CHAIR’S WEEKLY MESSAGE

“LET’S DO THIS”

That didn’t feel like enough break, right? After two weeks of actual break (when SMU was shuttered), we clawed our way back to work on January 4, 2021 … though the email inbox was still pretty quiet and the buildings were even quieter. That was before we witnessed the historic and other-worldly events of the last few weeks, which necessarily set our work again on pause as we tried to make sense of what unfolded on January 6 and in the aftermath of that day.

But, two weeks later, here we are … a new semester is upon us as the challenges of the unfolding COVID-19 pandemic remain. The good news is that this semester has been long considered little or no different from the fall semester. Classes will be hybrid (a mix of in-person and virtual students) when possible, but instructors have been largely free to choose the method of instruction they prefer (hybrid or all-virtual). A healthy population of students are enrolled in our classes. At last count our introductory physics classes, a melange of students from across many disciplines at SMU, had 232 students enrolled and our introductory laboratory classes had 226 students enrolled. Our majors classes, starting with PHYS 3305 (third-semester modern physics) always have a much better student-to-faculty ratio (more at the level of 5-to-1), and those enrollments are as expected for the spring. It’s going to be a semester similar to the fall … another 14-week sprint to the final exam period, with no real breaks along the way.

We’ve got this. We can do this.

But I also understand that we are bracing for it, even after the extended break that wound up exhausting in its own way. As vaccines continue to roll out and national coordinated vaccination strategy takes shape, we are all hoping for better days ahead. My heart is lightened by the anecdotes of colleagues and students who have been able to receive one or more of the required vaccinations. Even as we begin to feel more hopeful, the hard work of the semester begins. We need to be sensitive to the continued level of stress each of us, and each of our students, is experiencing during the ongoing pandemic.

Activities in the department will rekindle as the semester begins. The speaker series will kick off on Feb. 1 with a colloquium on theoretical and precision physics avenues beyond the Standard Model of particle physics. The theory group will resume their weekly Wednesday lunches, albeit virtually, this semester. Research will continue apace this semester … at least, as much as can when travel is still limited and personal face-to-face interactions are still unwise.

I welcome all of you back to campus for this spring term. Let’s do this!

Sincerely, 

Stephen Jacob Sekula Chair, Department of Physics

DEPARTMENT VIEWS

Meet the Office Staff

We are very fortunate to be supported by two staff in our Physics Main Office: Lacey Breaux (Academic Operations) and Michele Hill (Research Operations). In a department with complexity and excellence in both teaching and research, support for both hemispheres of our program are essential and each is a full-time job. To help our community find the right person for assistance with a need or an issue, we provide this helpful guide to many of the key areas where Michele and Lacey have roles and expertise!

Lacey Breaux – Academic Operations

Lacey’s duties include fundamental academic activities such as class enrollments, grade changes, textbook orders and adoptions, and support for both lecture and laboratory courses (e.g equipment orders, room scheduling, etc.). In addition, she is the go-to person for AmazonBusiness.com purchases, Staples supplies orders, and other charges that would be supported by departmental accounts. In addition, she handles higher-level activities including the organization of promotion and tenure materials (dossiers, etc.) and the resolution of all student issues (except those related to travel) including student health insurance. When it comes to supporting our students through payroll activities (e.g. student workers, teaching assistants, research assistants) she handles undergraduate and graduate payroll issues and planning. Student graduation is also her area of expertise, making sure that students are aware of the scheduled targets and checkpoints on the way to the completion of their degrees. Finally, she has responsibility for some technical aspects of the department, including access requests for Fondren Science Building (e.g. key requests or building card-swipe authorization for periods when the building is locked), submitting facilities requests (e.g. leaks, hot/cold issues, building damage, etc.), and membership to department email listservs (managed through list.smu.edu).

Michele Hill – Research Operations

Michele’s duties touch the whole portfolio of externally funded research activities, spanning the department from observational, theoretical, and experimental astronomy and astrophysics, to instrumentation project funding, to experimental and theoretical particle physics. If a request involves an external grant for which you are a principle investigator or co-principle investigator, Michele has the expertise to help resolve issues and get things done. These responsibilities include working to make timely payments on grants for student, staff, post-doctoral, and faculty salaries, as well as purchases and travel, closing out grants, and transacting across multiple grants.

Broader areas where Michele has expertise and responsibility are the use of the Concur travel and expense reporting management system. This includes making sure you have access to the system, know how to execute transactions in the system, and that you organize reports and request reimbursement against the appropriate accounts. Michele also handles post-doctoral hiring and payroll, so if you are looking to recruit and retain a post-doctoral researcher you should always begin by talking to Michele.

Michele handles all aspects related to travel, even if that travel may be for reasons other than research. If it involves travel outside the university, Michele is the point person. In addition, she coordinates reimbursement requests (which should always go through Concur), faculty summer salary payments, and transportation, reimbursement, or honorarium matters for all of our seminar and colloquium speakers.

Theory Lunches in Spring 2021

The SMU Physics theoretical physics program, led by Profs. Joel Meyers, Pavel Nadolsky, and Fred Olness will resume the weekly “Theory Lunches” this spring … albeit virtually.

… during the spring semester, we will continue having periodic theory lunches on Wednesdays at 12pm. This is an opportunity to informally communicate with members of the SMU theoretical physics group about theoretical aspects of our research, coursework, and interesting recent developments.

On February 3, we will connect to a webinar “Scaling down the laws of thermodynamics” by Christopher Jarzynski organized by the Cambridge University Physics Society.

Message from Profs. Fred Olness, Joel Meyers, and Pavel Nadolsky

For those of you interested in connecting to the lunches, speak with one of the professors for connection information. The details of the Feb. 3 webinar are available here: https://www.facebook.com/events/224965769280762

New Teaching Demonstration: The Brachistochrone

The “brachistochrone,” from the Greek for “least time,” is the answer to a famous question: what is the trajectory between two different points that, when moving under the influence of gravity, offers the shortest travel time? Thanks to Prof. Tom Coan and engineer Tim Mulone, you can now engage students in your mechanics classes in the subject with a live demonstration.

According to Prof. Coan, the demonstration is ideal for anyone looking to teach ” … the calculus of variations … there are even two versions of the same brachistochrone so you can demo the isochronous property of the curve,” showing live that even though the paths are slightly different they nonetheless result in equal travel times.

Lab Manager Rick Guarino has housed the demonstration in the FOSC 115 equipment storage room (see photo for location atop one of the shelving units). If you have questions about the demo, Prof. Coan invites you to contact him!

The Spring 2021 Department Speaker Series

The first event of the Spring 2021 Department Speaker Series will be on Monday, February 1, at 4pm. We will welcome Prof Ahmed Ismail (Oklahoma State University) to kick off the term with a look at physics beyond the Standard Model and precision measurements or programs that can lead the way into the future.

This semester, we aim to have at least a few presentations from SMU Physics Faculty who are looking to recruit graduate students, or undergraduate students, to research projects. Look out for those talks throughout the semester!

Miss a Colloquium or Seminar? Don’t Panic … They’re Recorded!

You can get ready for the start of our upcoming Spring 2021 Physics Speaker Series on Feb. 1 by checking out your favorite subjects from the Fall 2020 series! Explore supermassive black holes, the new Electron-Ion Collider planned for construction in the U.S., new ideas about dark matter, or the basic research needs for future scientific instrumentation in HEP … all from your personal devices! Enjoy our archive of the Fall Speaker Series Talks below.

FACULTY NEWS

If you have something to share please feel free to send it along. Stories of your activities in research, the classroom, and beyond are very welcome!

ATLAS Experience with the Hardware-Based Fast Tracking (FTK) System Published!

A paper on the Fast TracKer system (FTK) has now been submitted for publication to JINST. The FTK upgrade was designed to provide high speed tracking for the high level trigger of the ATLAS detector, using custom hardware composed of AM chips and FPGAs. The Deiana Firmware Lab (in this case Rohin Narayan, Lloyd Hasley, and Allison Deiana) worked on firmware design for checking and discarding duplicate matched tracks. The slice of the system that has been built is demonstrated to function with the performance expected from simulation.

https://arxiv.org/abs/2101.05078

Faculty Teaching Leaves Approved for AY2022!

We had a large number of leaves requested by faculty for the 2021-2022 academic year (AY22). Such leaves from teaching are intended to support and enhance the research mission of faculty, and thus the department.

Leaves are part of the Faculty Leave Program outlined in the University Policy Manual (https://www.smu.edu/policy):

It is the policy of the University to grant members of the faculty in the tenure-track professorial ranks (assistant professor, associate professor, or professor) a leave of absence for the purpose of study, research, creative activity, or other pursuit of value to the scholarly agenda of the faculty member and the University … to enable faculty to increase their effectiveness and usefulness to the University through a period of sustained time for research, writing, scholarship, or creative activity. Professional activities that might detract from this purpose including teaching will ordinarily not be permitted during the research leave.

SMU University Policy Manual, Policy 2.13, Sections 1 and 2.

Two of these were leaves for Assistant Professors (Prof. Deiana and Prof. Meyers) following their third year, which are intended to provide time for the faculty to focus on research activities in anticipation of their upcoming tenure reviews. Prof. Deiana will focus on her research program on the Large Hadron Collider in ATLAS Experiment upgrade electronics and the physics of multi-Higgs production in a single proton-proton collision. Prof. Meyers will focus on his work to improve constraints on fundamental physics with new data and future observations of experiments probing the Cosmic Microwave Background.

As summarized in the policy manual:

Tenure-track assistant professors … who have undergone a formal third-year review and are deemed to be making good progress towards achieving tenure are eligible for one semester of paid Junior Research Leave to concentrate on research, scholarship, and/or creative activity. This leave is normally taken during the fourth or fifth year of the probationary period.

SMU University Policy Manual, Policy 2.13, Section 4.

The other two leaves were important and research-focused administrative leaves – those granted in return for service in administrative positions at SMU – that had been anticipated earlier but were disrupted by the pandemic in 2020-2021. These were granted to Prof. Olness and Prof. Stroynowski to support their research goals on nuclear structure and new opportunities with the Electron-Ion Collider, and the Large Hadron Collider and Higgs Physics, respectively.

All four leaves were approved by the Provost for the coming academic year. We are excited to see the progress that will be made during the one-semester leaves!

Spring 2021 Term Announcements

The semester is nearly upon us! Here are some important reminders for faculty:

• Faculty have received guidance on teaching matters for the spring term in an email from the Chair on January 21, 2021. If you don’t have a copy of that and want it, just ask the Chair!
• New grant tools for Principle Investigators: “Post-award grant PI dashboard – The Sponsored Projects Dashboard is now available for principal investigators (PIs) through my.SMU. This dashboard, created by the Office of Research and Office of Information Technology provides PIs with a real-time financial picture of their sponsored projects. PI Training, via webinar, took place on November 10, 2020. Additional instructions and a recording of the training are available on the Sponsored Projects Dashboard Wiki.” (Provost Loboa’s Weekly Update, Nov. 13, 2020)

STAFF NEWS

Staff In-Office Schedule for Week of January 25

The in-office staff schedule for the week of January 25 is as follows:

• Monday: Lacey
• Tuesday: Michele
• Wednesday: Lacey
• Thursday: Michele
• Friday: Michele

Of course, both are always available on Microsoft Teams, by Email, or by phone.

Full staff in-office calendar for January:

STUDENT NEWS

If you have something to share please feel free to send it along. Stories of students in research, the classroom, internships or fellowships, awards, etc. are very welcome!

Spring 2021 Honors Physics: The Physics of Failure

“The greatest teacher, failure is,” said Master Yoda in the movie, “The Last Jedi,” as he counseled Luke Skywalker on what he should have taken away from his past mistakes. This lesson has been repeated in one form or another over the entire history of humankind, and this semester the Honors Introductory Physics course will explore failure in the physical world, the physics of failure, and how to think about materials and systems to anticipate failure.

All SMU undergraduates who are taking or have taken an introductory physics course (PHYS 1303, 1304, 1307, or 1308) are welcome to enroll in this zero-credit-hour course. Over 14 weeks, meeting once per week, students will be immersed in activities and exercises intended to enhance teamwork and utilize the lessons of introductory physics to think about answers to interesting problems or questions. Learn more from the public course website, and check out this teaser trailer for this semester’s theme!

ALUMNI NEWS

If you are an alum of the doctoral, masters, majors or minor programs in Physics at SMU, or have worked in our program as a post-doctoral researcher, and wish to share news with the community, please send your story to the Physics Department and we’ll work with you to get it included in a future edition.

News from Moez Janmohammad (BS’16)

We were very pleased to get a big batch of news from alumnus Moez Janmohammad (BS’16). Moez writes:

Hello SMU Physics family!

It’s been 4 years since I graduated, and what a wild time it has been. Somehow, I went from learning about networking technologies at a small company, to hacking vehicles for one of the largest automotive companies in the world. I’ve been able to get hands-on experience in all aspects of cybersecurity, from running phishing campaigns against users, to discovering vulnerabilities in popular applications. I’ve helped create tooling for ethical hackers to collect information and establish a presence in target networks.

Outside of my professional career, I’ve spent my weekends building and racing Miatas as well as playing a lot of golf (not comparable to Bryson [DeChambeau] though, I’m lucky to hit my driver 250 yards). I’m getting married in July and look forward to the SMU Physics family meeting my wife once the world returns to semi-normality.

I’m at nearly every SMU football home game, so hopefully I see some of you there this coming season. Pony Up!

Moez Janmohammad, BS’16

THE BACK PAGE

January Physics Challenge!

SPS Faculty Advisor and our department’s informal “Puzzle Master,” Prof. Randy Scalise, invites you to try to solve this month’s physics challenge from The Physics Teacher. The first correct solution he receives (scalise@physics.smu.edu) from a student member of our Society of Physics Students will be awarded a prize. The winner will get to select from the following four books,

• Gleick, J. “Chaos: Making a New Science“.
• Crease, R. P. and Mann, Charles C. “The Second Creation: Makers of the Revolution in Twentieth-Century Physics“.
• Thorne, K. “Black Holes and Time Warps: Einstein’s Outrageous Legacy“.
• Greene, B. “The Fabric of the Cosmos: Space, Time, and the Texture of Reality“.

Solutions must be complete enough to understand your strategy, reasoning, and methods; providing answers with no explanations are not acceptable. Dr. Scalise urges submitters who believe they have the correct answer to, of course, also submit their solution to The Physics Teacher using the email address challenges@aapt.org. Make sure to follow the journal’s guidelines for submissions (see below). The deadline is the last day of this month.

CHAIR’S WEEKLY MESSAGE

“2020”

Well … that was definitely not the year any of us wanted. That said, I have been buoyed by the strength, resilience, and perseverance demonstrated by each and every student, staff member, and faculty member at SMU. In our department, students learned physics in-person, virtually, or in a mix of the two. Faculty became webcast directors as well as teachers, “running the board” of their classroom to keep cameras and microphones going while also trying to deliver the curriculum to our students. None of us signed up for this … but we know the mission, and we get the job done.

What really distinguished this year was the creativity that was exhibited by everyone. Students pivoted to unreliable online environments, but under immense pressure they made diamond out of charcoal. I saw students in the SMU Honors Physics class this autumn grapple with the scientific method over 14 weeks, culminating in two excellent team-based presentations assessing the claims that the Earth is hollow, or that masks are dangerous to human health. (HINT: neither claim stands up to even basic reviews of even modest-quality evidence, let alone the best-quality evidence) I saw graduate students pursue their research despite the restrictions on travel and the deadening (or, at minimum, dampening) of activities at experimental sites. Progress is definitely slower than what it was a year ago, and some of that is far beyond our control, but in spite of that students rose to the challenge and maintained human health while advancing the boundaries of human knowledge. The seminar presentations we saw on Nov. 30 from two of our graduate students are good examples of expanding knowledge in the face of immense challenges.

Faculty similarly made the best of a bad situation. Papers were published, grant money was attracted, awards were earned, students were educated and trained, committees met to do their hard work, and PhDs were granted. To my knowledge, not a single one of our faculty succumbed to the most direct health threat of COVID-19, a testament to the safety procedures in place as well as to the fortitude of the faculty despite social isolation and separation. I know we are all struggling with the mental health consequences of this separation. But I hope these problems are ultimately more solvable than what might have happened if any of us had become gravely ill due to SARS-CoV-2, or if we had not become ill ourselves but spread it to others more vulnerable to infection.

Of course, the pandemic is not over yet. The worst is unfolding right now. Strength and vigilance are required. Little will change in the spring term, as mass vaccination won’t be possible until late spring or early summer. We must dig down deep for one more big reserve of strength. I want to support people as best as I can, as Department Chair, if they need help finding that strength.

In this issue of the newsletter, we do have some amazing things to celebrate – echoes of the hard work and perseverance of students, staff, and faculty. Our Society of Physics Students chapter was just nationally recognized as “Outstanding,” and the Fast Machine Learning Workshop that concluded recently at SMU was a huge success, despite having to be all-virtual. I was also gratified that some of our recent alumni were able to join us for the Winter Colloquium last Monday. The department is grateful not only for all their accomplishments but their sustained interest in joining with us to celebrate science.

This is the last newsletter of the semester and this calendar year. I wish all of you as good a series of holidays as is possible in this time. I hope you remain healthy and safe. Be good to each other, and be as well as you can. I look forward to seeing you all again in the new year.

Sincerely, 

Stephen Jacob Sekula Chair, Department of Physics

DEPARTMENT VIEWS

SMU Society of Physics Students “Outstanding” (top 10%) Nationwide

The SMU chapter of the Society of Physics Students (SPS) has won an Outstanding Chapter Award from the SPS National Office. This is the first time the chapter has been recognized at the highest level of excellence as a top-tier student-led physical sciences organization, a designation given to fewer than 10 percent of all SPS chapters at colleges and universities in the United States and internationally (more than 800 chapters are in operation). Last year, our chapter was noted as “Distinguished” by the national organization.

The Society of Physics Students (SPS) is a professional association designed for students and membership is open to anyone interested in physics and related fields. SPS operates within the American Institute of Physics (AIP), an umbrella organization for professional physical science societies.

The SPS chapter at SMU is advised by Prof. Randy Scalise and is led by student officers. The 2020-2021 officers are:

• Jared Burleson (President)
• Taylor Wallace (Vice President)
• Katherine Scalise (Secretary)
• Noah Pearson (Treasurer)
• Abigail Hays (Outreach Coordinator)

SPS chapters are evaluated on their level of interaction with the campus community, the professional physics community, the public, and with SPS national programs. The Outstanding Chapter Award recognizes high levels of outreach as well as unique approaches to fulfilling the mission of SPS to “help students transform themselves into contributing members of the professional community.”

Congratulations to Prof. Scalise and the student officers for creating a vibrant and sustainable chapter of the SPS at SMU. This is especially notable in this pandemic year, when gathering in person has been impossible but where virtual events were done creatively and routinely.

Fast Machine Learning Workshop a Great Success!

The Fast Machine Learning for Science hosted by SMU from November 30 – December 3 was a great success, even in the face of challenges from the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Over the three days of talks from various disciplines, the workshop drew up to 282 individual daily attendees.  The fourth day consisted of two hands-on tutorial sessions with the HLS4ML package and had nearly 100 people in attendance. Prof. Allison Deiana would especially like to thank the Dedman College Interdisciplinary Institute for their support, as well as the local organizing committee and scientific committee.  Of course, the workshop was a real success because of the the participants, especially the excellent speakers and tutorial leaders, many of whom also engaged in post-talk discussion via a dedicated Slack workspace.  It is notable that one of these speakers is Andrew Reis (SMU’22), an undergraduate Hamilton scholar here at SMU (Check out his talk online!)

Organizing Committee:
Allison Deiana (Southern Methodist University)
Rohin Narayan (Southern Methodist University)
Thomas Coan (Southern Methodist University)
Elizabeth Fielding (Southern Methodist University)

Scientific Committee:
Javier Duarte (UCSD)
Phil Harris (MIT)
Burt Holzman (Fermilab)
Scott Hauck (U. Washington)
Shih-Chieh Hsu (U. Washington)
Sergo Jindariani (Fermilab)
Mia Liu (Purdue University)
Allison Deiana (Southern Methodist University)
Mark Neubauer (U. Illinois Urbana-Champaign)
Maurizio Pierini (CERN)
Nhan Tran (Fermilab)

Miss a Colloquium or Seminar? Don’t Panic … They’re Recorded!

The winter break is a great time to catch up on things you missed or learn something you didn’t know. You can explore supermassive black holes, the new Electron-Ion Collider planned for construction in the U.S., new ideas about dark matter, or the basic research needs for future scientific instrumentation in HEP … all from your screen! Enjoy our archive of the Fall Speaker Series Talks below.

Most Recent Talk: “Feeding the Monster” by Prof. Krista Lynne Smith (SMU)

Winter Break and Mail

Over the two-week break the SMU Mail Center will be open from 10-noon (with the exception of Christmas Eve and Christmas Day) to retrieve mail and packages. Mail will not be delivered to the main physics office, FOSC 102. If you are receiving packages that are extremely large, that cannot be surrendered to the post office, or if time is of the essence then you will need to make alternative delivery arrangements.

FACULTY NEWS

If you have something to share please feel free to send it along. Stories of your activities in research, the classroom, and beyond are very welcome!

Reminders for Faculty

Undergraduate Research Assistantships / Hamilton Scholars

• Fall 2020 URA/Hamilton payroll forms terminate on December 18.
• Spring 2021 URA/Hamiltons begin January 16.
• If URA students wish to work between Dec 19 – Jan 15, you must receive special permission. Contact Lacey to talk about this.
• Non-Hamilton URA students will no longer report their time to Lacey. Time reporting will go through the Engaged Learning office.
  • Engaged Learning will handle the payroll forms for Non-Hamilton URAs.
• Hamilton Scholars will continue to report hours to Lacey.
  • Lacey will continue to complete all Hamilton payroll ePAFs.

Final Grading

• Many have asked about entering grades of “incomplete.” Here is the Registrar’s page for End of Term Grading: https://www.smu.edu/EnrollmentServices/registrar/FacultyStaff/Access/GradingInstructions/EndofTerm
• Remember: Graduate and Undergraduate course instructors must post final grades within 72 hours (3 Days) of the ending hour of the final exam.
• GRADE CHANGES – These have been discussed in emails from Lacey Breaux to the faculty (look for “Grade Change Procedure” emails).

Some announcements that bear repeating:

• New grant tools for Principle Investigators: “Post-award grant PI dashboard – The Sponsored Projects Dashboard is now available for principal investigators (PIs) through my.SMU. This dashboard, created by the Office of Research and Office of Information Technology provides PIs with a real-time financial picture of their sponsored projects. PI Training, via webinar, took place on November 10, 2020. Additional instructions and a recording of the training are available on the Sponsored Projects Dashboard Wiki.” (Provost Loboa’s Weekly Update, Nov. 13, 2020)
• The Dean’s Research Council proposal deadline is extended into mid-January to allow more time for people to develop and submit proposals. Proposals require a letter of support from the Chair, so inform the Chair early if you intend to submit. Know the eligibility criteria before you begin work on a proposal, to avoid wasted time: https://www.smu.edu/Dedman/Research/Deans-Research-Council
• From the President: “As President Turner announced … we will start our spring 2021 semester a week later than originally planned, on January 25, and continuing straight forward without a spring break through the conclusion of exams on May 12. Good Friday will remain a University holiday. Jan Term classes will be also be available beginning January 7, 2021.”

STAFF NEWS

Staff In-Office Schedule for Week of December 14

The in-office staff schedule for the week of December 14 is as follows:

• Monday: Michele
• Tuesday: Lacey
• Wednesday: Lacey
• Thursday: Michele
• Friday: Lacey

Of course, both are always available on Microsoft Teams, by Email, or by phone.

The Main Physics Office is closed for business for two weeks for the period of December 21 – January 1, and will reopen on January 4, 2021.

Full staff in-office calendar for December:

STUDENT NEWS

If you have something to share please feel free to send it along. Stories of students in research, the classroom, internships or fellowships, awards, etc. are very welcome!

ALUMNI NEWS

If you are an alum of the doctoral, masters, majors or minor programs in Physics at SMU, or have worked in our program as a post-doctoral researcher, and wish to share news with the community, please send your story to the Physics Department and we’ll work with you to get it included in a future edition.

SMU Alumni Participate in the Winter Colloquium

Several SMU alumni joined us for the Winter Colloquium on December 7, 2020. This final speaker series event of the fall term, and this calendar year, was a wonderful chance to reunite and reconnect in an intellectual setting. We express our gratitude to Dr. Biao Wang (PhD’17), Dr. Matt Stein (PhD’18), Daniel Gum (BS’16), Christina McConville (BA’18), and Sean Doyle (BS’19), for their participation and especially their engagement with Prof. Smith during the meet-and-greet that followed the main event!

For any alumni or friends that wish to be informed of upcoming events, you can join our new Physics Community mailing list (mailings occurs about once per week during the regular semesters) for special news and invitations to departmental events. Contact the Department Chair for information on how to get connected!

THE BACK PAGE

REMINDER: December Physics Challenge!

SPS Faculty Advisor and our department’s informal “Puzzle Master,” Prof. Randy Scalise, invites you to try to solve this month’s physics challenge from The Physics Teacher. The first correct solution he receives (scalise@physics.smu.edu) from a student member of our Society of Physics Students will be awarded a prize. The winner will get to select from the following four books,

• Gleick, J. “Chaos: Making a New Science“.
• Crease, R. P. and Mann, Charles C. “The Second Creation: Makers of the Revolution in Twentieth-Century Physics“.
• Thorne, K. “Black Holes and Time Warps: Einstein’s Outrageous Legacy“.
• Greene, B. “The Fabric of the Cosmos: Space, Time, and the Texture of Reality“.

Solutions must be complete enough to understand your strategy, reasoning, and methods; providing answers with no explanations are not acceptable. Dr. Scalise urges submitters who believe they have the correct answer to, of course, also submit their solution to The Physics Teacher using the email address challenges@aapt.org. Make sure to follow the journal’s guidelines for submissions (see below). The deadline is the last day of this month.

CHAIR’S WEEKLY MESSAGE

“Reading Days”

We have reached the penultimate newsletter of the fall term. Thanksgiving has passed. I hope that all of you were able to celebrate somehow while also managing to do so responsibly, keeping yourself and others safe. The academic community is now engaged in its last responsibility of the fall term: classes have ended, the reading days are just ahead, and final exams beckon.

During the Monday of the reading days – those class-and-assignment-free days that happen just before final exams begin – our department will be engaged in the last speaker event of the term. This will also be a final social event – albeit a virtual one – for us and our community this fall. I am very excited that friends and alumni of the department, who have been invited to this event, have already begun to RSVP and say they will participate. I hope that all of you will be able to join us for a wonderful presentation on supermassive black holes, followed by a reception for people who can participate in the Zoom event itself. The reception will be a chance to break into smaller groups, chat as we wind down the semester, and prepare ourselves for that final push into the winter break.

Final exam stress is upon us, of course. I know that students in our courses have been wrestling with deadlines and workloads. I know that faculty have been bringing their courses to the close and preparing final evaluations of the students. The anxiety in all of us is immense right now.

I hope that, if you can, you are taking a little time for self-care. I recently watched the PBS NOVA episode from earlier this year entitled “Mysteries of Sleep.” It provided a tour of what we think we know (and what we still don’t) about sleep’s function, how different organisms (including humans) use sleep, and how sleep in humans can be disturbed or disrupted. Of course, that latter problem plagues most of us, whether it’s due to stress or some other factor. Sleep plays a crucial role in functions like memory and general well-being, and while it has been culturally very American to eschew sleep or view excessive sleep as laziness, it is now well-understood and widely recognized to be as important to our lives as eating or other basic functions.

Sleep is essential for the intellectual work we do at SMU. Like any function that provides an invaluable resource, sleep is to be protected. Sleep is essential to learning, and doing so at high performance and with permanence. I hope, at least, you steal a nap here or there as we head into final exams … you (and your final grade) deserve it!

In this issue, we look at the Winter Colloquium, share some alumni news, peek at some of the progress in graduate research, and provide the last physics challenge of the year. I hope all of you are staying as well and safe as you can!

Sincerely, 

Stephen Jacob Sekula Chair, Department of Physics

DEPARTMENT VIEWS

The Winter Colloquium: A Chance to Learn and Unwind with Friends

The last colloquium of the fall term, dubbed “The Winter Colloquium,” is a chance to engage in big ideas with cosmic impact and to do so as part of a diverse and lively audience. This is a chance for our physics community to have one last big intellectual engagement as we head into the winter break. This term, we are proud to host our newest faculty member, Prof. Krista Lynne Smith, whose work is built on the discoveries that led to this year’s Nobel Prize in Physics.

Prof. Smith will speak about “Feeding the Monster: Supermassive Black Holes and the Galaxies they Inhabit.” Active galactic nuclei, the most luminous non-transient sources of energy in the universe, are powered by the accretion of matter onto supermassive black holes. They provide unique laboratories for violent astrophysical processes, some of the most extreme in the cosmos. In the fifty years since their discovery active galaxies have been observed across the entire electromagnetic spectrum. A thorough understanding of these fascinating objects and their profound effect on galaxy evolution now depends upon synthesizing observations across many wavelengths and understanding their time evolution. Prof. Smith will engage us in the frontier of these investigations while taking us on a tour of this extreme part of the universe.

The Zoom connection information is available to SMU-affiliated participants; the public YouTube stream is available for everyone. For participants on the Zoom connection, a virtual reception will follow, with a chance to mingle in smaller groups, meet new people, catch up with old friends, and bring some closure to this semester.

https://www.physics.smu.edu/web/seminars/

Miss a Colloquium or Seminar? Don’t Panic … They’re Recorded!

The winter break is a great time to catch up on things you missed or learn something you didn’t know. You can explore supermassive black holes, the new Electron-Ion Collider planned for construction in the U.S., new ideas about dark matter, or the basic research needs for future scientific instrumentation in HEP … all from your screen! Enjoy our archive of the Fall Speaker Series Talks below.

Most Recent Talks: Graduate Student Research Seminars from Jing Xiaoxian and Yingnan Xu; New Ideas for Detecting Low-Mass Dark Matter by Prof. Tongyan Lin (University of California-San Diego)

FACULTY NEWS

If you have something to share please feel free to send it along. Stories of your activities in research, the classroom, and beyond are very welcome!

Reminders for Faculty

We reprint these, because it never hurts to repeat important things.

• New grant tools for Principle Investigators: “Post-award grant PI dashboard – The Sponsored Projects Dashboard is now available for principal investigators (PIs) through my.SMU. This dashboard, created by the Office of Research and Office of Information Technology provides PIs with a real-time financial picture of their sponsored projects. PI Training, via webinar, took place on November 10, 2020. Additional instructions and a recording of the training are available on the Sponsored Projects Dashboard Wiki.” (Provost Loboa’s Weekly Update, Nov. 13, 2020)
• The Dean’s Research Council proposal deadline is extended into mid-January to allow more time for people to develop and submit proposals. Proposals require a letter of support from the Chair, so inform the Chair early if you intend to submit. Know the eligibility criteria before you begin work on a proposal, to avoid wasted time: https://www.smu.edu/Dedman/Research/Deans-Research-Council
• From the Provost: “Exams, tests and quizzes to be delivered exclusively online in fall 2020 – All exams, tests and quizzes will be delivered online this fall so that all students, regardless of mode of instruction, have equitable access to testing. We are discouraging in-class, paper-based testing because of the flexibility that everyone might need if case health issues arise. Consult SMU’s Keep Teaching website for additional information and support for this important interim requirement. You can also view this webinar on Online Exam Basics created by CTE and sent to all faculty by email in late September.”
• From the President: “As President Turner announced … we will start our spring 2021 semester a week later than originally planned, on January 25, and continuing straight forward without a spring break through the conclusion of exams on May 12. Good Friday will remain a University holiday. Jan Term classes will be also be available beginning January 7, 2021.”

STAFF NEWS

Staff In-Office Schedule for Week of December 7

The in-office staff schedule for the week of December 7 is as follows:

• Monday: Lacey
• Tuesday: Lacey
• Wednesday: Michele
• Thursday: Michele
• Friday: Lacey

Of course, both are always available on Microsoft Teams, by Email, or by phone.

Full staff in-office calendar for December:

STUDENT NEWS

If you have something to share please feel free to send it along. Stories of students in research, the classroom, internships or fellowships, awards, etc. are very welcome!

ALUMNI NEWS

If you are an alum of the doctoral, masters, majors or minor programs in Physics at SMU, or have worked in our program as a post-doctoral researcher, and wish to share news with the community, please send your story to the Physics Department and we’ll work with you to get it included in a future edition.

Dr. Matthew Feickert (PhD’19) is a Special Guest on the “Python Bytes” Podcast

You can watch the recording of the live stream of the episode, or wait for the release of the polished and edited conversation on the Python Bytes podcast feed (should appear during the week of Dec. 7). The podcast delivered important news about the Python programming language and its applications. Matthew was featured in an earlier episode on machine learning and particle physics.

THE BACK PAGE

From The Physics Teacher: December Physics Challenge!

SPS Faculty Advisor and our department’s informal “Puzzle Master,” Prof. Randy Scalise, invites you to try to solve this month’s physics challenge from The Physics Teacher. The first correct solution he receives (scalise@physics.smu.edu) from a student member of our Society of Physics Students will be awarded a prize. The winner will get to select from the following four books,

• Gleick, J. “Chaos: Making a New Science“.
• Crease, R. P. and Mann, Charles C. “The Second Creation: Makers of the Revolution in Twentieth-Century Physics“.
• Thorne, K. “Black Holes and Time Warps: Einstein’s Outrageous Legacy“.
• Greene, B. “The Fabric of the Cosmos: Space, Time, and the Texture of Reality“.

Solutions must be complete enough to understand your strategy, reasoning, and methods; providing answers with no explanations are not acceptable. Dr. Scalise urges submitters who believe they have the correct answer to, of course, also submit their solution to The Physics Teacher using the email address challenges@aapt.org. Make sure to follow the journal’s guidelines for submissions (see below). The deadline is the last day of this month.

CHAIR’S WEEKLY MESSAGE

“Thanksgiving”

This will be the last newsletter before Thanksgiving, and there won’t be one on the Friday after Thanksgiving – I myself will be both in an isolation and a food coma this year. I hope that everyone will find happiness over this holiday, but still manage to stay safe and healthy and protect themselves and others.

I am thankful for the research and teaching excellence that is playing out in our department this fall. Some of that excellence is highlighted below; the Texas Section of the American Physical Society spotlighted a few of our faculty and students at the fall meeting for their research accomplishments and service to the Texas physics community. Other excellence is harder to spot: the paper published in a peer-reviewed journal that represented a culmination of months or years of work, but which you are just relieved to have done; the ink that faculty are bleeding into their funding proposals right now (the deadlines are fast approaching!); the basic but existential challenge of landing your course with everyone and everything intact. These accomplishments are unfolding every day in our department. I am thankful to work with all of you – students, staff, and faculty – to make this happen.

We have a talk on dark matter theoretical ideas coming up on Monday. Our fall speaker series is drawing toward its close … there are just three talks left, culminating in the Winter Colloquium on December 7! This will be a lovely chance to invite more of our friends and colleagues from outside the department to share in one last exciting intellectual feast before we close out the year. Final exams are coming, winter break is coming, and this semester will all be over so very, very soon.

I wish all of you a lovely Thanksgiving. I hope you have safe travels, if you must travel, and I hope you take care of yourselves and others. Science is nothing without the people that do it everyday. The most important thing to preserve are those people.

Sincerely, 

Stephen Jacob Sekula Chair, Department of Physics

DEPARTMENT VIEWS

SMU Faculty and Students Recognized for Achievements at the Fall Meeting of the Texas Sections of the APS, AAPT, and SPS

In addition to outstanding talks given by SMU student and faculty researchers at last week’s fall joint meeting of the Texas Sections of the American Physical Society, American Association of Physics Teachers, and Society of Physics Students, significant awards were given by the TSAPS to SMU faculty and a senior undergraduate research student.

Prof. Joel Meyers and Noah Pearson were awarded the 2020 TSAPS Robert S. Hyer Award. This is given to one undergraduate-mentor and one graduate-mentor pair each year. As stated on the web page describing this prize,

The only criterion is excellence, including potential impact in the relevant scientific community. The research must be in physics or a physics-related subject, and it must have been presented at a Texas APS meeting within the past two years by either the student or the advisor, both of whom must have been TSAPS members at the time.

From the description of the Robert S. Hyer Award on the TSAPS website

Noah and Prof. Meyers were recognized for the work embodied in their recent paper, “Searching for Gravitational Waves with Strongly Lensed Repeating Fast Radio Bursts” (arXiv:2009.11252) which explained a means by which newly discovered objects, FRBs, could be utilized in a complementary way to Pulsar Timing Arrays (c.f. the recent seminar by Stephen Taylor at SMU) to search for and study gravitational waves arising from novel sources that would not have been previously visible.

Prof. Jodi Cooley was awarded the TSAPS Distinguished Service Award, which is given annually ” … to recognize individuals who have made outstanding contributions over several years to the Texas section of the APS. Recipients of this award will become members of a committee to aid and advise the Texas section’s executive committee particularly in retaining a historical perspective on the section’s activities. Service on the committee will include a four-year active term and lifetime honorary membership.” The presentation of the award was made by Prof. Sally Hicks (University of Dallas), past Chair of the TSAPS. In the citation she read, she noted Prof. Cooley’s service in the leadership of the TSAPS and her re-invigoration of the nomination process for the Robert S. Hyer Award.

REMINDER: Fast Machine Learning For Science (Virtual) Workshop at SMU, Nov. 30 – Dec. 3 – Register Today!

Physics Speaker Series Continues with a Seminar by Prof. Tongyan Lin (University of California-San Diego): “Directly detecting sub-GeV dark matter with crystal targets”

The Physics Department Speaker Series continues on Monday, November 23 with Prof. Tongyan Lin (University of California-San Diego). She will speak on “Directly detecting sub-GeV dark matter with crystal targets.” This continues the November theme, “New Frontiers in Physics.” She will present a talk on how new experiments might target very low mass (“sub-GeV”) dark matter particles. As direct detection experiments expand the search for sub-GeV dark matter and lower their energy thresholds, the many-body physics of crystals can be increasingly important and also be used to enhance discovery potential. In her talk, she will discuss two broad classes of signals for sub-GeV dark matter scattering in crystalline targets. The Zoom connection information is available to SMU-affiliated participants; the public YouTube stream is available for everyone.

https://www.physics.smu.edu/web/seminars/

Miss a Colloquium or Seminar? Don’t Panic … They’re Recorded!

If you missed an event in the Department Speaker Series, never fear! A positive side-effect of remote-only talks is easy recording. You can find all events so far this semester streaming online here:

Most Recent Talk: Prof. Miguel Arratia (University of California-Riverside)

FACULTY NEWS

If you have something to share please feel free to send it along. Stories of your activities in research, the classroom, and beyond are very welcome!

Attention Faculty: Changes for University Research Assistants (Undergraduate Researchers)!

Lacey Breaux has an important message for all faculty who plan on mentoring an undergraduate researcher after the Fall Term. There are some critical changes coming in the way hours are reported, and to whom they are reported.

As you know, this semester has been different than previous semesters and Undergraduate Research is no different. The Office of Engaged Learning (OEL) is changing the procedure for non-Hamilton URA students in the Spring 2021 term. Payroll forms will submitted by OEL (and no longer by Lacey!) and time reporting will also go through OEL (also not Lacey!). I will be reaching out to the affected parties individually, as well.

Lacey Breaux – Summarizing New URA Time Reporting Rules

In short: in the future, the physics main office will be out-of-the-loop on time reporting and payroll for URAs. Faculty need to interact directly with OEL on these issues going forward. As always, a healthy and communicative relationship with your URAs is the best option, to make sure they report their hours to you in addition to the official reporting to OEL.

Black in Academia Event

Faculty especially are encouraged to participate in this event.

Reminders for Faculty

We reprint these, because it never hurts to repeat important things.

• New grant tools for Principle Investigators: “Post-award grant PI dashboard – The Sponsored Projects Dashboard is now available for principal investigators (PIs) through my.SMU. This dashboard, created by the Office of Research and Office of Information Technology provides PIs with a real-time financial picture of their sponsored projects. PI Training, via webinar, took place on November 10, 2020. Additional instructions and a recording of the training are available on the Sponsored Projects Dashboard Wiki.” (Provost Loboa’s Weekly Update, Nov. 13, 2020)
• Pedagogical Partner Up Grants: “CTE is excited to announce a call for applications for Partner-Up Grants of $2,000 for full-time faculty to participate in faculty-led learning pods focused on priority areas that emerged as topics from fall 2020 faculty surveys. Please apply by Monday, November 30. Recipients will be announced by Friday, December 4.” (Provost Loboa’s Weekly Update, Nov. 13, 2020)
• The Deans Research Council proposal deadline is extended into mid-January to allow more time for people to develop and submit proposals. Proposals require a letter of support from the Chair, so inform the Chair early if you intend to submit. Know the eligibility criteria before you begin work on a proposal, to avoid wasted time: https://www.smu.edu/Dedman/Research/Deans-Research-Council
• From the Provost: “Exams, tests and quizzes to be delivered exclusively online in fall 2020 – All exams, tests and quizzes will be delivered online this fall so that all students, regardless of mode of instruction, have equitable access to testing. We are discouraging in-class, paper-based testing because of the flexibility that everyone might need if case health issues arise. Consult SMU’s Keep Teaching website for additional information and support for this important interim requirement. You can also view this webinar on Online Exam Basics created by CTE and sent to all faculty by email in late September.”
• From the President: “As President Turner announced … we will start our spring 2021 semester a week later than originally planned, on January 25, and continuing straight forward without a spring break through the conclusion of exams on May 12. Good Friday will remain a University holiday. Jan Term classes will be also be available beginning January 7, 2021.”

STAFF NEWS

Staff In-Office Schedule for Week of November 30

The in-office staff schedule for the week of November 30 is as follows:

• Monday: Michele
• Tuesday: Lacey
• Wednesday-Friday: CLOSED

Of course, both are always available on Microsoft Teams, by Email, or by phone.

Full staff in-office calendar for November:

STUDENT NEWS

If you have something to share please feel free to send it along. Stories of students in research, the classroom, internships or fellowships, awards, etc. are very welcome!

ALUMNI NEWS

If you are an alum of the doctoral, masters, majors or minor programs in Physics at SMU, or have worked in our program as a post-doctoral researcher, and wish to share news with the community, please send your story to the Physics Department and we’ll work with you to get it included in a future edition.

THE BACK PAGE

What a Trampoline Can Teach Us about the Unseen Universe

This is the short movie that was produced for the recent “Science in the City” event hosted by the Dallas Morning News. Enjoy!

CHAIR’S WEEKLY MESSAGE

“Research During the Pandemic”

These have been challenging times for everyone. Research has not escaped unscathed. Students who have spoken with me about the wide-ranging effects of the pandemic have, among other things, pointed to the inability to travel to do research as a serious blow. Indeed, for faculty and staff the problem is largely the same. Hands-on technical work, especially, has become incredibly difficult to do, most of all when it requires converging on a remote site or collaborating across regional, national, and international boundaries to advance a project.

This only adds to the immense human tragedy of this era. Research is essential to establishing the reliable and useful, or insightful and beautiful, ideas and discoveries that are needed for the future. It may not be obvious, in the moment, why a basic research discovery is important (apart from the deep, fundamental importance of finding and creating new knowledge). History, however, has taught us that things that now seem esoteric will become the indispensable practical applications of the future. The pandemic, robbing humanity of at least one year of scientific progress (while simultaneously made worse by a seeming inability or unwillingness to utilize the established science of the last 100 years to mitigate its effects) is also robbing some future decade of its full potential. Discovery delayed might later prove to be a fundamental challenge to society in some new crisis; for example, many of the imaging techniques used during this pandemic to understand the organ and tissue damage caused by SARS-CoV-2 trace their lineage and origins back to fundamental discoveries about the universe made by chemists and physicists 100 years ago.

I have been bolstered, however, by seeing what people are trying to do in this era to nevertheless advance science. As frustrating as it has been to work virtually, I take hope from the ongoing Snowmass process, which should still culminate in 2021. This week saw a marvelous ad hoc workshop on the Electron-Ion Collider’s potential impact on our understanding of heavy quarks, and the use of heavy quarks to inform our understanding of the much lighter ones. Hardware research, development, and upgrade projects at SMU, intended to have international impact in experimental programs, move forward. The daily meetings of astrophysics and high-energy physics experiments, and research groups within SMU, continue. While everyone has Zoom and COVID-19 fatigue, nonetheless it’s heartening to see accomplishments made, discoveries unfold, and new projects and ideas get life … a thumb in the eye of this season of sickness.

In this issue of the newsletter, we look ahead to next week’s regional meeting of the Texas (and Oklahoma and Arkansas) sections of the American Physical Society, American Association of Physics Teachers, and the Society of Physics Students. That meeting, all-virtual and hosted by UT-Arlington, starts in seven days. And don’t forget to register for the machine learning and science workshop hosted virtually at SMU! That’s coming up at the end of the month. We reflect on the virtual Dark Matter Day event last Saturday, and we preview the next Speaker Series event on Monday. There’s even a new physics challenge on the Back Page!

Sincerely, 

Stephen Jacob Sekula Chair, Department of Physics

DEPARTMENT VIEWS

Texas Section of the American Physical Society – Upcoming Joint Meeting with the Regional Sections of the Society of Physics Students and Association of Physics Teachers

See the October 16, 2020 newsletter for the original announcement of this meeting. It will occur on November 13 and 14. SMU faculty and students are giving presentations at the meeting, and it will additionally be a great chance to interact with colleagues from Texas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas to learn more about regional physics activities! Details about the meeting can be found at: https://tsapsf20.uta.edu/

REMINDER: Fast Machine Learning For Science (Virtual) Workshop at SMU, Nov. 30 – Dec. 3 – Register Today!

Physics Speaker Series Continues with a Seminar by Prof. Stephen Taylor (Vanderbilt University): “New results from the Pulsar Timing Array hunt for nanohertz-frequency gravitational waves”

The Physics Department Speaker Series continues on Monday, November 9 with Prof. Stephen Taylor (Vanderbilt University). He will speak on “New results from the Pulsar Timing Array hunt for nanohertz-frequency gravitational waves.” This continues the November theme, “New Frontiers in Physics.” Dr. Stephen Taylor of Vanderbilt University will discuss new opportunities in the detection of gravitational waves, which were first directly observed in 2016. Gravitational-wave detectors are yielding a bounty of observations and revolutionizing our understanding of black holes with masses comparable to our Sun’s. But what about the supermassive black holes that lurk at the heart of massive galaxies, which are hundreds of millions of times the mass of our Sun? These monsters emit much harder-to-detect gravitational waves, but there are exciting new developments in the use of precision networks of collapsed stars, called “Pulsar Timing Arrays,” to detect their presence. The Zoom connection information is available to SMU-affiliated participants; the public YouTube stream is available for everyone.

https://www.physics.smu.edu/web/seminars/

Miss a Colloquium or Seminar? Don’t Panic … They’re Recorded!

If you missed an event in the Department Speaker Series, never fear! A positive side-effect of remote-only talks is easy recording. You can find all events so far this semester streaming online here:

Most Recent Talk: Prof. Bonnie Fleming (Yale University)

FACULTY NEWS

If you have something to share please feel free to send it along. Stories of your activities in research, the classroom, and beyond are very welcome!

Dallas Morning News “Science in the City” will feature SMU Faculty and Demonstration Equipment

Professors Jodi Cooley and Stephen Sekula will be featured as part of the “Science in the City” series, hosted by the Dallas Morning News. The events are all done virtually this year, and the SMU event is on November 14. It will be delivered as a short film, with discussion, and will also feature equipment from the SMU Physics Demonstration Equipment facility. As discussed in a recent article about the series:

This fall, Cooley and Sekula, professors at Southern Methodist University, will be among some two dozen experts who will share their research with the community in a series of free online events hosted by The Dallas Morning News. Their Nov. 14 event, “From a Trampoline to the Unseen: What a Rubber Sheet Can Teach Us About the Dark Universe,” will focus on black holes.

“From a Trampoline to the Unseen” is part of Science in the City, a partnership among The Dallas Morning News, SMU, UT Southwestern Medical Center, the Dallas-based education nonprofit talkSTEM, the Perot Museum of Nature and Science and the University of Texas at Dallas’ Center for BrainHealth. The series is a unique set of meet-and-greets between scientists and the public. Its goal is to inform and engage the community in the advances percolating across Dallas-Fort Worth.

…

The bigger goal of the program is to excite people about science and raise awareness of Dallas as a capital of scientific innovation. “We’re always trying to get out the stories of science, the incredible things that are happening right here that so many people in our area are unfortunately unaware of,” said Tykoski of the Perot Museum. “Science in the City is a great way to highlight this and make people aware of what a wonderful place Dallas is for research and discovery.”

From the Oct. 20, 2020 article “Peer inside Dallas labs, learn about black holes and see (real) human brains at these free events,” by Anna Kuchment (Dallas Morning News)

Reminders for Faculty

We reprint these, because it never hurts to say important things twice.

• November Faculty Meeting: originally schedule for Nov. 13, this has been moved to Nov. 20 to avoid conflicting with the TSAPS/AAPT/SPS joint meeting at UT-Arlington.
• From the Provost: “Exams, tests and quizzes to be delivered exclusively online in fall 2020 – All exams, tests and quizzes will be delivered online this fall so that all students, regardless of mode of instruction, have equitable access to testing. We are discouraging in-class, paper-based testing because of the flexibility that everyone might need if case health issues arise. Consult SMU’s Keep Teaching website for additional information and support for this important interim requirement. You can also view this webinar on Online Exam Basics created by CTE and sent to all faculty by email in late September.”
• From the President: “As President Turner announced … we will start our spring 2021 semester a week later than originally planned, on January 25, and continuing straight forward without a spring break through the conclusion of exams on May 12. Good Friday will remain a University holiday. Jan Term classes will be also be available beginning January 7, 2021.”

STAFF NEWS

Staff In-Office Schedule for Week of November 9

The in-office staff schedule for the week of November 9 is as follows:

• Monday: Lacey (Michele is out-of-the-office entirely on this day, including virtually)
• Tuesday: Lacey (Michele is out-of-the-office entirely on this day, including virtually)
• Wednesday: Michele
• Thursday: Michele
• Friday: Lacey

Of course, both are always available on Microsoft Teams, by Email, or by phone.

Full staff in-office calendar for November:

STUDENT NEWS

If you have something to share please feel free to send it along. Stories of students in research, the classroom, internships or fellowships, awards, etc. are very welcome!

Thanks for a Successful Dark Matter Day!

The Society of Physics Students organized a virtual “Dark Matter Particle Hunt” for October 31, 2020 … “Dark Matter Day”! There were 35 reported sightings of dark matter particles turned in by SMU students, and of those 11 corresponded to “first sightings” of one of the virtual particles scattered throughout the physics department website. That’s pretty good, considering a total of 13 dark matter particles were up for grabs! Each currently enrolled student who was the first to find one of the uniquely labeled particles was eligible for a $10 Amazon Gift Certificate. Thanks to everyone who participated, and to the Society of Physics Students for organizing this event!

ALUMNI NEWS

If you are an alum of the doctoral, masters, majors or minor programs in Physics at SMU, or have worked in our program as a post-doctoral researcher, and wish to share news with the community, please send your story to the Physics Department and we’ll work with you to get it included in a future edition.

THE BACK PAGE

The Physics Teacher’s November Physics Challenge! (“No pun invented”)

The Physics Teacher’s November Challenge was selected by SPS Faculty Advisor and our department’s informal “Puzzle Master,” Prof. Randy Scalise, who was recently highlighted in “The Physics Teacher” as a regular contributor of challenge solutions. Dr. Scalise invites you to try to solve this month’s challenge. The first correct solution he receives (scalise@physics.smu.edu) from a student member of our Society of Physics Students will be awarded a prize. The winner will get to select from the following four books,

• Gleick, J. “Chaos: Making a New Science“.
• Crease, R. P. and Mann, Charles C. “The Second Creation: Makers of the Revolution in Twentieth-Century Physics“.
• Thorne, K. “Black Holes and Time Warps: Einstein’s Outrageous Legacy“.
• Greene, B. “The Fabric of the Cosmos: Space, Time, and the Texture of Reality“.

Solutions must be complete enough to understand your strategy, reasoning, and methods; providing answers with no explanations are not acceptable. Dr. Scalise urges submitters who believe they have the correct answer to, of course, also submit their solution to The Physics Teacher using the email address challenges@aapt.org. Make sure to follow the journal’s guidelines for submissions (see below). The deadline is the last day of this month.

CHAIR’S WEEKLY MESSAGE

“Winterfall”

And just like that, it’s winter outside.

One of my colleagues remarked a few weeks ago, just as the high temperatures sank into the 70s, how marvelous the weather finally was. I retorted that it was important to be outside as much as possible in the coming days, because this is Texas. We always seem to go from raging high southern summer temperatures, suddenly to pleasant warm fall temperatures, and just as suddenly again to cold and unpleasant weather. All of this tends to happen in the span of just a few days.

And here we are. Arctic air plunged into North America this past week. This brought temperature crashes and precipitation that, luckily, didn’t lead to an ice storm here in Dallas (it never quite got cold enough for that). Our neighbors just north of us were not so lucky.

With the cold and the wet came a turn in our sense of the days. I became more aware of the sun setting earlier, even though that had been happening more and more since the summer solstice (of course). I became more attuned to the smells of autumn, as trees suddenly ejected their leaves in the span of just days and decomposition, mixed with cool and moist air, changed the character of a walk outside. Short sleeves and flip flops went into storage; fall coats and gloves suddenly mattered.

Normally, at this time of year, we’d be experiencing this while all living or working on our campus. But this is not a year for “normally.” While the social life of a university – the buzz of faculty, staff, and students striding across the campus, avoiding cold and rain – is damped, accomplishment and activity does go on. In this edition, we are pleased to report the latest research paper from one of our faculty that was accepted for publication in a major journal. We are also pleased to announce a small, virtual activity to mark “Dark Matter Day” on October 31 (also know, in some cultures, as “Halloween”). I am extremely grateful to the Society of Physics Students for working to organize this activity – you’re helping to make something semi-normal happen in abnormal times!

I hope all of you are staying socially distanced, safe, and warm. That is, until the weather swings into the 70s once more; then I hope you stay cool and find ways to enjoy northern summer in our southern autumn. Because … just like that … it’s bound to be winter outside again soon.

Sincerely, 

Stephen Jacob Sekula Chair, Department of Physics

DEPARTMENT VIEWS

Workshop: Opportunities with Heavy Flavor at the Electron-Ion Collider (EIC)

Next week (Wednesday-Friday, November 4-6, 2020) there will be a virtual workshop on “Opportunities with Heavy Flavor at the EIC” sponsored by the Center for Frontiers in Nuclear Science – Stony Brook University. This workshop involves a number of SMU faculty including Prof. Olness, one of the workshop organizers, as well as Profs. Pavel Nadolsky and Stephen Sekula, who will speak at the workshop.

The website is located at: https://indico.bnl.gov/event/9273/overview

Abstracts due October 31 for the Texas Section of the American Physical Society – Upcoming Joint Meeting with the Regional Sections of the Society of Physics Students and Association of Physics Teachers

See the October 16, 2020 newsletter for the original announcement of this meeting. It will occur on November 13 and 14. The deadline for submitting abstracts is October 31. Details about the meeting can be found at: https://tsapsf20.uta.edu/

REMINDER: Fast Machine Learning For Science (Virtual) Workshop at SMU, Nov. 30 – Dec. 3 – Register Today!

Physics Speaker Series Continues with a Colloquium by Prof. Bonnie Fleming (Yale University): “R&D now and for the future in High Energy Physics”

The Physics Department Speaker Series continues on Monday, November 2 with Prof. Bonnie Fleming (Yale University). She will speak on “R&D now and for the future in High Energy Physics.” This more general-interest colloquium kicks off the November theme, “New Frontiers in Physics.” Dr. Fleming served as the co-chair of the Basic Research Needs (BRN) Study Panel, part of the Particle Physics Project Prioritization Panel (P5) effort to look ahead to the needs of high-energy physics in the coming years. The report is the culmination of a years-long effort exploring current and new paths in R&D in high energy physics, put into context with the physics questions driving the field. This process, the report, and it’s potential outcomes will be presented. The Zoom connection information is available to SMU-affiliated participants; the public YouTube stream is available for everyone.

https://www.physics.smu.edu/web/seminars/

Miss a Colloquium or Seminar? Don’t Panic … They’re Recorded!

If you missed an event in the Department Speaker Series, never fear! A positive side-effect of remote-only talks is easy recording. You can find all events so far this semester streaming online here:

Most Recent Talk: Dr. Tim Andeen (UT-Austin)

FACULTY NEWS

If you have something to share please feel free to send it along. Stories of your activities in research, the classroom, and beyond are very welcome!

Accepted for Publication in the Astrophysical Journal: “Significant Suppression of Star Formation in Radio-Quiet AGN Host Galaxies with Kiloparsec-Scale Radio Structures”

Prof. Krista Lynne Smith is pleased to report that her most recent paper, “Significant Suppression of Star Formation in Radio-Quiet AGN Host Galaxies with Kiloparsec-Scale Radio Structures,” has just been accepted for publication by the Astrophysical Journal. Prof. Smith and her co-authors report that…

We conducted 22 GHz 1″ JVLA imaging of 100 radio-quiet X-ray selected AGN from the Swift-BAT survey. We find AGN-driven kiloparsec-scale radio structures inconsistent with pure star formation in 11 AGN. The host galaxies of these AGN lie significantly below the star-forming main sequence, indicating suppressed star formation. While these radio structures tend to be physically small compared to the host galaxy, the global star formation rate of the host is affected. We evaluate the energetics of the radio structures interpreted first as immature radio jets, and then as consequences of an AGN-driven radiative outflow, and compare them to two criteria for successful feedback: the ability to remove the CO-derived molecular gas mass from the galaxy gravitational potential and the kinetic energy transfer to molecular clouds leading to v_cloud>σ∗. In most cases, the jet interpretation is insufficient to provide the energy necessary to cause the star formation suppression. Conversely, the wind interpretation provides ample energy in all but one case. We conclude that it is more likely that the observed suppression of star formation in the global host galaxy is due to ISM interactions of a radiative outflow, rather than a small-scale radio jet.

Abstract of the paper, available from arXiv:2010.13806

Reminders for Faculty

We reprint these, because it never hurts to say important things twice.

• From the Provost: “Exams, tests and quizzes to be delivered exclusively online in fall 2020 – All exams, tests and quizzes will be delivered online this fall so that all students, regardless of mode of instruction, have equitable access to testing. We are discouraging in-class, paper-based testing because of the flexibility that everyone might need if case health issues arise. Consult SMU’s Keep Teaching website for additional information and support for this important interim requirement. You can also view this webinar on Online Exam Basics created by CTE and sent to all faculty by email in late September.”
• From the President: “As President Turner announced … we will start our spring 2021 semester a week later than originally planned, on January 25, and continuing straight forward without a spring break through the conclusion of exams on May 12. Good Friday will remain a University holiday. Jan Term classes will be also be available beginning January 7, 2021.”

STAFF NEWS

Staff In-Office Schedule for Week of November 2

The in-office staff schedule for the week of November 2 is as follows:

• Monday: Michele (Lacey is out-of-the-office entirely on this day, including virtually)
• Tuesday: Michele
• Wednesday: Michele
• Thursday: Lacey (Michele is out-of-the-office entirely on this day, including virtually)
• Friday: Lacey (Michele is out-of-the-office entirely on this day, including virtually)

Of course, both are always available on Microsoft Teams, by Email, or by phone.

Full staff in-office calendar for November:

STUDENT NEWS

If you have something to share please feel free to send it along. Stories of students in research, the classroom, internships or fellowships, awards, etc. are very welcome!

Congratulations to Peilong Wang on his successful PhD defense!

Graduate student Peilong Wang successfully concluded the oral exam portion of the doctoral process last Tuesday evening. His PhD committee consisted of Dr. Fred Olness (Committee Chair), Dr. Bob Kehoe, Dr. Stephen Sekula (Research Adviser), and Dr. Charles Young (External Member, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory). He presented his contributions to the first observation of the process of a Higgs particle decaying to a pair of bottom quarks, the second-heaviest building block of baryonic matter. In addition, he explained his contributions to two hardware-related upgrade projects for the ATLAS Experiment. The department offers its congratulations to newly minted Dr. Wang on concluding this step. The final step for all doctoral candidates, which leads to graduation, is the submission of the final copy of the PhD thesis itself.

Society of Physics Students hosts a Virtual Dark Matter Particle Hunt on October 31, “Dark Matter Day”!

(Reprinted from the SMU SPS blog)

October 31 has been designated as international “Dark Matter Day” (https://www.darkmatterday.com/) to help raised engagement and awareness about the search for the nature of dark matter. The Society of Physics Students at SMU is organizing a “Virtual Dark Matter Particle Hunt” for October 31, 2020, from 8am-5pm (US Central Time).

During those hours, you can join in the hunt for what makes up dark matter. Just visit the main website of the SMU Department of Physics, https://www.physics.smu.edu, and click around the site, being on the lookout for dark matter particles embedded in the web pages! You will know them when you see them … we hope!

Students, faculty, staff, and members of the SMU community are encouraged to participate in searching for Dark Matter and learn about the importance of Dark Matter to our universe. Each dark matter particle will be uniquely labeled and accompanied by a curious fact about dark matter, based on what is known so far. Currently enrolled students who find one of the Dark Matter particles will be eligible to win a virtual $10 Amazon Gift Card. A prize goes to the first currently enrolled student who enters the unique code for that dark matter particle on an accompanying Google Form (a link to the form will be available from each of the dark matter particles on the website). If a dark matter particle is listed on the Google Form as “already found,” record anyway that you found it – the people who found it before you may not have been currently enrolled students!

There is a limit of 1 gift card per currently enrolled student. Feed your curiosity on October 31 about the unseen universe – and maybe win a prize in the process!

ALUMNI NEWS

If you are an alum of the doctoral, masters, majors or minor programs in Physics at SMU, or have worked in our program as a post-doctoral researcher, and wish to share news with the community, please send your story to the Physics Department and we’ll work with you to get it included in a future edition.

THE BACK PAGE

Planning High-Energy Physics in the United States

In the above announcement of the next Colloquium, the “P5” organization was mentioned. To learn more about the long-range planning for the US High-Energy Physics (HEP) community, check out https://www.usparticlephysics.org/. This website collects resources for physicists, including the latest P5 strategy report to help in thinking about opportunities in the field in the coming years. Students, especially, are encouraged to check out this site to learn about the opportunities that might be available to them to make their mark in research in the near future.

CHAIR’S WEEKLY MESSAGE

“Midterm”

It’s mid-term. In a normal year, we would have marked this with fall break. Like all other rituals of space and time that provide us with sign-posts on our journey forward, this year has wiped away such landmarks.

Still, there are signs.

Some are subtle. You can see a faint glimmer of relief in the faces of students as they realize that this break-neck teaching term has fewer weeks ahead than behind. You can see a similar light in faces of faculty on Zoom chats, a certain levity in their voices in phone calls. I have been helping our graduate teaching assistants this autumn by teaching one of our 12 cooperative problem solving sessions in the PHYS 1105/1106 labs. When I made my problem-solving team rotations this week, I realized that there are just 4 lab periods left before we hit the make-up labs and lab practicums at the end-of-term. My heart lightened, not because I dislike teaching – I love teaching – but because this semester is just … so … abnormal.

Some signs are overt, like the call for mid-term progress reports (MPRs) to help support our students. Decades of education research have affirmed the hypothesis that students learn best when they are provided with many opportunities for feedback on their performance. There is nothing scarier, as a student, than knowing your grade is based on a handful of components, all of them with large weight, but with little or no feedback from the instructor on how to improve if any of those pieces go wrong.

Students benefit from many checkpoints and steady feedback. When we do that, we firmly put the learning ball back in their court; there is no mystery about how they are doing and what we expect. It’s on them, at that point, to make the time to meet with an instructor and discuss new strategies. It’s ultimately on them to improve their reading comprehension, or problem-solving, or laboratory practice, in order to make the move upward in performance. However, it all starts with a sign from the instructor that something is needed – we can get that conversation started with the student, especially if they feel uncomfortable bringing it up with us (most of us are familiar with “imposter syndrome,” since many faculty have struggled and even continue to struggle with this … our students are no different, and sometimes you just need to break the ice with them to get that honest conversation moving forward about how they can improve, rather than give up). Faculty are there as teachers, mentors, coaches, resources … but in the end, it all comes down to the student how they adapt to the feedback.

MPRs are essential to this. Mid-term grades are an important metric to help the students, advisors, and student support systems activate before things get far too late into the semester. MPRs are also a chance for us, as instructors, to really reflect on how students are doing, why we haven’t heard from them about their concerns up to this point, and assess how we might target support for students who really need it. I was very grateful to receive emails from faculty and instructors this past week telling me they submitted their MPRs. THANK YOU. To those of you who did this work, but didn’t broadcast it: THANK YOU. All of you are champions for your students. We should all aspire to turn in 100% of these MPRs every term.

The end of the semester may be closer than its beginning, but there is still a lot going on in our department! This week we conclude the October speaker series theme of “Probing the Unknown” with a talk by Prof. Tim Andeen (UT-Austin) on how the Large Hadron Collider is enabling unprecedented probes for physics outside – and perhaps grander than – the Standard Model of Particle Physics. In addition, we have a doctoral student PhD thesis defense this week! Graduate students and undergraduates are especially encouraged to participate in the public phase (hour 1) of the defense, so that they can see how defenses are conducted and what will be expected of them when they have to defend their own thesis down the line.

Sincerely, 

Stephen Jacob Sekula Chair, Department of Physics

DEPARTMENT VIEWS

REMINDER: Texas Section of the American Physical Society – Upcoming Joint Meeting with the Regional Sections of the Society of Physics Students and Association of Physics Teachers

See the October 16, 2020 newsletter for the original announcement of this meeting. It will occur on November 13 and 14. The deadline for submitting abstracts is October 31. Details about the meeting can be found at: https://tsapsf20.uta.edu/

REMINDER: Fast Machine Learning For Science (Virtual) Workshop at SMU, Nov. 30 – Dec. 3 – Register Today!

Physics Speaker Series Continues with a Seminar by Dr. Tim Andeen (UT-Austin) to speak on “Physics from the Top: An Overview of Searches for New Physics with the ATLAS Experiment”

The Physics Department Speaker Series continues on Monday, October 26 with Dr. Tim Andeen (UT-Austin). She will speak on “Physics from the Top: An Overview of Searches for New Physics with the ATLAS Experiment.” This seminar concludes the October theme, “Probing the Unknown.” Dr. Tim Andeen, University of Texas at Austin, will discuss what the most recent period of data-taking at the Large Hadron Collider can tell us about the existence of new laws of nature or new building blocks of the universe. The unprecedented sample of proton-proton collisions, collected from 2015 – 2018, recreate in miniature moments akin to just after the beginning of time. The instrumentation used to probe these collisions is so precise, and the amount of data so vast, that it allows physicists to search even for rare glimpses of fleeting states of matter and energy that might signal the way to a more complete understand of nature. Dr. Andeen will highlight some of these searches and look for the potential unlocked in forthcoming runs of the Large Hadron Collider. Zoom connection information is available to SMU-affiliated participants; the public YouTube stream is available for everyone.

https://www.physics.smu.edu/web/seminars/

Miss a Colloquium or Seminar? Don’t Panic … They’re Recorded!

If you missed an event in the Department Speaker Series, never fear! A positive side-effect of remote-only talks is easy recording. You can find all events so far this semester streaming online here:

Most Recent Talk: Dr. Yulia Furletova (Jefferson National Accelerator Lab)

FACULTY NEWS

If you have something to share please feel free to send it along. Stories of your activities in research, the classroom, and beyond are very welcome!

Reminders for Faculty

• From the Provost: “Exams, tests and quizzes to be delivered exclusively online in fall 2020 – All exams, tests and quizzes will be delivered online this fall so that all students, regardless of mode of instruction, have equitable access to testing. We are discouraging in-class, paper-based testing because of the flexibility that everyone might need if case health issues arise. Consult SMU’s Keep Teaching website for additional information and support for this important interim requirement. You can also view this webinar on Online Exam Basics created by CTE and sent to all faculty by email in late September.”
• From the President: “As President Turner announced … we will start our spring 2021 semester a week later than originally planned, on January 25, and continuing straight forward without a spring break through the conclusion of exams on May 12. Good Friday will remain a University holiday. Jan Term classes will be also be available beginning January 7, 2021.”

STAFF NEWS

Staff In-Office Schedule for Week of October 26

The in-office staff schedule for the week of October 26 is as follows:

• Monday: Michele
• Tuesday: Lacey
• Wednesday: Michele
• Thursday: Lacey
• Friday: Michele (Lacey is out-of-the-office entirely on this day, including virtually)

Of course, both are always available on Microsoft Teams, by Email, or by phone.

Full staff in-office calendar for October:

STUDENT NEWS

If you have something to share please feel free to send it along. Stories of students in research, the classroom, internships or fellowships, awards, etc. are very welcome!

Peilong Wang Defends His PhD Thesis on October 27, 2020 at 6pm

Graduate student Peilong Wang will defend his PhD thesis on the evening of October 27, 2020. Peilong has been conducting his doctoral research on the ATLAS Experiment at the Large Hadron Collider, focusing on measuring directly the interaction between Higgs particle and the bottom quark, the second-heaviest bulking block of nature. In addition to his contributions to this measurement, he has also worked on hardware research and development projects aimed at future improvements to the ATLAS Experiment. The first hour of the defense is open to the public, after which time the defense will be closed to the public and focus on questions from the defense committee.

Undergraduate Fall Research Symposium – October 28, 3pm-6pm

The Provost announced last week that the “… Office of Engaged Learning and partners will present the undergraduate fall research symposium on Wednesday, October 28 from 3:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m. At this event, you will have the opportunity to watch undergraduate research presentations from seven distinguished undergraduates via Zoom. Dr. Maryann Cairns from the Department of Anthropology and her undergraduate research assistants will provide the keynote address. Click here to register.“

ALUMNI NEWS

If you are an alum of the doctoral, masters, majors or minor programs in Physics at SMU, or have worked in our program as a post-doctoral researcher, and wish to share news with the community, please send your story to the Physics Department and we’ll work with you to get it included in a future edition.

THE BACK PAGE

Moar Physics! (c/o The Mainz Institute of Theoretical Physics)

Want more in-depth lectures on physics? Love “chalk talks”? Then you’ll love the YouTube page of the Mainz Institute of Theoretical Physics. Enjoy!

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChcoeBvt1fM3gsZnlXC2AYQ

CHAIR’S WEEKLY MESSAGE

“Mental Health Days”

Mental health has probably never been more important. We are a people besieged on all sides. The fury of this pandemic, un-managed by the institutions we would normally trust most to make a coherent response, continues to eat away at every minute of our lives. The urge to be around other people is overwhelming for all of us. In our hearts we know that every contact opportunity, even with multiple precautions taken, is a chance to threaten one’s own life or the life of another person. Yet the urge to return to normal is an overwhelming chemical addiction. We are deeply social creatures – which this terrible virus exploits to its advantage.

With all the challenges of digital teaching heaped on top of hybrid classrooms, with all the deadlines that come fast and furious with seemingly little patience or remorse for those who miss them, and robbed of the kind of social support we need, our mental health is failing.

Let’s just be honest about it for a moment.

I don’t know about you, but my dreams have become more intense during this period. I’ve not dreamed this much since youth, when dreams were still new and vivid and confusing to me. Some of my current dreams follow obvious tropes and archetypes; for instance, most of us are having some version of the “pandemic nightmare,” where we find ourselves in a group of people with no masks and no social distancing. Other dreams are more strange, more subtle, more confusing, and more painful, drawing on difficult themes from my past or present and mixed in with odd story lines and mysterious plots. I know you all understand what I am talking about; I’ll wager you have also experienced gripping and vivid dreams that wake you at 3am and render you unable to fall back to sleep.

Sleep science has enlightened us over many decades on the purpose and necessity of sleep and dreams. Dreams appear to be a way in which the brain, as an organ, itself deals with the sense experiences of the day. Sleep and dreams appear to clean out the biochemical clutter and sort out what belongs in long-term memory storage and what should simply be discarded. Dreams are simulations that let us imagine outcomes and how we would react to them in reality. If we’re all having vivid dreams, it’s no coincidence; our mental health is under constant assault, and our brains are trying to deal with it. We lack the kinds of control over our lives we used to have 12 months ago, when we could go out to a restaurant or a movie theater and generally not fear winding up in the intensive care unit 14 days later. We shall return to that kind of life someday … but based on the rising case counts and hospitalizations in the nation and in North Texas, that day is not upon us.

A number of us at SMU received a survey this week, asking about the mental health and academic impacts of the elimination of Labor Day and Fall Break from the schedule. I was asked to rate how I thought it was affecting students (I selected, in all cases, severe negative effects on students). I was asked to rate how it was affecting me (I was even stronger and clearer about the effects here – all negative).

Why did we get this survey? It’s presumably because the plan is to eliminate all breaks in the spring term, too. The U.S. has precious few holidays to begin with, and having been robbed of those in the autumn the questions are now the following: what health effects did that choice have, and should we do it again in the spring?

No. No. No.

While I understand the reason for it – erasing the holidays was meant to prevent opportunities to spread COVID-19 – there are serious downsides to stealing down-time away from people. A student enrolled in 12 credit hours each week is putting in 12 hours alone in classroom activities, plus at least another 24 hours in out-of-class activities (look up the federal definition of a “credit hour” – I am not kidding). Many students are taking 15 or 18 credit-hours in a semester, putting them well over a typical 40 hour work week (and remember that the out-of-class work is only a minimum recommendation).

That means weekends effectively don’t exist. Academic work consumes the body as well as the mind, and this leads to exhaustion; anyone who’s ever committed themselves to a serious intellectual challenge knows how tired they feel afterward (again, exhaustion being the brain’s way of saying, “Hey! Gimme a break! I need to clean up in here!”). Students and faculty have been on high alert non-stop for 8 weeks now, with another 6 to go before we break for Thanksgiving (a Thanksgiving where we cannot actually be with people as usual anyway).

What was robbed from us this semester was our mental health. Those three days – Labor Day and the two days of Fall Break – were each a chance to put down academic work, walk away, and commit to something else as a brief distraction. Distraction is good for a challenged mind; it allows the brain time to mull on the problem without being forced to do so, and personally I have experienced many breakthroughs while relaxing or jogging. In fact, I now exercise regularly for precisely this reason (apart from the incredibly obvious health effects). Taking the mind out of the arena for a short while allows it to recover, strengthen, and be ready for the fight once more. Leaving the mind in the ring just subjects it to more cuts, more bruises, and more bleeding, with no real chance to heal or strengthen.

Students in my classes mostly report negative mental health effects during a continuous and unbroken 8 weeks of work, work, work with no chance to pause and recover. I only hope that our institution learns from this mistake and, if they plan to rob us all of spring break in the next term, to provide instead 5 mental health days evenly distributed across the semester. This would solve the problem of spreading COVID-19 (avoiding the temptation of a lot of travel, for example) but nonetheless offer our brains a break from the fight.

Humans are not machines, and the first mistake most people make is thinking that we are. Humans are learners, thinkers, creators, and doers. Rest is the chance to refuel and restart the mental engine. I fear what the true cost might be to leave it running again for 14 straight weeks in the spring.

Sincerely, 

Stephen Jacob Sekula Chair, Department of Physics

DEPARTMENT VIEWS

Texas Section of the American Physical Society – Upcoming Joint Meeting with the Regional Sections of the Society of Physics Students and Association of Physics Teachers

The joint Fall 2020 Meeting of the Texas Sections of the American Physical Society (APS), American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT), and the Society of Physics Students (SPS) will be held virtually Nov. 12-14, 2020, hosted by UT Arlington. We usually have junior and senior undergraduates attending. If students have done some undergraduate research, we encourage them to present it there. Everyone, especially students, are encouraged to register for the event and submit an abstract if you’d like to present. Registration is free this year and there is no travel required – the event is entirely virtual. If you are asked to pay any fees, please inform the Prof. Simon Dalley, Assistant Chair for Undergraduate Studies, because the department has a budget to cover such expenses.

The meeting itself will occur on November 13 and 14. The deadline for submitting abstracts is October 31st. Details about the meeting can be found at: https://tsapsf20.uta.edu/

The TSAPS offers awards for the best student presentations and research. The most prestigious of these – The TSAPS Robert Steward Hyer Award – is awarded to a student-mentor pair and requires a formal nomination for consideration. The deadline for that is Oct. 25, so you should contact your research mentor IMMEDIATELY if you wish to be nominated for the award. Details of the Robert S. Hyer award and submission rules can be found here: https://engage.aps.org/tsaps/honors/prizes-awards/research-award

REMINDER: Fast Machine Learning For Science (Virtual) Workshop at SMU, Nov. 30 – Dec. 3 – Register Today!

Physics Speaker Series Continues with a Seminar: Dr. Yulia Furletova (Jefferson National Accelerator Laboratory) to speak on “Probing nuclear gluons with heavy flavors at an Electron-Ion Collider”

The Physics Department Speaker Series continues on Monday, October 19 with Dr. Yulia Furletova (Jefferson National Accelerator Laboratory). She will speak on “Probing nuclear gluons with heavy flavors at an Electron-Ion Collider.” This seminar continues the October theme, “Probing the Unknown.” She will discuss the potential for the planned Electron-Ion Collider to help us unlock the gluon structure inside the proton (and the neutron, as well as heavy nuclei). This is crucial because the gluons provide most of what we think of as “everyday mass,” yet we still understand little about how they provide that structure inside the nucleus of the atom. Gluons are the force-carrying particles that bind quarks together inside the atomic nucleus, providing the significant stability of that structure. Zoom connection information is available to SMU-affiliated participants; the public YouTube stream is available for everyone.

https://www.physics.smu.edu/web/seminars/

Scenes from the Astrophysics Lunch

The Astrophysics Lunch on Mondays is a chance for members of the physics community at SMU to lead discussions on astrophysics and astronomy topics of interest to them. To learn how to propose a topic or how to connect, contact Prof. Joel Meyers.

Learn more about the Astrophysics Lunch: https://astrohep.org/organizations/smu/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=astro_journal_club

Enjoy this scene from the most recent lunch talk on October 9, 2020.

Miss a Colloquium or Seminar? Don’t Panic … They’re Recorded!

If you missed an event in the Department Speaker Series, never fear! A positive side-effect of remote-only talks is easy recording. You can find all events so far this semester streaming online here:

Most Recent Talk: Dr. Laura Blecha (University of Florida)

FACULTY NEWS

We have no faculty news items this week, so we simply remind everyone that if you have something to share please feel free to send it along. Stories of your activities in research, the classroom, and beyond are very welcome!

STAFF NEWS

Staff In-Office Schedule for Week of October 19

The in-office staff schedule for the week of October 19 is as follows:

• Monday: Michele
• Tuesday: Lacey
• Wednesday: Michele
• Thursday: Michele
• Friday: Lacey

Of course, both are always available on Microsoft Teams, by Email, or by phone.

Full staff in-office calendar for October:

STUDENT NEWS

If you have something to share please feel free to send it along. Stories of students in research, the classroom, internships or fellowships, awards, etc. are very welcome!

Next Society of Physics Students Event on October 20, 2020: “Fantastical Dark matter and where to find it”

The Society of Physics Students is pleased to present a lecture by Dr. Jodi Cooley entitled “Fantastical Dark matter and where to find it” on October 20th at 6:30 PM CDT. Students especially are encouraged and welcomed to this event, which will include question and answer time with Dr. Cooley.

The Zoom participation link is: https://smu.zoom.us/j/9066747242.

Physics Chats with the Department Chair: “Monster of the Milky Way”

The Department Chair has begun a series of informal chats with students about the topic of the Speaker Series event each week. The Speaker Series events are on Monday afternoons, and the physics chats are on Tuesday evenings (to try to avoid classes and accommodate more student participation). Last week, the topic was supermassive black holes and the evening featured a screening of the 2006 documentary, “Monster of the Milky Way” (PBS NOVA). The film tells part of the story of the work and discoveries made by new Nobel Laureates Reinhard Genzel and Andrea Ghez. Students had excellent questions afterward, and all seemed captivated by the use and power of “adaptive optics” on telescopes, which proved a real game-changer in the early part of this century. The Chair also provided free food for participants, using Uber Eats to perform food delivery to the students before the event. Like all things in life, this was an experiment (that actually succeeded … this time).

There will be no chat on Tuesday, Oct. 20 because the Society of Physics Students is hosting an event that evening. Students are encouraged to participate in that event instead! (see above)

ALUMNI NEWS

If you are an alum of the doctoral, masters, majors or minor programs in Physics at SMU, or have worked in our program as a post-doctoral researcher, and wish to share news with the community, please send your story to the Physics Department and we’ll work with you to get it included in a future edition.

THE BACK PAGE

Students and Mental Health during the COVID-19 Pandemic

• SMU Students can apply for financial assistance as a result of COVID-19: https://cm.maxient.com/reportingform.php?SouthernMethodistUniv&layout_id=1

We provide a look at the mental health impact especially on students during this pandemic, as provided by Inside Higher Ed. This article will help us understand better what students are going through during this strange time, highlight the complexities of this particular mental health challenge, and perhaps allow us to understand each other better as we go forward through the autumn.

While COVID-19 may make it harder for students to access the mental health resources they need, one potential bright spot is that the pandemic has reduced the stigma of needing and getting mental health support. Whitlock, director of the Cornell research program, said in some ways there is now a “lower bar for seeking help” because of how much mental health is now talked about and new services are offered. Davis, of Mental Health America, said the pandemic has been a “reckoning” for mental health discussions.

“The hopeful piece for me is it seems like we’re at an inflection point,” Davis said. “All of a sudden, it’s OK to talk about mental health.”

From “Mental Health Needs Rise With Pandemic”, Inside Higher ED, September 11, 2020.

Anderson, G. “Mental Health Needs Rise With Pandemic”. Inside Higher Ed. 9/11/2020. https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2020/09/11/students-great-need-mental-health-support-during-pandemic