Digital Commons Network^™

Resonant 𝜋⁺𝜸 → 𝜋⁺𝜋⁰ Amplitude From Quantum Chromodynamics, Raúl A. Briceño, Jozef J. Dudek, Robert G. Edwards, Christian J. Shultz, Christopher E. Thomas, David J. Wilson

Physics Faculty Publications

We present the first ab initio calculation of a radiative transition of a hadronic resonance within quantum chromodynamics (QCD). We compute the amplitude for 𝜋𝜋→𝜋𝜸^⋆, as a function of the energy of the 𝜋𝜋 pair and the virtuality of the photon, in the kinematic regime where 𝜋𝜋 couples strongly to the unstable ρ resonance. This exploratory calculation is performed using a lattice discretization of QCD with quark masses corresponding to m_π ≈ 400  MeV. We obtain a description of the energy dependence of the transition amplitude, constrained at 48 kinematic points, that we can analytically continue …

Integration Of Multimedia In The Teaching And Learning Of Physics: How Can It Influence Student Classroom Engagement?, Cockgen Omondi Limonya

Master of Education

Considered as a multidimensional construct, student engagement has been the focus of educational research for over a decade. Educational researchers have been interested in student classroom engagement because it is opined as one of the ways through which student academic achievement, which has been cited as poor in physics, can be improved. Unfortunately, physics teachers in Kenya have not been able to engage their learners leading to the poor performance in physics. Studies have shown that multimedia integration in teaching and learning enhances student classroom engagement. The current study therefore aimed to examine the relationship between multimedia integration in the …

A Comparison Of Learning In Dual Credit Introductory College Physics, Eric L. Thies

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Dual credit courses have been offered for over fifty years and have helped students save time and money during their college education. However, little has been done to study the quality of the dual credit courses themselves. The literature is unclear about whether students in dual credit programs learn the same material as the students enrolled in the same course at the university level.

The purpose of my study was to determine whether students in a concurrent enrollment introductory physics course achieve the same knowledge growth as university students enrolled in the same physics course. I used the Force Concept …

Chasing Polys: Interdisciplinary Affinity And Its Connection To Physics Identity, Tyler Scott

All Dissertations

This research is based on two motivations that merge by means of the frameworks of interdisciplinary affinity and physics identity. First, a goal of education is to develop interdisciplinary abilities in students' thinking and work. But an often ignored factor is students interests and beliefs about being interdisciplinary. Thus, this work develops and uses a framework called interdisciplinary affinity. It encompasses students interests in making connections across disciplines and their beliefs about their abilities to make those connections. The second motivation of this research is to better understand how to engage more students with physics. Physics identity describes how a …

Magneto-Optical Kerr Eect Study Of Magnetic Anisotropy In Soft Ferromagnets, Tatiana Marie Eggers

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The continued progress of modern information technology relies on understanding the influence of magnetic anisotropy on magnetic thin films. In this work, two sources of magnetic anisotropy are examined in two different soft ferromagnets: a uniaxial anisotropy induced during the fabrication of Ni₈₀Fe₂₀ and exchange anisotropy, or exchange bias, which occurs at the interface of Ni₇₇Fe₁₄Cu₅Mo₄/Fe₅₀Mn₅₀ bilayer. A home-built Magneto-optical Kerr effect magnetometer is used to measure the magnetic response of the soft ferromagnetic films and details of its construction are also discussed. A simple model …

Teaching Physics To Deaf College Students In A 3-D Virtual Lab, Vicki Robinson

Journal of Science Education for Students with Disabilities

Virtual worlds are used in many educational and business applications. At the National Technical Institute for the Deaf at Rochester Institute of Technology (NTID/RIT), deaf college students are introduced to the virtual world of Second Life, which is a 3-D immersive, interactive environment, accessed through computer software. NTID students use this virtual environment to practice concepts first encountered in the laboratory.

First Background-Free Limit From A Directional Dark Matter Experiment: Results From A Fully Fiducialised Drift Detector, James B.R. Battat, J. Brack, E. Daw, A. Dorofeev, A. C. Ezeribe, J.-L. Gauvreau, M. Gold, J. L. Harton, J. M. Landers, E. Law, E. R. Lee, D. Loomba, A. Lumnah, J. A.J. Matthews, E. H. Miller, A. Monte, F. Mouton, A. Stj. Murphy, S. M. Paling, N. Phan, M. Robinson, S. W. Sadler, A. Scarff, F. Schuckman, D. P. Snowden-Ifft, N. J.C. Spooner, S. Telfer, Sven Vahsen, D. Walker, D. Warner, L. Yuriev

Faculty Research and Scholarship

The addition of O2 to gas mixtures in time projection chambers containing CS2 has recently been shown to produce multiple negative ions that travel at slightly different velocities. This allows a measurement of the absolute position of ionising events in the z (drift) direction. In this work, we apply the z-fiducialisation technique to a directional dark matter search. In particular, we present results from a 46.3 live-day source-free exposure of the DRIFT-IId detector run in this completely new mode. With full-volume fiducialisation, we have achieved the first background-free operation of a directional detector. The resulting exclusion curve for spin-dependent WIMP-proton …

Driven By Beliefs: Understanding Challenges Physical Science Teachers Face When Integrating Engineering And Physics, Emily A. Dare, Joshua A. Ellis, Gillian H. Roehrig

Journal of Pre-College Engineering Education Research (J-PEER)

It is difficult to ignore the increased use of technological innovations in today’s world, which has led to various calls for the integration of engineering into K-12 science standards. The need to understand how engineering is currently being brought to science classrooms is apparent and necessary in order to address these calls for integration. This multiphase, mixed-methods study investigated the classroom practices and beliefs of high school physical science teachers following an intensive professional development on physics and engineering integration.

Classroom observations showed that teachers new to incorporating engineering into their physical science classrooms often struggled to maintain focus on …

College Of Science And Mathematics Newsletter, Fall 2014, College Of Science And Mathematics, Wright State University

College of Science and Mathematics Newsletters

This 8 page newsletter discusses various happenings within the College of Science and Mathematics. It begins with a letter from the dean, and continues on with news, events, alumni news, and other community news.

Physics Discipline 3-Year Assessment Plan 2014-2017, Physics Discipline

Assessment of Student Learning Reports

No abstract provided.

All At One Point: The New Physics Of Italo Calvino And Jorge Luis Borges, Mark Thomas Rinaldi

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This work of comparative literary criticism focuses on the presence of mathematical and scientific concepts and imagery in the works of Italo Calvino and Jorge Luis Borges, beginning with an historical overview of scientific philosophy and an introduction to the most significant scientific concepts of the last several centuries, before shifting to deep, scientifically-driven analyses of numerous individual fictions, and finally concluding with a meditation on the unexpectedly fictive aspects of science and mathematics. The close readings of these authors' fictions are contextualized with thorough explanations of the potential literary implications of theories from physics, mathematics, neuroscience and chaos theory. …

Topological Code Architectures For Quantum Computation, Christopher Cesare

Physics & Astronomy ETDs

This dissertation is concerned with quantum computation using many-body quantum systems encoded in topological codes. The interest in these topological systems has increased in recent years as devices in the lab begin to reach the fidelities required for performing arbitrarily long quantum algorithms. The most well-studied system, Kitaev's toric code, provides both a physical substrate for performing universal fault-tolerant quantum computations and a useful pedagogical tool for explaining the way other topological codes work. In this dissertation, I first review the necessary formalism for quantum information and quantum stabilizer codes, and then I introduce two families of topological codes: Kitaev's …

Integrating Cognitive Science With Innovative Teaching In Stem Disciplines, Mark A. Mcdaniel, Regina F. Frey, Susan M. Fitzpatrick, Henry L. Roediger Iii

Books and Monographs

This volume collects the ideas and insights discussed at a novel conference, the Integrating Cognitive Science with Innovative Teaching in STEM Disciplines Conference, which was held September 27-28, 2012 at Washington University in St. Louis. With funding from the James S. McDonnell Foundation, the conference was hosted by Washington University’s Center for Integrative Research on Cognition, Learning, and Education (CIRCLE), a center established in 2011. Available for download as a PDF. Titles of individual chapters can be found at http://openscholarship.wustl.edu/circle_book/.

The Physics Of Music Course As An Introduction To Science, Gordon Ramsey

Physics: Faculty Publications and Other Works

Our Physics of Music course is an integration of physics and music. We start with the mathematical structure of music, including scales, harmonies and chords. We discuss musical styles and how they differ. After an introduction of physics concepts, including waves,resonances, forces, energy and fluid flow, the physical structure of instruments in the various groups are studied. Connection is made of the instruments and how they reproduce the mathematical nature of music. Finally, venue acoustics are investigated. The course integrates different styles of learning by integrating different learning modes. The classes include lecture/demonstration, discussion, in-class laboratories and a final individual …

Strong-Disorder Magnetic Quantum Phase Transitions: Status And New Developments, Thomas Vojta

Physics Faculty Research & Creative Works

This article reviews the unconventional effects of random disorder on magnetic quantum phase transitions, focusing on a number of new experimental and theoretical developments during the last three years. On the theory side, we address smeared quantum phase transitions tuned by changing the chemical composition, for example in alloys of the type A_1-xB_x. We also discuss how the interplay of order parameter conservation and overdamped dynamics leads to enhanced quantum Griffiths singularities in disordered metallic ferromagnets. Finally, we discuss a semiclassical theory of transport properties in quantum Griffiths phases. Experimental examples include the ruthenates Sr_{1-x …}

Kinematic Characterization Of Left Ventricular Chamber Stiffness And Relaxation, Sina Mossahebi

All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)

Heart failure is the most common cause of hospitalization today, and diastolic heart failure accounts for 40-50% of cases. Therefore, it is critical to identify diastolic dysfunction at a subclinical stage so that appropriate therapy can be administered before ventricular function is further, and perhaps irreversibly impaired. Basic concepts in physics such as kinematic modeling provide a unique method with which to characterize cardiovascular physiology, specifically diastolic function (DF). The advantage of an approach that is standard in physics, such as the kinematic modeling is its causal formulation that functions in contrast to correlative approaches traditionally utilized in the life …

Plasma Wave Mediated Attractive Potentials: A Prerequisite For Electron Compound Formation, R. A. Treumann, W. Baumjohann

Dartmouth Scholarship

Coagulation of electrons to form macro-electrons or compounds in high temperature plasma is not generally expected to occur. Here we investigate, based on earlier work, the possibility for such electron compound formation (non-quantum "pairing") mediated in the presence of various kinds of plasma waves via the generation of attractive electrostatic potentials, the necessary condition for coagulation. We confirm the possibility of production of attractive potential forces in ion- and electron-acoustic waves, pointing out the importance of the former and expected consequences. While electron-acoustic waves presumably do not play any role, ion-acoustic waves may potentially contribute to formation of heavy electron …

Cosm News, Georgia Southern University

College of Science & Mathematics: News & Publications (2012-2022)

• Ryan Fortenberry’s publication featured by the American Institute of Physics

An Adaptive Educational Game To Help Students Learn How To Solve Systems Of Linear Equations, Wang Zhang

Theses and Dissertations

Educational games have been proven to be effective in developing problem solving skills in well-defined domain, such as Math and Physics. In this thesis, an educational game called Matrix was developed to foster problem solving skills in the domain of linear algebra, particularly solving a system of linear equations. Matrix is an adaptive educational game that uses intelligent tutoring modules to guide the student's learning process and provide feedback based on the student's performance. These modules are domain module, student module, pedagogical module and presentation module. The domain module contains all the concepts the student needs to learn and an …

Read Me, Charles G. Torre

Foundations of Wave Phenomena

What this book is all about, why it was written, and stuff like that.

Ion Temperatures In Earth's Inner Magnetosphere: Ring Current Dynamics, Transient Effects, And Data-Model Comparisons, Justin G. Elfritz

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Earth's magnetosphere is an inherently complex, strongly nonlinear system with intrinsic coupling between internal and external drivers. In general, magnetospheric systems can be understood as a balance between multiple regions which all exhibit unique plasma properties. The feedback processes between each region depend on geomagnetic activity levels and the preceding states of the solar wind and the respective magnetospheric regions. Of particular interest is understanding how ion temperatures evolve during geomagnetically active periods, and also understanding the space weather impacts of hot ion populations injected during such periods. Dynamic, spatiotemporally resolved ion temperature boundary conditions have been implemented into the …

The Physicist's Basement, Nora Culik

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

No abstract provided.

College Of Science And Mathematics Newsletter, Summer 2014, College Of Science And Mathematics, Wright State University

College of Science and Mathematics Newsletters

This 9 page newsletter discusses various happenings within the College of Science and Mathematics. It begins with a letter from the dean, and continues on with news, events, alumni news, and other community news.

On Electromagnetic And Quantum Invisibility, Pattabhiraju Chowdary Mundru

Doctoral Dissertations

The principle objective of this dissertation is to investigate the fundamental properties of electromagnetic wave interactions with artificially fabricated materials i.e., metamaterials for application in advanced stealth technology called electromagnetic cloaking. The main goal is to theoretically design a metamaterial shell around an object that completely eliminates the dipolar and higher order multipolar scattering, thus making the object invisible.

In this context, we developed a quasi-effective medium theory that determines the optical properties of multi-layered-composites beyond the quasi-static limit. The proposed theory exactly reproduces the far-field scattering/extinction cross sections through an iterative process in which mode-dependent quasi-effective impedances of the …

Rare Regions And Griffiths Singularities At A Clean Critical Point: The Five-Dimensional Disordered Contact Process, Thomas Vojta, John Igo, José A. Hoyos

Physics Faculty Research & Creative Works

We investigate the nonequilibrium phase transition of the disordered contact process in five space dimensions by means of optimal fluctuation theory and Monte Carlo simulations. We find that the critical behavior is of mean-field type, i.e., identical to that of the clean five-dimensional contact process. It is accompanied by off-critical power-law Griffiths singularities whose dynamical exponent z' saturates at a finite value as the transition is approached. These findings resolve the apparent contradiction between the Harris criterion, which implies that weak disorder is renormalization-group irrelevant, and the rare-region classification, which predicts unconventional behavior. We confirm and illustrate our theory by …

Investigating The Proposed Affordances And Limitations Of The Substance Metaphor For Energy, Lisa Goodhew

Honors Projects

This study explores the instructional advantages and disadvantages of representing energy as a material substance; this is done in the context of a computer simulation that illustrates processes of energy transfer and transformation. These affordances and limitations have been proposed in science education literature as extensions of the substance metaphor itself, but there is little empirical evidence to support them. This study is intended to provide preliminary empirical evidence for these affordances and limitations. We examine data from eight interviews conducted with students from Seattle Pacific University’s introductory physics classes as they used the simulation. We explore the hypotheses that …

The Structure Of D₂O-Nonane Nanodroplets, Harshad Pathak, Abdalla Obeidat, Gerald Wilemski, Barbara Wyslouzil

Physics Faculty Research & Creative Works

We study the internal structure of nanometer-sized D₂O-nonane aerosol droplets formed in supersonic nozzle expansions using a variety of experimental techniques including small angle X-ray scattering (SAXS). By fitting the SAXS spectra to a wide range of droplet structure models, we find that the experimental results are inconsistent with mixed droplets that form aqueous core-organic shell structures, but are quite consistent with spherically asymmetric lens-on-sphere structures. The structure that agrees best with the SAXS data and Fourier transform infra-red spectroscopy measurements is that of a nonane lens on a sphere of D2O with a contact angle in the …

Exploring The Relationship Between A Fluid Container's Geometry And When It Will Balance On Edge, Ryan J. Moriarty

Physics

At some point while consuming a beverage, many people will idly try to balance its container on edge. The act itself is physically straightforward, merely involving the system's center of mass and achieving a static equilibrium between the opposing torques caused by gravity and the normal force between the container and the surface on which it balances. Further analysis of the act, however, illuminates the richness of the exercise.

These nuances are apparent even in simplified two-dimensional models because of the depth of the relationship between a container's geometry and achieving balance. The purpose of such analysis is threefold: first, …

The Soft Mode Driven Dynamics Of Ferroelectric Perovskites At The Nanoscale: An Atomistic Study, Kevin Mccash

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The discovery of ferroelectricity at the nanoscale has incited a lot of interest in perovskite ferroelectrics not only for their potential in device application but also for their potential to expand fundamental understanding of complex phenomena at very small size scales. Unfortunately, not much is known about the dynamics of ferroelectrics at this scale. Many of the widely held theories for ferroelectric materials are based on bulk dynamics which break down when applied to smaller scales. In an effort to increase understanding of nanoscale ferroelectric materials we use atomistic resolution computational simulations to investigate the dynamics of polar perovskites. Within …

Chemical And Hydrodynamic Mechanisms For Long-Term Geological Carbon Storage, Susan J. Altman, Wen Deng, For Full List Of Authors, See Publisher's Website.

Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Geological storage of CO₂ (GCS), also referred to as carbon sequestration, is a critical component for decreasing anthropogenic CO₂ atmospheric emissions. Stored CO₂ will exist as a supercritical phase, most likely in deep, saline, sedimentary reservoirs. Research at the Center for Frontiers of Subsurface Energy Security (CFSES), a Department of Energy, Energy Frontier Research Center, provides insights into the storage process. The integration of pore-scale experiments, molecular dynamics simulations, and study of natural analogue sites has enabled understanding of the efficacy of capillary, solubility, and dissolution trapping of CO₂ for GCS. Molecular dynamics simulations provide insight on relative wetting of …