Events at Physics |
Events During the Week of October 16th through October 23rd, 2016
Monday, October 17th, 2016
- Graduate Introductory Seminar
- High Energy Physics
- Time: 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm
- Place: 5280 Chamberlin Hall
- Speaker: Bai, Balantekin, Barger, Carlsmith, Chung, Dasu, Everett, Hashimoto, Herndon, Palladino, Pan, Shiu, Smith, Wu,
- Plasma Physics (Physics/ECE/NE 922) Seminar
- APS Invited Speakers talks
- Time: 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm
- Place: 2241 Chamberlin Hall
- Speaker: Imene Goumiri/James Duff, UW Madison
- Abstract: Imene Goumiri Title: BI2.00005 : A plasma rotation control scheme for NSTX and NSTX-U
James Duff Title: Density-Gradient-Driven trapped-electron-modes in improved-confinement RFP plasmas - Host: Cary Forest
Tuesday, October 18th, 2016
- Chaos & Complex Systems Seminar
- Everyone is Listening for Something”, a musical celebration of the nature writings of Aldo Leopold, Sigurd F. Olson, Henry David Thoreau, and August Derleth.
- Time: 12:05 pm - 1:00 pm
- Place: 4274 Chamberlin (refreshments will be served)
- Speaker: Douglas Hill, UW School of Music
- Abstract: One composer’s interpretive considerations, experimentations, and eventual solutions while setting such writings to music. (Including recorded examples.)<br>
<br>
- Host: Clint Sprott
- Chaos & Complex Systems Seminar
- Everyone is Listening for Something”, a musical celebration of the nature writings of Aldo Leopold, Sigurd F. Olson, Henry David Thoreau, and August Derleth
- Time: 12:05 pm - 1:00 pm
- Place: 4274 Chamberlin Hall (refreshments will be served)
- Speaker: Douglas Hill, UW School of Music
- Abstract: One composer’s interpretive considerations, experimentations, and eventual solutions while setting such writings to music. (Including recorded examples.)
- Host: Clint Sprott
- Council Meeting
- Time: 1:00 pm - 2:00 pm
- Place: 2314 Chamberlin hall
- Speaker: Albrecht Karle
- Theory Seminar (High Energy/Cosmology)
- N=3 four dimensional field theories
- Time: 3:30 pm
- Place: 5280 Chamberlin
- Speaker: Diego Regalado, University of Munich
- Abstract: I will describe a class of four dimensional field theories constructed by quotienting ordinary N=4 U(N) SYM by particular combinations of R-symmetry and SL(2,Z) automorphisms. These theories appear naturally on the worldvolume of D3 branes probing terminal singularities in F-theory, where they can be thought of as non-perturbative generalizations of the O3 plane. I will focus on cases preserving only 12 supercharges, where the quotient gives rise to theories with coupling fixed at a value of order one. These constructions possess an unconventional large N limit described by a non-trivial F-theory fibration with base AdS5×(S5/Zk). Upon reduction on a circle the N=3 theories flow to N=6 ABJM theories.
- Host: Gary Shiu
Wednesday, October 19th, 2016
- Department Meeting
- Time: 12:15 pm
- Place: ******5280 Chamberlin Hall*******
- Speaker: Albrecht Karle
- NOTE Different Room - in 5280
Thursday, October 20th, 2016
- R. G. Herb Condensed Matter Seminar
- Building a quantum annealing processor
- Time: 10:00 am
- Place: 5310 Chamberlin Hall
- Speaker: Dr. Emile Hoskinson , D-Wave Systems
- Abstract: I will introduce and motivate quantum annealing as a technique for harnessing quantum mechanics to solve hard problems. I will outline the design and operating principles of a quantum annealing processor based on superconducting flux qubits, and describe some of the many challenges we have encountered in constructing such a device. Finally, I will describe how the processor can be used, and give evidence that quantum mechanics is indeed playing an important role in the results.
- Host: McDermott
- 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:
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
- Astronomy Colloquium
- A Connection Between Stellar Coronae and Black-Hole Accretion-Disk Coronae
- Time: 3:30 pm - 5:00 pm
- Place: 4421 Sterling Hall, Coffee and cookies 3:30 PM, Talk at 3:45 PM
- Speaker: Prof. Ehud Behar, Department of Physics and Asher Space Research Institute Technion, Visiting Professor Department of Astronomy University of Maryland, College Park
- Abstract: Stellar coronae are known for their million degree plasma that is magnetically energized and emits bright X-rays.
The X-ray source in black hole accretion disks is also referred to as a corona, although its observed properties, e.g., spectra, luminosity, temperature, and variability are remarkably different from those of stellar coronae.
In fact, the physical mechanisms controlling accretion disk coronae remain largely unknown.
The colloquium will show that radio and mm observations of active galaxies (AGN) could be key to understanding the X-ray coronae of super-massive black holes. These suggest that perhaps stellar and accretion-disk coronae have more in common than meets the eye (or the telescope). - Host: Professor Marina Orio
Friday, October 21st, 2016
- Physics Department Colloquium
- A Bridge Too Far? The Demise of the Superconducting Super Collider
- Time: 3:30 pm
- Place: 2241 Chamberlin Hall
- Speaker: Michael Riordan, UC Santa Cruz, Emeritus
- Abstract: In October 1993 the US Congress terminated the Superconducting Super Collider — at over $10 billion the largest and costliest basic-science project ever attempted. It was a disastrous loss for the nation’s once-dominant high-energy physics community, which has been in a slow decline since then. With the 2012 discovery of the Higgs boson at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider, Europe has assumed world leadership in this field.
A combination of fiscal austerity, continuing SSC cost overruns, intense Congressional scrutiny, lack of major foreign contributions, waning Presidential support, and the widespread public perception of mismanagement led to the project’s demise nearly five years after it had begun. Its termination occurred against the political backdrop of changing scientific needs as US science policy shifted to a post-Cold War footing during the early 1990s. And the growing cost of the SSC inevitably exerted undue pressure upon other worthy research, thus weakening its support in Congress and the broader scientific community.
As underscored by the Higgs boson discovery, at a mass substantially below that of the top quark, the SSC did not need to collide protons at 40 TeV in order to attain its premier physics goal. The selection of this design energy was governed more by politics than by physics, given that Europeans could build the LHC by eventually installing superconducting magnets in the LEP tunnel under construction in the mid-1980s. In hindsight, there were good alternative projects the US high-energy physics community could have pursued that did not involve building a gargantuan, multibillion-dollar machine at a green-field site in Texas. - Host: Richard Prepost
