Colloquia in Academic Year 2009-2010

Dept. of Physics & Astronomy, Stony Brook University

Fall 2009 colloquia

Date	Speaker	Title	Local Host
Nov. 24	Michael Rosenthal BNL	International Atomic Energy Agency Safeguards: How IAEA Inspectors became Detectives. The NPT entered into force in 1970. It required that all non-nuclear weapon states parties accept the application of safeguards "with a view to preventing diversion of nuclear energy from peaceful uses to nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices. Procedures for the safeguards required by this Article shall be followed with respect to [nuclear] material whether it is being produced, processed or used in any principal nuclear facility or is outside any such facility. The safeguards required by this Article shall be applied on all [nuclear] material in all peaceful nuclear activities" of the State." The implementation of this obligation was assigned to the IAEA and is implemented in accordance with a model safeguards agreement that was adopted by the IAEA Board of Governors in 1971. Known as INFCIRC/153, this agreement established material accountancy as a measure of fundamental importance with containment and surveillance as important complementary measures and assigned to the IAEA both the right and the obligation to "ensure that safeguards will be applied ... on all [nuclear] material in all peaceful nuclear activities of the state. Implementation of NPT safeguards, thus, began in the early 1970's with a focus on material accountancy. Not surprisingly, the primary focus of the IAEA's safeguards effort was detecting diversions on the basis of this measure. Although not surprising, far too little emphasis was placed on measures that would help the IAEA to fulfill its obligation to apply safeguards to all nuclear material. This situation resulted not only because the IAEA lacked clear tools to do so. There was also pressure from states to reduce the burdens of safeguards. The flaws in this approach were highlighted dramatically by the discovery in Iraq of a clandestine nuclear weapon program in 1991. This discovery triggered a program of work that resulted in the adoption in 1997 of a new safeguards agreement, the Model Additional Protocol. Under the new safeguards agreement, the IAEA inspector is explicitly empowered to be a "detective," i.e., to look for undeclared nuclear activities. This presentation traces the way in which this transformation took place and highlights the many strengths and some weaknesses of the new safeguards system.	Michael Zingale
Dec. 1	Barbara Jacak Stony Brook University	Quark Gluon Plasma: From Particles to Fields?	Axel Drees
Dec. 8	Shivaji Sondhi Princeton University	Spin Ice and Magnetic Monopoles The "spin ice" materials are elegant laboratories for the physics of geometrical frustration in magnets. I will describe their basic statistical mechanics, the connection to real ice, a central puzzle of their existence and its resolution leading to the uncovering of an emergent gauge field as well as the magnetic monopoles of the standard magnetic gauge field advertised in the title.	Meigan Aronson

Spring 2010 colloquia

Date	Speaker	Title	Local Host
Jan. 26	Bob Rosner Chicago	TBD	Michael Zingale
Feb. 2	Jerry Gollub Haverford	TBD	Hal Metcalf
Feb. 9
Feb. 16	Richard Ellis Caltech	Observational Constraints on Dark Energy: Consumer's Guide	Michael Zingale
Feb. 23
Mar. 2	David Larbalestier FSU	TBD	Meigan Aronson
Mar. 9	Charles Kane U. Penn	Topological Insulators and Topological Band Theory A topological insulator is a material with a bulk excitation gap generated by the spin orbit interaction, which is topologically distinct from an ordinary insulator. This distinction -- characterized by a topological invariant -- necessitates the existence of conducting states on the sample boundary which have a massless Dirac dispersion relation. These materials have attracted considerable interest as a fundamentally new class of insulators with applications from quantum transport to quantum computing. In this talk we will outline our theoretical discovery of this electronic phase and describe recent experiments in which its signatures have been observed in both two and three dimensional systems. We will close by arguing that the proximity effect between an ordinary superconductor and a 3D topological insulator leads to a novel two dimensional interface state which may provide a new venue for realizing proposals for topological quantum computation.	Sasha Abanov
Mar. 16	Dam Son INT / University of Washington	TBD	Michael Zingale
Mar. 23	Nati Seiberg IAS	TBD	Martin Rocek / Michael Zingale
Mar. 30	no colloqium—Spring Break
Apr. 6	Stephen Julian Toronto	TBD
Apr. 13
Apr. 20	Jeffrey Grossman MIT	TBD	Kostya Likharev
Apr. 27	Marla Geha Yale	TBD	Michael Zingale
May 4	graduate director	Award's colloquium	N/A

Colloquia already given in academic year 2009/2010:

Date	Speaker	Title	Local Host
Sept. 1	Karin Rabe Rutgers University	Designer oxides that work (Special NYCCS Colloquium) Functional oxides, characterized by high sensitivity to applied fields and stresses, are of great current interest both for their fundamental physics and for technological applications including transducers, energy conversion, and information storage. In perovskite oxides, layered perovskites and other complex-structured oxide families, a wide variety of distorted equilibrium phases can be produced by the freezing-in of one or more lattice instabilities of an appropriate high-symmetry reference structure. In this talk, I discuss how the information from computational first-principles studies of these systems provides guidance for altering the balance of the competition of instabilities of different character under conditions characteristic of epitaxial thin films, superlattices, and nanoparticles, leading to the realization of novel phases with structure and properties different from those of the bulk equilibrium phase, as well as desirable functional behavior near the phase boundaries. Examples presented will include the observation of epitaxial-strain-induced ferroelectricity in perovskite titanates and manganates, with discussion of the additional possibility of multiferroism and magnetoelectric coupling in magnetic oxide systems. [recorded movie]	Michael Zingale
Sept. 8	Laszlo Mihaly Stony Brook University	Chair's Colloquium	N/A
Sept. 15	Jerry Bernholc NCSU	Computational Nano and Bio Physics: The Era of Applied Quantum Mechanics (Special NYCCS Colloquium) It is already possible to predict the properties of new and artificially structured materials entirely by computations, using atomic numbers as the only input. The rapid progress in computational science is expected to continue, which should eventually enable the “design” of nano- and bio- materials with tailor-made properties largely on a computer, with only relatively few final candidates being evaluated experimentally. Although this goal is still some time in the future, current advances in multiscale methods and petascale computing promise breakthroughs that will affect many areas of science, technology and medicine. This talk will review the status and prospects of such calculations, using three examples from the speaker’s work: (i) in molecular electronics, predictions of negative differential resistance in a wide range of organic-molecule-based structures; (ii) development of methodology for large-scale quantum-mechanical simulations of solvated biomolecules and its first applications to unraveling the role of copper in prion and Parkinson’s disease proteins; and (iii) mechanisms and predictions of ultrahigh electric power storage in ferroelectric polymers. [recorded movie]	Michael Zingale
Sept. 22	Steve Smith Stony Brook University	The Photophysics of Vision Rhodopsin is a highly specialized G protein-coupled receptor (GPCR) that is activated by the rapid photochemical isomerization of its covalently bound 11-cis retinal chromophore, aka vitamin A. Absorption of light results in the cis-to-trans conversion of the retinal along a torsional coordinate in the electronic excited state of molecule in less than ~200 femtoseconds. The rapid structural change in the retinal leads to steric strain in the receptor, which is released on the timescale of milliseconds and causes a conformational change in the receptor. I will describe structural studies using Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) spectroscopy to describe how this visual receptor transduces light into a chemical and biological signal. [recorded movie]	Hal Metcalf
Sept. 29	no colloquium—classes on Monday schedule
Oct. 6	Kiko Galvez Colgate University	Quantum Interference of Light: From Fundamentals to Qubits Recent technological advances have allowed numerous fundamental tests of quantum mechanics via violations of Bell's inequalities of various forms and situations. The use of quantal systems to encode and manipulate information in a non-classical way has led to the rise of a new interdisciplinary field of quantum information. At the heart of both is quantum interference. This rise to prominence has also led us to reconsider how we introduce quantum mechanics in instruction, moving away from "shut up and calculate" to measuring violations of Bell's inequalities as an undergraduate lab. At the colloquium I will present several experiments on quantum interference of light with the thread of reinventing how to introduce quantum mechanics even to first year students, but also understanding the more sophisticated role that photons play in discovering new ways in which quantum mechanics can be implemented for quantum information. [recorded movie]	Hal Metcalf
Oct. 13	Pierre Thibault	High-resolution imaging with coherent X-ray scattering In the last decade, the development of techniques commonly grouped under the name "coherent diffractive imaging" (CDI) has greatly expanded the means whereby spatial information can be collected using radiation. After giving a general overview of CDI, I will describe recent results obtained at the Paul Scherrer Institut with an improved imaging method. Called "scanning X-ray diffraction microscopy" (SXDM), the technique shares the elegance and the high-resolution potential of many CDI approaches while offering increased reliability and robustness. I will put special emphasis on the underlying algorithmic developments, illustrating the beneficial interplay between experiment and theory. [recorded movie]	Chris Jacobsen/Michael Zingale
Oct. 20	David Mandrus ORNL	Breaking the Tyranny of Copper: The Emergence of a New Generation of High-Tc Superconductors Based on Iron In this talk a brief history and materials overview of the new layered Fe-based superconductors will be presented, followed by a discussion of recent experimental work on the new materials from Oak Ridge National Laboratory including some of the first neutron scattering results from the Spallation Neutron Source. [recorded movie]	Meigan Aronson/Laszlo Mihaly
Oct. 27	Grover Swartzlander RIT	Focusing light using only polarization I will show how light can be focused by using only polarization elements. Surprisingly, both the amplitude and phase of a beam may be arbitrarily controlled with computer-generated elements called vectographs, combined with a quarter wave retarder. Vectographs are non-uniformly dyed polarizers that have been used for years to produced gorgeous colorful stereoscopic images (and even a few movies). This talk will discuss our recent fabrications of the first vectographic lens and vectographic vortex. This novel approach to beam shaping and wavefront control may one day rival holography. [recorded movie]	Hal Metcalf
Nov. 3	Steve Peggs BNL	Thorium Energy Amplifiers and Proton Therapy: New concepts—fast accelerator physics challenges Global interest in accelerator driven sub-critical Thorium Energy Amplifiers (ThorEA) is exploding. Key to the eventual construction of full scale nuclear reactors for sustainable electricity generation is the demonstratation of ultra-reliable MW-class proton drivers at 1 GeV or higher. The fundamental accelerator R&D required for such a demonstration is quite similar for both Fixed Focusing Alternating Gradient accelerators (FFAGs) and for Very Rapid Cycling Synchrotrons (VRCSs). This same R&D would enable a low power 250 MeV FFAG or VRCS to be used for proton therapy with pulse repetition rates of about 1 kHz.	Axel Drees
Nov. 10	Jim Lattimer Stony Brook	Neutron Star Structure and the Equation of State Neutron stars provide a unique laboratory with which to study cold, dense matter. The quantities of primary interest are the maximum mass and the typical radius of a neutron star. It is demonstrated how these quantities are related to the relative stiffness of neutron-rich matter and the density dependence of the nuclear symmetry energy. The possible measurements of these quantities through heavy-ion collisions and parity-violating electron scattering from neutron-rich nuclei are discussed. In addition, there are several recent observations, including thermal emissions from cooling neutron stars, pulsars and binary pulsars, and thermonuclear explosions from accreting stars, that are competing in the quest for the pressure-density relation of dense matter. [recorded movie]	Michael Zingale
Nov. 17	Dmitri Kharzeev BNL	Chiral symmetry and parity-odd effects in hot QCD matter I will address the role of chiral symmetry and parity invariance in the properties of hot and dense quark-gluon matter. The possibility of parity-odd effects in this matter will be discussed. Local parity violation can manifest itself in heavy ion collisions at RHIC through the spatial separation of positive and negative particles with respect to the reaction plane. The charge separation induces the electric dipole moment of the produced hot quark-gluon matter; it stems from the interplay of strong magnetic field in the early stage of the heavy ion collision and the presence of topological configurations in hot matter ("the chiral magnetic effect"). This effect is enhanced in the deconfined and chirally symmetric quark-gluon plasma phase of strongly interacting matter because it requires the separation of quarks over a large distance. Recently parity violation has been studied at RHIC, with an exciting result. The effect has interesting applications for the cosmology of the Early Universe, and has analogs in condensed matter physics (quantum wires and graphene), and in astrophysics (particle acceleration in cosmic strings). [recorded movie]	Axel Drees