Events Archive

Feb
24
2015
The Salt Life of Sea Snakes
Dehydration and lack of fresh water are key problems for vertebrates that have secondarily invaded marine environments. However, recent investigations of 9 species representing the principal clades of sea snakes indicate these reptiles do not drink seawater but will drink fresh water at variable thresholds of dehydration, which these snakes tolerate well. Marine reptiles were previously thought to remain in water balance without consuming fresh water owing to the ability of extrarenal salt glands to excrete excess salts obtained either from prey or from drinking sea water directly. Thus, species of marine snakes which...
Feb
23
2015
Enormous magnetic fields with bosons in hybrid lattices
  The integer quantum Hall effect (IQHE) is often described in terms of skipping orbits: 2-D electrons begin nascent cyclotron orbits, only to be interrupted by the material’s boundary, and instead reflect from the edge, beginning a partial orbit anew.  These classical skipping trajectories follow the systems boundary, and in the quantum limit connect to the...
Feb
19
2015
Studying superfluidity in cold-atom circuits
  Superfluidity, or flow without resistance, is a macroscopic quantum effect that is present in a multitude of systems, including liquid helium, superconductors, and ultra-cold atomic gases.  Here, I will present our work studying superfluid flow in a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) of sodium atoms....
Feb
18
2015
Inverse Design of Swimming Dynamics
We introduce an inverse design approach based on minimal theoretical modeling, direct numerical simulations and artificial intelligence techniques for the investigation of biolocomotion in fluids. Its application to the characterization of inertial aquatic phenomena and to the identification of optimal swimming gaits and morphologies is presented.
Feb
17
2015
Collective Motion of Interacting Random Walkers
The collective motion of a large group of individuals has two different scales. Individuals move and interact on a local scale, while the motion of the group as a whole occurs on a global scale. All the movement of the group on the global scale is produced by the many movements of its members, and so a good model for the global behaviour should arise from local models for the individuals. We investigate the link between the two scales, and create formulae for producing a global model for any particular lattice-based local model using mean-field approximations.
Feb
16
2015
Magnetism, Rotons, and Beyond: Engineering Atomic Systems with Lattice Shaking
Conventional methods of quantum simulation rely on kinectic energy determined by free particle dispersions or simple sinusoidal optical lattices. Solid state systems, by contrast, exhibit a plethora of band structures which differ quantitatively, qualitatively, and even topologically....
Feb
12
2015
Magnetic Structure Solution of Frustrated Spin Systems
In frustrated magnetic materials, geometry and magnetic interactions combine to suppress conventional magnetic order. Instead, disordered "spin liquid" states can host exotic magnetic phenomena which persist to the lowest measurable temperatures. Neutron scattering is an ideal experimental technique to understand spin-liquid states, but the absence of conventional magnetic order means that standard data-analysis methods cannot be used. Two limitations have traditionally restricted our understanding spin liquids at the atomic scale: (i) the magnetic interactions must be anticipated, and (ii) single-crystal samples must be available....
Feb
10
2015
Models of Biological Diversity
Biology presents an astounding diversity of discrete states or species, that coexist over time-scales much longer than the underlying degrees of freedom. This general pattern calls for a understanding on diversity, and how competition can act as its ``engine". I explore sustainability of diversity, using model systems from biology. Taking the starting point in phage-bacteria ecosystems, I will describe how standard predator-prey equations can be used to quantify how phages may boost bacterial diversity. With inspiration from Lichen growing on rocks, I subsequently introduce a simple model for speciation through self organized spatial barriers. Overall...
Feb
09
2015
How Many Angels Can Dance on the Head of a Black Hole
I will try to explain, in elementary terms, the deep connection between space-time geometry and quantum entropy, uncovered in the work of Bekenstein, Hawking, 't Hooft, Gibbons Jacobson, Fischler, Susskind and Bousso. This leads to the conclusion that many of the fundamental degrees of freedom, which describe our world, are inaccessible to direct local measurement. Indeed, local excitations are constrained low entropy states of the fundamental degrees of freedom. These insights give us clues to the nature of a fundamental theory of quantum gravity, and have implications for early universe...
Feb
05
2015
Quantum Control of Atoms, Ions, and Nuclei
Cold atoms and ions provide an interesting playground for a variety of measurements of fundamental physics.  Using RF traps, experiments become possible with both large ensembles of ions, e.g. in cold chemistry, and few/single ions, such as in quantum computations/simulations or optical clocks, where ultimate quantum control is required.  In the first part of the talk, recent results from our work on cold chemistry and cold molecular ions using a hybrid atom--ion experiment will be...

Pages