October 2007
The Force
Department of Physics and Astronomy
Franklin and Marshall College
Fall, 2007
"MAY THE FORCE BE WITH YOU"
Jordan McDonnell, class of 2007, won the Vanderbilt University Prize for Undergraduate Research in Physics and Astronomy this year. He received his prize money and attended an awards banquet at Vanderbilt University this past June.
Pictured at the 29 June award luncheon for the finalists are (l-r): S. Victoria Greene, Prize Committee Chair; J. Michael Burgess, University of Alabama, Huntsville (finalist); Jordan McDonnell, and Robert Scherrer, Dept. Chair.
Starting in the fall of 2005, Jordan worked with Dick Fell of Brandeis University and Prof. Greg Adkins on a project to study the effect of cosmological expansion on local systems using a weak-field approximation scheme. They were able to show that local (solar system scale for instance) physics is only affected by the matter actually present in the solar system and not at all by general cosmological expansion; except for the effect of dark energy, which is presumably present uniformly throughout the universe. An article describing this work, Cosmological Perturbations on Local Systems, has been published: Phys. Rev. D 75, 064011 (2007). Jordan contributed in a number of ways. His most concrete contribution was a calculation of the effect of dark energy on planetary perihelia precession, reproducing results that had been obtained earlier by others.
Jordan extended his study of perihelia precession during the Fall semester in the context of an Independent Studies project. He generalized his precession calculations, obtaining a general form for the perihelia precession under the effect of an arbitrary central-force perturbation. He was able to obtain analytic results for any power-law or logarithmic perturbing potential. He applied these results in a number of interesting applications involving proposed weak corrections to gravitation. Jordan also did extensive numerical calculations to verify that the analytic work had
(McDonnell, Cont from Pg. 1)
no mistakes. The precession work has appeared as Phys. Rev. D 75, 082001 (2007), and as gr-qc/0702015. Jordan presented his results at the Spring 2007 meeting of the Central Pennsylvania Section of the American Association of Physics Teachers held at Penn State, York Campus, this March. This work was also presented at the April Meeting of the American Physical Society in Jacksonville. Jordan began graduate work in physics at the University of Tennessee this Fall. He is interested both in theoretical studies in fundamental physics and practical work in nuclear physics.
Cottrell College Award and Mount Cuba Astronomical Foundation
Froney Crawford received a $43,460 Cottrell College Science Award from Research Corporation for a project titled "Cluster Computing for New Large-scale Pulsar Surveys with the Arecibo Radio Telescope." The funds were granted to purchase a Beowulf computer cluster (see article, pg 3) for intensive data processing, observatory travel for Froney and his students, and for summer student research. An additional $35,000 was awarded by the Mt. Cuba Astronomical Foundation this summer for expansion and enhancement of the Beowulf cluster.
The Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico
Study Abroad:
University of Edinburgh
By Raunak Agarwal '08
Last semester I was at University of Edinburgh in Edinburgh, Scotland on a study abroad program organized by Butler University. To put it in a word, my experience there was awesome. The combination of study, travel, fun, and learning that a study abroad experience provides is unrivalled and mine lived up to all the hype.
City Council of Glasgow
The University of Edinburgh itself is a big university and is regarded as the best in Scotland. Located in
(Scotland, Cont on pg 3)
(Scotland, Cont from pg 2)
the centre of Edinburgh, the college is sort of the NYU of Edinburgh with its campus scattered over several different parts of the city. In fact, I was told that 75% of the population in the centre of Edinburgh consists of students. There was never a dearth of things to do with the opportunity for recreation within walking distance. Though I did not take any Physics classes,
Raunak, Being knighted??
One thing that most people look forward to in their study abroad experience is the opportunity to meet and interact with people from different parts of the world and understanding their culture. In my case, this was provided to me in my residence, as my four flatmates were each from Scotland, Austria, France and Denmark. It was quite amusing to see the stereotypes play out - I would usually return home to see the French cooking and the Austrian sipping whiskey. Living with people of such diversity broadened my mind and provided me with a learning experience that I could not have had otherwise.
Travel is a vital part of the semester abroad and I tried to take advantage of the opportunity as well. Though I did not go to mainland Europe, I traveled around the UK, with the highlight being my road trip through Scotland. Scotland is one of the most beautiful countries in the world, with rolling hills and massive lochs (lakes) combining to form a very scenic surrounding. Traveling through Scotland is made really enjoyable by its people who are very warm, friendly and fun loving.
Overall, my semester abroad was worth every effort that went into making it possible and I would recommend it to everyone.
Beowulf Cluster
The department now has a new Beowulf cluster in Hackman, funded in most part by the Research Corporation and the Mount Cuba Astronomical Foundation (see article, pg. 2). The multi-processor machine runs Linux and will be used for parallel processing of pulsar survey data, and there are plans in the works to use the machine for large-scale structure modeling in the universe, quantum mechanics calculations,
and possibly physical chemistry modeling. The cluster currently
(Beowulf, Cont on Pg. 4)
(Beowulf, Cont. from pg 3)
consists of 7 nodes, each of which
has two dual-core AMD Opteron processors, providing 28 equiv.-lent processors. These nodes are
connected via a dedicated switch, and the head node has more than 2 Terabytes of disk space. We plan to expand the cluster this semester with an additional 11 nodes (giving a total of 72 equivalent processors). Froney Crawford has been working on installing the relevant software, and the cluster has already been used to process some archival pulsar survey data. Soon we plan to begin processing data from Arecibo L-band Feed Array (ALFA) surveys, which are targeting Galactic plane regions for new radio pulsars. More cluster details, including real-time load reports, are available at http://www.fandm.edu/x13754.xml
Froney sets up the Beowulf Cluster in Hackman
Hackman and Independent Study Students
Three independent study students worked with Froney Crawford on pulsar-related projects during the 2006-07 academic year. Brian Takacs '07 modeled the effect of two-pole high-pass filtering on long-period pulsar signals. In particular, he was interested in determining how the Parkes telescope observing system would attenuate the amplitudes of radio pulses coming from a certain class of high-magnetic-field X-ray pulsars (Anomalous X-ray Pulsars, or AXPs). This in turn affects sensitivity estimates in radio searches of these objects. He found that the attenuation is significant for pulse duty cycles greater than 20% or so, and therefore the higher order harmonics that are present in narrow pulses signatures would probably not reduce sensitivity to
such signals. Elisabeth Bardenett '07 worked on editing and flagging
radio interferometry imaging data taken of a young pulsar system near the Galactic plane. The target coincides with a recently discovered high-energy TeV gamma ray source; a structure in the resulting radio map may lead to the identification of the source of these gamma-rays (the pulsar is likely not the source given its energetics). Tim Falkner '07
analyzed single-pulse and burst output plots from a large-scale
survey of the Magellanic Clouds
(Hackmans, Cont on pg 5)
(Hackmans, Cont from pg 4)
for radio pulsars. Such surveys have the necessary time and spectral resolution to be sensitive
to transient radio sources from (possibly) exotic processes, but single-pulse and burst analysis has
until recently not been part of standard pulsar survey data analysis.
For summer 2007, Chase Morgan '08 and Brian Devour '10 worked
with Froney on pulsar projects in support of upcoming Arecibo data
processing efforts at F&M. Chase worked on looking for long-period signals from a radio transient source from the Arecibo ALFA survey which was observed to burst once, and has not been seen again in either a burst of periodicity search, despite persistent re-observations with Arecibo. There was a chance that the source could have been detectable in a separate kind of analysis (the Fast Folding Algorithm), which is optimized for long periods, and this algorithm will be used in the ALFA data processing on the cluster when routine processing is underway. Brian conducted a search for single pulses (transient signals) in archival Parkes survey data. These data targeted previously unidentified gamma-ray sources, and new enhancements in the single-pulse search code has prompted us to revisit these data. Brian used the Beowulf cluster for the processing of hundreds of Gigabytes of these raw data while the cluster is being commissioned for ALFA survey analysis in the coming year. About half of Brian's data set has processed, and we hope to finish the processing in the coming year.
NURO Observing
Beth Praton and Froney Crawford took three students (Louis Klapper '09, Don McElheny '07, Cori Quirk '07) from the Astronomy 240 class out to Flagstaff, Arizona this past March to use the NURO 31-inch telescope. After an overlap night with the Gettysburg astronomy crew, the F&M group observed for several nights monitoring a variable star and getting photometry data on stars in the Pleiades. Apart from the observing highlights, the group did some hiking and sightseeing in the hills near Sedona. The group was joined for the hiking by alumna Fred Edgington-Giordano '05, who is currently in the graduate physics program at Northern Arizona University
Don, Cori and Louis in the NURO control room
Andrea, Steve and Twins Return From Down Under
We (Steve, Rose, Xyla and I) spent the last year in Australia while I did research at the Australia Telescope National Facility (ATNF) in Sydney. Up until then I had mostly been concerned with using pulsars to detect a stochastic gravitational wave background - stochastic because it's due to a large collection of supermassive black holes radiating gravitational waves in all directions at all frequencies. But while at the ATNF I became very interested in the possibility that we may be able to detect "brief" (only a month-long) bursts of gravitational radiation using pulsars. My favorite esoteric source of bursts is the cusping of cosmic strings.
We arrived back from Australia in the middle of June. It was wonderful to have a year abroad but it is very nice to be back home in our community. I spent a large fraction of the summer adding experimental equipment to my Physics of Movement class. We now do quantitative motion analysis using both video and force plates. Today my students jumped up and down on the force plates (essentially fancy bathroom scales). They were pretty excited to realize that the area under the curve of force vs. time was actually proportional to time spent in the air. Most of them are taking calculus and I think perhaps they had a moment of epiphany when they realized these integrals were good for something!
Xyla and Rose
The girls just started school at the New School where Steve teaches 7th and 8th grade. It seems that they really enjoy it. Attached is a picture of the girls on the deck at our apartment in Sydney.
Materials Physics Laboratory goes International
Experimental results from a two-year project in the Materials Physics Laboratory were presented at two international conferences this past summer. The first presentation entitled "Decay dynamics of europium excited states in bioactive glasses" was presented at the 16th International Conference on Dynamics in the Excited States of Condensed Mater Systems in Segovia, Spain,
attended by Prof. Ken Krebs. The five-day conference attracted scientist from over 44 countries.
The bioactive glass samples had been made at F&M by Jeremy
Brownstein '06 and the detailed
(International, Cont on pg 7)
(International, Cont from pg 6)
study of the decay dynamics of excited europium electronic states were done by Justin Gibides '07. Both students are co-authors on the paper of the same title, which will be published in a special edition of the Journal of Luminescence.
Prof Krebs at Roman Aqueduct in Segovia, Spain
The second presentation, also attended by Krebs, was some follow-up work done by Justin Gibides that examined lower calcium concentration glasses. The presentation, titled "Decay dynamics of Lanthanide Excited States in Sol-gel produced CaxP0.06Si0.94-xO2, (0.02<x<0.35) Glasses" was presented at the 14th International Workshop on Sol-gel Science and Technology, in Montpellier, France
Roman Coliseum in Nimes, France
Both presentations attracted considerable attention significantly enhancing the reputation of F&M's materials physics research program among a global audience.
APS March Meeting
Professor Larochelle and two students, Stefan Oehrlein '07 and Mark Lombardi (4/2 Engineering Program), traveled to Denver, CO in March to attend the annual March Meeting of the American Physical Society along with over 7,000 other physicists from around the world.
Prof Larochelle, Stefan Oehrlein and Mark Lombardi
Prof. Larochelle presented a paper on the results of her collaborative research with Prof. Ken Krebs titled, "Enhanced Luminescence in the layered single crystal Ce[Ag(CN)2]3". Stefan and Mark both presented the results of their independent study projects during the Society of Physics Students session. Stefan reported on his research with Prof. Larochelle in a talk titled, "Electronic energy transfer in the layered single crystal Sm[Ag.5Au.5(CN)2]3." Mark talked about the results of research he completed with Prof.
Krebs, "Cr3+ optical probes of
structural transformation in porous alumina."
Last Spring I told people that I would be spending my summer in misery. Believe it or not, I quite enjoyed the time I spent in Missouri. I was a visiting scholar working with a colleague in the Biological Engineering Department at the University of Missouri. Despite the fact that I was working next door to stem cell researchers and sharing a room with people studying beef, my research did not actually involve anything alive or even previously alive. In fact, I fabricated and studied opto-fluidic micro-ring resonator lasers. These lasers are based on passing laser dye through a very tiny (human hair size) glass capillary. The laser cavity is formed by repeated total internal reflection at the capillary walls. We demonstrated a lasing threshold that is more than two orders of magnitude smaller than the previous lowest reported threshold for a dye-based laser.
This fall I traveled to San Jose, CA to present at the Frontiers in Optics conference. The poster was titled "Modification of directional emission from a deformed microsphere by the surrounding medium." This is the result experiments performed in my lab where light is coupled into a deformed microsphere while it is immersed in water. This work is being continued this year with the help of Austrian exchange student, Matthias Brandl.
In personal news, Sarah and I are eagerly awaiting the arrival of our second son. Joey is expected to be a homecoming baby as his due date is Oct. 21. Charlie (2.5 years) is very excited about being an older brother.
Sixteen Graduate in Physics and Astronomy
On May 12, 2007 16 students were awarded a Batchelor of Arts degree in Physics or Astrophysics.
This years graduates are: Muhammad Sohaib Alam, Elisabeth Rose Bardenett, Zachary Jay Barninger, Micah P. Dombrowski, Ivan P. Dryanovski, Timothy Arthur Falkner, Justin Tyler Gibides, Laura Ingalls Huntley, Sharmini Ilankovan, Fancis Charles Kocaur III, Mark L. Lombardi, Jordan David McDonnell, Donald Marlin McElheny, Stefan Max Oehrlein, Cori A. Quirk, Brian Peter Takacs.
Laura Ingalls Huntley and
Jordan David McDonnell graduated Summa Cum Laude; Muhammad Sohaib Alam and Micah Dombrowski graduated
(Grads, Cont on Pg 9)
(Grads, Cont from Pg 8)
Magna Cum Laude; and Stefan Max Oehrlein and Brian Peter Takacs graduated Cum Laude.
Congratulations one and all!!
2007 Awards and Honors
The following students were recognized for excellence in their studies of Physics and Astronomy at Franklin and Marshall:
Elisabeth Rose Bardenett, Joseph R. Holzinger Astronomy Award, Kershner Scholar
Micah P. Dombrowski, Frank Durrell Enck Memorial Prize in Physics, Kershner Scholar, Sigma Pi Sigma.
Ivan P. Dryanovski, Kershner Scholar, Sigma Pi Sigma.
Timothy Arthur Falkner, Joseph R. Holzinger Astronomy Award,
Kershner Scholar.
Justin Tyler Gibides, Kershner Scholar.
Laura Ingalls Huntley, Frank Durrell Enck Memorial Prize in Physics, Kershner Scholar, Sigma Pi Sigma, Phi Beta Kappa Honor Society.
Sharmini Ilankovan, Sigma Pi Sigma.
Jordan David McDonnell, Michael J. Mumma Prize in Physics and Astronomy, Kershner Scholar, Sigma Pi Sigma, Phi Beta Kappa Honor Society, Sigma Xi Scientific Research Society Prize.
Stefan Max Oehrlein, Kershner Scholar, Sigma Pi Sigma,
Brian Peter Takacs, Kershner Scholar, Sigma Pi Sigma.
Two students received honors from the department. Laura Huntley received honors for her work, Quantum Dynamics of a Kicked Harmonic Oscillator
(Awards, Cont on pg. 9)
(Awards, Cont from pg. 8)
Jordan McDonnell for his paper, Effects of a Modified Gravitation Law on the Perihelion Shift.
We wish the very best of luck to all award recipients.
Prof. Adkins Reports on Sabbatical
Prof. Adkins spent the 06-07 academic year on a sabbatical leave. He was based here at F&M, with frequent visits to Notre Dame University to work with collaborator Dr. Jonathan Sapirstein and to UCLA and the Aspen Center for Physics. He worked with Sapirstein on a calculation of energy levels of heavy hydrogen-like ions. These ions, which have only a single electron but up to 92 protons, can
(Adkins, Cont on Pg10)
(Adkins, Cont from Pg9)
be very highly charged. Consequently, the electron motion can be extremely relativistic, and relativistic quantum mechanics (the Dirac equation) must be used to describe the structure of these systems. Adkins and Sapirstein worked out a calculational approach and carried out the actual calculations for the energies of the low-lying states of hydrogen-like ions with central charge from Z=1 to 92. These results are of interest to experimentalists because such systems can be prepared and studied in the laboratory. Comparison between theory and experiment provides a test of bound-state Quantum Electrodynamics in the little-studied regime of highly relativistic motion.
Prof. Adkins worked with three Independent Studies students during his sabbatical year. One, Jordan McDonnell '07, won the Vanderbilt Prize for Undergraduate Research in Physics and Astronomy for his work (see separate story). He also won the College's Sigma Xi Award and the Department's Mumma Prize. He graduated with Departmental Honors and is now undertaking graduate work in physics at the University of Tennessee. Another student, Sohaib Alam '07, analyzed the three-photon decay of spin-polarized orthopositronium. (Orthopositronium is the spin-1 bound state of an electron and its antiparticle the positron.) Sohaib is now studying theoretical physics at the University of Texas at Austin. Finally, Don McElheny '07 produced a software package to visualize scattering processes for elementary particles and to calculate the corresponding probabilities. Don is in the process of becoming a nuclear systems officer in the United States Navy.
Students Volunteer for Katrina Relief
An eclectic group of 20 F&M students spent a week in Pascagoula, Miss., volunteering their time to the ongoing Katrina Relief efforts. Southern Hospitality welcomed the northerners for a weeklong exchange of culture and compassion. Erin Statler '08 and Andy Gulati, reference librarian were the primary organizers of the
trip.
The venture to Pascagoula is the third CRA (Catastrophic Relief Alliance) trip offered from F&M since Katrina. With the help of several staff members and family friends, students were able to divide into small groups and
(Volunteers, Continued on Pg. 11)
(Volunteers, Continued from pg 10)
conquer more job sites. Gulati brought his brother Hans, and his neighbor, Steve Spadafore, electronics engineer in the department of Physics and Astronomy; and Mike Joseph,
husband of Debbie Joseph in the music department to act as skilled leaders.
In total, five homes were worked on during the week, and skills ranged from painting and moving furniture to dry walling and using various power tools. Each crew had its own individual experiences depending on the families it spent time with.
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Not only did students help re-build
build houses, but by working with skilled workers, they also help to relieve the overworked local tradesmen.
"Its hard to imagine how 20 college kids can make a significant difference in one week but we all learned that our help to the families was truly priceless," said Paul Yoo '07. "Not only did we work long hours everyday, but we gave them lost of love and hope, two things that couldn't be bought or sold."
For or many students, the main focus was not how many walls they put up but how many lives they could help. "It can be so satisfying for me to see students explore their potential and to be civically engaged," Gulati said. "F&M has a lot to be proud of in our students."
"Now, more than ever, it is so valuable to gain new perspectives, as so much of what we see and hear is pre-packaged for consumption," Gulati said. "The hope is that volunteers, and those helped can help others. In this way, these trips can have a lasting legacy."
The following faculty members (and students) have been published in the past year
Andrea Lommen:
"Correlation Between X-Ray Light-Curve Shape and Radio Arrival Time in the Vela
Pulsar," Lommen, A.,
Donovan J.*, Gwinn, C., Arzoumanian, Z., Harding, A., Strickman, M., Dodson, R., McCulloch, P., and Moffett, D. (2007) ApJ 657: 436
* Note that J. Donovan is F&M class of 2004
(Publications, Cont on Pg 12)
(Publications, Cont from Pg 11)
"Arecibo and the ALFA
Survey, " (2006) Chin. J. Astron. Astrophys. Suppl. 6:311.J. van Leeuwen and 36 co-authors
including Froney Crawford and Andrea Lommen),
Christie Larochelle:
Synthesis and Spectral Properties of Ce[Ag(CN)2]3, C. L. Larochelle, J. K. Krebs, Opt. Mater. (2007), doi:10.1016/j.optmat.2007.08.007.
Tunable excited state energy transfer in EuxLa1-x[Ag.75Au.25(CN)2]3, C. L. Larochelle, T. Seemuller '05, J. Lumin. (2007), doi:10.1016/j.jlumin.2007.07.013.
Optical Memory and Multi-step Luminescence Thermochromism in Single Crystals of K2Na[Ag(CN)2]3, M. A. Omary, J. C. F. Colis, C. L. Larochelle, H. H. Patterson, Inorganic Chemistry, 46 3798-3800 (2007).
Froney Crawford:
Deep Searches for Radio Pulsations and Bursts from Four Southern Anomalous X-ray Pulsars F. Crawford, J. W. T. Hessels, & V. M. Kaspi,
Astrophysical Journal, 662, 1183 (2007)
Flux Densities and Radio Polarization Characteristics of Two Vela-like Pulsars F. Crawford & C. L. Tiffany, Astronomical Journal, 134, 1231
(2007)
A Bright Millisecond Radio Burst of Extragalactic Origin
D. R. Lorimer, M. Bailes, M. A. McLaughlin, D. J. Narkevic, &
F. Crawford, Science, accepted (2007)
Pulsar Surveys Present and Future:
The Arecibo Pulsar-ALFA Survey and
Projected SKA Survey J. Deneva & PALFA Collaboration
(including F. Crawford and A. Lommen), Proceedings of the 363rd WE-Heraeus Seminar on Neutron Stars and Pulsars, 52 (2007)
A Search for Single Radio Pulses and Bursts from Southern AXPs
F. Crawford, J. W. T. Hessels, &
V. M. Kaspi, 40 Years of Pulsars:
Millisecond Pulsars, Magnetars, and More (2007)
The Discovery of an Eccentric Millisecond Pulsar in the Galactic Plane
D. J. Champion & PALFA
Collaboration (including F. Crawford and
A. Lommen), 40 Years of Pulsars:
Millisecond Pulsars, Magnetars,
(Published, Cont from Pg 12)
and More (2007)
Ken Krebs:
Synthesis and spectral properties of Ce[Ag(CN)2]3, C.L. Larochelle and J.K. Krebs, Optical Materials Accepted.
Decay dynamics of europium excited states in bioactive glasses, J.K. Krebs, *1J.M. Brownstein, and *2J.T. Gibides, Journal of Luminescence Accepted.
Eu3+ site characterization in solution-grown yttrium oxide, J.K. Krebs and *3C.M. Hobson, Materials Letters 61: 4134-4136 (2007)
*1 F&M Class of 2006
*2 F&M Class of 2007
*3 F&M Class of 2006
Greg Adkins:
G. S. Adkins, R. N. Fell, and J. McDonnell, Cosmological perturbations on local systems, Phys. Rev. D 75, 064011 (2007).
G. S. Adkins and J. McDonnell, Orbital precession due to central-force perturbations, Phys. Rev. D 75, 082001 (2007)
G. S. Adkins and J. Sapirstein, Recoil corrections in highly charged ions, to appear in Phys. Rev. A.
G. S. Adkins, Positronium, in the McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of Science and Technology, 10th edition (2007).
FACULTY AND STAFF
Gregory S. Adkins
Fronefield Crawford
Ned S. Dixon
Linda S. Fritz, Chair
J. Kenneth Krebs
Scott Lacey
Christie Larochelle
Andrea Lommen
Elizabeth Praton
Calvin Stubbins
Steve Spadafore, Electronic Engineer
Lynn Krantz, Dept. Coordinator
The Force is published annually by the department of physics and astronomy. For information email lpino@fandm.edu
Visit our web site at:
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"MAY THE FORCE BE WITH YOU"
