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Department of Physics and Astronomy
University of Mississippi

Featured News

The 2023 Physics Nobel Prize

The Nobel Prize in Physics 2023  was awarded “for experimental methods that generate attosecond pulses of light for the study of electron dynamics in matter” to be shared jointly between Pierre Agostini, Ferenc Krausz and Anne L’Huillier.

The three Nobel Prize laureates in physics 2023 are being recognized for their experiments, which have given humanity new tools for exploring the world of electrons inside atoms and molecules. They have demonstrated a way to create extremely short pulses of light that can be used to measure the rapid processes in which electrons move or change energy.

Physics Graduate Students Baisakhi Mitra and Byungchul Yu Receive a Fermilab Fellowship

Baisakhi Mitra and Byungchul Yu were just awarded URA Visiting Scholar fellowships! These awards will support their research in residence at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab) over the next year with Dr. Breese Quinn on the Muon g-2 experiment.

Congratulations to the Holders of our Physics Scholarships for 2023-24

Arthur B. and Alma G. Lewis Scholarship

Elizabeth Goreth
Quinn Jordan
Jackson Puleo
Byron Villacorta

The Dr. Lee N. Bolen, Jr. Scholarship

Isabella Armstrong
Kaylyn Beard

Wofford Reynolds and Opal Read Price Scholarship

Isabella Armstrong
Adrell Evans
Courtland Nobles
Harrison Roth

New Faculty Member: Dr. Nicholas Roy MacDonald

Dr. Nicholas Roy MacDonald has just joined us as an Assistant professor. Dr. MacDonald received a Ph.D. in Astrophysics from Boston University. He was a postdoctoral researcher and staff scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy, Bonn, Germany. His research focuses on the study of extragalactic jets.  He has been involved in theoretical, observational, and numerical studies of the physics of jet propagation and emission from kilo-parsec to sub-parsec scales.

He is a member of the following scientific collaborations:

The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) Collaboration

(see https://eventhorizontelescope.org)

Polarimetric Monitoring of AGN at mm-Wavelengths (POLAMI) Program

(see http://polami.iaa.es)

MPIfR Radio Astronomy/VLBI Group

(see https://www.mpifr-bonn.mpg.de/research/vlbi)

Boston University Blazar Group

(see https://www.bu.edu/blazars)

UMiss Physicists with the Muon g-2 Experiment Have New Results

Professor Breese Quinn’s research group at the University of Mississippi is playing key roles on the Muon g-2 experiment. The first results from the Muon g-2 experiment, hosted at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, showed fundamental particles called muons behaving in a way not predicted by the Standard Model of particle physics. These new results, which have significantly improved their earlier measurements,  confirm both the 2021 results  and an earlier experiment of the same name performed at Brookhaven National Laboratory. Combined, these three results show strong evidence that our best theoretical model of the subatomic world is incomplete. One potential explanation would be the existence of undiscovered particles or forces.

For more details see this article in the University of Mississippi News,
UM news article on g-2

 

this Fermilab video:

and the Fermilab release seminar: