Physics Commons^™

Gravity 2, Yi Jin

Honors Capstone Projects - All

The project that I chose to tackle for my capstone was coding my own physics based music visualizer. Doing so first required a strong foundational understanding of the OpenGL and GLUT visualization libraries. To build the visualizer, I took five main steps. First, I needed to open the music file and read the header. Second, I had to read in the file data window by window. Afterwards, I needed to apply a fast Fourier transform to each window. Lastly, I had to visualize the data and play the music. My end result was a Macintosh based music visualizer that allows …

An Improved Pipeline To Search For Gravitational Waves From Compact Binary Coalescence, Samantha Usman

Honors Capstone Projects - All

We describe the search pipeline, called PyCBC , used to identify gravitational wave candidates in Advanced LIGO's O1 search. We give an overall summary of the pipeline including a general layout and the methods for calculating the signal-to-noise ratio and the chi-squared statistic. We then give detailed explanations of removing noise transient before processing, called gating ; the way to create a bank of template waveforms and the process of matched filtering these waveforms against the data; the chi-squared statistic's role in eliminating noise transients; the latest coincidence testing method, which requires candidates to be both nearly simultaneous and have …

Investigating Drift Mobilities In Cadmium Telluride Solar Cells, Daniel Goldman

Honors Capstone Projects - All

See Abstract within Capstone document

Study Of Edgeless Timepix Pixel Devices, Dylan G. Hsu

Honors Capstone Projects - All

Silicon micropattern devices are crucial components of detector systems designed to study decays of exotic subatomic particles containing beauty and charm quarks. Among the technologies under consideration for use in future particle physics experiments are edgeless silicon pixel detectors. In these devices a state-of-the-art fabrication process is used to create sensors with a nearly full active area, as compared to conventional sensors which have a “guard ring” which is a dead region at the sensor periphery. Prototypes used for the study described in this paper were designed and fabricated by VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland. In a test beam …

Research And Development Of The Positron Damping Rings For The Proposed International Linear Collider And At Cern In Geneva, Switzerland For The Large Hadron Collider Atlas Experiment's Integrated Simulation Framwork, Ryan Badman

Honors Capstone Projects - All

The topic of part I of my capstone is electron clouds, studied in the Cornell synchrotron accelerator. Electron clouds are an important phenomenon to study in circular particle accelerators such as the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the Cornell synchrotron, and the damping ring for the proposed International Linear Collider (ILC). Low energy background electrons are normally present in high energy accelerators and are often not detrimental to beam performance, but certain operation conditions cause them to interact strongly with the beam, as was first observed in the 1980s in positron storage rings. The generation and amplification of the electron cloud …

Influence Of Genetic Variation On Birth Defects In Caenorhabditis Elegans, Daniel Robert Kepple

Honors Capstone Projects - All

In my Renee Crown Honors Capstone project, I studied how genetic variation influences birth defects that cause death in C. elegans embryos. I performed high-throughput hatching assay experiments of recombinant inbred advance intercross lines of C. elegans. These lines are genetically distinct from each other. I found significant variation in birth defects causing embryo death in these recombinant inbred advanced intercross lines. My results give evidence that gene interaction may play a significant role in causing birth defects resulting in death. My data also provides a starting point for studies making statistical arguments linking these birth defects to specific …

Where Does The Water Come From? A Temporal Geochemical Characterization Of Water Sources In The Lives Of Storms, Mallory Ringham

Honors Capstone Projects - All

An analysis of the ion chemistry, δ¹⁸O, and δ²H values of precipitation may allow for the characterization of their water sources. As water evaporates, it retains a signature of its source in the ions that it carries and in the amount of fractionation of the oxygen and hydrogen isotopes. Precipitation samples for coastal, lake effect, and continental sources were collected over the months of October- January in Syracuse, New York throughout the duration of each storm, including one hurricane, one thunderstorm, two lake effect snowstorms, and seven rain events. These samples were run through IC, ICP-OES, …

Research And Development Of The Positron Damping Rings For The Proposed International Linear Collider, And At Cern In Geneva, Switzerland For The Large Hadron Collider Atlas Experiment's Integrated Simulation Framework, Ryan Badman

Honors Capstone Projects - All

Abstract not available. Please download the full Capstone for abstract.

A Biosynthetic Membrane-Anchor/Protein System Based On A Genetically Encoded "Aldehyde Tag", Chaojie Zhen

Honors Capstone Projects - All

Lipid membranes or bilayers serve as barriers for the cell and its organelles. A distinguishing feature of cellular function is the ability to monitor and process the biochemical information between the cells’ intra and extracellular environments in order to maintain the homeostatic reactions that are essential to life. Surface membrane proteins play a key role in mediating this information exchange by functionalizing the bilayer. As a result of their importance in living systems, proteins are integrated into biomimetic membrane systems to replicate their natural functions in biomedical technologies. Current protein integration methods are limited by the selection of commercially available …

Measuring Dose To Small Animals In Micro-Ct, Avi Hameroff

Honors Capstone Projects - All

An important application of William Röntgen’s discovery of x-rays is computed tomography (CT). First developed in the 1970’s, CT scanners of today are able to provide a detailed image of a patient’s body with minimal risk to patient and a very short turnaround time from scan to reconstructed image. This powerful tool provides physicians another way to diagnose patients while simultaneously allowing for researchers to learn about the human body.

Scientists soon became interested in using the technology on small animals but practical issues plagued the widespread use of CT in preclinical research. The scale of the scanners was simply …

Spiral Patterns In Liquid Crystals, Gavin Hartnett

Honors Capstone Projects - All

Abstract not Included

Intracellular Signaling: How Do Cells Respond To Single And Multiple Inputs, Latoya Crayton

Honors Capstone Projects - All

One important biological question is how the cell processes input information and decides what to respond. The cell can integrate the multiple inputs using linear and nonlinear dynamics to generate an appropriate output. This study focuses on the computerized recording of phototaxis (movement in relation to light direction) of Chlamydomonas cell populations response to green light, which activates the rhodopsin photoreceptor at their eyespots. The inputs are light stimulation of various wavelengths and intensities; and chemicals (IBMX, a PDE inhibitor; 2'5'-dideoxyadenosine, an adenylate cyclase inhibitor, 8-Br-cAMP-Na and Dibutyryl cAMP, cAMP analogs) affecting an important intracellular messenger, cAMP. The quantified output …

Photo-Induced Current Measurements In Chlamydomonas Cell Suspensions, Collin D. Capano

Honors Capstone Projects - All

In order to fully understand the principles behind phototaxis in flagellate algae, it is necessary to measure the electric currents these cells create when processing light stimuli. Many different techniques have been developed to do this. One of these techniques, measuring from cell suspensions, has a number of advantages over the others that makes it highly desirable. However, the lab that first developed this method of recording did not describe the setup very well. The result is that in the thirteen years since it was first reported, only one other independent lab has been able to reproduce the results despite …

Studies On Novel Semiconductor Detectors And Front-End Electronics For Heavy Flavor Decay Studies, Gustavo Kertzscher

Honors Capstone Projects - All

I have studied novel semiconductor detectors designed to provide precise space point information of the trajectory of charged subatomic particles produced in high energy physics (HEP) collisions. The technological thrust aims toward maintaining good performance of these detectors in a hard radiation environment for an extended period of time. My studies approached two different types of silicon devices: a whole wafer comprised of test structures and pixel devices designed for the inner vertex detector of the BTeV experiment, and small test structures of a novel type of quasi-3D detectors developed in the context of the CERN RD50 collaboration. This collaboration …