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Liquid Helium Refill Shifts At The Cryogenic Underground Observatory For Rare Events, Robin L. Reil Dec 2010

Liquid Helium Refill Shifts At The Cryogenic Underground Observatory For Rare Events, Robin L. Reil

Physics

No abstract provided.


Could Alice Find The Elusive Higgs?, Tyler Williams Dec 2010

Could Alice Find The Elusive Higgs?, Tyler Williams

Physics

The Higgs boson is the theoretical mechanism for creating the mass of particles. Although it has never been seen, the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is the most likely place for it to be created in the laboratory. The ALICE (A Large Ion Collider Experiment) detector is focused on the study of heavy ion collisions at the LHC and was not designed to find the Higgs boson; however, there is a chance it could be detected there. Although the luminosity (collision rate) for PbPb collisions is much lower than that for pp collisions, PbPb collisions have a higher probability to …


Construction And Improvement Of A Scheffler Reflector And Thermal Storage Device, Jason Rapp Nov 2010

Construction And Improvement Of A Scheffler Reflector And Thermal Storage Device, Jason Rapp

Physics

We constructed and successfully tested a 2 m2 parabolic dish solar concentrator (Scheffler Concentrator) to focus sunlight onto a stationary target. Present efforts are to decrease the construction complexity and cost of the concentrator. In order to store solar heat, we also constructed and are testing a thermal storage device made of sand (for thermal mass), and pumice (for insulation). Preliminary tests indicate thermal retention times of many hours. Present efforts are to increase accessible power, and structural integrity.


Bottom Quark Detection With The Electromagnetic Calorimeter At Alice, Christopher Ryan Brown Aug 2010

Bottom Quark Detection With The Electromagnetic Calorimeter At Alice, Christopher Ryan Brown

Physics

Bottom quarks are one of the easiest ways to observe quark flow in a quark gluon plasma. For this reason, it is advantageous in a detector to have superb capabilities at detecting bottom quarks through their decay products and interactions. This paper will provide an overview of bottom quark behavior in a quark gluon plasma, as well as methods used to detect this behavior. Once this has been established, an overview of the heavy ion physics at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), and particularly A Large Ion Collider Experiment (ALICE), will be discussed. It will then be argued that the …


Design And Construction Of A Thermal Diffusion Cloud Chamber, Alexander Donoghue Jun 2010

Design And Construction Of A Thermal Diffusion Cloud Chamber, Alexander Donoghue

Physics

This paper will cover the theory behind a thermal diffusion cloud chamber. In addition to that it will cover the process, thought and material used to construct two different cloud chambers. It will also discuss the effects of materials used in each chamber on the working of the chamber.


Cryogenic Refrigeration For Quantum Voltage Standards, Jeffrey Power Jun 2010

Cryogenic Refrigeration For Quantum Voltage Standards, Jeffrey Power

Physics

Currently the world maintains the voltage standard using a Josephson junction which makes use of the properties of superconductors and quantum tunneling. Current technology requires liquid He to cool the Josephson junctions to ~4 K to allow them to function as superconductors. He (l) is expensive and price is geographically dependent. Here we investigated using a cryocooler, modeled after a Gifford-McMahon Refrigerator, that could run on 120V (or a standard outlet) and used gaseous He as the working fluid –a less geographically dependent and inexpensive alternative to He (l). We found that indeed a standard outlet gaseous He compressor could …


Optical Coherence: Recreation Of The Experiment Of Thompson And Wolf, David Collins Jun 2010

Optical Coherence: Recreation Of The Experiment Of Thompson And Wolf, David Collins

Physics

The purpose of our experiment is to recreate the experiment done by Thompson and Wolf in 1957 on the measurement of optical coherence. What is novel about our approach is that it allows one to view the effects of source size on optical spatial coherence in real time.


Investigation Of Track-Cluster Matching Vs Track-Cell Matching In The Alice Detector At Cern, Kevin Coulombe Jun 2010

Investigation Of Track-Cluster Matching Vs Track-Cell Matching In The Alice Detector At Cern, Kevin Coulombe

Physics

The ALICE (A Large Ion Collider Experiment) Experiment is a detector that is one of four stationed at the CERN Large Hadron Collider. The goal of ALICE is to investigate the properties of the quark-gluon plasma, a new form of matter which only existed during the first microsecond of the Universe. ALICE measures the aftermath of the collision of two lead ions. Some information detected is the trajectory of the particles traveling through the tracking detectors and energy deposited in the calorimeters. Both the tracks and energy are required to determine the identities of the various particles as they travel …


Experiments On De Vries Liquid Crystals: A Software Approach, Austin Havens Jun 2010

Experiments On De Vries Liquid Crystals: A Software Approach, Austin Havens

Physics

This paper describes two programs I developed to facilitate the study of liquid crystals. The first program is a graphical user interface to increase the accuracy of the birefringence measurements , which relates to their orientational order, by using a camera. The second program was designed to help study the effects of time varying fields on liquid crystals by matching data from a recorded video to oscilloscope data in order to attach data from image analysis to the voltage applied to the cell.


Resistance Of The Superconducting Material Ybco, Christopher Safranski Jun 2010

Resistance Of The Superconducting Material Ybco, Christopher Safranski

Physics

No abstract provided.


Identification Of Bottom Quark Jets In Pb+Pb Collisions In Alice At The Lhc, Brandon Boswell Jun 2010

Identification Of Bottom Quark Jets In Pb+Pb Collisions In Alice At The Lhc, Brandon Boswell

Physics

In the near future, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) will begin colliding lead ions together with energies high enough to produce a state of matter known as the Quark-Gluon Plasma (QGP). Simulations have shown that Bottom-quark-jets (B-jets) are expected to be produced in these collisions, and that these B-jets provide a useful probe into the nature of the QGP. The ALICE detector (A Large Ion Collider Experiment) at the LHC is designed to study the nature of the QGP. In this paper we investigate the effect of requiring that an electron be inside observed jets and how this improves the …


The Usage Of Smartphones In The Calculation Of Relativistic Time Dilation Effects At Meager Velocities, Leland Gregory Jun 2010

The Usage Of Smartphones In The Calculation Of Relativistic Time Dilation Effects At Meager Velocities, Leland Gregory

Physics

The theories of special and general relativity postulate that events are not simultaneous for different observers, and that different observer's times tick at different rates depending on relative velocity and the magnitude of the gravitational field they are in. This project seeks to design a program for use with smartphones that will calculate this change in time, in real time, and keep track of the discrepancies in time experienced between the observer and a stationary point on the surface of the earth.


Search For Dark Matter Annihilation In M5, Daniel Jackson Jun 2010

Search For Dark Matter Annihilation In M5, Daniel Jackson

Physics

We analyzed the Messier 5 (M5) globular cluster for dark matter annihilation using data from VERITAS (Very Energetic Radiation Imaging Telescope Array System) to improve the flux upper limit previously done by Michael McCutecheon. We used updated software and lower energy thresholds. VERITAS consists of four ground-based gamma-ray telescopes located at the Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory in southern Arizona. Thirty-five 20 minute observations of M5 from VERITAS are used in our analysis. The observations were collected from February to March in 2009, for a total exposure time of 10.63 hours. Gamma-rays from dark matter annihilation were not found,
but better …


Construction And Enhancement Of Stereo Vacuum Tube Amplifier With Precision Machined Enclosure, Nikolaus (Nik) Glazar May 2010

Construction And Enhancement Of Stereo Vacuum Tube Amplifier With Precision Machined Enclosure, Nikolaus (Nik) Glazar

Physics

The purpose of this project was to build a high fidelity tube amplifier from a kit, and machine a beautiful enclosure to house the electronics. Improvements were made to the circuit, and the amplifier was then tested for audio performance.


An Analysis Of The Quasi Biennial Oscillation, Ozone And Thermal Damping, Kevin Jauregui May 2010

An Analysis Of The Quasi Biennial Oscillation, Ozone And Thermal Damping, Kevin Jauregui

Physics

No abstract provided.


Central Compact Objects, Trevor Meek Mar 2010

Central Compact Objects, Trevor Meek

Physics

Central compact objects (CCOs) are point-like sources found near the center of supernova remnants (SNRs). They emit X-rays, but show no radio or gamma ray counterpart. Typical CCO candidates have emission radii on the order of 0.2-3.0 km. This is much smaller than the typical radius of a neutron star, making CCOs a difficult astronomical phenomenon to identify.


Gamma-Ray Spectroscopy: Meteorite Samples And The Search For 98tc, Kristopher L. Merolla Feb 2010

Gamma-Ray Spectroscopy: Meteorite Samples And The Search For 98tc, Kristopher L. Merolla

Physics

The focus of this project is low-count-level gamma-ray spectroscopy on meteorite samples in search of a particular isotope of Technetium (98Tc), which according to stellar theory, should be present in the universe. The spectral lines for 99Tc have, however, been observed in S-, M-, and N- type stars, which makes finding 98Tc created naturally a possibility, and thus a search can be justified.


Preparing A Vacuum Chamber To Trap Atoms, And The Principles Of A Magneto-Optical Trap, Grant Rayner Jan 2010

Preparing A Vacuum Chamber To Trap Atoms, And The Principles Of A Magneto-Optical Trap, Grant Rayner

Physics

No abstract provided.


Reflectivity Of A Cholesteric Liquid Crystal, Justin Lawson Jan 2010

Reflectivity Of A Cholesteric Liquid Crystal, Justin Lawson

Physics

In this paper we investigate the light properties of a chiral liquid crystal or a crystal for which the director angle relative to some fixed axis changes as a function of the crystal depth. Sometimes a dopant can introduce a chirality or "twist" in a nematic liquid crystal. For such cases of non-linear depth dependence (where chirality is determined by a diffusion equation) we may use this research to work backwards from a crystal's light properties to intensity and duration of dopant exposure.