Hutsonms

Mark Trodden, University of Pennsylvania Fay R. and Eugene L. Langberg Professor of Physics; Co-Director, Center for Particle Cosmology Gravity in the Age of Precision Cosmology General Relativity (GR) has proven to be one of our best-tested and most successful physical theories. In this colloquium I will discuss the role… Read More

Frans Pretorius, Princeton University Professor of Physics; Director, Princeton Gravity Initiative Open Questions on the Dynamics of Black Holes Today we have a solid theoretical understanding of the dynamics of black holes, as predicted by general relativity, for the typical binary merger expected as an astrophysical gravitational wave source. However,… Read More

Charles Gale, McGill University Distinguished James McGill Professor, Department of Physics Light from the little bang: Photons from strongly interacting matter under extreme conditions At high energy densities, matter interacting via the nuclear strong interaction transforms into an exotic state: the quark-gluon plasma. This material was produced a few microseconds… Read More

Travis Humble, Oak Ridge National Laboratory Director, Quantum Science Center Discovery and Innovation in Quantum Science and Technology The Quantum Science Center is a National Quantum Information Science Research Center headquartered at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The purpose of the center is to discover and innovate in the field of… Read More

Duncan Lorimer, West Virginia University Making Sense of the Census — The Cosmological Population of Fast Radio Bursts Fast Radio Bursts are millisecond-duration pulses of unknown origin that were discovered by an undergraduate student at West Virginia University in 2007. They share a number of similarities with gamma-ray bursts which… Read More

Karen E. Kasza, Columbia University Stress management: cell packings and tissue flows in developing embryos During embryonic development, groups of cells reorganize into functional tissues with complex form and structure. Tissue reorganization can be rapid and dramatic, often occurring through striking embryo-scale flows that are mediated by the coordinated actions… Read More

Chris Monahan, William & Mary Pictures of a proton: quarks, gluons and hadrons from first principles Understanding in detail the properties of protons and neutrons, two of the basic building blocks of the visible Universe, has been a long-standing goal for nuclear physics. The strong nuclear force binds together quarks… Read More

Kimberly Boddy, University of Texas at Austin Opportunities for Dark Matter Searches in Cosmology Understanding the fundamental nature of dark matter is one of the major challenges facing the physics community today. There are dedicated experimental efforts to search for dark matter interactions with the Standard Model of particle physics,… Read More

Jorge Noronha, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign Relativistic Fluid Dynamics: From Particle Colliders to Neutron Star Mergers Heavy-ion collision experiments have provided overwhelming evidence that quarks and gluons, the elementary particles within protons and neutrons, can flow as a nearly frictionless, strongly interacting relativistic liquid over distance scales not much larger than the size of… Read More

Sam Gralla, University of Arizona Alice’s adventures with bombs, Bobs, and black holes The harmonization of gravity and quantum mechanics is a major open question in physics, and the obstacles involve conceptual difficulties surrounding observables and measurement. I will give a pedagogical presentation, at the advanced undergraduate level, of three… Read More

Veronica Dexheimer, Kent State University Exotic matter in neutron stars The high densities achieved in neutron stars and the high densities and temperatures achieved in neutron-star mergers create ideal testing grounds in which to learn about exotic matter, namely hyperons and deconfined quarks. The presence of exotic matter can strongly… Read More