Masterclasses 2014
In 2014, the masterclasses were given by Andreas Heinrich, Ursula Keller, David Nelson and Francis Halzen.
On the Monday evening prior to Physics@FOM Veldhoven 2014 the programme committee organised four FOM Masterclasses. These masterclasses offer PhD-students a unique opportunity to receive an in-depth class from top researchers. Only 25 places were available for each masterclass.
The four masterclass speakers of Physics@FOM Veldhoven 2014 are listed below.
Masterclass 1
Andreas Heinrich
IBM Almaden Research Center, Almaden, USA
The quantum mechanics of spins on surfaces
We all learn in quantum mechanics lectures how to treat the spin of an electron using the Pauli matrices of an S=1/2 system. However, the magnetic properties of atoms in gas and in particular those in a solid-state environment or in molecules are often much more complex and interesting. We will begin by trying to understand what happens when the spin of a quantum system is larger than S=1/2 at which point ligand fields (crystal fields in solids) become important and lead to important effects such as magnetic anisotropy.
We will then move from the treatment of a single spin system to coupled spins. How do you set up spin matrices for such a situation and how do you find solutions to those problems? We will discuss some experimental findings about spin chains on surfaces as studied by STM.
If time permits we will try to apply the concepts of coupled spin systems to quantum computation.
Masterclass 2
Ursula Keller
Ultrafast Laser Physics, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), Zürich, Switzerland
Short-pulsed solid-state lasers enable an exciting journey from ultrafast laser physics to frequency metrology and attosecond science
There has been a long-standing, ongoing effort in the ultrafast laser field to reduce the pulse duration and increase the power to continue to empower existing and new applications. After 1990, new techniques such as semiconductor saturable absorber mirrors (SESAMs) and Kerr lens mode locking (KLM) allowed for the generation of stable pulse trains from diode-pumped solid-state lasers for the first time, and enabled the performance of such lasers to improve by several orders of magnitude with regards to pulse duration, pulse energy and pulse repetition rates. This master course will give an introduction to some key topics such as passive modelocking based on SESAMs, KLM, and soliton modelocking; frequency comb generation and parameters such as carrier envelope offset frequency and pulse repetition rate; and some selected topics in attosecond science.
Recommended reading before lecture
- U. Keller, 'Ultrafast solid-state laser oscillators: a success story for the last twenty years with no end in sight,' Appl. Phys. B, vol. 100, pp. 15-28, 2010
- H.R. Telle, G. Steinmeyer, A.E. Dunlop, J. Stenger, D.H. Sutter, U. Keller, 'Carrier-envelope offset phase control: A novel concept for absolute optical frequency measurement and ultrashort pulse generation,' Appl. Phys. B, vol. 69, pp. 327-332, 1999
- P. Eckle, A. Pfeiffer, C. Cirelli, A. Staudte, R. Dörner, H.G. Muller, M. Büttiker, U. Keller, 'Attosecond ionization and tunneling delay time measurements', Science, vol. 322, pp. 1525-1529, 2008
Masterclass 3
David Nelson
Physics, Applied Physics and Biophysics, Harvard University, Cambridge, USA
An Introduction to Population Genetics and Evolution for Physicists
Important ideas about mutations, genetic drift (survival of the luckiest) and natural selection (survival of the fittest), originally developed in population genetics, will be reviewed in a form suitable for physicists, with the aim of understanding the growth of bacterial or yeast colonies in a laboratory environment. When migrations of one- and two-dimensional populations are considered, results for mutation, selection and genetic drift are closely related to 'voter models' of interest in nonequilibrium statistical mechanics, suitably extended to allow for inflation of a thin layer of actively growing pioneers at the frontier of a colony of microorganisms undergoing a radial range expansions on a Petri dish.
Masterclass 4
Francis Halzen
Wisconsin IceCube Particle Astrophysics Center and Department of Physics, University of Wisconsin, Madison, USA
Neutrino Astronomy and the IceCube South Pole Observatory
Neutrino astronomy has reached a watershed with the construction and commissioning of the cubic-kilometer IceCube neutrino detector and its low energy extension DeepCore. The instrument detects neutrinos over a wide energy range: from 10 GeV atmospheric neutrinos to 1010 GeV cosmogenic neutrinos. Possible topics for discussion are:
- The scientific rational for building a kilometer-scale neutrino detector.
- The challenges in building IceCube and the present detector performance.
- Initial results based on the more than 300,000 neutrino events recorded during construction. We will emphasize the measurement of the high-energy atmospheric neutrino spectrum extending to PeV energy and discuss IceCube’s potential for neutrino physics and for identifying the particle nature of dark matter.
- The search for the still enigmatic sources of the Galactic and extragalactic cosmic rays.
- Finally, we will discuss how the first data taken with the completed detector have revealed strong evidence for a flux of extraterrestrial neutrinos.
Emphasis on the various topics will be guided by the actual discussion.