14 April 2008:
Dear Colleagues,

With sadness I report the passing of our Prof. John A. Wheeler, who "was the last Titan, the only physics superhero still standing."

His NY Times obituary may be found at: John A. Wheeler, Physicist Who Coined the Term 'Black Hole,' Is Dead at 96

Sincerely,
John Markert
Department Chair, Physics

18 March 2008:
Controlling Most Atoms Now Possible

Stopping and Freezing a Bullet

Atomic Coilgun Used to Slow and Stop Atoms (story from October 2007 on related research)

2 February 2008:
Dear Colleagues,

I am pleased to announce that Assistant Professor Xiaoqin (Elaine) Li has been awarded an NSF CAREER award (the modern version of the NSF PYI award), for her project entitled: "CAREER: Quantum Dynamics in Nanostructures by Design"

Congratulations, Elaine!

Best regards,
John Markert
Department Chair, Physics

12 December 2007:
Dear Colleagues,

I am pleased to announce that Prof. Chih-Kang (Ken) Shih has been elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society.

His citation reads:

For his original and innovative contributions to the understanding ofÊgrowth and properties of quantum nanostructures, in particular hisÊpioneering contributions to quantum growth of metal thin films andÊoptical coherence in semiconductor quantum dots.

Best regards,
John Markert
Department Chair, Physics

26 October 2007:
Dear Colleagues,

I am pleased to announce that Professor Herbert Berk has been elected a Fellow of the AAAS (American Association for the Advancement of Science) for contributions to plasma physics and kinetic theory.

Herb will be presented with a certificate and rosette during the AAAS Fellows Forum at the Association's Annual Meeting to be held in Boston in February 2008.

Best regards,
John Markert
Department Chair, Physics

25 October 2007:
Dear Colleagues,

I am pleased to announce that Professor Jim Chelikowsky has been elected a Fellow of the AAAS (American Association for the Advancement of Science) for his contributions to the basic understanding of properties of materials through theoretical calculations, and for excellence in teaching, lecturing, and writing.

Jim will be presented with a certificate and rosette during the AAAS Fellows Forum at the Association's Annual Meeting to be held in Boston in February 2008.

Best regards,
John Markert
Department Chair, Physics

15 October 2007:
Dear Colleagues,

I am pleased to announce that our very own Prof. Cécile Dewitt-Morette, Jane and Roland Blumberg Centennial Professor Emerita of Physics, has been chosen for the American Society of the French Legion of Honor 2007 Medal for Distinguished Achievement. The award is made "in recognition of extraordinary and tireless efforts in supporting gifted scientists by establishing the Center for Physics in Les Houches in France, as well as for extensive and inspiring research, writing, and teaching in the United States."

Previous winners of this award include Rudolph Guiliani, Walter Cronkite, Armand Hammer, and Thomas J. Watson, Jr.

The award will be presented on November 12, 2007 in New York.

Best regards,
John Markert
Department Chair, Physics

2 October 2007:
Atomic Coilgun Used to Slow and Stop Atoms

27 August 2007:
Dear Colleagues,

I am very pleased to announce that Mark Raizen is a 2008 recipient of the prestigious Lamb Award for Laser Science and Quantum Optics.

The citation reads:

The 2008 Willis E. Lamb Award for Laser Science and Quantum Optics

Gershon Kurizki, The Weizmann Institute - For his contributions to the theory of short-time quantum decay and decoherence and their dynamical control.

Mark Raizen, The University of Texas at Austin - For his experimental observation of dynamical localization, non-exponential decay and Zeno and Anti-Zeno effects.

Wolfgang Schleich, Universität Ulm - For his work on interference in phase space, quantum state engineering and dynamical localization.

More details are available by clicking on the names above or at: http://www.lambmedal.org/2008

Best regards,
John Markert
Department Chair, Physics

23 July 2007:
Dear Faculty,

It is my pleasure to announce the following faculty awards:

1) Steven Weinberg, in a May 23 ceremony at the Palazzo della della Ragione in Padua, Italy, on May 23, was made an honorary citizen of Padua.  The citation read "Padua, City of Galileo Galilei, acknowledges an exceptional contribution to the study and public understanding of theoretical physics and studies of the fundamental forces of nature that have contributed to the evolution of scientific thought."  

2) Harry Swinney was awarded the Jurgen Moser Prize of the Society of Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) at the Dynamical Systems meeting in Snowbird, Utah.  Following the award ceremony, Prof. Swinney presented the Jurgen Moser Lecture, entitled "KAM Tori as Barriers to Transport in Planetary Flows."  The award certificate reads: "For his elegant and incisive laboratory experiments that have elucidated the nonlinear dynamics of systems far from equilibrium."

3) George Sudarshan has been awarded the prestigious Majorana Medal, a prize founded by the European Journal of Theoretical Physics for the category "Best Person in Physics."   

Please join me in congratulating our colleagues for these remarkable recognitions.

Best regards,
John Markert
Department Chair, Physics

8 March 2007:
University of Texas at Austin Physicists Slow and Control Supersonic Helium Beam

16 October 2006:
Holographic Snapshots of Laser wakefields

For more information on this news item, read the article from Nature Physics.

Image of a wakefield produced by a 30 TW laser pulse in plasma of density 2.7 x 1018 cm-3. The color image is a 3D reconstruction of the oscillations, and the grey scale is a 2D projection of the same data. These waves show curved wave-fronts, an important feature for generating and accelerating electrons that had been predicted, but never before seen.

UT Physics graduate student Nicholas Matlis (Ph.D. 2006), together with faculty advisor Mike Downer and a group at the University of Michigan, have photographed Langmuir waves racing through a plasma near the speed of light behind an intense laser driving pulse,¹ using a novel frequency-domain holographic strobe technique that Downer's group developed several years ago.² The so-called "laser wakefields" that Matlis et al. photographed form the basis of tabletop plasma accelerators that were first proposed theoretically by former UT faculty member Toshi Tajima and the late John M. Dawson of UCLA in 1979.³ With recent improvements, these accelerators can now produce nearly mono-energetic, GeV-range electron beams and femtosecond x-ray pulses, providing compact radiation sources for medicine, nuclear engineering, materials science and high-energy physics.^4-6 They work by surfing charged particles on electric fields exceeding 100 GeV m^-1 (more than 1,000 times stronger than achievable in conventional accelerators) that are generated within the plasma waves that Matlis et al. photographed. The new "snapshots" capture the evolution of multiple wake periods, detect structure variations as laser-plasma parameters change, and resolve wave-front curvature, features never previously observed. UT physicist Serguei Kalmykov and faculty member Gennady Shvets, collaborators on the recent work, reproduced the main photographed features using computer simulations, yet each snapshot revealed unique details. These previously invisible features determine the charge, energy, energy spread and collimation of the accelerated beam. Because of the wave's microscopic size and luminal velocity, these critical structures had previously eluded direct single-shot observation, inhibiting progress in producing high-quality beams and in correlating beam properties with wake structure. The new technique reconstructs wake morphology in real-time, enabling rapid feedback and optimization, and promises to be an important step toward making compact accelerators a reality. Downer presented the results at the recent 48th Annual Meeting of the American Physical Society's Division of Plasma Physics in Philadelphia. The work was supported by the U. S. Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation. Further details are presented in a recent publication¹ in Nature Physics.

1. N. Matlis et al., "Snapshots of laser wakefields," Nature Physics 2, 749 (2006)
2. S. P. LeBlanc, E. W. Gaul, N. H. Matlis, A. Rundquist and M. C. Downer, "Single-shot measurement of temporal phase shifts by frequency-domain holography," Optics Letters 25, 764 (2000).
3. T. Tajima and J. M. Dawson, "Laser electron accelerator," Physical Review Letters 43, 267 (1979).
4. W. P. Leemans et al., "GeV electron beams from a centimetre-scale accelerator," Nature Physics 2, 696 (2006).
5. V. Malka et al., "Laser plasma accelerators: a new tool for science and for the society, Plasma Phys. Control. Fusion 47, 8481 (2005).
6. C. Joshi, "Plasma accelerators," Scientific American (February 2006), pages 41-47.

5 October 2006:
Dear Colleagues,

Congratulations to Allan MacDonald, co-recipient of the 2007 Buckley Prize!

The American Physical Society has announced the winners of the Buckley Prize, the highest prize in condensed matter physics:

The APS 2007 Oliver E. Buckley Prize will be awarded to

* James P Eisenstein (Caltech),
* Steven M. Girvin (Yale University), and
* Allan H. MacDonald (University of Texas at Austin)

For their fundamental experimental and theoretical research on correlated many-electron states in low dimensional systems.

21 September 2006:
New Superlens Reveals Hidden Nanostructures

1 September 2006:
Dear Colleagues,

I am pleased to announce that this week the Department of Physics was named the recipient of the

2006 Everybody WINS Award

(WINS = Women in Natural Sciences)

The citation states: "In recognition and appreciation of the department's commitment to best practices in the recruitment and/or retention of women and underrepresented minorities. These best practices enhance the culture and mission of the College of Natural Sciences and the University of Texas at Austin.."

Thanks to all, and especially the recruitment committee, for making this possible.

Best regards,

John

John T. Markert
Departmetnt Chair, Physics

4 April 2006:
MINOS collaboration releases new neutrino results

4 January 2006:
Number squeezing of atoms achieved by Raizen group

29 September 2005:
Prof. Jim Chelikowsky has been awarded the 2006 David Adler Lectureship Award.

This award is sponsored by the Division of Materials Physics of The American Physical Society and by the friends of David Adler. The award was established to recognize an outstanding contributor to the field of materials physics, particularly one who is noted for the quality of his/her research, review articles, and lecturing.

The citation for this year's award to Jim reads: "For his creative and outstanding research in computational materials physics and for his effectiveness in communicating research results through lectures and publications."

The Adler Award will be presented to Jim at the APS March 2006 meeting in Baltimore, MD at a special ceremonial session.

Congratulations, Jim!