About
The Department of Physics and Astronomy hosts a colloquium every Wednesday afternoon in 227 Gallalee Hall during the fall and spring semesters (excluding holidays and exam week). Speakers include UA faculty and graduate students as well as researchers from other universities, research institutes, and government agencies. The subject matter ranges from information about the University and department to topics of recent interest in physics and astronomy. Talks are typically 45–50 minutes in length followed by ~10 minutes of questions.
Attendance is free and open to the public. Physics and astronomy graduate students are required to attend colloquia regularly, as determined by their advisors; more information about this requirement may be found in the department’s Graduate Handbook.
Visitor information, including directions and parking details, can be found on our Directions and Parking page.
Schedule
Find this year’s colloquia here. Upcoming colloquia are listed in the left sidebar of this page and under the colloquium category in the department events calendar.
Fall 2012
Unless otherwise noted, 2012-2013 colloquia are held Wednesdays 3:45–4:45 p.m. in 127 Gallalee Hall. Coffee and cookies are available starting at 3:30 p.m.
| Date | Title/Abstract | Speaker |
|---|---|---|
| 8/29 | Annual Introductions Update on the Mars Curiosity mission |
Ray White |
| 9/5 | Faculty Research Mini-Colloquia: The PhysTEC program at UA The Double Chooz neutrino experiment |
J.W. Harrell Patrick Leclair Penni WallaceJerry Busenitz |
| 9/12 | Faculty Research Mini-Colloquia: The age-metallicity relationship of stars in MUGS galaxy simulations The CMS Experiment and the Activities of the CMS Group at UA |
Jeremy BailinPaolo Rumerio Conor Henderson |
| 9/26 | Double Beta Decay: EXO-200 and Beyond | Andreas Piepke UA |
| 10/3 | Atomic, Molecular, and Optical Physics: Going Forward | Frank de Lucia Ohio State |
| 10/10 | New Insights Into Hydrogen (water) at the Lunar Poles | Rich Miller University of Alabama-Huntsville |
| 10/17 | Walking with Paleozoic Tetrapods: An Astronomer’s Journey into Alabama’s Remote Past | Ron Buta UA |
| 10/24 | Cavity-Enhanced Spectroscopic Measurement of Greenhouse Gases | Joseph T. Hodges National Institute of Standards and Technology |
| 10/31 | True Color: QCD Measurements with D0 at the Tevatron Collider | Michael Strauss University of Oklahoma |
| 11/7 | Through the Looking Glass: Matching Observational Diagnostics with Simulations of Star Formation | Stella Offner Yale |
| 11/14 | The Luster of Pt | Sergey Urazhnin Emory |
| 11/21 | Thanksgiving holiday | |
| 11/28 | Muon Cooling and Future Muon Facilities | Dan Kaplan Illinois Institute of Technology |
Spring 2013
| Date | Title/Abstract | Speaker | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1/9 | Ultracold molecules – New frontiers in quantum and chemical physics | Jun Ye JILA, NIST, and University of Colorado |
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| 1/16 | No colloquium | ||
| 1/23 | Kepler’s Exoplanets and Astrophysics: What the publications didn’t tell you … | Steve Howell NASA Ames |
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| 1/30 | RR Lyrae Stars in M31, M32, and M33 | Ata Sarajedini Florida |
|
| 2/6 | Magnetic Thin Films and Multilayers: Fabrication and Analysis | Gary Mankey Alabama |
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| 2/11 | Constraining Cosmological Models with Massive Galaxy Clusters | Adam Mantz Chicago |
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| 3/13 | Exploration of Magnetic Crystals: Macroscopic Investigation to Topographical Nanoengineering | Deepak Singh NIST/Maryland |
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| 3/18 | Charge transport and dynamics in nanomaterials and their interfaces | Girriraj Jnawali Columbia |
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| 3/20 | The Higgs Boson – Latest Results from the Large Hadron Collider | Nick Hadley Maryland |
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| 3/27 | No colloquium – Spring Break | ||
| 4/1 | The Impact of Secular Features on the Evolution of Disk Galaxies | Preethi Nair Space Telescope Institute |
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| 4/3 | Emergent magnetic properties in hybrid nanostructures: scratching the surface for new physics | Hariharan Srikanth South Florida |
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| 4/8 | Studying baryon physics with galaxy groups and clusters | Ming Sun Eureka Scientific |
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| 4/10 | Tuning Electrical and Optical Properties of 2D Atomic Crystals | A.K.M. Newaz Vanderbilt |
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| 4/15 | Galaxy Evolution in the Thermal Era | Rik Williams Carnegie Observatories4/17 |
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| 4/17 | Understanding Galaxy Evolution with Massive Starburst Galaxies | Hai Fu UC-Irvine |
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| 4/22 | From new materials to devices for the future: the interface matters | Dipanjan Mazumdar Tennessee |
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| 4/24 | Optical Spectroscopy and Phonon Self-Energy Renormalizations in Carbon Materials | Paulo Araujo MIT |
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| 5/1 | No colloquium – Finals Week |
Previous Years’ Colloquia
- 2011-2012: schedule