Session L02: PER and Theory Physics

Theoretical physics laboratory: a scaffolded active learning approach for upper year physics courses

Due to low enrollment sizes and infrequent course offerings, specialized upper year theoretical physics courses have few studies which have been completed in the physics education research literature. Such courses are conventionally delivered in a strict didactic form, where the instructor delivers ~3 independent hour-long lectures per week. Students are often left to work through the related highly complex and lengthy derivations independently, many times avoiding them altogether as they are difficult to incorporate and therefore not emphasized in standard didactic course assessments. To help address this gap we developed a course and physics education research proposal in 2021, a course which we were able to offer and complete the corresponding research study in 2023. In this course we take several approaches which are supported by the education literature, in particular focusing on scaffolded active learning during a single lengthy session, once per week. The single meeting is designed similar to laboratory based learning for experimental courses, and is modeled after popular "escape-rooms", where students must work together to finish a flexible list of tasks. Results from the study provide strong evidence for this course method to be incorporated into upper year physics course offerings. In our presentation we will discuss the course design, research study and results, instructional methodologies, and related literature. We will also provide some sample teaching materials and demonstrate the basic function of the weekly session of the course.   

Career Readiness for Physics Students (and Faculty): A Présumé Program

We present the results of a campaign to improve physics undergraduate and graduate career awareness and development. Students are unaware of possible nonacademic career paths—specifically in industry—and have limited knowledge of populating a strong, job-focused resume. To tackle this issue, we created a seminar course where a series of industrial physics talked about their career path. It is important to emphasize that the class did not dissuade students from academia but created opportunities to prepare for all career paths. The proposal is made based on the results of the course. We suggest that student advisors take a more vital role in preparing physics students for various careers: being aware of the career probabilities for a physics bachelor, encouraging electives and internships outside of physics to build a diverse background, and continuously building the students’ resume and cover letters. The focus is on the latter. We suggest that all physics students, as they progress academically, should create practice resumes: a pre-résumé or a présumé for short (with accent marks for pronunciation). We propose a program presuming early students should have a présumé: The physics présumé program.   

ChatGPT Takes Physics Exam

Can ChatGPT help students learn introductory physics? How can we incorporate ChatGPT into our physics recitations? To illustrate the importance of ChatGPT, this past spring semester, ChatGPT took one of my exams in the first semester, algebra-based physics course on mechanics. I discuss how it performed, compare its score to the rest of the class (humans) and discuss how ChatGPT (Chat Generative Pretrained Transformer) has the potential to dramatically change the landscape in introductory physics courses.   

Newton's Off-center Circular Orbits and the Magnetic Monopole

Introducing a magnetic field into Newton's off-center circular orbits potential in such way as to preserve the E = 0 dynamical symmetry leads to a unique choice that can be identified as the inclusion of a magnetic monopole in the inverse stereographically projected problem. One finds also a phenomenological correspondence with that of the linearly damped Kepler model. The presence of the monopole field deforms the symmetry algebra by a central extension, and the quantum mechanical version of this algebra reveals a number of zero modes equal to that counted using the index theorem of elliptic operators.   

Slowly-Rotating Q-Balls

Q-balls, soliton solutions in classical field theory, have wide-ranging applications, including in various theories of dark matter and baryogenesis. Although Q-balls with nonzero angular momentum are proven to be present in some of these theories, only solutions with quantized angular momentum are currently known. This work seeks to understand if other rotating solutions are possible.   

Electromagnetically Induced Transparency (EIT) and the Big Bang: The Sakharov Conditions on a table top

The Sakharov conditions met in the early universe may explain the matter-antimatter asymmetry of our universe. Chirped Zeeman EIT is an ideal optical analogue of the charge conjugation violation and universe expansion rate that satisfy the Sakharov conditions back then. We describe our experiment in warm 87Rb vapor and explain its findings in light of the quantum optics theory model. This enlarges the applicability and draws attention to the universal behavior of other physical processes that generalize the Sakharov conditions.