PROGRAM • SPEAKERS • WORKSHOPS & PANELS • TOURS • STUDENT POSTERS

Group A. Atmospheric and Astrophysics

1. Spatially Resolved Star-Formation in Nearby Analogues of Lyman Break Galaxies (LBGs)

Sabrina Appel 

Reed College

At redshifts of z > 1.5, the population of UV selected galaxies (such as z ~ 3 Lyman break galaxies = LBGs) have the largest number of spectroscopic redshifts.  As a result LBGs have an important role in the development of our understanding of the history of galaxy formation.  However, LBGs are rather poorly understood at longer wavelengths, and thus our understanding of the total star formation rates and gas masses in such galaxies is highly uncertain.  A common strategy is to assume that the Kennicutt-Schmidt relation between star formation rate (SFR) surface densities and gas mass surface densities holds, even in these high redshift galaxies where testing the relation directly is not feasible.  To test the validity of this assumption, this project aims to examine in greater detail the Kennicutt-Schmidt law in selected nearby (z ~ 0.2) starburst galaxies in the hope of better understanding key questions regarding star formation processes in UV selected galaxies.  Several nearby galaxies with high UV luminosities and surface brightnesses, reminiscent of those found in LBGs, were identified and used for this project.  We have investigated new, spatially resolved observations of these nearby analogues.  We determine the SFR surface density from the Paschen alpha emission line (of hydrogen) and we determine the gas mass surface density using carbon monoxide emission.  We then plot these surface densities and fit the relation between them in order to examine whether they follow the expected Kennicutt-Schmidt relation.  We also used these plots to investigate any implied variation in gas depletion times between and within galaxies.  This research has been supported by the National Science Foundation grant AST-0955810.

2. The Economics of In-Space Propulsion.

Manju Bangalore

University of Oregon

From the Apollo missions to the Space Shuttle to the International Space Station, no
spaceflight is possible without a reliable propulsion system. The largest factor in the aerospace
market, above all, is the cost of the space travel. Chemical propulsion is always used to lift off
from the Earth. However, once in space, aerospace engineers have a wider selection of
technologies to choose from. While chemical propulsion offers high acceleration, it only allows for a certain payload
mass. On the other hand, electric propulsion provides high fuel efficiency, but usually comes at
the cost of delaying the mission for hours or, sometimes, for years. At these scales, the selection
of propulsion technology becomes dependent on money. Optimizers are typically used to establish the trip times for missions. However, performing case-by-case analysis for individual projects is tedious and time-consuming. A
project conducted at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center eliminated the need for an optimizer
by establishing a tool that can be used to complete cost optimization studies for any given
mission. The analysis was performed on both chemical and a variety of electric propulsion
systems, while variables such as efficiency, launch costs, and power levels were altered. The tool
generated will be used to guide subsequent space transportation architecture assessments.

3. Determining the Effect of Acoustic Coupling on Advanced LIGO

Katherine Banowetz

Oregon State University (Research done at LIGO Hanford through CIT’s LIGO SURF Program)

Advanced LIGO is built to be extremely sensitive to movements of the test mass as small as 10^{-20 m/sqrt(Hz)} , which allows many signals other than gravitational waves to be detected by the system. Pressure created by external sound can alter the differential arm movement measurement by creating Doppler shifts, intensity fluctuations, and scattering in the laser beam. To determine the areas affected by external sound, we inject acoustic noise in the laser and vacuum equipment area. On a smaller scale, vibrating a horizontal access module or beam splitter chamber with a shaker tests the effect of sound on single chambers. To calculate the scale at which these vibrations affect the differential arm movement signal as well as the effect of other environmental injections, I created a Python program. This program analyzes ambient background noise signals as well as injections with coupling functions and outputs a file with the estimated differential arm movement effect for each calculated frequency. By calculating the effect of acoustic coupling and other environmental signals with this program, the calculation process will be streamlined and calculation error will be reduced.

4. Cosmic Ray Counts Using a Geiger Muller Tube Array

Hazel Betz

Physical Sciences Department, Linn Benton Community College
Oregon Space Grant Consortium
Colorado Space Grant Consortium
Virginia Space Grant Consortium

Linn Benton Community College’s Space Exploration Team participated in NASA’s RockSat-C program to design and build a small scientific rocket payload. The team’s payload was flown in June of 2015 on a sounding rocket launched from Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia to an altitude of approximately 115 km.The team’s payload was designed to count cosmic rays and their derivatives in the upper atmosphere and near space. The project was chosen because cosmic rays are of particular interest in the modern world as they can interfere with data storage in electronics.The payload’s three basic components were a small hexagonal array of six Geiger-Mueller tubes (G-M tubes), a latching circuit, and an Arduino to store data. The latching circuit was designed to differentiate between events involving multiple G-M tubes and events involving a single G-M tube. A multi-tube event was assumed to be a cosmic ray and a single tube event was assumed to be a lower energy derivative of a cosmic ray.The flight was a success, recording 1035 single tube events and 45 multi-tube events, with an expected event peak at around 30 km. This was a 1450% increase in events compared to ground tests.

5. A Catalog of z=3.1 Lyman Alpha Emitting Galaxies Discovered in Narrow-band Imaging of MUSYC 1030+05

Holly Christenson

Western Washington University

We present a catalog of ~200 Lyman Alpha Emitting galaxies (LAEs) at redshift z=3.1 found in a 5015 Angstrom narrow-band image of the MUSYC 1030+05 field.  We reduced raw optical images taken with the MOSAIC II CCD camera at the CTIO 4m telescope with the MSCRED package of IRAF, including the crucial steps of bias subtraction, flat-field correction, cosmic ray and satellite trail rejection, astrometric calibration, tangent plane projection, weighted stacking, and sky background removal.   Our initial catalog of sources detected in the narrow-band filter contains ~20,000 sources.  We use additional photometric measurements in neighboring MUSYC broad-band filters to identify LAEs via their flux density excess in the narrow-band.  This catalog of LAEs will undergo further analysis to characterize how the number density, clustering, colors, and star formation rates of LAEs vary with location and evolve with redshift.
We gratefully acknowledge support from NSF grants AST-1055919 & PHY-1263280.

6. Searching for Supermassive Binary Black Holes in the VLBA Calibrator Survey

Brittney High

University of Puget Sound

7. The Primordial Helium Abundance

McKenzie Horner and Emma Peatfield

Gonzaga University

8. Tidal Decay and Disruption of Short-Period Gaseous
Exoplanets

Emily Jensen

Boise State University

Many gaseous exoplanets in short-period orbits are on the verge or are actually in the process of tidal disruption. Analysis shows tides can drive most known hot Jupiters to spiral inexorably into their host stars. Thus, orbital decay and tidal disruption likely shape the observed distribution of close-in exoplanets and may even be responsible for producing the shortest-period rocky planets. However, the exact outcome for a disrupting planet depends on its internal response to mass loss and variable stellar insolation, and the accompanying orbital evolution can act to enhance or inhibit the disruption process. Understanding these coupled processes and making accurate predictions requires a model that includes both the internal and the orbital evolution of the planet.

9. Molecular Line Observations of Galactic Mid-Infrared Bubble Rims

Johanna Mori

The College of Idaho

Stellar winds and outflows around young, hot stars create a spherical geometry in the dust and gas around them that glows in the mid-infrared. These objects are dubbed “bubbles” by astronomers. Watson et al. (2010) showed that Galactic bubbles are correlated with star formation, by detecting an over-density of young stellar objects (YSOs) in about 20% of observed bubbles. Previous research (Watson, et al. accepted by Astrophysical Journal) observed a double Gaussian shape of the CS line in five bubbles (N62, N65, N77, N90, and N117), and suggested two possible models to explain the line shape: an infall model and a two-cloud model.  To distinguish between the two models, we observed emission lines towards the five sources observed by Watson et al. (2016) from molecules including CS, C34S, CH3OH, and HC3N in the radio Q-band with the Green Bank Telescope, and compared the double-Gaussian optically thick CS emission line with the optically thin lines C34S, CH3OH, and HC3N. The optically thin lines newly observed in this research were best fit by a single-Gaussian curves, the centers of which are somewhere between the best-fit centers of the double Gaussian curves, suggesting that the infall model is correct and that star formation is occurring in these bubbles. The presence of these molecules is also suggestive of star formation, as they are associated with the chemical processes of star formation.

10. Star Clusters in Early-Type Galaxies

Sidney Vetens

Reed College

11. Atmospheric Impacts of Weather Events in Southwest Idaho

Chelsea Walther

The College of Idaho

12. The Classification of MOSFIRE Data to Determine the Role of Dust Grains in the Interstellar Cloud L183

Sarah Youlton

Santa Clara University

For this project, we utilized MOSFIRE data to determine the stellar classification for stars in the L183 cloud with extinctions ranging from 7 to 30 magnitudes.  In order to look at the role of dust grains, I first reduced MOSFIRE data using an interactive reduction pipeline.  The background from each spectrum was then subtracted out and an ATRAN model was used to account for atmospheric effects.  These spectra were compared by eye to known spectra to identify their stellar class and luminosity.  The majority of the stars found in L183 were K and M stars with an even mixture of supergiants, giants, and dwarfs.  The Skiff, Wright, and McD star classification catalogs were also compared with each other to determine any differences between the classifications of specific stars.  The McD data and combined Skiff/Wright data were found to have a linear relationship between their classifications of stars, suggesting consistent differences in classification.  The data from the McD catalog can be further analyzed to find relationships with distance, extinction, and location of the stars.  The stellar classification can be used to analyze the dust grains within the interstellar medium.  The reddening slopes for each spectrum, which are used to better understand properties of the dust in the L183 cloud, were calculated and have a weighted slope average of approximately 1.73.

13. Searching for Simpler Models of Astrophysical Pattern Formation

Eryn Cangi and Daniel Abrams

University of Oregon (primary undergraduate institution), Northwestern University (REU institution)

While theories of synchronization in two- or three-body astronomical systems are well understood, a generalization to many-bodied systems remains largely unexplored. Historically, problems of resonant capture among astronomical bodies have been treated primarily using methods from conservative classical mechanics. We investigate the possibility of using nonconservative models together with perturbation theory and numerical methods to understand the phenomenon of resonant capture in large-scale structures such as rings, planetary systems and galactic spiral arms. In particular, we focus on N-body dissipative systems such as circumplanetary discs and use methods drawn from the study of coupled oscillators. One such method is inspired by the Kuramoto model, which describes mean-field behavior in large ensembles of coupled nonlinear oscillators. The Kuramoto model can be modified to allow for non-mean-field coupling, leading to the existence of chimera states, in which most of the oscillators synchronize. These chimera states can appear as clusters or spirals of synced oscillators, and may be suggestive of objects in astronomical contexts. As an illustrative example, we develop a mean-field model for N small particles in a dust ring around a massive planet and integrate it numerically using code developed in MATLAB and Python. Preliminary results show promise that this approach will yield new insight into astronomical synchronization phenomena across a wide range of length scales.

Group B. Solid State, Condensed Matter, and Particle Physics

1. Determining the Sensitivity of a Diamond Magnetometer

Jannel Banks

University of Washington

2. Thermal Conductivity Measurements of AlZrOx via the 3⍵ Method

Rose Baunach

Whitman College

The 3⍵ method is a unique process that can determine the thermal conductivity of a thin film by measuring the oscillating temperature of a resistive heater deposited on its surface.  To measure these temperature oscillations, the 3⍵ component of the voltage across the heater must first be identified.  To isolate this voltage component, a resistor circuit is utilized.  In this circuit, the sample is put in-series with a variable resistor.  Once the resistance of both elements is equal, the voltage signals across the variable resistor and the heater deposited on the sample are subtracted by a lock-in amplifier.  Since the variable resistor can be treated as ideal (i.e. temperature invariant), this subtraction isolates the 3⍵ voltage component of the heater, which is temperature-dependent. The 3⍵ voltage is then used to determine the temperature oscillations of the deposited heater, which are then used to determine the thin film’s thermal conductivity.  This poster discusses the 3⍵ process as applied to the material AlZrOx. The overall goal of this research was to identify novel low thermal conductivity materials for various industry applications. Our results identified AlZrOx as a potential material of interest due to its low average thermal conductivity value of 0.58(2) W/mK.

3. Characterization of Carbon Nanotube tips for Atomic Force Microscopy

Grace Chesmore

Santa Clara University

Atomic force microscopy (AFM) is a high-resolution technique for determining the surface structure of a sample.  The basic principle of operation involves measuring the deflection of a sharp tip as it interacts with the surface.  Conventional tips are typically shaped like cones or pyramids that taper to sharpness of a few atoms.  Such tips will not perform well for high aspect ratio features on surfaces.  An alternate geometry utilizes carbon nanotubes (CNT) to make long needle-like probe tips.  We have evaluated the performance of CNT/CNT composite AFM probes aligned by using an ion flux molding (IFM) process.  The performance of these tips is compared to that of conventional Si probes in AFM tapping mode.  The IFM process precisely aligns the CNT-based probes, revealing an improvement in image accuracy and tip longevity while allowing higher aspect ratio imaging of 3D surface features. Furthermore, the lifetime of CNT-CNT composite tips are observed to be longer than that of other CNT technologies. A wide range of current applications at SCU range from the investigation of polymer solar cells to characterize morphology changes in the active layer to probing the structure of insect silk.

4. Distinguishing Dark Matter: Characterization of Contact Dark Matter for the LHC

Tangereen Claringbold

University of Portland

5. Improving the Determination of Vertex Resolution for the Beam Spot with the ATLAS High Level Trigger

Kyana Van Houten

Stanford University

6. Ablation Studies and Surface Etching

Shelbi Jenkins

Willamette University

7. Data Compression with Information Entropy in ATLAS Experiment

Jinghan Peng

University of British Colombia

8. Topological Clustering Algorithm for ATLAS Level-1 Calorimeter Missing ET Trigger Upgrades

Brianna Stamas

University of Oregon

The ATLAS Experiment at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN is looking to improve on their previous discovery of the Higgs Boson in 2012 with the discovery of newer particles. The experiment is one of two detectors at CERN looking for any new particles by colliding bunches of protons. Currently, a method used for reconstruction of proton-proton interactions in the ATLAS detector is an offline topological clustering algorithm. The algorithm will be adapted for online use to improve the missing transverse energy trigger using simulated data. The focus of this study is to analyze the performance of the algorithm and implement improvements for future adaptations on the global feature extractor (gFEX), a component of the Level-1 trigger system for the Phase-II upgrade.

9. Towards Characterizing Poly(Hexa-hydrotriazine)

Lena Wood

Boise State University

Group C. Optics, AMO, Biophysics, PER, and Medical Physics

1. A Search for Photons that Act like Fermions

Aracely Cobos

California State University – East Bay

We are constructing an experiment dedicated to the search for violations of the spin-statistics theorem (SST) for photons. Using laser-cooled strontium atoms, we will set constraints on the SST-forbidden two-photon transition between states with angular momentum J = 0 and J′ = 1. In order to stimulate a transition between these two states, the pair of photons would need to possess a total angular momentum J = 1, which is an exchange-antisymmetric state and forbidden by the SST. We will attempt to excite this transition using two counter-propagating laser beams with orthogonal polarizations which will intersect a laser-cooled atomic beam at right angles. Atoms that participate in the transition will decay to a metastable state, allowing for detection downstream of the two-photon excitation region. This new experimental search is motivated by enhancements to the sensitivity of possible SST violations that come from using laser-cooled strontium. These enhancements will enable an improvement in sensitivity by at least three orders of magnitude compared to previous searches, potentially yielding either a detection of SST violation or an upper limit of β2/2 ∼ 10^−14.

2. Optical Trapping of Microbubbles

Irene Duba

Lewis & Clark College

Microbubbles are inert gas-filled shells 1-2 μm in diameter. They have potential medical applications such as blood clot breakdown through use of induced cavitation jets. Cavitation jets are small but powerful jets of water caused by the inward collapse of the microbubble upon itself, which can be triggered by exciting the microbubbles at certain ultrasonic frequencies. Optical tweezers, a device that traps small particles using focused light, can be used help aid the study of microbubble dynamics. Although many particles are attracted to the focus of the optical tweezers’ laser, microbubbles are repelled from the highest intensity of the beam. A hollow beam profile, known as a Laguerre-Gauss beam, can be used to cage the microbubbles in its center. We use a spatial light modulator to convert a standard Gaussian beam into the Laguerre-Gaussian form. Over the course of this project we used diffraction optics to create a four lens telescoping system to successfully form a Laguerre-Gauss diffraction pattern on the sample slide in preparation for trapping the microbubbles.

3. Contact Interaction in Molecular BEC

Victoria Highley

Western Washington University

In exploring the dipole-dipole interaction in a material such as a two-state system in an electric field, the added energy of the dipoles colliding with each other is generally ignored in many studies of the systems. By considering a 2-D plane of a highly cooled gas of polar molecules interacting via dipole-dipole interaction in the presence of an electric field E, we begin to explore the effect of the collisions on the polarization of the molecular bose-einstein condensate. By solving the Hamiltonian with an added term, which accounts for the interactions from collisions, we solve for the ground state of the system and compare the polarization states of the ground states in various electric fields with various dipole strengths to that of the ground state of the system with the new contact interaction terms turned off. With this, we can begin to see the effects the collisions of the dipoles with each other on the polarization and thus begin to understand the added energy of the collisions.

4. Polarimetric measurements and Jones calculus

Sarah Knudsen

California State University Chico

Scanning polarization lidars, such as the Raman-shifted Eye-safe Aerosol Lidar (REAL) at CSU Chico, typically use a linearly polarized laser beam to measure the depolarization ratio of backscattered radiation by hydrometeors and aerosol particles. The coatings of the beam scanner (beam steering unit, BSU) mirrors change the state of polarization (SOP) of the transmit beam. These effects are strongly dependent on knowledge of the precise coating parameters. Therefore, we set up a mini-BSU in the lab to study experimentally the induced polarization for different coatings. Then using Jones calculus and the transformation matrix for the BSU we will show how the theoretical model supports our experimental results obtained for the changing state of polarization on an off-the-shelf protected gold mirror. We will also propose a method to continuously change the incident polarization using a QWP to compensate for the effect of the BSU mirrors.

5. 3D Reconstruction and Approximation of Pneumatophore Geometry

Kendra Lynn, Jean Lienard, Stephen M. Henderson and Nikolay Strigul

Portland State University, Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Washington State University Vancouver, School of the Environment, Washington State University Vancouver

To perform necessary gas exchange, mangrove trees grow aerial roots called pneumatophores.  Although thin, pneumatophores are more numerous than mangrove trunks and can play a major role in sheltering coastlines from energetic waves and tidal currents.  Consequently, accurate estimates of pneumatophore geometry and spatial density are critical to refine models for near bed flow and sediment transport. However, we currently lack a precise and convenient methodology to analyze the geometry of these complex objects.  In this study we developed a novel approach for approximating pneumatophore geometry, built on recent progress in photogrammetry and computer vision. Quadrats were placed at low tide among pneumatophores.  Photos were taken from multiple angles surrounding each quadrat, and the roots were measured for height and diameter.  The photos were processed with the photogrammetry software VisualSfM to produce a densely tiled 3D model and a slice-sector approximation was constructed with an original program in R.  We saw a strong correlation between hand measured and slice-sector approximated geometry.  Our technique will reduce time spent measuring in the field, and will allow future studies to refine models of water flows and sediment transport over long stretches of coastline.

6. Revival Times for a Generalized Coherent State

Cole Newton

Reed College

Revival times are studied for a generalized coherent state found using techniques from supersymmetric quantum mechanics. We prove that in general, exact revivals are quite rare: they only occur when the energy spectrum satisfies a certain condition, namely, that the difference between any two of the energy spectra must be proportional to the difference between any other two of the spectra by a rational number. We then examine three examples of shape invariant potentials whose energy spectra satisfy the condition.

7. Tracking Microtubules Along an Axon

Brianna Owen

Central Washington University

Microtubules are rigid polymers that are part of the skeleton of a cell and help provide structure. In nerve cells the axon protrudes from the cell body. It is along the axon that the short microtubules are moved. It is thought that the microtubules are moved along the axon by several different kinds of motors that move the cargo in different ways. While the kinds of these competing motors are known, the mechanism that makes the motors move is yet unknown. This research project is looking at quantitative data from live-cell microscopy movies and comparing them to computer simulations. There are two specific models that are being looked into: the motors attach to the microtubule and walk along the axon, or the motors are attached to the axon and are essentially crowd surfing the microtubules along the axon. In order to look at this, microtubules were fluorescently labeled in living axons and images were taken at regular intervals, creating a movie that displays the movement of the microtubules. The videos were then processed using ImageJ to find the velocities of the microtubules. Velocities that are measured from the videos were then compared to the velocities that were predicted in the models. Hopefully by looking into the distribution of the velocities in both drug-treated and healthy axons, the physical mechanism for the motion in nerve cells will be uncovered. It is important to understand the physical mechanism that moves these microtubules because the movement of microtubules along the axon is essential to proper growth. If the growth process is disrupted it can lead to neurodegenerative diseases.

8. A High-Resolution Imaging System for Quantum Engineering with Cold Atoms

Alyssa Rudelis

Stanford University

The goal of this project was to engineer a system to image a 10μm by 10μm cloud of rubidium atoms held in a MOT with diffraction-limited performance at high resolution, ideally on the order of 1μm.  In order to reach this goal, several aspherical lenses’ optical performances were simulated and compared using both OSLO and Matlab software.  The most promising lens, based on factors such as the modulation transfer function, depth of field, and field of view, was then physically characterized.  The razor blade method enabled us to measure the edge spread function with a CCD camera, and changing defocus while measuring resolution from a Gaussian approximation of the line spread function allowed us to plot depth of field.  These measurements indicated that a resolution on the order of 1μm (2.4μm) is attainable with a single, two-inch diameter aspherical lens.  The depth of field at this optimal resolution was near 6μm, smaller than the Rayleigh range of 23.2μm calculated for a beam waist radius of 2.4μm. Ideally, a larger depth of field would entail higher imaging quality over a larger distance from ideal focus, but 6μm still enables the entire 10μm by 10μm cloud of atoms to be imaged at acceptable resolution.  Finally, a mechanical mounting system was designed and built to both integrate the aspherical lens with the existing cavity QED system and to introduce the necessary degrees of freedom for laser alignment.

9. Can We Influence How Students ‘View’ Physics?

Anna Wetterer

University of Portland

10. Quantitative (Spectral) Analysis of Continuous EEG for Prognostication in post Cardiac Arrest Coma

Sara Wiley

Portland State University

11. Stochastic Resonance in Modeling Complex Chemical Systems

Mesa Walker

Oregon State University

12. Student Engagement with University Sponsored Learning Correlated with Performance on Exams.

Liam Contino, Lisa Corely, Mason Crow, Christopher Dang, Sam Moshofsky, Amandip Singh, Drew Turner, Brandon Wick, Kenneth Walsh

Oregon State University

This research is performed by Learning Assistants (LAs), undergraduate students who successfully completed the general physics series and now offer academic support to current students. One way they support learning is by holding Learning Assistant Homework Help Hours (LAHHH), which provides a time and space for peer-to-peer learning with the help and guidance of LAs. This research seeks to understand how students use academic resources provided on campus for the general introductory physics sequence. The first set of questions asked students about their use of resources such as TA office hours, LA help sessions, Supplemental Instruction (study tables), and group and independent study. The second set of questions asked more specifically about students’ engagement with LAHHH hours. GPA data was collected to separate the students into four GPA quartiles to account for ability-based variance. Finally, midterm scores were gathered and the collected data was used to study the relationship between attendance to academic services and exam scores. Normalized gains were considered in order to observe the relationship between changes in LAHHH attendance and changes in performance between exam 1 and exam 2. Analysis of the data yielded significant observations in the lowest GPA quartile, as well as improvements in exam scores of attendees from exam 1 to exam 2. Analysis of normalized gains also showed a positive relationship between changes in LAHHH attendance and increase in exam scores.