PHYSICS AND ASTRONOMY MAJORS

2005-06 "Bumper Crop"

The department of Physics and Astronomy has reached a recent high number of majors in the department.  Due in part to the addition of the Astronomy and Astrophysics major, the number of majors has increased to 26.  Broken down, the number of majors in the department is:  Physics majors, 18 Astronomy majors, two (2) and Astrophysics majors. six (6).

 

KIPPHORN RECEIVES MUMMA PRIZE FOR 05-06

Senior Richard Kipphorn '06 was awarded the Michael J. Mumma Prize in Physics and Astronomy for the 2005-06 academic year.  Congratulations Rick!

The Mumma prize was established in 2000 to honor Dr. Mumma for his personal and professional attributes including his life achievements in cometary and planetary research. The prize is awarded in the fall of each year and is intended to encourage and to recognize outstanding scholastic achievement, citizenship, community leadership, and superior potential for future contributions to Physics and/or Astronomy, particularly among those students likely to continue the study of Physics or Astronomy at the graduate level.

 KATE BARNES SPENDS SUMMER WORKING AT LOWELL OBSERVATORY

I spent this summer working at Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona where I researched Comet Tempel 1, the object of NASA’s Deep Impact mission.  I was part of the Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) program funded by the National Science Foundation; a competitive internship program that organizes paid undergraduate research positions in many different fields of science.  Stationed at Northern Arizona University, the NAU REU consists of 8 students working at Lowell Observatory, the U.S. Geologic Survey or NAU doing astronomy and planetary science research.  Students conducted research with a mentor at their respective institution and also attended biweekly seminars as a class at NAU.  Seminars ranged widely on topics from Active Galactic Nuclei to polar ice caps on Mars.  Flagstaff is in the midst of some world-class telescopes and on weekends we trekked to the Very Large Array (VLA), Kitt Peak National Observatory and the mirror-lab at the University of Arizona, (working on mirrors for the Magellan telescope, a seriously cool project).

The program as a whole was fantastic and my research was also an excellent experience.  I worked this summer conducting a comprehensive study of Comet Tempel 1, collecting, reducing and analyzing CCD images of gas and dust jets on the comet.  These jets are studied to better understand the compositional and rotational properties of the nucleus of the comet.  July 4^th’s Deep Impact mission, a NASA Discovery mission colliding a ~700 lb copper ‘bullet’ into Comet Tempel 1 to study the ejecta and crater, made this a truly unique experience. Imaging allowed ground-based astronomers the opportunity to study the particle size,velocity and composition of the ejected material: all giving great insight to the inner-workings of the comet.  I will present these results at the F&M Fall Research Fair as well as at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Washington, D.C. this January.  Some images and information are available at the Lowell homepage: http://www.lowell.edu/Research/comets.html.

 NEWS FROM PROF. LOMMEN

Greetings from the fourth floor!  This last year was quite interesting from a number of perspectives. Last year I had the pleasure of collaborating with Richard Kipphorn ’06 and Frederika Edgington-Giordano ’05 on pulsar research.  Rick’s work measuring the parallax and proper motion of a particular millisecond pulsar, J0030+0451, will be submitted for publication this week!  Rick used monthly data from the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico, the largest single-dish telescope in the world.  Rick’s diligence and research skills earned him a position at Cornell over the summer working on the new pulsar search that is taking place using the multi-beam receiver at Arecibo.  Rick is continuing to work with me this year to complete an honors thesis.

Frederika completed her work studying the detection of black hole binaries using pulsars in globular clusters.  Her hard work earned her a position at Northern Arizona University in their graduate program. 

Both Frederika and Rick gave talks at the Central Pennsylvania Consortium Annual Astronomers’ Meeting right here on campus.  Jackie Milingo organized the whole meeting so I’ll let her tell you about it (see her article on pg 3).  But she’ll probably be modest so I’ll tell you – it was a fantastic meeting!

I have just begun working with Scott Morgan ’06 on his honors project, which will have to do with characteristics of the population of pulsars as a whole, using primarily the Australia Telescope National Facility (ATNF) pulsar database.

This year I received a 2-year Research Corporation grant, which among other things will support my spending academic year 06-07 on leave in Australia working at the ATNF. (See article, Pg. 1)  My family is very excited to spend the year exploring Sydney and its environs.

That brings me to my last piece of news:  the doubling of my family!  Steve and I had twin daughters, Rose and Xyla, in December.  They just started crawling and continue to make us laugh whenever they’re not crying. My students were already asking if there’s a policy about department children dating other department children, namely the Lacey boy, Charlie.  (See article on Pg 4)  Seeing as how Steve and I aren’t planning on  letting our daughters date until they are 30 years old, we see no need to address this issue yet.

WELCOME CHARLIE!!!

Charles Justus Lacey was born on April 22, 2005 to Scott and Sarah Lacey.  Charlie weighed in at 8 lbs, 10 ozs. and has grown into a bouncing five month old who is just over 20 lbs.  He is a beautiful, healthy baby and we congratulate Scott and Sarah and wish them much happiness with their new son.

 PROF FRITZ RETURNS FROM SABBATICAL AT STATE COLLEGE

During 2004/05, Professor Linda Fritz spent her sabbatical at Pennsylvania State University taking courses related to climatology and the impacts of climate change.  She took several courses in the Meteorology Department including two courses on atmospheric physics, a course on atmospheric thermodynamics, courses on climate dynamics and two oceanography courses.  (Sounds like a lot of physics, doesn't it?)  Fritz also took three geography courses related to human use of the environment and vulnerability to environmental change.  "The most interesting of these was the graduate level seminar in which we spent over half of the seminar defining what vulnerability means."  During the spring semester she took a course in the Geoscience Department on the geology of climate change and began working with Richard Alley modeling ice flow, which she continues working on here at F&M

While working and studying at Penn State, Prof. Fritz lived in a small studio apartment in State College.  She came back to Lancaster regularly once basketball season started so she and Prof. Dixon could attend the men's basketball games.  She regularly had dinner with fellow Penn State students Jim Schilling '05 and his sister Amber Schilling '04, both F&M graduates, Jim in Physics and Amber in Chemistry.  While Prof. Fritz was away, Prof. Ned Dixon taught full-time at F&M as her replacement and "held down the fort at home!" 

NEWS FROM PROF. MILINGO

It's been another great year in the Physics & Astronomy Dept. at F&M.  Fall 2004 saw the completion of a series of observing runs designed to collect new spectrophotometry of a sample of planetary nebulae.

The 4 "runs" took place at Cerro Tololo Interamerican Observatory (CTIO) in the Chilean Andes, and Kitt Peak National Observatory (KPNO) in Tucson, AZ.  This has been a significant bit of data collection over the past two years and has included F&M senior Kate Barnes (astrophysics major) as well as faculty and students from Williams College and U. of Oklahoma.

With lots of newly acquired data in hand the process of reduction and measurement has been a beefy one!  The last bits of data (data being abundances of intermediate mass elements like O, Ne, S, N, and Ar) were com-piled during a meeting with my collabor-ators Dick Henry (U. of Oklahoma) and Karen Kwitter (Williams College) this summer in Williamstown, MA.  Final abundance patterns for our sample (and comparisons to other work) are being analyzed and written up as I type this! 

Kate Barnes and I will be attending the January 2006 American Astronomical Society meeting in DC to present a subset of this work that illustrates abundance patterns in the disk of the Milky Way

Spring 2005 included a trip to the National Undergraduate Research Observatory (NURO), of which F&M is a consortium member.  This time instead of 2 or 3 research students, I went with my entire Observational Astronomy course Ast 240.  As part of the lab sequence of the course Dr. Praton, 8 students, and I all trekked to Flagstaff, AZ, the site of the NURO 31" telescope, to gather data for F&M and Gettysburg's ongoing "spotted-star watch" program.

We collected filter photometry of BY Draconis-type Pleiades stars over the course of our 4-night run.  BY Draconis-type stars have brightness modulation due to heavy "starspot" coverage coming in and out of view as the star rotates.  This project seeks to determine whether these stars have long-term activity cycles, analogous to our Sun's 11-yr sunspot cycle. We had a few clouds and, dare I say, a lot of fun while learning about the process of observing and acquiring data.

In January 2005' F&M Junior Elisabeth Bardenett and I presented our latest contribution to the spotted star watch at a special NURO poster session at the American Astronomical Society meeting in San Diego, CA.

Last, but not least, F&M hosted the 25^th annual CPC Astronomers' Conference in April 2005.  The CPC Conference is an opportunity for area liberal arts/small college astronomers and their students to gather and share the latest news of what they've been up to in the arenas of research and pedagogy.  Our keynotespeaker was Dr. Vera Rubin from the Dept. of Terrestrial Magnetism at The Carnegie Institution of Washington.  Dr. Rubin was a delightful addition to our day of talks and posters.  She gave us a great presentation on the history of dark matter, a subject dear to her heart given that her observational work lead to the realization that there is MUCH more to the mass of the Universe than meets the eye.

This year's meeting was a great success with paper and poster presentations from F&M astronomers Dr. Elisabeth Praton, Dr. Andrea Lommen and myself, F&M seniors Richard Kipphorn and Kate Barnes, junior Elisabeth Bardenett, and our recently graduated F&M Alum Fredrika Edgington-Giordano and Stephen Rudman.  I thank them all AND Lynn Krantz-Pino and Dr. Andrea Lommen for their contributions to making the 25th a really great conference.

 

Hackman Research Project on Radiation by Accelerating Objects

 

This project was done by Hackman Scholars

Scott Morgan '06 and Jordan McDonnell '07

working with Prof. Adkins during the summer of 2005.  The object was to study the physics of accelerated charges and accelerated observers.  One focus was on the radiation of accelerated charges with an attempt to clarify the situation regarding uniformly acceleration.  We also began a calculation of the angular distribution of the radiation seen by a uniformly accelerated observer moving through a “vacuum”.

It is common knowledge that accelerated charges radiate.  Surely unaccelerated ones do not, and when a charge is shaken, made to oscillate or move in a circle, or just pushed around a corner, it does radiate.  However, the question of whether or not a uniformly accelerated charge radiates has vexed physicists for over a century. To this day different texts justify divergent conclusions.  One aspect of our work this summer was to attempt to answer this question by a study of the energy and momentum carried by the electromagnetic field in the immediate vicinity of a uniformly accelerated charged particle.  Most earlier work relied on distant measures of energy which renders their interpretations suspect.  Our results in this direction, so far, are inconclusive.

The vacuum of quantum field theory is the state containing no particles.  An observer moving through a vacuum also observes no particles as long as the motion is unaccelerated.  It is thought that observers accelerating through a vacuum do in fact observe particles.  This surprising result is called the Unruh-Davies effect and calls into question the very notion of particle.  In fact, an observer undergoing uniform acceleration through a vacuum observes a thermal distribution of particles with a temperature proportional to the acceleration.  The main goal of our summer’s work was to work out the angular distribution of radiation seen by a uniformly accelerated observer.  We explored different models of particle detectors that might be used to detect this radiation, and made some progress on the actual calculation.

The Unruh-Davies effect is of wide interest both for experimental and theoretical reasons.  An experimental proposal to detect the effect was made by Chen and Tajima.  Theoretically the effect challenges a number of cherished notions in particle physics such as the nature of the quantum particle and the meaning of the vacuum.  There is also a connection, through the equivalence principle relating acceleration and gravitation, to the Hawking effect whereby a black hole decays by the emission of thermal radiation. 

Numerically, the “temperature” of a black hole (as determined by the spectrum of emitted radiation) equals the “temperature” of the vacuum as seen by an accelerated observer as long as the magnitude of the acceleration and the surface gravity of the black hole are equal.  The study of the properties of non-inertial (i.e. accelerated) observers is intriguing because of the many connections to diverse fields of theoretical physics.

 

Recent Publications

* F&M Student coauthor

[1] G.S. Adkins and N.M. McGovern*, Application of the effective interaction method to the relativistic Coulomb problem, American Journal of Physics 73, 759 (2005).

  [2] G.S. Adkins, Analytic evaluation of the orthopositronium to three

photon decay distribution to one-loop order, Physical Review A 72, 032501 (2005).

 

BOB LYNCH RECEIVES HONOR
Brothers named to NABCAHC

Franklin & Marshall College men's basketball forward Bob Lynch ’05 (Richboro, PA/ Council Rock) and center Dan Lynch ’05 (Richboro, PA/Council Rock) have been named to the 2005 National Association of Basketball Coaches Academic Honor Roll.

The NABC Academic Honor Roll salutes players at four-year colleges who are in their junior or senior years and hold a cumulative 3.2 grade point average or higher. Overall, the Lynch twins were among over 768 selections from NCAA Divisions I, II and III as well as NAIA Divisions I and II.  The honor marks the second time the Lynch twins have been honored by the NABC as they were previously named to the 2004 honor roll.

 

PHYSICS AND ASTRONOMY CLUB NEWS
Contributed by Andrew Thyken Bench, President

The Physics and Astronomy Club is off to another terrific year at Franklin and Marshall.  Thanks to the tremendous efforts of Chris Hobson  (Vice-President) and Laura Huntley (Treasurer), the club was allocated three times its normal budget for this year!

As such, the Club will be engaging in some very cool new projects and trips, including:  A physics lecture circuit, trips to Washington D.C. and New York City, several community service initiatives, a reinvigorated movie night; and the capstone of our year, a day-long program introducing local high school girls to science and physics.

 The club has widened its mission to express a more socially involved approach, rather then a narrowly defined scientific mission.  We hope that this switch will allow for broader club participation and stronger ties within the F&M physics Department.  We have also embraced many of the guiding principals set forth by the college recently.  To that effect, the club will more widely engage in community service, community education, and promote physics within the rubric of liberal arts by participating in activities with other less science oriented organizations.

All and all, it is going to be a great year for the Physics and Astronomy Club and we look forward to everyone's participation and support.  Also, stop by the Office for this year's "Einstein themed t-shirt" (you'll be the life of any physics party wearing one of them).

GRADUATION HELD ON MAY 15, 2005

The following students graduated with a degree in Physics, Astronomy or Astrophysics at the college's commencement ceremonies on May 15, 2005:  Frederika Edgington-Giordano, James Hinebaugh, Robert Lynch, Nana Aba Mehsah-Brown, Margaret Mitter, Mehmet Oz, Stephen Rudman, and James Schilling.

The awards ceremony for 04-05 was held in April.  The following awards were made to Physics and Astronomy students: Frank Durrell Enck Memorial Prize in Physics was awarded to Robert Lynch /05.  The Joseph Holzinger Award in Astronomy went to Margaret Mitter '05.  The Michael Albert Lewis Memorial Prize in Physics was awarded to Raunak Agarwal '07 and Rebecca Sobel.'07  The Michael J. Mumma Prize in Physics was awarded to Mehmet Oz '05.  Congratulations to all!

LYNCH CONTINUES WORK WITH VELCRO

During the 2005 spring semester, recently graduated senior Bob Lynch, '05 continued investigations within the Department on Velcro brand hook and loop closures with an independent study project, but with a slightly different approach.  Past investigations and comments from folks at Velcro had hinted at the possibility of some kind of periodicity in the variations of load. forces as the two strips of a hook and loop closure are pulled apart.  Applying the autocorrelation function to several sets of data, however, showed no clear periodicity.  Bob modeled such an interaction with a very simple model of a single hook and loop interaction together with the statistics of random engagements, and showed that what looks as if it might be some regularity in the load variations can be reproduced from the purely random “noise” of the statistics. 

COLLEGE MATCHES KATRINA RELIEF DONATIONS

President Fry announced that for each $1 donated to the Katrina Relief effort, the college would match dollar for dollar up to $50,000.  Contributions can be made through the Center for Community-Based Learning, c/o Franklin and Marshall College, P.O. Box 3003, Lancaster, PA 17604-3003.  Checks should be made out to Franklin and Marshall College or the American Red Cross.  The deadline for matching funds is October 19, 2005. 

ALUMNI NEWS

Steve Rudman, '05 writes to say he is working as a chemist at a polymer R and D lab in King of Prussia.  "It's the same company I interned with last summer. I'm also working weekends at the North Museum as a Planetarium Operator. Depending on if they get funding for a full time position, I may move back to Lancaster. If I did move back to Lancaster, I'd probably only stay for a year, especially since I am trying to get in Grad School for Astrobiology next year."

Frederika Edgington-Giordano, 05 was recently admitted to Northern Arizona State.  Way to go Fred!!

Dr. Adkins recently heard from Yaman Aksu, '92 who writes, "In the summer of 2004, I chose to resign from my job of 8 years at the same company and move from northern Virginia to enroll in a doctoral (Ph.D.) program in medical imaging, which is my field.

SEARCH FOR TENURE TRACK ASTRONOMY POSITION

The Physics and Astronomy department is conducting a search this fall to replace Dr. Dana Backman.  Backman has taken a position with NASA Ames in California.  (See article below)

Interested applicants should send a cover letter, vita, teaching philosophy, research interests, graduate and undergraduate transcripts and three letters of recommendation to Dr. Greg Adkins, F&M PO Box 3003, Lancaster, PA  17604-3003 

GOODBYE TO DR. BACKMAN

This year we said goodbye to Dr. Dana Backman, Associate Professor of Physics and Astronomy.   Dana has taken a position as the Associate Director of SOFIA (Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy) at NASA-Ames in California, in charge of the observatory's education and public outreach work. His new e-mail addresses are: dbackman@sofia.usra.edu or dbackman@mail.arc.nasa.gov.

Dr. Backman will be greatly missed by everyone at the college.   Over the years he has mentored many students and we are sure that his influence will remain with them throughout their lives. We wish Dana, wife Jamie and daughter Shannon much luck and happiness in their new life in California.

LOMMEN ORGANIZES CONFERENCE

Prof. Andrea Lommen served as chair of the local organizing committee for a conference held at State College on July 21-23, 2005.  The event was hosted by Gravitational Wave Physics, a Frontier center funded by NSF.

People from all over the world attended the two day event, including scientists from England, Australia and the Soviet Union.  The objective was to bring together people who don't usually interact - cosmologists, pulsar astronomers, terrestrial time keepers, and gravitational wave physicists, to discuss the possibility of detecting gravitational waves using pulsars.

The format was interesting - half of it was discussion.  They would have a 25 minute talk and then 25 minutes of discussion.  Dr. Lommen gave a talk titled, "What can you do with a single pulsar?  To learn more go to http://cgwp.gravity.psu.edu/events/PulsarTiming/index.shtml

 

Franklin and Marshall College

Department of Physics and Astronomy

 

Dr. Gregory S. Adkins

Dr. Ned S. Dixon

Dr. Linda S. Fritz

Dr. J. Kenneth Krebs

Dr. Scott Lacey

Dr. Christie Larochelle

Dr. Andrea Lommen

Dr. Jacquelynne Milingo

Dr. Elizabeth Praton

Dr. Calvin Stubbins

Mr. Steve Spadafore, Engineer

Mrs. Lynn Krantz, Department Coordinator

 

The Physics and Astronomy Department is located on the 2nd and 4th floors of the Hackman Physical Sciences Building

Phone:  717-291-4136

http://www.fandm.edu/physics.xml

 

 

 

The Force is published annually by the department of Physics and Astronomy at Franklin and Marshall College. Questions and comments may be directed to Lynn Krantz, 717-291-4136 or email: lpino@fandm.edu