Title: Conformal vs. Confining Scenario in SU(2) with Adjoint Fermions

Speaker Name: Agostino Patella
Institute: Swansea University, Wales UK

Abstract: Technicolor is a mechanism for electroweak symmetry breaking, alternative to the Higgs field. A gauge theory (technicolor sector) is coupled to the electroweak sector, and electroweak symmetry breaking is induced by techni-chiral symmetry breaking. While a rescaled version of QCD was excluded as technicolor model several years ago, theoretical developments in the last years have shown that gauge theories close to the conformal window are possible good candidates.
SU(2) with two Dirac fermions in the adjoint representation is one of these candidates. Understanding whether this theory is confining or IR-conformal is a challenging problem, which can be addressed by means of numerical simulations. I will present the most recent spectrum measurements, both in the mesonic and gluonic sectors close to the chiral limit. I will discuss some hints of conformal physics, and how the systematic errors still prevent us from drawing any solid conclusion.
When: Mon, November 9, 2009 - 11:15am
Where: Physics, Rm. 2202

Title : AppEl Seminar - Upset and damage in electronic systems due to high power microwave (HPM) pulses
Speaker Name: John Rodgers
Speaker Institution : UMD - IREAP
Notes: Bring your lunch. Beverages will be provided.
When: Mon, November 9, 2009 - 12:00pm
Where: 1207 Energy Research Facility

Title : Multi-photon interactions with ion-channels: From high-resolution control of neuronal activity to possible mechanisms of quantum coherence assisted ion-transport
Speaker Name: Alipasha Vazir
Speaker Institution : Janelia Farm Research Campus Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Abstract : Ion-channels are involved in many physiological processes, including maintenance of membrane potential, regulation of electrical excitability, and modulation of hormone and neurotransmitter secretion. In the nervous system their coordinated opening and closing generates action potentials that form the basis for intra-neural communication which are essential for information representation and processing. As a result they have been subject to extensive fundamental studies aiming to understand their structure and function as well as to interfere with their function in order to control neuronal response. The latter has recently proven to be a valuable tool for understanding neuronal connectivity. In these approaches optogenetic techniques are used for on demand opening of light gated ion-channels which allow the interrogation of neuronal response in functional networks.
However, most of the current methods are limited to evoking only neuronal response in large cellular population in an untargeted fashion. In this talk I will present some of our recent results on evoking targeted compartmental specific neuronal response with sub-millisecond temporal resolution by combing optogenetic methods with two-photon absorption from femtosecond optical pulses. The unprecedented spatiotemporal resolution of this method and its ability to enable high throughput pair recordings is expected to allow a new range of studies in neuronal circuitry and mechanisms of neuronal input integration on the single cell level. Further, I will discuss the application of ultrafast correlation spectroscopy methods to studies of conformational dynamics of protein complexes underlying function of the voltage gated ion-channels. In this context I will present estimations and discuss the possibility of a vibrational coherence assisted ion transport process and how the associat!

ed protein dynamics could potentially be experimentally revealed.
When: Mon, November 9, 2009 - 12:30pm
Where: PHYS 1201

[Title] Dark Particles and their Experimental Signatures
[Speaker] Itay Yavin
[Institution] New York University
[Abstract] New experimental results are pointing to a more intricate structure of dark matter than previously imagined. I will describe the relevant observations and discuss some of the promising models for the dark sector. Particular attention will be drawn to the experimental signatures of this extended structure in hadron colliders as well as cosmic ray and neutrino observatories.
When: Mon, November 9, 2009 - 3:00pm
Where: 4102 Physics Bldg.

[3-3:30 Elias Balarus, BioEngineering]

"Towards Petascale Computational Mechanics and the Challenges of Data Processing and Analysis"

[3:30-4:00 Manuel Tiglio, Physics & CSCAMM]

"High Performance Computing Challenges in Black Hole Simulations"


[4:00-4:30 Amitabh Varshney, Computer Science]

"FlexiView: A System for Visualization of Human Activities for Multicamera Networks"


[4:30-5:00 Hung-Sheng Tsao, Sun Microsystems]

"Strategies in Data Intensive Computing"


Sponsored by the University of Maryland High Performance Computing Colloquium series (Department of Computer Science, The Institute for Physical Science and Technology and the Office of Information Technology) and Sun Microsystems.
When: Mon, November 9, 2009 - 3:00pm
Where: AV Williams 3258

9:00 am Ken Dill, UC San Francisco, “Maximum Caliber—the
stochastic dynamics of few-particle systems”
9:50 am Doug Barrick, Johns Hopkins University, “Using repeat
proteins to dissect cooperatively and its role in protein
folding”
11:00 am Jasna Brujic, New York University, “Force-clamp technique
for accurate recording of single protein folding kinetics”
11:50 am Dave Thirumalai, University of Maryland, “Universality and
Specificity in Protein Folding”
1:30 pm William A. Eaton, National Institutes of Health, “Ultrafast
Protein Folding”
2:30 pm Lila Gierasch, University of Massachusetts, “Moving the
protein folding problem from the test tube to the cell”
3:30 pm George H. Lorimer, University of Maryland, “The GroELS
nanomachine: allostery, time and distance scales matter!”
3:55 pm Jose Onuchic, UC San Diego, “The energy landscape for
protein folding, function and biomolecular machines”
When: Tue, November 10, 2009 - 9:00am
Where: Room 1103 Biosciences Building

Speaker: Dr. Dmitri Chklovskii, Howard Hughes Medical Institute:

Title: "Statistical physics meets neurobiology: Is your brain wired
optimally?".
When: Tue, November 10, 2009 - 4:00pm
Where: PHYS 1410

Title: Transport Coefficients and Universality in High T Holography

Speaker Name: Aleksey Cherman
Institution: University of Maryland

Abstract: The quark-gluon plasma produced at RHIC appears to behave as a strongly-coupled fluid. This has focused much recent attention on strongly-coupled fluids, which are theoretically intractable using standard field-theoretic methods.
The gauge/gravity duality is the only known technique that gives theoretical access to the properties of strongly-coupled fluids described by gauge theories that bear some resemblance to QCD. While no dual to QCD is known, it may still be useful to look at fluids with gravity duals to obtain some otherwise unavailable intuition
about what can happen to fluids at strong coupling. To this end, a number of transport coefficients in a broad class of strongly-coupled fluids described by theories with gravity duals are investigated. These fluids stay strongly coupled even at high temperatures, in contrast to what happens to the QCD plasma. It turns out that transport coefficients exhibit interesting universal behaviors at high T.
Furthermore, there is a bound on the speed of sound v_s in these theories, with v_s^2 always approaching 1/3 the speed of light from below at high T. These results are compared with what one finds in theories that are weakly coupled at high T.
When: Wed, November 11, 2009 - 1:00pm
Where: Physics Rm. 2202

Title : Entanglement generated by spontaneous two-photon cascade decays
Speaker Name: Aaron Leanhardt
Speaker Institution : University of Michigan
Abstract : The nature of spontaneous two-photon cascade emission is compared for atoms with spin-0 and spin-1/2 ground states. In both cases, it is found that photon pairs with maximal entanglement can be generated. For the case of spin-1/2 ground states, it is found that atom-photon states with maximal entanglement can be created by detecting one of the emitted photons with a particular polarization. We describe an experiment with neutral ytterbium isotopes capable of generating these states. In particular, we excite the 1S0 --> 3D2 two-photon transition with a single 808 nm laser and detect the subsequent cascade decay chain, 3D2 --> 3P1 --> 1S0, which emits a 1479 nm photon and a 556 nm photon, respectively.
When: Wed, November 11, 2009 - 2:00pm
Where: PHYS 1305

Title : Experimental Evidence for MHD Plasma Centrifugal Confinement in Open Magnetic Field Configuration
Speaker Name: Dr. Catalin Teodorescu
Speaker Institution : IREAP
Abstract : In the Maryland Centrifugal Experiment, the plasma is created in a shaped open-field magnetic configuration. Plasma rotation perpendicular to the magnetic field at supersonic speeds is controlled by an externally-applied E x B drift.
This work documents the centrifugal confinement effect produced by the plasma rotation from interferometric measurements of plasma density at the magnetic minimum (midplane) and 85 cm off-midplane. Complete time histories
of density at these two locations are obtained and compared to deduce the efficacy of axial confinement. Other key parameters are also directly measured simultaneously at midplane (rotation velocity profiles, ion temperature, and diamagnetic flux) and off-midplane (diamagnetic flux). The observed scaling of the average density ratio at midplane and off-midplane is obtained as a function of the shape of the magnetic field (mirror ratio) and the data are compared with the MHD (Grad-Shafranov equation) solution of the centrifugally confined density. The theory depends on the sonic Mach number and mirror ratio and the data are shown to be in
agreement with the predictions of the ideal MHD equilibrium theory.
When: Wed, November 11, 2009 - 4:00pm
Where: 1207 Energy Research Facility

Title: Examining the nature and role of implicit scaffolding in PhET simulations

Speaker: Kathy Perkins, University of Colorado, Department of Physics

Abstract: The PhET Interactive Simulations team has created over 85
interactive simulations for learning physics and other sciences. These
simulations provide flexible learning environments where students can
learn through scientist-like exploration. They emphasize the
connections between real life phenomena and the underlying science,
make the invisible visible (e.g. electrons, photons, field vectors),
and include the visual models that experts use to aid their thinking.
In this seminar, we will examine the nature and role of implicit
scaffolding within the PhET sims. Through several recent and current
PhET research studies, we are examining how students learn through
interaction with the simulations, how the type of guidance influences
that learning process, and how various design features and the
complexity of the simulation enhance or deter students' “engaged
exploration” of the simulations.
When: Wed, November 11, 2009 - 4:00pm
Where: PHYS 1304

Title : Applied Dynamics Seminar - Line-Defect Patterns of Unstable Spiral Waves in Cardiac Tissue
Speaker Name: Juan Restrepo
Speaker Institution : Department of Applied Mathematics, University of Colorado
Abstract : Spiral waves of voltage signaling in cardiac tissue are widely recognized to play an important role in the genesis of lethal heart rhythm disorders. Previous modeling studies have shown that the breakup of such waves, which has been proposed as a mechanism for heart fibrillation, can be mediated by a generic period doubling bifurcation. This bifurcation leads to beat-to-beat changes of action potential duration known as alternans. I will present a study of the spatial patterns of alternans before spiral breakup. It is found numerically that the line defects, the location of the points where the dynamics has period one, can form either as a one- or a three-arm spiral pattern where each arm corresponds to a line defect emanating from the spiral core. These findings are interpreted analytically using a simple theory where spiral wave unstable modes with different numbers of line defects correspond to quantized solutions of a Helmholtz equation. Furthermore, the slow !

inward rotation of spiral line defects is described in different regimes.
When: Thu, November 12, 2009 - 12:00pm
Where: 1207 Energy Research Facility

[Title] Electric field induced spin precession in a spin
injected FET
[Speaker] Mark Johnson
[Institution] Naval Research Laboratory
[Abstract] Successful fabrication of a Spin Injected Field Effect Transistor (Spin FET)
has been an elusive goal since the device was first proposed by Datta and
Das two decades ago. We recently demonstrated a spin FET comprising a
high mobility InAs heterostructure with ferromagnetic metal electrodes for
the electrical injection and detection of ballistic spin polarized electrons.
The modulation of spin precession by using a gate voltage is a unique
manifestation of an effect of special relativity. For those who wish to
consider spin as a state variable for future generation electronics, the
experiment shows that spin can be controlled by the same parameter
(voltage) that's used to control the charge state.
H. C. Koo et al., Science 325, 1515 (Sept. 18, 2009)
[Host] Ian Appelbaum
When: Thu, November 12, 2009 - 2:00pm
Where: 1201 Physics Bldg.

Title : IREAP Graduate Student Seminar
Speaker Name: Tak Chu Li
Speaker Institution : UMD - IREAP
Notes: Pizza for graduate students; others pay .00. Submit your requests for pizza toppings and refreshments to Peter Pan at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .
When: Fri, November 13, 2009 - 12:00pm
Where: 1207 Energy Research Facility

[Title] Hamiltonian of a spinning test-particle in curved spacetime
[Speaker] Enrico Barausse
[Institution] University of Maryland
[Abstract] We compute the unconstrained Hamiltonian of a spinning test-partigle in a curved spacetime at linear order in the particle's spin. The equations of motion of this unconstrained Hamiltonian coincide with the Mathisson-Papapetrou-Pirani equations. We then use the formalism of Dirac brackets to derive the constrained Hamiltonian and the corresponding phase-space algebra in the Newton-Wigner spin supplementary condition, suitably generalized to curved spacetime, and find that the phase-space algebra $(q,p,S)$ is canonical at linear order in the particle spin. We provide explicit expressions for this Hamiltonian in static spherically symmetric spacetimes, as well as in stationary axi-symmetric ones, and show how these could be useful to build a novel effective-one-body model for spinning black hole binaries.
When: Mon, November 16, 2009 - 11:00am
Where: 4102 Physics Bldg.

Title : AppEl Seminar - Technology for shipboard free electron lasers (FELs) at optical wavelengths
Speaker Name: Patrick O'Shea
Speaker Institution : UMD - ECE, IREAP
Notes: Bring your lunch. Beverages will be provided.
When: Mon, November 16, 2009 - 12:00pm
Where: 1207 Energy Research Facility

Title : Title: Experimental quantum error correction
Speaker Name: Raymond Laflamme
Speaker Institution : Institute for Quantum Computing and University of Waterloo, Canada
Abstract : The Achilles' heel of quantum information processors is the fragility of quantum states and processes. Without a method to control imperfection and imprecision of quantum devices, the probability that a quantum computation succeed will decrease exponentially in the number of gates it requires. In the last ten years, building on the discovery of quantum error correction, accuracy threshold theorems were proved showing that error can be controlled using a reasonable amount of resources as long as the error rate is smaller than a certain threshold. We thus have a scalable theory describing how to control quantum systems. I will briefly review some of the assumptions of the accuracy threshold theorems and comment on experiments that have been done and should be done to turn quantum error correction into an experimental reality.
When: Mon, November 16, 2009 - 12:30pm
Where: PHYS 1201

Title : The Sun's Dynamo: Prediction Methods, Standard, + New Ideas
Speaker Name: Ken Schatten
Speaker Institution : A.I. Solutions
Abstract: The puzzle of the Sun's dynamo has been regarded as one of the main unsolved problems in physics. Enumerated by no less a personage than Albert Einstein, it still remains a great unsolved problem. This is easily illustrated by predictions of what the current solar cycle, #24, will do. Much controversy exists in both the methods and manner of predicting the size of the upcoming solar cycle. Solar physicists cannot even agree as to where the solar dynamo is located! Except that it is inside the Sun!...
For the complete abstract, see http://space.umd.edu:8080/showAbstract/1116091630
When: Mon, November 16, 2009 - 4:30pm
Where: CSS 2400

Speaker: Prof. Katherine Freese, University of Michigan:

Title: "Dark
matter in the universe".
When: Tue, November 17, 2009 - 4:00pm
Where: PHYS 1410

Speaker: Dr. Steve Koonin, Undersecretary for Science, DOE

As DOE Undersecretary for Science, Koonin serves as the secretary’s advisor on science policy as well as on the scientific aspects of all DOE activities, from basic research to nuclear energy to the environmental clean-up of Cold War legacy sites to defense programs. He is responsible for planning, coordinating and overseeing the Energy Department’s research and development programs, including the Office of Science, and its 17 national laboratories, as well as the department’s scientific and engineering educational activities. The DOE is the third largest federal sponsor of basic research in the United States, the primary supporter of physical sciences in the nation, and of researchers at more than 300 colleges and universities nationwide.

Please RSVP TO This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it by November 13, 2009. Space is Limited. If you have questions, please contact Anne Geronimo at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it orX54178
When: Wed, November 18, 2009 - 11:00am
Where: Benjamin Banneker Room Adele H. Stamp Student Union