These lectures feature speakers from around the country and globe. Each colloquium
lasts about an hour and gives you a deeper understanding of the types of physics and
astronomy researching going on around the world.
Colloquia will be held in a hybrid format and a recurring Zoom link is provided to access the virtual format.
If you are interested in being added to our e-mail distribution list regarding upcoming
colloquia, please contact Ms. Nancy Kesar via e-mail at nkesar@mailbox.sc.edu. We appreciate your interest!
Upcoming Colloquium:
Isomers and Dark Matter: 180mTa and 178mHf
Speaker: Steve Elliott
Date: 9/19
Abstract: At the end of the last century, large volumes of gallium metal were used as targets
to detect electron neutrinos (ne) from the Sun. A small number of 71Ge atoms, produced
in many tons of gallium through the charged current reaction 71Ga(ne,e-)71Ge, were
subsequently counted to determine the solar neutrino flux. 71Ge atoms are radioactive
and their decays were observed in small proportional counters. The radiochemical technique
procedures were extensively studied through auxiliary measurements, and tests with
strong radioactive sources were performed. These source tests, however, found fewer
71Ge atoms than expected given the cross section and measured efficiencies. This,
as yet unexplained result, is commonly referred to as the gallium anomaly.
The Baksan Experiment on Sterile Transitions (BEST) was designed to investigate this
anomaly, which has been frequently interpreted as evidence for oscillations between
ne and sterile neutrino (ns) states. The BEST measurement consisted of a 3.414-MCi
51Cr ne source placed at the center of two nested Ga volumes and measurements made
of the 71Ge production at two different average distances. The measured rates in both
volumes were low and hence consistent with oscillations. However, the rates in the
two volumes were similar providing for other interpretations. This talk will summarize
the history of the measurements, the BEST experiment and its results, the motivating
physics, and possible interpretations.
"Time and information resolution in human hearing and its implications for high-fidelity
audio and psychophysics"
9/12
Ashely Byrd White
University of South Carolina
9/19
Steven Ray Elliott
Los Alamos National Laboratory
“Isomers and Dark Matter: 180mTa and 178mHf"
9/26
Lucas Lindsay
Oak Ridge National Laboratory
"Insights from vibrational thermal transport modeling"
10/3
Maura McLaughlin
West Virginia University
TBA
10/10
Boris Ivlev
TBA
10/17
Fall Break
10/24
Edward “Rocky” Kolb
University of Chicago
TBA
10/31
Mark Pederson
University of Texas, El Paso
TBA
11/7
11/14
Tom Berlijn
Oak Ridge National Laboratory
TBA
11/21
Kyle Leach
Colorado School of Mines
TBA
Past Colloquia:
September 5, 2024 - Dr. Milind Kunchur "Time and information resolution in human hearing and its implications for high-fidelity
audio and psychophysics"
October 8, 2020 - Dr. Yuriy Pershin "Are Resistance Switching Memories Memristors?"
February 27, 2020 - Dr. Thomas Crawford, Dr. Scott Crittenden, and Dr. Yanwen Wu "Research Directions at the SmartState Center for Experimental Nanoscale Physics (Experimental)"
February 20, 2020 - Dr. Yaroslaw Bazaliy and Dr. Yuriy Pershin "Research Directions at the SmartState Center for Experimental Nanoscale Physics
(Theoretical)"
February 13, 2020 - Dr. Ward Plummer "Quantum Materials Driven Renaissance in Surface Physics"
February 6, 2020 - Dr. Smita Mathur "The Warm-Hot Circumgalactic Medium"
January 30, 2020 - Dr. Richard Creswick "A Laboratory Search for Axions/ALPS"
December 5, 2019 - Dr. William E. Mustain "Founding and Emerging Materials for Li-ion Batteries"
November 21, 2019 - Dr. Dennis Bodewits "Atomic and Molecular Physics of Comets"
November 14, 2019 - Dr. Daniel Scolnic "New Excitement in Measurements of Dark Energy and the Hubble Constant"
October 31, 2019 - Dr. Varsha Kulkarni "Extrasolar Planets: Understanding Earth's Place in the Cosmos"
October 3, 2019 - Dr. J. Michael Shull "Where Do Galaxies End"?
September 26, 2019 - Dr. Craig Group "A Renaissance for Muon Physics: (Who Ordered That?)"
September 19, 2019 - Dr. Peter Mättig "Beyond the Higgs: LHC Physics in the Light of Philosophy"
September 5, 2019 - Dr. Revaz Ramazashvili "Zeeman Spin-Orbit Coupling and Magnetic Quantum Oscillations in Antiferromagnetic
Conductors"
May 7, 2019 - Dr. Laurie E. McNeil "Transforming Teaching and Learning: Self-Renewal and Institution-Building"
April 25, 2019 - Dr. Megan Donahue "The Role of Supermassive Black Holes in the Growth of Galaxies"
April 18, 2019 - Dr. Monique Aller "Investigating the Dust Grains in Galaxies Using Quasar Absorption Systems"
April 11, 2019 - Dr. Massimiliano Di Ventra "Memcomputing: Leaveraging Memory and Physics to Compute Efficiently"
April 4, 2019 - Dr. Leonid Pryadko "Quantum Computation and Quantum Error Correction: A Contemporary Overview"
March 28, 2019 - Dr. Oleg Tchernyshyov "Mechanics of Magnetic Solitons"
March 21, 2019 - Dr. Ashot Gasparian "The Proton Radius: Preliminary Results from the PRad Experiment"
March 7, 2019 - Dr. Raul Briceno "The Exotic World of Quarks and Gluons"
March 4, 2019 - Dr. Alexander Monin "Current Challenges of Particle Physics and How to Address Them"
February 28, 2019 - Dr. Karen Livesey "Magnetization Relaxation in Magnetic Nanoparticle Systems"
February 25, 2019 - Dr. Andrey Katz "Beyond the Standard Model: Search for a Shadow World"
February 18, 2019 - Dr. Kimberly Boddy "Unraveling the Structure of Dark Matter Throughout Cosmic History"
February 7, 2019 - Dr. Igor Altfeder "Scanning Tunneling Microscopy of Quantum Materials"
January 31, 2019 "Remembering Dr. Horacio Farach"
December 6, 2018 - Dr. Yanwen Wu "Tools Made of Light - An Overview of the Ideas Behind the 2018 Physics Nobel Prize"
November 29, 2018 - Prof. Valery Nesvizhevsky "Gravitational Quantum States of Neutrons, Atoms, and Antiatoms"
November 15, 2018 - Ms. Lisa Hunter and Mr. Rafael Palomino "ISEE's Professional Development Program: Preparation for Effective and Inclusive
Teaching and Mentoring"
November 8, 2018 - Dr. Sylvester N. Ekpenuma "Efficient Modeling of Defects and Impurities in Semiconductors"
November 2, 2018 - Dr. Arthur Hebard "Heterogeneous Interfaces with High-Tc Crystalline Bi-2212 for Teasing Out Proximity
and Electric-Field Screening Effects"
October 25, 2018 - Dr. Marco Ajello "The Star-Formation History of the Universe Revealed by Gamma Rays"
October 4, 2018 - Dr. Luca Guazzotto "A Physics-Based Criterion for Nuclear Fusion Energy Production"
September 27, 2018 - Dr. Pawel Mazur "Superfluid Universe, the Ground State in Quantum Gravity, and Gravastars"
September 20, 2018 - Dr. Frank Avignone, III "Dark Matter from Z to A and Beyond: The History and Status of Direct Searches"
September 6, 2018 - Dr. Nahum Arav "Quasar Outflows and Their Contribution to Galactic-Scale Feedback Processes"
April 26, 2018 - Dr. Yordanka Ilieva "Gluon Imaging"
April 19, 2018 - Dr. Robin Shelton "The Clouds Around Our Galaxy"
April 12, 2018 - Dr. Vincente Guiseppe "The (76)Ge Program to Search for Neutrinoless Double-Beta Decay"
April 5, 2018 - Dr. Yanwen Wu "Make Your Particles And Play With Them Too"
March 29, 2018 - Dr. Dean Lee "Nuclear Lattice Simulations"
March 8, 2018 - Prof. Sergey Alekhin "Strange, Non-Strange, and Heavy Quark Distributions"
March 1, 2018 - Dr. Joseph E. Johnson "On Integrating General Relativity with Quantum Theory by Reframing Riemannian Geometry
as a Generalized Heisenberg Lie Algebra”
February 22, 2018 - Dr. Alessandro Pilloni “Challenges for Hadron Spectroscopy”
February 15, 2018 - Dr. David B. Tanner “The Search for the Invisible Axion: The Current Status of ADMX”
February 1, 2018 - Dr. Andrew B. Greytak “Assembling the Future Through Control of Nanoscale Interfaces”
January 25, 2018 - Dr. Ronald D. Edge “70 Years of Physics”
January 18, 2018 - Dr. Juan I. Collar “News from PICO and COHERENT”
Challenge the conventional. Create the exceptional. No Limits.