Events Page

Welcome to the SPS home page at the University of Mississippi. The SPS is an organization made up of students with one common interest: Physics. We aim to bring physics students closer together and to serve our community by educating others. We are a chapter of the National SPS Organization.

Also see our local webpage.

If you would like to become a member or just make a comment please send your email to:
Dr. Jake Bennett, Jennifer Meyer or Dr. Breese Quinn, our Faculty Advisors.

Anil Panta successfully defended his Ph.D. dissertation on Monday, July 24th in Lewis 228.
The dissertation title is: “CP Asymmetry Measurement in Ξ_c⁺ → Σ⁺π⁺π⁻ Decay and Distributed Computing Development at BELLE II ”

Lucretius Coleman’s successfully defended his Ph.D. dissertation on Wednesday, July 27th in Lewis 228.
The dissertation title is: “Using Quantum Fluctuations to Regularize an Analytic Continuation Problem from Many-Body Physics.”

Alex Denette successfully defended his M.S. Thesis on Tuesday, July 26 in the NCPA conference room and  via Zoom Meeting.
The thesis title is: “Investigating the Acoustic Properties of Polymer Microspheres Suspended in Gelatin.”

Justin Guilliams successfully defended his M.S. Thesis on Friday, July 22 via Zoom Meeting.
The thesis title is: “Measurement of Inclusive Υ(4S) → Υ(1S) Decays at Belle II.”

Quinn Campagna successfully defended his M.S. Thesis on Thursday, July 15 via Zoom Meeting.
The thesis title is: “Exploration of New Physics in B̅⁰ → D^*+ℓ⁻ ν̅ Using a New Monte Carlo Tool.”

Sudeep Adhikari’s successfully defended his Ph.D. dissertation on Monday, April 20th Via Zoom.
The dissertation title is: “Biopolymer Unfolding as a Process of Biased Activated Barrier Crossing.”

Sashwat Tanay’s successfully defended his Ph.D. dissertation on Monday, April 18th in 109 Lewis Hall and Via Zoom.
The dissertation title is: “Post-Newtonian Dynamics Of Eccentric, Spinning Binary Black Holes And The Associated Gravitational Waveform.”

John Waite successfully defended his Ph.D. dissertation on Wednesday, April 13th in the Lewis 228 Conference room and via Zoom.
The dissertation title is: “Exploring the Standard Model and Beyond using B and D meson decays.”

Xudong Fan successfully defended his Ph.D. dissertation on Tuesday, October 12th in the NCPA Conference room and via Zoom.
The dissertation title is: “Acoustic Bessel and Vortex Beams: Force and Refraction.”

BB Pilgrim successfully defended his Ph.D. dissertation on Thursday, July 29 via Zoom Meeting.
The dissertation title is: “Dynamics for Discretized Gravity in the Causal Set Approach.”

Huu Do Tran successfully defended his Ph.D. dissertation on Thursday, July 15.
The dissertation title is: “A Valence-Bond Operator Algebra for Quantum Spin Models and Its Applications.”

Meghna Bhattacharya successfully defended her Ph.D. dissertation on Friday, April 30 via Zoom Meeting.
The dissertation title is: “Search for CPT and Lorentz Invariance Violation in the Muon g-2 Experiment at Fermilab.”

Jonathan Herlan successfully defended his Ph.D. dissertation on Thursday, April 22.
The dissertation title is: “Influences of Alumina Particles on Hydroxyl Macrostate Estimates in a High-Speed, Reacting Flow.”

Vahid Naderyan successfully defended his Ph.D. dissertation on Tuesday, November 23 via Zoom Meeting.
The dissertation title is: “Thermoviscous Acoustic Effects in MEMS.”

via Zoom Meeting.

Khagendra Adhikari successfully defended his Ph.D. dissertation on Tuesday, June 23 via Zoom Meeting.
The dissertation title is: “Numerical Studies of a Quantum Spin Chain with Three-Body Interactions.”

Ashoka Karunarathne successfully defended his Ph.D. dissertation on Monday, April 13 via Zoom Meeting.
The dissertation title is: “Study of Poroelasticity in Porous Ceramics and Elasticity of Thermoelectric SnSe.”

Saeed Kamali successfully defended his Ph.D. dissertation on Thursday, April 9 via Zoom Meeting.
The dissertation title is: “Non-Standard Interactions and b-Hadron Decays.”

Keegan Kurpakus successfully defended his M.S. Thesis on Thursday, April 9 via Zoom Meeting.
The thesis title is: “Acoustic Modeling of a UAS for use in a Hostile Fire Detection System.”

Kevin Yi-Wei Lin successfully defended his Ph.D. dissertation on at 2:45 PM on Wednesday, April 8 via Google Hangout.
The dissertation title is: “Nondestructive Evaluation of Solid Cargo inside Cylindrical Containers by Using Linear and Nonlinear Acoustic Resonance Spectroscopy.”

The Department of Physics and Astronomy had a picnic on October 12, 2019 from 2 to 5 PM at Engineer Point on Sardis Lake. Photos are available here.

The Department of Physics and Astronomy had a buffet luncheon Honoring our 2019 Physics Graduates on May 11, 2019 from 11:30 AM to 1:00 PM in Lewis Hall 104.

Sampath Bandara successfully defended his Ph.D. dissertation on Thursday, April 25 in 228 Lewis Hall.
The dissertation title is: “Investigation Of Narrow Bipolar Events In Mississippi Thunderstorms.”

Shrobana Ghosh successfully defended her Ph.D. dissertation  on Thursday, April 25 in 204 Lewis Hall.
The dissertation title is: “Gravitational Radiation from Superradiant Instabilities of Rotating Black Holes.”

Robert Lirette successfully defended his Ph.D. dissertation  on Wednesday, April 24 in 109 Lewis Hall.
The dissertation title is: “Acoustic Radiation Force on a Fluid to Fluid Boundary by Phase Plate Focused Ultrasound.”

4th UM-MSU Joint Physics Research Symposium

The Mississippi State PGSA was pleased to announce the 4th UM-MSU Research Symposium, that took place on March 23, 2019. This event brought together undergraduate and graduate students from Mississippi State University (MSU) and University of Mississippi (UM) in order to promote the interaction and exchange of ideas between the participants.

The Symposium consisted of both Oral and Poster presentations. This event was open to Graduate students, Undergraduate students, post-docs and other staff, as well as faculty affiliated with either UM or MSU. Topics were based on all areas of physics which are available at either institution, including AMO, Nuclear, Theoretical/Computational, Condenses Matter, Acoustics, and more.

Frights, food and fun were the order of the evening when the University of Mississippi Department of Physics and Astronomy presented “Spooky Physics Demonstrations” from 7 to 9 p.m. Friday (Oct. 26) in Lewis Hall.

The program included a stage show at 8 p.m. Hands-on activities for the public through the evening include freezing objects in liquid nitrogen (at minus 320 degrees), generating sound waves with Bunsen burners and tubes, and levitating magnets with superconductors. Other fun presentations included optical illusions with mirrors, a Van de Graaff generator (a literally “hair-raising” electrical device), a bed of nails and other contraptions.

Physics department personnel also prepared ice cream with liquid nitrogen and awarded prizes for the most original, scariest and cutest costumes to kids aged 12 and under.

Nilmini Karunarathne successfully defended her Ph.D. dissertation on Wednesday, June 26, in 228 Lewis Hall.
The title of her dissertation is “Modeling Studies of Lightning Initiation and Propagation”.”

The Department of Physics and Astronomy had a buffet luncheon Honoring our 2018 Physics Graduates on May 12, 2018 from 11:30 AM to 1:00 PM in Lewis Hall 104
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Selected Photos. (Click on these thumbnails for larger versions)

 

 

 

 

S.T.E.M. Fest 2018 at the University of Mississippi

The physics department participated in the 2018 S.T.E.M. Fest.

Friday, April 20, 2018

• Physics Open House. Learn why a curve ball curves or how to hit the perfect home run from the Society of Physics Students.
  Lewis Hall & Swayze Field 3 – 5 PM.
• National Center for Physical Acoustics Tours. Discover cutting-edge research on a variety of acoustic phenomena, from ultrasonic to infrasonic. NCPA, 3 PM & 4 PM.
• Hidden Figures: The movie. The 2016 blockbuster presented by the Women in Physics and the Office of Diversity and Community Engagement. Overby, 5 – 7:15 PM.
• Astronomy Open House: Viewings of the moon and Jupiter with the historic 1893 Grubb telescope, weather permitting.
  Kennon Observatory, 8 – 10 PM.

Saturday, April 21, 2018

• Lightning Research at UM Field Station. Lecture on lightning and atmospheric physics by Professor Tom Marshall.
  Field Station, 10:40-11am.
• Fun Demos at UM Field Station. Explore the physics of sound, a fire tornado, liquid nitrogen, and what happens when you lay down on a bed of nails. Field Station, 2:30-3:30pm.

Chandrima Chatterjee successfully defended her Ph.D. dissertation on Wednesday, April 18, in 228 Lewis Hall.
The title of her dissertation is “Experimental Investigation of Impurities and Their Effect on Acousto-Electric Properties of Lithium Niobate.”

Wanwei Wu successfully defended his Ph.D. dissertation on Monday, April 9, in 228 Lewis Hall.
The title of his dissertation is “The Beam Dynamics and Beam Related Uncertainties in the Fermilab Muon g-2 Experiment.”

Presented by the University of Mississippi and Mississippi State University

It featured Research talks and Poster presentations. It was open to Faculty, Staff, Undergraduate students, and Graduate students. It took place from 9:30 AM to 5:00 PM in the Robert C. Khayat Law Center.

Frights, food and fun are the order of the evening when the University of Mississippi Department of Physics and Astronomy presented “Spooky Physics Demonstrations” from 7 to 9 p.m. Friday (Oct. 27) in Lewis Hall.

The program included a stage show at 8 p.m. Hands-on activities for the public through the evening include freezing objects in liquid nitrogen (at minus 320 degrees), generating sound waves with Bunsen burners and tubes, and levitating magnets with superconductors. Other fun presentations include optical illusions with mirrors, a Van de Graaff generator (a literally “hair-raising” electrical device), a bed of nails and other contraptions.

Physics department personnel also prepared ice cream with liquid nitrogen and award prizes for the most original, scariest and cutest costumes to kids aged 12 and under.

The 3rd Annual Belle II Summer School was held at the University of Mississippi took place from Monday July 17, 2017 until Thursday July 20, 2017.

Agenda Topics included:
Computing, Analysis setup, KLM particle ID, TOP particle ID
Nanobeams, Vertexing, BASF2, Early physics, BEAST, Reconstruction Code
Drift Chamber, ARICH particle ID, Event Display

The meeting will started in room 109 of Lewis Hall at 9:00 AM Monday morning. Lectures were in room 109 Lewis Hall and the Breakout rooms were in rooms 109 and 228 Lewis Hall.

Please see https://www.phy.olemiss.edu/b2ss2017/ for details.

The 2017 induction ceremony for the National Physics Honors Society, ΣΠΣ took place on May 9 at 11:15 AM in room 101 in Lewis Hall.

Join us for a celebration of science. Walk from Campus to Oxford square on April 22 to champion and support science.

The “Strong Gravity and Binary Dynamics with Gravitational Wave Observations” workshop convened Feb. 27 to March 2 in the Yerby Conference Center. The event was supported in part by Emanuele Berti’s National Science Foundation CAREER Award and by a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Research and Innovation Staff Exchange Action network, funded by the European Union’s FP7 program.

“This network supports exchanges of gravity researchers among the participating nodes,” said Berti, associate professor of physics and astronomy. “In addition to Ole Miss, there are five nodes in Europe, one in in Japan and one in Canada. A dozen researchers will visit campus for a month before and after the workshop.”

About 50 scientists representing some 30 research agencies and institutions of higher learning attended. Researchers discussed several topics in the newborn field of gravitational-wave astronomy, including the astrophysics of compact binary populations, spin measurements in compact binaries, strong-field tests of Einstein’s theory of general relativity and how to look for hints of new gravitational physics beyond Einstein’s theory.

For more about the workshop, visit https://www.phy.olemiss.edu/StronGBaD/. For more about the Department of Physics and Astronomy, go to https://physics.olemiss.edu/.

Also see the article from Inside Ole Miss.

Frights, food and fun are the order of the evening when the University of Mississippi Department of Physics and Astronomy presented “Spooky Physics Demonstrations” from 7 to 9 p.m. Friday (Oct. 28) in Lewis Hall.

The program included a stage show at 8 p.m. Hands-on activities for the public through the evening include freezing objects in liquid nitrogen (at minus 320 degrees), generating sound waves with Bunsen burners and tubes, and levitating magnets with superconductors. Other fun presentations include optical illusions with mirrors, a Van de Graaff generator (a literally “hair-raising” electrical device), a bed of nails and other contraptions.

Physics department personnel also prepared ice cream with liquid nitrogen and award prizes for the most original, scariest and cutest costumes to kids aged 12 and under.

See the SEC movie.

The department has hosted a 2 day QuarkNet Teacher Workshop on June 27 and June 28. We discussed the detection of Dark Matter, SuperSymmetry, and Cosmic Rays. Teachers learned how to operate cosmic ray detectors and take activities back to their class rooms. Contact the Department of Physics and Astronomy if you are a high school Physics teacher and are interested in the QuarkNet program.

You can find more out about QuarkNet at the wiki site: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QuarkNet

(For more information please contact Dr. Cremaldi at cremaldi@phy.olemiss.edu)

Katherine Dooley and Marco Cavaglià
Department of Physics and Astronomy
University of Mississippi

Observation of Gravitational Waves from a Binary Black Hole Merger.

On September 14, 2015 at 03:50:45 a.m. CST the two detectors of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory simultaneously observed a
transient gravitational-wave signal. The signal matches the prediction of
general relativity for the coalescence of two black holes weighting about
30 Suns into a single black hole at a distance of over one billion light
years from Earth. This is the first direct detection of gravitational
waves and the first observation of a binary black hole merger.
See this page for details.

Physics Grads at the 5th Annual Graduate Student Research Poster Symposium organized by The Graduate Student Council (GSC) in coordination with the Graduate School and the Office of Research and Sponsored Programs (ORSP).

Physics Poster Presentation: Sunethra Dayavansha “Higher Temperature Studies Of Shear Wave Speed In A Viscoelastic Wormlike Micellar (wm) Fluid.” Physics Podium Presentations: Hector Okada da Silva : “Testing General Relativity With Neutron Stars: A New Parameterized Framework” Vahid Naderyan : “Wind induced ground motions” Nazanin Omidi : “Computation of Ultrasonic Pressure Fields in Feline Brain” Sumudu Tennakoon : “Temperature & Pressure Effects on Phase Transitions of Lead magnesium niobate-lead titanate (PMN-PT) Relaxor Ferroelectric Material.” From Left to Right: Sunethra Dayavansha, Hector Okada da Silva, Vahid Naderyan, Nazanin Omidi, and Sumudu Tennakoon. Sumudu Tennakoon was awarded with the 1st Place prize for the Podium Presentation category.

The University of Mississippi was chosen by the American Physical Society (APS) as the southeastern region site for the 2015 Conferences for Undergraduate Women in Physics. The local organizing committee is led by Dr. Cecille Labuda along with Dr. Luca Bombelli and Dr. Marco Cavaglia as faculty committee members assisted by several student committee members.The conference schedule will feature a combination of talks by professional physicists in a variety of areas of physics, panel discussions on graduate school, careers in physics and diversity, a poster session, student talks, and opportunities for the attendees to meet other students, speakers and panelists. More than 120 undergraduate students have applied to attend our conference, one of eight simultaneous conferences held nationwide. There will be one common keynote speaker, with the keynote address being simulcast to all CUWiP sites from our site at the University of Mississippi.For more information about the conference series, see the APS site: http://www.aps.org/programs/women/workshops/cuwip.cfm

Three Physics grad students participated in the UM 3 Minute Thesis (3MT) competition. The students competing were Chandrima Chatterjee, Ukesh Koju and Vahid Naderyan. Vahid Naderyan was the winner of for the master’s thesis 3MT, giving a talk on his research in wind noise and its interaction with the ground.

Vahid’s Presentation of his master’s thesis at the UM 3MT final.

The YouTube video is here.

In conjuncture with this year’s Common Reading Program book, The Girls of Atomic City, Dr. Josh Gladden gave a lecture explaining the basics of nuclear fission and why enrichment was so important in making the fuel for the atom bomb. There were also Geiger counter and a cloud chamber demonstrations that showed examples of ionizing radiation .

Dr. Gladden	Audience	Dr. Gladden
Cloud Chamber Setup		Cloud Chamber Setup

The CERN Summer School offers undergraduate students of physics, computing and engineering a unique opportunity to join in the day-to-day work of research teams participating in experiments at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland. University of Mississippi undergraduate physics student, Neetish Pradhan, attend this year, 2014. This MP4 is the presentation of the summary of his work.

Party for Chris Hill, James Krauss and Kenneth Scott’s departure.

At the Spring Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, Dr. Gladden took over as Chair of the Physical Acoustics Technical Committee. He will serve a 3 year term in this role. The Chairs primary duties are to represent the Physical Acoustics community to the larger Acoustical Society leadership, work to ensure a broad and robust representation of physical acoustics at the bi-annual ASA meetings, help implement tools and resources to advance and connect the international physical acoustics community. Dr. Gladden was also elected as a “Member at Large” for the Topical Group on Instrumentation and Measurement Science (GIMS) which is a unit of the American Physical Society. The focus of the GIMS is to advance the development of new measurement tools and techniques by creating a forum for discussions, collaborations, awareness, and recognition of significant achievements. Dr. Gladden is looking forward to contributing to each of these organizations.

The UM SPS took a day trip to Livingston LA for a tour of the LIGO lab. The lab tour was organized by Dr. Cavaglià, a UM Physics faculty member, who is the leader of the LIGO team at UM and Assistant Spokesperson of the LIGO Scientific Collaboration. He accompanied ten SPS students along with Dr. Labuda the SPS faculty coordinator to the LIGO lab.

Group Photo in the LIGO Control room.

The meeting was held at the Hattiesburg Lake Terrace Convention Center, Hattiesburg, MS. The annual meeting is comprised of addresses, symposia, workshops, scientific papers, and exhibits grouped by division. At this meeting, 7 physics graduate students from the University of Mississippi gave talks. The following are photos taken of them at the meeting:

He and a fellow classmate won the 26^th Annual Domenick L. Gabrielli National Family Law Moot Court Competition — February 25-27, 2014.

Photo from the Championship Presentation.

Also please see the article in the View from Ventress online.

The meeting was held at Rhodes College, Memphis TN. The following are photos taken at the meeting:

SPS 2014 Zone10 meeting, Group Photo

This award is one of two in Area A, which includes Biology, Chemistry, Mathematics, Philosophy and Religions, and Physics and Astronomy. Ahmed dedicates this award to his wife.

Students from Tougaloo college visited the Department of Physics and Astronomy. Besides meeting our faculty they took a walk around campus (including a tour of the National Center for Physical Acoustics and of the Center for Manufacturing Excellence) and heard about career opportunities in physics and other STEM disciplines. This visit was supported in part by Dr. Emanuele Berti’s NSF CAREER Award.This is a picture of the whole group, including amazing Dr. Donald Cole (watch this video!), around James Meredith’s statue. This is a special year for Ole Miss: we are commemorating the 50th anniversary of the enrollment of James Meredith with a series of events on Opening the Closed Society.

The building you can see in the back is the Physics Department (Lewis Hall).

He received the award at the 4th International Summer School on Neutrino Physics (INSS2012), co-hosted by Virginia Tech and Fermilab, which took place at Virginia Tech’s Center for Neutrino Physics in Blacksburg, Virginia from July 10th to July 21st, 2012.
The lecturers assigned some questions to the participants to address in the tutorial sessions in groups. His group was formed from three students (one theorist and two experimentalists) and addressed three questions; do the charged leptons oscillate, how to use neutrinos to set up a fast communications link to do insider trading, and construct a model to explain the relationship between the sine of the reactor neutrino mixing angle and the ratio of the neutrino solar and atmospheric mass-squared differences. His group was one of three groups (out of twenty groups) that got a presentation award.

CERN Press release and Interview of University of Mississippi Physicists by Action News 5 – Memphis, Tennessee

A transit of Venus will start at about 5 PM CDT on June 5th 2012. This is a fairly rare occurrence with the next one happening in 2117. As with a solar eclipse Venus, instead of the Moon, will pass across the face of the Sun. As with a solar eclipse, this may be observed either through a filtered telescope or by projection. See Wikipedia and NASA for more details.

 

Photos Taken at the University of Mississippi

Taken through a 70-mm TeleVue Pronto refractor Telescope

Taken through a 70-mm TeleVue Pronto refractor Telescope

Projection using “Sunspotter” Solar Telescope

Taken through a 12-in Mede LX200 reflector Telescope

The Graduate Instructor Excellence in Teaching Award is sponsored by the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning. They were especially impressed with his teaching philosophy and his high ratings on student evaluations. And especially appreciated his comment about helping “facilitate discoveries” in Physics 223-224.
The Golden Apple Award and $1000 check was presented to him at the Doctoral Hooding Ceremony on Friday May 13, 2011 at the Gertrude C. Ford Center for the Performing Arts.

The Science Undergraduate Laboratory Internship is a summer program sponsored by the Department of Energy. She will be working on research concerning the behavior of dust particles in plasma environments.

MAP (Mississippi Association of Physicists) Spring Meeting

• Call for Nominations
• Fall 2006 Minutes