Radiations

Department of Physics and Astronomy

Carleton College

October 14-20, 2001

Weekly Calendar

Tuesday, Oct 16, 10:00-3:00 pm , Sayles-Hill, Peace Corps, Stacy King, a representative of the Peace Corps will be on campus with information and a slide presentation 4-5pm in Willis 114. Interviews will be scheduled on October 17.

Thursday, Oct 18, 12:00-1:00 pm 113 LCD, Physics Table, Join the department staff for lunch and good company. We can meet on 3rd Olin at 11:50 for the short walk to the new dinning hall or you can meet us in room 113 at the Language Center Dining Hall. Students off-board are invited to bring their lunch.

Friday, Oct 19, 3:30-4:30 pm Olin 02, Fall Seminar, Randy Hulet, "Bose Condensation,"Randy Hulet of Rice University, is one of the pioneers in Bose-Einstein condensation and is also working on other spectacular experiments with cold quantum gases. Apart from his talk, Prof. Hulet would like to meet with students who are interested in graduate school or summer internships at Rice. We have scheduled dinner with students on Thursday the 18th and lunch on Friday the 19th. Let Arjendu or Ann know if you are want to attend.

Nancy Knight from the Iowa State engineering program will be on campus, Monday, October 22 from 1 - 2:30 pm. She will be available to answer questions on their graduate program; Cookies included. For more information contact Nelson Christensen.

From PHYSICS NEWS UPDATE The American Institute of Physics Bulletin of Physics News, Number 560, October 9, 2001 by Phillip F. Schewe, Ben Stein, and James Riordon

THE 2001 NOBEL PRIZE IN PHYSICS goes to Eric Cornell of NIST/JILA, Wolfgang Ketterle of MIT, and Carl Wieman of Colorado/JILA (JILA is an institute run jointly by NIST and the University of Colorado). Cornell and Wieman are recognized for their being the first to achieve a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) in neutral atoms (Science, 14 July 1995; see Physics News Update 233). Ketterle soon thereafter produced a larger BEC and has made extensive study of BEC properties. The BEC phenomenon, foreseen by Satyendra Bose and Albert Einstein in the 1920s, can come about when atoms are chilled to very low temperatures. Quantum theory holds that the wave-like nature of atoms allows them to spread out and even overlap. Indeed at a high enough density and a low enough temperature (billionths of degrees above absolute zero) the atoms can, like the photons in a laser, enter into a common quantum state with a common energy. In other words, the atoms are all coordinated (coherent) with each other and constitute a single "super atom." BEC was possible experimentally when in a magnetoptic trap (MOT) a combination of laser cooling (a web of laser beams hitting the atoms from many directions) and evaporative cooling (a web of magnetic fields encourage the warmer atoms to depart, leaving the cooler atoms to coalesce in the trap) brought about unprecedentedly low temperatures. BEC is still largely restricted to fundamental research in physics labs, but numerous potential applications beckon, such as the use of BEC beams ("atom lasers") for doing high-resolution lithography for microchips, interferometry (navigation, gravity wave detectors, etc.), high-precision clocks, and "atomtronics" (atoms sent around a microchip or down hollow fibers).

Physics News Update (http://www.aip.org/physnews/update) has covered BEC research extensively. Examples include BEC as a superfluid (Update 449), rudimentary atom laser (305), amplifying atom waves (465), all-optical BECs (545), switching BEC interactions from negative to positive (producing miniature "supernovas," Update 530), BEC on a microchip (559), BEC as an immiscible liquid (402), hydrogen BEC (382), lithium BEC (237), helium BEC (532), tunable chemistry (362), sound waves in BEC (319), slowed light in a BEC (472), quantum evaporation (356), and continuous atom laser beam (422). (Background: Wieman and Cornell, Scientific American, March 1998.)

Future Fall Friday Seminars:

9/26 John Prineas, Semiconductor Quantum Wells: What They Are and What You and Astronomy Can Do With Them, University of Iowa, Department of Physics and Astronomy.

11/02 Matt Hahn, Neutrino Oscillations; Tim O’Connell, Fitting of a Simple Mathematical Model to a Complex Simulation; Andrew Eppig, Stop-and-go, Ebb and Flow: Kinesin Mobility and the Brownian Ratchet.

11/09 Suzanne Rousseau, CPT Symmetry and Optical Pumping; Doug Sigford, Students of the Solar Wind: A Scientific and Academic Endeavor; Henry Brock, Raising Walls and Food for Forty, Carpentry and Camp.

Argonne National Laboratory Summer Energy Research Undergraduate Laboratory Fellowship and Student Research Participation Program These are two separate programs. You are welcome to apply to both. Apply for the ERULF program through the U.S. Dept. of Energy's web site at http://www.scied.science.doe.gov Deadline: Feb 1, 2002. For the Argonne Student Research Participation Program only, apply through the Division of Educational Programs web page at http://www.dep.anl.gov. Deadline: February 1, 2002.

University of Buffalo, NASA sponsored Summer Research Opportunities in Planetary Geology and Geophysics for rising juniors and seniors. Mrs. Christine Gibbons, Project Manager, Planetary Geology and Geophysics URP, Geology Dept, University at Buffalo, 876 Natural Sciences and Mathematics Complex, Buffalo, NY 14260-3050, phone: 716-667-1783 (12-5 p.m. EST) or email Dr. Tracy Gregg (tgregg@nsm.buffalo.edu); see website at: http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~tgregg/pggurp.html Deadline: January 25, 2002

Cornell University NSF/REU. Sue Sullivan, 517 Space Sciences Building, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853-6801. phone: (607) 255-2710 email: SFC1@CORNELL.EDU Open to 1st, 2nd, and 3rd year students. Must be US citizen or permanent resident. http://astrosun.tn.cornell.edu/REU/REU.html. Deadline: February 11, 2002.

CUREA (Consortium for Undergraduate Research and Education in Astronomy) at Mt. Wilson Observatory is a two-week, hands-on astronomy course using telescopes at Mt. Wilson. For more information and to apply for the 2001 program (Aug 13-27) see the website http://www.curea.org. Application deadline: May 1, 2002.

Kitt Peak National Observatory REU. Six research assistant positions for summer 2001. Contact: REU Program, Kitt Peak National Observatory, P.O. Box 26732, Tucson AZ 85732-6732. Web: http://www.noao.edu/kpno/reu. Deadline: January15, 2002.

Mayo Clinic's "Summer Undergraduate Research Program." Applications for the SURF program at Mayo close on February 1, 2002. Information on the SURF program (including on-line application forms) is at http://www.mayo.edu/mgs/surf.htm

National Radio Astronomy Observatory Summer Program. Students who are US citizens or permanent residents and are enrolled in a degree program are eligible to apply for the 10 to 12 week program. Some positions will be available for graduating seniors or graduate students. Deadline: Jan 25, 2002. http://www.nrao.edu/administration/directors_office/summer-students.shtml

Space Telescope Science Institute Summer Student Program -- A ten-week program to engage in research with STScI staff scientists. This is intended primarily for advanced undergraduates, and is open to both U.S. and foreign students. Applications for the 2002program are due February 15, 2002 http://www.stsci.edu/stsci/summer.shtml

Past and Current REU Information: http://physics.carleton.edu/Updates/finternships.html