Events

Events at Physics

<< Summer 2015 Fall 2015 Spring 2016 >>
Subscribe your calendar or receive email announcements of events

Events on Monday, September 21st, 2015

Plasma Physics (Physics/ECE/NE 922) Seminar
Smaller and Sooner: Exploiting new superconductor technology to accelerate fusion's development
Time: 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm
Place: 2241 Physics Bldg
Speaker: Dennis Whyte, MIT
Abstract: Rare-Earth Barium Copper oxide (REBCO) superconductor (SC) tapes are a newly available technology that promise to revolutionize plasma and fusion research. REBCO are superconducting at liquid nitrogen temperature, providing easy access to ~1-2 tesla steady-state magnetic fields in the laboratory and, unlike standard SCs, have almost no degradation of their critical current at high magnetic fields when sub-cooled. These features allow >23 tesla magnetic coils, double the B-field of standard SC such as used in ITER, and the design of demountable SC coils. The implications of such coils have been examined in ARC, a conceptual tokamak fusion pilot plant. Exploiting the B4 dependence in fusion power density, ARC produces >500 MW in a device 1/8th the volume of ITER. Demountable coils permit modular internal components and a simple liquid immersion blanket. The compact, high-B tokamak provides for robust steady-state operational regimes with largely demonstrated physics, while high-B provides the margin to transient and disruption limits needed in burning plasmas. Critical path science and technology R&D issues are discussed that would enable this attractive path to smaller, more flexible fusion devices.
Host: UW
Add this event to your calendar
Theory Seminar (High Energy/Cosmology)
Searches for Next-to-Minimal Supersymmetry with Run I Data from CMS
Time: 3:00 pm - 4:00 pm
Place: 5280 Chamberlin Hall
Speaker: Rachel Yohay, CERN
Abstract: The next-to-minimal supersymmetric model (NMSSM) extends minimal supersymmetry by adding an extra singlet, leading to desirable theoretical properties as well as a more complicated Higgs sector. One of the striking predictions of the NMSSM is the existence of multiple Higgs particles, some of which can be much lighter than the particle identified as the 125 GeV standard model-like Higgs scalar discovered at the LHC in 2012. In this seminar, I review searches for light Higgs particles in the framework of the NMSSM and other two-Higgs-doublet models using the Run I dataset collected with the Compact Muon Solenoid experiment at the LHC. These CMS searches span a range of final states and exploit the detector's excellent charged lepton reconstruction, including hadronic tau decays.
Host: Amol Upadhye
Add this event to your calendar