Theoretical

Condensed Matter

Research in this area includes ongoing studies of soft matter systems, dynamical systems, granular materials, and disordered matter. Faculty study the mechanics of mesoscopic constructed materials and biological tissues. The dynamics of active matter, including reconstituted biological systems and living cells and flocks, is an active area of study. The glassy dynamical behavior and statistical physics of materials with disorder is studied, using connections with advanced algorithms to model complex systems. Flow and plastic deformation in jammed and glassy solids (as in metallic glasses, foams and granular materials) are the object of research work. Bowick, Manning, Marchetti, Middleton, Schwarz. Three postdoctoral fellows.

Elementary Particles and Fields Quantum field theory and quantum gravity. Supersymmetry and its application to quantum gravity and models of Beyond Standard Model Physics. Strongly coupled dynamics via effective field theory and lattice field theory. LHC phenomenology and lattice QCD. Inflation, the generation of density perturbations, the origin of dark matter and dark energy, baryogenesis and the cosmic microwave background radiation. Particle cosmology. Armendariz-Picon, Catterall, Fan, Hubisz, Laiho, Watson. Two postdoctoral fellows.

Computational Physics

Numerical studies of random surfaces, liquid membranes; study of quantum gravity as a theory of dynamically triangulated meshes; analysis of phase transitions and phase structure in disordered systems; gravitational waveforms from coalescences of astrophysical binary systems; gravitational wave data analysis; numerical simulations on parallel computers; connections between algorithms and physical principles; lattice quantum chromodynamics. Application of distributed processing to large scale quantum theory problems. Bowick, Brown, Catterall, Couvares, Fisher, Laiho, Marchetti, Middleton. One postdoctoral fellow.

Experimental

Astrophysics of the Interstellar Medium and Planetary Atmospheres

Laboratory studies of physical and chemical processes occurring in the interstellar medium and in planetary atmospheres, including formation of molecular hydrogen and hydrogenation and oxidation reactions on interstellar and/or planetary dust grain analogues. Vidali.

Biological and Medical Physics

Experimental studies of photosensory transduction in single-celled model microorganisms, using nonlinear systems physiology approaches; bioinformatics; phylogenetics and molecular clocks; technology development for telemedicine and human-computer interfacing; image processing in nuclear medicine and magnetic resonance imaging. Forstner, Foster, Krol, Lipson, Movileanu, Saranak.

High Energy Experimental Particle Physics

Experimental studies of the fundamental Electroweak and Strong interactions as manifested by the decays of beauty and charm quarks and production of other “exotic” phenomena. These studies are mostly preformed as part of the LHCb experiment at the Large Hadron Collider located at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland. We are primarily interested in how new physics phenomena manifests itself in CP violating and rare B meson decays. We also perform R&D leading to advanced silicon micro-pattern detectors, such as pixel and microstrip strip sensors, and their related readout electronics. The group is also active in neutrino flavor oscillation research, using neutrino beams created at Fermilab in Chicago, Illinois. Our neutrino program involves R&D on the development of liquid argon neutrino detectors, as proposed for use in the MicroBooNE and LBNE experiments. Members of the group have discovered several new particles, including the B, Ds, Y(1D) and made the first measurements of several very important decay modes of these objects. Artuso, Blusk, Mountain, Skwarnicki, Soderberg, Stone and Wang. Four postdoctoral fellows.

Intermediate Energy Particle Physics

Use of spin degrees of freedom to study quantum chromodynamics and the Standard Model at low energies. Experiments are underway at Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) and at Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility (JLAB). Holmes, Souder. 1 postdocteral fellow

Gravitational-wave Astronomy and Astrophysics

Detection of gravitational waves with the Laser Interferometric Gravitation Wave Observatory (LIGO). Development of advanced optics and precision metrology for interferometric detectors. Characterization of the LIGO detectors. Member of the LIGO Scientific Collaboration. Ballmer, Brown, Couvares, Fisher, Saulson. Three postdoctoral fellows.

Semiconductors, Thin Films, and Solar Cells

Electronic and optical properties of unconventional semiconductors (amorphous silicon, porous titania, and silicon). Solar cell device physics. Thin-film growth (plasma, hot-wire). Hybrid organic-inorganic semiconductor devices. Surface physics (structure, kinetics, dynamics, and reactions). Schiff.

Quantum mechanics and nanoscale devices

Superconducting devices and vortex dynamics Investigations of quantum coherence in nanoscale superconducting devices and vortex systems. Quantum effects in macroscopic systems. Nanofabrication of Josephson junctions and structured vortex pinning potentials. Low temperature measurements, including dilution refrigeration. Development of qubits for quantum computing. Applications of nanoelectromechanical systems. LaHaye, Plourde. Two postdoctoral fellows.

Dark Matter

Development of improved ultra-low-radioactivity detectors and environments including detectors of Weakly Interacting Massive Particles, analysis of data from dark matter searches. Member of the Cryogenic Dark Matter Search and DEAP/CLEAN collaborations. Schnee. One postdoctoral fellow.