2008–2009 - Florida Institute of Technology

esearch
Physics
Current research in physics include experimental high-energy
physics, experimental and theoretical condensed matter physics,
instrumentation development, theoretical and observational studies
of the solar/heliospheric energetic particles and cosmic rays,
physics of energetic radiations from thunderstorms and lightning,
auroral and magnetospheric physics, engineering physics, and
physics education.
Experimental research in physics is carried out in a variety of
laboratories operated by the department of physics and space sciences,
as well as at national and international research facilities.
Facilities that are currently available to graduate students include
the following laboratories.
High-Energy Physics Laboratory: Activities at this lab are
centered on our work at the world’s two leading laboratories
in high-energy particle and nuclear physics, as well as on the
development of new detector technologies.
At the European Center for Particle Physics (CERN) in Geneva,
Switzerland, we are members of the international Compact Muon
Solenoid (CMS) collaboration, whose goals are to make precise
measurements of the laws governing the known elementary
particles and the forces between them, as well as to search for
new phenomena such as the Higgs boson, super-symmetric particles
and extra dimensions. The CMS experiment will operate
at CERN’s large hadron collider (LHC), which will provide the
world’s highest energy proton-proton collisions, beginning 2008.
Since 2001, we have been responsible for the light calibration
system for the forward hadron calorimeter and the alignment of
the forward muon system; from design, construction and testing
to integration, commissioning and operations. In data analysis,
we are studying perturbative QCD by confronting its predictions
with measurements of b-quark cross section, are investigating
spin of the top quark measuring spin correlations in top quark
pairs, and are also preparing to search for Higgs bosons in dilepton
events in cooperation with the LHC Physics Center at Fermi
National Accelerator Lab.
At the Brookhaven National Laboratory in Long Island, N.Y., we
are a member of the PHENIX collaboration investigating interactions
at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC), providing
the highest accelerator energies for nuclei. The most exciting goal
of RHIC is the discovery of the quark-gluon plasma, a state of
matter, which is hypothesized to have existed in the early phase
of the universe.
Detector research and development is presently focused on
the application of the gas electron multiplier (GEM) detection
technique to particle physics, medicine, and other areas such
as homeland security. In near future, we will conduct detector
research and development for new calorimeter technologies for
CMS at the upgraded LHC (Super LHC). The High-Energy
Physics Laboratory is also a host to the “Florida Tech Grid
Initiative” to participate in the development and use of the
emerging worldwide computing grids. Due to the technical
nature of our research, the laboratory is well suited for participation
of students from other majors, such as computer science and
engineering.
Quarknet: We also participate in the national Quarknet educational
outreach program that exposes high school physics teachers
and high school students to particle physics through hands-on
experimental workshops. The program has built and is operating
an educational cosmic ray air shower array distributed over
participating high schools in Brevard County.
Maglev Laboratory: The primary goal of this laboratory is the
development of a new space launch system for manned and
unmanned missions based on electromagnetic acceleration
and levitation, in cooperation with NASA, the Florida Space
Institutes, and the Advanced Magnet Laboratory, a high-tech
industry partner. It houses a 43-foot magnetic levitation and propulsion
demonstration track, one of a handful of such devices in
the country, and the only one at an academic institution. Physics,
space science and engineering students and faculty, together with
researchers from the other institutions, are performing investigations
in topics such as controls, aerodynamics, mechanical stability,
superconducting technology and electromagnetic acceleration
and levitation, to study the feasibility of maglev launch assist for
rockets and future spacecraft. Some of the work is also related to
maglev-based transportation systems. The laboratory also houses
a 20-foot maglev track model built by Florida Tech students.
Condensed Matter Physics Laboratory: The research activities
at this laboratory include condensed matter physics, materials
science, statistical physics, and engineering physics. The
research activities at this laboratory also include the collaboration
with members of Materials Science and Nanotechnology
Institute directed by the dean of the College of Science. One of
activities is to understand nucleation, growth mechanisms, and
evolution of microstructures and nanostructures in materials, to
optimize these structures, and finally to design new structures
in materials. Another activity is to link processing and structures
to various properties of materials, and to predict property of
materials by multiscale modeling. Materials include hard and soft
materials such as alloys, nanocomposites, colloids and polymers.
Other activities also include exploration of the application of
statistical physics to anomalous diffusion and relaxation processes
in heterogeneous system, biophysics, materials science and
econophysics.
Scanning Probe Microscopy Laboratory: This facility provides
researchers with the ability to image the surface structure of a
solid, and to probe the electronic surface properties of a material
down to the atomic scale, using a scanning tunneling microscope
(STM). This laboratory also investigates novel applications of the
STM (e.g., in the field of electrochemistry) and is interested in
the development of other types of scanning probe microscopes.
Space Sciences
Experimental and theoretical research activities in space sciences
are carried out in a variety of space science subfields. Some of
the current research topics in astronomy and astrophysics are:
gravitational redshifts and evolution of white dwarf stars, multiwaveband
astronomical observational techniques and theoretical
models of close binary systems, astrophysical fluid dynamics
and simulations of cataclysmic variables, astrophysical jets and
accretion phenomena, and observational cosmology. Some active
projects are studies of cosmic-ray modulation/propagation and its
interactions with the plasma and magnetic fields in the interstellar
medium, theoretical and observational study of x-rays, gamma
rays and energetic radiations from the terrestrial and planetary
Degree Programs—College of Science 143