• Research News

    New Laser Experiment Spins Light Like a Merry-go-round

    In day-to-day life, light seems intangible. We walk through it and create and extinguish it with the flip of a switch. But, like matter, light actually carries a little punch—it has momentum. Light constantly nudges things and can even be used to push spacecraft. Read More
  • Research News

    The Many Wonders of Uranium Ditelluride

    In the menagerie of exotic materials, superconductors boast their own vibrant ecosystem. All superconductors allow electricity to flow without any resistance. It’s their hallmark feature. But in many cases, that’s where the similarities end. Some superconductors, like aluminum, are conventional—run-of-the-mill, bread-and-butter materials that are Read More
  • Research News

    Simulations of ‘Backwards Time Travel’ Can Improve Scientific Experiments

    If gamblers, investors and quantum experimentalists could bend the arrow of time, their advantage would be significantly higher, leading to significantly better outcomes. Adjunct Assistant Professor and JQI affiliate Nicole Yunger Halpern and her colleagues at the University of Cambridge have shown that by Read More
  • Research News

    Embracing Uncertainty Helps Bring Order to Quantum Chaos

    In physics, chaos is something unpredictable. A butterfly flapping its wings somewhere in Guatemala might seem insignificant, but those flits and flutters might be the ultimate cause of a hurricane over the Indian Ocean. The butterfly effect captures what it means for something to Read More
  • Research News

    Advocating for Quantum Simulation of Extreme Physics

    The Big Bang, supernovae, collisions of nuclei at breakneck speeds—our universe is filled with extreme phenomena, both natural and human-made. But the surprising thing is that all of these seemingly distinct processes are governed by the same underlying physics: a combination of quantum mechanics Read More
  • Research News

    Novel Quantum Speed Limits Tackle Messy Reality of Disorder

    The researchers and engineers studying quantum technologies are exploring uncharted territory. Due to the unintuitive quirks of quantum physics, the terrain isn’t easy to scout, and the path of progress has been littered with wrong turns and dead ends. Sometimes, though, theorists have streamlined Read More
  • Research News

    UMD Researchers Study the Intricate Processes Underpinning Gene Expression

    A new study led by University of Maryland physicists sheds light on the cellular processes that regulate genes. Published in the journal Science Advances, the paper explains how the dynamics of a polymer called chromatin—the structure into which DNA is packaged—regulate gene expression. Through Read More
  • Research News

    UMD Scientists Help Discover the Highest-Energy Light Coming from the Sun

    Sometimes, the best place to hide a secret is in broad daylight. Just ask the sun. A new paper in Physical Review Letters details the discovery of the highest-energy light ever observed from the sun. The international team behind the discovery also found that Read More
  • Research News

    Crystal Imperfections Reveal Rich New Phases of Familiar Matter

    Matter—all the stuff we see around us—can be classified into familiar phases: our chairs are solid, our coffee is liquid, and the oxygen we breathe is a gas. This grouping obscures the nitty gritty details of what each molecule or atom is up to Read More
  • 1 New Laser Experiment Spins Light Like a Merry-go-round
  • 2 The Many Wonders of Uranium Ditelluride
  • 3 Simulations of ‘Backwards Time Travel’ Can Improve Scientific Experiments
  • 4 Embracing Uncertainty Helps Bring Order to Quantum Chaos
  • 5 Advocating for Quantum Simulation of Extreme Physics
  • 6 Novel Quantum Speed Limits Tackle Messy Reality of Disorder
  • 7 UMD Researchers Study the Intricate Processes Underpinning Gene Expression
  • 8 UMD Scientists Help Discover the Highest-Energy Light Coming from the Sun
  • 9 Crystal Imperfections Reveal Rich New Phases of Familiar Matter
  • Advanced Physics Camp

 

 

 

             

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Department News

  • Mar 1, 2024 Jamie Raskin to Give Milchberg Lecture on March 28 Congressman Jamie Raskin of Maryland’s 8th Congressional District will give the fourth Irving and Renee Milchberg Endowed Lecture on Thursday, March 28 at 1 p.m. in the lecture hall (1412) of the John S. Toll Physics Building. Rep. Raskin will discuss Democracy, Autocracy and the Read More
  • Mar 21, 2024 Sullivan Named Distinguished Scholar-Teacher Professor Greg Sullivan has been named a University of Maryland Distinguished Scholar-Teacher. The Distinguished Scholar-Teacher Program, established in 1978, honors a small number of faculty members each year who have demonstrated notable success in both scholarship and teaching. Sullivan received his Ph.D. from the University of Read More
  • Mar 21, 2024 Charles Tahan Brings His Research Expertise to Thriving UMD Quantum Enterprise Charles Tahan, who recently stepped down as director of the National Quantum Coordination Office (NQCO), is now bringing his expertise as a quantum physicist and a leader in the quantum research community to the University of Maryland. After leaving NQCO this month, he is taking Read More
  • Feb 20, 2024 Philippov Awarded Sloan Research Fellowship Assistant Professor Sasha Philippov is one of 126 scientists in the United States and Canada to receive a 2024 Sloan Research Fellowship. Granted by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the $75,000 award recognizes scientists who have made important research contributions and have demonstrated “the potential to Read More
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Upcoming Events

28 Mar
Irving and Rene Milchberg Lecture: Rep. Jamie Raskin
Date Thu, Mar 28, 2024 1:00 pm - 2:00 pm
28 Mar
QMC Colloquium: Pascoal Pagliuso, Unicamp Brazil
Thu, Mar 28, 2024 2:00 pm - 3:30 pm
28 Mar
Nuclear Theory Seminar
Thu, Mar 28, 2024 2:15 pm - 3:15 pm
28 Mar
QuICS Special Seminar: Nicolas Delfosse
Thu, Mar 28, 2024 3:30 pm - 4:30 pm
29 Mar
Friday Quantum Seminar: Gautam Nambiar
Fri, Mar 29, 2024 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm
29 Mar
HEP / Particle Astro seminar
Fri, Mar 29, 2024 3:30 pm - 4:30 pm
1 Apr
JQI Seminar: William Oliver
Mon, Apr 1, 2024 11:00 am - 12:00 pm
1 Apr
Biophysics Seminar: Brian Shoichet
Mon, Apr 1, 2024 4:00 pm - 5:00 pm
1 Apr
EPT Seminar
Mon, Apr 1, 2024 4:00 pm - 5:30 pm

Gates Receives National Medal of Science, Regents Professorship

 

gates

University of Maryland Professor of Physics Sylvester James "Jim" Gates Jr. was one of 23 extraordinary scientists and innovators honored recently with the National Medal of Science and the National Medal of Technology and Innovation.  Gates, the John S. Toll Professor of Physics, is Director of the Center for String and Particle Theory and, most recently, a University System of Maryland Regents Professor. 

President Obama presented the National Medal of Science to Gates in a White House ceremony on Friday, Feb. 1.

Dr. Gates was featured in The Washington Post on Feb. 1.

The White House features the ceremony in a blog post on STEM education, and has posted a video online.

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Rudimentary Atom Capacitor

First came electronics, the processing of information in terms of the charge of electrons flowing through circuits. Later a new form of tronics, spintronics, was invented to exploit the magnetic properties of electrons. Over the past decade or so still another information modality, atomtronics, has been under development, one employing not electrons but neutral atoms as the vehicle for information. The latest chapter in this development is the demonstration of a rudimentary atomtronic analog of capacitance.

The new results, undertaken by a group led by Wendell Hill at the Joint Quantum Institute (JQI), are published in the journal Nature Scientific Reports.

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Redish to be Awarded 2013 Oersted Medal

Edward (Joe) Redish will be awarded the 2013 Oersted Medal from the American Association of Physics Teachers, at their national meeting in New Orleans, next January. This prestigious medal recognizes those who have had an outstanding, widespread and lasting impact on the teaching of physics.

Professor Redish joined the department in 1968 after receiving his Ph.D. in theoretical nuclear physics from MIT. For the past 20 years his research effort has focused on physics education with an emphasis on the role of student expectations and understanding the kinds of difficulties physics students have with problem solving from introductory to upper division physics. He is a fellow of the American Physical Society, the AAAS, and the Washington Academy of Science and has received awards for his work in education from the Washington Academy of Science, the Maryland Association for Higher Education, Dickinson College, Vanderbilt University, and the Robert A. Millikan Medal from the AAPT. 

Hassan Jawahery Named Distinguished University Professor

Dr. Hassan Jawahery, the Gus T. Zorn Professor of Physics, has been named a Distinguished University Professor. This designation is the campus’ highest academic honor, reserved for those whose scholarly achievements “have brought distinction to the University of Maryland.” It recognizes Jawahery’s efforts in precision measurements of the properties and interactions of subatomic particles, part of the quest to solve fundamental puzzles such as the matter/anti-matter asymmetry in the Universe.

After graduating from Tehran University in 1976, Jawahery moved to Tufts University and received his Ph.D. in 1981. He accepted postdoctoral and research assistant professor appointments at Syracuse University and was named the physics coordinator of the CLEO particle experiment (1987-1988) based at Cornell. In 1987, he joined the University of Maryland, and worked on the Omni-Purpose Apparatus (OPAL) experiment at CERN’s Large Electron-Positron collider (LEP).

Jawahery was one of the founding members of the celebrated BaBar particle physics experiment, designed, built and operated by an international collaboration of over 600 physicists from 10 countries at the Stanford Linear Accelerator (SLAC). He served as the physics analysis coordinator of the experiment (2001-2002), and for two years (2006-2008) served as BaBar “spokesperson,” a role combining the functions of chief scientist and CEO. BaBar observed a process that violates matter/anti-matter symmetry (and consequently time-reversal symmetry), and the effect was substantial: in 2008, the Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to Kobayashi and Maskawa, whose 1973 prediction of broken symmetry in the framework of the Standard Model initiated the thirty-year experimental verification effort finally achieved by BaBar and a competing experiment in Japan.

Recently, Jawahery has been playing a leading role in the development of future experiments, such as the Super-B experiment at the Frascati Lab near Rome. The aim is to increase the production of bottom/anti-bottom quarks by several orders of magnitude over that produced at SLAC, which will allow for precision measurements that may reveal evidence for new physics, in synergy with the current efforts at CERN’S LHC supercollider.

Jawahery is the Associate Editor of the Annual Review of Nuclear and Particle Science, the field’s most prestigious journal for summary publications. He was elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society in 2004 and the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2010.

Jawahery will be recognized at the University of Maryland’s 29th Annual Faculty and Staff Convocation on Tuesday, October 9 at 3:00 p.m. in the Memorial Chapel.

Unusual 'Collapsing' Iron Superconductor Sets Record for Its Class

A team from the University of Maryland, led by Physics Professor Johnpierre Paglione, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has found an iron-based superconductor that operates at the highest known temperature for a material in its class. The discovery inches iron-based superconductors closer to being useful in many practical applications.

Iron-based superconductors, discovered only about four years ago, are a hot research topic, in part because they are more amenable to commercial applications than copper-based superconductors, which are more difficult to make and are frequently brittle. Of the four broad classes of iron-based superconductors, the 1:2:2 class-so named because their crystals are built around a hub of one atom of calcium, two of iron and two of arsenic-is particularly promising because these superconductors' properties can be custom-tailored by substituting other atoms for these basic elements.

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