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Department of Physics and Astronomy

Colloquia

These lectures feature speakers from around the country and globe. Each colloquium lasts about an hour and gives you a deeper understanding of the types of physics and astronomy researching going on around the world.

Colloquia will be held in a hybrid format and a recurring Zoom link is provided to access the virtual format.

The talks will be on Thursdays at 4:15PM in the Rogers Room (Jones PSC 409), unless stated otherwise.

If you are interested in being added to our e-mail distribution list regarding upcoming colloquia, please contact Ms. Nancy Kesar via e-mail at nkesar@mailbox.sc.edu. We appreciate your interest!

Upcoming Colloquium:

Exploration of the Magnetized Cosmos: From Innovative Observatory Development to Multi-Wavelength Field Mapping

Speaker: Mehrnoosh Tahani
Affiliation: Stanford University
Date: Jan 30th

Abstract: 

Magnetic fields thread the Universe. However, observing them in three dimensions remains a formidable challenge. In this talk, I will discuss how we overcame the challenges to determine the first three-dimensional (3D) magnetic field vectors in 3D space, creating six-dimensional maps of star-forming regions. These comprehensive field observations have not only revealed the step-by-step formation mechanisms of star-forming clouds but also led to the discovery of previously unknown interstellar structures, later confirmed through follow-up studies. I will also discuss how we are extending these techniques to more regions within and beyond our galaxy, including our efforts to establish a new wide-field polarimetry observatory and conduct high-sensitivity, high-resolution multi-wavelength polarization observations. These polarization maps provide important insights into how galaxies evolve and form stars across multiple scales and the roles magnetic fields play in these processes.

Spring 2025 Schedule:

Date

Speaker

Affiliation

Title

1/16 Mark W. Meisel University of Florida "How are “Discoveries” Made? - A “condensed” perspective"
1/21 (Tue) Priyanka Chakraborty Havard and Smithsonian "Probing the Universe’s Extremes: XRISM’s Precision X-ray Insights and JWST’s View of Early Galaxies"
1/27 (Mon) Michael Busch University of California, San Diego "Shedding Light on the Dark Molecular Gas in the Galaxy and Beyond"
1/30 Mehrnoosh Tahani Stanford "Exploration of the Magnetized Cosmos: From Innovative Observatory Development to Multi-Wavelength Field Mapping"

Past Colloquia:

January 30, 2025 - Mehrnoosh Tahani
"Exploration of the Magnetized Cosmos: From Innovative Observatory Development to Multi-Wavelength Field Mapping"

January 27, 2025 - Michael Busch
"Shedding Light on the Dark Molecular Gas in the Galaxy and Beyond"

January 21, 2025 - Priyanka Chakraborty
"Probing the Universe’s Extremes: XRISM’s Precision X-ray Insights and JWST’s View of Early Galaxies"

January 16, 2025 - Mark W. Meisel
"How are “Discoveries” Made? - A “condensed” perspective"

April 20, 2023 - Dr. Sebastian König
"Nuclear Physics in a Box"

April 13, 2023 - Dr. Qui Wang
"Onsager Principle, Mathematical Modeling, and Numerical Algorithm Design"

April 06, 2023 - Dr. Maxim Tsoi
"Antiferromagnetic Spintronics: from Metals to Functional Oxides"

March 23, 2023 - Dr. David Tanner
"Shining Light Through Walls:  Generation and Detection of Axions with ALPS II"

March 16, 2023 - Dr. Kai Schweda
"The ALICE Experiment at the Large Hadron Collider"

March 02, 2023 - Dr. John Singleton
"Neutral Fermions and a New State of Matter: Weird Metals Disguised as Electrical Insulators"

February 23, 2023 - Dr. George Androulakis
"An Excursion into Quantum Information, with Highlights from Some of My Latest Research"

February 16, 2023 - Dr. Christopher Jarzynski
"Scaling Down the Laws of Thermodynamics"

February 9, 2023 - Dr. Ed Cackett
"Mapping the Accretion Disk Around Supermassive Black Holes"

February 2, 2023 - Dr. Alexander Monin
"XXI Century Challenges of Theoretical Physics"

January 26, 2023 - Dr. Lori Ziolkowski
"The Physics of Climate Change"

January 19, 2023 - Dr. Joseph E. Johnson
"Riemannian Geometry Framed as a Generalized Lie Algebra to Incorporate General Relativity with Quantum Theory"

November 17, 2022 - Dr. Ignatios Antoniadis
"Challenges in Particle Physics and Cosmology"

November 10, 2022 - Dr. Gang Cao
"Power and Control of Internal Loop Currents in an Exotic Quantum State"

November 3, 2022 - Dr. Shmuel Nussinov
"Dark Matter - or Matter in the Dark?"

October 27, 2022 - Dr. Mariama Rebello de Sousa Dias
"Advancements in the Design of Optical Components for Efficient Optoelectronic Devices Operating at High Temperature"

October 20, 2022 - Dr. Bob Bernstein
"Charged Lepton Flavor Violation and the Mu2e Experiment"

October 6, 2022 - Dr. Paul Reimer
"Exploring the Flavor Asymmetry of Antimatter in the Proton"

September 29, 2022 - Dr. Michael Dickson
"Anthropic Principles, Fine-Tuning Arguments, and Other Mistakes"

September 22, 2022 - Dr. Alexander Yankovsky
"Dynamics of Coastal Buoyancy Currents"

September 15, 2022 - Dr. Alexey Petrov
"Charming Asymmetry Between Matter and Antimatter"

December 2, 2021 - Dr. Jeffrey Hazboun
"Searching for Nanohertz Gravitational Waves with a Galactic-Scale Detector"

November 18, 2021 - Dr. David Ceperley
"The Physics of Dense Hydrogen"

November 11, 2021 - Mr. Travis Dore
"The Quark Gluon Plasma:  Exploring a Physics Crossroads"

November 4, 2021 - Dr. Frank T. Avignone, III
"The Search for the Majorana Neutrino Under an Italian Mountain"

October 14, 2021 - Dr. Jerome Goldstein
"Is Diffusion Described by the Heat Equation or the Damped Wave Equation"?

September 16, 2021 - Dr. Robert Cava
"Finding New Materials - A Chemical Perspective"

April 29, 2021 - Dr. Michael Susner
"Functional Van der Waals Materials:  A New Avenue for Next-Generation Electronics"

April 1, 2021 - Dr. James Tour
"Flash Graphene"

March 18, 2021 - Dr. Hariharan Srikanth
"Anisotropic Magnetic Particles for Nanomedicine Applications"

March 11, 2021 - Dr. Rongying Jin
"Topological Physics:  Entering a New Era of Fundamental Science"

March 4, 2021 - Dr. Luis Balicas
"Two-Dimensional and Topological Materials Research at the NHMFL"

January 21, 2021 - Dr. Larry Ford
"Quantum Energy Density Fluctuations"

November 19, 2020 - Dr. Pawel Mazur
"On the Physical Nature of Super-Compact Objects in the Merging Binaries Discovered by Gravitational Wave Detectors"

November 12, 2020 - Dr. Michael Osofsky
"Engineering Superconductivity in Metamaterials"

October 22, 2020 - Dr. Rocky Kolb
"Schrödinger’s Alarming Phenomenon"

October 8, 2020 - Dr. Yuriy Pershin
"Are Resistance Switching Memories Memristors?"

February 27, 2020 - Dr. Thomas Crawford, Dr. Scott Crittenden, and Dr. Yanwen Wu
"Research Directions at the SmartState Center for Experimental Nanoscale Physics (Experimental)"

February 20, 2020 - Dr. Yaroslaw Bazaliy and Dr. Yuriy Pershin
"Research Directions at the SmartState Center  for Experimental Nanoscale Physics (Theoretical)"

February 13, 2020 - Dr. Ward Plummer
"Quantum Materials Driven Renaissance in Surface Physics"

February 6, 2020 - Dr. Smita Mathur
"The Warm-Hot Circumgalactic Medium"

January 30, 2020 - Dr. Richard Creswick
"A Laboratory Search for Axions/ALPS"

December 5, 2019 - Dr. William E. Mustain
"Founding and Emerging Materials for Li-ion Batteries"

November 21, 2019 - Dr. Dennis Bodewits
"Atomic and Molecular Physics of Comets"

November 14, 2019 - Dr. Daniel Scolnic
"New Excitement in Measurements of Dark Energy and the Hubble Constant"

October 31, 2019 - Dr. Varsha Kulkarni
"Extrasolar Planets:  Understanding Earth's Place in the Cosmos"

October 3, 2019 - Dr. J. Michael Shull
"Where Do Galaxies End"?

September 26, 2019 - Dr. Craig Group
"A Renaissance for Muon Physics:  (Who Ordered That?)"

September 19, 2019 - Dr. Peter Mättig
"Beyond the Higgs:  LHC Physics in the Light of Philosophy"

September 5, 2019 - Dr. Revaz Ramazashvili
"Zeeman Spin-Orbit Coupling and Magnetic Quantum Oscillations in Antiferromagnetic Conductors"

May 7, 2019 - Dr. Laurie E. McNeil
"Transforming Teaching and Learning:  Self-Renewal and Institution-Building"

April 25, 2019 - Dr. Megan Donahue
"The Role of Supermassive Black Holes in the Growth of Galaxies"

April 18, 2019 - Dr. Monique Aller
"Investigating the Dust Grains in Galaxies Using Quasar Absorption Systems"

April 11, 2019 - Dr. Massimiliano Di Ventra
"Memcomputing:  Leaveraging Memory and Physics to Compute Efficiently"

April 4, 2019 - Dr. Leonid Pryadko
"Quantum Computation and Quantum Error Correction:  A Contemporary Overview"

March 28, 2019 - Dr. Oleg Tchernyshyov
"Mechanics of Magnetic Solitons"

March 21, 2019 - Dr. Ashot Gasparian
"The Proton Radius: Preliminary Results from the PRad Experiment"

March 7, 2019 - Dr. Raul Briceno
"The Exotic World of Quarks and Gluons"

March 4, 2019 - Dr. Alexander Monin
"Current Challenges of Particle Physics and How to Address Them"

February 28, 2019 - Dr. Karen Livesey
"Magnetization Relaxation in Magnetic Nanoparticle Systems"

February 25, 2019 - Dr. Andrey Katz
"Beyond the Standard Model:  Search for a Shadow World"

February 18, 2019 - Dr. Kimberly Boddy
"Unraveling the Structure of Dark Matter Throughout Cosmic History"

February 7, 2019 - Dr. Igor Altfeder
"Scanning Tunneling Microscopy of Quantum Materials"

January 31, 2019
"Remembering Dr. Horacio Farach"

December 6, 2018 - Dr. Yanwen Wu
"Tools Made of Light - An Overview of the Ideas Behind the 2018 Physics Nobel Prize"

November 29, 2018 - Prof. Valery Nesvizhevsky
"Gravitational Quantum States of Neutrons, Atoms, and Antiatoms"

November 15, 2018 - Ms. Lisa Hunter and Mr. Rafael Palomino
"ISEE's Professional Development Program: Preparation for Effective and Inclusive Teaching and Mentoring"

November 8, 2018 - Dr. Sylvester N. Ekpenuma
"Efficient Modeling of Defects and Impurities in Semiconductors"

November 2, 2018 - Dr. Arthur Hebard
"Heterogeneous Interfaces with High-Tc Crystalline Bi-2212 for Teasing Out Proximity and Electric-Field Screening Effects"

October 25, 2018 - Dr. Marco Ajello
"The Star-Formation History of the Universe Revealed by Gamma Rays"

October 4, 2018 - Dr. Luca Guazzotto
"A Physics-Based Criterion for Nuclear Fusion Energy Production"

September 27, 2018 - Dr. Pawel Mazur
"Superfluid Universe, the Ground State in Quantum Gravity, and Gravastars"

September 20, 2018 - Dr. Frank Avignone, III
"Dark Matter from Z to A and Beyond:  The History and Status of Direct Searches"

September 6, 2018 - Dr. Nahum Arav
"Quasar Outflows and Their Contribution to Galactic-Scale Feedback Processes"

April 26, 2018 - Dr. Yordanka Ilieva
"Gluon Imaging"

April 19, 2018 - Dr. Robin Shelton
"The Clouds Around Our Galaxy"

April 12, 2018 - Dr. Vincente Guiseppe
"The (76)Ge Program to Search for Neutrinoless Double-Beta Decay"

April 5, 2018 - Dr. Yanwen Wu
"Make Your Particles And Play With Them Too"

March 29, 2018 - Dr. Dean Lee
"Nuclear Lattice Simulations"

March 8, 2018 - Prof. Sergey Alekhin
"Strange, Non-Strange, and Heavy Quark Distributions"

March 1, 2018 - Dr. Joseph E. Johnson
"On Integrating General Relativity with Quantum Theory by Reframing Riemannian Geometry as a Generalized Heisenberg Lie Algebra”

February 22, 2018 - Dr. Alessandro Pilloni
“Challenges for Hadron Spectroscopy”

February 15, 2018 - Dr. David B. Tanner
“The Search for the Invisible Axion: The Current Status of ADMX”

February 1, 2018 - Dr. Andrew B. Greytak
“Assembling the Future Through Control of Nanoscale Interfaces”

January 25, 2018 - Dr. Ronald D. Edge
“70 Years of Physics”

January 18, 2018 - Dr. Juan I. Collar
“News from PICO and COHERENT”

 


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