News & Events

Following on the successful format of the last four workshops, the scope of the 2023 workshop includes (but is not limited to) gondola design, experiment-wide data acquisition and control systems, attitude control systems, on-board control software both for the attitude control and for the entire experiment, on-board computer hardware, power systems, telemetry systems, and thermal design and control.

This workshop should be particularly appealing for those who are designing and building hardware, and those interested in synergies between the activities of different ballooning groups. It is intended to provide an opportunity for all hands-on ballooning practitioners, from graduate students to senior investigators, to discuss the technologies we are all using to carry out our scientific investigations. 

For a better idea of the content expected at this event, please check out the previous workshops and presentations, available under the Past Events tab.

The Physics Force is an outreach program run through the University of Minnesota. Our greatest success is generating an interest in science in K-12 students. We go above and beyond to educate and entertain. The Physics Force does performances on a grand scale to bring excitement and wonder to the thousands of students who attend our shows every year. The show lasts approximately one hour and is appropriate for people of all ages.

Event is free and open to the public, but registration is required.

Wednesday, May 3^rd

9:00 am – 9:30 am        Grant Remmen
9:30 am – 9:40 am        Questions

9:40 am – 10:10 am      Coffee

10:10 am – 11:10 am    Four 10+5 talks:

(1) TBD
(2) Gabriel Cuomo
(3) Maria Neuzil
(4) Yuan Xin

11:10 am – 11:25 am    Short talk questions

11:25 am – 1:30 pm      Lunch

1:30 pm – 2:00 pm        Georg Bergner
2:00 pm – 2:10 pm        Questions

2:10 pm – 2:40 pm        Coffee

2:40 pm – 3:10 pm        Etsuko Itou
3:10 pm – 3:20 pm        Questions

3:20 pm – 3:50 pm        Coffee         

4:00 pm – 5:00 pm        Colloquium by David Gross
                                      John T. Tate Hall
                                      116 Church St SE
                                      Room - B50

Registration is required for workshop and registration is now closed.

https://cse.umn.edu/ftpi/quark-confinement

ABSTRACT:  Quantum Chromodynamics is fifty years old this year. I shall discuss the past, present and future of this remarkable theory.

The strong nuclear force is responsible for existence and masses of the building blocks of matter, protons and neutrons.  Protons and neutrons are made of quarks, and the nuclear force between quarks is that it grows with distance, so that quarks are confined to be inside of protons and neutrons.  This phenomenon was first understood in a famous paper on April 27, 1973, and its groundbreaking nature led to a 2004 Physics Nobel Prize for its authors David Gross and Frank Wilczek, along with David Politzer.  On May 3, 2023, which is 50 years later, almost to the day, Professor David Gross will give a talk about Quark Confinement here at UMN, reviewing the present and future of quantum chromodynamics, the quantum field theory of the strong nuclear force.
 

Tuesday, May 2^nd

8:50 am – 9:00 am        Welcome Remarks

9:00 am – 9:30 am        Raju Venugopalan
9:30 am – 9:40 am        Questions

9:40 am – 10:10 am      Coffee

10:10 am – 11:10 am    Four 10+5 talks:

(1) Shi Chen
(2) TBD
(3) Fedor Popov
(4) Bastain Brandt

11:10 am – 11:25 am    Short talk questions

11:25 am – 1:30 pm      Lunch

1:30 pm – 2:00 pm        Theo Jacobson
2:00 pm – 2:10 pm        Questions

2:10 pm – 2:40 pm        Coffee

2:40 pm – 3:10 pm        Ross Dempsey
3:10 pm – 3:20 pm        Questions

3:20 pm – 3:50 pm        Coffee

3:50 pm – 4:20 pm        Martin Kruczenski
4:20 pm – 4:30 pm        Questions

Registration is required for workshop and registration is now closed.

https://cse.umn.edu/ftpi/quark-confinement

Everyone is invited!

Student scholarship/fellowship award ceremony before colloquium.

Abstract:  Materials typically undergo phase changes as a function of external parameters such as temperature, pressure or magnetic field. Light can also be used to both switch between equilibrium phases and to create new photo-induced states that may have no equilibrium counterparts. Even though there are fascinating examples of photoinduced phase transitions, the detailed microscopic mechanisms and overarching principles that govern these are still not known. In this talk, I will describe how we used ultrashort laser pulses to capture light induced melting and recovery of a charge density wave phase with femtosecond time resolution. During this process, a new state that does not exist in equilibrium is also transiently created. In a different material, I will show how circularly polarized light can induce and detect a chiral phase of electrons. Understanding light induced phase transitions could pave the way for optical engineering of new quantum states of matter.





 

Basic Meeting Information

Who: Anyone in the Minnesota area interested in physics education at all levels

When: April 22nd 8:00 registration 9-12:30 meeting, optional lunch

Where: Augsburg University in person, option of outstate pods and individual zoom link

Cost: Suggested membership dues of $10, Optional lunch $10 payable in cash/check/paypal at meeting

Abstract Call

5 min tips/tricks/chalk talk shareouts

15 min longer talks related to physics education

Student posters

Other physics and physics education posters

Longer description located on website

Abstract submission due April 6th 5 pm

Meeting registration due April 19th 5 pm

Abstract:  The Juno spacecraft in orbit around Jupiter carries a camera on its payload, JunoCam, used for both science and outreach.  Juno’s unique polar orbit yields polar perspectives unavailable to earth-based observers or previous spacecraft.  In a highly elliptical orbit Juno’s closest approach comes within 3500 km of Jupiter’s cloudtops.  Evolution of the orbit has allowed the spacecraft to pass close to Ganymede and Europa, with close Io passes in the near future.  Members of the public have been invited to process JunoCam images.    Contributions by artists yield products suitable for framing and help us all to appreciate the beauty of the largest planet in our solar system.