ΦYAST ΦLYER
The Homer L. Dodge Department of Physics and
Astronomy
The University of Oklahoma
Volume 16, Number 1 · Winter, 2008 · Dick Henry, Editor; Debbie Barnhill, Production
Web site: http://www.nhn.ou.edu
REFLECTIONS ON 2007
The year 2007 was a year of both accomplishment but
also of some frustration. Let me begin
with the positives.
Our external funding topped out at $4.29M for the
year, just a bit higher than last year but still double where we were just 7
short years ago. Other signs of a
healthy research environment are the fine incoming class of graduate students,
which we welcomed in August and the George Lynn Cross and Presidential
Professorships received by Kim Milton and Matthew Johnson. Although our service-course credit hours declined
by about 13%, our undergraduate-major and graduate credit hours held constant.
The year 2007 also saw the final phase (III) of our
Nielsen Hall Addition and Renovation Project put out for bid, one of which was
approved by the OU Regents. Phase III will
include a new and desperately needed new roof for the old (1948) part of the
building and renovation of all its public spaces such as hallways and main
office. The old building will also get
all new double-pane windows and improvements in several research and classroom
areas. The project is expected to be
completed sometime in spring 2009.
We began 2007 full of hope that our search in
Astrophysics for the first Homer L. Dodge Chair would be filled. But after a very good pool of candidates,
five on-campus interviews, and three sequential and eventually turned-down
offers, we threw in the towel in the fall and decided to try next in High
Energy Physics. I think we all learned
that hiring senior, distinguished faculty is a whole different ball game from
our normal, usually very successful hiring process.
Actually, it’s been quite a few years since we last
hired a faculty member. This dawned on
us in mid-year when the last of our faculty became tenured. Our faculty of 29 now includes no assistant professors
and we can no longer boast of being a young department! Fortunately, this transition period will
probably not be too long. Several of us
older faculty are seriously thinking about retirement, giving opportunity to a
new generation of departmental leadership to build for the future by strategic
replacement hiring in addition to the hiring for the Dodge Chairs.
So dear alumni, I wish you
and us a prosperous 2008! If you have
nominations for the Homer L. Dodge Chair in High Energy Physics (theory or
experiment), please get in touch with Phil Gutierrez (gutierrez@nhn.ou.edu).
…Ryan
Doezema, Dept. Chair
NEW GRADUATE STUDENTS
ARRIVE
Seventeen new graduate
students arrived in the fall to begin their studies. As in past years, members
of this group include persons from many distant places as well as some from
nearby locations. The following is a list of the new students along with their
undergraduate institutions. We extend a hearty welcome to each of them and wish
them great success during their stay with us.
|
Iroko
Abalao |
Wofford
College |
|
Thomas
Akin |
University
of Arkansas, Fayetteville |
|
Archana
Anandakrishnan |
University
of Madras, India |
|
Michele
Benesh |
University
of Minnesota, Minneapolis |
|
Donald
Boot |
St.
Vincent College |
|
Matthew
Burch |
University
of Arkansas, Fayetteville |
|
James
Coker |
University
of California, Berkeley |
|
James
Dizikes |
University
of Oklahoma |
|
Robert
Hinkey |
Loyola
College, Baltimore |
|
Sean
Krzyzewski |
Marquette
University |
|
Scott
Sennello |
University
of California, Davis |
|
Laura
Smith |
University
of California, Davis |
|
Sangeetha
Vijeyaragunathan |
University
of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka |
|
Tao
Yang |
University
of Sci. & Tech., Beijing, China |
|
Erin
Cooper |
University
of Oklahoma |
|
Leann
Dang |
University
of Washington, Seattle |
NEWS FROM THE SUPERNOVA GROUP
D. Branch, with E. Baron, former postdoc D. Jeffery, former grad students K. Hatano and D. Casebeer, former undergraduates J. Parrent, M. Troxel, N. Hall, W. Ketchum, M. Melakayil and J. Harrison, undergraduate M. Keithley, and visiting summer students C. Dang, M. Musco and C. Bruner, have published in 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2008 the first four articles on a comprehensive comparative study of the optical spectra of Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia), which are believed to be thermonuclear explosions of white dwarf stars that accrete matter from binary companions and which are used as "standard candles" to determine the expansion history of the universe. With the help of a parameterized supernova synthetic-spectrum code called SYNOW, our team works in an empirical spirit to determine which ions are responsible for the highly Doppler-broadened, blended spectral features of SNe Ia and in which intervals of ejection velocity the spectral lines form. Goals include providing an internally consistent quantification of the spectroscopic diversity of SNe Ia; to determine the extent to which SNe Ia have a continuous distribution of properties rather than consist of discrete subtypes; and to shed light on how the various manifestations of observational diversity are related to their physical causes, thereby providing guidance to those elsewhere who compute nuclear-hydrodynamical explosion models. As reported in the articles (in the Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific), much has been learned but much more remains to be understood. Astronomers at observatories around the world generously continue to provide fresh data to keep us hard at work.
In other SN news, Eddie Baron gave an INPA
Seminar, LBL, Berkeley, CA, May 18, 2007, entitled SNe Ia Models and
Observations: A Spectroscopist's Point of View, and an Invited talk at
Energetic Events in the Universe: From Physics to Cosmology, Marseille, France,
June 26, 2007, as well as Numerical
Simulations of SNe Ia Explosions --- The State of Art From The Viewpoint of a
Spectroscopist. Eddie also visited the university Claude-Bernard in Lyon,
France, in June as well as his long-term collaborator Peter Hauschildt in
Hamburg, Germany in July and October. Peter's student Dennis Jack visited OU
for three weeks in Jan, 2008.
CHRIS STOCKDALE’S NORMAN SOJOURN
Chris Stockdale
(OU Ph.D. 2001) is currently spending the spring semester at the Department,
thanks to a one semester pre-tenure sabbatical program through Marquette
University. Chris is in his fifth year
as an assistant professor at Marquette and is collaborating with John Cowan in
a series of VLA programs to study supernovae and the point-source populations
of nearby spiral galaxies. Chris and
John recently submitted a joint NSF astronomy grant proposal and will be
submitting a series of VLA observing proposals for the upcoming VLA array
configurations. They hope to find an
interested graduate student at OU to become involved in the project and
compliment the undergraduate effort at Marquette. Larry Maddox (OU Ph.D. 2006) will also be
visiting in March to assist in the work.
Larry is currently in a post-doc at the University of Illinois with
YouHua Chu.
OU ASTRONOMERS
DECEND ON AUSTIN FOR WINTER AAS MEETING
Several current and former students of the
Department along with faculty members from OU attended the winter meeting of
the American Astronomical Society, held in Austin, in January. These
individuals included Chris Stockdale, Larry Maddox, Rollin Thomas, Aida Nava,
Soma De, Debra Burris, Julie Skinner, Leeann Dang, Randi Worhatch, John Cowan,
and Dick Henry. With each person presenting a poster, needless to say OU
Astronomy was very well represented at the meeting, which attracted several
thousand astronomers from across the US. For those who have attended these
kinds of gatherings for nearly three decades it has been interesting to witness
the decline in the average age of a typical attendee, as increasingly more
undergraduates become involved in research. And of course over the years, the
OU group has contributed its own share of these budding scientists.
Besides the serious activities of attending invited
talks and grazing in posterland, Chris Stockdale organized an OU dinner at a
local restaurant. All 11 OU astronomers plus Peter Shull (OSU) and a student of
Debra Burris spent an evening at the Melting Pot, a comfortable fondue
establishment near the meeting location close to 6th Street. With
their own private room (the management anticipated rowdiness, it is supposed)
and with moods leavened by winemeister John Cowan’s expert picks of the
evening, the group spent three hours spearing food, lifting glasses, laughing,
and talking about things other than astronomy. And of course confirming the
management’s suspicions. May this OU tradition continue for many years!
The top two photographs below show Julie Skinner
(left; BS Astro. 2007, now a grad student at Dartmouth College) and Aida Nava
(right; OU doctoral student) as they present their posters at the Austin
meeting. The bottom two photos show the dinner party at the Melting Pot.
ALUMNI NEWS
The
following reminiscence was contributed by Thad Welch (BS, MS Physics 1962) in a
letter last July.
“I
was a lieutenant in the Air Force while majoring in physics from June, 1959, to
June, 1961. Dr. Dick Fowler was my advisor, and I received my MS degree in
December, 1962. Dr. Howard was about halfway through his tenure at the
University. Dr. Sybrand Broersma, a visiting physics professor from The Hague,
was our next door neighbor. His mother was a wonderful person and walked all
over the city while about 90 years old. She visited her son from time to time. Dr.
Stanley Babb and I bowled together several times and Dr. Cross was the
President. I was eligible for and joined the Pi Mu Epsilon national fraternity
in 1961 and was a member of Sigma Pi Sigma from my undergraduate days. Very
good memories.
“While
in the Air Force, I taught physics at the USAF Academy for four years and saw
Dr. Fowler at a physics convention in the late 1960s in Chicago. I retired
after 24 years in 1978 and returned to Savannah, my home. I taught math at the
college level and then math and physics in high school for several years before
giving up that second teaching career in 1996. We moved 200 feet after building
a new home in 2005 on the water. The only thing between us and the ocean is
about five miles of creeks, rivers, and marsh. Good view.”
* * *
The severe ice storm of December 10 left its mark on the Norman campus, including the Nielsen Hall grounds. The biggest losses for us were the two large oak trees on the north side of the building. These trees apparently lost enough branches that the OU grounds crew decided to remove them, as one day in early February they simply disappeared. The area is noticeably brighter now, and it’s very likely that something other than monkey grass will now grow there. But the summer shade near the benches will be missed, and it’s likely the squirrels are unhappy and will decide to hunt food in a different spot. You will notice the difference on your next campus visit.
THE DODGE
CHAIR IN HIGH ENERGY PHYSICS
The H.L. Dodge Department of Physics and Astronomy
has initiated a search to fill one of three chairs endowed by the Avenir
Foundation. The position will be in High Energy Physics (HEP), open to both
experimentalists and theorists. When filled, this position will complement the
existing HEP faculty consisting of four experimentalists and two theorists.
With the startup of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) this year, much of the
work, both theoretical and experimental, of the HEP group has focused on the
completion of the ATLAS detector and the physics studies for the preparation of
the physics analysis. The new faculty member will be expected to contribute
toward this effort. It is expected we will commence interviewing the first
round of candidates this spring during the latter part of March and April.
…Phil Gutierrez, Search Committee Chair
