Presentations from Physics Graduate Students
When
Where
Welcome to Department of Physics "Physics Meet Yourself I", Graduate Students
Presenters:
Mark Vincent Guevarra
QCD Axion as a Warm Inflaton - Minimal Warm Inflation
We discuss a modification of inflationary theory, Minimal Warm Inflation, in the context of a modified Higgs sector leading to heavy quarks and the QCD axion serving as an inflaton candidate as a proof of concept. We present a toy model in which this concept is realized, and discuss the relevant parameter spaces. It was found that the toy model's parameter space offers the possibility of probing the QCD axion with beam dumps.
Yazhini Pottramarai Shanmugavadivel
Radiative M1 transitions of low-lying charmed mesons
For this project, we studied radiative M1 transitions of low-lying mesons consisting of charm quarks in effective mass scheme. We considered the contributions to quark mass through one-gluon exchange interaction between quark and antiquark inside a meson as effective quark mass. We utilized the latest experimental information to employ a parameter-independent method to determine masses and strong hyperfine interaction terms. Consquently, magnetic moment and radiative M1 transition moments involving pseudoscalar and vector mesons were computed. We also included flavor symmetry breaking effects through the constituent quark masses and interaction terms to make reliable predictions of radiative M1 decay widths.
Yu-Chia
Impact of Inner Working Angle Dust on Habitable Exoplanet Detectability
Scattered light from exozodiacal dust within the coronagraph's Inner Working Angle (IWA) significantly impacts the detectability of habitable exoplanets. Using radiative transfer modeling, this study demonstrates that neglecting this dust contribution can underestimate background noise by a factor of two or more. These findings highlight the need to account for IWA dust when designing and interpreting future direct imaging missions.
Edoardo Fiesoli
Axion Wormholes in gauged Supergravities and their String Theory Uplift
I will treat transversable wormholes geometry and one way it is retrieved in a standard manner with axions and dilations in a 4D space-time. I will then very briefly discuss dimensional compactification. I will introduce some possible high energy derivations of the needed supergravity model that I personally found during my research.
Tyler Krasnigor
Efficient Generation of Sparse Random Networks
Existing random network generation algorithms typically iterate through every node pair placing edges at random, running with O(N^2) complexity. This process can be made more efficient by iterating through chunks of node pairs, generating instead a typical number of node pairs that do not form edges, which allows generation algorithms to scale linearly with the number of nodes in sparse networks. This research extends this existing method to additional random network
models, namely the Norros-Reittu model, and shows that this iteration through chunks of nodes scales linearly with the number of nodes in sparse networks for arbitrary network models.
Shelbi Foster
Standard Model Particles in the Early Universe
I studied Standard Model particles at temperatures 130 GeV>T>0.25 GeV. I investigated the free energy and scalar density of heavy particles top, W, and Z. Finally, I created a simple model for the Higgs potential as a function of the Higgs field, correcting for the thermal background of heavy particles.
Anand Hari Natarajan
Design and fabrication of SAW pressure sensors for harsh environments
The project involved the design and fabrication of high-temperature Surface Acoustic Wave (SAW) pressure sensors using platinum-on-chromium (Pt/Cr) electrodes and piezoelectric scandium-doped aluminum nitride (ScAlN). The work included an extensive literature review of SAW sensor designs, photolithography mask layout design, iterative process development, and device fabrication on silicon wafers. Finally, RF characterization was conducted, and challenges in photolithography affecting yield were analyzed.
Nikolaos Giannopoulos
Black hole quasinormal modes in 2+1 dimensions
Black holes have characteristic oscillation modes, called quasinormal modes, that play a role in processes that produce gravitational waves such as gravitational collapse and black hole
collisions. The Bañados, Teitelboim, Zanelli (BTZ) black hole is a simple 2+1 dimensional model, which possesses non trivial properties resembling those of its 4 dimensional counterparts. In this talk we will explore the quasinormal frequencies of scalar and electromagnetic fields in a BTZ black hole background.
Zoom link: https://arizona.zoom.us/j/89159248314