Events Archive

Donald R. Hamilton Colloquium

Hamilton Colloquium Series - Will Happer, Princeton University: "Why Has There Been No Global Warming For The Past Decade?"

Thu, Oct 10, 2013, 4:30 pm to 5:30 pm

The temperature of the Earth's surface has not changed by more than 0.1 C since the year 2000, and it may even have cooled slightly. Most computer models predicted that the increase of CO2, from about 370 to 400 ppm during that period, should have caused a warming of around 0.3 C.

Hamilton Colloquium Series - Andrei Bernevig, Princeton University: "Topological States of Matter"

Thu, Sep 26, 2013, 4:30 pm to 5:30 pm

Topological states of matter distinguish themselves from quantum ordered states - such as antiferromagnets - by the absence of a local order parameter. Their properties are remarkable, and range from realizing Majorana fermions to exhibiting fractional statistics and non-abelian braiding.

Hamilton Colloquium Series - Dr. Justin Kasper, University of Michigan; Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory: "Sending a spacecraft to the Sun"

Thu, Sep 19, 2013, 4:30 pm to 5:30 pm

For centuries solar eclipses have provided brief glimpses of the solar corona, a remarkably structured atmosphere that surrounds the Sun and spreads into the solar system. Today, the Sun and the corona are tracked continuously by observatories on Earth and in space.

Hamilton Colloquium Series - Eliot Quataert, University of California-Berkeley - "The Physics of Galaxy Cluster Plasmas"

Thu, May 2, 2013, 4:30 pm to 5:30 pm

Galaxy clusters are among the largest gravitationally bound objects in the universe. The majority of the baryonic mass in clusters resides in a hot, low density plasma that pervades the intracluster medium (rather than in stars).

Hamilton Colloquium Series - Frank Jenko, Max-Planck-Institut für Plasmaphysik - "Exploring the Mysteries of Plasma Turbulence"

Thu, Apr 11, 2013, 4:30 pm to 5:30 pm

Plasma turbulence is a ubiquitous phenomenon, influencing the dynamics in most of the visible universe and playing a crucial role in countless experiments of basic and applied plasma science. Its comprehension and control is a prerequisite to the realization of fusion energy.

Hamilton Colloquium Series - Amir Yacoby, Harvard University - “Quantum Information Processing and Metrology Using Few Electron Spins in Solids”

Thu, Apr 4, 2013, 4:30 pm to 5:30 pm

Quantum computing and information processing use quantum two level systems as their building blocks. Solid-state implementations of quantum bits use, for example, single or few electron spins confined to small spatial dimensions.

Hamilton Colloquium Series - Alain Aspect, Institut d'Optique, Palaiseau - "From Einstein's intuition to quantum bits: a new quantum age?"

Thu, Mar 28, 2013, 4:30 pm to 5:30 pm

In 1935, with co-authors Podolsky and Rosen, Einstein discovered a weird quantum situation, where particles in a pair are so strongly correlated that Schrödinger called them “entangled.” By analyzing that situation, Einstein concluded that the quantum formalism was incomplete.

Hamilton Colloquium Series - William Young, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC, San Diego - "Two Dimensional Turbulence"

Thu, Mar 14, 2013, 4:30 pm to 5:30 pm

In the first part of this talk I will review basic results about two-dimensional turbulence emphasizing the absence of a dissipative anomaly in D=2, and the energy-conserving long-time behavior of solutions of the inviscid equations of motion. Arguments dating back to Onsager predict the formation of an en-semble of vortices separated by potential...

Hamilton Colloquium Series - Ignacio Cirac, Max-Planck Institute for Quantum Optics - "Dissipation as a New Tool in Quantum Information Science"

Thu, Mar 7, 2013, 4:30 pm to 5:30 pm

Quantum entanglement, the most striking feature of quantum mechanics, is also the basic ingredient in most applications in the field of quantum information. Unfortunately, it is very fragile: in all experiments so far the coupling of the systems to the environment has lead to dissipation which either destroys entanglement or prevents its...

Hamilton Colloquium Series - Abhay Pasupathy, Columbia University, "What drives electronic nematicity in the iron-based superconductors?"

Thu, Feb 28, 2013, 4:30 pm to 5:30 pm

The iron arsenides are a recently discovered class of unconventional superconducting materials. This class of materials consists of various families (cryptically called 111, 122, 1111, etc.) each of which has a "parent" compound. These parent compounds (e.g. NaFeAs) are typically not superconducting, but display a spin-density wave phase at low...

Hamilton Colloquium Series - Roderich Moessner, Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems, Dresden - "Magnetic Monopoles in Spin Ice"

Thu, Feb 21, 2013, 4:30 pm to 5:30 pm

Magnetic monopoles were first proposed to exist by Dirac many decades ago as the natural counterparts of electrically charged particles such as the electron. Despite much searching, no elementary monopoles have ever been observed, even though many theories of high-energy physics suggest that they should be present.

Hamilton Colloquium Series - Duncan Haldane, Princeton University - "The Entanglement Spectrum: A new tool for studying quantum states of matter"

Thu, Feb 14, 2013, 4:30 pm to 5:30 pm

Until recently, the von Neumann entropy and its generalizations (Renyi) were the principal quantitative characterizations of entanglement. A richer characterization, first developed here at Princeton, is becoming the tool of choice for investigating topological (and conventional) order in quantum ground states of condensed matter systems.

Hamilton Colloquium Series- Clare Yu, Univ. of California - "A Condensed Matter Physicist Looks at Cancer, Tumor Location, and Tumor Microenvironment"

Thu, Feb 7, 2013, 4:30 pm to 5:30 pm

We will discuss what physics can bring to cancer biology, and the types of questions that physicists can ask such as "Why does a tumor grow where it does?" and "How does the microenvironment of a tumor affect its growth?" Cancer cells do not act alone.

Physics Colloquium: Eleni Katifori, Max-Planck Institute for Dynamics & Self-Organization - "The Geometry and Topology of Plant Structures"

Thu, Dec 6, 2012, 4:30 pm to 5:30 pm

The plant kingdom is rich with examples of tissues, organs and entire organisms that uniquely showcase elegant mathematical and physical principles. These principles frequently reflect the interplay between functional necessity and developmental constraints.

Physics Colloquium - Elizabeth Olson, Columbia University - "Amplification of Sound in the Mammalian Cochlea"

Thu, Nov 29, 2012, 4:30 pm to 5:30 pm

The snail-shaped mammalian cochlea houses a narrow strip of sensory tissue that separates compartments of salty water. Sound stimulation launches a mechanical traveling wave down the cochlea that peaks in a tonotopic manner: high/low frequencies peak in the cochlear base/apex. Sensory hair cells respond to the motion with intracellular current and...

Physics Colloquium - Michel Devoret, Yale University - “The Road to the Poles: Quantum Measurements that Steer rather than Collapse"

Thu, Nov 8, 2012, 4:30 pm to 5:30 pm

A quantum system subject to the infinitely-strong measurement of textbook physics undergoes a discontinuous, random state collapse. All phase information in a superposition of the eigenstates of the measurement apparatus is then suddenly erased from the system under observation.

Physics Colloquium - Ashvin Vishwanath, University of California, Berkeley - "Information, Entanglement and the Quantum Phases of Matter"

Thu, Oct 25, 2012, 4:30 pm to 5:30 pm

Many states of matter, including ferromagnets and superfluids, are ultimately described by a classical order parameter despite being composed of quantum particles. However, recent experiments have impelled us to look for new forms of emergence that are intrinsically quantum mechanical.

Physics Colloquium - Prof. Ian Spielman, NIST & University of Maryland: "Bose-Einstein condensates subject to synthetic gauge fields"

Thu, Oct 18, 2012, 4:30 pm to 5:30 pm

Abstract: I will present our experimental work on Bose-Einstein condensates, systems of ultra-cold charge neutral atoms at a temperature of about 100 nano-Kelvin: one billion times colder than room temperature.

Physics Colloquium - Collective pattern formation and group behaviors from molecules to populations

Thu, Oct 11, 2012, 4:30 pm to 5:30 pm

Abstract: From wildebeest herds to biological molecules and every scale in between, how individuals self-assemble into large, spatially complex groups is a key problem in understanding collective behavior, development, multicellularity, and cellular function.

Physics Colloquium: A Little Big Bang: Strong Interactions in Ultracold Fermi Gases - Martin Zwierlien - MIT

Thu, Oct 4, 2012, 4:30 pm to 5:30 pm

Fermions, particles with half-integer spin such as electrons, protons and neutrons, are the building blocks of matter. When fermions strongly interact, complex behavior emerges that is often difficult to understand theoretically, for example in high-temperature superconductors, neutron stars or the quark-gluon plasma of the early universe.

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