Research Spotlight

"My laboratory is a supernova," Yong Qian states matter-of-factly with a smile. Qian is a theoretical physicist studying neutrino oscillations, the change from one "flavor" to another as a neutrino moves through matter and space. This phenomenon occurs because a neutrino is created in one of three flavor states (or simply “flavors”), with three distinct mass states.

Professor Vuk Mandic is a new faculty member and an observational cosmologist involved in the search for gravitational waves with LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory.) Gravitational Waves were predicted by Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity, but have yet to be observed in the natural world.

Claire Hypolite is an Institute of Technology alumni who is involved in a new program, PACES (Parents And Children Enjoying Science) designed to get families doing science and thinking critically together.

The Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) Experiment at CERN recently reached an important milestone, the insertion of "the tracker" into the core of the detector. The tracker measures the positions of the particles into the collider ring. Professor Jeremiah Mans of the School of Physics and Astronomy is a member of the large collaboration CMS (Compact Muon Solenoid) that will take measurements on the upcoming Large Hadron Collider (LHC).

Professor Cindy Cattell of the School of Physics and Astronomy is part of the NASA STEREO Waves collaboration. STEREO consists of two space-based observatories - one ahead, "A" of Earth in its orbit, the other trailing behind,"B".

Professor Keith Olive’s research provides a unique probe into the very early history of the Universe. Olive is a theorist who specializes in high energy particle physics and cosmology. “High Energy” particles are those produced in high-energy situations such as accelerators or the Big Bang.

Professor Prisca Cushman is looking for WIMPS, or Weakly Interacting Massive Particles, as a collaborator on the Cryogenic Dark matter Search (CDMS), which is located in the Soudan Mine in Northern Minnesota.

School of Physics and Astronomy Professor Bob Pepin and colleagues has published a report in the current issue of Science Magazine that will help shed light on the early solar system. Pepin and his co-authors studied small amounts of of cometary matter from the Comet 81P/Wild-2, which was intercepted by the space probe Stardust in January 2004.

Professor Mikhail Shifman, a theoretical high energy physicist, began his career on the eve of a big developments in high energy physics, the discovery of the J/ψ particle (charmonium) in 1974. “It was such an exciting time, he recalls. People would not sleep. Every day, new papers were coming out, new advances being made.” Shifman said that it was a great time to be a young theorist. He is betting that he will be able to book-end his career with another great era in particle theory.

Vincent Noireaux is a new assistant professor in the area of experimental Biological Physics. Professor Noireaux’s research is centered around genetic information, in vitro synthetic gene networks and artificial “proto cells” which are able to express DNA.