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Seminars/Colloquia, Fall 2023

Unless noted otherwise, Tuesday Colloquia are at 4:00 PM, refreshments will be served 15 minutes before each colloquium.
Scheduling for additional seminars will vary.

Date/Place	Speaker	Title (and link to abstract)
Tue, Aug 22 Lewis 101	Sarah Vigeland Department of Physics University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee	Searching for a Gravitational Wave Background with Pulsar Timing Arrays
Mon, Aug 28 Lewis 104	Omar Medina Institute for Corpuscular Physics University of Valencia	Special Seminar: Discrete Flavor Symmetries and Nneutrino Mass Mechanics
Tue, Aug 29 Lewis 101	Department Social Department of Physics and Astronomy University of Mississippi	Ice Cream Social
Tue, Sep 5 Lewis 101	Lorena Magana Zertuche, Josh Moore, Bin Liang Department of Physics and Astronomy University of Mississippi	Student Research Presentations
Tue, Sep 12 Lewis 101	Gavin Davies Department of Physics and Astronomy University of Mississippi	Professional Development for Graduate Students (and Others)
Tue, Sep 19 Lewis 101	Ranganathan Gopalakrishnan Department of Mechanical Engineering University of Memphis	Current Plasma Physics Research in Gopalakrishnan Group from the Molecular to Mesoscopic Length Scales
Tue, Sep 26 Lewis 101	Baisakhi Mitra Department of Physics and Astronomy University of Mississippi	The World's Most Precise Measurement of the Anomalous Magnetic Moment of the Muon
Tue, Oct 3 Lewis 101	Jacky Kumar Theoretical Division Los Alamos National Laboratory	Phenomenological Consequences of SMEFT Renormalization Group Running Effects
Tue, Oct 10 Lewis 101	Anthony Mezzacappa Department of Physics and Astronomy University of Tennessee
Tue, Oct 17 Lewis 101	Department faculty Department of Physics and Astronomy University of Mississippi	Demo Show
Tue, Oct 24 Lewis 101	Sylvia Biscoveanu MIT Kavli Institute
Tue, Oct 31 Lewis 101	Byungchul Yu, Azwad Adnan, Noah Knutson Department of Physics and Astronomy University of Mississippi	Student Research Presentations
Tue, Nov 7 Lewis 101	Bruce Howard Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory
Tue, Nov 14 Lewis 101	Wen Wu Department of Mechanical Engineering University of Mississippi
Tue, Nov 21 Lewis 101	Thanksgiving Break
Tue, Nov 28 Lewis 101	Firouzeh Sabri Department of Physics and Materials Science University of Memphis
Tue, Dec 5 Lewis 101	Final Exam Week
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Abstracts of Talks

Sarah Vigeland Department of Physics University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Searching for a Gravitational Wave Background with Pulsar Timing Arrays Pulsar timing arrays use observations of millisecond pulsars to detect nanohertz gravitational waves. The North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational Waves (NANOGrav) Collaboration has recently released their 15-year data set containing observations of 68 millisecond pulsars. These data contain evidence for Hellings-Downs correlations, which are characteristic of a gravitational wave background. In this talk, I will present these results, and discuss the spectral properties of the signal and implications for the astrophysical source. I will also discuss prospects for detecting other types of gravitational wave sources with pulsar timing arrays, including individual supermassive binary black holes.

Omar Medina Institute for Corpuscular Physics University of Valencia Discrete Flavor Symmetries and Nneutrino Mass Mechanics After an introduction to different appealing mechanisms as the possible origin of the light neutrino masses, we will discuss the great importance of the flavor puzzle in the Standard Model (masses and mixings of fermions) and how discrete flavor symmetries are important tools in our path to address this puzzle and other beyond-the-Standard-Model issues, such as understanding the nature of dark matter.

Ice Cream Social Join us for an opportunity to meet the faculty and students of the Department of Physics and Astronomy, hear about ongoing research, social and outreach activities, and enjoy some ice cream!

Student Research Presentations Graduate students in the Department of Physics and Astronomy will present brief reports on their ongoing research.

Ranganathan Gopalakrishnan Department of Mechanical Engineering University of Memphis Current Plasma Physics Research in Gopalakrishnan Group from the Molecular to Mesoscopic Length Scales Dr. Ranganathan Gopalakrishnan's research focuses on particle transport physics in gas-phase systems such as dusty plasmas, aerosol and plasma physics, dense aerosols, and powder flows. In this talk, details of ongoing research in dusty plasmas will be presented. Dusty Plasmas consist of ions, electrons, neutral gas molecules, and dust particles. The dust particles, typically submicron to several microns, acquire a high negative charge (~100 - 10,000 units of electric charge) and exhibit interesting collective dynamics. Current dusty plasma research projects holistically probe collisional transport processes from the molecular scale, single particle-level, and all the way up to mesoscopic dimensions where charged particles exhibit phase behavior. Optical particle tracking of grains coupled with Langevin Dynamics trajectory simulations are used to understand strong coupling and multi-body interactions between charged dust grains. Overarching goals of this research are to use dusty plasmas 1) as a model system to study the statistical mechanics of driven, non-equilibrium systems, and 2) to produce novel, metastable phases of materials at high throughput and in bulk scale. Dr. Gopalakrishnan is a recipient of the Department of Energy Early Career Award in 2020 to study strongly coupled dusty plasmas. If you are interested in this type of fundamental research, please be sure to approach Dr. Gopalakrishnan via email at rgplkrsh@memphis.edu. Current research is supported by ~$1.9 million from federal sources such as National Science Foundation, US Department of Energy, US Army Research Office, and we are looking to recruit one PhD student to start in Spring or Summer 2024.

Baisakhi Mitra Department of Physics and Astronomy University of Mississippi The World's Most Precise Measurement of the Anomalous Magnetic Moment of the Muon The Muon g-2 experiment at Fermilab measures the anomalous magnetic moment of the muon. The collaboration published the first measurement in April 2021, based on the first year of data taking. The second result is based on the second and third years of data taking. It will be presented in this talk. This result has a factor of two reductions in the systematic uncertainties in comparison with the previous result, surpassing the experiment's design goal. Combining the first three years of data, muon magnetic anomaly stands at 0.20 ppm precision. This is the most precise determination of the anomalous magnetic moment of the muon. An overview of the experimental techniques and analysis methods of this high-precision experiment will be discussed in this talk.

Jacky Kumar Theoretical Division Los Alamos National Laboratory Phenomenological Consequences of SMEFT Renormalization Group Running Effects In this talk, I will discuss the Standard Model Effective Field Theory (SMEFT) renormalization group (RG) running effects. By taking a concrete example of four-fermion semileptonic operators in the SMEFT, I will discuss their phenomenological implications at the low-energy and at electroweak (EW) scale and highlight the effects which are specifically triggered by the RG running. Further, I will discuss how such RG running effects can play an important role in probing the generic flavour structure of such semileptonic operators.