2016 • Volume XVI CENTER FOR ASTROPHYSICS, SPACE PHYSICS & ENGINEERING RESEARCH Astrophysics & Space Science Theory Group • Early Universe Cosmology & Strings Group Gravity, Cosmology & Astroparticle Physics Group • Hypervelocity Impacts & Dusty Plasmas Lab Space Science Lab • Paul and Jane Meyer Observatory Microgravity drop tower project progresses Highly regarded Russian, Ukrainian physicists join CASPER leadership team Gifted scientist, cherished friend, lost to cancer in this issue CASPER UPDATES STUDENT HIGHLIGHTS Cancer takes gifted scientist,cherished friend . 1 Rockwall senior wins top prize at plasma International scientists accept leadership posts . 2 physics workshop . 12 Freshman delivers presentation ANNOUNCEMENTS at national mathematics conference . 12 Astrophysicist and Mathematician join CASPER . 3 CASPER SUMMERS SPACE SCIENCE NEWS 2015 REU/RET Program . 13 Probing a lunar enigma . 4 Pondering the origins of planets . 5 CASPER SEMINARS Selected Presentations . 14 PROGRAMS AND FACILITIES Microgravity drop tower project progresses . 6 INTELLECTUAL CONTRIBUTIONS Federal grant supports basic plasma research . 7 Publications, Presentations et al. 16 GROUP UPDATES HOT TOPICS Astrophysics & Space Science Theory Group, Space Science Lab and Hypervelocity Impacts & Gravitational wave astronomy . 24 Dusty Plasma Lab . 8 Experimental Astronomy Group . 9 Cover photo: Magnetic Dusty Plasma Experiment (MDPX) instrument at Auburn University . Gravity, Cosmology & Astroparticle Physics Group . 10 Early University Cosmology & Strings Group . 10 Education Research Group . 11 CASPER STATS 2015 Intellectual Contributions 23 Papers 41 Presentations CASPER News is an annual publication of the Office of Vice Provost for Research at Baylor University. 75 Articles CASPER News highlights the work of faculty and staff of the 9 Datasets Center for Astrophysics, Space Physics & Engineering Research, Dr . Truell Hyde, director . 2015 Proposals / Grants CASPER is located in the Baylor Research and Innovation 21 Active Grants Collaborative in Waco, Texas . For more information, go to: http://www .baylor .edu/casper . $15.2 million - Total Funding Send comments to: research@baylor .edu . CASPER News • 2016 • Volume XVI CASPER UPDATES CASPER loses gifted scientist, cherished friend, to cancer Dr. Hans-Peter Röser, longtime director and manager of the As a tribute to Dr. Röser, last February the University of Space Systems Institute (IRS) at the University of Stuttgart and Stuttgart hosted a gathering of internationally prominent space adjunct researcher at CASPER, died 8 December 2015 at his scientists and physicists who attended to present their latest home in Aachen, Germany, following a long battle with cancer. research and celebrate their colleague’s 65th birthday. In 2007, Röser traveled to Baylor University to finalize Upon receiving the news of Röser’s death, IRS colleague, and help implement a now long-standing memorandum of Dr. Stefanos Fasoulas, offered: understanding between CASPER and IRS. The relationship We are deeply grieved. With Professor Hans- he fostered initiated a continuous stream of Stuttgart faculty Peter Röser’s passing we have lost an outstanding and graduate students to Baylor for study and research, and scientist, teacher, mentor and friend. His precise established an ongoing dusty plasma research collaboration and critical analyses were invaluable to our research that employs sophisticated inductive plasma generators at both and teaching. His enthusiasm and dedication institutions, as well as GEC rf reference cells at Baylor. Under were exemplary and students found his lectures the agreement, the two institutions also exchange information transformative. He was attentive to everyone he relating to design and construction of student-built satellites met and his advice was always welcome. and other projects. Röser managed IRS from 2002 until February 2014. An Professor Wolfram Ressel, Chancellor of the University of energetic and forward-thinking scientist, in 2011 he established Stuttgart, added the following: the Stuttgart-based Baden-Wuerttemberg Space Center. Earlier, The news of the death of Professor Hans-Peter he was a founder of the SOFIA Institute which, with NASA, Röser has caused deep sadness at the University of co-sponsored development of the Stratospheric Observatory Stuttgart. All who had the great good fortune to for Infrared Astronomy, an advanced and powerful infrared know this charismatic personality have suffered a telescope that is taken to high altitudes aboard a highly great loss. The University, its students and alumni modified Boeing 747. have lost not only an outstanding teacher, scientist Born in 1949 in Polch, Germany, Röser studied physics at the and science-manager, but we have especially lost Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms University in Bonn, receiving a great man possessed of uncommon openness, his Ph.D. in 1979. Appointments followed at the Max Planck humanity and shining strength of personality. Institute for Radio Astronomy in Bonn and at the Technical Through his years of association with CASPER, many at Baylor University of Berlin, where he held a professorship in space forged close and lasting bonds with Röser. For them, his passing sensor technology. He also simultaneously held a position as leaves both professional and deeply personal voids. director of the Institute of Space Sensor Technology of the German Center for Aerospace (DLR) in Berlin-Adlershof. “Hans-Peter was a truly rare individual — he was both brilliant, There he worked chiefly on the SOFIA project, but also placing him at the top of his field, but also truly gifted in initiated numerous innovative small satellite projects. his ability to encourage those around him,” recalls CASPER director, Dr. Truell Hyde. “His passing is a great loss to us all. He will be sorely missed.” 1 CASPER UPDATES Highly regarded Russian, Ukrainian physicists join CASPER leadership team Dr. Oleg Petrov and Dr. Vladimir Nosenko join Hungarian scientist Dr. Peter Hartmann as assistant directors of research, further enhancing CASPER’s reputation for international collaboration. Last August, internationally esteemed before the two began serious talks about working together. plasma physicist, Dr. Oleg Petrov, accepted an appointment as an assistant “The next time I met him was at the 2012 (European Physical director of research at CASPER. Society) conference in Stockholm,” Petrov recalled. “That was Elected to the Russian Academy of Sciences the starting point for the active phase of our collaboration. (RAS) in 2008 and recipient of the 2010 “We have a really unique situation: we are working in the State Prize of the Russian Federation in same direction in dusty plasma research, but we are using education, Dr. Petrov serves as Deputy different facilities and techniques to trap and transform the Director for Science at the Academy’s Joint (plasma) structures. During my visit to CASPER this summer Institute for High Temperatures (JHIT) in Moscow. He is a key we were able to successfully combine the (CASPER and JHIT) figure in microgravity plasma research, including the Plasma approaches, giving some exciting results,” Petrov said. Kristall-3 project aboard the International Space Station and in At home in Moscow, Petrov spends time with his interior the adaptation of plasma science to medicine. designer wife Elena, their two university student children, Igor He and CASPER director, Dr. Truell Hyde, first exchanged and Maria, two pet cats and dog. He also enjoys scuba diving business cards at a 2004 conference in Paris, but years passed and underwater photography. Ukraine-born plasma physicist Vladimir significant implications for material sciences and engineering. Nosenko lends his extensive expertise Nosenko first came to Baylor in 2011 after a fellow professor to CASPER while serving as a full- at Iowa told him about CASPER. “I visited and came back and time research scientist at the German said, ‘very interesting labs, nice people, lots of nice equipment,’” aerospace center, DLR, Germany’s Nosenko recalls. “Later I began building some ties with equivalent of NASA. A graduate of (CASPER founder and director Dr. Truell Hyde) and these the Moscow Institute of Physics and advanced to the point that I have become an assistant director Technology, Nosenko earned a Ph.D. at of research here.” the Ukraine National Academy of Science’s Institute for Metal Physics in Kiev before leaving his home Nosenko’s appointment is yet another product of the culture of country for a position at the Plasma Physics Research Centre at international collaboration that has been a CASPER hallmark Lausanne, Switzerland. since its founding in 1999. Nosenko says he finds pooling talent in this way to be especially useful and rewarding. “We have an Nosenko came to the United States in 2002 to study and teach old, wise saying that if you have two people who each have an at the University of Iowa, where legendary astrophysicist idea, then as a group you have two ideas. In this way we can Dr. James Van Allen was still researching and teaching into his have ideas and creatively exchange them. late eighties. The Van Allen radiation belts that are responsible That benefits everyone.” for polar auroras bear his name. Nosenko finds the field of complex plasmas especially attractive Nosenko returned to Europe in 2006 and conducted research because he sees it as still in its infancy. “I think that many at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in human activities