Letter from the Chair

Dear HMC Physics Alum,

I write you with a short update on the department and to ask for your help on two matters. The first is your feedback on the physics program: a brief but crucial survey to inform our current self study and the coming fall’s external review of the department. The second is your help spreading the word that we are searching again this year for a tenure-track assistant professor (https://physics.hmc.edu/ttp/). If you know someone who is passionate about both teaching and physics research, please encourage her or him to consider applying for our position. Thanks in advance.

I’m excited to fill you in on last year’s wonderfully successful search, which brings Jason Gallicchio to the department, starting in January 2016. Jason has an unusually broad background and wide-ranging interests. As an undergraduate, he studied electrical engineering at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, but gradually found himself drawn to more theoretical pursuits. At Harvard, he published work on inflation with R. Mahbubani, gravitation with Itay Yavin, SETI with Paul Horowitz, and particle physics with Matthew Schwartz. At the University of Chicago in his current post-doc, he is working on observational cosmology, looking for B-mode polarization in the cosmic microwave background using the South Pole Telescope. While wintering at the pole, he dreamed up an experiment to close the settings-independence loophole in tests of Bell’s inequality using light from causally disconnected quasars (see Phys. Rev. Lett. 112 (2014) 110405), which he will pursue, along with experimental cosmology and the next-generation South Pole Telescope, here at HMC. Many thanks to Mike Rust (’01), who played a key role in Jason’s decision to apply for our job.

Richard Haskell and Theresa Lynn have just hosted a second ALPhA Immersion workshop on quantum optics, with participants from Carthage College, Whitworth University, Greenville College, the University of Redlands, U.C. Riverside, and Claremont McKenna College, with help from students Sid Srinivasan ’16 and Max Byers ’17. Participants are working on the paired-photon downconversion setup that is part of our optics lab and advanced lab courses, performing anti-coincidence experiments and tests of Bell’s inequality. Theresa is also working with Sid and Max this summer in her laboratory on hyper-entangled photon pairs. Tom Donnelly has a group of six students working to refine their system that delivers bursts of micron-sized spheres to the focus of the THOR laser at UT Austin [Amber Cai ’16, Caleb Eades ’16, and Hao Cao ’17], on modeling multi-pass stochastic heating [Laura Zhang ’16], and on new ventures with two engineers: Liz Orwin to produce nanoparticle chitosan for brain patch applications (used in open cranial wounds) and with Albert Dato to produce nanographene [Sophie Blee-Goldman ’16]. Yvonne Ban ’17 and Viviana Bermudez (’18) are working with Greg Lyzenga and Michael Storrie-Lombardi on developing a Raman spectrometer system that could be sent to Mars to look for organic molecules in lava tubes. Greg is also supervising the displacement of the HMC seismograph from the home Al Focke created in Parsons in the 1970s to a vault in the new dormitory that is slated to open at the end of the summer. Sharon Gerbode and students Maya Martirossyan ’17 and Jeremy Wang ’17 are using her optical tweezers setup to study defects in mesoscale two-dimensional crystals of micron-sized spheres, as well as the biomechanics of morning-glories. Daipeng Yang (’18) is working with Patti Sparks and Jim Eckert on their collaborative efforts with Eric Fullerton’s ‘84 group at UCSD and with collaborators at the University of Minnesota, studying several magnetic materials with potential device applications, and on developing new experiments for optics lab. John Townsend is preparing for lecturing duties in two core courses in the fall. Chih-Yung Chen has published her Chinese translation of John Townsend’s book, Quantum Physics: a Fundamental Approach to Modern Physics and is currently teaching from it in Nanjing. Vatche Sahakian and Ann Esin are lording over the rest of us that they are heading off on sabbatical, Vatche to France, Crete, and Ukraine (the safe part, one hopes), and Ann to Caltech. And I’m finally getting back to writing the book on statistical mechanics that I started on my first sabbatical.

On a sad note, I pass on the news that William (Sandy) Sandmann died recently. Sandy came to the college in 1963 from Grinnell. Shortly thereafter, he switched fields from nuclear physics to start the observational astronomy program at HMC, helping to develop the Table Mountain Observatory. Sandy retired to Port Townsend, Washington, in 1993, which is where he died at age 86. My thanks to Dan Petersen for his tribute to Sandy.

Over a decade ago, the Department of Physics undertook its first external review. As we reflected on our curriculum, we found compelling reasons to reconfigure the first-year physics courses to begin with special relativity and quantum optics, delaying mechanics—which requires calculus—until the spring semester. We have been pleased with that move, and as we prepare for a second review in October, we are exploring further changes to improve our curriculum in the wake of the core curriculum revision of 2010. Student and alumni feedback has been very valuable in the past, and as we consider various options, we seek to inform our deliberations with your feedback on the physics program. Please take a few moments to respond to our survey. Many thanks and best wishes,

Peter N. Saeta, chair