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Topical Group on Few-Body Systems Newsletter, March 2009 |
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Special contribution by Frank S. Levin, founder and first Chair of GFB:
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Greetings to all members of the Few-Body Topical Group (GFB) and best wishes for the coming year. This is the 25-th year of the few-body topical group. It was originally founded by Professor Frank Levin of Brown University and for the past 25 years it has served as a forum for scientists working on few-body problems in different disciplines to share research contributions of common interest. Our governance, which includes officers from the atomic physics, chemical physics, and nuclear physics communities reflects the interdisciplinary nature of the GFB membership. Today the few-body topical group has members from all over the world. During this period the effort invested by many physicists on the two and three-nucleon problem has transformed low-energy nuclear physics into a quantitative science: not only for two and three-nucleon systems, but for systems of as many 40 nucleons. Recent advances have made it possible to extend this quantitative understanding to even larger systems and much higher energy scales. Thanks to conceptual, computational and experimental advances, a frontier of nuclear science today is the prediction of the properties of light nuclei from interactions rooted in QCD. Effective field theory treatments of few-nucleon systems have provided new insight into the relation between the two and three-body interactions. The problem of treating reactions with three charged particles, which was a topic of discussion for many years in the few-body community, has now been solved. Meanwhile, breakthroughs are leading to extraordinary developments in the physics of dilute atomic systems. The Efimov effect, which is an exotic property of three-body systems with zero-energy two-body bound states, has now been observed experimentally due to impressive advances in experimental few-body physics. See Brett Esry, Doerte Blume and Ravi Rau's article in our 25-th anniversary newsletter for more discussion of some of these exciting topics. Several of these advances are a direct result of the synergy between different areas of few-body physics; one example is J-matrix methods, which were developed for problems in quantum chemistry and are now being used in precision nuclear structure calculations.
Today few-body physics is the topic of a number of regular international
conferences, which include the international IUPAP conferences on
few-body
problems in physics, the Asia-Pacific conferences on few-body problems
in physics, and the European conferences on few-body physics. In 2009,
few-body physics will be featured at two upcoming INT programs
as well as an ECT* workshop. The details are listed under
Other Meetings
in this newsletter.
We are proud that in these 25 years many of our members have been elevated to
APS Fellows. This year we are pleased to congratulate Daniel Phillips and
Bela Sulik, who are recognized as APS Fellows this year.
Membership Drive
GFB is active in promoting its current members and in increasing its
membership. The group offers many benefits, some of which are described in this
newsletter.
We ask all our members to identify potential new members and encourage them to
join GFB. Please encourage in particular your graduate students, especially
those who are already signing up for APS, to choose GFB as one of their units.
(Students can sign up for two free units, which remain free even past the first
year.) It is easy to add a Topical Group to your membership:
As part of this membership drive, GFB will be handing out forms for a one-year
free membership during the APS April Meeting. If you know of anyone who is not
attending the meeting but might be interested in this opportunity, please
contact me for more information.
The GFB Nominating Committee (Bill Reinhardt, Doerte Blume, Bill McCurdy and Jim Vary)
are hard at work preparing a list of candidates running for Vice-Chair and the Executive
Committee. You will receive the ballots later this months and I urge you to cast your
vote.
Wayne Polyzou Chair, GFB
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A major benefit to the members of the topical group is that they can be nominated through GFB to become Fellows of the APS. The number of nominations depends crucially on our total membership. We had two new Fellows last year (see below). Please consider nominating colleagues worthy of this distinction. Current APS members (and their affiliations) can be found on the APS Membership website, while Fellows are listed on the Fellowship website . Members from under-represented groups should not be forgotten. Note also that if we nominate distinguished members from foreign institutions we might be able to promote more members using leverage of co-sponsorship with the Forum for International Physics (FIP).
Information regarding the nomination procedure is available at the APS
Fellowship website. The DEADLINE for nominations through GFB is April 1st.
Please make sure that the full package has been submitted to the APS website
before this date.
Information regarding the nomination procedure and the necessary forms
can be easily obtained through the APS Fellowship website.
(
www.aps.org/programs/honors/).
The deadline for nominations
for our Topical Group is this year April 1. Please make sure the full
package has been submitted to the APS before this date.
This year's Fellowship Committee consists of Ricardo Alarcon, Brett Esry, and
Bira van Kolck (chair).
If you have any questions, please feel free to contact
Bira van Kolck
CONGRATULATIONS TO OUR NEW FELLOWS
Congratulations to Daniel Phillips, and Bela Sulik,
who were
elected to Fellowship in the APS under the auspices of the GFB last year.
Daniel Phillips' fellowship citation reads
Bela Sulik was cited |
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Every year GFB sponsors sessions at APS meetings, which highlight work by, and of particular interest to, its members. GFB will have two sessions at the 2009 APS April meeting , which will be held in Denver, May 2-5. These sessions are co-sponsored with the Division of Nuclear Physics (DNP) and organized by A.R.P. Rau and Z.-E. Meziani:
Please also plan to attend the GFB business meeting, which will be held on Sunday, May 3, 12:30 following session J13 - Few-Body Physics III in room Plaza Court 3. |
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The 19th International IUPAP Conference on Few-Body Problems in
Physics FB19 is intended to bring together scientists interested in few-body aspects of physics, emphasizing recent developments in nuclear, particle, atomic, and molecular physics. Further information can be obtained at the official website for FB19 . In 2009, few-body physics will be featured at two upcoming INT programs
as well as an ECT* workshop
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There is not currently a Gordon Conference on Few Body Problems. However, there are Gordon Conferences on Atomic Physics, Nuclear Physics, and Nuclear Chemistry that may be of interest to some of our membership.
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Hossein Sadeghpour Biography
B.S. Mech. Engr. LSU 1981, M.S. Mech. Engr. LSU 1983, Ph.D. Physics LSU (thesis
research at JILA) 1990. DOE Postdoc, Harvard 1990-1994. Staff member at
Institute for
Theoretical Atomic Molecular and Optical Physics (ITAMP) - Harvard-Smithsonian
Center
for Astrophysics 1994-present. Physicist, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for
Astrophysics, 1994-present. DAMOP Outstanding Ph.D. Thesis finalist, 1993.
Fellow,
American physical Society, 2005. Committee member and chair, DAMOP/APS Prize
Committee on Most Outstanding Thesis, 1998-1999. ICAP2002 Program Committee and
Proceedings Editor. Organizer of several other conferences in the US, Japan,
and
Germany.
My interests in research are: in control of cold and ultracold collisions of
few
bodies (atoms and molecules), leading to spin relaxation and quenching, and
collisional recombination; in recombination of a few charged particles (Rydberg
atom
formation) in sea of many-body ultracold neutral plasma or highly-magnetized
cold
non-neutral antimatter plasma; in cooling and trapping of magnetized Rydberg
atoms
and molecules; in photo-detachment processes for catalysis of the early
Universe
molecule formation; in atomic recombination which determine the neutralization
of the
early Universe (epoch of recombination); in interaction of atoms (cluster
formation),
molecules (encapsulation), and electrons (confined quantized motion) with nano
systems, such as graphitic sheets and nanotubes/nanowires. Some of the above
topics
require first-principles few-electron structure calculations of potential
energy
surfaces, transition matrix elements, mean-field treatment, and coupled-channel
scattering calculations.
Candidate's Statement
Few-body physics is a well-established discipline in atomic, molecular, and
nuclear
physics, which now finds applications in modeling of soft condensed-matter
strongly-correlated systems. It may now be possible to, for instance, formulate
a
basic understanding of the cross-over from the superfluidity to
superconductivity
(BEC-BCS) using a few atoms (as few as four fermionic atoms)- two fermions pair
up to
create a boson. Emulating the intractable correlated electron interactions in
solids,
using atoms in an optical lattice, is a growth industry, from which few-body
physics
would benefit, as well as contribute in a significant fashion. Much of this
emulation
is done by tweaking two-body, three-body and four-body interactions. This order
of
business in indeed inter-disciplinary.
Biography
Turgay Uzer works in the School of Physics at the Georgia Institute of
Technology, where
he holds the rank of Regents Professor.
He is also a member of Georgia Tech's Center for
Nonlinear Science.
He did postdoctoral research at Caltech and University of Colorado in
Boulder after receiving a doctorate from Harvard University. His research
interests are
semiclassics, electron dynamics in the Correspondence Principle limit, the
dynamics of
classically chaotic systems (especially Rydberg atoms and molecules), energy
flow in atoms
and molecules, Transition State Theory, and high-field phenomena.
He was elected fellow of
the APS in 1999 and is the recipient of a Humboldt Research Prize. He
co-organized an
ITAMP workshop on Strong Perturbations of Atomic and Molecular Rydberg States,
a NATO ASI
on the Frontiers of Chemical Dynamics and an ITAMP Topical Group on Theoretical
Challenges
in Attosecond Laser Science.
Candidate's Statement
The highly interdisciplinary nature of my research has always forced me to
remain aware of
developments in disciplines bordering on physics, which can be as diverse as
chemistry,
nonlinear dynamics and astronomy. I see the Few-Body Systems Group as a unique
collection
of like-minded researchers who share my wide interests. I have learned
first-hand how much
one benefit from interacting with practitioners from other fields, and I would
like
contribute to greater interactions among the members of the GFB through the
organization
of cross-disciplinary meetings which will foster such intellectual exchanges.
Michael Bromley
Biography
Michael Bromley is currently an Assistant Professor of Physics at San Diego
State
University. His research interests lie amongst computational atomic, molecular
and
optical physics. In particular, the bound and scattering states of three and
four
body systems composed of a positron and a multi-electron atom. His
calculations
extend out to neutral atom-atom dispersion interactions and long-range
molecules.
His group also researches many-body systems of Bose-Einstein condensates with
applications to atom interferometry and their interactions with laser fields.
Michael obtained a B.Sc. from the Northern Territory University in 1995 and a
B.Sc.(Honours) from The University of Melbourne in 1997 (supervisor: Ann
Roberts).
He obtained his Ph.D. back at NTU in 2003 (supervisor: Jim Mitroy), and was
awarded
the 2003 Australian Institute of Physics Bragg Gold Medal for Excellence in
Physics.
He was a Research Associate at Kansas State University between 2002-2004
(supervisor:
Brett Esry), and a Research Fellow at the Charles Darwin University in
2004-2005
(supervisor: Jim Mitroy). He was awarded the first Sheldon Datz Prize from
ICPEAC in
2005, before joining the physics faculty at SDSU in 2005. He has formed an
international partnership with the (Australian-based) Centre for
Antimatter-Matter Studies.
Candidate's Statement
The APS's GFB has a strong role to play in binding together the disparate
fields of
few-body physics. Whilst the state-of-the-art in one sub-field is often a
decade
behind what is possible in others for purely technical reasons, the insights
gained
in each are immediately transferable. Whilst my interest and expertise is in
atomic
physics, I try to keep an eye on the latest developments and computational
methods
that are evolving throughout condensed matter, chemical and nuclear physics.
As an
executive member I would strive to further build this topical group to involve
researchers from all of the experimental and theoretical few-body
walks-of-life.
Mette Gaarde
Biography
Mette Gaarde is an Associate Professor of Physics at Louisiana State
University. She
received her PhD in 1997 from Copenhagen University in Denmark, and worked as a
postdoctoral researcher at the University of Lund in Sweden (1998) and at
Louisiana
State University (2000). She was a Research Assistant Professor at the
University of
Lund between 1999 and 2003, when she joined the Faculty at Louisiana State
University.
In 2008 she was Vice-Chair, and in 2010 will be Chair of the Gordon
Research Conference on Multiphoton Processes.
She is interested in the interaction between small quantum systems (atoms and
molecules) and strong laser fields, in particular in the generation and
application
of attosecond pulses of extreme ultraviolet light.
Candidate's Statement
My research program is centered around theoretically studying the interaction
between
an intense ultra short laser pulse and a macroscopic number of atoms in a gas.
I am particularly interested in the interplay between the few-body physics that
takes place at the level of an individual atom interacting with the strong laser
field, and
the macroscopic effects arising from the propagation and phase matching of the
laser and XUV light in the gas medium. My research lies at the interface between
atomic physics, non-linear optics and laser physics, and I have benefitted enormously
from close collaborations with both experimentalists and other theorists across all
of these fields.
I believe the Topical Group on Few-Body Systems and Multiparticle
Dynamics is an ideal forum for interdisciplinary exchange of ideas between AMO
and chemical and nuclear physics. As an executive committee member I would strive
to promote opportunities for interdisciplinary exchanges through conferences,
workshops and increased membership.
Viatcheslav Kokoouline
Biography
iatcheslav Kokoouline earned his Ph. D in Physics from the University or
Paris XI, Orsay, France in 1999 in a framework of a joint French-Russian Ph.D
program. His research of theoretical methods for ultra-cold molecules was
jointly supervised by Francoise Masnou-Seeuws from University or Paris XI
and Valentin Ostrovsky from the Institute of Physics, University of
St-Petersburg, Russia. During his postdoctoral stay (1999-2000) in the Fritz
Haber Center for Molecular Dynamics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, he
was continuing studying the ultra-cold molecules in the theoretical group of
Ronnie Kosloff. During his stay (2000-2003) at JILA as a postdoctoral
associate in Chris Greene's group, he studied the breakup of the H3+ ion in
collisions with slow electrons (dissociative recombination of H3+ ), which a
quantum four body problem (3 protons and the incident electron). He also
studied ultra-cold binary atomic collisions in a presence of an external
field.
He has been an Assistant Professor in Physics at the University of
Central Florida since 2003, and will be an Associate Professor starting in
August 2009.
Candidate's Statement
My research interests lie at the interface of chemical physics, atomic and
molecular physics. In particular, I'm interested in development of
theoretical and accurate computational methods for few-body processes in
ultra-cold gases (including processes in Bose-Einstein condensates and
degenerate Fermi gases), simple chemical reactions at thermal energies,
dissociative recombination of small polyatomic ions. My theoretical research
activity has always been closely linked to the existing experiments. I
collaborate with a number of experimentalists in different labs. I'm also
interested to apply the developed methods and fundamental principles from
theoretical atomic/molecular physics to problems having a practical interest.
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