Spectrum Newsletter - 2014

theSpectr m VOLUME 5, ISSUE 01 / 2014

UNIVERSITY OF UTAH: Department of Physics & Astronomy

Harnessing Nuclear Spins 2014 Graduates Awards & Scholarships

Cosmic Ray Hotspots Mysterious Origins?

Tom Saxton

Alumni Spotlight

Towards Quantum Computing, Spintronic Memory, & Better Displays

Laser

Leakage

Do Your Lasers Leak Infrared?

PLUS: RECENTLY DISCOVERED ASTEROID NAMED FOR UNIVERSITY OF UTAH

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Awards, Grants, & Appointments 2014 Graduates 2014 Student Awards & Scholarships Researchers Get Most Accurate Measure of the Universe Sheena McFarland, The Salt Lake Tribune

10. Smallest Known Galaxy with a Supermassive Black Hole

Many Black Holes May Hide in Dwarf Remnants of Stripped Galaxies

12. U Presents the Physics of Freestyle K-12 Students Learn How Athletes Use Physics to Perform

13. Helping the Public Reach for the Stars U Opens Astronomy Center for Star Parties & More

14. Alumni Spotlight: Tom Saxton 16. Laser Leakage

Adam Beehler, Dept. of Physics & Astronomy

18. Using Science to Understand Human Values

Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson Gives Tanner Lecture at University of Utah

19. Ice Fishing for Neutrinos 20. Nearest Bright ‘Hypervelocity Star’ Found

Speeding at One Million MPH, It Probes Black Hole & Dark Matter

22. A Hotspot for Powerful Cosmic Rays

Physicists a Step Closer to Finding Mysterious Sources

25. The Rocky Mountain Conference for Undergraduate Women in Physics Alexis Lagan, University of Utah

26. Watching HIV Bud from Cells

Study Shows Last-Minute Role of Protein Named ALIX

28. Nuclear Spins Control Current in Plastic LED

Step toward Quantum Computing, Spintronic Memory, Better Displays

30. Two Years on Mars: Good, Bad & Ugly 31. Gale Dick, Co-Founder of Save Our Canyons, Dies at 88

Pamela Manson, The Salt Lake Tribune

32. Asteroid Named for University of Utah Orbiting between Mars & Jupiter, ‘Univofutah’ Is No Threat to Earth

34. Department “Quarks”

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CHAIRMAN’S

WELCOME

Hello Friends,

It has been one year since I took up the reins as chair of this department. Our former chair, Dave Kieda, is now Dean of the Graduate School. It’s been an honor to work with such a superb and congenial faculty, skilled staff, and dedicated students. But it is also a big job. Thanks to the addition of our astronomy component, we have grown to almost forty faculty members, nearly 100 graduate students, and 300 undergraduate majors. As a consequence, we are bursting at the seams in both lab and office space and in budget. The department chair’s job naturally has its high and low points and its trials. A favorite high point is giving a deserving student a scholarship check - thanks to our donors, we are able to do this on occasion. Then there was a “trial by ice” Halloween 2013 when a liquid helium container in one of our James Fletcher Building labs began to malfunction - the pressure was rising out of control, so we had to evacuate for several hours until the vendor’s experts could deal with it safely.

Our newest two faculty members joined us this year: Assistant Professor Yan (Sarah) Li came to us from Los Alamos National Laboratory. Among other things, she is studying the spin dynamics of organic semiconductors by observing circular polarization in optical emissions. Assistant Professor Vikram Deshpande arrived from Columbia University. He studies emergent physical phenomena in atomicallythin materials such as graphene. They are both very welcome additions to our department.

Our outreach activities have also flourished. We just dedicated a new Astronomy Outreach Center in the South Physics building - a newly remodeled room that serves as a small presentation room for the general public and a classroom for our observational astronomy courses. If you are in town, please come to one of our regular Wednesday evening public star parties and see for yourself!

With the recent additions of some superbly talented and energetic faculty members and continued support from our generous donors, our research productivity, educational opportunities, and outreach activities will continue to grow in the coming years.

With Best Regards,

Carleton DeTar

detar@physics.utah.edu

Editor

Kathrine Skollingsberg kathrine@physics.utah.edu The Spectrum is the official newsletter of the Department of Physics & Astronomy at the University of Utah. The Spectrum seeks to provide friends, students, alumni, and the community at large with a broad spectrum of up-to-date information on news, events, achievements, and scientific education relating to the department.

Story suggestions, upcoming events, and comments are always welcome. Contact us at newsletter@physics.utah.edu SPECIAL NOTE: Some people may be receiving this newsletter in error. If you would like to be taken off the mailing list for this newsletter, please send an email to newsletter@physics.utah.edu and include the full name listed on the mailing label.

We apologize for the inconvenience.

The University of Utah is firmly committed to your privacy.

We will never sell, share, or distribute your personal information to any third party. © 2014 University of Utah

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Promotion to Research Associate Professor

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Spring 2014 Students’ Choice Award

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TAREQ ABU-ZAYYAD

BEN BROMLEY

BRIAN SAAM

American Physical Society, Fellow

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DOUG BERGMAN

Awarded Tenure as Associate Professor

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KYLE DAWSON

University Early Career Teaching Award

ANIL SETH

NSF Career Award

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Fall 2013 Students’ Choice Award

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NSF Early Career Award & Myriad Award

CHRISTOPH BOEHME

SHANTI DEEMYAD

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ADAM BOLTON

Promotion to Associate Professor with Tenure

TINO NYAWELO

Spirit of Delta Award International Awareness & Involvement

AWARDS, GRANTS &

APPOINTMENTS

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ZHENG ZHENG

NASA Astrophysics Theory Program

Our world-class faculty are renowned scholars, recognized both nationally & internationally for their research achievements.

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2014 GRADUATES

General commencement ceremonies took place May 1, 2014. The College of Science convocation and the Department of Physics & Astronomy reception awards ceremony took place the following day, May 2, 2014.

The University of Utah graduated a total of 7,947 students. The Department of Physics & Astronomy graduated 29 undergraduates and 13 graduate students.

The Department of Physics & Astronomy congratulates all of its graduates and welcomes them to our alumni family!

BACCALAUREATES

Rachel Baarda - HBS Kouver Bingham - HBS Matthew Byrne Zachary Carson Andrew Dilts Parker Duncan Tristan Ellsworth Mohamed Elsherif - Teaching Anthony Garcia - Honors Chris Ginzton - BA Nathan Gygi Laurel Hales - Honors Nino Hodzic Erik Houghtby Matthew Hunsaker 6

Natascha Knowlton Austin Lee Kayla Martindale Shawn Merrill Quinton Nethercott Jeff Palmer Lia Papadopoulos - Honors Tyler Schmauch Justin Talbot Scott Temple Sean Vetsch Joshua Wallace - Honors Matthew Wallace Joshua Wolfe

MASTERS OF SCIENCE

Veronika Burobina Michael Doleac - Teaching David Harris Brendan Pankovich

PhD’s

Pei-i Ku Weili Hong Mark Limes Robert Roundy Yiping Shu Xuefang Sui Alex Thiessen David Waters Rhett Zollinger

Permalink: http://unews.utah.edu/news_releases/university-of-utah-to-graduate-7947-students-on-may-1/

Student & Postdoctoral Awards

Hans Malissa Dali Sun

Weili Hong Henrik Odeen* Anne Marie Schaeffer Swigart Scholarship for Outstanding Graduate Students

Uyen Hyunh Mark Limes*

Outstanding Postdoctoral Research Award

Joshua Wallace

Outstanding Graduate Students Award

Chris Ahn Janivda Rou* Outstanding Graduate Teaching Assistant Award

Rachel Baarda Martin Hiatt Outstanding Undergraduate Research Award College of Science Research Scholar Award

Paul Gilbert Outstanding Undergraduate Research Award

Leslie Mershon* Trey Jensen* Alissa Whiting Outstanding Undergraduates Award

Julie Imig Walter Wada Memorial Award

Christopher Harker* Trey Jensen* Ethan Lake David Stephens*

Ian Sohl Thomas Parmley Award

Department Scholarships

* Not in attendance.

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AWARDS & SCHOLARSHIPS

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This article was originally published on January 8, 2014 in the Salt Lake Tribune. Reprinted with permission from Sheena McFarland & the Salt Lake Tribune.

RESEARCHERS GET

MOST ACCURATE

MEASURE OF THE UNIVERSE The New Understanding Likely Will Shed Light On The Nature Of Dark Energy - The Force That Is Causing The Universe To Expand

Courtesy of Zosia Rostomian, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. An artist’s conception of the measurement scale of the universe. Baryon acoustic oscillations are the tendency of galaxies and other matter to cluster in spheres, which originated as density waves traveling through the plasma of the early universe. The clustering is greatly exaggerated in this illustration. The radius of the spheres (white line) is the scale of a “standard ruler” allowing astronomers to determine, within one percent accuracy, the large-scale structure of the universe and how it has evolved.

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Permalink: http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/57368394-78/universe-galaxies-percent-energy.html.cspx

The Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS) Collaboration is the largest program in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey-III, and researchers from the University of Utah contributed to its findings. The new measurement allows for a much more accurate picture of the universe and how it’s expanding.

“One-percent accuracy in the scale of the universe is the most precise such measurement ever made,” says BOSS’s principal investigator, David Schlegel, a member of the Physics Division of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. “Twenty years ago, astronomers were arguing about estimates that differed by up to 50 percent. Five years ago, we’d refined that uncertainty to five percent; a year ago it was two percent. One-percent accuracy will be the standard for a long time to come.”

BOSS involved scientists from across the country, including two U. scientists, Adam Bolton and Kyle Dawson, both assistant professors in the Department of Physics & Astronomy.

Bolton helped develop the software that allowed computers to analyze the light wavelengths from more than 1 million galaxies surveyed.

By looking at the light emitted from a galaxy, one can tell how far away it is because of the Doppler effect. In essence, it’s like hearing an ambulance siren: the faster it’s moving, the lower the pitch. The same is true for lightwaves, and scientists were looking at red-shift variations because the visible light spectrum stretches from blue to red.

“Our universe is expanding from the Big Bang, and those galaxies and stars and quasars that are farther away move away faster and are shifted toward longer wavelengths,” Bolton said.

The gravitational pull of all of the galaxies in the universe should mean that the universe would be contracting. However, the universe is expanding, and doing so at an increasing rate.

Scientists now say that expansion is being propelled by dark energy, but they don’t have a clear understanding of exactly what dark energy is. They hope this new measurement will help them better understand its behavior and its effect on the universe’s expansion.

When the universe was forming about 13.7 billion years ago, it started as electrons and protons. Eventually, it cooled down enough that galaxies could begin forming. The locations of where those galaxies formed depended on the density of the matter in locations throughout the universe. If one area was

even slightly more dense than a neighboring area, galaxies would group together in those dense areas because of gravitational forces pulling in on each other.

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stronomers have defined the scale of the universe to within one percent accuracy, allowing them to better understand the enigmatic nature of dark energy and its ability to accelerate the expansion of the cosmos.

Adam Bolton Associate Professor

Kyle Dawson Assistant Professor

“Small distinctions from the early universe begin to get amplified, and you have areas that have lots of galaxies and some that don’t have galaxies,” Bolton said. “Light scales of the characteristics between those very early overdensities and underdensities are preserved and propagated down to present day. The relative density between these regions have been amplified greatly.”

By measuring the Baryon acoustic oscillations - basically densities as indicated by the light wavelengths emitted - researchers were able to create a “standard ruler” for distances in the universe - though it’s in millions or billions of light years as opposed to inches or meters. The new measure will allow astronomers to create better models to understand how dark energy is accelerating the expansion of the universe, said Dawson, who oversaw the steps ranging from equipment at the observatories to getting data to scientists.

“What we want is the underlying model that describes that behavior, that’s the fundamental purpose,” Dawson said.

“One-percent accuracy in the scale of the universe is the most precise such measurement ever made” Much like trying to understand the weather history in the desert by looking at the rings of a tree, the survey looks at galaxies from different epochs. This portion of the survey looked at galaxies that existed when the universe was about 8 billion years old; the light from those galaxies took about 5.5 billion years to reach Earth’s observatories, Dawson said. The goal is to be able to go back to 12 billion years ago.

The U. will have an even larger role in SDSS-IV, which is planned to begin in summer of 2014.

Email: smcfarland@sltrib.com Twitter: @sheena5427 •

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SMALLEST KNOWN GALAXY WITH

A SUPERMASSIVE BLACK HOLE Anil Seth Assistant Professor

This Hubble Space telescope image shows the galaxy M60 in the center, and the ultracompact dwarf galaxy M60-UCD1 below it and to the right, and also enlarged as an inset. A new international study led by Anil Seth, and published in the journal Nature, found that M60-UCD1 is the smallest known galaxy with a supermassive black hole at its center, suggesting the dwarf galaxy originally was much larger.

M60’s gravity also is pulling galaxy NGC4647, and the two eventually will collide.

Photo Credit: NASA/Space Telescope Science Institute/ESA

The Gemini North telescope on Hawaii’s Mauna Kea aims a laser beam into the night sky to create an “artificial star” that astronomers use to adjust images made by the telescope to remove the blurring effects of Earth’s atmosphere.

The telescope was used in a new University of Utah-led study that discovered the smallest galaxy yet known to harbor a supermassive black hole.

Photo Credit: Gemini Observatory/AURA

Many Black Holes May Hide in Dwarf Remnants of Stripped Galaxies

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University of Utah astronomer and his colleagues discovered that an ultracompact dwarf galaxy harbors a supermassive black hole – the smallest galaxy known to contain such a massive light-sucking object. The finding suggests huge black holes may be more common than previously believed.

“It is the smallest and lightest object that we know of that has a supermassive black hole,” says Anil Seth, lead author of an international study of the dwarf galaxy published in Thursday’s issue of the journal Nature. “It’s also one of the most black hole-dominated galaxies known.”

The astronomers used the Gemini North 8-meter optical-andinfrared telescope on Hawaii’s Mauna Kea and photos taken by the Hubble Space Telescope to discover that a small galaxy named M60-UCD1 has a black hole with a mass equal to 21 million suns.

Their finding suggests plenty of other ultracompact dwarf galaxies likely also contain supermassive black holes – and those dwarfs may be the stripped remnants of larger galaxies that were torn apart during collisions with yet other galaxies.

“We don’t know of any other way you could make a black hole so big in an object this small,” says Seth, an assistant professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Utah. “There are

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a lot of similar ultracompact dwarf galaxies, and together they may contain as many supermassive black holes as there are at the centers of normal galaxies.”

Black holes are collapsed stars and collections of stars with such strong gravity that even light is pulled into them, although material around them sometimes can spew jets of X-rays and other forms of radiation. Supermassive black holes – those with the mass of at least 1 million stars like our sun – are thought to be at the centers of many galaxies.

The central, supermassive black hole at the center of our Milky Way galaxy has the mass of 4 million suns, but as heavy as that is, it is less than 0.01 percent of the galaxy’s total mass, estimated at some 50 billion solar masses. By comparison, the supermassive black hole at the center of ultracompact dwarf galaxy M60-UCD1 is five times larger than the Milky Way’s, with a mass of 21 million suns, and is a stunning 15 percent of the small galaxy’s total mass of 140 million suns.

“That is pretty amazing, given that the Milky Way is 500 times larger and more than 1,000 times heavier than the dwarf galaxy M60-UCD1,” Seth says.

“We believe this once was a very big galaxy with maybe 10 billion stars in it, but then it passed very close to the center of an even larger galaxy, M60, and in that process all the stars and

Permalink:http://unews.utah.edu/news_releases/smallest-known-galaxy-with-a-supermassive-black-hole/

Seth says ultracompact dwarf galaxy M60-UCD1 may be doomed, although he cannot say when because the dwarf galaxy’s orbit around M60 isn’t known. M60 is among the largest galaxies in what astronomers refer to as “the local universe.”

“Eventually, this thing may merge with the center of M60, which has a monster black hole in it, with 4.5 billion solar masses – more than 1,000 times bigger than the supermassive black hole in our galaxy. When that happens, the black hole we found in M60-UCD1 will merge with that monster black hole.”

Galaxy M60 also is pulling in another galaxy, named NGC4647. M60 is about 25 times more massive than NGC4647.i

Ultracompact Dwarf Galaxies & Supermassive Black Holes The study – conducted by Seth and 13 other astronomers – was funded by the National Science Foundation in the U.S., the German Research Foundation and the Gemini Observatory partnership, which includes the NSF and scientific agencies in Canada, Chile, Australia, Brazil and Argentina.

Ultracompact dwarf galaxies are among the densest star systems in the universe. M60UCD1 is the most massive of these systems now known, with a total of 140 million solar masses.

These dwarf galaxies range are less than a few hundred light years across (about 1,700 trillion miles wide), compared with our Milky Way’s 100,000-light-year diameter.

M60-UCD1 is roughly 54 million light years from Earth or about 320 billion billion miles.

But the dwarf galaxy is only 22,000 light years from the center of galaxy M60, which “is closer than the sun is to the center of the Milky Way,” Seth says.

Astronomers have debated whether these dwarf galaxies are the stripped centers or nuclei of larger galaxies that were ripped away during collisions with other galaxies, or whether they formed like globular clusters – groups of perhaps 100,000 stars, all born together. There are about 200 globular clusters in our Milky Way, and some galaxies have thousands, Seth says.

The astronomers estimated the mass of the dwarf galaxy’s supermassive black hole by using the Gemini North telescope to measure the speed and motion of stars in orbit around it, and they showed the galaxy contains more mass than would be expected by the amount of starlight it emits. The stars at the center of M60-UCD1 move at about 230,000 mph – faster than stars would be expected to move without the black hole.

An alternate theory is that

M60-UCD1 doesn’t have a supermassive black hole, but instead is populated by a lot of massive, dim stars.

But Seth says the research team’s observations with the Gemini North telescope and analysis of archival photos by the Hubble Space Telescope revealed that mass was concentrated in the galaxy’s center, indicating the presence of a supermassive black hole. That suggests that M60UCD1 is the stripped nucleus of what once was a much larger galaxy, and that other ultracompact dwarf galaxies also may harbor huge black holes, Seth says.

The galaxy that was stripped and left M60-UCD1 as a remnant was about 10 billion solar masses, or about onefifth the mass of the Milky Way, Seth says.

The astronomers studied M60-UCD1 because they had published a paper last year showing the galaxy was an Xray source and was extremely dense. The X-ray emissions suggest gas is being sucked into the black hole at a rate typical of supermassive black holes in much larger galaxies.

Research Facilities & Team The Gemini Observatory is an international collaboration with two identical 8-meter telescopes: Gemini North on the island of Hawaii and Gemini South on Cerro Pachón in central Chile.

Together, the telescopes cover both hemispheres of the sky. The telescopes incorporate technologies that allow large, relatively thin and actively controlled mirrors

to collect and focus infrared light from space, eliminating the blurring effects of the atmosphere and enabling the observations for the new study. The observatory is managed by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy under a cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation.

The Hubble Space Telescope was built by NASA and the European Space Agency and is operated by the Space Telescope Science Institute.

Seth conducted the study with University of Utah physics and astronomy postdoctoral researcher Mark den Brok and with astronomers Remco van den Bosch of the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, Germany; Steffen Mieske of the European Southern Observatory, Santiago, Chile; Holger Baumgardt of the University of Queensland, Australia; Jay Strader of Michigan State University; Nadine Neumayer and Michel Hilker of the European Southern Observatory, Garching, Germany; Igor Chilingarian of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Moscow State University; Richard McDermid and Lee Spitler of Asutralia’s Macquarie University; Jean Brodie of the University of California, Santa Cruz; Matthias J. Frank of the University of Heidelberg, Germany; and Jonelle Walsh of the University of Texas, Austin.

A video simulation of galaxy M60’s gravity stripping M60UCD1’s outer parts is here: http://vimeo.com/105370891.

Credit: Holger Baumgardt, University of Queensland. •

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dark matter in the outer part of the galaxy got torn away and became part of M60,” he says. “That was maybe as much as 10 billion years ago.

We don’t know.”

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UNIVERSITY PRESENTS THE

PHYSICS OF FREESTYLE

K-12 Students Learn How Athletes Use Physics to Perform The program includes the following presentations:

“Avalanche Safety” by Scott Marland Scott Marland is chairman of the National Ski Patrol and an expert on ski safety and backcountry rescue techniques. His presentation explored the forces that cause avalanches, safety basics and demonstrations using rescue equipment, including inflating an avalanche backpack airbag on stage in seconds.

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niversity of Utah‘s College of Science presented its first Physics of Freestyle event on March 27, 2:30-5 p.m., at the Eccles Center in Park City, 1750 Kearns Blvd. The program, which explores the science behind skiing and snowboarding, is geared toward K-12 students in the Park City School District but is free and open to the public.

“From athletes performing tricks on a giant trampoline to students getting involved with iterative physics demonstrations that show the physics of freestyle, this interactive show will bring science to life and demonstrate the applied physics of sports,” said Rich Ingebretsen, professor and associate dean of student affairs in the College of Science at the U and part of the organizing committee.

The 90-minute program explored backcountry and avalanche safety, ski racing, aerials and slopestyle skiing. Prior to the presentation, students had an hour to meet athletes and industry experts and learn about a variety of related academic programs at the U. “We jumped at the opportunity to partner on this incredibly dynamic presentation,” said Abby McNulty, executive director of the Park City Education Foundation. “We hope that exposing students to science in this way will encourage them to become engaged in STEM disciplines.”

Adam Beehler (left) & Rich Ingebretsen (right) demonstrate conservation of angular momentum.

Photo Credit: Sara Beehler

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More information is available here: http://science.utah. edu/events/physicsfreestyle.php

“Ski Racing” by Erik Schlopy Erik Schlopy is a former Olympian and coach for the U.S. Ski Team. Schlopy’s presentation proved that it’s not just a figure of speech to say ski racers “have it down to a science.” His segment investigated the role of friction in achieving speed. Student volunteers experienced the power of friction firsthand as they tried to pull apart two phone books held together by the friction of their overlapping pages.

“Freestyle Aerial Skiing” by Trace Worthington Trace Worthington is a two-time Olympian, member of the U.S. Ski Hall of Fame and TV host. Worthington brought athletes to perform aerial tricks on an Olympic-size trampoline while University physicist Adam Beehler explained the fundamental physics concepts behind each move.

“Slopestyle Skiing” by Fly Freestyle Fly Freestyle is the resident freestyle program of the Utah Olympic Park that offers winter sport development programs designed for youth. Fly Freestyle coaches demonstrated a variety of tricks seen at the X Games and Olympics that showcase angular momentum - how athletes carry momentum through their tricks.

They also explained how athletes learn to perform these tricks by breaking them down into steps and explaining the science behind them. •

Permalink: http://unews.utah.edu/news_releases/u-presents-the-physics-of-freestyle/

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Helping the Public Reach for the Stars

Tabitha Buehler, Assistant Professor (Lecturer). Coordinator of the new outreach center and head the AstronomUrs outreach team, next to one of five Meade 10” LX200 ACF telescopes also available at the South Physics Observatory.

Students Paul Ricketts (left) and Annie Cherkaev (right) do some solar observing on the Meade 14” LX200 GPS telescope, also housed at the South Physics Observatory, Photo Credit: University of Utah

U Opens Astronomy Center for Star Parties & More

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he University of Utah has a new location for people who enjoy outer space. The Astronomy Outreach Center began operating at 7 p.m. Wednesday, June 11 with an open house, a brief lecture and a party to observe the sun and stars.

The university’s Department of Physics & Astronomy has held star parties for years on the roof of the South Physics Building.

The new space- located in room 408 below the rooftop observatory- finally provides a permanent, roughly 30-seat gathering place for astronomy presentations and demonstrations for the public, K-12 students, scouting and community groups and private and public star parties.

“In the past, when a school group would want to come to us and have a presentation or activity, we would have to search around for a classroom not in use at a given time. This often wouldn’t work,” says astronomer Tabitha Buehler, coordinator of the new center and head of a university astronomy outreach group known as the AstronomUrs. “Now we have a space that is dedicated to public outreach, so we can accommodate more groups,” says Buehler, who is also an assistant professor-lecturer in physics and astronomy. “One responsibility of the university is to reach out to people and educate them about the different exciting things up here.”

The idea for the Astronomy Outreach Center began when former physics and astronomy chair Dave Kieda, now dean of the U’s Graduate School, and Harold Simpson, the department’s facilities director, were devising new ways to improve the department and get it more involved with the community, Buehler says.

The center also will be the base for remote-controlled operations of the university’s Willard L. Eccles Observatory at the 9,600-foot level on Frisco Peak in southern Utah.

The June 11 opening featured public use of solar telescopes at 7 p.m., a brief presentation about the sun at 8:40 p.m. followed by a public star party. This event was attended by about 100 members of the community.

To request and schedule a public astronomy event - either at the Astronomy Outreach Center or off-campus - schools, community organizations and other groups should email the center at observatory@physics.utah.edu.

To learn more about the South Physics Observatory, visit their website at: www.physics.utah.edu/observatory •

Permalink: http://unews.utah.edu/news_releases/helping-the-public-reach-for-the-stars/

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ALUMNI

SPOTLIGHT TOM SAXTON Tom Saxton, speaking at the opening of the DC Quick Charge stations along US Route 2 between Seattle and Wenatchee on June 16th, 2012.

Copyright Washington State Department of Transportation.

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om Saxton, current Chief Science Officer of Plug In America, is a passionate advocate for the use of plug-in electric vehicles (EVs) to reduce our economic dependence on the foreign oil market, associated risks to national security, urban air pollution, and our contribution to global climate change. Tom has spent much of the last decade promoting public education of electric vehicles and their benefits. In addition to his EV work, Tom and his wife Cathy are also prominent figures in the FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) in their home state of Washington. With a background in physics and mathematics, Tom is well prepared to adapt to various challenges that life throws at him. In many ways, Tom embodies the importance of having fun and making use of sustainable science every day.

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In October 2014, Tom visited the University of Utah. To watch his talk, visit: http://youtu.be/OMqi2aj5apE

Raised in Murray, Utah, Tom Saxton was a science-minded student. He went to the University of Utah, where he became acquainted with Professor Gale Dick, physicist and co-founder of Save Our Canyons. “[Gale Dick] was a huge influence, not only teaching me physics but also how to be a better student.”

Tom graduated Magna Cum Laude in 1983, receiving an Honors Bachelor’s degree in both math and physics. In 1987, after having taken up programming as a hobby, Tom began working at a software company near the University of Utah, where he realized he could make a living from writing software.

After earning his Master’s degree at the University of Utah, he moved to the state of Washington, working at Microsoft as a software design engineer. “Microsoft was making two of my favorite apps for the Macintosh computer, Word and Excel, so it seemed like a great company to work for.” He received “Rookie of the Year” during his first year, and went on to lead an exceptional career with the company. There, he met and married his wife, Cathy, a fellow software design engineer. They were founding partners at Sucker Punch Productions, an entertainment production company, and worked there for about a year after leaving Microsoft. They were developing their first video game for the Nintendo64 platform. Tom is also the co-inventor of the popular “Fish” screen saver, which became wildly popular when it came as part of the After Dark screensaver software in the mid-1990s under the company name “Tom & Ed’s Bogus Software.”

After leaving Sucker Punch, Tom and Cathy, now highly experienced software developers, formed Idle Loop Software Design.

It is a software-based consulting firm that has created apps for the FIRST Robotics Competition, for grocery shopping lists, and for EV-related applications.

Amped Up Tom credits Cathy for first piquing his interest in electric vehicles in the late nineties. However, there were not many options available at the time. In 2006, after watching the documentary “Who Killed the Electric Car,” they were determined to support the production of electric vehicles. Cathy discovered Tesla Motors, and in November of that year put down a deposit on a Tesla Roadster, a car that did not exist yet. Tom was not fully convinced until he test drove one in 2007. “It was like stepping into the future, driving a car that felt and sounded like Tom and Cathy standing in front of their Toyota RAV4-EV the Starship Ennad Tesla Roadster. Photo by Tom & Cathy Saxton terprise jumping to warp speed. After that, I couldn’t wait to replace the [Acura] NSX with a car that’s much more fun, more convenient to fuel,

and far better for the environment.” In 2008, they purchased a used 2002 Toyota RAV-EV, one of five in the state of Washington. It quickly became their vehicle of choice. Then in 2009, their Tesla Roadster was delivered. In 2011, they purchased a Nissan LEAF, one of the most popular electric vehicles available today.

Seeing The Light “My physics education has been helpful as I’ve needed to evaluate how EVs compare to gas cars in energy use and impact on the environment, looking at things like well-to-wheel energy use and emissions and being able to understand and articulate the direct, personal advantages of an electric drivetrain. What is the impact of EVs on the electric grid? How do EVs compare to other alternative fuel vehicles, like natural gas and hydrogen fuel cells? These are all complex issues and having a solid science background is necessary to evaluating how these options fit together and how to advocate for the best use of these technologies as we work to get away from our dependence on the global oil market.”

In 1979, when Tom started college, a career in programming graphical applications for mainstream computers did not exist.

Studying math and physics taught Saxton to the logic and analysis to solve problems, which was advantageous for that career. He also learned how to model problems mathematically. “Writing correct code is a lot like proving a theorem, making sure every case is covered and handled correctly.”

A Good Ohm-en In 2003, the Saxtons became involved in the FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) after attending a talk by Segway inventor Dean Kamen. The concept behind FRC was to make a team sport out of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) education. “Our young people should learn that solving real engineering problems can be just as much fun - and far more rewarding than moving a ball around on a field.” The Saxtons founded and managed an FRC team Cathy and Tom in referee gear at the at Issaquah, the local high Oregon State University FRC Regional school, from 2003 to 2007.

Competition on April 5, 2014. Photo by Jason Marr After 2007, they took on other roles, and got involved in other FIRST programs: the FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC) and the FIRST Lego League (FLL).

The Saxtons are well known at competitions, having been inspectors, referees, judges, and mentors for all three programs.

Furthermore, both have written software for FIRST that has greatly improved the overall organization and efficiency of the competitions. Currently, Tom serves as the state of Washington’s chief head referee for the FTC program. •

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Spark of Genius

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Adam Beehler’s Demolicious Physics presents:

LEAKAGE ASER

Lecture Demonstration Specialist beehler@physics.utah.edu An optical table, pictured here, is commonly used in research labs for optics experiments. These tables typically consist of an arrangement of adjustable light sources (lasers), lenses, and prisms.

Lasers are cool! What did we ever do before they were invented? They sure make doing lecture demonstrations easier! Like most things that are developed for good purposes though, there are some things of which we should be made aware. This article focuses on the dangerous infrared (IR) radiation that many common laser pointers emit.

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length, which is the familiar green color wavelength of 532 nm that we see exit the laser pointer (see diagram from Chris Chen, revised by K. Skollingsberg). Unfortunately, many laser pointers on the market (especially less expensive ones) are not aligned properly and allow invisible and potentially dangerous IR to “leak” out. Other laser pointers may not even have an IR filter installed, thus also allowing IR to escape. Often, this IR leakage is more powerful than the intended laser light that we can see.

I wanted to know if any of my green laser pointers were leaking IR, and if so, could I detect it? Assuming at least one of them did leak IR, how could I easily go about verifying this problem?

I took one of my green laser pointers and ended up shining it through a diffraction grating (“rainbow glasses”) in order to separate the green light from any IR light, since they diffract at different angles due to their different wavelengths. You can see my simple setup in the picture, as well as the spreading out of the light due to diffraction. This allowed me to separate any emitted IR light from the visible green light, but I still could not see the IR. Fortunately, IR is visible to some types of cameras.

Using my camera’s night vision mode allowed me to clearly see the much more intense IR spots, as shown in the picture. •

Most common laser pointers are classified as emitting less than 5 milliWatts of power and can be considered safe with responsible use; however, one can quite easily obtain more powerful laser pointers. These need to be used with more than a little caution. Many people wield laser pointers around far too casually. Stray reflections can (and have) caused serious damage to people’s eyes. One of the biggest culprits for this damage is the unnoticed IR radiation quite often emitted in addition to the intended laser light. Since we only see the visible wavelengths, most people are totally unaware of possible other wavelengths of invisible light being emitted.

A common green laser pointer actually displays the green light we see after a series of IR producing wavelengths are first created. The laser pointer’s batteries actually power a diode pumped solid state (DPSS) laser module, which emits an IR wavelength of 808 nanometers (nm). This is then optically coupled to a crystal of neodymium-doped yttrium orthovanadate (Nd:YVO4), which itself emits 1064 nm (also IR) light into a frequency-doubling crystal of potassium titanyl phosphate (KTP). This crystal finally generates light of half of that waveTo learn more, visit: http://www.physics.utah.edu/spectrum

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hy are lasers so awesome in the first place? They are great because they produce collimated, coherent, and monochromatic light, all in a convenient and inexpensive package. Most likely it is one of these characteristics that draws you to use one yourself, whether you realize it or not. Collimated light means that the laser beam is narrow and does not spread out much - like a flashlight does. Coherent means that different parts of the beam are related to each other in phase. In other words, the photons are in synch with each other. Monochromatic means the light is essentially just one specific wavelength of color.

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USING SCIENCE TO UNDERSTAND HUMAN VALUES

Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson.

Photo Credit: Tanner Humanities Center

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strophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson gave the 2014 Tanner Lecture on Human Values, sponsored by the University of Utah’s Tanner Humanities Center, on Wednesday, March 26, 7:00 p.m. in Kingsbury Hall.

Tyson’s sold-out lecture, “Science as a Way of Knowing,” was broadcast live to the Marriott Library’s Gould Auditorium, 295 S. 1500 E., the Social and Behavioral Science Lecture Hall, 392 S. 1530 E. and the Social Work Building Auditorium, 395 S. 1500 E. on the U campus. Broadcasts were free and open to the public.

In his lecture, Tyson made the case for science as a way to understand human values and explored how the scientific process is critical for comprehending the world and universe. He argued it is the most rigorous means to discover elusive answers to questions large and small.

“Dr. Tyson is a key voice for promoting scientific exploration as a vital component of humanity’s drive for understanding,” said Bob Goldberg, professor of history and director of the Tanner Humanities Center. “As a scientist, scholar and cultural force, he consistently pushes us to revitalize our shared sense of wonder.”

Tyson is the director of the Hayden Planetarium and a member of the Department of Astrophysics at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. His research interests are primarily related to the structure of the Milky Way Galaxy and the formation of stars, supernovas and dwarf galaxies. He directs the scientific research efforts of the Hayden Planetarium and guides its educational outreach, working closely with the museum’s

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Department of Education. Tyson also serves as a visiting research scientist in the Department of Astrophysics at Princeton University.

In addition to dozens of professional publications, Tyson has written and continues to write, for the public. From 1995 to 2005, he was a monthly essayist for Natural History magazine. Tyson’s books include his memoir “The Sky is Not the Limit: Adventures of an Urban Astrophysicist” and “Origins: Fourteen Billion Years of Cosmic Evolution,” co-written with Donald Goldsmith. “Origins” is the companion book to a PBS-NOVA 4-part mini-series, in which Tyson served as on-camera host. He also hosted the PBS-NOVA spinoff program Science Now, and the reboot of the landmark television series Cosmos, that aired on the Fox network.

About the Tanner Lecture on Human Values The Tanner Lecture on Human Values is a distinguished series that stimulates educational and scientific discussions relating to human values. The lectures are held annually at Harvard University, Yale University, Princeton University, University of Michigan, Stanford University, University of California Berkeley, University of Utah, University of Oxford and the University of Cambridge.

For more information, contact the Tanner Humanities Center at 801-581-7989 or online at http://tannerlectures.utah.edu •

Permalink: http://unews.utah.edu/news_releases/using-science-to-understand-human-values/

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Francis Halzen, a physicist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and principal investigator of IceCube, the world’s largest neutrino observatory.

Photo Credit: Bryce Richter, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Ice Fishing for Neutrinos U

niversity of Wisconsin physicist Francis Halzen spoke about “Ice Fishing for Neutrinos” during the University of Utah’s Frontiers of Science Lecture held on Wednesday, Oct. 23 at The Leonardo museum, 209 East 500 South in Salt Lake City.

Halzen and colleagues from around the world melted 86 holes more than 1.5 miles deep into the Antarctic icecap to build IceCube, an astronomical observatory that detects lightweight particles called neutrinos, which are generated by cataclysmic phenomena such as those associated with black holes in space.

IceCube is the world’s largest neutrino observatory. Basketballsized light detectors were lowered into each hole on a cable to discover high-energy neutrinos from space as they zip through the ice. The detectors are sensitive to shimmering blue light emitted when neutrinos hit water molecules in the ice.

Neutrinos are nearly massless particles that come from the sun, radioactive decay, cosmic rays and violent events such as exploding stars, gamma ray bursts

or black holes’ immense gravity sucking in stars. Neutrinos can travel at nearly the speed of light from the edge of the universe without being detected by magnetic fields or absorbed by matter. They travel in a straight line from their source, which makes them excellent messengers of information about the object or events from which they originate.

The team already has detected more than 300,000 neutrinos, Halzen says. These neutrinos are like fingerprints that help the researchers understand the objects and phenomena that produce neutrinos.

In “Ice Fishing for Neutrinos,” Halzen helped attendees take a first look at the sky in “neutrino light,” which he believes may change the way we look at the universe.

Halzen is principal investigator for the IceCube project and a professor of physics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is a theoretician studying problems at the interface of particle physics, astrophysics and cosmology, and has been involved in research at the South Pole since the 1980s.

The Frontiers of Science Lecture Series is sponsored by BioFire Diagnostics Inc., the University of Utah’s College of Science and College of Mines and Earth Sciences.

Lectures are free and open to the public.

Visit www.science.utah.edu for more information. •

The IceCube observatory in Antarctica detects nearly weightless neutrinos as they zip through the ice, setting off flashes as they hit water molecules. Neutrinos are generated by black holes, exploding stars and other violent events in space.

Photo Credit: Sven Lidstrom, National Science Foundation

Permalink: http://unews.utah.edu/news_releases/ice-fishing-for-neutrinos/

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Nearest Bright ‘Hypervelocity Star’ Found

Speeding at One Million MPH, It Probes Black Hole & Dark Matter

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University of Utah-led team discovered a “hypervelocity star” that is the closest, second-brightest and among the largest of 20 found so far. Speeding at more than One million mph, the star may provide clues about the supermassive black hole at the center of our Milky Way and the halo of mysterious “dark matter” surrounding the galaxy, astronomers say.

“The hypervelocity star tells us a lot about our galaxy - especially its center and the dark matter halo,” says Zheng Zheng, an assistant professor of physics and astronomy and lead author of the study published recently in Astrophysical Journal Letters by a team of U.S. and Chinese astronomers.

“We can’t see the dark matter halo, but its gravity acts on the star,” Zheng says. “We gain insight from the star’s trajectory and velocity, which are affected by gravity from different parts of our galaxy.”

In the past decade, astronomers have found about 20 of these odd stars. Hypervelocity stars appear to be remaining pairs of binary stars that once orbited each other and got too close to the supermassive black hole at the galaxy’s center.

Intense gravity from the black hole - which has the mass of 4 million stars like our sun - captures one star so it orbits the hole closely, and slingshots the other on a trajectory headed beyond the galaxy.

Zheng and his colleagues discovered the new hypervelocity star while conducting other research into stars with the Large Sky Area Multi-Object Fiber Spectroscopic Telescope, or LAMOST, located at the Xinglong Observing Station of the National Astronomical Observatories of China, about 110 miles northeast of Beijing.

LAMOST boasts a 13.1-foot-wide aperture and houses 4,000 optical fibers, which capture “spectra” or light-wavelength

An astrophysicist-artist’s conception of a hypervelocity star speeding away from the visible part of a spiral galaxy like our Milky Way and into the invisible halo of mysterious “dark matter” that surrounds the galaxy’s visible portions. University of Utah researcher Zheng Zheng and colleagues in the U.S. and China discovered the closest bright hypervelocity star yet found.

Photo Credit: Ben Bromley, University of Utah

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Permalink: http://unews.utah.edu/news_releases/nearest-bright-hypervelocity-star-found/

says that when the halo of dark matter is added, the estimated diameter is roughly 1 million light years, or 5,880 quadrillion miles.

LAMOST’s main purpose is to study the distribution of stars in the Milky Way, and thus the galaxy’s structure. The new hypervelocity star - named LAMOST-HVS1 - stood out because its speed is almost three times the usual star’s 500,000-mph pace through space: 1.4 million mph relative to our solar system. Its speed is about 1.1 million mph relative to the speed of the center of the Milky Way.

Scientists know dark matter halos surround galaxies because the way their gravity affects the motion of a galaxy’s visible stars and gas clouds. Researchers say only about five percent of the universe is made of visible matter, 27 percent is invisible and yet-unidentified dark matter and 68 percent is even more mysterious dark energy, responsible for accelerating the expansion of the universe. By traveling through the dark matter halo, the new hypervelocity star’s speed and trajectory can reveal something about the mysterious halo.

Despite being the closest hypervelocity star, it nonetheless is 249 quadrillion miles from Earth. (In U.S. usage, a quadrillion is 1,000,000,000,000,000 miles or 10 to the 15th power, or one million billion).

“If you’re looking at a herd of cows, and one starts going 60 mph, that’s telling you something important,” says Ben Bromley, a University of Utah physics and astronomy professor who was not involved with Zheng’s study. “You may not know at first what that is. But for hypervelocity stars, one of their mysteries is where they come from - and the massive black hole in our galaxy is implicated.”

The Lowdown on a Fast & Loose Star A cluster of known hypervelocity stars, including the new one, is located above the disk of our Milky Way galaxy, and their distribution in the sky suggests they originated near the galaxy’s center, Zheng says.

The diameter of the visible part of our spiral-shaped galaxy is at least 100,000 light years, or 588 quadrillion miles. Zheng

Our solar system is roughly 26,000 light years or 153 quadrillion miles from the center of the galaxy - more than halfway out from the center of the visible disk.

“The hypervelocity star tells us a lot about our galaxy - especially its center and the dark matter halo” By comparison, the new hypervelocity star is about 62,000 light years or 364 quadrillion miles from the galactic center, beyond as well as above the galaxy’s visible disk. It is about 42,400 light years from Earth, or about 249 quadrillion miles away.

are smaller than HD 271791, which was discovered in 2008 and is 11 times more massive than the sun. As seen from Earth, only HD 271791 is brighter than LAMOSTHVS1, Zheng says.

The newly discovered hypervelocity star also outshines our own sun: It is four times hotter and about 3,400 times brighter (if viewed from the same distance). But compared with our 4.6-billion-year-old sun, the newly discovered LAMOST-HVS1 is a youngster born only 32 million years ago, based on its speed and position, Zheng says.

Is there any chance that the supermassive black hole might hurl a hypervelocity star in Earth’s direction one day? Not really, Zheng says. First, astrophysicists estimate only one hypervelocity star is launched every 100,000 years. Second, possible trajectories of stars near the supermassive black hole don’t forebode any danger, should any of them become a hypervelocity star in the future.

Collaborating Institutions & Funding

As far as that is - the star has a magnitude of about 13, or 630 times fainter than stars that barely can be seen with the naked eye - it nevertheless “is the nearest, second-brightest, and one of the three most massive hypervelocity stars discovered so far,” Zheng says.

Zheng conducted the study with researchers from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, N.Y.; National Optical Astronomy Observatory, Tucson, Ariz.; National Astronomical Observatories, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing and Nanjing; Spitzer Science Center, Pasadena, Calif.; University of California Observatories-Lick Observatory, University of California, Santa Cruz; Georgia State University, Atlanta; Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, Batavia, Ill.; and University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei.

It is nine times more massive than our sun, which makes it very similar to another hypervelocity star known as HE 0437-5439, discovered in 2005, and both

The study was funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation and the National Development and Reform Commission of China. •

Zheng Zheng, an assistant professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Utah, led a team of American and Chinese scientists who discovered the closest bright hypervelocity star of 20 yet found. Scientists believe each hypervelocity star began as part of a binary pair of stars near the center of our Milky Way galaxy, where extreme gravity from a supermassive black hole sucked in one star in the pair and, like a bolo, simultaneously hurled the other star -- a new hypervelocity star -- toward the edge of the galaxy.

Photo Credit: Lee J. Siegel, University of Utah

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readings from as many as 4,000 stars at once. A star’s spectrum reveals information about its velocity, temperature, luminosity and size.

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A Hotspot for

Powerful Cosmic Rays Physicists a Step Closer to Finding Mysterious Sources

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n observatory run by the University of Utah found a “hotspot” beneath the Big Dipper emitting a disproportionate number of the highest-energy cosmic rays.

The discovery moves physics another step toward identifying the mysterious sources of the most energetic particles in the universe.

“This puts us closer to finding out the sources - but no cigar yet,” says University of Utah physicist Gordon Thomson, spokesman and co-principal investigator for the $25 million Telescope Array cosmic ray observatory west of Delta, Utah. It is the Northern Hemisphere’s largest cosmic ray detector.

“All we see is a blob in the sky, and inside this blob there is all sorts of stuff - various types of objects - that could be the source” of the powerful cosmic rays, he adds. “Now we know where to look.”

A new study identifying a hotspot in the northern sky for ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays has been accepted for publication by Astrophysical Journal Letters.

Thomson says many astrophysicists suspect ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays are generated by active galactic nuclei, or AGNs, in which material is sucked into a supermassive black hole at the center of galaxy, while other material is spewed away in a beam-like jet known as a blazar. Another popular possibility is that the highest-energy cosmic rays come from some supernovas (exploding stars) that emit gamma rays bursts.

Lower-energy cosmic rays come from the sun, other stars and exploding stars, but the source or sources of the most energetic cosmic rays has been a decades-long mystery.

The study was conducted by 125 researchers in the Telescope

In this time-lapse photo, stars appear to rotate above the Middle Drum facility of the Telescope Array, a $25 million cosmic ray observatory that sprawls across the desert west of Delta, Utah. Physicists from the University of Utah, University of Tokyo and elsewhere report the observatory has detected a “hotspot” in the northern sky emitting a disproportionate number of ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays, which are the most energetic particles in the universe. The discovery of a hotspot is a step in the long quest to discover the source or sources of the most powerful cosmic rays.

Photo Credit: Ben Stokes, University of Utah

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Permalink: http://unews.utah.edu/news_releases/a-hotspot-for-powerful-cosmic-rays/

Utah’s Fly’s Eye observatory at the U.S. Army’s Dugway Proving Ground - a predecessor to the Telescope Array. That cosmic ray particle carried energy of 300 billion billion electron volts (3 times 10 to the 20th power).

Particles from Beyond Our Galaxy

The Telescope Array uses two methods to detect and measure cosmic rays. At three locations spread across the desert, sets of mirrors called fluorescence detectors watch the skies for faint blue flashes created when incoming cosmic rays hit nitrogen gas molecules in the atmosphere.

Cosmic rays, discovered in 1912, really are particles, not rays: either bare protons (hydrogen nuclei) or the centers or nuclei of heavier elements such as carbon, oxygen, nitrogen or iron. Thomson and many physicists believe ultrahighenergy cosmic rays are just protons, though some suspect they include helium and nitrogen nuclei.

Besides active galactic nuclei and gamma ray emitters, possible sources include noisy radio galaxies, shock waves from colliding galaxies and even some exotic hypothetical sources such as the decay of so-called “cosmic strings” or of massive particles left over from the big bang that formed the universe 13.8 billion years ago.

Ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays are considered those above about 1 billion billion (1 times 10 to the 18th power) electron volts. If an ultrahigh-energy cosmic ray could penetrate the atmosphere and hit someone in the head, that single subatomic particle would feel like a fastpitch baseball to the skull.

Ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays come from beyond our galaxy, the Milky Way, which is about 100,000 light years wide (588 million billion miles). But 90 percent of them come from within 300 million light years (1,764 billion billion miles) because powerful cosmic rays from greater distances are greatly weakened by interaction with cosmic microwave background radiation - the faint afterglow of the big bang, says Charlie Jui, a University of Utah professor of physics and astronomy.

The most powerful or highest-energy cosmic ray ever measured was detected over Utah in 1991 by the University of

Those collisions create a cascade of other collisions with atmospheric gases, resulting in “air showers” of particles detected by 523 table-like scintillation detectors spaced over 300 square miles of desert.

In the new study, 507 of the scintillation detectors were used to study the ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays, says John Matthews, a University of Utah research professor of physics and astronomy. The fluorescence detectors helped determine the energy and chemical makeup of the cosmic ray particles.

A Cosmic Ray Hotspot The new study by the Telescope Array research team looked at ultrahighenergy cosmic rays above 57 billion billion electron volts (5.7 times 10 to the 19th power). Thomson says that high cutoff was picked because the highest-energy cosmic rays are bent the least by magnetic fields in space - bending that obscures the directions from which they came and thus the directions of their sources.

These very powerful cosmic rays were recorded by the Telescope Array between May 11, 2008, and May 4, 2013. During the five

years, only 72 such cosmic rays were detected, confirmed and analyzed for their energy and source direction.

But 19 of those cosmic rays were detected coming from the direction of the hotspot, compared with only 4.5 that would have been expected if the cosmic rays came randomly from all parts of the sky, Jui says.

The hotspot is a 40-degree-diameter circle representing 6 percent of the northern sky. “We have a quarter of our events in that circle instead of 6 percent,” Jui says.

“All we see is a blob in the sky, and inside this blob there is all sorts of stuff various types of objects - that could be the source of the powerful cosmic rays. Now we know where to look.”

Thomson says the hotspot is centered in the southwest corner of the constellation Ursa Major, which includes the arrangement of stars known as the Big Dipper.

“The hotspot is a couple of hand widths below the Big Dipper’s handle,” he says. continued on next page

This map of the northern sky shows cosmic ray concentrations, with a “hotspot” with a disproportionate number of cosmic rays shown as the bright red and yellow spot, upper right. An international team of physicists using the University of Utahoperated Telescope Array near Delta, Utah, say their discovery of the hotspot should narrow the search for the mysterious source or sources of ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays, which carry more energy than any other known particle in the universe.

Photo Credit: K. Kawata, University of Tokyo Institute for Cosmic Ray Research.

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Array project, including Thomson and 31 other University of Utah physicists, plus 94 other scientists from the University of Tokyo and 28 other research institutions in Japan, the United States, South Korea, Russia and Belgium.

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More precisely - although it is not visible through regular telescopes - the hotspot is centered at right ascension 146.6 degrees and declination 43.2 degrees.

The hotspot is near the “supergalactic plane” - the rather flattened Virgo supercluster of galaxies. Our Milky Way galaxy is on the outskirts of the supercluster.

The odds that the hotspot is a statistical fluke rather than real are only 1.4 in 10,000, the researchers calculated.

Observations by the Pierre Auger cosmic ray observatory in Argentina provide evidence for a weaker Southern Hemisphere hotspot. If that proves real, Thomson says cosmic rays in the northern and southern hotspots must come from different sources.

Expanding the Search Jui says a separate study now in progress suggests the distribution of ultrahighenergy cosmic rays in the northern sky is consistent with the “large-scale structure” of the universe, which means the cosmic rays tend to come from areas of the universe where matter is concentrated in clusters and superclusters of galaxies.

“It tells us there is at least a good chance these are coming from matter we can see as opposed to a different class of mechanisms where you are producing these particles with exotic processes” such cosmic strings, he says. “It points us to the next logical step in the search: building a larger detector that collects four times as many [ultrahigh-energy cosmic ray] events per year. With more events, we are more likely to see structure in that hotspot blob and that may point us toward the real sources.”

Physicists want to expand the size and thus sensitivity of the Telescope Array, doubling the number of table-shaped scintillation detectors to about 1,100 but spacing them farther from each other and thus quadrupling the area across

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which they are scattered. All the land for the expansion is located north and south of the present observatory and is owned by the federal Bureau of Land Management and the Utah School and Institutional Trust Lands Administration, Thomson says.

He adds that researchers hope to obtain $6.4 million needed for the expansion from U.S. and Japanese governments later this year, then finish the expansion in 2016.

University of Utah physicists Gordon Thomson, Charlie Jui and John Matthews discuss the Telescope Array cosmic ray observatory’s discovery of a “hotspot” – located beneath the Big Dipper in the northern sky – emitting an unusual number of ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays. The source of these rays, which are the most energetic particles in the universe, remains unknown, but the new finding will help narrow the search.

Photo Credit: Lee J. Siegel, University of Utah

The Telescope Array, built for $17 million, started operations in 2008 and later was upgraded, bringing the cost to about $25 million, of which Japan financed about two-thirds and the United States about one-third, mainly through the University of Utah, Matthews says.

Note: This release uses the U.S. meaning of “billion:” 1,000,000,000.

Funding Sources, Utah Co-Authors & Co-Author Institutions Funding for the study came from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, University of Tokyo Institute for Cosmic Ray Research, National Science Foundation, National Research Foundation of Korea, Russian Academy of Sciences, Free University of Brussels, state of Utah, University of Utah and the foundations of Ezekiel R. and Edna Wattis Dumke, Willard L. Eccles, and George S. and Dolores Doré Eccles.

In addition to Thomson, Jui, Matthews and Dean of Science Pierre Sokolsky, University of Utah researchers who coauthored the study are: Rasha Abbasi, Tareq Abu-Zayyad, Monica Allen, Robyn Anderson, Elliot Barcikowski, John Belz, Doug Bergman, Adam Blake, Bob Cady,

Bill Hanlon, Dmitri Ivanov, JiHee Kim, Jian Lan, Jon Paul Lundquist, Isaac Myers, Doug Rodriguez, Amanda Sampson, Priti Shah, Jeremy Smith, Wayne Springer, Ben Stokes, Sean Stratton, Tom Stroman, Stan Thomas, Gina Vasiloff, Tiffany Wong, Rhett Zollinger and Zach Zundel.

In addition to the University of Utah and University of Tokyo, researchers coauthoring the study work in the following countries and institutions: - Japan: Tokyo Institute of Technology, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Kinki University, Osaka City University, Kanagawa University, University of Yamanashi, Saitama University, RIKEN (Institute of Physical and Chemical Research), Tokyo City University, Waseda University, Chiba University, KEK (High Energy Accelerator Research Organization), Kochi University, Ritsumeikan University, Hiroshima City University, National Institute of Radiological Science and Ehime University.

- South Korea: Ewha Womans University, Hanyang University, Yonsei University, Sungkyunkwan University and Chungnam National University.

- United States: Rutgers University.

- Russia: Russian Academy of Sciences.

- Belgium: Free University of Brussels (Université libre de Bruxelles). •

The Rocky Mountain Conference for

Undergraduate Women in Physics

by Alexis Lagan, u0719751@utah.edu

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his year has had a unique energy to it. Maybe it was due to the exciting things happening on campus.

Perhaps it began in January, when the University of Utah had a surge of Women from all over the nation meeting together for the National Undergraduate Women in Physics Conference. The University of Utah was this year’s host for the Rocky Mountain region. The conference was filled with great speakers and inspiring discussion panels from familiar faces and from women across the country.

in science, she simply said herself. She followed up by saying that due to the stereotypes she had heard all her life of challenges and struggles she will face because she is female, she didn’t have enough self-confidence to persevere. When she realized and let go of those negative thoughts, she was able to overcome anything she set her mind to, even when those around her believed otherwise. She set the bar high for women in science to reach towards, but gave them the steps to be able to strive towards it.

The key note speech, which was addressed over a webcam to conferences meeting everywhere, was given by Ms. Debra Fischer. Ms. Fischer is an astronomy professor at Yale University. She spoke on her research and discoveries in exoplanets, an ever expanding and enthralling area of astronomy.

She spoke with confidence of her knowledge in her field and grace. When asked what her greatest challenge was as a woman

A favored portion of the conference was the poster presentation. It was a great opportunity to see what many of the other students were doing in their fields of study. There were great presentations from all over including University of Colorado, University of British Columbia, and California State University. Utah was well represented having four students from the University of Utah with great presentations. There were also great workshops and question panels for the women attending to get some much needed advice from peers, professors, and grad students.

They provided insight for the attendees on how to look for and apply for REU programs and how important undergraduate research is when applying for graduate programs.

Something noted that was refreshing were the male attendees. Although the title is “Women in Science”, this annual conference does not discourage men from attending and taking part in the celebration of successful and confident women in the science fields traditionally held by males. They were very respectful to the women, and the women had the same respect for the men. No one dominates or discriminates for any reason, a lifestyle every one seeks.

The conference certainly brought a renewed and bright energy to campus. It helped begin the year with a spring in the step of all those who attended and spread to all the campuses of the students that attended. This vigor still carries through us as we step into this new academic year.

Women in Physics and Astronomy (WomPA) strives to foster a sense of community among women in the Department of Physics & Astronomy, encourage networking and mentoring across disciplines and career stages, educate ourselves and others about issues important to the advancement of women in STEM fields, and increase the visibility of women in physics and astronomy.

To learn more, visit their website at: www.physics.utah.edu/~wompa •

Azucena Yzquierdo from California State University, Channel Islands presents her poster to Sophia Dimas from the University of Utah, at the The Rocky Mountain Conference for Undergraduate Women in Physics.

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Women in Physics & Astronomy (WomPA)

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WATCHING HIV BUD

FROM CELLS

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Study Shows Last-Minute Role of Protein Named ALIX

niversity of Utah researchers devised a way to watch newly forming AIDS virus particles emerging or “budding” from infected human cells without interfering with the process. The method shows a protein named ALIX gets involved during the final stages of virus replication, not earlier, as was believed previously.

doctoral research associate in physics and astronomy; technician Jeff Ballew; and Michael Landesman, another postdoctoral fellow in physics and astronomy who previously worked in Sundquist’s biochemistry lab.

“We watch one cell at a time” and use a digital camera and special microscope to make movies and photos of the budding process, says virologist Saveez Saffarian, an assistant professor of physics and astronomy and senior author of a new study of HIV budding published online today in the Public Library of Science journal PLOS ONE.

Biochemical methods used for years involve collecting millions of viruses in lab glassware and doing different analyses to reveal the proteins that make up the virus - for example, by using antibodies that bind to certain proteins and using other proteins that make the first proteins fluoresce so they can be seen.

“We saw ALIX recruited into HIV budding for the first time,” he says. “Everybody knew ALIX is involved in HIV budding, but nobody could visualize the recruitment of ALIX into the process.”

The finding is “fundamental basic science” and has no immediate clinical significance for AIDS patients because ALIX is involved in too many critical functions like cell division to be a likely target for new medications, Saffarian says.

“We know a lot about the proteins that help HIV get out of the cell, but we do not know how they come together to help the virus get out, and it will be in the next 10 to 20 years that we will know a lot more of about this mechanism,” he adds. “Would this be a drug target? Would this be a part of biochemistry used in a therapeutic or biotech industry later on? I can’t tell you now. But if it was not because of our curiosity as a species, we would not have the technology we have today.”

The new study “is nice work,” says HIV budding expert Wes Sundquist, who advised Saffarian and is professor and co-chair of biochemistry at the University of Utah School of Medicine. “It’s of genuine interest for those of us who study the mechanism of HIV assembly.”

The study was funded by the National Science Foundation. Saffarian conducted the study with first author, Pei-I Ku, a University of Utah doctoral student in physics; Mourad Bendjennat, a post-

Watch, Don’t Touch, as HIV Buds

“You’re not doing it one virus at a time,” Saffarian says. “The problem with that is you don’t see the differences among similar viruses. And you do not see the timing of how various proteins come and go to help the virus get out of the cell.”

Other methods freeze or otherwise fix cells as new HIV particles emerge from them, and use an electron microscope to photograph those freeze-frame views of viral replication. Saffarian also uses technology known as “total internal reflection fluorescence microscopy,” which has been used to look at dynamic processes in cells.

The method was used before to make images of the budding of HIV and a similar horse virus, EIAV. But Saffarian says that study didn’t show ALIX getting involved in HIV budding, and had flaws that wrongly indicated the ALIX protein got involved quite early in the EIAV budding process, suggesting it did the same in HIV budding.

Ku, Saffarian and colleagues combined that microscopy method with an improved way of genetically linking a green fluorescent “label” to ALIX proteins in cloned cells so they can see the proteins without harming their normal function. The researchers tried numerous so-called “linkers” and found the one that let them see the ALIX proteins as they got involved in HIV budding but without disturbing the process.

Neither the microscope technology nor labeling proteins with

The top row shows, left to right, red-labeled protein molecules named Gag (shown here in black and white) assembling to form a new HIV particle that buds from a human cell grown in the laboratory. The bottom row shows the same process but with proteins named ALIX labeled green (also in black and white). Together, the two sequences (minutes and seconds shown at top) show how ALIX gets involved late in the process as Gag assembles to form a new particle of HIV, which causes AIDS. That finding of a new University of Utah study contradicts earlier research that had suggested ALIX gets involved at an earlier stage in the HIV budding process.

Photo Credit: Pei-I Ku, University of Utah

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Permalink: http://unews.utah.edu/news_releases/watching-hiv-bud-from-cells/

green fluorescence are new, but “what we did that is new is we linked these fluorescence proteins to ALIX using many different kinds of linkers” to find one that let the ALIX protein function properly, he adds.

The problem with earlier research - which indicated ALIX was involved early in the budding process - was that only one linker was used, and it impaired ALIX’ normal function, Saffarian says.

Looking at Proteins Forming HIV When HIV replicates inside a human cell, a protein named Gag makes up most of the new particles - there are 4,000 copies of the Gag protein in one HIV particle - although a bunch of other proteins get involved in the process, including ALIX, which stands for “alg-2 interacting protein x.” Experiments like those by Saffarian’s team use “virus-like particles,” which are HIV particles stripped of their genetic blueprint or genome so they don’t pose an infection risk in the lab.

“Virus-like particles maintain the same geometry and same budding process as infectious HIV,” Saffarian says.

During budding, Gag proteins assemble on the inside of a cell membrane - along with ALIX in the late stages - and form a new HIV particle that pushes its way out of the cell - the process by which AIDS in an infected person spreads from cell to cell.

To look at the budding process, Ku, Saffarian and colleagues place human HELA cells containing the particles in a small amount of liquid growth medium in a petri dish and put it under the microscope, which is in a glass chamber kept at body temperature so the cells can remain alive for more than 48 hours. A solid-state blue laser is aimed at the sample to make the green-labeled ALIX and red-labeled Gag proteins glow or fluoresce so they can be seen as they assemble into a virus particle.

With red-labeled Gag proteins and green-labeled ALIX proteins, “we could see ALIX come at the end of the assembly of the virus particle,” with some 100 ALIX proteins converging with the roughly 4,000 Gag molecules and assembling into a new HIV particle. ALIX then brings in two other proteins, which cut the budding virus

Virologist Saveez Saffarian, an assistant professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Utah, combined imaging technology and biochemistry so he could watch new HIV particles emerge or “bud” from human cells grown in the lab. In a new study in the journal PLOS ONE Saffarian and his colleagues showed that a protein named ALIX gets involved in the budding process later than once believed.

Photo Credit: Lee J. Siegel, University of Utah

particle off from the cell when it emerges. ALIX’ position during the pinching off of new particles hadn’t been recognized before, Saffarian says The researchers watched the virus particles bud from one cell at a time: usually about 100 of them emerged during a two-hour period. Saffarian says most of the ALIX proteins left when HIV assembly was complete and returned to the liquid inside a cell.

He says the discovery that ALIX doesn’t get involved until the late stages of HIV budding suggests the existence of a previously unrecognized mechanism in the virus that regulates the timing of ALIX and other proteins in assembling new HIV particles.

“We discovered that the cellular components that help with the release of the virus actually arrive in a much more complex timing scheme than predicted based on the biochemical data,” Saffarian says.

“The outcome of this study is promising because it uncovers a new regulatory mechanism for recruitment of cellular components to the HIV budding sites and opens the door to exciting future studies on the mechanism of HIV budding.”

Physicists in Virology Why are physicists studying viruses? First, biophysicists study physical mechanisms in biology, such as motors in cells.

Saffarian earned a doctorate in biophysics, developing methods that used fluorescent light to look at cellular processes.

“I got very jealous because I felt every time I contributed to a project, the actual science was somebody else’s pursuit,” he says. “I was helping them with tools, but not asking fundamental questions myself.”

So Saffarian did a postdoctoral fellowship in cell biology at Harvard Medical School, then “decided I wanted to study viruses, how they get out of cells and replicate.” In addition to his position in physics, he is an adjunct assistant professor of biology.

Video, Caption & Credit A 10-second video showing HIV budding with ALIX is at: http://youtu.be/wFSs1eumnXA Final stages of HIV assembly: This 10-second movie shows the role of a protein named ALIX (labeled green with a fluorescent protein) as it is gets involved in the formation or “budding” of two new human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) particles out of a human cell. The new HIV particles are made mostly of a protein named Gag. The movie shows two places (red) where Gag is assembling to form HIV particles. It shows that green-labeled ALIX proteins get involved late in the process when they bind in a blaze of green color to newly forming virus particles (expanding red spots). That is the key finding of a new University of Utah study led by virologist Saveez Saffarian and physics doctoral student Pei-I Ku. Credit: Pei-I Ku, University of Utah. •

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University of Utah physics doctoral student Pei-I Ku prepares a sample for the digital microscope she uses to make movies and photographs of the AIDS-causing human immunodeficiency virus budding from human cells in the laboratory. The microscope is in a glass chamber to keep the cells at body temperature so researchers can watch the process over time. Ku is the first author of a new study in which University of Utah researchers combined imaging technology and biochemistry to make such images. The method revealed that a protein named ALIX gets involved in the process later than believed previously.

Photo Credit: Tom Bear Photography for the University of Utah

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NUCLEAR SPINS CONTROL CURRENT

IN PLASTIC LED

Step toward Quantum Computing, Spintronic Memory, Better Displays

U

niversity of Utah physicists read the subatomic “spins” in the centers or nuclei of hydrogen isotopes, and used the data to control current that powered light in a cheap, plastic LED - at room temperature and without strong magnetic fields.

The study - published in the journal Science - brings physics a step closer to practical machines that work “spintronically” as well as electronically: superfast quantum computers, more compact data storage devices and plastic or organic lightemitting diodes, or OLEDs, more efficient than those used today in display screens for cell phones, computers and televisions.

“We have shown we can use room-temperature, plastic electronic devices that allow us to see the orientation of the tiniest magnets in nature - the spins in the smallest atomic nuclei,” says physics professor Christoph Boehme, one of the study’s principal authors. “This is a step that may lead to new ways to store information, produce better displays and make faster computers.”

The experiment is a much more practical version of a study Boehme and colleagues published in Science in 2010, when they were able to read nuclear spins from phosphorus atoms in a conventional silicon semiconductor. But they could only do so when the apparatus was chilled to minus 453.9 degrees Fahrenheit (nearly absolute zero), was bombarded with intense microwaves and exposed to superstrong magnetic fields.

In the new experiments, the physicists were able to read the nuclear spins of two isotopes of hydrogen: a single proton

and deuterium, which is a proton, neutron and electron. The isotopes were embedded in an inexpensive plastic polymer or organic semiconductor named MEH-PPV, an OLED that glows orange when current flows.

The researchers flipped the spins of the hydrogen nuclei to control electrical current flowing though the OLED, making the current stronger or weaker. They did it at room temperature and without powerful light bombardment or magnetic fields - in other words, at normal operating conditions for most electronic devices, Boehme says.

“This experiment is remarkable because the magnetic forces created by the nuclei are millions of times smaller than the electrostatic forces that usually drive currents,” yet they were able to control currents, he says.

Harnessing nuclear spins can increase the efficiency “of electronic materials out of which so much technology is made,” Boehme adds. “It also raises the question whether this effect can be used for technological applications such as computer chips that use nuclear spins as memory and our method as a way to read the spins.”

The U.S. Department of Energy funded the new study, and the physicists used facilities of the University of Utah’s Materials Research Science and Engineering Center, funded by the National Science Foundation.

Boehme conducted the study with fellow University of Utah physicists: first author and postdoctoral fellow Hans Malissa; research professor and co-senior author John Lupton, who

University of Utah physicist Christoph Boehme works in his laboratory on an apparatus used in a new study that brings physics a step closer to “spintronic” devices such as superfast computers, more compact data storage devices and more efficient organic LEDs or OLEDS than those used today for display screens in cell phones, computers and televisions. The study, published in the Sept. 19 issue of the journal Science, showed the physicists could read the subatomic “spins” in hydrogen nuclei and use the data to control current that powers light in a cheap, plastic LED, or OLED, under practical operating conditions.

Photo Credit: Lee J. Siegel, University of Utah

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Permalink: http://unews.utah.edu/news_releases/nuclear-spins-control-current-in-plastic-led/

Storing Data in Atomic Nuclei Electronic devices use electrical current or electrons, which are negatively charged particles orbiting the nuclei or centers of atoms. Modern computers store data electronically: data are stored as binary “bits” in which zero is represented by “off,” or no electrical charge, and one is represented by “on” or the presence of electrical charge.

In spintronics, data are stored by the spins of either electrons or, preferably, atomic nuclei. Spin often is compared with a tiny bar magnet like a compass needle, either pointing up or down - representing one or zero - in an electron or an atom’s nucleus. Nuclear spin orientations live longer, so are better for storing data.

The 2010 study by Boehme and colleagues showed that nuclear spins of phosphorus in a silicon semiconductor could control electrical current, but at impractically low temperatures and strong magnetic fields. They had to use the magnetic fields to align spins of phosphorus electrons in the same direction, and then use intense light to transfer the same alignment to the spins of phosphorus nuclei. Then they bombarded the semiconductor with radio waves to reverse the nuclear spins and control the current.

Boehme says scientists previously have claimed that current in plastic semiconductors - known formally as pi-conjugated polymers - can be controlled by the nuclear spins in hydrogen. Until the new study, “nobody has ever shown it directly” at room temperature by turning nuclear spins to change an electrical current, he adds.

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also is on the faculty of the University of Regensburg, Germany; distinguished professor Z. Valy Vardeny; professor Brian Saam; graduate students Marzieh Kavand and David Waters; and postdoctoral fellow Kipp van Schooten. Another co-author was Paul Burn of Australia’s University of Queensland.

The New Study In the new experiments, the physicists used magnetic resonance to reverse the nuclear spins in hydrogen isotopes embedded in the OLED, and then were able to detect how the reversed spins caused a change in the electrical current through the OLED. In the first two experiments, Boehme says, the physicists made nuclear spins in a proton and deuterium wiggle in characteristic ways, and were able to read corresponding wiggles in the resulting electrical current. In a third experiment, they flipped the spins back and forth at a rate they wanted instead of at the characteristic frequencies.

“It worked,” Boehme says. “This shows you can turn a nuclear spin when you want, and only then the current turns around. We can control a current by controlling nuclear spins.”

The researchers measured the current change directly, but not resulting changes in the OLED’s light output - changes so small they aren’t detectable with the naked eye.

In both studies, the physicists did not read the spins of individual nuclei, but the collective spins of more than 1 million nuclei at a time. The ultimate goal is to be able to read the spins of nuclei individually.

“If you want to store information, the highest storage density would be to store information in single nuclear spins,” Boehme says. Since 2010, other physicists have achieved that in phosphorus nuclei, he adds.

Spintronic Benefits By storing information using both spins and electrical charge, spintronic devices should have greater storage capacity and process data more quickly - although researchers still have years to go to figure out how to connect and process spintronically stored information in futuristic computers, conventional and quantum.

An organic light-emitting diode, or OLED, glows orange when electrical current flows through it. University of Utah physicists used this kind of OLED - basically a plastic LED instead of a conventional silicon semiconductor LED - to show that they could read the subatomic “spins” in the center or nuclei of hydrogen isotopes and use those spins to control current to the OLED. It is a step toward “spintronic” devices such as faster computers, better data storage and more efficient OLEDS for TV, computer and cell phone displays.

Photo Credit: Andy Brimhall, University of Utah.

“We don’t know if its five years, 50 years or never” Yet he says spintronics already resulted in today’s terabyte-sized computer hard drives, which use spintronic “read heads” so small that data can be stored more densely.

In 2012, Boehme and colleagues showed the same spintronic OLED in the new study works as a “dirt cheap” magnetic field sensor at room temperature without being compromised by degradation.

Such sensors may enable more accurate spacecraft navigation systems, he says.

Because nuclear spin-controlled electrical current regulates output of light by the OLED, it provides a way to study how to make OLEDs more efficient. OLEDs convert far more electricity into light than incandescent light bulbs, which turn most incoming electricity into heat. But there is much more room for improved efficiency.

“Hopefully, OLEDs will become better - use less electricity and produce more light - because we learned here how nuclear spins’ orientation influences how well the OLED works,” Boehme says.

“Any sort of efficiency limitation can only be overcome if the mechanism that imposes this limitation is understood.” •

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NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory instrument engineer Kimberly Lichtenberg stands next to a model of the Mars Curiosity rover vehicle. During a Sept. 24 Frontiers of Science lecture at the University of Utah, she will discuss the rover’s two-year mission on Mars.

Photo Credit: RocketSTEM/Brendan Clark

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TWO YEARS ON MARS: THE GOOD, BAD & UGLY

imberly Lichtenberg, an instrument engineer for the Mars Curiosity rover, spoke about “Two Years on Mars: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” during the University of Utah’s Frontiers of Science Lecture on Wednesday, Sept. 24.

humans can handle living on Mars time. Mars has a 24-hour, 39-minute day, which means mission researchers needed to start their shifts 39 minutes later each day, eventually working in the middle of the night.

The free public lecture was held at 6 p.m. on campus in the Aline Wilmot Skaggs Biology Building Room 220, 259 S. 1400 East.

Lichtenberg is a system engineer for the Sample Analysis at Mars instrument on Curiosity. She helps develop and maintain instruments that investigate a habitable environment on Mars.

Lichtenberg also is part of the team that controls the rover, making her job “completely different and exciting” every day.

For two years NASA’s Curiosity rover vehicle was on a mission to answer a fundamental question about Mars: Was the planet ever a habitable environment? After the successful landing of the rover in August 2012, the team used Curiosity to explore the plains and deltas of Mars’ Gale Crater, a location known for its abundant minerals. The rover completed its journey in July after two years of lucky finds, obstacles and flat tires.

Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity previously found that liquid water once existed on Mars, suggesting the planet may have supported some form of life. In her lecture, Lichtenberg, who works at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, will discuss where to look for a habitable environment on Mars, the importance of Gale Crater to the mission and how

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She received a bachelor’s degree in engineering physics from the University of Virginia and a master’s degree and doctorate in Earth and planetary sciences from Washington University in St. Louis. Lichtenberg also is an advocate on social media for space exploration.

The Frontiers of Science Lecture Series is sponsored by the University of Utah’s College of Science and College of Mines and Earth Sciences.

Lectures are free and open to the public. Visit www.science. utah.edu for more information. •

Permalink: http://unews.utah.edu/news_releases/two-years-on-mars-the-good-bad-and-ugly/

This article was originally published on July 19, 2014 in the Salt Lake Tribune. Reprinted with permission from Pamela Manson & the Salt Lake Tribune.

A view from Lone Peak, one of Dr. Dick’s favorite places. “The most amazing place I’ve ever been, the most stunning place in the world is the Lone Peak Cirque, without a doubt. It is truly a magnificent and wonderful place.”

Photo courtesy of Carl Fisher, Friend & Executive Director of Save Our Canyons

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fter traveling the world, Gale Dick, a retired University of Utah physics professor, decided the best place he had ever visited was in his own backyard.

“The most amazing place I’ve ever been, the most stunning place in the world is the Lone Peak Cirque, without a doubt.

It is truly a magnificent and wonderful place,” Dick said a few years ago, according to Carl Fisher, executive director of Save Our Canyons.

That love of the Wasatch Mountains, as well as of the community, prompted Dick to co-found Save Our Canyons in 1972 and work to protect the wilderness. His death on Friday at age 88 “has left a gaping hole in our hearts and our lives,” Fisher said.

“It will take nothing short of an army of passionate people to fill the shoes of this one man,” Fisher said Saturday.

Dick’s son Tim Dick said his father died at University Hospital of natural causes.

Salt Lake County Mayor Ben McAdams said he considered Dick to be an important adviser on environmental issues affecting the Wasatch canyons.

“Even though he fought hard for preservation, he was always courteous and listened with an open mind,” McAdams said. “We will all miss his intelligence, humor and, above all, dogged persistence on behalf of our Central Wasatch Mountain home.”

Dick was born June 12, 1926, in Portland, Ore. He served in the Navy at the end of World War II and was a Rhodes scholar who studied at the University of Oxford, his son said. He became a member of the U. physics department in 1959 and researched matter theory. During his four decades at the school he served as a faculty member, administrator, department chairman and dean of the graduate school.

His passion was preserving the canyons, Tim Dick said. Dick served on the Save Our Canyons board since its 1972 founding and “that was his full-time job after he retired from the university,” Tim Dick said.

Often his advocacy put him at odds with ski resorts. He unsuccessfully opposed the land swap that prepared Snowbasin Resort for the 2002 Olympics and was a frequent critic when the resorts in Big and Little Cottonwood canyons wanted to add lifts or expand their ski terrains.

Dick was concerned that development would detract from the natural beauty of the Wasatch Mountains and have environmental consequences, including erosion of Salt Lake City’s watershed.

When Save Our Canyons marked its 40th anniversary, the organization listed successes such as helping to get Lone Peak designated as Utah’s first wilderness area, keeping 2002 Winter Olympic venues out of the Cottonwood Canyons, the passage of the 1989 Wasatch Canyons master plan and the elimination of commercial flight paths over much of the range.

In addition to his environmental advocacy, Dick found time for music and community service. He was a violinist in various chamber music groups and was one of the founders of the Chamber Music Society of Salt Lake City.

In addition to Tim Dick, he is survived by his wife, Ann; a son, Gale; a daughter, Robin; seven grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

Email: pmanson@sltrib.com Twitter: @PamelaMansonSLC (A memorial for Gale Dick took place on September 28, at 2 PM in the Libby Gardner Concert Hall.) •

Permalink: http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/58201363-78/dick-canyons-save-tim.html.cspx

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GALE DICK, CO-FOUNDER OF SAVE OUR CANYONS, DIES AT 88

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ASTEROID NAMED FOR

UNIVERSITY OF UTAH Orbiting between Mars & Jupiter, ‘Univofutah’ Is No Threat to Earth

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hat’s rocky, about a mile wide, orbits between Mars and Jupiter and poses no threat to Earth? An asteroid named “Univofutah” after the University of Utah.

Discovered on Sept. 8, 2008, by longtime Utah astronomy educator Patrick Wiggins, the asteroid also known as 391795 (2008 RV77) this month was renamed Univofutah by the International Astronomical Union’s Minor Planet Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

“It’s neat,” Wiggins says. “There aren’t too many other universities on the whole planet with asteroids named after them. So that puts the U in rather rarified company.”

“We are very honored,” says Carleton Detar, the university’s chairman of physics and astronomy. “Patrick Wiggins has been a dedicated champion of Utah amateur astronomy. Next, we’ll need student volunteers to install a large block U on our asteroid.”

Wiggins, who now works as a part-time public education assistant in the university’s Department of Physics & Astronomy, had submitted the naming request in July as “Univ of Utah” but the naming agency changed it to Univofutah – much to the dismay of university marketing officials, who would have preferred “U of Utah.” Wiggins says names must be limited to 16

characters, ruling out the university’s full name.

The asteroid “is no more than 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) across,” Wiggins says. Because of its small size and distance, it is “too far away for even the Hubble Space Telescope to determine the shape.”

At the request of longtime Utah astronomy educator Patrick Wiggins, shown here, the International Astronomical Union this month named an asteroid that Wiggins discovered in 2008 as “Univofutah” to honor the University of Utah.

Photo Credit: Bill Dunford

“Thankfully, this one will not be coming anywhere near the Earth,” he adds. “It’s a loooong way out. It is in the main asteroid belt. It stays between the orbits or Mars and Jupiter.”

As a NASA solar system ambassador to Utah since 2002, Wiggins this year won NASA’s Distinguished Public Service Medal, the space agency’s highest civilian honor.

This sequence of low-resolution telescope images (the best that are available) shows an asteroid discovered in 2008 as a tiny dot (with an arrow pointing toward it) as it moves across the sky against a background of stars. The International Astronomical Union this month named the asteroid “Univofutah” in honor of the University of Utah. It was discovered in 2008 by longtime Utah astronomy educator Patrick Wiggins, who also has discovered four other asteroids and an exploding star, or supernova.

Photo Credit: Patrick Wiggins

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Thousands of asteroids are discovered each year, with the total now exceeding 655,500. More than 52,000 have been found so far this year and more than 5,000 so far this month, according to the Minor Planet Center. Near-Earth asteroids, which have orbits that can bring them near Earth, are much less common, with more than 40 discovered so far this year, 897 so far this month and 11,473 found in total.

Wiggins discovered Univofutah using a 35-centimeter (14-inch) optical telescope at his home observatory in Tooele, Utah.

On the night it was discovered, asteroid Univofutah was about 137 million miles from Earth, almost 1.5 times the distance between the Earth and sun.

Univofutah is the fourth of five asteroids discovered by Wiggins. He also has spotted a number of previously known asteroids, and also thought he discovered a near-Earth asteroid – the kind that can threaten Earth – but it wasn’t seen again.

This year, he discovered his first supernova, or exploding star.

The other asteroids Wiggins discovered (the first one with his then wife) are Elko and Timerskine in 1999, Laurelanmaurer in 2007 and Nevaruth in 2008. Elko was named for his home-

town in Nevada. Timerskine was named by his former wife for her second husband. Laurelanmaurer was named for a friend of a person who won the naming rights during a fundraising auction, and Nevaruth for the grandmother of Wiggins’ former wife.

Asteroid Univofutah initially was numbered 391795 because it was the 391,795th minor planet – the term that astronomers use for asteroids – to be discovered and receive a number.

The rest of its original name – 2008 RV77 – is a code for the year and time of year it was discovered, with “R” meaning the first half of September and V meaning it was the 21st asteroid discovered during that half-month.

It took until earlier this year before the asteroid even qualified to be given a formal name. That is because “after the initial discovery, it has to be tracked long enough to where its orbit is well known and the International Astronomical Union is certain it’s not a previously discovered minor planet,” Wiggins says.

“In the case of this one, that took until several months ago.”

Wiggins worked from 1975 to 2002 for at Salt Lake City’s Hansen Planetarium before it closed and Clark Planetarium was built. He also has been with the Salt Lake Astronomical Society since 1975, and has worked part time at the U since the 1990s.

He teaches physics and astronomy in museums, schools and public events. •

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More than 655,500 Asteroids Now in the Main Belt

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Planned North West Garage parking structure.

DEPARTMENT

“Quarks” A

The Ups, Downs, Tops, Bottoms, Charms, & Strangeness of the Department

Special thanks to Clark Planetarium, Commuter Services, Dave Kieda, John Metcalf, Natural History Museum of Utah, Salt Lake City Main Library & Vicki Nielsen.

ssistant Professor Anil Seth, presented his talk, “Spying on Our Neighbors With the Hubble Space Telescope” at the December 2013 College of Science Frontiers of Science Lecture Series. Astronomers still don’t fully understand how the diverse “zoo” of galaxies, their numerous shapes, colors, and sizes, come to be. Professor Anil Seth presented the images of Andromeda taken by the Hubble Space Telescope, and how this four Anil Seth year study of our galactic neighbor may reveal some of the secrets of galaxy formation.

Assistant Professor Shanti Deemyad, presented her talk, “Alchemy at Extreme Pressures” at the February 2014 College of Science Frontiers of Science Lecture Series. Deep within the planets, precious forms of matter such as oils and gems form under extreme conditions of pressure and temperature. While ash turns to diamond deep within the Earth, theories suggest that life originated in the depth of the proto-ocean of the Hadean Earth, under high hydrostatic pressure.

The lighter elements with simple behavior at ambient pressure, exhibit the most non-trivial and sophisticated behavior at extreme pressures.

Shanti Deemyad

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On February 24, 2014, legendary alpine climber and highly skilled scientist and engineer, Dr. George Lowe III gave a special talk on alpine climbing and the quest to balance a professional career with recreation. The video of this talk is available here: http://youtu.be/Di_uofREESQ Former graduate student, Mark Limes, now a post doc at Princeton University, was awarded the 2014 Springer Thesis prize for scientific excellence. His thesis, {129}Xe Relaxation and Rabi Oscillations, will be published in the Springer Theses series

by Springer publishing.

In April, Graduate student Lauren Simonsen was awarded a University Teaching Assistantship from the University’s Graduate School.

This award helps improve graduate education programs and training at the University of Utah in the service of undergraduate education through the creative use of graduate teaching assistants.

Lauren Simonsen

The University of Utah was host to the 2014 Science Olympiad. More than 900 local junior high and high school students competed in a battle of the brains Saturday, April 13, 2013 at the University of Utah as part of the Utah Science Olympiad, a state science education competition.

High school and middle school students competed in teams to build helicopters, magnetic trains that levitate, cars made from mousetraps, and much more. Utah students vied for over

Permalink: http://unews.utah.edu/news_releases/frontiers-of-science-lecture-seriesparticle-smashers-higgs-hunters-and-the-fundamental-theory-of-nature/

Nationwide, 6,800 teams participate in Science Olympiad competitions, designed to expose youngsters to science and engineering careers while bringing classroom science to life.

The Utah Science Olympiad is one of 50 state competitions culminating in the Science Olympiad National Tournament on May 17 and 18, 2013 at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio. The winning junior high and high school teams from each state go on to the national competition in Dayton.

The Department of Physics & Astronomy judged four different events and provided scholarships to several of the winning teams: Astronomy: Tabitha Buehler, Nick Slowey Solar Systems: Tabitha Buehler, Nick Slowey Sounds of Music: Adam Beehler, Doug Baird, Kathrine Skollingsberg Fermi Questions: Pearl Sandick Anil Seth also delivered a public lecture at the Clark Planetarium’s Night Vision lecture about tiny galaxies and big black holes on Saturday, Sept. 20, 2014, at the Clark Planetarium’s ATK IMAX Theater in downtown Salt Lake City.

The Department lost four staff members, Chase Adams, Sareah Gardner, Kelly Moulton and Thomas Woodland. The department hired four new staff members, Jordan Klepzig, Gray Marchese, Josh Tomlin, and Tamara Young.

The North West Garage (Lot 34) parking structure will be built at the Northeast corner of campus on the parking lot between the Sutton Geology Building and Naval Science Building. Construction began on Monday, September 15th, 2014.

Until completion, all parking in lot 34 will be closed except for ADA parking in the west side of lot 34 and the visitor pay lot in lot 33 will remain open. Access to all loading docks will also remain open. The

building will be complete in July 2015.

Total parking stalls in the structure: 311.

Net gain of 235 parking stalls.

Professor Jordan Gerton was appointed to Interim Director of the Center for Science and Mathematics Education beginning October 2014 until December 2015.

On October 23, 2014, a partial solar eclipse occurred and was visible from the Salt Lake Valley. A Solar Eclipse viewing party was hosted by the Natural Museum of Utah. The Salt Lake Astronomy Society, the RoboUtes, and our own AstronomUrs were also on-hand with community activities and demonstrations.

Professor Charlie Jui presented a talk at the Science Movie Night at the Salt Lake City Main Library as part of their Science Movie Night series. The talk followed a screening of the movie “Particle Fever” about the Large Hadron Collider. Professor Charlie Jui Charlie Jui gave an overview of the Standard Model of Particles and the history of important discoveries leading up to the LHC and the Higgs’ Boson. He spoke to the high drama in the film from the point of view of a particle experimentalist.

In October, graduate student John Metcalf became a Lifetime Senior Member of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.

On November 6, 2014, the department offered a special pre-screening of the movie “Interstellar“ at Megaplex 12 at the Gateway. Over 300 members of the community showed up to watch and support the department.

Professor Brian Saam, presented his talk, “A History of the Second: From Grains of Sand to Atomic Clocks” at the November 19, 2014 College of Science’s Science Night Live Lecture Series. He began a discussion of time with an operational definition: time separates cause from

effect; more precisely, time delineates the order of events. Our earliest human ancestors recognized that to measure time, one needs a periodic event Brian Saam that is easily, reliably, and universally observed in exactly the same way. Both the rotation of the Earth on its axis and revolution of the Earth about the Sun satisfy these requirements and have been universally accepted time standards throughout most of recorded history. Every timepiece ever invented prior to 1967 - sundials, water clocks, hourglasses, and mechanical clocks - traced its calibration in some way back to the apparent motion of the sun in the sky. However, as robust and reliable as this standard appears (the Earth’s rate of rotation slows by about one second in 60,000 years), it is inadequate for the modern frontiers of scientific discovery, as well as for the needs of a global telecommunications and geopositioning infrastructure. A much more stable standard was developed starting in the 1960s that is based on a transition that occurs between two specific energy levels in atomic cesium. These “atomic clocks” are stable to about one second in 30 million years. Work on even more stable clocks (one second in 30 billion years) is at the frontier of modern atomic physics.

The Department also participated in the 26th Annual Science Day at the U, hosted by the College of Science and the College of Mines and Earth Sciences at the University of Utah.

Held on Saturday, November 15, 2014.

High school students from around the intermountain west are invited to attend a day of science-related workshops.

These interactive workshops give high school students a great look at laboratory research and career opportunities in science, math and engineering. •

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$100,000 in scholarship prizes.

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