UW Physics partnership in China will help unravel neutrino mysteries

The antineutrino detectors being assembled in a cleanroom facility at the Daya Bay power plant. The UW Group is responsible for design and construction of these detectors.

UW-Madison is now playing a major role in a new partnership in particle physics between the United States and China.

L&S Physics Professors Karsten Heeger and Baha Balantekin, and a team of scientists and engineers from the UW-Madison Physics Department and the Physical Sciences Laboratory, are collaborating with 38 institutions from the US, Europe and China to construct a new underground laboratory at the Daya Bay nuclear power plant near Hong Kong.

Their goal:  Study one of the fundamental properties of neutrinos — their oscillation in space and transformation from one neutrino flavor to another. 

Neutrinos are subatomic particles with very little mass that were first formed in the Big Bang at the beginning of the universe. They continue to be created in nuclear reactions such as the ones inside a power plant.

By precisely studying their propagation in space Heeger and collaborators hope to find clues whether neutrinos may be able to explain the observed matter-antimatter asymmetry in the Universe. 

Heeger and his group at UW are responsible for the design and construction of the antineutrino detectors, one of the central systems of the experiment.  The experiment is now under construction and data taking will begin in late 2010.

The project is supported in the US by the Department of Energy, Office of High Energy Physics. 

The Daya Bay experiment is one of the prominent projects through which the University of Wisconsin builds close ties with partnering institutions in China.

For more information and recent media coverage see:

• Physics in China via Physics Today
• Daya Bay Experiment
• Daya Bay at Wisconsin
  

Category: Biological & Physical Sciences
Tags: , ,

L&S graduate programs highly rated by U.S. News and World Report

Several University of Wisconsin-Madison graduate programs — many in the College of Letters & Science — are ranked among the nation's best in the 2011 edition of U.S. News and World Report's "Best Graduate Schools."

Graduate school rankings are an indicator of the overall quality of the department and caliber of its teaching and faculty.

Not all programs are ranked every year. Those UW programs ranked this year (along with specialties ranked in the top 10 nationally) include:

• Chemistry: tied for seventh overall, with specialties ranked in analytical (eighth), biochemistry (fifth), inorganic (seventh), organic (ninth), physical (seventh) and theoretical (ninth).
• Computer sciences: tied for 11th overall, with specialties ranked in  programming language (10th), and systems (seventh).
  
• Biological sciences: tied for 15th overall, with a specialty ranked in microbiology (third).
• Earth sciences: tied for 13th overall, with specialties ranked in geochemistry (eighth) and geology (eighth).
• Mathematics: tied for 16th overall, with specialties ranked in analysis (10th) and logic (fifth).
• Physics: tied for 17
• Statistics: tied for 12th.

• School of Education: ninth overall. Specialties were ranked in curriculum and instruction (first), education policy (third), elementary education (second), secondary education (second), counseling and personnel services (second), administration and supervision (second), educational psychology (first) and special education (tied for ninth).
• College of Engineering: tied for 15th overall. Specialties were ranked in nuclear (second), chemical engineering (tied for sixth), industrial manufacturing (tied for 10th).
• School of Business: tied for 27th overall. The school's part-time MBA program was tied for 15th.th overall, with a specialty ranked in plasma (tied for second).
• Law: Tied for 28th. 
  
• Medicine:  Tied for 27th, with specialties ranked in primary care (tied for 12th), family medicine (fifth), rural medicine (eighth).
  

For more on the rankings, visit: http://www.usnews.com/

New via University Communications 

Category: College Updates
Tags: , , , , , ,

L&S student wins $250,000 fellowship

Daniel Lecoanet, who will graduate with comprehensive honors from University of Wisconsin-Madison this spring with a double major in math and physics, has won a five-year, no-strings-attached fellowship to pursue graduate studies.

The Fannie and John Hertz Foundation in Livermore, Calif., has announced that Lecoanet was one of 15 winners in this year's competition, chosen from almost 600 applicants.

Lecoanet, who worked on the internal dynamics of stars at UW-Madison, says he intends to pursue theoretical physics in grad school.

"In theoretical physics, you have the opportunity to understand the essence of what's going on. There is this process of distilling a lot of experimental information into one clean idea," he says.

Valued at more than $250,000, Hertz Fellowships allow exceptional applied scientists and engineers the freedom to innovate.

"By supporting uniquely talented young leaders in the applied sciences and engineering to develop and explore their genius, the Hertz Foundation promotes innovative solutions to emerging challenges our nation and world face today," says foundation president Jay Davis.

Lecoanet grew up in Madison and attended James Madison Memorial High School.

Lecoanet is now sizing up graduate programs, but his first stop after Madison will be Cambridge, England, where he will study applied mathematics on a Churchill Scholarship.

He was one of only 14 Americans to receive the award, and the first UW-Madison student in 30 years.

(via University Communications: http://www.news.wisc.edu/17912)

Category: College Updates
Tags: , , , , ,

L&S physicists gear up for new collisons at the LHC

Wesley Smith, photo: Jeff Miller

Energy is building at the Large Hadron Collider outside of Geneva, Switzerland, in more ways than one.

The particle accelerator geared up for the highest-energy particle collisions ever produced and physicists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and around the world are excited to begin looking for evidence of new particles and other unexplained physics phenomena.

On Tuesday, March 30, the LHC attempted the first collisions at 7 trillion electron volts (TeV) between two proton beams of 3.5 TeV each. These beams, first circulated in the machine on March 19, set a record for the highest energies yet reached in a particle accelerator.

The project involved Sau Lan Wu, a UW-Madison physics professor who leads a group of American scientists working on one of the collider's main detectors, and physics professor Wesley Smith, who is helping lead work on another of the collider's main detectors

More via Particle accelerator ready to attempt record-breaking collisions

• "Badger red" in Hadron Collider (Madison WKOW)
• A great day to be a particle physicist': Large Hadron Collider performs 'beyond expectations (Wisconsin State Journal)
• An unprecedented global physics experiment with lots of help from UW-Madison scientists (Wisconsin State Journal)
  

Category: Biological & Physical Sciences
Tags: , ,

Ian-Woo Kim wins Outstanding Young Researcher Award

Congratulations to Dr. Ian-Woo Kim (Physics) who recently the Association for Korean Physicists in America (AKPA) Outstanding Young Researcher Award (OYRA).

The OYRA award  recognizes and promotes excellence in research by an outstanding young ethnic Korean physicists in North America who is working at research universities/institutions or at industrial/government laboratories in North America.

The award carries of $1,500.

Kim is a postdoc working with Professor Lisa Everett (Physics).

The award will be presented at the Forum on International Physics (FIP) Reception on Tuesday, March 16, at Portland Hilton Hotel, during the American Physical Society March meeting.

Category: Biological & Physical Sciences
Tags: , ,

L&S student wins Churchill Scholar Award -- UW's first in 30 years

Daniel Lecoanet an honors student majoring in Physics and Mathematics and a student member of the Faculty Honors Committee and Honors Advisory Board has been named one of 14 Churchill Scholars from around the country.

Lecoanet is the first UW student to win this prestigious award in 30 years.

Lecoanet, originally from Madison, is one of only 14 Churchill Scholars from across the country, including five from public institutions.

He will spend the 2010-11 academic year at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom, taking part in a renowned mathematical program that has produced great thinkers such as Sir Isaac Newton and William Thomson, Lord Kelvin.

Since 1963, the Winston Churchill Foundation of the United States has awarded more than 430 Churchill Scholarships to American college graduates who have demonstrated extraordinary talent and outstanding achievement in the sciences, engineering, or mathematics.

The award is worth up to $50,000 and covers all tuition and fees, a living allowance and travel.

Congratulations to Daniel! 

For more information: http://www.news.wisc.edu/17663

• UW-Madison Churchill scholar is the only one surprised at award
• UW senior awarded Churchill Scholarship
  

Category: College Updates
Tags: , , , , ,

Six honors undergrads receive Trewartha Senior Thesis grants

L&S Honors Program.

Six Letters & Science Honors students have received $2,000 Trewartha Senior Thesis grants. 

The grant enables students to undertake more demanding and extensive honors senior thesis research projects than might otherwise be possible:

• Emily Anstadt (Medical Microbiology and Immunology) to study if cardiac stem cells can regenerate damaged cardiac tissue.
• Daniel Lecaonet (Physics and Mathematics) to study the non-linear evolution of magneto-shear field instabilities
  
• Craig Marquardt (Psychology)  to study the influence of several human genetic polymorphisms on response to aversive events
  
• Cathrine Olien (Art History) to study ancient Cypriot limestone sculptures at the Ringling Museum in Sarasota, FL
  
• Claire Rydell (Classics and History) to study classical self reliance as expressed in the writing of Ralph Waldo Emerson
  
• Casmir Turnquist-Held (Biology and English) to study whether human neural progenitor cells can be transplanted and integrated into brain tissue

Category: College Updates
Tags: , , , , , , , , ,