Digital Commons Network^™

Experience Doesn't Matter, But The Direction Does, Hailey Blythe

The Journal of Purdue Undergraduate Research

No abstract provided.

Non-Poissonian Ultrashort Nanoscale Electron Pulses, Sam Keramati, Will Brunner, T. J. Gay, Herman Batelaan

Department of Physics and Astronomy: Faculty Publications

The statistical character of electron beams used in current technologies, as described by a stream of particles, is random in nature. Using coincidence measurements of femtosecond pulsed electron pairs, we report the observation of sub-Poissonian electron statistics that are nonrandom due to two-electron Coulomb interactions, and that exhibit an antibunching signal of 1 part in 4. This advancement is a fundamental step toward observing a strongly quantum degenerate electron beam needed for many applications, and in particular electron correlation spectroscopy.

Texturing In Bi2Te3 Alloy Thermoelectric Materials: An Applied Physics Investigation, Oluwagbemiga P. Ojo

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Thermoelectric devices provide the means for direct conversion between heat and electricity. The device conversion efficiency, or performance, is directly related to the thermoelectric figure of merit, ZT, of the working materials. Bismuth telluride alloys are the materials currently in use in most thermoelectric devices for near room temperature solid-state refrigeration and power conversion applications. The vast majority of publications in the literature on thermoelectricity report on investigations towards developing new materials with enhanced thermoelectric properties, however Bi₂Te₃ alloys have been used in thermoelectric devices for decades.

In this thesis, an investigation of crystallographic texturing on large …

Method Of Making Temperature-Immune Self-Referencing Fabry–Pérot Cavity Sensors, Hengky Chandrahalim, Jonathan W. Smith

AFIT Patents

A method of making passive microscopic Fabry-Pérot Interferometer (FPI) sensor includes forming a three-dimensional microscopic optical structure on a cleaved tip of an optical fiber that reflects a light signal back through the optical fiber. The reflected light is altered by refractive index changes in the three-dimensional structure that is subject to at least one of: (i) thermal radiation; and (ii) volatile organic compounds.

Ferromagnetic Resonances In Single-Crystal Yttrium Iron Garnet Nanofilms Fabricated By Metal-Organic Decomposition, Szu Fan Wang, Kayetan Chorazewicz, Suvechhya Lamichhane, Ronald A. Parrott, Stefano Cabrini, Peter Fischer, Noah Kent, John H. Turner, Takayuki Ishibashi, Zachary Parker Frohock, Jacob J. Wisser, Peng Li, Ruthi Zielinski, Bryce Herrington, Yuri Suzuki, Mingzhong Wu, Keiko Munechika, Carlos Pina-Hernandez, Robert Streubel, Allen A. Sweet

Robert Streubel Papers

Tunable microwave and millimeter wave oscillators and bandpass filters with ultra-low phase noise play a critical role in electronic devices, including wireless communication, microelectronics, and quantum computing. Magnetic materials, such as yttrium iron garnet (YIG), possess ultra-low phase noise and a ferromagnetic resonance tunable up to tens of gigahertz. Here, we report structural and magnetic properties of single-crystal 60 and 130 nm-thick YIG films prepared by metal-organic decomposition epitaxy. These films, consisting of multiple homoepitaxially grown monolayers, are atomically flat and possess magnetic properties similar to those grown with liquid-phase epitaxy, pulsed laser deposition, and sputtering. Our approach does not …

Structural And Morphological Properties Of Wool Keratin And Cellulose Biocomposites Fabricated Using Ionic Liquids, Karleena Rybacki, Stacy A. Love, Bailey Blessing, Abneris Morales, Emily Mcdermott, Kaylyn Cai, Xiao Hu, David Salas-De La Cruz

College of Science & Mathematics Departmental Research

In this study, the structural, thermal, and morphological properties of biocomposite films composed of wool keratin mixed with cellulose and regenerated with ionic liquids and various coagulation agents were characterized and explored. These blended films exhibit different physical and thermal properties based on the polymer ratio and coagulation agent type in the fabrication process. Thus, understanding their structure and molecular interaction will enable an understanding of how the crystallinity of cellulose can be modified in order to understand the formation of protein secondary structures. The thermal, morphological, and physiochemical properties of the biocomposites were investigated by Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) …

Comments On The Holographic Description Of Narain Theories, Anatoly Dymarsky, Alfred D. Shapere

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications

We discuss the holographic description of Narain U(1)^c × U(1)^c conformal field theories, and their potential similarity to conventional weakly coupled gravitational theories in the bulk, in the sense that the effective IR bulk description includes “U(1) gravity” amended with additional light degrees of freedom. Starting from this picture, we formulate the hypothesis that in the large central charge limit the density of states of any Narain theory is bounded by below by the density of states of U(1) gravity. This immediately implies that the maximal value of the spectral gap for primary fields is ∆₁ = …

Searching For Solar Kdar With Dune, The Dune Collaboration, A. Abed Abud, B. Abi, R. Acciarri, M. A. Acero, M. R. Adames, G. Adamov, D. Adams, M. Adinolfi, A. Aduszkiewicz, J. Aguilar, Z. Ahmad, J. Ahmed, B. Ali-Mohammadzadeh, T. Alion, K. Allison, S. Alonso Monsalve, M. Alrashed, C. Alt, A. Alton, Roberto Petti, Sanjib R. Mishra Ph.D., Et. Al.

Faculty Publications

The observation of 236 MeV muon neutrinos from kaon-decay-at-rest (KDAR) originating in the core of the Sun would provide a unique signature of dark matter annihilation. Since excellent angle and energy reconstruction are necessary to detect this monoenergetic, directional neutrino flux, DUNE with its vast volume and reconstruction capabilities, is a promising candidate for a KDAR neutrino search. In this work, we evaluate the proposed KDAR neutrino search strategies by realistically modeling both neutrino-nucleus interactions and the response of DUNE. We find that, although reconstruction of the neutrino energy and direction is difficult with current techniques in the relevant energy …

Regularized Heuristic Method For Activation Monitor Neutron Spectrum Unfolding, Nicholas J. Quartemont, James E. Bevins

Faculty Publications

his paper describes an activation foil measurement based neutron flux unfolding method utilizing a heuristic optimization approach. A regularization parameter based on the differential neutron flux was introduced into the optimization cost function to remove large nonphysical oscillations in the unfolded neutron energy spectrum. The procedure was completed for two example case studies ranging from thermal energies up to 20 MeV demonstrating recovery of neutron flux energy information on radiation environments where a model was partially missing or there was a discrepancy in a reaction channel. The unfolded results provided a distribution of unfolded spectra that conformed to the activation …

Developing A Monte Carlo Simulation For Time- Series Analysis Of Actinium-225 Decay, Victoria Wood

The Journal of Advanced Undergraduate Physics Laboratory Investigations, JAUPLI-B

This report describes the development of a script programmed in the Python language designed to simulate radioactive decay using Monte Carlo methods. This is to conduct analysis on the equilibrium behavior of a specific radioactive decay chain, replacing the traditional method of deriving a mathematical representation via differential equations. The resulting script produces a stacked histogram illustrating the decay of Actinium-225 over time and more closely models the potential for irregularities in the natural phenomenon. The script has potential applications in nuclear imaging and medical physics.

Modeling The Motion Of A Volleyball With Spin, Julian Ricardo

The Journal of Advanced Undergraduate Physics Laboratory Investigations, JAUPLI-B

Though a qualitative understanding of how spin affects a ball’s trajectory can be easily developed, a quantitative one is relatively difficult to hone. Additionally, although projectile motion is an extensively covered topic in introductory physics courses, friction and drag—let alone spin—receive little to no attention. Here we use a volleyball and video modeling software to compare the behavior of a non-spinning ball with one that has topspin in order to assess the accuracy of our various models incorporating drag and the Magnus effect.

Electrical And Magnetic Properties Of High Temperature Superconductors Using Varying Forms Of Data Acquisition, Aryn M. Hays, Lindsay Bechtel, Colton Turbeville, Anthony Johnsen, Chris A. Tanner

The Journal of Advanced Undergraduate Physics Laboratory Investigations, JAUPLI-B

High temperature superconductors (HTS) are materials that display superconducting properties at temperatures above that of liquid nitrogen. Possible applications and ease of use in a typical physics laboratory make them interesting systems to study. In this experiment we measured the critical temperatures of two samples made of different HTS materials. We also devised a method that makes taking data automated.

Shape And Size Matter For Projectile Drag, Daniel Gordon Ang

The Journal of Advanced Undergraduate Physics Laboratory Investigations, JAUPLI-B

Newtonian mechanics is a fundamental building block of physics education, allowing us to characterize the motion of various objects in every day life. Here, we set out to investigate the effect of air resistance on projectile motion. We use high-speed cameras to record the flight of three different projectiles and compare this motion to a trajectory generated based on our theoretical model. We find that we are able to fit our model to the actual trajectory reasonably well, and find evidence that drag depends on the size and shape of the projectile.

Modeling A Swinging Atwood Machine, Parker W. Moody

The Journal of Advanced Undergraduate Physics Laboratory Investigations, JAUPLI-B

The motion of a Swinging Atwood Machine is a difficult to solve for using Newtonian Mechanics. Lagrangian Mechanics, on the other hand, is extremely useful tool for a system that can seem overwhelmingly difficult to solve in Newtonian Mechanics. In this Lab we find the Lagrangian for this Swinging Atwood system, solve for the equation of motion, and compare our model to that of the observed motion of the system. Our model provides a good approximation of the motion, with small discrepancies due to the unknown mass of our pulley and dissipative forces.

Atomic Force Microscopy, Tyler Lane

The Journal of Advanced Undergraduate Physics Laboratory Investigations, JAUPLI-B

The goal of this experiment is to use the Atomic Force Microscope (AFM) to get images of selected items and determine some distances of the characteristics of each sample. The ultimate goal is to measure the length of a nanotube, but unfortunately there were none left on the slide that was supposed to contain them. From the results of the lab and the lab manual of “companies” with possible lengths for each sample, Lindaas-Lahti Industries seems to have the best fit overall.

Decay Time Of A Damped Pendulum, Scott D. Froehle

The Journal of Advanced Undergraduate Physics Laboratory Investigations, JAUPLI-B

A number of labs have been conducted to find the equation for a damped pendulum. A damped pendulum's behavior will be analyzed and fit to this equation. This lab focused on tau, the decay constant. It was hypothesized that the decay constant would be greater with increasing initial angles, ultimately because of the pendulum's greater velocity. A pendulum was hung on a rotary motion sensor to detect its activity when released from different angles from the vertical. Its behavior was observed and fit to the equation for the behavior of a damped pendulum. It was found that decay time and …

Absolute Frequency Measurement Of The 6d5/2 Level Of Neutral 133Cs Using Two-Photon Spectroscopy, M. T. Herd, E. C. Cook, William Williams

Physics: Faculty Publications

We report absolute frequency measurements on the 6D5/2 level of neutral 133Cs using sub-Doppler two-photon spectroscopy. The absolute center-of-gravity energy for the 6D5/2 level is determined to be 22 631.683 877(6) cm−1, a factor of 170 times improvement over the previous measurement from 1964 of 22 631.6863(10) cm−1. This measurement also corrects a 2.4σ discrepancy with the previously measured value. The hyperfine coefficients were found to be A = −4.629(14) and B = −0.10(15) MHz, which are consistent with previous results.

Tailoring Plasmon Excitations In Alpha − T 3 Armchair Nanoribbons, Andrii Iurov, Liubov Zhemchuzhna, Godfrey Gumbs, Danhong Huang, Paula Fekete, Farhana Anwar, Dipendra Dahal, Nicholas Weekes

Publications and Research

We have calculated and investigated the electronic states, dynamical polarization function and the plasmon excitations for α − T ₃ nanoribbons with armchair-edge termination. The obtained plasmon dispersions are found to depend significantly on the number of atomic rows across the ribbon and the energy gap which is also determined by the nanoribbon geometry. The bandgap appears to have the strongest effect on both the plasmon dispersions and their Landau damping. We have determined the conditions when relative hopping parameter α of an α − T ₃ lattice has a strong effect on the plasmons which makes our material distinguished …

Relativistic Fractional-Dimension Gravity, Gabriele U. Varieschi

Physics Faculty Works

This paper presents a relativistic version of Newtonian Fractional-Dimension Gravity (NFDG), an alternative gravitational model recently introduced and based on the theory of fractional-dimension spaces. This extended version—Relativistic Fractional-Dimension Gravity (RFDG)— is based on other existing theories in the literature and might be useful for astrophysical and cosmological applications. In particular, in this work, we review the mathematical theory for spaces with non-integer dimensions and its connections with the non-relativistic NFDG. The Euler– Lagrange equations for scalar fields can also be extended to spaces with fractional dimensions, by adding an appropriate weight factor, and then can be used to generalize …

Raman Investigations Of The Radiation-Induced Modifications In Ipp-Vgcnf Nanocomposites: The Nanofillers’ Tale, Dorina M. Chipara, Mihail Secu, Karen Lozano, Corina Secu, Mircea Chipara

Physics & Astronomy Faculty Publications

Nanocomposites of isotactic polypropylene loaded by various amounts of vapor-grown carbon nanotubes ranging from 0 to 20% wt. were obtained by extrusion. Raman investigations on these nanocomposites are reported. The nanocomposites were irradiated using a 60Co, with an integral dose of 1 kGy/h up to integral doses of 9 kGy, 18 kGy, and 27 kGy, in air, at room temperature. Raman measurements were performed by using a Bruker Senterra confocal Raman spectrometer operating at 785 nm. The research is focused on the information contained within the D and G Raman lines of these nanocomposites as a function of nanotube loading …

Improved Neutron Lifetime Measurement With Ucn Τ, Alexander Komives, Et Al.

Physics & Astronomy Faculty publications

We report an improved measurement of the free neutron lifetime τn using the UCNτ apparatus at the Los Alamos Neutron Science Center. We count a total of approximately 38×106 surviving ultracold neutrons (UCNs) after storing in UCNτ’s magnetogravitational trap over two data acquisition campaigns in 2017 and 2018. We extract τn from three blinded, independent analyses by both pairing long and short storage time runs to find a set of replicate τn measurements and by performing a global likelihood fit to all data while self-consistently incorporating the β-decay lifetime. Both techniques achieve consistent results and find a value τn=877.75±0.28stat+0.22/−0.16syst  s. …

Particulate Oxalate-To-Sulfate Ratio As An Aqueous Processing Marker: Similarity Across Field Campaigns And Limitations, Miguel Ricardo A. Hilario, Ewan Crosbie, Paola Angela Bañaga, Grace Betito, Rachel A. Braun, Maria Obiminda L. Cambaliza, Andrea F. Corral, Melliza Templonuevo Cruz, Jackie E. Dibb, Genevieve Rose Lorenzo, Alexander B. Macdonald, Claire E. Robinson, Michael Shook, James Bernard Simpas, Connor Stahl, Edward Winstead, Luke Ziemba, Armin Sorooshian

Physics Faculty Publications

Leveraging aerosol data from multiple airborne and surface-based field campaigns encompassing diverse environmental conditions, we calculate statistics of the oxalate-sulfate mass ratio (median: 0.0217; 95% confidence interval: 0.0154 – 0.0296; R = 0.76; N = 2948). Ground-based measurements of the oxalate-sulfate ratio fall within our 95% confidence interval, suggesting the range is robust within the mixed layer for the submicrometer particle size range. We demonstrate that dust and biomass burning emissions can separately bias this ratio towards higher values by at least one order of magnitude. In the absence of these confounding factors, the 95% confidence interval of the ratio …

Embedded Charge Distributions In Electron Irradiated Polymers – Pulsed Electroacoustic Method Reproducibility And Calibration, Zachary Gibson, Jr Dennison, Ryan Hoffmann

Physics Student Research

The pulsed electroacoustic (PEA) method has been used to measure the embedded charge distributions in electron irradiated polymers. The PEA method allows for non-destructive direct measurements of embedded charge distributions in dielectric materials. Samples of polyether-etherketone (PEEK) and polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) of 125 μm or 250 μm thickness were tested after irradiation with either a 50 keV or 80 keV electron beam. The reproducibility of the PEA method and the experimental conditions were studied by: (i) measuring each sample multiple times in a given mounting configuration, (ii) re-measuring each sample after repositioning them in the PEA test fixture, and (iii) measuring …

Conformer-Specific Photochemistry Imaged In Real Space And Time, E. G. Champenois, D. M. Sanchez, J. Yang, J. P. Figueira Nunes, A. Attar, Martin Centurion, R. Forbes, M. Gühr, K. Hegazy, F. Ji, S. K. Saha, Y. Liu, M. F. Lin, D. Luo, B. Moore, X. Shen, M. R. Ware, Xijie Wang, T. J. Martínez, Thomas J. A. Wolf

Martin Centurion Publications

Conformational isomers (conformers) of molecules play a decisive role in biology and organic chemistry. However, experimental methods for investigating chemical reaction dynamics are typically not conformersensitive. We report on a gas-phase megaelectronvolt ultrafast electron diffraction investigation of a-phellandrene undergoing an electrocyclic ring-opening reaction. We directly imaged the evolution of a specific set of a-phellandrene conformers into the product isomer predicted by the Woodward-Hoffmann rules in real space and time. Our experimental results are in quantitative agreement with nonadiabatic quantum molecular dynamics simulations, which provide considerable detail of how conformation influences the time scale and quantum efficiency of photoinduced ring-opening reactions. …

All-Sky Search For Continuous Gravitational Waves From Isolated Neutron Stars In The Early O3 Ligo Data, R. Abbott, T. D. Abbott, S. Abraham, Teviet Creighton, Mario C. Diaz, Volker Quetschke, Karla E. Ramirez, Wen Hui Wang

Physics & Astronomy Faculty Publications

We report on an all-sky search for continuous gravitational waves in the frequency band 20–2000 Hz and with a frequency time derivative in the range of [−1.0,+0.1]×10−8  Hz/s. Such a signal could be produced by a nearby, spinning and slightly nonaxisymmetric isolated neutron star in our Galaxy. This search uses the LIGO data from the first six months of Advanced LIGO’s and Advanced Virgo’s third observational run, O3. No periodic gravitational wave signals are observed, and 95% confidence-level (C.L.) frequentist upper limits are placed on their strengths. The lowest upper limits on worst-case (linearly polarized) strain amplitude h0 are ∼1.7×10−25 …

Light Meson Spectroscopy From Dalit Plot Analyses Of ΗC Decays To Η'K+K− ,Η'Π+ Π− , And Η Π + Π − Produced In Two-Photon Interactions, J. P. Lees, V. Poireau, V. Tisserand, E. Grauges, A. Palano, G. Eigen, D. N. Brown, Yu. G. Kolomensky, M. Fritsch, H. Koch, T. Schroeder, R. Cheaib, C. Hearty, T. S. Mattison, J. A. Mckenna, R. Y. So, V. E. Blinov, A. R. Buzykaev, V. P. Druzhinin, Milind Purohit, Et. Al.

Faculty Publications

We study the processes γγ → η_c → η'K⁺K⁻, η'π⁺π⁻, and ηπ⁺π⁻ using a data sample of 519 fb⁻¹ recorded with the BABAR detector operating at the SLAC PEP-II asymmetric-energy e⁺e⁻ collider at center-of-mass energies at and near the ϒ(nS) (n = 2, 3, 4) resonances. This is the first observation of the decay η_c → η'K⁺K⁻ and we measure the branching fraction Γ(η_c → η' K⁺K⁻)=(Γ(η_c → …

A Data-Driven Statistical Description For The Hydrodynamics Of Active Matter, Ahmad Borzou, Alison E. Patteson, J. M. Schwarz

Physics - All Scholarship

Modeling living systems at the collective scale can be very challenging because the individual constituents can themselves be complex and the respective interactions between the constituents may not be fully understood. With the advent of high throughput experiments and in the age of big data, data-driven methods are on the rise to overcome these challenges. Although machine-learning approaches can help quantify correlations between the various players, they do not directly shed light on the underlying physical principles of such systems. Here, we present a data-driven method for obtaining the phase-space density of active matter systems such that the solution to …

The Mass-Metallicity Relation At Z ~ 1-2 And Its Dependence On The Star Formation Rate, Alaina Henry, Marc Rafelski, Ben Sunnquist, Norbert Pirzkal, Camilla Pacifici, Hakim Atek, Micaela Bagley, Ivano Baronchelli, Guillermo Barro, Andrew J. Bunker, James Colbert, Y. Sophia Dai, Bruce G. Elmegreen, Debra Meloy Elmegreen, Steven Finkelstein, Dale Kocevski, Anton Koekemoer, Matthew Malkan, Crystal L. Martin, Vihang Mehta, Anthony Pahl, Casey Papovich

Pacific Faculty Work

We present a new measurement of the gas-phase mass-metallicity relation (MZR) and its dependence on star formation rates (SFRs) at 1.3 < z < 2.3. Our sample comprises 1056 galaxies with a mean redshift of z = 1.9, identified from the Hubble Space Telescope Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) grism spectroscopy in the Cosmic Assembly Near-infrared Deep Extragalactic Survey and the WFC3 Infrared Spectroscopic Parallel Survey. This sample is four times larger than previous metallicity surveys at z ~ 2 and reaches an order of magnitude lower in stellar mass (108 M o?). Using stacked spectra, we find that the MZR evolves by 0.3 dex relative to z ~ 0.1. Additionally, we identify a subset of 49 galaxies with high signal-to-noise (S/N) spectra and redshifts between 1.3 < z < 1.5, where Ha emission is observed along with [O iii] and [O ii]. With accurate measurements of SFR in these objects, we confirm the existence of a mass-metallicity-SFR (M-Z-SFR) relation at high redshifts. These galaxies show systematic differences from the local M-Z-SFR relation, which vary depending on the adopted measurement of the local relation. However, it remains difficult to ascertain whether these differences could be due to redshift evolution, as the local M-Z-SFR relation is poorly constrained at the masses and SFRs of our sample. Lastly, we reproduced our sample selection in the IllustrisTNG hydrodynamical simulation, demonstrating that our line flux limit lowers the normalization of the simulated MZR by 0.2 dex. We show that the M-Z-SFR relation in IllustrisTNG has an SFR dependence that is too steep by a factor of around 3.

Wave Function Identity: A New Symmetry For 2-Electron Systems In An Electromagnetic Field, Marlina Slamet, Viraht Sahni

Publications and Research

Stationary-state Schrödinger-Pauli theory is a description of electrons with a spin moment in an external electromagnetic field. For 2-electron systems as described by the Schrödinger-Pauli theory Hamiltonian with a symmetrical binding potential, we report a new symmetry operation of the electronic coordinates. The symmetry operation is such that it leads to the equality of the transformed wave function to the wave function. This equality is referred to as the Wave Function Identity. The symmetry operation is a two-step process: an interchange of the spatial coordinates of the electrons whilst keeping their spin moments unchanged, followed by an inversion. The Identity …

Replicating Analyses Of Item Response Curves Using Data From The Force And Motion Conceptual Evaluation, Connor J. Richardson, Trevor Smith, Paul J. Walter

College of Science & Mathematics Departmental Research

Ishimoto, Davenport, and Wittmann have previously reported analyses of data from student responses to the Force and Motion Conceptual Evaluation (FMCE), in which they used item response curves (IRCs) to make claims about American and Japanese students’ relative likelihood to choose certain incorrect responses to some questions. We have used an independent dataset of over 6,500 American students’ responses to the FMCE to generate IRCs to test their claims. Converting the IRCs to vectors, we used dot product analysis to compare each response item quantitatively. For most questions, our analyses are consistent with Ishimoto, Davenport, and Wittmann, with some results …