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Events During the Week of April 5th through April 12th, 2015

Monday, April 6th, 2015

Plasma Physics (Physics/ECE/NE 922) Seminar
Optical Emission Spectroscopy as a Diagnostic of Low-Temperature Plasmas
Time: 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm
Place: 1610 Engineering Hall
Speaker: Dr. John Boffard, UW-Madison, Physics
Host: UW
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Tuesday, April 7th, 2015

Chaos & Complex Systems Seminar
Movement of eosinophils into lungs of patients with asthma
Time: 12:05 pm - 1:00 pm
Place: 4274 Chamberlin Hall (Refreshments will be served)
Speaker: Deane Mosher, UW Department of Biomolecular Chemistry
Abstract: Eosinophils are granular leukocytes (white cells) that are relatively scarce in blood but more common in tissues. Tissue eosinophils contribute to tissue homeostasis in the gut and other organs and are a prominent component of inflammation associated with malignancies, viral and helminthic infections, allergic diseases such as asthma, and orderly tissue repair. Among leukocytes, eosinophils are exceptional in a number of ways—content of eosinophilic granules; complement of receptors and other molecules that control activation and trafficking; complement of mediator-generating enzymes; and polarization upon activation into a granular compartment and a nucleopod, a specialized protrusion occupied by the nucleus. I will describe a series of related processes that target blood eosinophils to the bronchial tree of asthmatic patients.
Host: Clint Sprott
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Theory Seminar (High Energy/Cosmology)
Higgs Trilinear Coupling as a Probe of Electroweak Phase Transition
Time: 4:00 pm - 5:00 pm
Place: 5280 Chamberlin Hall
Speaker: Peisi Huang, University of Chicago
Host: Ran Lu
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Wednesday, April 8th, 2015

Physics Education Innovation Seminar
Active Learning in Large Enrollment Classes: Literature Review
Time: 11:00 am - 11:50 pm
Place: 5310 Chamberlin Hall
Speaker: Peter Timbie, UW Madison - Physics
Abstract: The Department has been asked to participate in UW's REACH (REdesign for ACtive learning in High-enrollment courses) program.
I will review a few classic papers about active learning, including:

"Improved Learning in a Large-Enrollment Physics Class"
Science 332, 862 (2011)
Louis Deslauriers, Ellen Schelew, and Carl Wieman, and

"Large-scale comparison of science teaching methods sends clear message"
PNAS 111(23)8319 (2014)
Carl Wieman


Host: Duncan Carlsmith
Poster: https://www.physics.wisc.edu/events/posters/2015/3698.pdf
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Thursday, April 9th, 2015

Astronomy Colloquium
Digging for buried Quasars with WISE and Planck
Time: 3:45 pm - 5:00 pm
Place: 4421 Sterling Hall(Coffee and Cookies at 3:30 PM)
Speaker: Mike Di Pompeo, University of Wyoming
Abstract: Around 50% of quasars are hidden behind clouds of gas and dust, obscuring them from view in many wavebands. However, the structure and scale of this obscuring material is poorly understood. Studying this population is critical to understanding the cosmic history of black hole growth and the mutual evolution of quasars and their host galaxies. Obscured quasars are efficiently identified in the infrared, allowing the all-sky nature of WISE to select large samples of this subclass for the first time. I will present measurements of the dark matter halo masses of WISE-selected obscured quasars, as a proxy for their environment, from two independent methods: the angular autocorrelation function and a cross-correlation of the quasar density with lensing maps of the CMB from Planck. These measurements provide critical insight into this important population of quasars. <br>
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Friday, April 10th, 2015

Physics Department Colloquium
Joint Physics - Astronomy Colloquium
Kinetic and Gyrokinetic Astrophysical Turbulence Above and Below the Mirror and Firehose Stability Thresholds
Time: 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm
Place: 2241 Chamberlin Hall - Coffee and cookies at 11:45
Speaker: Matt Kunz, Princeton
Abstract: The solar wind is weakly collisional. As such, the particle populations that comprise it exhibit a variety of non-Maxwellian features, which are customarily described in terms of interspecies drifts and pressure anisotropies relative to the magnetic field direction. The solar wind is also turbulent, with a power spectrum extending over many orders of magnitude above and below the ion Larmor scale. These two facts, both well documented by the observational community, are not always treated on equal footing in concomitant theoretical work. Current gyrokinetic and reduced-MHD treatments of solar-wind turbulence take the plasma distribution to be Maxwellian. Analyses of pressure-anisotropy-driven Larmor-scale instabilities rarely focus on their contribution to the kinetic-scale turbulent cascade. These issues borne in mind, I will present some analytical and numerical efforts to construct a more suitable theoretical framework for describing inertial-range and Larmor-scale kinetic turbulence in non-Maxwellian astrophysical plasmas. Implications for turbulence in other weakly collisional environments, such as radiatively inefficient accretion flows and the intracluster medium, will also be discussed.

(coffee and cookies at 11:45)
Host: Boldyrev
Poster: https://www.physics.wisc.edu/events/posters/2015/3682.pdf
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Physics Department Colloquium
Heinz H. Barschall Colloquium
Search for permanent electric dipole moments of protons and deuterons using storage rings
Time: 3:30 pm - 4:30 pm
Place: 2241 Chamberlin Hall
Speaker: Frank Rathmann, Institut fuer Kernphysik , Forschungszentrum Juelich, Germany
Abstract: The Standard Model (SM) of Particle Physics is not capable to account for the apparent matter-antimatter asymmetry of our Universe. Physics beyond the SM is required and is searched for by (i) employing highest energies (e.g., at LHC), and (ii) striving for ultimate precision and sensitivity (e.g., in the search for electric dipole moments (EDMs)). Permanent EDMs of particles violate both time reversal (T) and parity (P) invariance, and are via the CPT-theorem also CP-violating. Finding an EDM would be a strong indication for physics beyond the SM, and pushing upper limits further provides crucial tests for any correspond- ing theoretical model, e.g., SUSY. Direct searches of proton and deuteron EDMs bear the potential to reach sensitivities beyond 10−29 e·cm. For an all-electric proton storage ring, this goal is pursued by the US-based srEDM collaboration, while the newly found Juelich-based JEDI collaboration is in addition pursuing an approach using a combined electric-magnetic lattice which shall allow access to the EDMs of protons, deuterons, and 3He ions in the same machine.

The talk will highlight recent achievements from experimental investigations at COSY toward the search for electric dipole moments of charged hadrons, i.e., proton and deuteron; it will emphasize one of the most spectacular possibilities in modern science: Finding a signal for new physics beyond the Standard Model through the detection of permanent electric dipole moments in a storage ring.
Host: Balantekin
Poster: https://www.physics.wisc.edu/events/posters/2015/3670.pdf
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Saturday, April 11th, 2015

Barschall - Haeberli Symposium
Time: 9:00 am - 5:30 pm
Place: 2241 Chamberlin Hall
Speaker: Various, Various
Abstract: We are hosting a symposium to honor and celebrate the Centennial of Heinz Barschall's birth and Willy Haeberli's 90th Birthday (which will be in June) as well as their work. There will be a scientific program and lunch during the day in 2241 Chamberlin Hall, and a banquet dinner at the Fluno Center. <br>
<br>
Host: Balantekin
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