Events

Curious about how the universe actually works? Join the experts from UBC's Department of Physics & Astronomy to find out fun facts about everything from eclipses to space junk in this new, accessible science series. All are welcome!

For over 50 years, the two-level system (TLS) model has stood as the prevailing description of thermal and acoustic properties of amorphous solids. Atomistic modeling shows that TLS are not independent as typically assumed, but form a sparse, interconnected network. I will discuss the mechanical loss in amorphous solids based on the nonequilibrium thermodynamics of connected networks, providing a major advance beyond the quintessential two-level system model, and revealing new avenues for the study amorphous materials.

As quantum computing hardware continues to improve, so must the tools we use to write quantum algorithms. There is a growing need for more expressive quantum programming languages that enable developers to write code at higher levels of abstraction than quantum circuits. This, in turn, necessitates robust and automated compilers that can generate optimized sequences of quantum operations in a scalable way. Such compilers are especially important for algorithms with many interdependent classical and quantum subroutines, such as Shor's factoring algorithm.

The Outer Space Institute's upcoming John S. MacDonald Outer Space Lecture will be on January 22, 2025 at the Frederic Wood Theatre on UBC campus from 4:30-6:00 pm.

The talk will feature Marc Garneau, Canadian astronaut and former Minister of Foreign Affairs and Dumitru Dorin Prunariu, Romanian cosmonaut and former Chairman of the UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space!

Admission is FREE! Space is limited however so we ask that people register ahead of time.

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ASTROPHYSICS OVER TIME 
Speakers: William H. McCutcheon, Professor Emeritus, Physics and Astronomy; Jess McIver, Associate Professor, Physics and Astronomy; and Pedro Villalba González, PhD Candidate, Physics and Astronomy, and Green College Resident Member.
Location: Coach House, Green College, UBC 
Date/Time: Thursday, January 16, 5-6:30 pm, with reception to follow 
 

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We welcome you to our weekly PHAS THURSDAY Tea!

Term 2 has delivered a new schedule for our friendly neighbourhood tea event: join us Thursdays from 3-4pm in the atrium outside of HENN 200. For those interested, we invite you to follow up with our weekly Department colloquia in HENN 201 from 4-5pm.

We welcome all students, staff and faculty to meet new-to-you colleagues, catch up with your physics community and to learn about current happenings in the PHAS Department. 

Meet your hosts from the EDI Community Building Working Group:

Trained as a condensed-matter theorist at UBC under Mona Berciu, over the past five years I have become increasingly involved in education research and practice. In fact, I've become quite an active leader in developing and promoting Meaningful Learning towards Advanced Knowledge Generators for Cultivating Creators (ML4C). In this talk, I will share the key ideas and concepts of ML4C, which are summarized in the next paragraph.

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The TRIUMF Ultracold Advanced Neutron (TUCAN) Collaboration is developing a new measurement of the neutron electric dipole moment (nEDM) with the goal of improving the current best limit of dn < 1.8E-26 ecm (90% C.L.) to the level of dn < 2E-27 ecm (90% C.L.). A non-zero nEDM requires the violation of charge-parity (CP) symmetry, and so the measurement of the nEDM can shed light on unanswered questions of fundamental physics such as baryon asymmetry, the strong CP problem, and extensions of the Standard Model such as supersymmetry.

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Over a decade of research has suggested that some metallic compounds can be transformed into superconductors by illuminating them with intense beams of laser light. Recently, we have shown that the experimental evidence for this effect could literally be an optical illusion produced by the high-intensity laser illumination. By examining several influential results on photoinduced superconductivity in K3C60, we have identified a fundamental flaw in their analysis that exaggerates the apparent photoinduced changes to the conductivity.

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