College of Arts and Sciences Speaker Series

Join us for the Science Speaker Series, hosted by the Physics department on select Tuesdays and Thursdays at Noon in the Jim and Linda Lee Planetarium! This series features captivating physics-related talks from guest speakers outside ERAU, faculty experts within ERAU and student presentations (REUs or Capstone projects) in the College of Arts and Sciences.

Free pizza is served at 11:30 a.m. in front of the planetarium — no RSVP needed, just stop by!

For suggestions, comments or volunteering opportunities, contact Dr. Pragati Pradhan at pradhanp@erau.edu. Stay tuned for updates on this event page, or watch out for emails from Dr. Pradhan.

Next Event

Capstone Presentations II

When: April 24 at Noon
Where: Jim and Linda Lee Planetarium

Speaker: Sami Garcia Flores
Title: Quantifying Outbursts of the Be Star QR Vul

Be stars are non-supergiant B-type stars that show emission lines formed in a decretion disk. These stars can have steady state disks or can have disk outbursts where the disk builds and later dissipates. The Be star QR Vul was observed regularly with H-alpha spectroscopy that is included in the BeSS archive. We are analyzing data taken over the last ~20 years. In these spectra, we see large outbursts of disk growth and dissipation five times. We are exploring the timescales for these outbursts to occur and dissipate as well as searching for periodicities in the behavior. In this poster, we highlight our recent analyses that show how the disk dissipates in each of the large outbursts and how the outbursts vary each time in both H-alpha and H-beta emission. These results are being compared to the Be star HD 6226 which was shown to have periodic outbursts and have different outburst properties each time in a recent paper by Richardson et al. Quantifying the outburst history of Be stars over long time baselines is an important aspect of understanding their behavior, especially in regards to the amount of angular momentum lost by the star through these disk episodes.

Speaker: Hailey Beier
Title: Probing the Multiplicity of Dusty, Carbon-Rich Wolf-Rayet Stars With High-Resolution, Near-Infrared Spectroscopy

Some carbon-rich Wolf-Rayet stars (type WCd) form dust in their outflows. This has primarily been observed with either infrared excesses or high-resolution infrared imaging. Many of these systems have been shown to form dust in the shocked wind region between the WC star and an OB star companion, including WR140 which was imaged with JWST in the early phase of the mission. We initiated a survey of high-resolution infrared spectroscopy with the IGRINS spectrograph (R~45000, λ=1.45-2.5 μm) on both the Lowell Discovery Telescope and Gemini-South Observatory to collect high-resolution near-infrared spectra of all but one of the known Galactic WCd systems that do not reside in the Galactic Center. We have analyzed the spectra to look for features both from the WC stars as well as the potential OB companions through known absorption lines for these stars. We have searched for signatures of the companions through comparisons to known OB stars that were also observed with the program. Our goal is to derive the multiplicity of these stars in the coming months to determine if the dust only forms in binary systems or if it can form in a single star’s wind.

Speaker: Hailey Murray
Title: Physics Beyond General Relativity: Spacetime Symmetry Breaking and Black Holes

Observational and experimental searches for spacetime symmetry breaking are widespread. Places where gravity is very strong are interesting to search for new physics. In this talk, I discuss my work on black hole solutions to modified Einstein equations. Building on previous work with extra fields in spacetime like scalar fields, I assume a general spherically symmetric and static spacetime metric and discuss the resulting coupled nonlinear ODEs. The results include exact solutions for special cases and numerical solutions for the general case. The focus is on the effects of a potential energy function for a vector field that allows extrema that breaks spacetime symmetry (local Lorentz violation) by have a nonzero vector field in the vacuum. I show that the results allow for naked singularity solutions, repulsive gravity solutions, and other striking spacetimes. Some work on null geodesic trajectories around the black hole are also discussed.

Speaker: Kya Schluterman
Title: Distributional Methods for Detecting Gravitational Waves From Core-Collapse Supernovae

The goal of the project is to investigate the potential of different distributional methods in the detection of Core-Collapse supernova gravitational waves (GW) for quiet signals that would have been previously missed. To date, no supernova GW detections have been made. We use coherent WaveBurst to look at the loudest ‘events’ in a span of time and form a metric for each event, which we collect to form ‘shaped’ distributions containing the signal and all the loud noise. Our method focuses on applying non-parametric distributional tests to separate noise-only distributions with those containing our GW signal. With an understanding of the behavior of these tests and tuning parameters, we have a method to search for supernova GW at signals much quieter (and therefore farther away) than ever before possible.

Speaker: Brandon Pillon
Title: Mock Setup of Newtonian Calibration Characterization for Laser Interferometry

The Laser Interferometer and Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO) is the current highest precision detector of gravitational waves (GW). Current and future GW detectors require precise calibration to operate at peak sensitivity. This is needed both for classical reconstruction and for the detection of Poissonian Quantum noise of gravitons and stochastic force on geodesic mirrors separation H Cho, et al. PhysRevD.105.086004. The current calibration technique uses photon calibration to determine the change in motion of the LIGO interferometer suspensions.

To reduce uncertainty in LIGO calibration, we are currently forming a lasting collaboration with the team developing the Newtonian Calibrator (NCal) M P. Ross, et al. PhysRevD.104.082006, who used a non-uniform cylindrical drum to disturb the LIGO interferometer suspensions via gravitational forces. This project aims to determine the potential for and improve NCal calibration using a tortional pendulum stand-in for the LIGO pendulums.

This calibration technique could also lead to a more sensitive detector at a wider range of frequencies allowing for the detection of more phenomena like core collapse supernova and the collision of coalescing compact binaries. We will review our most recent lab results.

Speaker: Jacob Anna
Title: Correcting the Background Sources Found in the LIGO Interferometer and Data Quality Testing

The output signal of the LIGO interferometer has many nonastrophysical background sources that must be corrected in order to attain more accurate results. This presetation will explain the process by which this was done and to explain the methodology behind it. Data quality testing is also a way these background sources are managed. This presentation goes over how that is done as well.

Speaker: Jerome Busquin
Title: Ground-Based Contrail Observation

Contrails contribute to approximately half of the aviation industry's climate warming impact due to their stronger long-wave infrared trapping relative to short-wave radiation reflection, resulting in a significant net warming effect. The project utilizes the Global Meteor Network (GMN), a global array of 1,300 cameras, to detect contrails with high spatial accuracy. By employing computer vision techniques, we have begun creating the first large-scale, ground-truth dataset specifically designed to support flight-contrail matching algorithms. These ground-based observations address the temporal limitations inherent in the geostationary satellite imagery currently used for analysis, significantly improving flight-to-contrail attribution. This dataset holds potential for validating weather forecasting models' predictions regarding contrail formation and persistence in the atmosphere, facilitating future mitigation efforts. Further developments are underway to automate attribution between Flight ADS-B data, GMN observations, and GOES satellite detections expanding the dataset.

Speaker: Quintin B. Weinberger
Title: Reaction-Diffusion Systems on Cubic Superlattices

Pattern formation in two-dimensional reaction-diffusion systems has long been studied using group theoretic means. In addition to patterns on the square and hexagonal lattices, superlattice structures have also been found, belonging to normal form systems of higher dimension.

In three dimensions the systems with the periodicity of the simple cubic, fcc, and bcc lattices have also been examined, but there are three more superlattices that require study: two with normal forms of 24 dimensions and one of 48 dimensions. We find the solutions for these systems, their branching equations and stabilities. We also make explicit predictions for the Brusselator model.

Speaker: Charles D. Wszalek
Title: Explicit Symmetry-Breaking of D_n-Equivariant Systems

Group theory has long been used to find and analyze the solutions to systems equivariant under a given representation gamma_1 of a symmetry group G. It can also be used when that symmetry is explicitly broken by an external factor belonging to a different representation gamma_2, such as a tilted Benard convection cell or a buckling beam with slightly non-square cross-section.

We examine systems with dihedral symmetry D_n and use character theory to find all possible ways the symmetry can be broken explicitly. The resulting systems are (gamma_1, gamma_2)-coequivariant, and the normal forms can be found with Poincare series. We find solution branches and their stabilities for these systems.

Speaker: Isaiah Joy
Title: A Quantum Factoring Algorithm

 The project takes an in-depth analysis of the quantum algorithm known as Shor’s algorithm with the goal of creating a document detailing the specific mathematical background needed, as well as a thorough outline of the algorithm.