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Events During the Week of March 22nd through March 29th, 2015

Monday, March 23rd, 2015

Plasma Physics (Physics/ECE/NE 922) Seminar
Approach to transient plasma phenomena using Thomson scattering measurements in LHD
Time: 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm
Place: 1610 Engineering Hall
Speaker: Dr Ryo Yasuhara, National Institute for Fusion Science
Host: UW
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Tuesday, March 24th, 2015

Chaos & Complex Systems Seminar
What is the Internet of Things (IOT) and key trends?
Time: 12:05 pm - 1:00 pm
Place: 4274 Chamberlin Hall (Refreshments will be served)
Speaker: Sandra Bradley, UW Department of Industrial Engineering
Abstract: The landscape of technology is changing at an ever-increasingly rapid pace. Broadband connectivity is inexpensive and ubiquitous; devices are becoming more powerful and smaller with a variety of on-board sensors. The data in this machine-to-machine world creates "smart" experiences for everyday consumers and businesses alike. This highly-charged connected world is what we are calling the Internet of Things. As Boo-Keun Yoon, president and CEO of Samsung Electronics Samsung said at a conference recently, "IoT isn't science fiction anymore. It's science fact." We are already seeing applications ranging from energy efficiency to logistics to personal healthcare to smart homes using IoT concepts. In this session we will give an overview of what IoT is, how it will change the way we live and work, and will talk about key trends and challenges in IoT.
Host: Clint Sprott
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Theory Seminar (High Energy/Cosmology)
Dynamical Pion Collapse and Neutrino Beam Coherence
Time: 4:00 pm - 5:00 pm
Place: 5280 Chamberlin Hall
Speaker: Benjamin Jones, MIT
Abstract: Neutrino oscillations are the first and only observed phenomena beyond the standard model, and measuring the parameters which govern them is a major area of current research. The textbook theoretical treatment of neutrino oscillations, however, is known to be both approximate and inconsistent. The range of its validity is debated, with some estimates suggesting that neutrino coherence loss could occur in existing experiments, especially if heavier, sterile neutrinos participate in the oscillation. All calculations of these effects to date require an assumption about the initial neutrino state, usually obtained by dimensional analysis, and spanning several orders of magnitude between treatments. In this talk I will show that derivation of neutrino coherence properties without an arbitrary initial-state assumption is possible if the neutrino beam is properly treated as an open quantum system. I will present the first such calculation, where the full oscillation phenomenology of neutrinos produced in accelerator neutrino beams is derived without arbitrary spatial scales at the neutrino production vertex. The resulting range of validity of the typical neutrino oscillation formalism will then be discussed.
Host: Ran Lu
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Wednesday, March 25th, 2015

No events scheduled

Thursday, March 26th, 2015

Astronomy Colloquium
Self-regulated star formation and the diffuse ISM
Time: 3:45 pm - 5:00 pm
Place: 4421 Sterling Hall (Coffee and Cookies at 3:30 PM)
Speaker: Professor Eve Ostriker , Princeton University
Abstract: Recent years have seen significant progress in quantifying the physics of star formation feedback and its effects on the ISM within galactic disks. In this talk, I will discuss theory and numerical hydrodynamic simulations that explain and demonstrate how self-regulation is achieved through a set of balances: heating and cooling, turbulent driving and dissipation, and gravitational compaction and pressure support. Because the sources of momentum and energy are directly associated with massive star formation, the requirement of equilibrium leads to a prediction for the star formation rate. The thermal/dynamical equilibrium theory also yields predictions for the ratio of thermal to turbulent pressure, and for the proportion of warm to cold gas in the diffuse atomic ISM. Although we find that radiation feedback can be important within individual star-forming clouds, supernovae play the dominant role in the ISM overall, because the momentum injected by Sedov-Taylor blast waves is an order of magnitude greater than other source terms. Resolved simulations show that radiative supernova remnants inject a momentum ~ 1-4 e5 Msun km/s to the ISM, insensitive to the local gas properties. This momentum yield, combined with the heating rate from FUV, is just what is required to explain observed large-scale ISM properties and star formation rates.
Host: Prof Snezana Stanirmirovic
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Friday, March 27th, 2015

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
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Physics Department Colloquium
The present and future of solar neutrinos with Borexino
Time: 3:30 pm - 4:30 pm
Place: 2241 Chamberlin Hall (coffee at 4:30 pm)
Speaker: Andrea Pocar, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Abstract: Borexino is a large, low-energy neutrino experiment that has been running since 2007 at the Gran Sasso underground laboratory in Italy. It is the only running detector potentially sensitive to the entire solar neutrino spectrum. It has so far made the first measurement of the Berillium-7 neutrinos, now known with 5% precision, measured the Boron-8 neutrinos with lower energy threshold than previous experiments, and observed pep neutrinos for the first time. More recently, Borexino made the first direct detection of pp neutrinos. These are the most abundant solar neutrinos, yet they have proven very hard to detect due to their low energy and the presence of the Carbon-14 background in organic scintillator. These results will be described in detail, in the context of neutrino and solar physics. The Borexino program for the coming years will also be presented, with particular focus on the hunt for CNO solar neutrinos.
Host: Justin Vandenbroucke
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