Topics

Frank Wilczek on Einstein's productive years:

 “The later part of Einstein’s career-more than half, chronologically, covering thirty years—was devoted to (let’s call it) Theory of Everything physics, and it was essentially fruitless. During Einstein’s great creative period he dealt with much more specific, less grandiose problems. His special theory of relativity came out of worrying about technical difficulties in the electrodynamics of moving bodies. His general theory of relativity came out of worrying about how to make a theory of gravity consistent with special relativity. His pioneering work on Brownian motion and Bose-Einstein statistics came out of worrying about the relationship between fundamental physics and thermodynamics; specifically, about fluctuations. His seminal work on photons came out of thinking about specific, puzzling experimental results, notably the observed spectrum of blackbody radiation.” 

Frank Wilczek on Einstein's unproductive years:

 “Why did Einstein loathe the implications of quantum mechanics? This question belongs to psychology more than physics. There was certainly no empirical reason for his distaste-on the contrary, quantum mechanics went from success to brilliant success. Einstein apparently just didn’t like the way probability enters into the laws of quantum theory, and he may have sensed difficulties in reconciling quantum theory with his baby, relativity. A normal scientific reaction would have been to respect the overwhelming success of what people were doing in quantum theory, assimilate that work, and try to tinker with it (maybe hoping to remove the probabilities) or build on it (to include relativity). In fact, we know that great results were there to be had along those directions, such as the Bell inequalities and the Dirac equation. But instead of trying to tinker or build, Einstein went into denial.” 

George Uhlenbeck describes advising by Paul Ehrenfest:

 “He worked essentially always only with one student, and that practically every afternoon during the week. He discussed with him either the problem on which he was working or recent papers in the literature which he wanted to understand in detail. It went fast, and at the end of the afternoon one was dead tired.  ... The wonder was that after a while the tiredness disappeared, and after a year one worked almost as equals.” 

Astronomy & Astrophysics

• Ground and space based gamma-ray astronomy (Holder)
• Where do fast radio bursts come from? (Holder)
• The formation and early evolution of low-mass stars and brown dwarfs (Gizis)
• Pulsating white dwarf stars and precision asteroseismology (Provencal)
• Scenarios of giant planet formation and evolution and their impact on the formation of habitable terrestrial planets (Dodson-Robinson)
• Variable snow lines affect planet formation (Dodson-Robinson)
• Radiatively driven stellar winds from hot stars (Owocki)
• Magnetic fields of nondegenerate stars (Petit)
• Gravitational waves discovered from colliding black holes (Bianco)
• Accelerating expansion of the universe (Bianco)

AMO Physics

• Extremely high-intensity laser interactions with fundamental quantum systems (Walker)
• The ultimate X-ray machine (DeCamp)
• Ultrafast carrier dynamics in nanostructures for solar fuels (Gundlach)
• The quantum halo state of the helium trimer (Szalewicz)
• Casimir forces: Still surprising after 60 years (Szalewicz)
• Atomic clocks and dark-matter signatures (Safronova)
• Quantum information with Rydberg atoms (Safronova)
• Nonadiabatic mixed quantum-classical dynamics (Kananenka)
• Range-separated density functional theory (Kananenka)
• Quantum optomechanics (Singh at ECE)
• Squeezing quantum noise (Singh at ECE)

Biological Physics

• Molecular dynamics simulations and drug discovery (Lyman)
• Fluid lipid membranes (Lyman)
• Computational amide I 2D IR spectroscopy as a probe of protein structure and dynamics (Kananenka)
• Graphene nanodevices for DNA sequencing (Nikolic)

Condensed Matter Physics, Materials Physics and Nanophysics

• Spin torque building blocks (Xiao)
• Recent advances in spin-orbit torques: Moving towards device applications (Xiao)
• Skyrmions on track (Jungfleisch)
• Magnon spintronics (Jungfleisch)
• Ultrafast magnetism and THz spintronics (Jungfleisch)
• Spin transport in non-magnetic nanostructures induced by nonlocal spin injection (Ji)
• Practical aspects of modern and future permanent magnets (Hadjipanayis)
• Magnetic nanoparticles: Synthesis, functionalization, and applications in bioimaging and magnetic energy storage (Unruh)
• Quantum shot noise (Nowak)
• Shaping optical space with metamaterials (Chui)
• Recent advances in bulk heterojunction polymer solar cells (Shah)
• Understanding photocatalysis: Mechanisms and materials (Shah)
• Photonic design principles for ultrahigh-efficiency photovoltaics (Birkmire)
• Spintronics in graphene and other 2D materials (Nikolic)
• 2D materials and van der Waals heterostructures (Nikolic)
• Quantum spin liquids (Nikolic)
• Machine learning meets quantum physics (Kananenka)
• Nuclear quantum effects in condensed-phase (Kananenka)
• Quantum spin Hall effect and topological insulators (Law at MSEG)
• Graphene plasmonics (Law at MSEG)
• Defect center qubits: Computing and sensing applications (Ku experiment; Singh at ECE theory)

Elementary Particles, Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology

• Utrahigh energy cosmic rays (Stanev)
• Radio detection of high-energy cosmic particles (Schroeder)
• The origin of galactic cosmic rays (Schroeder)
• Ice cube: An instrument for neutrino astronomy (Seckel)
• Neutrino mass and new physics (Seckel)
• Discovery of gravitational waves (Shafi)
• Experimental cosmology with cosmic microwave background (Shafi)
• Status and implications of beyond-the-Standard-Model searches at the LHC (Shafi)

Space and Plasma Physics

• Magnetic field reconnection: A first-principles perspective (Shay)
• Magnetohydrodynamic turbulence and time scales in astrophysical and space plasmas (Matthaeus)
• Spacecraft observations of solar wind turbulence (Maruca)
• Kinetic physics of the solar corona and solar wind (Maruca)