Condensed Matter Seminar: Cell motility and shape as a playground for physics

Brian Camley (Johns Hopkins University)
- David Rittenhouse Laboratory, A4

Cells crawl and reorganize in the body to perform their functions, ranging from white blood cells finding bacteria to skin cells closing over a wound. These behaviors provide huge opportunities for…



Experimental Particle Physics Seminar: The mystery of cold noise in ATLAS upgrade silicon strip modules

Ian Dyckes (LBNL)
- David Rittenhouse Laboratory, 2C8

In preparation for the High Luminosity LHC, the ATLAS Experiment is constructing a new Inner Tracker (ITk) composed of silicon pixel and silicon strip detectors.  After multiple years of prototyping, the ITk strips…



High Energy Theory Seminar: Probing dark matter with cosmic voids

Elena Pinetti (Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory)
- David Rittenhouse Laboratory, 3C6

In this talk, I will explain why cosmic voids are an interesting new target for dark matter searches. I will show that the expected signal-to-noise ratio resulting from decaying dark matter is significantly more…



Astrophysics Seminar: Looking at the sky with artificially intelligent eyes

Gautham Narayan (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign)
- David Rittenhouse Laboratory, 4E19

Time-domain astrophysics is entering a golden age with discovery rates increasing exponentially thanks to combining public and private surveys such as the Young Supernova…



Condensed Matter Seminar: Quantum geometry in semiconductor heterostructures

Raquel Querioz (Columbia University)
- David Rittenhouse Laboratory, A4

Quantum geometry quantifies the momentum space textures of the Bloch wavefunctions and impacts substantially the physics of multiband systems. This is also true for van der Waals semiconductors, which are…



High Energy Theory Seminar: Light States across Field Space

Max Wiesner (Harvard University)
- David Rittenhouse Laboratory, 3C6

A common feature of theories of quantum gravity is the presence of light, massive states beyond those described by effective field theory. The species scale gives a measure for the number of such light states and…



Astrophysics Seminar: Old meets new when drones meet CHIME: calibration instrumentation for 21cm cosmology

Laura Newburgh (Yale University)
- David Rittenhouse Laboratory, 4E19

Current cosmological measurements have left us with deep questions about our Universe: What caused the expansion of the Universe at the earliest times? How did structure form? What is Dark Energy and does it evolve with…



Experimental Particle Physics Seminar: Defying 4D Gravity: Novel searches for signatures of string theory via scalar cascades, noncommutative black holes, non-minimal dark sectors, and deep learning

Elena Villhauer (University of Edinburgh)
- David Rittenhouse Laboratory, 2C8

The existence of extra dimensions could lower the fundamental Planck scale to the low TeV scale and very excitingly allow string theory to be probed at the LHC. This talk introduces novel searches for signatures of…



Condensed Matter Seminar: Self-Organization of Wave-Matter Composite Systems

David Grier (New York University)
- David Rittenhouse Laboratory, A4

Optical tweezers and acoustic traps use forces exerted by waves to confine small objects in three dimensions and to transport them along pre-programmed trajectories. This is not the end of the story…



High Energy Theory Seminar: Normalization of Instantons in Minimal String Theory

Chitraang Murdia (University of Pennsylvania)
- David Rittenhouse Laboratory, C6

We match instanton contributions between minimal string theory and its dual matrix integral. The main technical insight is to use string field theory to analyze and cure the divergences in the cylinder diagram in…