The Department of Physics is located in the Meyer Building. It is the home of our undergraduate program offices, graduate program office, and all of our research centers.
Physics students are strongly encouraged to begin to engage in research as early as the sophomore year with a department faculty supervisor. Research in theoretical and experimental physics, high-energy physics, fluid dynamics, soft matter, condensed matter, and cosmology and particle physics all are taking place in the department. During the academic year students can pursue research as an independent study course (for credit). Well qualified students compete for the Goldwater Fellowship, the prestigious external fellowship in physics and engineering, as well as the Dean's Undergraduate Research Fund (DURF) to support their research work in the department. Past 2007-08 winners of the Goldwater Fellowship are physics majors Tarun Jain (‘08), Tim Berkelbach (’08) and Jesse Amato-Grill (Honorable Mention, ‘08).
The following students are some of our undergraduate physics majors who describe in their own words the research that they’ve been doing:
Maxim Marshalik (’11)
Research with Prof. Chaikin
http://www.physics.nyu.edu/~pc86/
According to Maxim: “We basically take a cylinder, fill it half way up with m&m's (next we are doing cubes, then pyramids), we make the cylinder spin and take various data... the angle before the avalanches and after the avalanches when the rotation speed is slow and avalanches separate, and the angle formed when the rotation speed is high and it is constantly avalanching... right now we are taking video's of the m&m's and using a program to do image analysis on the frames in the hopes of developing a velocity field. We also hope to look at how far an individual m&m migrates for every 1 rotation of the drum, and the orientation of the m&m's. Not sure what the goal is, but not much research of this sort has been done on anything except spheres...“
Tarun Jain (’09)
Research with Prof. Pine
Soft Condensed Matter Physics
http://www.physics.nyu.edu/pine/
It was recently found that particle suspensions under shear at low Reynolds numbers exhibit reversible particle trajectories. The goal of this research investigation is to measure (close to this reversible regime) the diffusion of the fluid (medium) itself and compare it with the diffusivity of particles. Ultimately, this will give a statistical measure of the hydrodynamic coupling between fluid and particle diffusivities. The onset of irreversibility in the absence of particles is also studied.
Research with Prof. Kent
Hard Condensed Matter Physics
http://www.physics.nyu.edu/kentlab/
This research has shown that, in principle, hard magnets in the form of thin films can be made from soft magnetic materials. In particular, the effect of the geometry on the coercive field of thin film magnets was studied. The results for this coercive field agree remarkably well with theoretical predictions from the magnetostatic energy. It was found that these magnets, with characteristic radius of order 10 nm, have sufficiently large energy barriers to be used for data storage applications
Annie Weathers (’10)
Research with Prof. Zhang
http://physics.nyu.edu/~jz11/
I am working with Bin Liu (post-doc) and Brendan Folie (Undergraduate, Harvey Mudd College) on an extension of a project that Professor Zhang and Professor Steven Childress had done a couple of years ago. We are investigating the conditions for hovering of asymmetrical bodies in an oscillating air flow, in particular rigid, pyramid shaped bodies in comparison to flapping, winged bodies that had been used previously.
Emma Storm (’10)
Research with Prof. Farrar
http://cosmo.nyu.edu/glennys_farrar.html
I am working on a project with Glennys Farrar and Ingyn Zaw (post-doc), the goal of which is to correlate incoming high energy cosmic rays with sources that are most likely nearby active galactic nuclei (AGN). My job, together with Alexandra Hoeft (Undergraduate, University of Virginia), is to go through all the nearby galaxies in the Véron-Cetty & Véron catalogue, which is incomplete. We are doing a literature search on them to determine whether or not they are true AGNs. Once we have a more complete and thorough list of nearby AGNs, we can use that list to determine the sources of the cosmic rays.
John Thompson (’09)
Research with Jasna Brujic
http://www.physics.nyu.edu/~jb2929/Site/NYU_Biophysics.html
We are looking into the nature of the energy landscape of the protein ubiquitin. Using an atomic force microscope, we measure the dynamics of the folding and unfolding of ubiquitin in order to gain some insight into the overall nature of the protein itself. Ubiquitin occurs in all eukaryotic cells; its main function is to mark other proteins for destruction. We have recently begun studying the properties of neurofilaments using the same techniques.
Elisabeth Shanblatt ('10)
Research with David Grier
http://www.physics.nyu.edu/grierlab/
The forces associated with a beam of laser light can be manipulated to trap and move a micrometer-scale colloidal particle. Focusing a conventional beam of light down to a diffraction-limited spot creates a point-like optical trap known as an optical tweezer. Structuring the beam with computer-generated holograms can transform a single optical tweezer into hundreds of independent traps arranged in three dimensions. In principle, at least, the same holographic projection technique can extend a discrete optical tweezer into an arbitrary light field that can trap and move colloidal particles along specified paths in three dimensions. My research in the Physics Department's Center for Soft Matter Research is directed toward realizing and exploiting these three-dimensionally extended holographic optical traps. I am currently working with Prof. David Grier on a project to create a ring-like trap that rotates and twirls in three dimensions. This is a step toward creating an optical solenoid beam, a helical corkscrew of light that should be capable of translating material both downstream and upstream along its entire length.
