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- Quantum Signals: Noise and Amplification (Poster) in 3 days
Tue, 11/10/09 03:30PM Steve Girvin, Yale University
Hosted by Anatoli Polkovnikov.This event is part of the Department Colloquia Series. Colloquia are at 3:30 in the Metcalf Science Center (SCI 107). Refreshments will be served at 3:15 in the 1st Floor Lounge
Abstract:
Certain types of modern amplifiers and detectors are now so good that their output noise is limited by constraints imposed upon them by the rules of quantum mechanics and the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. In the early days of quantum mechanics many gedanken experiments were proposed to explore the strange features of ‘wave function collapse’ in the measurement process. Today practical versions of these experiments are being performed in the laboratory and theorists must confront this new reality. This talk will be a very simple and informal introduction to the physics of quantum measurements, noise and amplification. - Particles and Fields Seminar/ Matthew Reece in 1 week
Mon, 11/16/09 12:30PM Matthew Reece, Institute for Advanced Study
This event is part of the Particles and Fields Seminar Series. 12:30 PRB 595
- mSugra Signatures in 1 week
Thu, 11/19/09 03:30PM Pran Nath, Northeastern University
This event is part of the High Energy Experiment Seminar Series. Held in PRB595 at 3:30pm every other Thursday
- Alexander DeMasi - Preliminary Oral Exam in 1 week
Thu, 11/19/09 04:00PM
Examining Committee:
Kevin Smith (my advisor)
Karl Ludwig
Anders Sandvik
Robert Carey
Linda Doerrer - Stochastic Resonance in 1 week
Fri, 11/20/09 12:00PM Fabio Marchesoni, Universita’ di Camerino, Italy
Hosted by Ophelia Tsui.
Location: SCI352
NOTE: Pizza served at 11:45 AMThis event is part of the Biophysics/Condensed Matter Seminar Series.
Abstract
Conventional wisdom teaches us that the transmission and detection of signals is hindered by noise. However, during the last two decades, the paradigm of stochastic resonance (SR) proved this assertion wrong: indeed, addition of the appropriate amount of noise can boost a signal and hence facilitate its detection in a noisy environment. Due to its simplicity and robustness, SR can work on almost every scale, thus attracting interdisciplinary interest from physicists, geologists, engineers, biologists and medical doctors, who nowadays use it as an instrument for their specific purposes.
At the present time, there exist a lot of diversified models of SR. Moreover, different characterizations of SR have been proposed in order to make such a mechanism more accessible to experimenters. This presentation relies mostly on the two-state model of SR, which is general enough to exhibit the main features of SR. Finally, we also discuss some situations that go beyond the generic SR scenario but are still characterized by a constructive role of noise.
- 2009 Pumpkin Drop: In the News new
November 03, 2009: * Boston Globe, The BU pumpkin drop
- Boston Herald, Smashing Pumpkins
- WBZ-TV Ch. 4, Video
- WCVB-TV Ch. 5, Video
- WFXT-TV Ch. 25, Video
- BU Today, Parabolic Pumpkins
- Research Professor Jim Shank elected Computing Coordinator for the ATLAS experiment
October 16, 2009: The Collaboration Board of the ATLAS experiment elected Research Professor Jim Shank to be the next Deputy Computing Coordinator for ATLAS. He will serve one year as Deputy and then take over from the current Computing Coordinator, Kors Bos of Nikhef, for the following year. Shank already holds many key leadership roles in ATLAS computing, among which include the Executive Program Manager for Physics Support and Computing for US ATLAS and the coordinator for ATLAS Distributed Computing. In his new position, Shank will be responsible for all aspects of ATLAS computing as the experiment addresses the challenges of the first data-taking period.
ATLAS is a particle physics experiment at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. Starting in late 2009, the ATLAS detector will search for new discoveries in the head-on collisions of protons of extraordinarily high energy. The ATLAS collaboration is comprised of physicists from 37 countries, from more than 172 universities and laboratories, and includes 700 students.
- "How Many Licks?" by Aaron Santos, out now!
October 05, 2009: Hi Everybody,
My book “How Many Licks?” is now available for order, at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and many other vendors.
That’s where you guys come in. I need your help publicizing it. Please email me if you work at, know someone who works at, or even just know the names of any of the following organizations that might be interested in the book:
- newspapers
- magazines
- catalogs
- radio stations
- TV stations
- web programs
- specialty bookstores
- special groups
- professional groups
- blogs
- video blogs
- anything/anyone else who might be willing to review, interview, or advertise
A description of the book is given below. Please spread the word!
Hope you guys are well.
Much love,
—
ATSHave you ever wondered how many calories are in the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man, how many times you would have to wash your favorite t-shirt before it turns entirely to dryer lint, or how many people are simultaneously achieving an orgasm this second? Help is here. /How Many Licks?/ explains how to calculate these and other amusing tidbits quickly and easily using math that anyone can grasp. Whether you’re a budding Einstein, a trivia-loving math hater, or a Sunday paper puzzle lover, /How Many Licks?/ is for you!
- Professor James Stone selected as 2009 Jefferson Science Fellow
September 11, 2009: Physics Professor James Stone was selected as a Jefferson Science Fellow for the year 2009. The prestigious Jefferson Science Fellowships have been established to create opportunities for substantial engagement of tenured scientists and engineers from U.S. academic institutions in the work of the State Department. One can read about Jefferson Science Fellows at the National Academies website. Biographies and profiles of the Fellows can be found here.
It is also worth noting that Boston University Physics Professor Michael El-Batanouny was selected as Jefferson Science Fellow for the year 2008. It is quite an honor for all of us to have two faculty from the same university, indeed from the same department, being awarded the Jefferson Science Fellowship in two years back to back.
- Bansil, Erramilli and collaborators uncover mechanism for trans-mucin migration of ulcer-causing bacteria
August 12, 2009: Professors Rama Bansil and Shyam Erramilli, former graduate student Jonathan Celli, and collaborators from Harvard Medical School and MIT, have uncovered the process by which the bacterium H. Pylori is able to move through the mucous lining in our stomachs, causing ulcers and even cancer. Celli, currently a research fellow at Harvard/MGH, used rheology and microscopy to solve the problem of how the bacterium is able to move through the gel.
Those findings, which have been published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, could have implications for the prevention and treatment of H. Pylori infections.
Read more about their discovery at the NSF website.
- Skocpol recognized as an Outstanding Referee of Physical Review and Physical Review Letters
April 02, 2009: Professor Bill Skocpol has been recognized by the American Physical Society as one among the 360 Outstanding Referees of the Physical Review and Physical Review Letters journals.
Initiated in 2008, the Outstanding Referee program expresses appreciation for the essential work that anonymous peer reviewers do for their journals. Each year a small percentage of their 42,000 referees are to be selected and honored with the Outstanding Referee designation. Selections are made based on the number, quality, and timeliness of referee reports as collected in a database over the last 20 years. The program will recognize about 150 referees each year, although larger groups are being selected in 2008 and 2009. A full listing and further details on the program are available on the APS website. You may also view the associated press release as a Word document.
- D0 announces discovery of new top quark production process
March 09, 2009: The D0 Collaboration at Fermilab has submitted a paper to Physical Review Letters announcing the discovery of a new production process for the top quark. BU Associate Professor Ulrich Heintz, who co-led the top quark physics analysis group of the D0 Collaboration between 2006 and 2008 and postdoc Shabnam Jabeen have contributed directly to the work that resulted in this discovery.
The top quark is the most massive elementary particle known. It was discovered at Fermilab in 1995 by the D0 and CDF experiments. The Tevatron collides protons and antiprotons at an energy of 2 TeV, the highest energy particle collisions ever produced in the laboratory. In some of these collisions top quarks are created, most of the time together with their antiparticle, the anti-top quark, through the strong force, the force that holds together the atomic nucleus. Theorists have predicted that sometimes only a top quark or only an antitop quark is created through the weak force, which is responsible for nuclear decay. Scientists at Fermilab have been searching for this so-called single top production mechanism for many years. The D0 Collaboration reached a major milestone in December 2006, when it announced that it had observed evidence for this process, indicating that it had observed some collisions in which top quarks seemed to be produced singly but not quite enough to be certain (see BU faculty and students integral to Fermilab discovery). In the meantime the D0 Experiment has collected more than twice as many data and many more such collisions were found confirming the 2006 result and establishing single production of top quarks beyond any reasonable doubt.
This discovery is significant because the interaction of the top quark through the weak interaction can only be measured in this process and its measurement may be sensitive to possible new fundamental interactions or elementary particles that have not yet been directly observed. The observation of this process thus creates a whole new laboratory in which the standard model can be tested. The measurement by the D0 Experiment shows that single top quark production occurs at a rate consistent with the prediction of the standard model of particle physics, the theoretical framework that summarizes our understanding of the fundamental particles and their interactions.
Please also check out the Fermilab press release and related photos and graphics.
- Alex Marin Memorial Site
January 24, 2006: Please visit our online memorial to Alexander Marin. If you have any materials you would like to share, please send them to Richard Laskey.
