CURRICULUM VITAE Pierre Sokolsky
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APS Announces Spring 2008 Prize and Award Recipients
APS Announces Spring 2008 Prize and Award Recipients Thirty-five prizes and awards will be Tom W. Bonner Prize He served as staff sci- Murray Hill, NJ. In 1990 presented during special sessions at three in Nuclear Physics entist at the Rowland he was appointed profes- Institute for Science in sor at the University of spring meetings of the Society: the 2008 March Arthur M. Poskanzer Cambridge, and Lecturer California at Berkeley, Meeting, March 10-14, in New Orleans, LA, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory at Harvard University where he has served up the 2008 April Meeting, April 12-15, in St. Citation: “In recognition of his pioneering role in (1987-1993), then Profes- to the present. Through- Louis, MO, and the 2008 Atomic, Molecular the experimental studies of flow in Relativistic Heavy sor of molecular biology out his career, Orenstein and Optical Physics Meeting, May 27-31, in Ion Collisions.” at Princeton University has used optical methods (1994-1999), before join- State College, PA. Arthur Poskanzer to explore the properties ing Stanford University is Distinguished Senior of exotic excitations in Citations and biographical information (1999-present). Block’s Scientist Emeritus with novel materials. Since then he has used a wide vari- for each recipient follow. The Apker Award research lies at the interface of physics and biology, the Lawrence Berkeley ety of time-resolved optical techniques to investigate particularly in the study of molecular motors, such as recipients appeared in the December 2007 issue National Laboratory. kinesin and RNA polymerase. His laboratory has pio- solitons, polarons, and triplet excitons in conducting of APS News (http://www.aps.org/programs/ Poskanzer is a pioneer in polymers, d-wave quasiparticles in high-T supercon- neered the use of laser-based optical traps, also called c honors/awards/apker.cfm). -
ASTROPHYSICS Newsletter
ASTROPHYSICS newsletter 1998 EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE DIVISION OF ASTROPHYSICS DAP at the Cenntennial and Millennium Josh Grindlay, Chair, DAP CHAIR (1998) Josh Grindlay Harvard-Smithsonian Center for The upcoming Centennial meeting in Atlanta (see recognized this trend, with a new astrophysics Astrophysics separate summary) promises a rich assortment of initiative within the physics division. 60 Garden St. talks from many of our members and of course Cambridge, MA 02138 the chance to interact with our colleagues from So why, then, is the DAP not expanding significantly? phone: (617) 495-7204 fax: (617) 495-7356 other branches of physics. In this year of There has been modest growth, yes, but not [email protected] millennium preparations, it also offers us a chance commensurate with the current trends mentioned. Are to pause and consider what new directions we we competing too much with our AAS and CHAIR-ELECT (1998) might chart for the Division over the coming few High-Energy Astrophysics Division commitments Trevor Weekes Harvard-Smithsonian Whipple years at least (as astrophysicists, with our penchant (many of are joint members)? How can we make DAP Observatory for orders of magnitude, we are again planning a sessions, and APS meetings generally, more attractive Ctr. Astrophysics, PO Box 97 decade but surely not the next two orders!). Many to our astronomical (and HEAD) colleagues? The Amado, AZ 85645 might agree that astrophysics is increasingly contact with other physics disciplines at an APS meeting phone: (602) 670-5726 becoming not only relevant to and interactive with can expand our astrophysics horizons. At the DAP fax: (602) 670-5713 [email protected] most other disciplines in physics but also where Business Meeting last year, I began a discussion of how much of the most exciting physics is to be found. -
The Highest Energy Cosmic Rays
THE HIGHEST-ENERGY COSMIC RAYS What in the cosmos can possibly be accelerating protons to 1020 electron volts and beyond? And how can they preserve such extreme energies while plowing through the cosmic microwave background on their way to us? Thomas O'Halloran, Pierre Sokolsky and Shigeru Yoshida The unexpected discovery of the cosmic microwave background by Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson1 in 1965 is now the centerpiece of our understanding of the Big Bang and the subsequent evolution of the universe. (See PHYSICS TODAY, November 1997, page 32.) The discovery also set off something of a race to verify one of its implications for cosmic rays. In 1966, Kenneth Greisen (Cornell University) pointed out that the most energetic cosmic-ray particles would be affected by interaction with the ubiquitous photons of this microwave background.2 Greisen predicted that, if cosmic-ray sources were far enough away from us and if their energy spectrum extended beyond 1020 eV then the ultrahigh-energy protons and nuclei would interact inelastically with the backgound radiation. The threshold for this energy sapping interaction is the onset of pion photoproduction. Greisen predicted that a smooth power-law cosmic-ray energy spectrum would therefore be abruptly cut off near 5 x 1019 eV The same effect was independently predicted by G. T. Zatsepin and V A. Kuzmin in the Soviet Union. From the first, this Greisen-Zatsepin-Kuzmin (GZK) cutoff has been much sought after by cosmic-ray physicists looking at the highest energies.3 (See the box on page 32.) Unfortunately for the observers, the cosmic-ray flux at these energies is only about one event per century per square kilometer of detector array. -
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Astronomy and Astrophysics in the New Millennium Astronomy and Astrophysics Survey Committee, Board on Physics and Astronomy, Space Studies Board, National Research Council ISBN: 0-309-50139-3, 276 pages, 7 x 10, (2001) This free PDF was downloaded from: http://www.nap.edu/catalog/9839.html Visit the National Academies Press online, the authoritative source for all books from the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, the Institute of Medicine, and the National Research Council: • Download hundreds of free books in PDF • Read thousands of books online for free • Purchase printed books and PDF files • Explore our innovative research tools – try the Research Dashboard now • Sign up to be notified when new books are published Thank you for downloading this free PDF. If you have comments, questions or want more information about the books published by the National Academies Press, you may contact our customer service department toll-free at 888-624-8373, visit us online, or send an email to [email protected]. This book plus thousands more are available at www.nap.edu. Copyright © National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved. Unless otherwise indicated, all materials in this PDF file are copyrighted by the National Academy of Sciences. Distribution or copying is strictly prohibited without permission of the National Academies Press <http://www.nap.edu/permissions/>. Permission is granted for this material to be posted on a secure password-protected Web site. The content may not be posted on a public Web site. Astronomy and Astrophysics in the New Millennium http://www.nap.edu/catalog/9839.html Copyright © National Academy of Sciences.