brian (Ph.D. the faculty of the Department of Physics ’97) married and decided to remain Mark Battle (Ph.D. ’94) earned his at Florida State University this past in the Rochester area. Charlie took a degree in experimental particle physics fall. Jim did his thesis on femtosecond position as Assistant Professor in on the CLEO experiment. He then dynamics of electrons at metal surfaces. Physics at SUNY Geneseo, which is changed fields, and moved into After graduation, he went to Caltech also Diane’s undergraduate alma atmospheric science. He held postdoc to help develop picosecond gas-phase mater, and Diane joined Kodak, where appointments at the University of electron diffraction in the group of she is working on digital imaging Rhode Island and Princeton, where Ahmed Zewail, winner of the 1999 and analysis. We understand that the he studied the global carbon cycle Nobel Prize in chemistry. Jim is now commute has not posed any problems through precision measurements of working hard to build his own lab and to their marriage nor to their careers. oxygen concentrations in snow core equip it with state-of-the-art ultrafast samples he obtained at the South lasers and surface-sensitive probes. Edward L. Hull defended his Ph.D. Pole. Mark has recently joined the thesis in May 1999 and was subse- Physics Department faculty at Bodoin Kathy Fatyga (Ph.D. ’96) is currently quently appointed Senior Scientist College. a member of the technical staff at at Rio Grande Medical Technologies Lucent Technologies in Naperville, in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Ed is A rising young star in particle phys- Illinois. She is very generous in her working on the design of optical in- ics, after a postdoc position with the claim that her career as a software struments to be used in medical diag- University of Pennsylvania, Cathy developer at Lucent has been success- nostics. ful primarily because of the training she received as a member of the Roch-

15 Physics and Astronomy SPRING 2000 Departmental Funds

The department has established sev- The C. E. Kenneth Mees Observatory and Astronomy in support of depart- eral funds that greatly benefit depart- Fund. Established in 1977, this fund mental activities. mental activities. They are: is for the discretionary use of the dir- ector of the University’s Mees Observ- Contributions from alumni and The David L. Dexter Memorial Fund. atory in support of observatory activi- friends are the dominant source of Established in 1981 to honor the ties, such as the recent upgrade to income to these funds. If you would memory of the late Professor Dexter, the facility. like to support the Department of this fund supports an annual lecture Physics and Astronomy, please mark by an outstanding scientist. The Elliott W. Montroll Memorial the appropriate box on the form below Fund. Established in 1984 in memory and send it with your contribution. The Robert E. Marshak Memorial of the late Professor Montroll, this Donations may be tax-deductible, and Fund. This fund will be used to sup- fund supports the Montroll Memorial donations of appreciated securities port the newly created postdoctoral Lectures in Physics. may also carry significant tax advan- Robert E. Marshak Research Fellow- tages. The department is grateful for ships, intended to attract the most The Physics and Astronomy Alumni any help you may wish to give. talented young nuclear and particle Fund. Established in 1968, this fund physicists to Rochester to continue is for the discretionary use of the their research in the department. chair of the Department of Physics

I wish to contribute to the following fund: ❑ The David L. Dexter Memorial Fund ❑ The Robert E. Marshak Memorial Fund ❑ The C. E. Kenneth Mees Observatory Fund ❑ The Elliott W. Montroll Memorial Fund ❑ The Physics and Astronomy Alumni Fund

Enclosed, please find my contribution in the amount of $

Name

Address

Year/Degree

If donating by check, please make your check payable to the “University of Rochester,” indicate on the check that it is for the “Department of Physics and Astronomy,” and please indicate the specific fund to which your donation should be applied. Gifts of appreciated securities are also gratefully accepted. Please send your contribution and this form to:

Chair, Deparment of Physics and Astronomy University of Rochester P.O. Box 270171 Rochester, NY 14627-0171 USA

UNIVERSITY PUBLICATIONS A&S536-1.5M-300DPI

16