SCHOOL OF PHYSICS PHYSICS News SPRING 2014 Dr Julia Bryant (CAASTRO) installing the SAMI instrument on the Anglo-Australian Telescope at SAMI chief investigator A/Prof Scott Croom Siding Spring Observatory. SAMI sits in the telescope’s prime-focus cage, which originally held with SAMI. Photo by Tim Wheeler. photographic plates when the telescope was photographing the sky. Photo credit: SAMI Team. SYDNEY UNI TEAM PILOT ‘GOOGLE STREET VIEW’ OF GALAXIES A new home-grown instrument based on bundles of optical fibres is giving Australian astronomers the first ‘Google street view’ of the cosmos — incredibly detailed views of huge numbers of galaxies. Developed by researchers at the University of Sydney and “It’s a giant step,” said Dr James Allen of the ARC Centre the Australian Astronomical Observatory, the optical-fibre of Excellence for All-sky Astrophysics (CAASTRO) at the bundles can sample the light from up to 60 parts of a galaxy, University of Sydney. “Before, we could study one galaxy for a dozen galaxies at a time. at a time in detail, or lots of galaxies at once but in much By analysing the light’s spectrum astronomers can learn less detail. Now we have both the numbers and the detail.” how gas and stars move within each galaxy, where the young The Australian team is now a year or two ahead of its stars are forming and where the old stars live. This will allow international competition in this field. In just 64 nights it them to better understand how galaxies change over time has gathered data on 1000 galaxies, twice as many as the and what drives that change. previous largest project, and over the next two years it will study another 2000. 1 HEAD OF SCHOOL REPORT Welcome to another edition of the Physics News. As usual, there are many awards and achievements to acknowledge. The Harry Messel Award for Excellence Stewart, supervised by Peter Tuthill, is sponsored by the Physics Foundation won the prize for best student talk at to recognise excellent contributions the 14th Australian Space Research by a staff member to the School’s Conference held in Adelaide. Paul’s activities. It comes with a medal and talk was entitled “Cassini for Australian a cheque for $2,500 and is presented Stellar Science”. every three years or so. I am delighted The ARC Laureate Fellowships, the to advise that the recipient for 2014 is most senior offered by the Australian Eve Teran. Eve has been an extremely Research Council, were recently valuable member of the School for announced. Two of the sixteen many years, initially as Student Services Fellowships came to the University Officer and most recently as Acting of Sydney, both to members of the Tim Bedding, Head of School School Manager. It is wonderful to be School of Physics. able to recognise Eve’s contributions in this way. Many congratulations to Joss Bland-Hawthorn and Peter Robinson Finally, it is a pleasure to welcome As you can read elsewhere in this – this is a wonderful result! The Shiva Ford, who has been appointed newsletter, Elaine Sadler has been ARC Future Fellowships were also as the School’s Outreach Project appointed as Director of the ARC announced. These are for mid-career Officer. Shiva will be working with Centre of Excellence for All-sky researchers and three of the thirteen Chris Stewart on the inaugural Astrophysics (CAASTRO). She takes that came to the University of Sydney STEM Academy Teacher Enrichment over from Bryan Gaensler, who will are in the School of Physics. This is Workshop in November and next year’s be leaving at the end of the year to another excellent result, and many International Science School. She take up the directorship of the Dunlap congratulations to Krzysztof Bolejko, will be managing Alumni and Physics Institute in Toronto. On behalf of the Jan Hamann and Dennis Stello. Foundation activities and events, as School, I would like to thank Bryan for Bill Tango, a long-time member of well as contributing to our website and his tremendous leadership of CAASTRO publications, including this one! and to give my hearty congratulations the academic staff who retired a few and thanks to Elaine for taking on this years ago, was awarded the 2014 extremely important role. Fizeau Prize from the International Astronomical Union (IAU). The award, Congratulations to Mike Biercuk on announced during the Montreal SPIE being awarded a grant of $3.1M over 2014 conference, was for “lifetime the next three years from the US achievement” in forwarding the Army Research Office for a project on theory, technology and practice of “Quantum Control Engineering”. optical interferometry. Congratulations also go to two PhD Congratulations to Kostya Ostrikov, students on recent awards. Nicola an Honorary Professor in the Complex Asquith, supervised by Reza Hashemi- Systems group, who received the award Nezhad, received the Perelygin Young for ‹Excellence in Mathematics, Earth Scientist Award at the “26th Sciences, Chemistry and Physics’ International Conference on Nuclear at the 2014 NSW Science & Tracks in Solids” in Kobe, Japan, for her Engineering Awards. research work and her presentation at that conference. Meanwhile Paul 2 SYDNEY UNI TEAM PILOT ‘GOOGLE STREET VIEW’ OF GALAXIES CONT. CAASTRO funding was crucial in helping the team gain its “We’ve seen galactic winds in other galaxies, but we have no lead. “They had a great idea but it was going to take time to idea how common they really are, because we’ve never had the pull the resources together,” the organisation’s former director means to look for them systematically. Now we do,” said the Professor Bryan Gaensler. “CAASTRO was able to get it University of Sydney’s Associate Professor Scott Croom, happening fast.” a Chief Investigator on the project. Called SAMI (the Sydney-AAO Multi-Object Integral field The researchers are also uncovering the formation history of spectrograph), the optical-fibre instrument was installed on the galaxies by looking to see if they are rotating in a regular way or 4-m Anglo-Australian Telescope at Siding Spring Observatory in if the movement of their stars is random and disordered. northwest NSW last year. “There are hints that galaxies with random motions sit at the The technological leap is the ‘hexabundle’, sixty or more optical centres of groups of galaxies, where many smaller galaxies fibres close-packed and fused together, developed by the may have fallen into them,” said Dr Lisa Fogarty, a CAASTRO University of Sydney’s astrophotonics group led by Professor researcher at the University of Sydney who led this work. Joss Bland-Hawthorn. On Thursday 24th of July, the researchers released the first Using the new instrument, astronomers from the Australian set of data from the instrument to the worldwide astronomical National University and the University of Sydney have already community and Dr Allen gave a related presentation at the annual spotted ‘galactic winds’—streams of charged particles travelling scientific meeting of the Astronomical Society of Australia. at up to 3,000 km a second—from the centre of two galaxies. AIN UPDATE BY NATHAN APPS The AIN façade is now one-third Internally, a temporary wall has been The operational readiness committee complete. The remainder of the façade installed in the large void under the continues to meet to plan and organise will be completed progressively, a green roof. This provided a pressurised, the operation of the building after few panels per day. Many of the main clean and stable environment for the construction. The School is also building services (e.g., electricity, gas construction of the cleanroom. In independently looking at strategy, and water etc.) are either connected, other laboratory and plant areas, the space allocation and other matters in progress, or in the last stages of installation of electromagnetic shielding involving A28 and Physics staff. All planning. Most of these services are including aluminium and steel plates, these things and many more are being connected from Physics Road, will commence in mid-October. On the happening in parallel. The opening past the Eastern exit doors of A28, then roof, the cooling towers and chillers of the building is still scheduled for into the AIN site. A specific milestone are being installed and the last steel– mid-2015. is that the building will be connected to framed plant room is almost complete. main power in early January. Cleanroom fitout and temporary wall. AIN south facade with reflection of crane. 3 Anne Harley, a former lawyer and now The couple believe that philanthropy a farmer, says the experience of using has a crucial role to play in supporting FULFILLING science to improve soil and water the University in an increasingly quality has brought home to her the competitive financial environment, THE PROMISE practical importance of science. requiring it to seek a diversity of OF QUANTUM “We have been thinking about giving income streams. to the University for some time and “In a globalised world Australia will rise COMPUTING science was always where our interest and fall by the quality of its private lay for this. We were pleasantly and public institutions and support for surprised by the progress Mike’s lab universities is critical for that success.” A belief in the need has made in this challenging area Hugh Harley sees a role for business for business to reach and excited by its possible range of in that relationship: “If Australia is to game-changing applications,” Anne remain competitive it needs to be at out to the sciences Harley said. the forefront of scientific research and is only one of the Professor Biercuk commented, “Hugh commercialisation so I’m especially and Anne’s generous support will keen to break down barriers between motives for Anne and accelerate our lab’s efforts to bring the business and science communities.” Hugh Harley to donate about a new technological future “It is crucial for business and science enabled by the laws of quantum to engage each other; it will be a major half a million dollars physics.