Southern Methodist University QuarkNet Center
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified)
on Sunday, August 4, 2013 - 20:09
Description
A collaboration of teachers, students and physicists involved in inquiry-based, particle physics explorations including ATLAS .
Staging of Robotic Arm for Use in Testing Chips for Use in ATLAS Detector
Testing of Transistors on Irradiated Microchips
Experimental Test of Capacitance Formula for Parallel-Plate Capacitors Obtained from Gauss’s Law
Test of Multiwire Chamber To Be Used for Cosmic Ray Detection
2015 Annual Report - SMU
The report is in the attachment
Identifying and Characterizing Contact Binary Star Systems Observed by the SMU ROTSE 1 System
2014 Annual Report - SMU
The SMU Particle Physics group sponsored its annual QuarkNet activities this summer for local high school physics teachers and students. The workshop, an event organized annually since 2001, was held the week of August 4-8, and there were summer-long research projects. This year there were 19 teachers from the Dallas area public and private schools at the workshop. Two teachers and eight students performed summer research in SMU labs. A feature of the workshop this year was a joint day, August 8, at SMU with ten more physics teachers and 30 students from the UT Southwestern STARS program.
During the workshop teachers heard talks on the latest research from SMU professors Tom Coan (NOvA/neutrinos) and Steve Sekula (Standard Model and Beyond). They viewed the new documentary Particle Fever and had a discussion with Prof. Fred Olness about the background to its making. After a discussion about polarization and vacuum condensates, teachers also watched a seminar on YouTube given by the BICEP-2 collaboration on the recent results concerning gravity waves in the early universe. This tied in with the group's trip to LIGO two years ago. During the afternoons the teachers constructed several make-and-take demos that they had seen in the classrooms during their trip to LIGO. Teachers Julia Porowski, Tammy McDaniel, Tim Graves, Nathan Brown, Bruce Boehne and Evelyn Restivo each led a presentation or activity they had brought. Teacher Kevin Cieszkowski presented on the CDMS-Dark Matter research work he did with SMU Prof. Jodi Cooley during the summer. He designed and constructed from a pressure cooker a simple storage container to prevent radioactive contamination.
Leon DeOliveira and four of his high school students spent the summer doing research in the SMU Physics Department's Opto-Electronics lab, working with physicists Datao Gon and Di Guo on the optical data link updates for the ATLAS LAr Calorimeter. Working with SMU graduate student (and former QuarkNet teacher) Farly Ferrante, Ken Taylor and four of his high school students analyzed virgin data from SMU's ROTSE telescope, located at the McDonald Observatory in West Texas. The students discovered five new variable stars and were featured in a Dallas Morning News article. The summer research students and teachers participated in weekly departmental lunch seminars and presented their findings at the QuarkNet workshop.
Te QuarkNet program is organized by Dr. Simon Dalley and funded by the National Science Foundation. Other faculty mentors include Fred Olness, Rick Guarino, and Randy Scalise.
SMU Abstract 2014-CRC Undetected error analysis
SMU Abstract 2014 - X-Ray Machine Project
2013 Annual Report - SMU
Southern Methodist University – The SMU Particle Physics Group in Dedman College sponsored its annual QuarkNet activities this summer for local high school physics teachers and students. The week of August 5-9, 2013 held the workshop, an event organized annually since 2001, and new this year was a summer-long research project carried out by the students. This year there were 18 teachers and 10 students from Dallas area public and private schools.
During the workshop, teachers heard talks from SMU and UT Arlington professors on particle accelerators and detectors. Prof. Joe Izen presented by video-link from his CERN lab where his group is updating the pixel detector of the LHC. Prof. Ryszard Stroynowski gave a particle physics introduction during the CMS e-lab mini-workshop, during which QuarkNet LHC Fellow Shane Wood spend 2 days familiarizing the teachers with this source of real LHC data for use in the classroom. Teachers also constructed and tested with cosmic rays and radioactive sources their own simple cloud chamber using an upturned fish tank. They also went on a half-day field trip to the crystallography lab and radiology lab at UT Southwestern to see the medical applications of particle physics. Teachers Darren Carollo, Bruce Boehne, Valerie Thomas, and Evelyn Restivo presented on their summer research activities, and teacher Janee Hall presented on the Dark Matter research work she did with SMU Professor Jodi Cooley during the summer.
8 high school students supervised by teacher Trina Cannon spent the summer doing research in the SMU Physics Department’s Opto-Electronics lab. Working with physicists Datao Gong, Tiankuan Liu, and Chu Xiang, the students tested commercial and customized photonic components for potential use in the optical data link updates in the ATLAS LAr Calorimeter. Every week, the students participated in the lab group meeting to report on their learning and test findings. Each gave a short talk to the SMU faculty and to the QuarkNet teachers during the workshop. We expect their project results to be publishable.
Website: www.physics.smu.edu/sdalley/quarknet
The coordinator is Dr. Simon Dalley, assisted by other faculty mentors Fred Olness and Randy Scalise, and SMU physics department members Rick Guarino, Farley Ferrante, Carol Carroll, and Shirley Melton, and Michael Esailli.