Department News

NC State astrophysicists find Galaxy's most recent supernova
NC State professors Stephen Reynolds and Kazimierz Borkowski and collaborators have discovered the remains of the most recent supernova in our Milky Way Galaxy -- only about 100 years old, displacing the 330-year-old remnant Cassiopeia A, the record-holder for the last 50 years. The discovery was announced at a NASA press teleconference in May, and was widely reported in the general press. It has now been published in Astrophysical Journal Letters.

Reynolds and Borkowski used Chandra's orbiting Chandra X-ray Observatory to image the small radio remnant G1.9+0.3, finding that it had grown by 16% since a radio observation in 1985. This rate, if constant, gives an age of 140 years, but the expansion was almost certainly faster in the past, giving a younger age. Followup radio observations with the Very Large Array confirmed the expansion. X-ray spectra show such high obscuration that the supernova producing G1.9+0.3 would not have been visible in late Victorian times when the supernova light would have swept past Earth. The X-rays also indicate that G1.9+0.3 is one of only four of the 260 or so Galactic remnants whose X-rays are produced by synchrotron radiation, indicating the presence of extremely energetic electrons. Study of this object may thus cast light on the origin of cosmic rays. Here is a link to the story on Chandra website, with images

Physics Faculty Grows
After a year of active recruiting, the Physics Department is delighted to be welcoming five new members in the fall semester. Davide Lazzati, Kenan Gundogdu, and Daniel Dougherty will join the department as Assistant Professors while Matt Kohlmyer will be the department's first Teaching Assistant Professor and Keith Heyward joins the department as a Lecturer.

Professor Lazzati is an astrophysicist who earned his PhD at Milano University in Italy and comes to us from a post doc at JILA. Professors Gundogdu and Dougherty might both be classified as nanoscientists. Gundogdu took his degree at the University of Iowa and is completing a post doc at MIT. Dougherty is currently a post doc at NIST in Washington and earned his PhD at the University of Maryland.

Matt Kohlmyer earned his PhD in our department in Physics Education Research and is currently a post-doc at Georgia tech. Keith Heyward will earn his PhD in theoretical astrophysics in August in our department.

Ray Fornes wins Holladay Medal
Ray Fornes, Professor of Physics and Associate Dean for Research in the College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, has won the 2008 Alexander Quarles Holladay Medal for Excellence. This award recognizes the contributions to the university of Alexander Q. Holladay, who served as its first Professor of History and first President. The purpose of this award is to recognize members of the faculty who have made outstanding contributions to the university. This is the highest award made by the university in recognition of faculty career achievements.

Former Physics Graduate Student's work featured as Physical Review "Editors' Suggestion" Paper
The dissertation work of former physics graduate student Eric Adles led to a paper published in Physical Review B entitled "Application of the anisotropic bond model to second-harmonic generation from amorphous media." The paper was selected to be included as an "Editors' Suggestion" paper. This new designation is reserved for approximately 5% of the papers accepted for publication in the journal. According to Eric's co-author and research sponsor, Professor David Aspnes, the paper actually went "well beyond" what Eric did for his dissertation. Aspnes adds, "Although bond models have been around a long time for nonlinear optics, this is the first one to do the bond model right. The paper shows that and why nonlinear optics is actually simpler than linear optics. It's good to see that others recognize the value of this work also, and that it is to be highlighted in the Physical Review."

Eric recieved his PhD from North Carolina State University in 2007, and is currently a Post Doctoral Research Associate working with Professor Dave Aspnes on several projects.

NC State Physics Senior awarded prestigious fellowship
Senior Kasey Phillips has been awarded a prestigious NSF Graduate Fellowship. She will first attend the University of Cambridge to study Applied Mathematics, after which she will move to Harvard University to pursue a PhD in Applied Physics in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.

Kasey, a Park Scholar from Charlotte, NC, has majored in both physics and mathematics. Through NC State Undergraduate Research Grants and the Honors Program, she has worked in the lab of Assistant Professor Karen Daniels, performing experiments on the size-segregation of granular materials under shear.

NC State Nuclear Physics team gets cover story
In an experimental program in collaboration with colleagues at Harvard, Yale, and NIST, a team of NC State nuclear physicists have their work featured on the cover of "The Review of Scientific Instruments." The work highlights an invited article that describes their work on a specific kind of high-field superconducting magnetic traps.

Magnetic traps can confine electrically neutral particles with nonzero magnetic moments; they have been used to trap atoms, molecules, and neutrons. The trap described in the article is an Ioffe-type magnetic trap that consists of a quadrupole assembly for radial confinement and two solenoid assemblies in the same current sense for axial confinement. Such a configuration eliminates zero field regions inside the trap, thereby suppressing the spin-flip probability of trapped particles. The trap is being developed for the team’s ultracold neutron lifetime experiment.

NC State co-authors of the work include Bob Golub, Ekatarina Korobkina, Chris O'Shaughnessy, Grant Palmquist, PilNeo Seo, and Paul Huffman.

Graduate Student's work featured in "Physical Review Focus"
NC State Physics graduate student Josh Beun's research was featured on the Physical Review website dedicated to highlighting recent important discoveries on March 26. The work considers a proposed site for heavy element production in a stage after the initial explosion in some supernovae where an outward blast of neutrinos from a newly-formed neutron star blows out a lot of neutron-rich material. Under the direction of Associate Professor Gail McLaughlin, Joshua set out to find conditions that would allow fission cycling and the r process to produce heavy elements in a neutrino-driven "wind.Ó Focusing on elements with atomic number greater than about 130, they were surprised to find that within a fairly wide range of conditions, their model yielded an element abundance pattern that has been observed in both old and new stars. Theirs is the first model to successfully include both the r process and fission cycling, and they didn't expect it to match observations so well.

Physics Department Professor Emerita passes away.
Members of the physics department family were shocked to hear of the passing of recent retiree and Professor Emerita Marjorie Klenin on January 19th. An active member of the physics department from 1977 to 2006, Marjorie was our first female faculty member. A graduate of Swarthmore and the University of Pennsylvania, Marjorie won teaching awards at NC State and was an innovative instructor in her years on our faculty.

Read more about Marjorie's life in an article submitted to Physics Today by Chris Gould, also of the Physics Department.

NCSU Physics Faculty win INCITE Award
Four NC State Physicists were included in DOE's 2008 Innovative and Novel Computational Impact on Theory and Experiment (INCITE) Awards for access to some of the world's most powerful supercomputers at DOE national laboratories. In all, 55 projects were awarded 265 million processor-hours. Three of those projects, with a combined total of 36 million processor-hours, include NC State physicists:

• John Blondin "Multidimensional Simulations of Core Collapse Supernovae"
• Lubos Mitas and Jerzy Bernholc "Predictive and accurate Monte Carlo based simulations for Mott insulators, cuprate superconductors, and nanoscale systems"
• Jerzy Bernholc and Marco Buongiorno-Nardelli "An Integrated Approach to the Rational Design of Chemical Catalysts"

The Physics Department loses a Colleague
Friends and colleagues of the physics department family were saddened to hear of the passing of Professor Emeritus David Martin on December 12th. David taught physics at NC State for 26 years. He was passionate about art, music, and nature in all its forms and inspired others to protect our environment. He was a past president of the Conservation Council of North Carolina and a long time member of the Raleigh Artist's Guild. David specialized in Chinese watercolor techniques, and provided the lovely landscapes that for years have graced the physics department office walls.

An article in the Raleigh newspaper, "The News and Observer", about David Martin can be found here.

Professor Robert Golub Named APS Fellow
Physics Professor Robert Golub has been elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society. The citation declaring Professor Golub a Fellow reads:

"For pioneering research in studies of the neutron electric dipole moment, for development of the superthermal technique for production of ultracold neutrons, and for development of new methods in neutron spin echo research."

The nomination was made through the Society's Division of Nuclear Physics.

NCSU Physics Major named Marshall Scholar
Brian Clark '08, Physics major, Caldwell Fellow and University Scholar, has been named a Marshall Scholar. Brian will attend the University of Cambridge, in Cambridge, England, to study Applied Math and Physics. In a nationwide competition, the Marshall Scholarship Commission selects 40 outstanding scholars each year for two years of study in the United Kingdom. In his undergraduate career, Brian has worked with mentors at NC State, Oxford, and CERN. Brian is NC State's second Marshall Scholar. In 2002, Thomas Carbonell '02 attended the University of Oxford as a Marshall Scholar.

Second Annual Sayers Lecture a success!
Professor Arthur Bienenstock of Standford University delivered the second annual Dale E. Sayers Lecture on October 15th in the Sayers Auditorium (301 Riddick Hall). Professor Bienenstock is the director of the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory (SSRL), was the senior science advisor to President Clinton, and is the president-elect of the American Physical Society. He delivered a talk entitled "Amorphous Materials and the development of the SSRL."

SCOPE Academy and Riddick Dedication Draws Alumni and Friends
The College of Physical and Mathematical Science and the Physics Department hosted a weekend of activities that included the official opening of Riddick Hall - the department's new home. Beginning with an alumni pig pickin' at Department Head Michael Paesler's home on Friday evening October 12th, activities on Saturday included the building dedication, laboratory tours, and the SCOPE Academy Approximately 150 Alumni and Friends of the Department attended the dedication ceremonies during which the building and two rooms were dedicated. Riddick 301 was officially named the Dale E. Sayers Auditorium with the unveiling of a plaque that reads

"Dale E. Sayers - In memory of his scientific vision and worldwide leadership in physics, outstanding service to the department, college and university and his inspiring mentorship of young scientists."

Also dedicated was the Richard R. Patty Conference Room which will be adorned with a plaque reading

"Richard R. Patty - In honor of his wise and strategic leadership as Physics Department head, 1976-1995, our department's greatest period of programmatic expansion."

Official Riddick Opening Ceremonies Scheduled
Activities surrounding the official opening of Riddick Hall will take place on October 12th and 13th. Beginning with an alumni/faculty pig pickin' at Department Head Michael Paesler's home in Cary on the evening of the 12th, the activities continue with a full day of events on the 13th. Most notably, the official opening ceremonies begin at 10:30 AM in the newly renovated Riddick Hall. Included will be a tour of the now-operational laboratories. The event is coupled to the College of Physical and Mathematical Science's SCOPE Academy. Information is available on the web at the PAMS Alumni & Friends Weekend page.

Astrophysicists Receive Major Grant
Professors Stephen Reynolds, John Blondin, and Kazimierz Borkowski have have received a $600k grant from the National Science Foundation to investigate Type Ia supernovae. These supernovae are thought to occur when a white dwarf star, the extremely dense remains of a low-mass star, happens to have a companion star close enough to drop material onto the white dwarf, raising its mass over a critical limit. Recent discoveries by the NC State researchers have shown that not all Type Ia supernovae are alike. Reynolds utilized the orbiting Chandra X-ray Observatory to study the remnant of Keplers supernova of 1604, and determined that this Type Ia explosion may have had a progenitor star of much higher mass than is usual. Borkowski led another X-ray study that found older remnants of Type Ia supernovae that also appear to be unusual.

The team has suggested reasons for the discrepancies they have found, and has proposed a series of studies to explore the nature of Type Ia supernovae. The work will center on using high-performance computers to simulate the evolution of a white dwarf and its companion before the explosion, to study the explosion itself, and to predict the appearance of the supernova remnant hundreds and thousands of years after the explosion.

Given the importance of these explosions for the origin of many chemical elements in the universe, and for studying its expansion, this project will address a very important problem in astrophysics, Reynolds said.

CHiPS Announces New NSF Grant
The NC State Center for High Performance Simulations - or CHiPS - has received a new 5-year NSF grant that will provide $1.7M for petascale quantum simulations in nano science and technology. The software and simulations developed in this project are targeted at the world's most powerful supercomputers, which will be able to sustain a petaflop (a thousand trillion floating point operations per second). The team, led by Prof. Jerry Bernholc from Physics, includes Prof. Wenchang Lu, also from Physics, Prof. C. Timothy Kelley from Mathematics, and Computer Science Professors Shirley Moore and Stan Tomov from the University of Tennessee.

The petascale quantum simulation tools will enable many scientific and technological endeavors, which are currently considered too risky to pursue. New research avenues will likely emerge, as results of such simulations are analyzed and new generally applicable concepts are created. Advances in nanoscale simulations are relevant to virtually every area of scientific endeavor including nanophysics, chemistry, biochemistry and molecular biosciences, earth sciences, engineering, environmental sciences and materials science. Students and postdocs trained in this area will have significant opportunities for advancement and making substantial impact on their own.

Professor David Haase quoted in Sports Illustrated cover story.
In The Big Hit, a cover story in Sports Illustrated, NC State Physics Professor David Haase is quoted in a discussion of the intensity of collisions players experience in playing American football. Frequently cited as an expert on the physics of sports, Professor Haase was asked to put football collisions in perspective. The Haase quote reads:

Another physics professor, David Haase of North Carolina State, suggests an experiment that can be performed in any backyard. "Jump off a 13-foot ladder and land on your feet," says Haase. "You would be traveling approximately 8.81 meters per second, which is about 20 miles per hour. It would hurt, but bending your knees would absorb most of the energy, so it doesn't sound too bad. But football players do not collide feet first. Now imagine diving off a 13-foot ladder and landing on the ground head and shoulders first.

Professor Haase has not quit his day job as a nuclear physicist. For example, he is currently involved in the Electric Dipole Moment of the Neutron, or EDM, project.

Official Grand Opening of Riddick Hall scheduled.
As the department waits for the newly renovated Riddick Hall to be available for occupancy sometime late this summer, we are planning for a gala event to be held during Fall Break on the 12th and 13th of October. Associated with the College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences annual "Alumni and Friends College," the department event will include an official ribbon cutting, reception, and tour of a brand new Riddick Hall. As details become available, we will be sure to feature them here on the department's webpage. For now, we encourage all friends, alumni, and students to keep the dates open and plan to join in the festivities.

A Deeper Understanding of Fermions
In a pair of Physical Review Letters,* Professor Lubos Mitas and his group have provided insight into fundamental properties of fermions. For quite some time theorists have based their studies of fermionic systems antisymmetry on the conjecture that for ground states there are only two domains which are created by a hypersurface or node. Professor Mitas provided the first analytical proof of this fundamental property. He further showed that for an arbitrary number of fermions there are only two nodal domains. These results are not only fundamentally important, in addition they have the potential of opening new channels for the Monte-Carlo methods which rely on the accuracy of fermion nodes.
* PRL96, 130201 and PRL96, 240402

NC State Scientist Discovers New Explanation for Pulsar's Spin
John Blondin, along with Anthony Mezzacappa at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, used the CRAY X1E supercomputer to develop a three-dimensional model of a pulsar's creation, and in the process discovered that conventional wisdom concerning the formation of these celestial objects wasn't correct. Their findings are published in the January 4^th edition of the journal Nature.

New Class of Supernovas
Steve Reynolds and Kazik Borkowski, who along with a team from NASA, Rutgers, and Naval Research Labs discovered a new class of supernova while studying Kepler’s Supernova, which occurred in 1604. Details were presented at the annual meeting of the American Astronomical Society.

New Directorship for Professor Beichner
Professor Robert Beichner has been named Director of the university's Discipline Based Education Research Center. Administered through Provost Larry Nielsen's office, the Center is a newly created entity, and Professor Biechner will be its first Director. When he assumes his new duties in January of 2007, Professor Beichner will maintain an office in Cox Hall. The department wishes Professor Beichner well in his new position, and we are delighted to know that Bob will not give up his departmental teaching duties and will maintain an active Physics Education Research program.