Physics Theory Seminar with Alexei Prokudin on Exploring the structure of matter at the Electron-Ion Collider

The future Electron Ion Collider (EIC), to be constructed at Brookhaven National Laboratory, will be instrumental in advancing our understanding of the fundamental building blocks of the visible universe: the proton and the neutron. In my talk, I will discuss the physics program of the EIC, with a particular focus on the latest advancements in the study of the three dimensional nucleon structure.

This lecture was made possible by the William C. Ferguson fund. 

Physics Colloquium with Sebastian Deffner on Quantum stochastic thermodynamics of relativistic systems

Physical scenarios that require a relativistic treatment are ubiquitous in nature, rang- ing from cosmological objects to charge carriers in Dirac materials.  Interestingly, most of these situations have in common that the corresponding systems evolve very far from thermal equilibrium.  Therefore, if and how the framework of stochastic thermodynamics applies at relativistic energies is a salient question.  In this talk, I will survey our recent results  on  extending  central  notions  of  stochastic  thermodynamics,  such  as  fluctuation theorems and endorevers

Physics Colloquium with Phil Kaaret on "Science Results from the Imaging X-Ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE)"

The Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE) is the first mission dedicated to X-ray polarimetry and provides an order of magnitude increase in sensitivity over previous instruments. IXPE has made discoveries impacting our understanding of the geometry of accretion flows onto black holes, particle acceleration in blazar jets, the magnetic field configuration in supernova remnants, and more. This talk will present selected science highlights.

Space Sciences/Astrophysics Seminar with Howard Isaacson on Ground-based Radial Velocity Surveys as the Foundation for Future Space Missions

The California Planet Search has conducted a precise radial velocity of ~700 nearby stars in the solar neighborhood spanning dozens of years, and a high-resolution spectroscopy survey of 1,000 planet hosting stars. The California Legacy Survey (CLS) and California Kepler Survey (CKS) were conducted as an exploratory survey and a characterization survey, respectively.

Condensed Matter/Materials & Biological Physics Seminar with Tiancheng Song on Discovering and Engineering Two-Dimensional Magnetism and Superconductivity

Understanding and manipulating macroscopic quantum phenomena such as superconductivity and magnetism are crucial for future quantum science and technology. Two-dimensional (2D) materials and their van der Waals (vdW) heterostructures offer a promising platform to achieve this goal due to their exceptionally broad tunability. In this talk, I will highlight the potential of such a platform through two outstanding examples: 2D magnetism and 2D superconductivity.

Physics Theory Seminar with Debasish Borah on Matter-antimatter asymmetry from forbidden decays

The visible part of the present Universe is composed of matter only with negligible trace of antimatter. However, matter and antimatter are two sides of the same coin, and the Big Bang should not have had a preference for creating one type over another. Therefore, the observed dominance of matter over antimatter in the present Universe has led to a longstanding puzzle in particle physics and cosmology. One of the appealing solutions to this puzzle is Baryogenesis/leptogenesis where out-of-equilibrium and CP violating decay of a heavy particle generates such asymmetry.

2025 McDonnell Distinguished Lectures: Colloquium with Priyamvada Natarajan on the Formation of the First Black Holes

There is a revolution afoot in our understanding of supermassive black holes (SMBHs), that is reshaping our view of their formation, growth and influence on cosmic architecture. Recent breakthroughs have enriched our knowledge of their origins, mass assembly histories and coupling to the larger scale galactic environments. These include: (i) unveiling black hole seed formation via direct collapse illuminated by the synergistic capabilities of NASA's JWST, Chandra, and Hubble telescopes; (ii) groundbreaking evidence for the collective gravitational wave signals from merging SMBHs, captured by the global network of pulsar timing arrays, including NANOGrav; and (iii) the advent of cutting-edge computational methods enabling us to integrate the dynamics of SMBH accretion with their extended cosmic environments. In this talk, Natarajan will focus on new insights into the formation of the first black holes from when the Universe was ~ 400-500 Myrs old and what we are learning from these new data-sets; discuss open pertinent questions in black hole physics and outline the exciting prospects for the future including the upcoming LISA mission.

Priyamvada Natarajan is an astrophysicist, and the inaugural Joseph S. and Sophia S. Fruton Professor in Astronomy & Physics at Yale. She has made seminal contributions to our understanding of the nature of dark matter using gravitational lensing studies; and the assembly history of supermassive black holes over cosmic time. The recipient of many awards and honors, including fellowships of the American Physical Society; American Astronomical Society; the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; the American Association for the Advancement of Science; the Guggenheim and Radcliffe Fellowships, she was recognized with the 2022 Liberty Science Center ‘Genius Award’ and 2025 Dannie Heineman Prize in Astrophysics that is jointly awarded by the American Astronomical Society and American Institute of Physics. She was included in the TIME100 list of most influential people in the world in 2024 for her path breaking contributions to Astrophysics. Priya has served as Chair of the National Astronomy and Astrophysics Advisory Committee that advises NASA, NSF and DoE; as Chair of the Division of Astrophysics of the APS and currently serves on the Scientific Editorial Board of the AAS Journals. On the faculty at Yale, since 2000, she serves currently as the Director of the Franke Program in Science and the Humanities and was the Chair of the Women Faculty Forum from 2011-2014.

Header image: This artist concept illustrates a supermassive black hole with millions to billions times the mass of our Sun. Supermassive black holes are enormously dense objects buried at the hearts of galaxies. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Beyond Particles: The Elegant Universe of Strings: St. Louis Astronomical Society April Meeting

Megan Dickson will discuss String Theory, which replaces the concept of point-like particles of particle physics with a theory of one-dimensional objects called strings. String Theory aims to reconcile quantum mechanics and general relativity. It offers a unified description of all fundamental forces and particles. This theory could provide potential insights into the nature of the universe, including the possibility of multiple dimensions and the unification of all forces. 

Dickson is a student at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, majoring in Astrophysics. In addition to her academic pursuits, she works as a lab technician in the Department of Physics at Washington University in St. Louis.

The St. Louis Astronomical Society is an organization for individuals interested in astronomy and telescopes. The public is invited to attend its meetings, telescope observing sessions, and special events. For more information about Astronomical Society events, please visit www.slasonline.org.

Free parking will be available.

Space Sciences/Astrophysics Seminar with Lia Hankla on Kinetic and Two-Temperature Physics of Black Hole Accretion Disks and Coronae

Understanding the plasma physics of accretion disks and coronae around black holes is crucial for interpreting the radiation observed from these systems. However, these plasmas span several different physical regimes. They can be highly collisional and well-described by a single temperature, or collisionless with nonthermal particles that have been accelerated to high energies. In this talk, I will discuss several models for the plasmas in these regimes and implications for understanding black hole spin and evolution.

2025 McDonnell Distinguished Lectures: Public Lecture with Priyamvada Natarajan on Unveiling the Invisible Universe

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is transforming our understanding of the early Universe and unveiling the formation of the first galaxies and first black holes. In this talk, Natarajan will discuss some of the recent exciting discoveries, the earlier predictions and where we are heading next. 

Priyamvada Natarajan is an astrophysicist, and the inaugural Joseph S. and Sophia S. Fruton Professor in Astronomy & Physics at Yale. She has made seminal contributions to our understanding of the nature of dark matter using gravitational lensing studies; and the assembly history of supermassive black holes over cosmic time. The recipient of many awards and honors, including fellowships of the American Physical Society; American Astronomical Society; the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; the American Association for the Advancement of Science; the Guggenheim and Radcliffe Fellowships, she was recognized with the 2022 Liberty Science Center ‘Genius Award’ and 2025 Dannie Heineman Prize in Astrophysics that is jointly awarded by the American Astronomical Society and American Institute of Physics. She was included in the TIME100 list of most influential people in the world in 2024 for her path breaking contributions to Astrophysics. Priya has served as Chair of the National Astronomy and Astrophysics Advisory Committee that advises NASA, NSF and DoE; as Chair of the Division of Astrophysics of the APS and currently serves on the Scientific Editorial Board of the AAS Journals. On the faculty at Yale, since 2000, she serves currently as the Director of the Franke Program in Science and the Humanities and was the Chair of the Women Faculty Forum from 2011-2014.
 

Header image: The full survey of the inner Orion Nebula and Trapezium Cluster made using the NIRCam instrument on the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope. This is the short-wavelength color composite, which reveals the nebula, its stars, and many other objects in unprecedented detail in the infrared.  Credit:  ESA Image: NASA, ESA, CSA / Science leads and image processing: M. McCaughrean, S. Pearson, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO

Condensed Matter/Materials & Biological Physics Seminar with Thomas Allison on Momentum-Space Imaging of Electron and Exciton Dynamics in 2D Materials

Our conceptual pictures and theoretical formulations regarding the dynamics of quasi-particles in crystalline materials, such as electrons, holes, and excitons, are formulated in momentum space. For example, when we think about how a semiconductor absorbs or emits light, we draw the band structure and arrows connecting the valence band and conduction band, along with scattering mechanisms characterized by energy and crystal momentum.

Graduate Student Reunion

April 4-6th, 2025

The Physics Graduate Reunion will take place on the same weekend as the University-wide Reunion, but we’ll be hosting exclusive events and programming designed just for our physics community.

Space Sciences/Astrophysics Seminar with Joseph Neilsen on Revealing the Most Extreme Accretion Disk Winds with XRISM

Accretion disk winds from compact objects are ubiquitous across the mass scale. Seen in high-resolution X-ray spectra as blueshifted absorption lines, these highly-ionized outflows carry away the vast majority of infalling matter, regulating accretion rates and shaping the evolution and appearance of their compact objects. Some of the most powerful winds are expected at the Eddington limit, where radiation pressure can drive relativistic outflows from the inner disk.

Saturday Science: Future Innovators with Sheng Ran on Unveiling material mysteries of the universe

Please note that this Saturday Science event is on Sunday, April 6!

The WashU Physics Department is excited to invite the public to our Saturday Science series, an engaging and interactive set of lectures designed to spark curiosity and explore the wonders of science. Whether you're a science enthusiast or simply looking for a fun and educational activity, these events offer a hands-on way to dive into the world of physics.

New This Semester!

Observation of magnetically switchable quantum geometric photocurrents with Liang Wu

In non-centrosymmetric materials, light can be rectified into two types of DC photocurrents, known as injection and shift currents, through the bulk photovoltaic effect. Recent theory has uncovered their deep relation with the two-state quantum geometry of resonant transitions: In non-magnetic crystals, where these currents have been routinely observed, the injection current responds to circular light and probes the Berry curvature, while the shift current responds to linear light and probes the geometric connection.

Physics Theory Seminar with Wenzer Qin on CMB limits on decaying dark matter: going beyond the ionization threshold

The temperature and polarization anisotropies of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) have been used to set constraints on decaying dark matter models down to keV masses. In this talk, I will discuss recent work to extend these limits down into the sub-keV mass range. I will show how we used principal component analysis to estimate the lower bound on the decay lifetime for a basis of different dark matter masses and Standard Model final states, and then how we validated our principal component analysis using Markov chain Monte Carlo methods and Planck 2018 data.

Physics Theory Seminar with Christophe De Beule on Lattice relaxation in twisted bilayer moirés

Atomic reconstruction in moiré materials can strongly modify their electronic properties, especially in moirés made from transition metal dichalcogenides which are the subject of intense current research. Hence, a theory of lattice relaxation in moirés that goes beyond numerical solutions, and how it modifies the electronic theory, is highly desirable.

New Class of Three-Nucleon Forces and Their Implications with Maria Dawid

Chiral Perturbation Theory (ChPT) is an effective field theory that systematically describes the interactions of pions and nucleons, allowing the construction of nuclear forces. While two-body potentials provide the largest contributions to these interactions, three-nucleon (3N) forces can play an important role in systems like nuclei or neutron stars.
The current derivation of the 3N force does not take into account the effects of the so-called d2 operator. 

A&S Innovates: Inaugural Research Pitch Competition

Three minutes. Three prizes. A world of connections to support Arts & Sciences research.

You are invited to this fast-paced research pitch competition where tenured, tenure-track, and research-track faculty will make 3-minute pitches on their bold, creative ideas and projects. 

Center for Quantum Leaps Symposium

Catch the latest in quantum research at WashU with an all-day symposium. With an emphasis on the research of newly hired faculty, the goal of the symposium is to catalyze new collaborations around the activities of these scholars and the Center for Quantum Leaps. We anticipate the symposium to spark new research projects and collaborations involving members of the Center.

Speaker schedule:

9 – 9:50 a.m.: Astro Quantum Leaps

• Bhupal Dev, Associate Professor of Physics, WashU
• Karthik Ramanathan, Assistant Professor of Physics, WashU
• Enectali Figueroa-Feliciano, Professor, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Northwestern University

10:30 – 11:40 a.m.: Biology Quantum Leaps

• Shankar Mukherji, Assistant Professor of Physics, WashU
• Jon Brestoff, Associate Professor, Pathology and Immunology, WashU School of Medicine
• Kirk Czymmek, Director, Advanced Bioimaging Laboratory, Donald Danforth Plant Science Center
• Ed Marti, Incoming Assistant Professor of Cell Biology and Physiology, WashU

1:25 – 3 p.m.: Quantum Technologies

• Chong Zu, Assistant Professor of Physics, WashU
• Chuanwei Zhang, Professor of Physics, WashU
• Irina Novikova, Professor of Physics, The College of William & Mary
• Shengwang Du, Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Purdue University.
• Dana Z. Anderson, Professor of Physics, University of Colorado Boulder, Founder & Chief Strategy Officer of Infleqtion, Inc.

3:45 – 4:50 p.m.: Condensed Matter

• Shaffique Adam, Dean’s Distinguished Professorial Scholar, Physics, WashU
• Xi Wang, Assistant Professor of Physics, WashU
• Kelly Powderly, Assistant Professor of Chemistry, WashU
• Sheng Ran, Assistant Professor of Physics, WashU

Layered Quasi-2D van der Waals Quantum Materials for Magnetism and Clean Energy with Srinivasa Rao Singamaneni

In recent years, numerous magnetic van der Waals layered quantum materials have been reported, including transition-metal halides, transition-metal chalcogenides, transition-metal phosphorus chalcogenides, and metal oxy- and chalco-halides. Unlike 3D counterparts, layered magnets can be easily and rapidly exfoliated to yield ultra-thin magnets, providing unique opportunities for both fundamental physics and new technologies.

EP2DS-26 / MSS-22

Scott Rudolph Professor Bradley L. Jolliff Retirement Lecture

Scott Rudolph Professor of Earth, Environmental, and Planetary Sciences and Director of the McDonnell Center for the Space Sciences, Bradley L. Jolliff will give a retirement lecture which will be followed by a reception hosted in the Clark-Fox Forum.

If you are unable to attend, we plan to stream this event via Zoom. To register for remote viewing of this lecture, please click here.

Please use the RSVP to let us know if you can attend:

RSVP

Directions: Enter campus via Forsyth Blvd and Wrighton Way (near Skinker Blvd.) Parking is available in the East End Garage. Hillman Hall is located just West of the garage entrance.

Aspects of cosmological gravitational waves at Pulsar Timing Arrays with Fabrizio Rompineve

New Physics in the early Universe may feature sources of gravitational waves (GWs), that can be searched for at interferometers and Pulsar Timing Arrays (PTAs). After providing an overview of the recently reported evidence of a nHz stochastic GW background (GWB) from PTAs, we describe general properties of cosmological GWBs that can help in distinguishing them from astrophysical signals, highlighting the relevance of complementary signatures in cosmological datasets.

Quantum Simulation of Correlated Exciton Phases via Ultrafast Optical Microscopy with Libai Huang

Moiré superlattices formed from transition metal dichalcogenide (TMDC) heterostructures have emerged as a compelling platform for exploring quantum many-body physics. These systems are viewed as a solid-state counterpart to ultracold atomic gases in optical lattices for quantum simulation. A central open question concerns the coherence and dynamics of quantum phases arising from photoexcited moiré excitons, especially under dissipative conditions.

Astrophysics & Space Sciences seminar with Richard Feder-Staehle and Lindsey Gordon

From Pixels to Primordial Non-Gaussianity and Beyond: Mission Status and Science with the SPHEREx All-Sky Survey with Richard Feder-Staehle

Modern astronomical surveys using imaging and spectroscopy have dramatically improved our understanding of large-scale structure formation and astrophysics over cosmic history.

The Digital Age of Astronomy Panel Discussion: St. Louis Astronomical Society May Meeting

For 400 years, amateur astronomers have studied objects in the night sky using telescopes and their eyes alone. To observe dim objects like galaxies and nebulae, amateurs had to use large telescopes at remote and dark locations, away from city light-pollution. Amateurs could photograph faint objects to reveal details not visible to the eye, but this required expensive telescopes and cameras. Afterwards, hours were spent using special software to enhance the images. Imaging of this sort required years of practice to develop special skills. In recent years, digital telescopes have come on the market. This new type of telescope replaces the human eye with a camera chip and sophisticated image processing software. Software embedded in the telescope could perform advanced processing without the need for a highly skilled user. Entry-level digital telescopes cost less than $400 and can automatically capture and enhance almost any celestial object. Now anyone can observe the Sun, Moon, planets, galaxies, nebula, etc. on a computer or tablet from the comfort of their armchair.

A panel of SLAS members who have used these types of telescopes will share their experiences. They will discuss the types of telescopes currently available. They will also discuss telescope strengths and weaknesses based on actual experience.

The St. Louis Astronomical Society is an organization for individuals interested in astronomy and telescopes. The public is invited to attend its meetings, telescope observing sessions, and special events. For more information about Astronomical Society events, please visit www.slasonline.org.

Free parking will be available.

MCSS 50th Anniversary Symposium

The McDonnell Center for the Space Sciences was founded in November 1974 through a munificent endowment from Mr. James S. McDonnell through the McDonnell Aerospace Foundation, under the stewardship of William H. Danforth, Chancellor, and Robert M. Walker, McDonnell Professor of Physics, who served as the founding center director until 1999 and guided it to academic excellence and built an international reputation. The Center promotes distinction in space science research at Washington University in St. Louis and training of the next generation of leaders in space science. 

In May 2025, the Center will be celebrating fifty years of playing a key role at Washington University through endowed professorships, acquisition of sophisticated instrumentation, support of faculty involvement in space science missions, supporting postdoctoral and graduate student fellowships and undergraduate interns, seeding innovative research, administering visiting scientist programs, and fostering wide-reaching collaborations.

Join us as we celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the McDonnell Center for the Space Sciences and look ahead to new opportunities to advance knowledge of our Solar System and our universe.

Registration has closed. If you are still interested in attending, please contact Vickie Gee (vgee@wustl.edu).

Guest Lecture: Dr. Pierre Sikivie

Axions and the formation of supermassive black holes at cosmic dawn

Axion dark matter thermalizes by gravitational self-interactions and forms a Bose-Einstein condensate.  It is shown that the rethermalization of the axion fluid during the initial collapse of large-scale overdensities at cosmic dawn transports angular momentum outward sufficiently fast that black holes form.

Speaker info: Dr. Pierre Sikivie is a distinguished professor of physics at the University of Florida. An expert on dark matter and particle physics, his research helped to inspire the Axion Dark Matter eXperiment (ADMX), a collaboration that includes researchers from WashU. 

The Variable High Energy Sky: St. Louis Astronomical Society June Meeting

Compact objects — White Dwarfs, neutron stars, and black holes — as the moniker suggests, are small. Very small. White dwarfs and neutron stars are only the size of the Earth or cities, respectively. Even the most massive black holes in the Universe, with the mass of a Dwarf Galaxy, have event horizons that are no bigger than the distance to the outer planets in our solar system. This means that with very rare exception, we cannot image these systems. This is especially true when we study these systems in X-rays, which are difficult to focus. But what we can do instead is perform very precise measurements of variability, on time scales as short as milliseconds or even shorter, and that lets us infer properties of these systems on size scales that we otherwise cannot resolve. And luckily these highly energetic systems are also highly dynamic. Much of my work revolves around studying the variability in these systems. I will present a number of examples from my past several decades of research, discussing what these observations imply for these systems.

Michael Nowak is a Research Professor in the Department of Physics and the Associate Director of the McDonnell Center for the Space Sciences at WashU. He researches high energy phenomena related to the physics of black holes - stellar mass black holes in our own galaxy as well as supermassive black holes in our own and other galaxies - and neutron stars.

The St. Louis Astronomical Society is an organization for individuals interested in astronomy and telescopes. The public is invited to attend its meetings, telescope observing sessions, and special events. For more information about Astronomical Society events, please visit www.slasonline.org.

Free parking will be available.

First Look at the Cosmos with NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory

This First Look event will be live streamed via Youtube in English, with Q&A available in both English and Spanish. Join us to celebrate the start of a new era in astronomy and astrophysics with the world's newest and most powerful survey telescope.

Astronomy on Tap with Nicole Osborn and Nathan Whitsett

Flat Bands, Topology, and Fractionalization: Similarities and Differences Between Fractional States in Flat Chern Bands and Landau Levels with Kai Sun

In many-body quantum systems, it has long been known that the interplay of nontrivial topology and strong interactions can lead to the emergence of intriguing phenomena that transcend standard doctrines. One such phenomenon is fractionalization, where excitations in a many-body system become "smaller" than the smallest building block of the system, carrying fractional charge or exhibiting fractional statistics. Although these theoretical concepts and principles were developed decades ago, the realization of fractional topological states remains sparse.

The Search for Interstellar Objects of Technological Origin: St. Louis Astronomical Society July Meeting

Over the past decade, four objects possibly of interstellar origin were discovered within our solar system. They include the interstellar meteor, IM1, detected on January 8, 2014; the `Oumuamua object detected on October 19, 2017; and the rogue comet Borisov detected on August 29, 2019. Among these, the first two displayed some characteristics that differed from known solar-system rocks. The Borisov comet does not orbit the sun. Its path through space indicates that it came from beyond our solar system. IM1 exhibited the highest material strength among all known meteorites. `Oumuamua exhibited a flat shape and non-gravitational acceleration with no detectable cometary evaporation. Dr. Loeb comments, “In June 2023 we recovered 850 spherules from the Pacific Ocean at the possible location of  IM1 meteorite fragments. A tenth of these submillimeter meteoritic spherules displayed a unique chemical composition, different from familiar solar system materials.”  Dr. Loeb will talk about these objects. He will also discuss how astronomical observatories are monitoring millions of objects near the Earth, looking for possible interstellar visitors. He asks, “Are any of them Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena? Is space trash from extraterrestrial technological civilizations lurking among the natural interstellar rocks?”

Dr. Abraham (Avi) Loeb is the Frank B. Baird, Jr., Professor of Science at Harvard University and a bestselling author. Loeb has written 8 books, including most recently, Extraterrestrial (HarperCollins, 2022) and Interstellar (HarperCollins, 2023).

The St. Louis Astronomical Society is an organization for individuals interested in astronomy and telescopes. The public is invited to attend its meetings, telescope observing sessions, and special events. For more information about Astronomical Society events, please visit www.slasonline.org.

Free parking will be available.

A Journey to the Ring Giant - The Legacy of Cassini Huygens

The Cassini-Huygens mission was a multinational effort to explore the Saturn system from 2004 until 2017. The Cassini spacecraft orbited Saturn, including several fly-bys of some of its larger moons, while the Huygens probe landed on the surface of the giant moon, Titan, in 2005. Cassini’s cameras and other instruments produced stunning images and extensive data of the giant planet, its spectacular ring system, and several of its larger moons. Ms. Dickson will talk about the spacecraft pair and present some of the mission’s major discoveries.

Megan Dickson is a student at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, majoring in astrophysics. In addition to her academic pursuits, she works as a lab technician in the Department of Physics at Washington University in St. Louis, under the guidance of Dr. Henric Krawczynski, the department chair of Physics and Astronomy. Her responsibilities include data analysis, lab work, and occasionally presenting astrophysics topics to her group for the journal club. 

The St. Louis Astronomical Society is an organization for individuals interested in astronomy and telescopes. The public is invited to attend its meetings, telescope observing sessions, and special events. For more information about Astronomical Society events, please visit www.slasonline.org.

Free parking will be available.

Thermal Resummation, Dark Matter, and Baryogenesis: Higgs-Portal Windows into the Early Universe with Subhojit Roy

The nature of the electroweak phase transition can provide crucial hints of new physics beyond the Standard Model (BSM). If the transition is first order, it can support electroweak baryogenesis (EWBG) and generate stochastic gravitational waves within reach of upcoming detectors. An accurate description of the scalar potential at finite temperature is therefore essential for studying cosmological first-order phase transitions.

mosAIcs & brAIns : the computational aesthetics of mosaic art

Symposium Schedule (please visit this link for abstracts and speakers' affiliations)

Monday, December 8th

08:30am: Coffee & light breakfast

08:50am: Opening remarks by Ralf Wessel, WashU Professor of Physics 

09:00am: Sue Giannotti, Contemporary Mosaics and the Artistic Process: Does AI Have a Place? 

09:30am: Kiyohito (Kyo) Iigaya, Neural and Computational Mechanisms of Subjective Aesthetic Valuation

10:00am: Sam Goree, Is There a Human-Centered Computational Aesthetics?

10:30am: Coffee & refreshments break

11:00am: Gabrielle Starr, Knowledge, Tools, and Art as Active Perception 

11:30am: David Crandall, Learning to See from Biased Experience

12:00pm: Group photo & poster session set-up

12:15pm: Lunch & poster presentations (please visit this link for poster abstracts) 

1:30pm: Karen Ami, Material Consciousness: Mosaic Art as Embodied Practice

2:00pm: Brady Roberts, Uncovering the Properties of Memorable Visual Designs

2:30pm: Ahmed Elgammal, AI Art from the Uncanny Valley to Prompting: Gains and Losses

3:00pm: Coffee & refreshments

3:30pm: Edward Vessel, Making Meaning from Art, and Getting Pleasure from Understanding

4:00pm: Brendan Weekes, Mosaic as Embodiment

4:30pm: Closing remarks

6:00pm: Dinner at Pastaria's deli & wine space (7734 Forsyth Blvd, Suite 2, Clayton, MO). Please email TheIncubator@wustl.edu to inquire, as space is limited.

Tuesday, December 9th 

10:00am: Join fellow attendees for a docent-led tour of the Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis, which houses one of the largest mosaic collections in the world. Please arrive early to the cathedral (located at 4431 Lindell Blvd), as the tour will start promptly at 10am. 

Please be advised that an RSVP is required to join us for meals, and symposium attendance may be capped. 

From NewAthena to Gamma-Ray Lenses: The Potential of Silicon Pore Optics with Nicolas Barrière

NewAthena has been endorsed by the European Space Agency (ESA) as one of its next-generation flagship missions, with a launch planned for 2037. Over the past two decades, ESA, cosine, and partners have been developing Silicon Pore Optics (SPO) to enable large space-borne X-ray observatories such as NewAthena. Leveraging semiconductor industry techniques, thin mirror plates are fabricated from commercial silicon wafers and assembled into mirror modules through a scalable mass-production process.

Electron and Neutrino Interactions with Nuclei with Saori Pastore

Electron and neutrino interactions with nuclei have been instrumental in understanding nuclear structure and in formulating the Standard Model. Nuclei are complex many-body systems of interacting protons and neutrons (nucleons). Understanding their behavior requires accounting for many-nucleon dynamics--correlations among nucleons and interactions of electrons and neutrinos with clusters of correlated nucleons.

Strongly Correlated Quantum Materials: Three Journeys with Sheng Ran

Classical understanding of materials is built on the picture of independent electrons, where interactions among electrons are largely ignored or treated only in an average way. Yet electron correlations are the driving force behind many exotic phenomena in quantum materials, including unconventional superconductivity and quantum spin liquids. In this talk, I will review our group’s efforts to explore such strongly correlated systems, focusing on three central questions: Can strong correlation effects be combined with band structure topology?

Building the cell from unreliable parts with Shankar Mukherji

Perhaps the defining feature of the eukaryotic cell is its organization into membrane-bound compartments known as organelles. While the processes underlying the biogenesis of individual organelles are often well-known, the precision with which individual cells exert quantitative control over individual organelle properties, such as number, size, and composition and coordinate these properties at systems-scale across the cell’s many different types of organelles remain frontier problems in cell biology and biophysics.

Searching for New Physics with High-Energy Atmospheric and Cosmic Neutrinos with Carlos Argüelles-Delgado

High-energy neutrinos produced in collisions of protons in the atmosphere or near the vicinity of black holes bring unique opportunities to probe fundamental physics. The unprecedented energy ranges and distance traversed by these neutrinos have enabled the IceCube Neutrino Observatory to search for low-energy signatures of quantum gravity and new neutrino phenomena. In this Colloquia, I will show the latest results for searches for high-energy neutrinos using IceCube and KM3NeT, a new neutrino detector being deployed in the Mediterranean Sea.

Small Galaxies, Big Science: Fundamental Physics from the Faintest Galaxies with Alex Drlica-Wagner

The existence of dark matter, which makes up roughly 85% of the matter in the Universe, indicates a critical gap in our understanding of fundamental physics. To date, we have been unable to directly detect or produce this mysterious substance in terrestrial laboratories. However, we have learned an enormous amount about dark matter from astronomical observations. In particular, the smallest, faintest, and most dark-matter-dominated galaxies have proven to be exceptional laboratories for studying the fundamental properties of dark matter.

Connecting the Lab to Cosmos: Probing the Densest Matter in the Universe with Jaki Noronha-Hostler

What are the properties of the densest matter in the universe? This question can either be answered via gravitational waves from binary neutron star mergers, astrophysical observations of neutron stars, or in the laboratory using relativistic heavy-ion collisions. The densities reached in these systems are equivalent to taking the mass of the sun and squeezing it into the size of San Francisco. 

The Terahertz Intensity Mapper with Joaquin Vieira

The Terahertz Intensity Mapper (TIM) is a balloon-borne far-infrared (FIR) imaging spectrometer designed to characterize the cosmic star formation history and unveil the forces driving galaxy assembly over cosmic time. TIM has been optimized for a new observational technique called "line intensity mapping" (LIM), which has the potential to access unexplored and unique cosmological and astrophysical phase space. TIM will map the redshifted 158micron line of ionized carbon ([CII]) over the redshift range 0.5 z 1.7 (lookback times of 5-10 Gyr).

Reconstructing Multi-frequency Movies of Supermassive Black Holes with PRIMO with Lia Medeiros

The sparse interferometric coverage of the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) makes reconstruction of black-hole images challenging. The dictionary learning algorithm principal component interferometric modeling (PRIMO) builds a principal component basis from high-fidelity numerical simulations of low-luminosity accretion flows. This basis enables reconstruction of images that are both consistent with the interferometric data and that live in the space spanned by the simulations.

Why We Exist: The Quark Pauli Principle and the Stability of the Atomic Nucleus with Gerry Miller

The problem of understanding the short-distance repulsion of the nucleon-nucleon force has existed since the field of nuclear physics began.  Such repulsion is necessary for nuclear stability. The hypothesis that the quark Pauli principle is responsible for that repulsion is examined.  First, plausibility arguments using experimental observations and theory are presented for the relevance of the quark Pauli principle. This is implemented using the unity limit of the quark phase-space density that provides a constraint equation  yielding a repulsive potential acting on nucleons.

Measurement of the dynamical charge susceptibility near the charge density wave transition in ErTe3 with Dipanjan Chaudhuri

A charge density wave (CDW) phase, observed in many materials with a highly anisotropic electronic structure, is characterized by a periodic modulation of valence electron density coupled with lattice distortion. The formation of a CDW ground state is closely tied to the dynamical charge susceptibility, χ(q,ω), which reveals the collective behavior of charge carriers in materials. However, χ(q, ω) near a CDW transition had never been measured at finite momentum transfer with ~meV energy resolution, despite decades of extensive studies.

Imaging Symmetry Breaking at the Atomic Scale in Kagome Superconductors with Ilija Zaljkovic

Kagome metals have emerged as a vibrant playground in materials physics, where geometric frustration, electronic correlations, and band topology intertwine to produce a variety of exotic properties. The kagome superconductors AV₃Sb₅ (A = K, Rb, Cs) and, more recently, CsCr₃Sb₅ have set off an avalanche of theoretical and experimental efforts to understand unusual electronic phenomena, including various density waves, unconventional superconductivity, and time-reversal symmetry breaking.

Physics Family Fun Day

Join the Physics Department Outreach Team for engaging demonstrations showcasing the Physics of Light. Curious minds of all ages are welcome!

Parking is free in the East End underground garage. Use the Northwest staircase or elevator, & follow the path to your left to find Crow Hall.

Why You Might Want Your Brain at the Very Edge of Chaos with Keith Hengen

A human brain contains 86 billion neurons, each connecting to thousands of others in a network more complex than the entire internet (by far). This biological computer can learn new skills, form memories, and adapt throughout your lifetime. How does it work? Why doesn’t it overload or burn out? How can a brain work just as well in medieval Norway as it does in modern Tokyo? We think that the answer lies in a concept borrowed from physics called "criticality”. This is the same mathematical principle that explains how water turns to steam and how avalanches spread down mountainsides.

The Physics of Mysterious Cellular Droplets with Trevor GrandPre

When we learn about cells, we usually picture them as little factories filled with familiar parts like the nucleus or mitochondria, each wrapped in a membrane. But scientists have recently discovered another kind of cellular structure: tiny liquid-like droplets made of proteins and other molecules that don’t have a membrane at all. These droplets, called biomolecular condensates, appear and disappear as needed, helping cells organize their activities, yet sometimes they go rogue in ways linked to diseases like ALS and Alzheimer’s.

Physics and the Puzzle of Artificial Intelligence with Zohar Nussinov

The 2024 Nobel Prize in Physics recognized John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton for breakthroughs in Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence. This is a reminder that physics has long shaped the way we design and understand intelligent machines, and the mathematics underlying many modern approaches has been developed and honed in various areas of physics.

Piecing Together the Dining Habits of Supermassive Black Holes with Peter Boorman

All large galaxies are expected to have a supermassive black hole lurking at their center. Most of the interstellar material that spirals in to feed these monsters is accreted behind thick clouds of gas and dust that obscure and conceal many electromagnetic signatures of the accretion flow. The abundance of accreting supermassive black holes hiding behind such dense material provides important insights into the region between interstellar space and the accretion disc, as well as the co-evolution between supermassive black holes and galaxies across cosmic time.

2025 Robert M. Walker Distinguished Lectures Colloquium: The NASA Psyche Mission: Preparing for the Science of an Unknown Object

The asteroid (16) Psyche may be the metal-rich remnant of a differentiated planetesimal, or it may be highly reduced, metal-rich asteroidal material that never differentiated. The NASA Psyche mission aims to determine Psyche’s provenance. How did we choose the science instruments we’d need, when there was not even a photo of the surface, and how are we preparing the team to interpret the data with an open mind? I’ll describe the current state of knowledge about the possible solar system regions of origin for Psyche prior to its implantation into the asteroid belt, the physical and chemical processes that can enrich metal in an asteroid, and possible meteoritic analogs. Then, I’ll show the process our science team is going through to prepare us to produce the best possible science once the spacecraft arrives at the asteroid.

Lindy Elkins-Tanton is a planetary scientist, and the Principal Investigator of the NASA Psyche mission. She is Director of the University of California, Berkeley Space Sciences Laboratory. Previously, she was an Arizona State University VP and Regents Professor in the School of Earth and Space Exploration, Director of the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism at the Carnegie Institution for Science, and faculty at MIT. Elkins-Tanton's research concerns the formation and evolution of rocky planets; volcanic activity and extinctions on Earth; as well as on effective teams and future-facing educational practices. Asteroid (8252) Elkins-Tanton is named for her, as is the mineral elkinstantonite. She is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, and the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. Elkins-Tanton received her BS, MS, and PhD from MIT.

Header image: Launch of the Psyche spacecraft from Kennedy Space Center, October 13, 2023. Credit: NASA/JPL/ASU

2025 Robert M. Walker Distinguished Lectures Public Lecture: The NASA Psyche Mission: First Visit to an Unknown World

The NASA Psyche mission, in flight in space as you read this, is on its way to visit an immensely ancient object in our asteroid belt: A metal body, the first humans will ever have visited. When our solar system was just an infant, thousands of planetesimals (tiny planet-like objects) formed in fewer than one million years. That's the same as saying, if the 4,567,000,000 years that our solar system has existed was instead a 24-hour day, the planetesimals formed in the first 18 seconds. Many planetesimals melted, allowing metal cores to form inside rocky mantles. One of these metal cores may still exist, revealed in the asteroid (16) Psyche. I'll discuss what is known and what is hypothesized about the asteroid, how we have planned a mission and built a spacecraft to study this unknown object, how we progressed as a team through intense challenges, and an update of where we are just over two years post-launch.

Lindy Elkins-Tanton is a planetary scientist, and the Principal Investigator of the NASA Psyche mission. She is Director of the University of California, Berkeley Space Sciences Laboratory. Previously, she was an Arizona State University VP and Regents Professor in the School of Earth and Space Exploration, Director of the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism at the Carnegie Institution for Science, and faculty at MIT. Elkins-Tanton's research concerns the formation and evolution of rocky planets; volcanic activity and extinctions on Earth; as well as on effective teams and future-facing educational practices. Asteroid (8252) Elkins-Tanton is named for her, as is the mineral elkinstantonite. She is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, and the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. Elkins-Tanton received her BS, MS, and PhD from MIT.

Header image: Artists' impression of Psyche spacecraft. Credit: NASA/JPL/ASU

Majorana Zero Modes Bound to Josephson Vortices in Planar Superconductor–topological insulator–superconductor Junctions with Katharina Laubscher

Majorana zero modes (MZMs) are exotic non-Abelian quasiparticles that hold great promise as potential building blocks for fault-tolerant quantum computing. Among the various experimental platforms pursued for realizing MZMs, hybrid systems based on proximitized topological insulator (TI) surface states have emerged as an interesting alternative to the conventional semiconductor nanowire-based approach.

Cosmic Tricks and Multiwavelength Treats: From Galactic PeVatrons to Solar Axions with Jooyun Woo

Do Galactic PeVatrons exist? Yes! In 2021, the Large High Altitude Air Shower Observatory (LHAASO) detected a dozen Galactic sources of ultra-high-energy (UHE; >100 TeV) gamma rays—the smoking gun of cosmic rays with PeV (10¹⁵ eV) energies. This discovery confirmed the long-postulated PeVatrons, the accelerators of the most energetic cosmic rays in our Galaxy. The number of PeVatrons has since grown to 43, shifting the focus from their existence to their nature: What are they, and how do they operate?

Venus: the St. Louis Astronomical Society October Meeting

Venus is currently the brightest object, excluding the Moon, in predawn skies. It is twin to the Earth in size and interior composition, but radically different at its surface. The Greenhouse Effect has been primarily responsible for a surface that bakes at almost 900o F. under an atmosphere that produces 90 times the Earth’s pressure. Since NASA’s Magellan spacecraft mission in the 1990s, scientists have had major questions about Venus’ geology, including its volcanic characteristics. With the recent discovery of active volcanism on Venus, understanding just where volcanoes are concentrated on the planet, how many there are, and how big they are becomes all the more important. Dr. Byrne and others have used radar imagery from NASA’s Magellan mission to Venus to catalog more than 85,000 volcanoes across Venus, about 99% of which are less than 3 miles (5 km) in diameter.

Dr. Paul Byrne is an Associate Professor in the Department of Earth, Environmental, and Planetary Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis. He received his BA in geology and PhD in planetary geology from Trinity College Dublin, Ireland.  Dr. Byrne's research focuses on comparative planetary geology—comparing and contrasting the surfaces and interiors of planetary bodies, including Earth. His research projects span the solar system from Mercury to Pluto and, increasingly, to the study of extrasolar planets. He uses remotely sensed data, numerical and physical models, and fieldwork in analog settings on Earth to understand why planets look the way they do.

The St. Louis Astronomical Society is an organization for individuals interested in astronomy and telescopes. The public is invited to attend its meetings, telescope observing sessions, and special events. For more information about Astronomical Society events, please visit www.slasonline.org.

Free parking will be available.

The Roman Space Telescope: The Roman View of Strong Lenses: the St. Louis Astronomical Society September meeting

The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope was scheduled for launch in October 2026. 47% budget reductions to NASA’s science programs will delay, if not permanently cancel, the launch date – even though the Telescope’s construction has been completed. The Roman Space Telescope (RST) is an infra-red instrument with a field of view 100 times larger than the Hubble Space Telescope. It would make possible major advances in the study of planets around other stars, supernova explosions, the nature of dark energy, the structure of the universe, and many other areas on the frontiers of astronomy and cosmology. One of those areas involves discoveries using gravitational lensing. The lensing occurs when light, and infra-red energy, of a distant object is magnified by the strong gravity of a closer object. That closer object’s gravity distorts space, acting like the glass lens of a regular telescope.  Dr. Daylan explains that the RST “will play a transformative role in strong lensing science with its planned wide-field surveys. The Roman is uniquely suited to characterizing dark matter substructure from a robust population of strong lenses.”  He will present a simulation of detectable strong lenses in Roman's planned High Latitude Wide Area Survey to show how the RST will work, if and when it is launched.

Dr Tansu Daylan joined the Washington University Physics Department faculty as an assistant professor in Fall 2023. His research program seeks to better understand the particle nature of dark matter and how exoplanets form, evolve, migrate, and potentially support life.

The St. Louis Astronomical Society is an organization for individuals interested in astronomy and telescopes. The public is invited to attend its meetings, telescope observing sessions, and special events. For more information about Astronomical Society events, please visit www.slasonline.org.

Free parking will be available.

Computer Simulation Studies of Disordered Magnets with Martin Weigel

Impurities and disorder are omnipresent in condensed-matter systems in the laboratory. Their effects are especially pronounced in the vicinity of phase transitions, such as the liquid-gas or ferromagnetic ordering transitions. Due to large fluctuations and slow dynamics, the study of such systems with the help of computer simulations often is particularly challenging. Magnets with frozen-in impurities are among the hardest known computational problems, where the time taken to find the low-energy states doubles with every added lattice site.

New Theoretical Insights into Black Hole Coronae with Navin Sridhar

What powers the hard, non-thermal X-rays from accreting black holes has been a longstanding mystery. In this talk, I will address the underlying question of what energizes the plasma of the Comptonizing “corona” against the strong inverse Compton cooling losses with first-principle particle-in-cell simulations of magnetic reconnection subject to radiative cooling losses in magnetized electron-positron and electron-ion plasmas.

Black Hole Accretion from the Inside Out with Jason Dexter

In the last several years, the combination of resolved event horizon scale images and large-scale computational models has led to new insights into black hole accretion. The main implication is that magnetic fields near the event horizon may become dynamically important. I'll then discuss our efforts to extend beyond the two objects with resolved images and calculate theoretical predictions for more luminous systems, focusing on the maximum luminosity of a hot accretion flow and the physical origin of the X-ray corona.

Journey from Research Scientist to Science Communicator with Diana Hannikainen

New Clues to an Old Mystery: GRB Emission Mechanisms and Hidden Populations with Maria Edvige Ravasio

More than 50 years after their discovery, Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs) remain among the most puzzling powerful phenomena in the Universe. Recent progress in modeling their prompt emission suggests that the observed spectra can be explained by synchrotron radiation from a non-thermal particle distribution that does not cool completely — severely challenging the GRB standard model.

Pulsar Wind Nebulae: A Treasure Trove of High-energy Astrophysics with Niccolo Bucciantini

Pulsars and their nebulae have been at the forefront of high-energy astrophysics since their discovery. They provides us with a unique laboratory where our understanding of radiation processes, particle acceleration, relativistic plasma physics, and stellar evolution can be put to the test. Since the launch of Chandra in 1999, and thanks to major improvements in our computational tools, a “canonical model” has emerged, enabling us to develop a coordinated picture of this objects.

Long-lived Vectors at SHiP with Tao Zhou

Physics Department Showcase - Arts & Sciences WOWS Fall Series

The Department of Physics at WashU leads various research investigations across physics and astronomy to advance humanity's understanding of the physical universe, from subatomic scales of the quantum world to the largest structures in the Cosmos. With over 35 faculty members and federal and private research grant awards amounting to over $10M per year, we have an energetic and growing community of exceptional physicist scholars and provide ample mentorship and technical and financial resources to our PhD students to help them become impactful leaders in academia and beyond.

In this week's special A&S WOWS session focused on the Department of Physics, log in and look forward to information on Physics' research thrusts and century-old Physics PhD program, fellowship opportunities, and life on campus and in Greater St. Louis. This featured session will begin with a ~20-minute presentation and follow that up by answering questions. At least one current graduate student will join the session to provide the student perspective.

In the meantime, you can learn about our current research thrusts on our department website, which spans astronomy and astrophysics, particle and nuclear physics, cosmochemistry and astromaterials, biophysics, quantum information, and condensed matter physics. Furthermore, the McDonnell Center for the Space Sciences (MCSS) supports the missions of Physics and other research initiatives in astrophysics, and the Center for Quantum Leaps (CQL) and the Institute of Materials Science \& Engineering (IMSE) enable the development of novel quantum sensing techniques using quantum materials.

The Roman Survey for Gravitational Lenses Across Cosmic Time

Galaxy-galaxy strong gravitational lenses have strong potential to refine the Lambda Cold Dark Matter cosmological paradigm. Currently, there is a dearth of images of these rare systems with high signal-to-noise and angular resolution. The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, scheduled for launch in late 2026, is expected to play a transformative role in strong lensing. With its remarkable 0.281 square degree wide field of view and diffraction-limited angular resolution of 0.11 arcsec, Roman is uniquely suited to characterizing dark matter substructure from a robust population of gravitational lenses. However, simulating, analyzing, and modeling these images requires novel approaches to image processing and statistical inference that are optimized for performance and efficiency. We recently simulated a population of galaxy-galaxy strong lenses with substructure across cosmic time and estimated the yield of strong gravitational lenses in Roman’s planned High Latitude Wide Area Survey (HLWAS), taking into account realistic Wide Field Instrument detector effects. For a fiducial case of single 146-second exposures, we predict over 100,000 detectable strong lenses in the HLWAS, of which about 500 will have sufficient signal-to-noise to be amenable to detailed substructure characterization. Our simulation products are available to support strong lens science with Roman, such as training neural networks and validating dark matter substructure analysis pipelines.

Equinox Party with Astronomy on Tap

What Can Bulk Viscosity Tell Us about Dense Matter and Physics Beyond the Standard Model? with Steven P. Harris

Bulk viscosity, originating from beta equilibration of dense matter in response to density perturbations, may be a fantastic probe of both the equation of state and the chemical reactions that can occur in dense matter.  I will describe how the peak value of bulk viscosity can be related to the symmetry energy and how the number of resonant peaks in the bulk viscosity relates to the number of equilibration channels in the system.

Center for Quantum Leaps Fall Town Hall

Quantum sensing opens new potential to measure tiny changes in physical parameters at atomic and molecular scales. The Town Hall will be a brief overview of the current projects and capabilities of the Center for Quantum Leaps, with the most time reserved for biomedical researchers to describe measurements that they would like to make in their systems but that are beyond the grasp of current techniques.

Which Bits Matter? Optimal Sensing in a Population of Sensory Neurons with Kyle Bojanek

Biological sensors are inundated with high-dimensional, statistically complex inputs. As these sensors can only encode a finite amount of information, organisms must prioritize measuring behaviorally-relevant aspects of their input drive. To understand what constitutes a "good" measurement, it is necessary to understand what bits of information are most important for an organism's survival. We study this problem in the retina, which has well-characterized inputs (visual stimuli) and outputs (retinal ganglion cell spikes).

Critical Slowing Down and Bulk Viscosity in Binary Neutron Star Mergers with Rachel Steinhorst

Near the critical endpoint of a first order phase transition, the relaxation time diverges, the well-known phenomenon of critical slowing down. One manifestation of critical slowing down is a divergence of the bulk viscous transport coefficient. Although a QCD critical point is traditionally imagined to be at high temperatures, no first-principles argument forbids a QCD critical point in the low-temperature phase space probed by binary neutron star mergers.

WashU Physics Research Symposium

The Physics Research Symposium is a chance for all members of the Physics Department to come together, show off what they're working on, and learn about the research that others are doing.

International Observe the Moon Night

International Observe the Moon Night is a time to come together with fellow Moon enthusiasts and curious people worldwide. Everyone on Earth is invited to learn about lunar science and exploration, take part in celestial observations, and honor cultural and personal connections to the Moon.

On Saturday evening, come to the Crow Observatory for views of the Moon through the telescope. Share pizza and moon pies and view some meteorites.

Questions? Check out the Crow Observatory on Instagram!

The Ultraview Effect: The St. Louis Astronomical Society December Meeting

Deana Weibel, Professor of Anthropology, Grand Valley State University in Allendale, Michigan will be discussing the phenomenon known as the "ultraview effect.“ The "ultraview effect" refers to the intense feelings of awe and humility experienced by astronauts who see the vastness of the universe, particularly the Milky Way, from orbit. This is distinct from the "overview effect," which is the cognitive shift from seeing Earth from space. The ultraview effect is considered a response to confronting the unknown, which can be unsettling but also inspiring, driving a desire for exploration and discovery. Comparing spacefarers to religious pilgrims, Weibel suggests that this experience of deep humility is a generative reaction to awe, which inspires exploration and adventure.

Deana Weibel is a cultural anthropologist with over 25 years of experience in ethnographic research and university teaching. Her work focuses primarily on religion, especially the topics of pilgrimage, sacred space, the mutual influence of scientific and religious ideas on each other, and religion and space exploration. Her early fieldwork took place in France at pilgrimage sites (sometimes understood by pilgrims as “energy” sites) like Rocamadour and Montségur. She has also conducted research at the pilgrimage center of Chimayó, New Mexico. More recent work focuses on religion as a motivation for and influence on space travel and outer space-based sciences, with field visits taking place at "space sites" throughout the U.S., including the Johnson and Kennedy Space Centers, the Mojave Air and Spaceport, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the JHU Applied Physics Lab, and Spaceport America. Weibel spent a month in 2019 at the Vatican Observatory, studying "the Pope's Astronomers." She has also studied the history of anthropology, particularly the overlap of her own family’s role and the role of anthropology in the exhibition of Philippine Igorot people in fairs and expositions during the early 1900s. She is the co-founder and co-organizer of Roger That! A Celebration of Space Exploration in Honor of Roger B. Chaffee, a two-day conference that has been an annual Grand Rapids, Michigan event since 2017. She served as chair for GVSU's Anthropology Department from 2012-2018 and as interim chair for GVSU's Interdisciplinary, Religious, and Intercultural Studies Department from 2021-2022.

The St. Louis Astronomical Society is an organization for individuals interested in astronomy and telescopes. The public is invited to attend its meetings, telescope observing sessions, and special events. For more information about Astronomical Society events, please visit www.slasonline.org.

Free parking will be available.

Silent Sky

Working alongside the serious Annie Jump Cannon and quick-witted Williamina Fleming, Henri perseveres against professional bias and personal doubt in her pursuit of scientific discovery that will change our understanding of the universe forever. But as she seeks answers in the stars, can Henri also build a life for herself on Earth? A story of space, symphonies, science and self-determination, Silent Sky sheds light on Leavitt’s impactful life to remind us all how vast and beautiful this universe is.

Performing Arts Department alum Ellen Schaaf (MA 2025) returns to direct.

By Lauren Gunderson
Directed by Ellen Schaaf (MA 2025) 
November 20, 21 & 22 at 7:30 p.m.
November 22 & 23 at 2:00 p.m.
A.E. Hotchner Studio Theatre

Bonus Event! PAD has partnered with the WashU Physics Department for a colloquium that celebrates the work of Henrietta Leavitt and explores the continued scientific developments stemming from her discovery. Learn more here!

Tickets are FREE to all WashU students with valid ID. To reserve your ticket, please visit the Washington University Box Office or call 314-935-6543. You can also claim a free ticket the night of at the box office window.

BEWARE OF SCAMS! Tickets purchased through the Washington University Box Office or online via AudienceView (also known as OvationTix) are the only approved tickets for this event. Purchases made through a third-party vendor such as StubHub, Ticketmaster, or MetroTix will NOT be valid for entry to the Theater.

Faculty Open House with the Department of Mechanical Engineering & Materials Science

Once every semester, the Department of Physics hosts its Faculty Open House, fondly known as "Making Friends Across Campus." This engaging event fosters connections between Physics and a synergistic department through a wine & cheese social and a series of brief, insightful presentations.

This semester, we’re excited to welcome faculty from the Department of Mechanical Engineering & Materials Science! Join us on Wednesday, November 12 to explore collaborative opportunities and innovative research ideas.

Event Details:

Electromagnetic Signals of High-Frequency Gravitational Waves with Asher Berlin

There is strong motivation to extend the observable frequency range of gravitational waves (GWs) beyond the Hz - kHz regime already probed by LIGO and Virgo. In particular, higher-frequency GWs can give rise to new classes of electromagnetic signals that can be searched for with small-scale detectors. A gauge-invariant description shows that existing experiments designed for the detection of axion dark matter only need to reanalyze existing data to search for such signals.

Edwin Thompson Jaynes Fellowship Symposium

Every Fall Semester, the Department of Physics hosts the Jaynes Fellowship Symposium. This engaging event highlights the incredible work being done by our Edwin Thompson Jaynes postdoctoral fellows.

This year, we're excited to hear from Christopher Cappiello and Dmitry Chichinadze, who will each deliver ~25 minute talks on their research. 

The Physics of Everything: Ambition, Failures, Successes with Mikhail Tikhonov

Physicists have pushed their methods far beyond traditional boundaries, applying them to cell biology, stock prices, animal behavior, even human language. But why does the traffic mostly flow one way? (Linguists have mostly stayed away from pronouncements on black holes!) Is physics genuinely special, bringing tools and approaches that travel unusually well across disciplines? Or does rolling cylinders down inclined planes for too long make one unusually arrogant?

Cosmic Crust Pizza Party

Any curious undergrad is invited to the Cosmic Crust Pizza Party - a casual event for those interested in astrophysics and space sciences!

Join us for pizza, conversation, and cosmic exploration with faculty and grad students from the Physics Department who specialize in astrophysics, particle astrophysics, cosmology, & space sciences. Whether you’re just starting out in physics or simply curious about the universe, this is a great chance to learn more and find your place among the stars. 

The Incubator Unbound: Scales of Life

Event Panelists:

Tansu Daylan, Assistant Professor of Physics, WashU

Bronwen Konecky, Associate Professor of Earth, Environmental, and Planetary Sciences, WashU

Lúcia Lohmann, President and Director of the Missouri Botanical Garden and the George Engelmann Professor of Botany at WashU

Rodrigo Reis, Professor of Public Health, WashU

_{Focusing on broad themes and contemporary challenges, The Incubator Unbound brings together experts from diverse fields for an unscripted, public conversation that explores wildly divergent approaches and perspectives, sparks new intellectual connections, and inspires bold collaborations among all in attendance. We are grateful to the staff and educators at the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum for their collaboration on The Incubator Unbound event series. Questions? Please reach out to us at TheIncubator@wustl.edu} 

_{4:00pm- Doors open, coffee and dessert available, and guests can view art relevant to the event's theme}

_{4:30-5:20pm- Discussion, followed by Q&A}

_{5:20-6:00pm- Please stay to connect with The Incubator and fellow attendees}

_{The Incubator for Transdisciplinary Futures (The Incubator) is a signature initiative of the Arts & Sciences Strategic Plan and was created to catalyze and support bold collaborations that will foster the future of scholarly inquiry.}

Thermal Transport in Atomically Thin Materials with Erik Henriksen

From Variable Stars to Dark Matter – The Expanding Legacy of Henrietta Leavitt

Henrietta Swan Leavitt’s early twentieth-century discovery of a relationship between the brightness of certain stars named "Cepheid variables” and the duration of their brightness cycles transformed astronomy. By showing that a star’s intrinsic luminosity could be inferred from its variation period, Leavitt provided the first reliable method for measuring astronomical distances beyond our galaxy and established the foundation for what became known as the cosmic distance ladder. Her work made it possible to determine the accurate scale of the Milky Way, identify other galaxies beyond it, and eventually measure the expansion of the Universe itself. In this colloquium, Dr. Tansu Daylan and several members of the AstroMusers research group in the Department of Physics will follow the developments stemming from her discovery, beginning with her meticulous analysis of variable stars and tracing how precise photometric measurements enabled a deeper understanding of stellar evolution, including the formation and cooling of white dwarfs. The discussion will then move outward to the galactic scale, where Leavitt’s relation revealed the immensity of space and led to the recognition of galaxies as dynamic, independent systems. Finally, the colloquium will examine one of the most significant frontiers of modern astrophysics—the detection of dark matter—whose gravitational effects determine the rotation of galaxies, the binding of clusters, and the growth of large-scale cosmic filaments, even though it emits no light of its own. Across these themes runs a single unifying idea: careful observation and the disciplined use of light as data remain central to how astronomers uncover both the visible and hidden structure of the Universe.

 This event will take place in Seigle Hall, Room 206. Download a campus map here.

Dr. Tansu Daylan is an assistant professor in the Department of Physics and leads a research program focused on atmospheric characterization of exoplanets and the astrophysical signatures of dark matter. He is the Principal Investigator for one of the Wide Field Science Programs of NASA's upcoming Roman Space Telescope. Members of his AstroMusers research group, Aavik Wadivkar, Bryce Wedig, and Dr. Chris Cappiello, work on contemporary astrophysical problems. Aavik is an undergraduate majoring in astrophysics, doing a research project on planets transiting white dwarfs. Bryce is a fourth-year PhD student in physics working on cosmic gravitational lenses, and Chris is an Ed Jaynes postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Physics focusing on particle properties of dark matter. 

Dr. Chris Cappiello is an Edwin Thompson Jaynes Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Physics. He received his PhD in 2021 from Ohio State, after which he was a postdoctoral fellow at Queen's University in Kingston, Canada, before joining the Department at WashU in 2024. His research focuses on dark matter theory, finding new ways to use particle detectors, telescopes, and astrophysics generally to search for dark matter.  Although he is a theorist, Chris has collaborated with experimental groups in the past, identifying new models of dark matter that their detectors could search for.

Bryce Wedig is a fourth-year PhD candidate in Physics studying dark matter using space telescopes. He studied physics and philosophy at Kenyon College and philosophy of physics at the University of Cambridge.

Aavik Wadivkar is a sophomore undergraduate student studying Astrophysics and Philosophy. He's involved in exoplanet research, searching for planets orbiting around White Dwarfs and contributing to ExoCore, a NASA-funded curriculum of open science for the field of exoplanets. He also acts as President of WashU Satellite, an undergrad-led engineering design team that develops and builds satellites and space-ready science missions for WashU research. He's passionate about the intersection of science and philosophy and how we understand the world around us.

Learn more about the upcoming Performing Arts Department production of Silent Sky and get tickets here!

Probing New CP Violation through Electric Dipole Moments with Kaori Fuyuto

The Standard Model (SM) of particle physics has successfully passed virtually every experimental test conducted so far. However, several major puzzles in our Universe remain unexplained within the SM framework. One of these is the baryon asymmetry of the Universe, which requires physics beyond the Standard Model (BSM) to have new sources of CP violation. Searches for electric dipole moments (EDMs) provide a powerful tool to probe such new CP-violating effects. In this talk, I will discuss how EDM searches can serve as sensitive probes of BSM physics.

Running COSMOS.exe: Astronomy on Tap

Dr. Yajie Yuan — Feeding the Beast: How Black Holes Dine and Shine
At the heart of every galaxy lurks a hungry black hole. But what does it really mean for a black hole to “feed”? In this talk, we’ll dive into state-of-the-art computer simulations that capture, from first principles, how gas swirls, crashes, and lights up around the black holes in our own Milky Way and in M87 — the first black hole ever imaged. Come see how theory, supercomputers, and the Event Horizon Telescope are helping us decode the messy, beautiful physics of black hole accretion.

Dr. Alex Chen — Pulsars, the Lighthouses of the Cosmos
Pulsars are rapidly rotating remnants of stars after they reach the end of their lifecycle. They possess some of the strongest magnetic fields known in the universe. Chen will describe how we observe these objects, and how we infer their physical properties from these observations.

Join Astronomy on Tap for an evening of science, beer, and cosmic fun — exploring how supercomputers help us understand the universe. There will be Astro Trivia with prizes after the talks.

? Grab a drink, meet fellow space nerds, and enjoy Astronomy on Tap: St. Louis!

Free & open to all — no registration needed.

Astronomy on Tap STL

Quantum Circuits Symposium

The Quantum Circuits Symposium 2025, hosted by The Center for Quantum Leaps, is a gathering of researchers, students, and practitioners dedicated to advancing the science and engineering of superconducting quantum circuits. The symposium aims to foster dialogue and collaboration across disciplines, highlighting cutting-edge developments in quantum information research and the design of superconducting qubits.

Guests Speakers:

• Srivatsan Chakram Sundar - Department of Physics and Astronomy at Rutgers University
• Mattias Fitzpatrick - Department of Engineering & Department of Physics at Dartmouth College
• Alex Rucichao Ma - Department of Physics and Astronomy at Purdue University
• Wolfgang Pfaff - Quantum Information Science at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 

Who Should Attend:
Faculty, researchers, graduate students, and industry collaborators interested in the advancement of superconducting quantum technologies and quantum information science

The Making of an Enterprise: How Star Trek Helped NASA Dream Big and How NASA Helped Star Trek Survive: The St. Louis Astronomical Society November Meeting

Glen Swanson will explain how NASA, the Smithsonian, and the aerospace community helped craft, legitimize, and popularize the vintage television show Star Trek. Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry sought to create a work of science fiction that would immerse viewers through clever storylines and impressive visual effects. But he also wanted to present the story in a scientific and technological context that felt believable. To this end, Roddenberry, a former WWII combat pilot, used his connections in the aerospace industry to seek out the latest and greatest technology. The result was an entertaining science fiction franchise that inspired a generation to consider a career in science and engineering.

Swanson holds a B.S. in History from Western Michigan University and an M.S. in Space Studies from the University of North Dakota. From 1998 to 2002, he served as Chief Historian of NASA's Johnson Space Center. While there he edited the anthology Before This Decade Is Out… Personal Reflections on the Apollo Program and co-authored other technical publications. Swanson founded Quest: The History of Spaceflight Quarterly, now in its thirty-second year and recipient of the American Astronomical Society's Ordway Award for Sustained Excellence in Spaceflight History.

The St. Louis Astronomical Society is an organization for individuals interested in astronomy and telescopes. The public is invited to attend its meetings, telescope observing sessions, and special events. For more information about Astronomical Society events, please visit www.slasonline.org.

Free parking will be available.

Header image by p2722754 from Pixabay

Planets with Two Suns: The St. Louis Astronomical Society January Meeting

Binary stars, which are two suns orbiting each other, offer a unique window into how planets form and survive in complex environments. In this talk, Dr. Esmer will explore how astronomers study these systems and search for their planets using a powerful technique called eclipse timing variations (ETVs). By carefully measuring tiny shifts in the timing of stellar eclipses, even with modest telescopes, astronomers can uncover hidden planets and learn about stellar interactions, evolution, and magnetic activity. Because ETV studies rely on long-term monitoring, they provide an exciting opportunity for contributions from both professional and amateur observers.

Dr. Ekrem M. Esmer is a McDonnell Center Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Physics at Washington University in St. Louis, where he studies planets orbiting binary star systems. He earned his PhD in Astrophysics from Ankara University in Turkey, focusing on the orbital dynamics and stability of planets in multiple-star environments. His current research combines space telescope data and advanced analysis techniques to search for and characterize circumbinary planets. One goal is to understand how abundant such worlds are in our galaxy.

The St. Louis Astronomical Society is an organization for individuals interested in astronomy and telescopes. The public is invited to attend its meetings, telescope observing sessions, and special events. For more information about Astronomical Society events, please visit www.slasonline.org.

Free parking will be available.

Header image: An artist's illustration shows that the stars in the TOI 1338 system make an eclipsing binary — they circle each other in our plane of view. If you could hover near the planet TOI 1338 b, you would see an eclipse every 15 days. Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/Chris Smith (USRA)

Magnetic and electronic properties of Kitaev quantum spin liquid candidates Cu2IrO3 and Na2IrO3 under pressure with Gilberto Fabbris

Materials based on 5d transition-metal ions host a rich variety of emergent magnetic and electronic phases arising from strong spin–orbit coupling. Among these, the Kitaev quantum spin liquid state has attracted particular interest, as it is predicted to occur in honeycomb iridates and offers a potential platform for topologically protected quantum computation. Experimentally realizing this state, however, has proven challenging due to the delicate competition between Kitaev, Heisenberg, and off-diagonal exchange interactions.

Dirac Quantum Materials with Shizeng Lin

Dirac quantum materials host low energy quasiparticles governed by the Dirac equation, providing a unique bridge between high energy concepts and condensed matter realizations. Their symmetry protected band topology and electronic structure make them fertile ground for interaction driven emergent phases, ranging from integer and fractional Chern insulators to topological chiral superconductors. These states exhibit robust, topologically protected, responses that are compelling for next generation quantum and low dissipation technologies.

Reimagining two-channel Kondo physics: fermions to bosons and back in a consistent way with Nayana Shah

Harnessing Quantum Metastable States with Record Ambient-Pressure Superconductivity: Bridging High-Pressure Creation and Ambient Stability with Liangzi Deng

Pressure is a powerful thermodynamic tuning parameter for discovering emergent quantum states, including record-high-temperature superconductivity, intertwined electronic orders, and novel topological and magnetic phases. Recent studies by Dr. Deng et al. have shown that pressure can possibly break the conventional universal transition temperature (Tc)-pressure relationship in superconductors to further enhance the Tc and significantly expand the accessible temperature–magnetic field phase space for skyrmions states.

Strain-Tuned Electronic Structure in Bilayer Nickelates with Chunjing Jia

Exciting Stuff: Dynamical Excursions with Tunable Quantum Matter with Gal Shavit

Highly correlated quantum materials, e.g., moiré graphene systems, exhibit a rich landscape of ordered phases with highly tunable properties, making them a fascinating platform for exploring non-equilibrium phenomena. These systems ubiquitously exhibit intertwined, often competing, ordering tendencies. In this talk, I will discuss two intriguing dynamic phenomena which are ripe for exploration in these contexts.

Spontaneously Broken Non-Invertible Symmetries in Transverse-Field Ising Qudit Chains with Kristian Tyan Kai Chung

Symmetries are powerful tools which place strong constraints on physical systems. Classifications of phases of matter are based on patterns of symmetry-protected topology (SPT) and spontaneous symmetry-breaking (SSB). The past decade has seen the rapid formalization and development of the “generalized symmetries” paradigm, which broadens our conception of symmetries in a variety of directions: higher-form, spatially modulated, and non-invertible.

Condensed Matter / Biophysics Seminar with Alex Levchenko

Condensed Matter / Biophysics Seminar with Cyprian Lewandowski

Please note that while seminars typically take place in Compton 241, this event has been moved to the Physics Library (Compton 340)

Particle Acceleration in Highly Magnetized Plasmas with Luca Comisso

Turbulence and magnetic reconnection are ubiquitous in astrophysical environments and are often invoked to explain the origin of non-thermal particles inferred to be accelerated in a variety of astrophysical sources. However, the mechanisms responsible for accelerating particles to ultra-relativistic energies remain poorly understood.

Resolving AGN Feedback in Galaxy Clusters with XRISM and Chandra with Hannah McCall

Identifying how active galactic nuclei (AGN) couple to their surrounding atmospheres is central to understanding the regulation of star formation in massive galaxies, groups, and clusters. In this talk, I present a comprehensive view of AGN feedback that combines complementary spectroscopic and imaging diagnostics. New high-resolution spectroscopic measurements from XRISM/Resolve directly probe the kinematics and chemical structure of the intracluster medium.

Extreme ionization from a single compact accretor: JWST spectroscopy of the ULX Holmberg II X-1 with Federico Fogantini

Ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULXs) are among the most luminous accreting compact objects known outside galactic nuclei and are frequently surrounded by ionized nebulae whose excitation exceeds that expected from normal stellar populations. Whether this extreme ionization is produced by fast shocks driven by outflows or by radiation from the accretion flow itself remains an open question.

Unveiling Anyon Fusion in Quantum Hall Systems from Microscopic Principles with Gerardo Ortiz

Establishing the fusion rules of anyonic quasiparticles in fractional quantum Hall fluids is essential for understanding their underlying topological order. Building on the conjecture that key topological properties are encoded in the “DNA” of candidate many-body wave functions—that is, the pattern of dominant orbital occupations restricted to a finite number of lowest Landau levels—we propose a combinatorial framework that derives these fusion rules directly from microscopic data.

New Frontiers in Electrical, Thermal, and Thermoelectric Transport Predictions with Jenny Coulter

The electrical, thermal, and thermoelectric transport properties of materials are critical to device design and the interpretation of experimental phenomena. Semi-classical Boltzmann transport (BTE) calculations can predict these quantities with impressive accuracy in traditional materials, however, progress in many conventional material applications has stalled as we hit ceilings in their performance.

Neutrino-nucleus interactions and the quest for new and precision physics searches in neutrino experiments with Vishvas Pandey

Emergent Phenomena Under Pressure: Toward Hot Superconductivity with Russell Hemley

Numerical simulations of strongly correlated electron systems with Fakher Assaad

Mistakes on the way to a good idea: Feenberg Lecture with Helen Quinn

The present and future of gravitational-wave astronomy with Michael Coughlin

A Physics Approach to Deep Learning Theory with Blake Bordelon

Untangling the nuclear physics and astrophysics of heavy element creation with Rebecca Surman

Physics Colloquium with Liang Feng

Physics Colloquium with Jane Kim

How to Detect & Characterize Exoplanets: The St. Louis Astronomical Society March Meeting

Exoplanets are planets that orbit other stars. Over six thousand exoplanets have been detected since the first one was discovered thirty-five years ago. Observation, particularly from space telescopes, has enabled the detection of numerous planetary systems and the characterization of the different planets that compose them. During this presentation, Dr. Ollivier will focus on the potential of photometry and spectrophotometry of planetary transits. Dr. Ollivier will explain this method and the different exoplanet observables it reveals. He will also demonstrate the full potential of this technique by illustrating it with a few concrete examples. Finally, he will show how two highly complementary observatories, the James Webb Space Telescope and the European ARIEL spacecraft, will very soon be able to provide us with information that will give us a better understanding of the formation and evolution of exosystems.

Dr. Olivier is an astronomer at the Institut d'Astrophysique Spatiale d'Orsay (IAS - CNRS / Univ Paris-Saclay, France), where he contributes to the development of space instrumentation for the detection and characterization of exoplanets. He contributed to the development and scientific operation of the European CoRoT space mission. He is now the instrument scientist for AIRS, the infrared spectrometer on ESA's ARIEL mission dedicated to the spectroscopy of several hundred exoplanets.

The St. Louis Astronomical Society is an organization for individuals interested in astronomy and telescopes. The public is invited to attend its meetings, telescope observing sessions, and special events. For more information about Astronomical Society events, please visit www.slasonline.org.

Free parking will be available.

Header image: Artist’s concept of how rocky, potentially habitable worlds elsewhere in our galaxy might appear. Data gathered by telescopes in space and on the ground suggest that small, rocky planets are common. (Placing them so close together in a line is for illustrative purposes only.) NASA/JPL-Caltech/R. Hurt (SSC-Caltech)

AI and the Smart Telescope: How Both May Change Amateur Astronomy: The St. Louis Astronomical Society February Meeting

“Smart telescopes” are instruments that use computer assistance to locate astronomical targets and track them, and artificial intelligence to aid in taking pictures. A basic setup, with a modest-sized telescope, can already take medium to high quality images of deep space objects. The smart telescope does everything - aligning, searching, tracking, imaging, storing, cleaning, and processing images - with just the push of a button.

Dr. Ponce de Leon will explain how advances in technology will soon enable an amateur’s smart telescope to join and use large databases of astronomical objects. This will allow international amateur scientists to assist professional astronomers in real time as they image faint star clusters, galaxies, and nebulae.

Dr. Ponce de Leon is an amateur astronomer and retired instructor of technology and innovation, international business and strategic management at Southern Illinois University and several institutions in Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea and Singapore.

The St. Louis Astronomical Society is an organization for individuals interested in astronomy and telescopes. The public is invited to attend its meetings, telescope observing sessions, and special events. For more information about Astronomical Society events, please visit www.slasonline.org.

Free parking will be available.

Header image: An artist's illustration shows that the stars in the TOI 1338 system make an eclipsing binary — they circle each other in our plane of view. If you could hover near the planet TOI 1338 b, you would see an eclipse every 15 days. Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/Chris Smith (USRA)

Quantum transport and frustrated magnetism in strained graphene with Christophe De Beule

Lattice deformations in graphene couple to the low-energy Dirac electrons as effective scalar and gauge fields. In this talk, I will discuss how strain-induced pseudogauge fields can be leveraged to design straintronics devices for studying quantum interference and strongly-correlated electronic phases.

Worm Regeneration and Reproduction: A Story in Several Segments with Duygu Özpolat

Segmented worms (or Annelids) have amazing abilities to regrow their lost body parts; a phenomenon called regeneration. When cut into small pieces, many worms can regrow new heads (including a new brain!) and new tails from the small pieces, eventually each piece becoming a new individual. As humans, we have so much to learn about regeneration from these organisms. What kind of cells, genes, processes are involved? How can we visualize regeneration as it is happening? Dr.

Probability in Quantum Mechanics: From Stern-Gerlach, to Antenna Polarizations, to Quantum Qubits with Joe Zehnle

From mostly pictures and only a few sparse equations, we will take a journey down a road that connects these diverse topics and show how they relate. With interactive demos at the end, we will see how one controls (tunes) the knobs in experiments. With practicality in mind, we will see how these ideas are mathematically similar (identical!) to the antennas you use in your home with your radios, TVs and cell phones.

Joe was adjunct in the WashU engineering dept. Currently he is a Technical Fellow at Boeing. Joe has degrees in both physics and engineering from WashU.

Surprises in the Math of Bouncing and Rolling: Finding Stability Where Randomness and Chaos are Expected with Renato Feres

The highly bouncy Wham-O Superball toy was a national craze around the mid 1960's. This highly elastic rough ball has a number of odd properties. For example, it returns to hand after being thrown under a table and bouncing against the table underside. In this conversation, we will play with the ideal (mathematical) superball, explore some of its bizarre properties, and use it to reflect on the notions of chaos and stability in mechanical systems.

mosAIcs & brAIns: engaging mosaics emerging from art, aesthetics, and AI with Ralf Wessel

Can science predict human engagement with art? Can such predictive insight, combined with established principles of artistic design, be used to generate engaging artworks from the emergent properties of artificial intelligence? In this talk, I present how these questions inform the individualized design of both Byzantine and contemporary mosaic art.

Quantum Frontiers in Particle Physics: From Sensing Rare Decays to Solving Collider Challenges with Kyoungchul Kong

Quantum computing represents one of today's most exciting frontiers in science and technology, with the potential to tackle problems that are intractable for classical computers. In this talk, I will highlight some promising applications in particle physics where quantum approaches could revolutionize analysis -- including quantum optimization for combinatorial challenges at the LHC and the use of qubit-based sensors in dark matter detection.

Composite Quarks, Leptons, and Higgs: Flavor Signatures of a Preon Theory with Amartya Sengupta

We discuss a renormalizable composite/preon model in which the Standard Model quarks, leptons, and the Higgs arise as bound states of an underlying confining chiral gauge theory. Symmetries and large-N power counting naturally suppress baryon-number violation, allowing compositeness scales as low as 10^{4} TeV while remaining consistent with proton-decay bounds. We focus on the flavour structure of the model, where the same Yukawa couplings that generate the observed fermion masses and quark mixing also induce a broad class of flavour- and precision-sensitive effects.

Physics Theory Seminar with Dibya Chattopadhyay

This lecture was made possible by the William C. Ferguson Fund.

Emergent phases in Kitaev spin-orbital magnets with Onur Erten

The Kitaev model provides an elegant framework for realizing quantum spin liquids, yet it is notoriously fragile since most perturbations fail to commute with the flux operators. A promising route to overcome this limitation lies in spin-orbital generalizations of the Kitaev model. In this talk, I will discuss the rich landscape of emergent phases stabilized in these systems, with a particular focus on bilayer structures[1,2,3].

Stellar Bumper Cars! Collisional Dynamics in Galactic Nuclei with Sanaea Cooper Rose

Like most galaxies, the Milky Way harbors a supermassive black hole (SMBH) at its center, surrounded by a stellar cluster. In this densely populated environment, stars frequently collide and interact with one another. I will discuss the outcomes and implications of these collisions and connect them to astrophysical puzzles observed at the very heart of our galaxy. Close to the SMBH, collisions occur at very high speeds and can produce peculiar stripped stars, divested of their outer layers.

Science Results from the Tierras Observatory: The Wonders of Night-to-Night Photometric Stability with Juliana Garcia-Mejia

The Tierras Observatory is a refurbished 1.3-m facility at Whipple Observatory designed for ultra-precise time-series photometry of M dwarfs. Its custom 40-nm filter centered at 864 nm, combined with a deep-depletion frame-transfer CCD, enables stable photometry at the few-hundred-ppm level over multi-month baselines.

Designing New Optics to Investigate Galactic Positron Generation with Dustin Swarm

The soft gamma-ray emission line at 511 keV is an important tracer for electron-positron annihilation. While astrophysical 511 keV emission was first detected in the 1960s, the origin of positron generation has remained enigmatic due to the difficulty in imaging at these photon energies. X-ray telescopes focus light using grazing-incidence optics, mirrors that gently nudge photons to a distant focal point. However, technological and material constraints have capped the effectiveness of these optics at 80 keV, and photons in the 0.1—1 MeV energy range remain underexplored.

Supercooled liquids and glasses: a many-body perspective with Zohar Nussinov

New Neutrino Interactions and Core-Collapse Supernovae with Anna M. Suliga

In this talk, I will first discuss how the lepton-number neutrino self-interactions can affect the dynamics of the collapsing supernova core. Following, I will show how the non-standard neutrino-quark interactions affect the pre-neutrinozation neutrino signal from the core-collapse supernova. Next, I will demonstrate how the neutral-current channels in the large-scale neutrino detectors and large-scale dark matter detectors are ideal to identify such signals as they resist any neutrino flavor conversions degeneracies.

2026 McDonnell Distinguished Lectures: Public Lecture with Andrea Ghez on From the Possibility to the Certainty of a Supermassive Black Hole

Learn about new developments in the study of supermassive black holes. Through the capture and analysis of twenty years of high-resolution imaging, the UCLA Galactic Center Group has moved the case for a supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy from a possibility to a certainty and provided the best evidence to date for the existence of these truly exotic objects.  This was made possible with the first measurements of stellar orbits around a galactic nucleus. Further advances in state-of-the-art high-resolution imaging technology on the world’s largest telescopes have greatly expanded the power of using stellar orbits to study black holes. Recent observations have revealed an environment around the black hole that is quite unexpected (young stars where there should be none, a lack of old stars where there should be many, and a puzzling new class of objects). Continued measurements of the motions of stars have solved many of the puzzles posed by these perplexing populations of stars. This work provides insight into how black holes grow and the role that they play in regulating the growth of their host galaxies.  Measurements this past year of stellar orbits at the Galactic Center have provided new insight on how gravity works near a supermassive hole, a new and unexplored regime for this fundamental force of nature.

Andrea M. Ghez, professor of Physics & Astronomy at UCLA and the Lauren B. Leichtman & Arthur E. Levine chair in Astrophysics, is one of the world’s leading experts in observational astrophysics and is director of UCLA’s Galactic Center Group.

In 2020, she became the fourth woman to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for her independent discovery of a supermassive compact object, now generally recognized to be a black hole in the Milky Way’s galactic center. Her work on the orbits of stars at the center of the Milky Way has opened a new approach to studying black holes, and her group is currently focused on using this approach to understand the physics of gravity near a black hole and the role that black holes play in the formation and evolution of galaxies.

Advances in high-resolution imaging technology enabled Professor Ghez’s work and her group continues to work on pushing the frontiers of these technologies forward. She serves on several leadership committees for the W.M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii, which hosts the largest telescopes in the world, and the future Thirty Meter Telescope.

Professor Ghez is also very committed to the communication of science to the general public and inspiring young girls to enter the field of science.

She earned her B.S. from MIT in 1987 and her PhD from Caltech in 1992 and has been on the faculty at UCLA since 1994. She has won numerous awards, including the Crafoord Prize in Astronomy from the Royal Swedish Academy of Science, where she is the first woman to win this prize in any field.

Header image: Keck Observatory (Credit: Ethan Tweedie Photography)

Pure Mathematics as Applied Physics with Tadashi Tokieda

Humans tend to be better at physics than at mathematics.  When an apple falls from a tree, there are more people who can catch it — they sense physically how the apple moves — than people who can compute its trajectory from a differential equation.  Applying physical ideas to discover and explain mathematical results is therefore natural, even if it has seldom been tried in the history of science.  The exceptions include Archimedes, some old Russian sources, a recent book of Mark Levi’s, as well as articles and lectures by yours truly.  Many examples will be presented.

Lunar New Year Potluck

Please join us for good food, good company, and a chance to celebrate together. Attendees are encouraged to bring a favorite dish to share. The first 100 people in attendance will also receive free entry into a raffle for prizes! 

2026 McDonnell Distinguished Lectures: Colloquium with Andrea Ghez on Our Galactic Center

The proximity of our Galaxy's center presents a unique opportunity to study a galactic nucleus with orders of magnitude higher spatial resolution than can be brought to bear on any other galaxy. After more than a decade of diffraction-limited imaging on large ground-based telescopes, the case for a supermassive black hole at the Galactic center has gone from a possibility to a certainty, thanks to measurements of individual stellar orbits. The rapidity with which these stars move on small-scale orbits indicates a source of tremendous gravity and provides the best evidence that supermassive black holes, which confront and challenge our knowledge of fundamental physics, do exist in the Universe. This work was made possible through the use of speckle imaging techniques, which correct for the blurring effects of the Earth's atmosphere in post-processing and allowed the first diffraction-limited images to be produced with these large ground-based telescopes.

Further progress in high-angular resolution imaging techniques on large, ground-based telescopes has resulted in the more sophisticated technology of adaptive optics, which corrects for these effects in real time. This has increased the power of imaging by an order of magnitude and permitted spectroscopic study at high resolution on these telescopes for the first time. With adaptive optics, high-resolution studies of the Galactic center have shown that what happens near a supermassive back hole is quite different than what theoretical models have predicted, which changes many of our notions on how galaxies form and evolve over time. By continuing to push on the cutting-edge of high-resolution technology, we have been able to capture the orbital motions of stars with sufficient precision to test Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity in a regime that has never been probed before.

Andrea M. Ghez, professor of Physics & Astronomy at UCLA and the Lauren B. Leichtman & Arthur E. Levine chair in Astrophysics, is one of the world’s leading experts in observational astrophysics and is director of UCLA’s Galactic Center Group.

In 2020, she became the fourth woman to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for her independent discovery of a supermassive compact object, now generally recognized to be a black hole in the Milky Way’s galactic center. Her work on the orbits of stars at the center of the Milky Way has opened a new approach to studying black holes, and her group is currently focused on using this approach to understand the physics of gravity near a black hole and the role that black holes play in the formation and evolution of galaxies.

Advances in high-resolution imaging technology enabled Professor Ghez’s work and her group continues to work on pushing the frontiers of these technologies forward. She serves on several leadership committees for the W.M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii, which hosts the largest telescopes in the world, and the future Thirty Meter Telescope.

Professor Ghez is also very committed to the communication of science to the general public and inspiring young girls to enter the field of science.

She earned her B.S. from MIT in 1987 and her PhD from Caltech in 1992 and has been on the faculty at UCLA since 1994. She has won numerous awards, including the Crafoord Prize in Astronomy from the Royal Swedish Academy of Science, where she is the first woman to win this prize in any field.

Three-body hadronic reactions from Lattice QCD with Sebastian Dawid

Over the past two decades, the discovery of unexpected exotic resonances has challenged the traditional quark model of hadrons. Candidates for tetraquarks, pentaquarks, molecular states, hybrids, and glueballs have revitalized hadron spectroscopy. Many of these intriguing states decay into three or more particles, making their interpretation particularly challenging. Due to poorly understood three-body interactions, extracting their masses and widths requires advanced techniques at the intersection of lattice QCD and scattering theory.

Quantum Industry Colloquium featuring Dr. Yong Meng Sua, CTO of Quantum Computing Inc.

Quantum technologies are rapidly evolving from theoretical promise to deployable systems. This public lecture will explore recent advancements in quantum photonics, commercialization challenges, and the pathway toward scalable, industry-ready quantum computing platforms.

Dr. Yong Meng Sua is the Chief Technology Officer of Quantum Computing Inc (QCi) and a leader in quantum photonics and quantum information science at QCi, working at the forefront of translating quantum technologies from laboratory innovation to scalable industry solutions.

Planet Formation and Evolution Through a Statistical Lens with Sarah Blunt

Advances in Digital Innovation Across Arts & Sciences and Beyond

On Friday, May 8, nearly two dozen faculty will discuss their research that incorporates innovative uses of data and technology. These brief presentations will provide a glimpse into the breadth of digital innovation efforts taking place across WashU and offer an ideal entry point for new transdisciplinary collaborations. Open to faculty, staff, and students. Hosted by the Arts & Sciences’ Dean’s Office.

RSVP

Agenda

9 — 9:20 am: Welcome from Dean Hu and Provost West

9:20 — 10:40 am: Rules of Biological Systems I

• Speakers: Merlijn Staps, Biology; James Holehouse, Biology; Mikhail Tikhonov, Physics; Trevor GrandPre, Physics.
• Session chair: Michael Landis, Biology

11 am — 12 pm: Rules of Biological Systems II

• Speakers: Zach Zheng, Chemistry; Judith Hoeller, Physics; Ed Marti, School of Medicine.
• Session chair: David Piston, School of Medicine

1-2 pm: Innovative Methods in our Digital World

• Speakers: Ran Chen, Statistics & Data Science; Chao Cheng, Statistics & Data Science; Maxine Yu, Statistics & Data Science.
• Session chair: Xuming He, Statistics & Data Science

2 — 3:20 pm: Social, Political, and Economic/Business Processes

• Speakers: Christopher Lucas, Political Science; Betsy Sinclair, Political Science; Ted Enamorado, Political Science; Dennis Zhang, Olin Business School.
• Session chair: Andrew Reeves, Political Science

3:40 — 4:50 pm: Understanding Human Health and Behavior

• Speakers: Josh Oltmanns, Psychological & Brain Sciences; Ellen Fitzsimmons Craft, Psychological & Brain Sciences; Chenyang Lu, McKelvey Engineering; Rodrigo Reis, School of Public Health.
• Session chair: Philip Payne, School of Medicine

University-Wide Commencement Ceremony

The university-wide Commencement Ceremony will take place on Monday, May 12, 2024, at 9:00 a.m. on Francis Olympic Field. Additional climate-controlled and accessible viewing locations will also be available.

Commencement is a rain or shine event. Seats are available first come, first served. Please review the bag policy for guests and list of prohibited items. 

An all-school Commencement festival will immediately follow the university-wide Commencement ceremony on Monday, May 12. The celebration will include local food and beverage, games, photo opportunities, live entertainment, and will stretch from Mudd Field to Tisch Park. Festival will start at the conclusion of the Commencement Ceremony and end at 3:00 p.m.