Events at Physics |
Events During the Week of October 19th through October 26th, 2014
Monday, October 20th, 2014
- Plasma Physics (Physics/ECE/NE 922) Seminar
- Impact of the plasma response in three-dimensional edge plasma transport modelling for RMP ELM control scenarios at ITER and Comparison of Measurements of Profile Stiffness in HSX to Nonlinear Gyrokin
- Time: 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm
- Place: 2535 Engineering Hall
- Speaker: Oliver Schmitz and Gavin Weir, UW- Madison
- Abstract: Abstracts:
- Host: Center for Plasma Physics and Computation
- Plasma Physics (Physics/ECE/NE 922) Seminar
- Impact of the plasma response in three-dimensional edge plasma transport modelling for RMP ELM control scenarios at ITER and Comparison of Measurements of Profile Stiffness in HSX to Nonlinear Gyrokin
- Time: 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm
- Place: 2535 Engineering Hall
- Speaker: Oliver Schmitz and Gavin Weir, UW- Madison
- Abstract: Abstracts:
- Host: Center for Plasma Physics and Computation
- Cosmology Journal Club
- An Informal discussion about a broad variety of arXiv papers related to Cosmology
- Time: 12:15 pm
- Place: 5242 Chamberlin Hall
- Abstract: Please visit the following link for more details:
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 Le Zhang (lzhang263@wisc.edu) - Host: Peter Timbie
Tuesday, October 21st, 2014
- Chaos & Complex Systems Seminar
- Complex multi-systems redesign: regional food for regional markets
- Time: 12:05 pm - 1:00 pm
- Place: 4274 Chamberlin (refreshments will be served)
- Speaker: Michelle Miller, UW Center for Integrated Agricultural Systems
- Abstract: As much as we enjoy our farmers markets and CSAs, most of our food makes its way to us via freight truck. As fuel prices continue a decades-long rise, shippers and carriers shoulder the cost. They are controlling costs in ways that increase transportation efficiencies for them as individual actors, not for the entire supply chain. These shifts, such as placement of distribution centers and big box stores, have unintended consequences for other parts of the food supply chain. Highway congestion and related fuel waste, poor labor conditions for truck drivers, creation of ”food deserts” in urban and rural areas, and limited market access for midsize farmers are some of the negative feedback that result. Hidden costs, such as the vehicle costs necessary to drive to supermarkets or warehouse stores, are borne by consumers rather than shippers. At the same time, consumers are separated from the source of their food, fueling concentration in agriculture, another positive feedback loop. Separating food production from the population creates a brittle food system with environmental, economic and social consequences. This project takes a systems look at the current wholesale food supply chain, from farmer to consumer, and begins to model logistical innovations that reconfigure agricultural and transportation systems to both mitigate and adapt to climate change. We expect to see reduced GHG emissions, reduced highway congestion, increased redundancy in food production, and a move from food supply chains to a more web-like structure, better use of public investment in transportation and food provisioning, and improved labor conditions throughout. Using a complex adapative systems approach, early work brought representatives from regional food supply chains together to discuss various perspectives. Current work, advised by food freight stakeholders, is modeling logistical interventions based on actual movement data that we think may improve the movement of food and catalyze this cascade of other benefits across the supply chain.
- Host: Clint Sprott
- Theory Seminar (High Energy/Cosmology)
- Hunting SUSY Particles in Compressed Spectra
- Time: 3:00 pm - 4:00 pm
- Place: 5280 Chamberlin Hall
- Speaker: Zhenyu Han
- Abstract: Light supersymmetric particles may be hidden in the LHC data when the mass spectra are compressed. In this talk, I will discuss strategies for searching SUSY particles with quasi-degenerate masses, focusing on Higgsino pair production and slepton pair production.
- Host: Ran
Wednesday, October 22nd, 2014
- Physics Education Innovation Seminar
- Garage Physics going-forward
- Time: 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm
- Place: B613 Sterling Hall
- Speaker: Carlsmith, UW-Madison
- Abstract: Garage Physics is an open lab for innovation and entrepreneurship. Progress in Garage Physics during 2013-14 will be presented. A new Venturewell undergraduate grant competition, honors and URS student projects, and future plans and needs will be discussed.
- Host: Duncan Carlsmith and Peter Timbie
Thursday, October 23rd, 2014
- R. G. Herb Condensed Matter Seminar
- New Topological Excitations and Melting Transitions in Quantum Hall Effect
- Time: 10:00 am - 11:00 am
- Place: Chamberlin 5310
- Speaker: Yuli Lyanda-Geller, Purdue University
- Abstract: Topology and symmetry define states of matter and their responses to external forces. How solids melt and become fluids, or how insulators become conductors is often controlled by excitations rather than by the ground state of systems. Non-trivial topology of excitations can alter the responses. Topological excitations are notoriously difficult to predict since they cannot be obtained as a perturbation of the ground state. In this talk I will report the discovery of a new type of topological excitations that arise in two-dimensional electron systems in a magnetic field. We investigate Landau level filling factors between integer and half-integer, which exhibit the re-entrant integer quantum Hall effect (RIQHE) with vanishing longitudinal resistance and the Hall resistance quantized to a nearest integer at lowest temperatures. I will show that charge excitations in the RIQHE regime are topologically non-trivial finite size textures of electron density with charge-dependent symmetry. These topological textures explain unusual strain dependence of resistivity. At low temperatures, the textures form a crystal, whose melting leads to metal-insulator transition.
- Host: Vavilov
- NPAC (Nuclear/Particle/Astro/Cosmo) Forum
- Future Computing
- Time: 2:30 pm - 3:30 pm
- Place: 5280 Chamberlin
- Speaker: Carl Anderson, IBM Fellow
- Abstract: Computing has been driven by cost reduction for the last 70 years. In the next 10 years the contribution to cost reduction by hardware technology will lessen because of economic constraints and physical limits. The reduction in costs offered by automation and cloud computing will be discussed. The “Born in the Cloud” and open source programming development models are significantly reducing the cost of application development. Mobile computing and API’s are radically changing how information technology is consumed and developed. The direction of information technology is now being driven more by new business ideas than new technology ideas. The traditional Specmark metrics are being replaced by cost of use metric such as $/VM Hour.
- Host: Jim Lawler
- Astronomy Colloquium
- Single white dwarfs as Progenitors of Type Ia Supernovae?
- Time: 3:25 pm - 5:00 pm
- Place: 4421 Sterling Hall
- Speaker: Professor Marina Orio, UW Madison Astronomy Dept
- Abstract: The "normally" accepted paradigm for type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) involves a massive CO white dwarf, or two white dwarfs, in a binary system. However, more and more evidence is being gathered, showing two observational facts: a) A very large fraction of SNe Ia must explode on sub-Chandrasekhar mass white dwarfs, b) The SN Ia rate depends on the star formation rate. I will show how these observations can be explained with a simple model,in which a single white dwarfs triggers explosive pycnonuclear reactions involving impurities of hydrogen or helium. An explosion may occur evenin the initial post-AGB cooling phase for very massive (m>1.2 M(sol) white dwarfs, or much later, just at the onset of the Debye cooling for white dwarfs in the 0.8-1.35 M(sol). Is this the the new road to take to fully understand the SNe Ia? And are these powerful explosions really useful standard candles for cosmology?
- Graduate Introductory Seminar
- Astrophysics
- Time: 4:30 pm - 5:30 pm
- Place: 5280 Chamberlin Hall
- Speaker: McCammon, Timbie
Friday, October 24th, 2014
- Physics Department Colloquium
- Physics of the Crab Nebula
- Time: 3:30 pm
- Place: 2241 Chamberlin Hall (coffee at 4:30 pm)
- Speaker: Serguei Komissarov , Leeds University
- Abstract: The Crab nebula has been one of the most important "test beds" of relativistic plasma astrophysics since the middle of the last century. It keeps providing us with valuable hints every time we open a "new window into Universe". Yet after decades of research and countless publications, many important issues are still not fully resolved. In my talk, I will focus on the long-standing sigma-problem of the Crab Nebula and how magnetic reconnection may help us to find its solution. In particular, I will describe what we have learned from our recent relativistic MHD simulations.
- Host: Boldyrev