“ Photoreflectance Spectroscopy ”
Johannes Byle- Wheaton College
Mentor: Dr. Ian Sellers
Single junction solar cells have a maximum efficiency of around 33% because of
physical limits such as the band gap which limits the wavelengths and energies
that are absorbed. Some of these losses can be limited by multijunction solar cells
that can absorb over a broader range of wavelengths and energies. These solar
cells often have a very complicated structure to limit other types of losses; thus
, being able to empirically measure the band gap energies of multi-junction solar
cells is very useful. One of these methods to measure the transitions of solar cells
is photoreflectance spectroscopy. I will be spending the summer attempting to
improve the signal to noise ratio of the photoreflectance set up at OU and using
it to take temperature dependence measurements.
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“ Magnetic Field Stabilization in a BEC ”
Cameron Cinnamon - Southwestern Oklahoma State University
Mentor: Dr. Arne Schwettmann
Controlling spin-changing collisions in a Bose-Einstein Condensate (BEC)
requires finely tuned magnetic fields. External field changes from opening
drawers, moving elevator in the building, or rolling chairs in the lab can
all add to the uncertainty in the measurements. This presentation will briefly
explain the lab setup and implementation of a sensor that will stabilize the
magnetic field in this process. We will discuss the current state of testing
and design of this sensor module and the anticipated progress.
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“ Characterizing Self Assembled Monolayers using Scanning Tunneling Microscopy ”
Robert Conwell - College of New Jersey
Mentor: Dr. Lloyd Bumm
The gold-sulfur bond in an alkanethiol self-assembled monolayer is still not
well understood. Many characterization techniques fail to identify what is
actually going on. Using a scanning tunneling microscope, we may classify
properties of the hydrocarbon chain associated with the self-assembled
monolayer. Because these parameters are a direct product of the initial
bonding conditions, we may simulate how the sulfur must bond to achieve
these parameters using a molecular dynamics program.
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“ Cosmological Simulations of the Formation of Dwarf Galaxies ”
Anahi Favela - Berea College
Mentor: Dr. Ferah Munshi
The overarching idea of this research project is to simulate dwarf galaxies.
My specific project has to do with the metallicity of dwarf galaxies. I will
be editing code that has already been written in order for it to give me a
plot that shows that metallicity is constant throughout the galaxy.
Basically, I have to make sure that certain outlier points in the plot
are not dragging the value of the slope down.
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“ Higgs Boson Decay to WW ”
Gynell Higby - Humboldt State University
Mentor: Dr. Mike Strauss
One possible decay route for the Higgs Bosons is for the Higgs to decay to WW,
where one W decays to an electron/neutrino pair, and the other to muon/muon
neutrino. The fraction of the time the aforementioned Higgs comes from
Gluon-Gluon Fusion or from Vector-Boson Fusion is being tested in order to
determine if it corresponds to the theory. Currently the WW control region isn't
dominated by the WW so cuts need to be found and made in the root-tuples
produced from the CAF in order to purify the region.
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“ The Search for Vector-like Leptons ”
Brynn Keller- Macalster College
Mentor: Dr. Brad Abbott
Vector-like leptons are a simple extension of the Standard Model; they would be a
fourth family of leptons, similar to taus but heavier.
The search for this new kind of particle is occurring
at the ATLAS experiment at one of CERN's particle accelerators.
The different kinds of decay
this particle could exhibit create different signal regions that ATLAS could observe
and my job is to optimize these signal regions to get the best
signal of vector-like leptons
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“ Disk Detective ”
Natalie Kovacevic- Western Illinois University
Mentor: Dr. John Wisniewski
Debris disks a disk that are made up of rock and dust. These disks then orbit
the star and may contain important clues about how planets are formed and
evolve. Disk Detective is a NASA citizen science project that attempts to find
these disks by having users classify images from NASA's WISE telescope and
other observatories. Using the list of candidates from the Disk Detective
users, we will analyze the targets' spectral energy distributions and
images to refine the list for further follow-up.
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“ The Summer Search for Galaxy Clusters ”
Victoria Sanzone- Lipscomb University
Mentor: Dr. Xinyu Dai
Galaxy clusters are important for understanding the formation of our universe
and the impact of dark energy in its expansion. Clusters can be identified
in many ways using properties of different parts of the electromagnetic
spectrum. This study will use a combination of X-ray and optical data to
confirm the presence of galaxy clusters. This data comes from the Swift AGN
and Cluster Survey and the Dark Energy Survey and covers part of the
Southern hemisphere of the sky
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“ The Mass Profile of Boson Stars ”
Joshua Swaim- Vassar College
Mentor: Dr. Kuver Sinha
The discovery of boson stars could lead to new insight into particle physics and
cosmology. The development of new gravitational wave detectors may allow us
to detect and study boson stars through their gravitational waves. Our research is
focused on calculating the gravitational wave profile of boson stars undergoing
extreme mass ratio inspirals around a supermassive black hole. We are currently
trying to calculate the mass profile of a boson star composed of two coupled
scalar fields.
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“ Casimir Friction at Finite Temperature ”
Aaron Swanson - Saint Olaf College
Mentor: Dr. Kim Milton
We consider the Casimir friction force on an atom moving at constant (relativistic)
velocity parallel to an infinite half-plane dielectric in a finite temperature,
electromagnetic vacuum environment. We use the source theory formalism and
introduce temperature via quantum fluctuation-dissipation relations. As growing
theoretical consensus judges the zero-temperature frictional force to be typically
on the order of 10-21 N, our aim is to determine if the temperature contribution
can place Casimir friction in the realm of experimental observability.
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“ Classical Entanglement ”
Amirah Townsend-Frostburg State University
Mentor: Dr. Eric Abraham
In my presentation, I will be talking about Classical Entanglement. This is
the process at which two atoms at x distance become entangled, or "combined",
and when you measure some property of on atom the second atom has to be the
opposite. For a very long time you associated entanglement with only Quantum
systems, which can be very expensive. So classical entanglement systems have
been created, and my project is to recreate a classical entanglement system.
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“ Analyzing Outcomes of Kuiper Belt Objects During Early Evolution of Solar System ”
Sarah Wozniak Saint Vincent College
Mentor: Dr. Nate Kaib
The Nice Model is a model of the evolution of the Solar System which asserts
that the giant planets formed in a much more compact configuration than the
present-day configuration. The addition of a fifth or sixth (usually ice)
giant planet has also been studied in these simulations. The planets are
surrounded by a planetesimal disk, now called the Kuiper Belt, which had a
semi-major axis of around 30 AU. The gravitational interactions the
planetesimals had amongst themselves caused the disk to spread out,
eventually leading to the interactions between the objects and Neptune's
orbit. This planet-planetesimal interaction leads to two main outcomes:
the objects being scattered outward (to enter the Oort Cloud or be completely
ejected) or scattered inward (toward an interaction with Uranus). A similar
process occurs for the rest of the giants, including the additional ice
giant(s). If these planetesimals reach Jupiter, Jupiter has a tendency to
eject these objects from the Solar System. The conservation of angular
momentum is observed in this system; Jupiter loses angular momentum and
migrates inwards while Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and the additional ice
giant(s) gain angular momentum and migrate outwards. Once the additional
ice giant(s) are ejected by Jupiter, the system slowly becomes stable and
migrates to their modern-day positions. During this process, we will study
how often planetesimals are torn apart by tidal forces during their close
encounters with a planet and how this may affect the size distribution of
the survivors we see today.
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“ Topology: It's Important ”
Colin Riggert- University of Oklahoma
Mentor: Dr. Kieran Mullen
Previous theoretical inquiries into the physics of electrons on one-dimensional
ring arrays have revealed topologically dependent phenomena in the limit of no
inter-ring tunneling. In this talk I outline a simple case of this problem where
such tunneling is allowed. As I show, even in this case there is topological
influence on the system?s ground state energies and wavefunctions. I also
outline an avenue for further inquiry that expands upon and generalizes this
simple model to more topologically complex systems.
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“ Quantum Metrology ”
Samuel Bayliff- University of Oklahoma
Mentor: Dr. Doerte Blume
In my project, I will modify an existing program that estimates a single parameter
in a SU(1,1) Spinor Bose Einstein Condensate interferometer to estimate multiple
parameters simultaneously. This system will be analytically solved, if possible,
to yield insight into the effects of the evolution of the system on the uncertainty
of the measurements of the parameters, in order to reduce the uncertainty to the
optimal amount.
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“ Finding Eclipsing Binary Star Systems ”
London Willson- University of Oklahoma
Mentor: Dr. Mukremin Kilic
The 2017 Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) night sky survey collected a large
amount of data on the magnitude of stars in the night sky with a particular
emphasis on the northern sky. This data contains 186,000 of the potential
white dwarf objects identified in a previous data release called GAIA,
sparking our interest in analyzing this data as we are searching for white
dwarf binary system candidates.Through the use of self-made python programs
as well as the SIMBAD celestial object database, we are able to use ZTF's
photometric data to identify eclipsing star systems that have the potential to
be a white dwarf binary pair. Further study of these systems
could lead to greater knowledge about the outcomes of white dwarf mergers
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“ Band Gaps and Lattices ”
Evelyn Vargas Olmos- University of Oklahoma
Mentor: Dr. Mike Santos
The presentation will focus on the initial modeling project for construction of III-V
semiconductor materials. The modeling is carried out by finding the composition
proportionalities of quaternary alloys and their subsequent band gap energies
and lattice constants.
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“ Colar Cell Research ”
Ally DiCarlo- University of Oklahoma
Mentor: Dr. Ian Sellers
The multi-junction solar cells that NASA currently uses for near-earth
missions only have an efficiency of 27% and are not ideal for deep-space
missions. A potentially more efficient compound, GaInNAs, will be investigated
to see how it functions under low intensity low temperature conditions that
reflect those of deep-space. If the compound proves to be more effective,
the integration of the cells onto flexible substrates can be further
investigated and may improve the terrestrial payload from 500W/kg to 2000W/kg.
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“ HWW Research and HASS/HALT Testing ”
Noah Reidy- University of Oklahoma
Mentor: Dr. Mike Strauss
My talk will be over my work reducing background in the H -> WW* decay
channel using the gridscanner software. It will also go over the work I will be
doing automating plots for the HASS/HALT testing on sensors for the LHC.
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