Bulletin of the American Physical Society
APS April Meeting 2023
Volume 68, Number 6
Minneapolis, Minnesota (Apr 15-18)
Virtual (Apr 24-26); Time Zone: Central Time
Session D16: Undergraduate Research IIIUndergrad Friendly
|
Hide Abstracts |
Sponsoring Units: SPS Chair: Kirtimaan Mohan, Michigan State University Room: Marquette VII - 2nd Floor |
Saturday, April 15, 2023 3:45PM - 3:57PM |
D16.00001: MAGNETO-IONIZATION SPACECRAFT SHIELD FOR INTERPLANETARY TRAVEL Noah S Peterson, Trevin Detwiler, Matthew Holcomb, Jackson Kilburg, Alejandro Lobo, Jack Messerli-Wallace, Sam Mortenson, Gabriel Summers, Daniel Viscarra, Mateo Viscarra, Meredith Lutrell, Athanasios Petridis, David Atri Schuller, Justin Brutger, Keegan M Finger, Catherine M Huber, Luke Hofmann, Julie LaFranzo, Katrina R Sletten, Lorien MacEnulty, Zach T Wellens, Gavin P Menning, Timothy D Kutnink Lethal radiation, the strains of low gravity on the human body, and micrometeoroids moving fast enough to puncture metal; these are just some of the challenges facing manned interplanetary travel. MISSFIT is a multi-department, student-led collaboration working to develop designs to combat these issues. To combat radiation, we are testing different combinations of materials to attenuate electromagnetic radiation and creating a magnetic field to deflect charged particles or direct them into bubbles of gas where they can be safely neutralized. For artificial gravity, we have devised a method of oscillation that reduces the necessary size of the spacecraft, thus making it more efficient and cost-effective. We are creating an apparatus to test the viability of this method. We have simulated the cardiovascular system under the conditions of artificial gravity. For the micrometeoroids, we have developed a simulation to test high-velocity impacts. This collaboration is in its third year of work and has developed a proof of concept that the shielding method is effective. Our current research focuses on optimizing specific parameters. |
Saturday, April 15, 2023 3:57PM - 4:09PM |
D16.00002: Characterizing the Outgassing of Electronegative Impurities in nEXO Barkotel Zemenu, Glenn Richardson, Sierra H Wilde, Ako Jamil, David C Moore Neutrinoless double beta decay (0vbb) is a hypothetical rare nuclear process that could occur if neutrinos are their own antiparticles, a property that might explain why matter dominates antimatter in the universe. nEXO is an upcoming project that will search for this decay in Xenon-136 using a time projection chamber filled with 5 tonnes of liquid xenon. When 0vbb occurs, two neutrons decay into two protons, emitting a pair of electrons that carry the entire decay energy. To effectively separate 0vbb events from background, nEXO requires an accurate reconstruction of the electron pair's energy. However, the outgassing of electronegative impurities via diffusion from detector materials compromises this reconstruction. Our study aims to quantify this diffusion of impurities, compare it across candidate nEXO materials, and develop a model to ensure that nEXO meets its design goals for electronegative impurities. |
Saturday, April 15, 2023 4:09PM - 4:21PM |
D16.00003: Data Analysis of Neutron Capture on 134Xe Luke Parsons, Mary F Kidd, Werner Tornow, Sean W Finch
|
Saturday, April 15, 2023 4:21PM - 4:33PM |
D16.00004: Development of Germanium Detectors for Rare Event Physics Searches AbbieMarie S Woodard High-purity germanium (HPGe) detectors have been widely recognized for their high performance in gamma-ray spectroscopy. Due to their low electrical capacitance, semiconductor detectors made of germanium have been favored as they provide significantly better energy resolution compared to other radiation detection materials. As a result, HPGe detectors have proven to be crucial for the investigation of dark matter and neutrinoless double beta decay experiments. This work introduces the research that I have been pursuing at the University of South Dakota (USD), one of the leading institutions for facilitating the fabrication and characterization of HPGe planar detectors. The home-grown crystals at USD using the Czochralski technique are utilized for fabricating detectors rare-event searches. The fabrication of detector is implemented in Patterson 124. The amorphous germanium contacts are created using the sputtering machine to block both electron and hole injection while providing a sufficient passivation layer on the surface of the HPGe crystal. After fabrication, the detectors are cooled down to approximately the temperature of liquid nitrogen (79 K) and assessed using I-V and C-V characteristics as performance metrics. Further research conducted at USD aims to optimize detector performance by minimizing noise induced by charge injection leakage current, resulting in higher charge collection efficiency. |
Saturday, April 15, 2023 4:33PM - 4:45PM |
D16.00005: Thermodynamics at finite strangeness in the holographic model Leonardo A Pena, Claudia Ratti, Israel Portillo Vazquez, Joaquin J Grefa, Jorge Munoz Jr., Jorge Noronha, Maurício Hippert, Jacquelyn Noronha-Hostler, Romulo Rougemont A 5-dimensional black hole model has been used to describe the Quark-Gluon Plasma (QGP) over a wide range of temperatures T and baryon chemical potentials µB on the QCD phase diagram. In particular this model, constrained to reproduce the lattice QCD thermodynamics at vanishing density, has been employed to compute the QCD equation of state as a function of T and µB, and to predict the location of the critical point. The QCD phase diagram is actually 4-dimensional in the thermodynamic variables temperature, baryon number, electric charge and strangeness chemical potentials. In this work, I use the model to explore the phase diagram in the temperature and strangeness chemical potential plane. I will discuss my results on the phase diagram and equation of state in this plane. |
Saturday, April 15, 2023 4:45PM - 4:57PM |
D16.00006: Dilute and Percolating Carbon Nanotube (CNT) Thin Film Metrology, Optimization, and Characterization for Use in Next-Generation Display Applications Faisal Herzallah, Maxime Lemaitre, Svetlana Vasilyeva, Andrew G Rinzler, Alexander Schachtner, Christopher Samouce The Carbon Nanotube Enabled Vertical Organic Light Emitting Transistor (CN-VOLET) shows great promise to drastically improve the specifications of current OLED display technologies and circumvent challenges in their production relating to cost and processing difficulties. An ultra-thin film consisting of a CNT network must posses a number of characteristics to enable its use as a source electrode in a stable and optimized VOLET device. The CNT network must be dense enough to be percolating yet dilute (non-continuous, web-like) enough to allow the gate field in this vertical architecture to permeate through it and modulate the Schottky barrier at the source-channel interface. Here we present the theoretical and experimental work done to measure and optimize the quality of these films and their derivative devices through experimental, theoretical, and computational techniques. Namely, we present a way to theoretically predict the level of diluteness and percolation for different CNT mass densities and a computer algorithm which visually identifies deposited tubes in atomic force microscopy (AFM) images to calculate the surface coverage. We then present some results of the fabricated devices and their performance. |
Saturday, April 15, 2023 4:57PM - 5:09PM |
D16.00007: A Study of Multibody Systems involving Optical Tweezers Adam Benslama Many modern research fields make use of optical tweezers in order to surgically manipulate microscopically sized particles, yet only the dynamics of single particle manipulation within an optical trap has been widely theoretically studied. A study of such systems would help more accurately mathematically describe a variety of natural stochastic processes, such as the formation of covalent bonds or the manipulation of DNA strands while splicing genes onto it, which could help optimize the way research is done at the microscopic level. After establishing the necessary tools from stochastic analysis to understand the modeling dynamics equations, we will present the explicit solution for physically relevant cases (elastic attraction and coulombic attraction) as well as a mathematically viable simulation to illustrate this motion. This newly established mathematical framework can also be used to understand other instances of Brownian motion, such as the motion of motion of stars in galaxies, the movement of holes of electrical charge in electrical conductors, or the motion of plasma particles in cells. |
Saturday, April 15, 2023 5:09PM - 5:21PM |
D16.00008: Monte Carlo Simulation of the EMPHATIC Spectrometer Christopher Woolford Neutrinos are the most abundant massive fundamental particle universe, but because they interact with other matter only through the weak nuclear force, we know very little about them. Understanding the nature of the neutrino will enable physicists to better understand the creation and evolution of the universe, and in particular answer the question of why we live in a matter-only universe. To study the neutrino, Fermilab produces powerful beams of the elusive particle for experiments to use. Neutrinos are produced when certain hadrons such as pions and kaons decay via the weak interaction. The weak interaction decay is very well understood, however the process of creating some of the hadrons is only understood at the 10-40% level, resulting in an uncertainty in the neutrino flux at accelerators at the level of 10%. More measurements of the particle interactions (hadron interactions) that create neutrinos can help researchers reduce the uncertainty on the neutrino flux, and will enhance the capabilities of neutrino experiments like NOvA and DUNE in a variety of measurements such as neutrino cross-sections, sterile neutrino searches, and other BSM physics searches. The EMPHATIC collaboration's goal is to measure these hadron production probabilities (cross sections) using a novel compact, table-top sized spectrometer. This talk describes the building of a Monte Carlo of the EMPHATIC spectrometer using GEANT4 to see simulated hits in the individual components for use in tracking. |
Follow Us |
Engage
Become an APS Member |
My APS
Renew Membership |
Information for |
About APSThe American Physical Society (APS) is a non-profit membership organization working to advance the knowledge of physics. |
© 2024 American Physical Society
| All rights reserved | Terms of Use
| Contact Us
Headquarters
1 Physics Ellipse, College Park, MD 20740-3844
(301) 209-3200
Editorial Office
100 Motor Pkwy, Suite 110, Hauppauge, NY 11788
(631) 591-4000
Office of Public Affairs
529 14th St NW, Suite 1050, Washington, D.C. 20045-2001
(202) 662-8700