Physics Commons^™

Simulating Ice Particle Properties Under Varying Electric Fields, Joseph Thomas Cooney

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

In this study, the interactions between atmospheric water molecules and an electrically charged dust particle were simulated in python to determine the role of electric charge and electric fields in atmospheric ice formation. Multiple levels of electric charge were tested, corresponding to different strengths of atmospheric electric fields. The TIP4P-2005 model for water was used to simulate these molecules under the influence of a central electric potential to represent the charged dust particle. These included a control group with no electric field (0 C), a group under a fair-weather strength of electric field (1.6*10-14 C), a foul-weather electric field (1.6*10-12 …

Simulating Ice Particle Properties Under Varying Electric Fields, Joseph Cooney

Physics Capstone Projects

In this study, the interactions between atmospheric water molecules and an electrically charged dust particle were simulated in python to determine the role of electric charge and electric fields in atmospheric ice formation. Multiple levels of electric charge were tested, corresponding to different strengths of atmospheric electric fields. The TIP4P-2005 model for water was used to simulate these molecules under the influence of a central electric potential to represent the charged dust particle. These included a control group with no electric field (0 C), a group under a fair-weather strength of electric field (1.6*10-14 C), a foul-weather electric field (1.6*10-12 …

Simulating Ice Nuclei Under Atmospheric Electric Fields, Joseph Cooney

Student Research Symposium

Orographic clouds generally form over mountains when valleys are sunny. The unstable atmosphere can trigger clouds over the mountains, which can be convective. When this happens, the cloud particles (water droplets and ice particles) become charged, ultimately creating ice crystals. In this study, we want to evaluate the impact of electricity on the formation of ice crystals and used a simulation to do so.

Teaching A Computer To Do Mechanics, Andrew Watson

Student Research Symposium

Classical Mechanics

- Used for determining motion of objects

- Three Main Formulations of Classical Mechanics

• Newtonian Mechanics: Revolves around Newton’s 2nd Law (F = ma)
• Lagrangian Mechanics: Revolves around the Lagrangian
• Hamiltonian Mechanics: Revolves around the Hamiltonian

- Hamiltonian Mechanics provides the most powerful view of mechanics – but it’s complicated!

• My goal is to get the computer to do Hamiltonian Mechanics.

The 2022 Hunga Tonga Volcanic Eruption's Impact On Radio Communications, Spencer Brothers

Student Research Symposium

On January 15^th 2022, the Hunga Tonga volcanic eruption, Figure 1, ejected unprecedented amounts of water into the stratosphere. The resulting plume may present temporary opportunities for long distance radio communication.

Analyzing Atmospheric Gravity Waves Over Antarctica And Visualizing Machine Learning Data, Anastasia Brown

Student Research Symposium

• Gravity Waves are buoyancy waves that propagate in the atmosphere [1]
• Mostly generated by tropospheric weather,
• Can vertically propagate above 100 km altitude,
• Affect the temperature structure of the atmosphere, 
• Drive pole-to-pole circulation.

Solar Factors Influence High Frequency (Hf) Radio Propagation, Jayson Wiggins

Student Research Symposium

Although it has been around for over 100 years, high frequency (HF) radio is here to stay.

HF radio is in the range from 3-30 MHz, and is used by amateur radio enthusiasts, commercial airlines, and the Department of Defense.

Communication over greater distances than other methods is possible due to skywave propagation, a process in which radio waves are reflected by the lower regions of the ionosphere. This means changes in the ionosphere have important effects on propagation.

Non-Destructive Thickness Uniformity Measurement Of Photosensitive Gelatin Film, Clayton Halper

Physics Capstone Projects

Volume phase holographic gratings (VPHG’s) depend on dichromate gelatin of which uniform thickness is vital. The photosensitive nature of the film makes current thin film measurement devices not viable for production means. This project attempts to create a non-destructive measurement of photosensitive gelatin film used in VPHG production. Application of thin film interference at chosen wavelengths enable analysis of uniformity by comparison between the thin film inference patterns at different wavelengths. An initial proof of concept was established and a path towards a production ready device is outlined.

The First Variational Formula, The Phase Space Of Solutions, And The Ostrogradsky Formalism, Matthew Pontius, Drew Watson

Physics Capstone Projects

We consider Lagrangians for classical mechanics which depend upon an arbitrary number of time derivatives of the configuration variables. From the boundary term in the first variation of the Lagrangian we derive the Ostrogradsky formulas which define the Hamiltonian formulation of mechanical systems.

Anomaly Detection On Small Wind Turbine Blades Using Deep Learning Algorithms, Bridger Altice, Edwin Nazario, Mason Davis, Mohammad Shekaramiz, Todd K. Moon, Mohammad A. S. Masoum

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

Wind turbine blade maintenance is expensive, dangerous, time-consuming, and prone to misdiagnosis. A potential solution to aid preventative maintenance is using deep learning and drones for inspection and early fault detection. In this research, five base deep learning architectures are investigated for anomaly detection on wind turbine blades, including Xception, Resnet-50, AlexNet, and VGG-19, along with a custom convolutional neural network. For further analysis, transfer learning approaches were also proposed and developed, utilizing these architectures as the feature extraction layers. In order to investigate model performance, a new dataset containing 6000 RGB images was created, making use of indoor and …

Electric Fields In The Atmosphere Might Help Snow Crystals Form, Joseph Cooney

Research on Capitol Hill

Orographic clouds generally form over mountains when valleys are sunny. The unstable atmosphere can trigger clouds over the mountains, which can be convective. When this happens, the cloud particles (water droplets and ice particles) become charged, ultimately creating ice crystals. I wanted to evaluate the impact of electricity on the formation of ice crystals and built a computer simulation to do so.

Young Professionals: Fireside Chat With Jacques Lewiner And J. Keith Nelson At The Ieee Conference On Electrical Insulation And Dielectric Phenomena, Mattewos Tefferi, Allen Andersen, Sneha Hedge, Moein Borghei

Journal Articles

At the IEEE Conference on Electrical Insulation and Dielectric Phenomena (CEIDP), the Dielectrics and Electrical Insulation Society’s Young Professionals (DEIS-YP) Committee has initiated a YP luncheon event. This event aims to feature keynote speakers who share insights into their career trajectories with young professionals. In the current CEIDP edition, we had the privilege of hosting two distinguished speakers: Jacques Lewiner, the 2023 Whitehead Memorial Lecturer, and J. Keith Nelson, the 2022 recipient of the Dakin Award who also presented his award lecture at the CEIDP 2023. The fire- side chat was moderated by Allen Andersen, who began with initial questions …

Dynamics And Scaling Of Particle Streaks In High-Reynolds-Number Turbulent Boundary Layers, Tim Berk, Filippo Coletti

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Faculty Publications

Inertial particles in wall-bounded turbulence are known to form streaks, but experimental evidence and predictive understanding of this phenomenon is lacking, especially in regimes relevant to atmospheric flows. We carry out wind tunnel measurements to investigate this process, characterizing the transport of microscopic particles suspended in turbulent boundary layers. The friction Reynolds number Re_𝜏 = O(10⁴) allows for significant scale separation and the emergence of large-scale motions, while the range of viscous Stokes number St⁺ = 18–870 is relevant to the transport of dust and fine sand in the atmospheric surface layer. We …

Nalidarturbopauseshear, Titus Yuan

Browse all Datasets

The USU Na lidar has been upgraded to be able to measure temperature and winds in the lower thermosphere up to ~ 115 km routinely. The new capability, coupled with the existing nightglow instruments at USU, enables the investigation of the extreme large wind and shears in this region and their correlation to the atmospheric gravity waves activities in the upper mesosphere.

A Simple Method For Determining Shallow Charge Distributions In Dielectrics Via Pulsed Electroacoustic Measurements, Zachary Gibson, J. R. Dennison

Journal Articles

The understanding of charge dynamics in dielectric materials is paramount in mitigating electrostatic discharge events for spacecraft. The most critical spacecraft charging events are found to result from incident electrons in the energy range of 10 keV to 50 keV. The charge embedded in dielectric materials in this energy range are deposited a distance into the material on the order of a few to tens of microns. One way to measure and understand the deposited charge is via pulsed electroacoustic measurements (PEA). However, the typical PEA spatial resolution of ~ 10 μm is not sufficient to resolve or discern charge …

The Time-Dependent Ionospheric Model Using A Tec-Driven Servo: An Investigation Of The Capabilities And Limitations, Jenny Rebecca Whiteley

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The ionosphere is a region of the atmosphere with a high density of electrons. These electrons affect the behavior of any electromagnetic wave that passes through the ionosphere. Communication and geolocation systems, such as traditional radio and Global Positioning Systems, depend on emitted electromagnetic signals being picked up by a receiver. The presence of the ionosphere affects the behavior of the signal and the quality of the service. Hence, the interactions between electromagnetic waves and the ionosphere provide a major motivation to understand, research, and successfully model and predict the ionosphere and its physical phenomena. This study focused on determining …

Signatures Of Black Holes, Alexandra B. Chanson

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

In this defense I will describes three approaches to learn more about the relationship between the dynamics of black-holes and the distinctive signatures of a black hole systems: infinitesimal changes in the black hole background producing field excitations relating new fundamental black hole thermodynamic relations, mechanisms powering relativistic black hole jets and spontaneous symmetry breaking in five space-time dimensions, and physical signatures of black hole event horizons as conformal field theory duals (in both d=4,5 dimensional axisymmetric spacetimes).

The Derivation Of Sodium Density In The Mesosphere And Lower Thermosphere From The Na Lidar Photon Counting Profiles, Xiaoqi Xi

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Derivation of Sodium (Na) number density from the Na lidar observations requires the in situ temperature and wind information because the absorption cross-section of the Na atom is a function of these dynamic parameters. The Na number density above ~ 110 km altitude was difficult to derive with the conventional algorithm, however. The standard output of the Na number density that utilizes the lidar-measured wind and temperature information falls short at ~ 110 km altitude and above due to the relatively large measurement uncertainties in the two critical parameters (low signal-to-noise ratio). Therefore, an innovative algorithm that may drive the …

Precise Determination Of Charge Distributions In Electron Irradiated Polymers Via Pulsed Electroacoustic Measurements With Applications To Spacecraft Charging, Zachary Gibson

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Understanding how charge builds up and moves around in materials that are highly insulating, such as dielectrics, is important for many applications from power transmission to spacecraft charging. The leading cause of issues in spacecraft due to interactions with the space environment is spacecraft charging. That is, the accumulation of charge on insulating materials leads to arcing and sparking aboard the spacecraft. The most critical charging occurs due to electrons in a particular energy range of 10-50 keV. Electrons with these energies can travel 1’s to 10’s of microns into relevant materials. To measure where the charge is embedded and …

Radon In Utah Homes, Madison Mackay

Physics Capstone Projects

Radon gas can be found nearly everywhere. It is formed by the decay of radium, which is found in rocks, soil, plants, and animals. Radon gas can become trapped in buildings and is dangerous at high levels. It is particularly known to be high in many areas of the state of Utah. It is important for the average citizen in Utah to understand more about radon and what levels they may be exposed to. An experiment was done to try an alternate, faster method of testing for radon gas. This experiment was performed in several different locations in Utah. While …

Preparation, Characterization And Electron Yield Analysis On Highly Insulating Granular Particles, Heather Allen

Physics Capstone Projects

This study focuses on obtaining reliable electron yield measurements of highly insulating granular particles of various shape, size, and composition. Measurements of this kind have long been considered too difficult to collect on granular samples due to experimental complexities leading to a critical knowledge gap in the fundamental electrostatic behaviors of dust. A significant portion of this study was spent on preparing and characterizing granular samples before any type of measurement took place. Particles of varying sizes ranging from ~1 μm to ~100 μm, shapes including cubical, spherical, and angular, and composition including NaCl, MgO, Al₂O₃ and …

Methods For Preparing And Characterizing Granular Materials For Electron Yield Measurements, Tom Keaton

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

This work presents a systematic study on sample preparation methods and accuracy of electron yield (EY) measurements of highly insulating, granular materials. EY measurements of highly insulating materials, especially those with high EY, are challenging due to the effects of sample charging even for very low fluence electron probe beams. EY measurements of particulates are complicated by: (i) roughness effects from particulate size, shape, coverage, and compactness; (ii) particle adhesion; (iii) substrate contributions; and (iv) electrostatic repulsion and potential barriers from charged particles and substrates. Numerous methods were explored to rigidly affix particles on conducting substrates at varying coverages for …

Metasurfaces For Holography, Scott Howell

Physics Capstone Projects

Holography uses the interference of light waves to store information about an object, which can then be seen from different angles to create a partial 3D view. A simple experiment can be done using a laser diode, photographic plate, and a set of dice to create a holographic image. The holographic film is thin and can only hold a single image. Reflection holography can create a 3D diffraction pattern and allows more information to be packed into a single medium. Computer generated holograms can be designed to create holograms without a real object to be used in augmented reality. High …

Engineering Lab Building Telescope Manual, Aidan L. Tueller

Physics Capstone Projects

In partnership with Dr. Jan Sojka, head of the Physics Department, a plan was created to make the telescope on top of the Engineering Lab building operational again for either staff, students, classes, or labs to use. The telescope was purchased through funds by Utah NASA Space Grant Consortium. This paper will contain basic information about how to operate the telescope and use its equipment. There is an online manual from Meade that is much longer but goes into much more detail about individual pieces and specific parts of the telescope.

Light Scattering From Periodic, Conducting Nanostructures, Wesley Kenneth Mills

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

A material with broadband light absorbing capabilities has the potential for much usefulness in devices such as photovoltaics and thermoelectrics. By energy conservation, a non-transparent material with low reflectance will be highly absorbing. Thus, much research has been devoted to understanding what makes material having low reflectance across a wide wavelength spectrum.

The importance of a material’s electronic structure in determining reflectance is well-established. Current research is revealing the additional importance of surface architecture in the reflective properties of a material. A metasurface is a two-dimentional material with physical features at or smaller than the wavelength of light considered. These …

A Classification Of Tensors In Ecsk Theory, Joshua James Leiter

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

You might have heard of Einstein’s theory of General relativity (GR): it is the one where mass and energy curve the fabric of spacetime to create gravity. This is the major theory which allows communication through satellites and our GPS to work too! Wormholes have interested me, but there are some issues about forming them in GR. Interestingly enough, elementary particles are also characterized by their spin in the standard model. However, intrinsic spin is nowhere geometrically coupled to the geometry of spacetime in Einstein’s theory. Later, Élie Cartan, Dennis Sciama, and Tom Kibble all flushed out adding different aspects …

High Frequency Radio Communication, Tyler Larsen

Physics Capstone Projects

High frequency radio communication has been the most reliable form of communication for many decades. Over that period, we have learned and experienced times of enhanced signals along with complete radio blackouts. The purpose of this research is to collect and analyze radio signal data to see the evidence of various reasons as to why these phenomena occur. A radio antenna was set up at USU campus to retrieve the signals from beacon networks across the globe that transmit signals every 15 minutes. By tracking a few of these signals we can locate the times of discrepancies in the signals …

The Kp Index And Behavior Of Quiet Periods, Collette Walbeck

Physics Capstone Projects

The Kp-index quantifies the electromagnetic effects in the Earth’s atmosphere and is used in a variety of scientific fields. Higher Kp values tend to be the focus in these fields as they relate to high solar activity and geomagnetic storms. This study aimed to examine the significance, if any, of lower Kp indices. A simple data analysis was performed on continuous sequences of low Kp values, deemed Quiet Periods. Both the daily average of the values and the full set of Kp data were used. A decaying exponential relationship was discovered between the length of these periods and their frequencies …

Effectiveness Of Multilayer Graded-Z Forms Of Radiation Shielding, Brinley Packer

Physics Capstone Projects

This study explored how different forms of radiation shielding were more or less effective than standard single-layer shielding. Beta and gamma radiation sources were used and measured using a Geiger counter to determine how well the various forms of shielding protect against the radiation. The shielding effectiveness of standard homogeneous materials (e.g., graphite, carbon/epoxy composites, aluminum, and lead) of various thicknesses for different radiation sources was measured to provide standards for comparison. Once a basis of effective shielding was established, the study can go into greater depth into how to use shielding materials to be more effective, to better shield …

For The Dissertation: A Classification Of Tensors In Ecsk Theory, Joshua James Leiter, Charles G. Torre

Physics Student Research

This dissertation presents a Petrov/Plebanski/Segre/Algebraic (PPSA) classification scheme for both the curvature and torsion tensors in Einstein-Cartan-Sciama-Kibble theory (ECSK); additionally the work includes a software package in Maple with computational and PPSA classification tools. Six different solutions are classified using the new software tools developed. We also present a new boundary term for ECSK-NMC scalar theory to ensure Dirichlet boundary conditions. New work completed includes the decomposition of an arbitrary 4th rank tensor under SO (p, q), equivalent SL (2, C) irreducible spinor decompositions of arbitrary 3rd and 4th rank tensors. We provide new proofs that the corresponding spinors are …