Duke Physics News

Image of the particle tracks left from an exploding nuclear fireball in the ALICE detector. Image credited to ALICE/CERN.

Professors Steffen Bass and Berndt Mueller rejoiced this month at the news that the Large Hadron Collider started its program of collisions of lead nuclei at unprecedented energies, almost 15 times higher than those previously explored at Brookhaven National Lab’s Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC). The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) near Geneva, Switzerland.
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Prof. Robert Behringer will receive two grants this year to pursue his research in granular materials and thin liquid films.  They are from NASA and NSF, and Behringer will serve as lead PI and co-PI, respectively, on these projects.

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On October 26, 2010, Jie Ren’s photo of stress in a two-dimensional granular material was selected as the “Picture of the Day” by the National Science Foundation.

The work leading to the picture was conducted by Jie in Prof. Robert Behringer’s laboratory.  As mentioned previously, the photo also won first prize in the Mahato Memorial Scientific Visualization Contest.

Prof. Al Goshaw was re-elected Chair of the US ATLAS Institutional Board in September 2010, where he will be helping to coordinate the US ATLAS university groups for the next few years.  Congratulations!

• raduate student James Esterline co-authored a paper with Prof. Werner Tornow and co-researchers.  The paper is entitled “Determination of the proton and alpha-particle light-response functions  for the KamLAND, BC-501A and BC-517H liquid scintillators” and appears in Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research. To read the abstract click this link.
  

• Senior William Corse co-authored a paper with Prof. Werner Tornow, physics alum Jeff Fox, and other researchers, entitled “Neutron production with a pyroelectric  double-crystal assembly without nano-tip.”  This paper appeared in Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research. To read the abstract click this link.
• Pictured below are Prof. Thomas and some of the JET Lab research group students and post-docs who worked on the viscosity measurements featured in this month’s Science.  Missing is Haibin Wu, Thomas’ new post-doc who contributed to the recent work.

Prof. Warren Warren from the Department of Chemistry was recently recognized by the American Physical Society, which awarded him the 2011 Herbert P. Broida Prize “For the development of nonlinear coherent techniques which enhance molecular spectroscopy and molecular imaging.”  Congratulations!

A workshop “From Strong Fields to Colorful Matter” was held on October 24-27, 2010 in honor of Prof. Berndt Mueller’s 60th birthday.  The workshop consisted of talks by several distinguished nuclear physicists, a banquet, and hopefully a little time to enjoy the foliage around Asheville, NC.