Physics

Chair: Kenneth Kelton

Home Page: http://www.physics.wustl.edu/ Location: 242 Compton Hall Email: jmh@wuphys.wustl.edu Telephone: (314) 935-6276

The Washington University Department of Physics in Arts & Sciences has a rich history that includes the tenure of Arthur Holly Compton as department chair from 1920 to 1923. During those years, he carried out X-ray scattering experiments, elucidating what is now known as the Compton effect. In 1927, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in physics in recognition of this work. The department's teaching and research faculty members and graduate students, all of whom are Ph.D. candidates, enjoy state-of-the-art facilities that spread out over more than 70,000 square feet in Compton Laboratory and Crow Hall. The department's primary research areas fall under experimental physics (astrophysics and space sciences; applications to biology and medicine; condensed matter and materials physics; and nuclear physics) and theoretical physics (theoretical astrophysics; biological physics; condensed matter and materials physics; elementary particle theory; gravitational physics and astrophysics; quantum-control theory; and quantum-mechanical many-body theory). Scroll down this page for more information on the department and its research.

News Stories & Tip Sheets:

Showing Stories 1 through 3 of 65.  - Show More

Workaholic Single-celled bacterium works 24-7, converting light to energy by day, moonlighting at night April 28, 2008 -- Researchers at Washington University in St. Louis have gained the first detailed insight into the way circadian rhythms govern global gene expression in Cyanothece, a type of cyanobacterium (blue-green algae) known to cycle between photosynthesis during the day and nitrogen fixation at night.

All shook up Midwest now worries about a different fault April 24, 2008 -- Two seismologists at Washington University in St. Louis think the New Madrid Fault may have seen its day and the Wabash Fault is the new kid on the block. "I think everyone's interested in the Wabash Valley Fault because a lot of the attention has been on the New Madrid Fault, but the Wabash Valley Fault could be the more dangerous one, at least for St. Louis and Illinois," said Doug Wiens, professor of earth and planetary sciences in Arts & Sciences. "The strongest earthquakes in the last few years have come from the Wabash Valley Fault, which needs more investigation."

In the mix Research aims to produce energy on the farm April 15, 2008 -- David Kilper/WUSTL Photo Muthanna Al-Dahhan (left) and graduate student Rajneesh Varma are researching effective ways to take agricultural waste and make biofuel out of it. Engineers at Washington University in St. Louis, using an impressive array of imaging and tracking technologies, have determined the importance of mixing in anaerobic digesters for bioenergy production and animal and farm wastes treatment. They are studying ways to take "the smell of money," as farmers long have termed manure's odor, and produce biogas from it.

Showing Stories 1 through 3 of 65.  - Show More

Faculty Experts:

Showing Experts 1 through 5 of 17.  - Show More

James H. Buckley Professor of Physics in Arts & Sciences James Buckley specializes in astrophysical research in high-energy phenomena. His research interests include the origin of cosmic rays, gamma-ray and multiwavelength observations of active galaxies and experimental cosmology. Expertise: Gamma-Ray, Multiwavelength Observations of Active Galaxies, Experimental Cosmology, Dark Matter Search, Origin of Cosmic Rays, Optical Astronomy, Optical Transients from AGNs and GRBs, … Direct contact: 314-935-7607 / buckley@wustl.edu

Alexander Meshik Research professor of physics in Arts & Sciences Meshik is the lead author of a study in the Oct. 19, 2007, issue of Science on the analysis of solar wind noble gases (neon and argon) from NASA's Genesis Mission. Meshik and colleagues will next study the solar wind samples for xenon and krypton. Meshik also analyzed the isotopic structure of noble ... Expertise: Geochemistry, Geochronology, Nuclear Chemistry, Xenon, Krypton, solar wind, noble gases, … Direct contact: 314-935-5049 / am@wustl.edu

John McCarthy Professor of Mathematics John McCarthy's field is a kind of analysis called operator theory, which he defines as the study of matrices in infinite dimensional space. It is most directly linked to quantum mechanics, a physics theory involving elementary particles such as the electron that predicts the outcomes of physical ... Expertise: mathematics, pure mathematics, operator theory, quantum mechanics Direct contact: (314) 935-6753 / mccarthy@wustl.edu

James G. Miller Albert Gordon Hill Professor of Physics in Arts & Sciences Professor Miller's research focuses on the physics of anisotropic, inherently inhomogeneous media. These systematic studies of the anisotropic properties of the heart have led to fundamentally new insights. In 1998 the National Institutes of Health grant supporting this research was awarded MERIT status, ... Expertise: physics of anisotropic, inherently inhomogeneous media, anisotropic properties of the heart, diagnostic images of hearts, echocardiographic imagers Direct contact: (314) 935-6229 / james.g.miller@wustl.edu

John W. Clark Chair and Wayman Crow Professor of Physics in Arts & Sciences John Clark's career is distinguished by a wide-ranging involvement in both traditional and non-traditional branches of theoretical physics. For three decades he has played a leading role in the development and application of flexible and robust methods for quantitative prediction of the properties ... Expertise: quantum control, neural networks, computational neuroscience, dense-matter astrophysics, quantum many-particle theory, theoretical physics, quantum mechanics of many-particle systems, … Direct contact: (314) 935-6208 / jwc@wuphys.wustl.edu

Showing Experts 1 through 5 of 17.  - Show More

Related News Clips:

Showing Clips 1 through 5 of 12.  - Show More

Show More Clips

Insights Into Cell Movement Likely to Aid Immune Study, Cancer Research ScienceDaily.com and 5 others Jan. 9, 2008 -- WUSTL School of Medicine scientists have used yeast cells to better understand a collection of proteins associated with the formation of actin networks, which are essential to cell movement. WUSTL cell biology and physiology Professor and senior study author John Cooper, WUSTL physics professor Anders Carlsson, and Brian Galletta, a postdoctoral scholar in Cooper's lab, comment.

Astronomers sweep space for the sources of cosmic dust Science Magazine online Nov. 1, 2005 -- Article on new observing tools scientists can use to study interstellar dust. Astronomers know that interstellar dust illuminates the erratic deaths of stars, and it traces a direct link from stars to the birth of our solar system — and ultimately, to Earth. WUSTL physicist and cosmochemist Ernst Zinner comments.

E=MC squared at 100 NPR: All Things Considered Oct. 4, 2005 -- WUSTL physicist John Rigden comments on the 100th anniversary of Einstein's famous equation. He is the author of Einstein 1905: The Standard of Greatness.

More Heat Aids Cancer Therapies Associated Press and 44 others Sept. 27, 2005 -- Scientists have long thought that simple heat could increase the effectiveness of some cancer therapies. But just how much to cook the tumor and which cancers are susceptible, have stymied the field. Now, backed by tantalizing new evidence, a growing number of studies are enrolling patients in hopes of finally settling whether it's time to turn up the heat. WUSTL physicist William Straube comments. Like Duke, WUSTL has a major research program on cancer hyperthermia.

New method developed to find exoplanets United Press International, RedNova.com (TX) and 3 others Sept. 8, 2005 -- Astronomers looking for earth-like planets in other solar systems — exoplanets — now have a new field guide thanks to WUSTL earth and planetary scientists Bruce Fegley and Laura Schaefer. The research was presented during this week's annual meeting of the Division of Planetary Sciences of the American Astronomical Society in Cambridge, England.

Compton Laboratory was completed in 1966 and houses the Gustavus A. Pfeiffer Library of Physics, the Laboratory for Ultrasonics, the Laboratory for Materials Physics, and the Laboratory for Space Sciences and the Laboratory for EXperimental AStrophysics, both associated with the McDonnell Center for the Space Sciences in Arts & Sciences, as well as machine shops, seminar rooms, and many research laboratories and offices.

Crow Hall houses the Center for Materials Innovation, the Laboratory for High Pressure Physics, and the Laboratory for Nano and Thin-film Science, as well as many of the facilities for magnetic resonance research, lecture rooms, teaching laboratories and offices.

Special equipment housed in the department includes balloon-borne cosmic ray detectors, a scintillating fiber development laboratory, scanning and transmission electron microscopes, five noble-gas mass spectrometers, a high precision thermal ionization source mass spectrometer, a Fourier-transform infrared spectrometer, a modified CAMECA IMS 3f Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry, a CAMECA NanoSIMS 50, an optical microscope laboratory for nuclear track studies, a variety of laboratory equipment for preparing and observing solid samples, and a variety of computer facilities, including a Silicon Graphics® Altix™ 3000 with 128 Itanium® 2 processors.

In addition, the Power House accommodates the university's Center for Scientific Parallel Computing and the Gravity Research Group.

Areas of active research:

Experimental physics

Condensed Matter and Materials Physics

• Nanostructured materials and nanotechnology
• Non-equilibrium processing of materials
• Superconductivity and magnetism
• Thin-film growth and characterization
• Quasicrystals, metallic glasses and other metastable materials
• Amorphous semiconductors
• Ultrasonics
• Magnetic resonance
• High-pressure physics
• Metal hydrides

Astrophysics and space science

• Cosmic-ray astrophysics
• X-ray and gamma-ray astronomy
• Cosmochronology
• Meteorites and interplanetary dust
• Interstellar grains from primitive materials
• Lunar and planetary science

Physics applications in biology and medicine

• Magnetic resonance imaging using hyperpolarized gas
• Tissue characterization via ultrasound
• Computer-assisted image processing
• Experimental neural networks
• Biophysics of computation in brains
• Mechanical response of biomembranes and artificial tissue

Nuclear physics

• Heavy ion nuclear reactions

Theoretical physics

Elementary particles

• Mathematical physics and quantum field theory
• Lattice gauge theory
• Perturbative and nonperturbative techniques

Solid state and condensed matter

• Quasi-crystals and amorphous materials
• Defect structures and properties
• Crack propagation

Many-body theory

• Nuclear matter and quantum fluids
• Correlations in nuclei

Gravitation and astrophysics

• Physics of neutron stars and black holes
• Numerical general relativity
• Gravitational radiation
• Tests of general relativity

Biophysics

• Polymerization of actin fibers in cells
• Neural networks
• Quantum Control Theory
• Complex Systems