Events at Physics |
Events on Thursday, November 10th, 2016
- R. G. Herb Condensed Matter Seminar
- Quantum FM radio for Quantum Computing
- Time: 10:00 am
- Place: 5310 Chamberlin Hall
- Speaker: David Schuster, University of Chicago
- Abstract: Individual superconducting qubits have seen impressive improvements in
nearly all aspects over the past decade and now sit at the threshold
of being able to perform quantum error correction. Scaling to larger
numbers of qubits is challenging both in the fundamental aspects of
understanding the behavior of large numbers of strongly coupled qubits
and in the technical aspects of controlling such systems. We take a
unique approach in which we use a superconducting qubit as a quantum
FM radio manipulate individual photons in a array of harmonic
oscillators. This allows control with a single qubit's worth of
classical hardware and simplifies the process of designing and
building large devices. Further, these techniques are compatible with
current brute force scaling efforts and represent a promising avenue
to reach hundreds of qubits in the next several years. In this talk,
I will describe the architecture and show how parametric control can
be used to realize universal quantum logic operations between
arbitrary memory modes - Host: McDermott
- Physics Education Innovation Seminar
- *Coffee and Cookies at 10:15 AM
- Using Learning Assistants in introductory STEM Courses
- Time: 10:15 am - 11:30 am
- Place: 5280 Chamberlin Hall
- Speaker: Tor Odden, UW - Madison Departments of Physics and Curriculum and Instruction
- Abstract: The use of undergraduate Learning Assistants has been pioneered by the Department of Physics at the University of Colorado. Tor recently attended a workshop at CU and will report on how their model could be used for the REACH transformations underway in Physics and other departments at Madison. Talk starts at 10:30.
- Host: Peter Timbie
- Cosmology Journal Club
- An Informal discussion about a broad variety of arXiv papers related to Cosmology
- Time: 12:15 pm - 1:15 pm
- Place: 5242 Chamberlin Hall
- Abstract: Please visit the following link for more details:
href="http://cmb.physics.wisc.edu/journal/index.html">http://cmb.physics.wisc.edu/journal/index.html
Please feel free to bring your lunch!
If you have questions or comments about this journal club, would like to propose a topic or volunteer to introduce a paper, please email Amol Upadhye (aupadhye@wisc.edu). - Host: Amol Upadhye
- NPAC (Nuclear/Particle/Astro/Cosmo) Forum
- The AMS experiment on the International Space Station after 5 years in Space
- Time: 2:30 pm - 3:30 pm
- Place: 5280 Chamberlin Hall
- Speaker: Valerio Vagelli, University of Perugia
- Abstract: AMS-02 is a cosmic ray detector operating on the International Space Station since May 2011.
The main goals of the AMS mission are the detection of primordial antimatter and indirect Dark Matter signatures in the fluxes of cosmic rays through the accurate measurement of their composition and energy spectra up to the TeV scale.
The most recent AMS results and the consequent potential advances in the current understanding of cosmic ray origin, acceleration and propagation physics will be reviewed. - Host: Vandenbroucke
- Astronomy Colloquium
- How Can Observations of Earth Guide the Search of Exoplanets?
- Time: 3:30 pm - 5:00 pm
- Place: 4421 Sterling Hall, Coffee and cookies 3:30 PM. Talk begins at 3:45 PM
- Speaker: Tristan L’Ecuyer, UW Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences
- Abstract: Recent advances in satellite-based astrophysics-focused telescopes have begun an exciting new era of exoplanet exploration in which it may soon be possible to directly image exoplanets orbiting the sun’s nearest neighbors. The spectroscopic surveys enabled by such technology offer the potential to move beyond detecting and inferring the mass and orbital characteristics of exoplanets to characterize their atmospheric and surface characteristics and, ask whether some may feature the building blocks required to support life. Considerable development is, however, required before direct imaging algorithms are sufficiently mature to make optimal use of such technology. But NASA has also been collecting detailed observations of Earth since the pioneering work of some University of Wisconsin professors in the 1950’s. The subsequent five decades of satellite-based Earth observations offers an under-tapped wealth of information to guide the development of new algorithms to identify water, ice, cloud, and vegetation signatures in direct imagery of exoplanets. This presentation will introduce a subset of modern Earth observations that are particularly relevant to this problem in the context of the Earth science applications they address. Progress toward incorporating this knowledge into a new framework for searching for Earth-like spectral signatures in direct exoplanet imagery will be described. Preliminary examples demonstrate the utility of the resulting `Earth simulator’ to characterize the spectral signatures of Earth-like planets and establish the optimal band passes, spectral resolution, and minimum signal-to-noise ratio of proposed observing systems for identifying key features in these spectra. These initial results will be placed in the broader context of the rapidly evolving, emerging exoplanet imaging field.
- Host: Astronomy Deparment