Physics

The High Energy Physics Advisory Panel is soliciting nominations of scientists to serve on the next Particle Physics Project Prioritization Panel (P5).

The panel is tasked with recommending a long-term strategic roadmap for the Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation under different budget scenarios for particle physics. [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected]). The High Energy Physics Advisory Panel is soliciting nominations of scientists to serve on the next Particle Physics Project Prioritization Panel (P5).

You are invited to our next Physics & Astronomy Colloquium on Tuesday, August 30, 2022 from 12:10 to 1 pm in CNS 206/208.

When ions penetrate a material, highly complex processes take place - so fast that they could hardly be analyzed until now. But sophisticated measurements ...

In both cases, however, the distribution of electrons in the material in turn influences the electrons that have already been released from the material - and for this reason, if they are carefully detected, these emitted electrons provide information about the temporal structure of the impact. Only fast electrons can leave the material, slower electrons turn around, are recaptured, and do not end up in the electron detector. A careful analysis of the electrons that are emitted in the process was crucial: They can be used to reconstruct the temporal sequence of the processes - in a way, the measurement becomes an "electron slow-motion". "We were able to measure the number and energy of these electrons very precisely, compare the results with theoretical calculations contributed by our co-authors from Kiel University, and this allowed us to unravel what happens on a femtosecond scale." Xenon atoms, which have 54 electrons in their neutral state, are stripped of 20 to 40 electrons, and the strongly positively charged xenon ions that remain are then directed onto a thin layer of material. The result of an ion impact on a material is easy to study retrospectively.

It was in the winter of 1984 when a young physicist named Vasudev “Nitant” Kenkre wandered onto the campus at The University of New Mexico.

The latest among those books, on Interplay of Quantum Mechanics with Nonlinearity, dedicated by Kenkre to his undergraduate classmates and teachers, was selected for a special write-up in Nature Portfolio Community. He has also authored two philosophical books on Hinduism and a book on his poems and has signed a contract with Springer Nature to publish yet another physics book, on the Smoluchowski equation. "The Consortium of the Americas was a truly extraordinary visionary effort that made a tremendous difference in a new world that brought together scientists from this hemisphere, from this entire hemisphere, for interdisciplinary work. student and University of Missouri Distinguished Professor Paul Parris in the Festschrift. “They worked in an exciting intellectual atmosphere as they shared their knowledge and activities in workshops (more than 50 of them over the lifetime of the center) arranged or supported by the Consortium as well as in daily exchanges,” said Kenkre. “The recognition by your peers is very nice because you feel good that they have appreciated your work and have thought that it is important enough to honor you in this way, but much more touching is the participation of the students and what the students have said,” Kenkre said. Now, he is being honored and recognized by colleagues in several circles for his distinguished career as a statistical physicist, teacher, educator, and a magnet for his many accomplishments throughout the decades with a Festschrift, a collection of research articles and stories spawned by his work from some 50 scientists including former students and collaborators in his field from all over the world. Katja Lindenberg from UC San Diego, Distinguished Professor and Chancellor’s Endowed Chair – "A teacher among teachers,' Professor Kenkre is just about the very best educator of graduate and young postgraduate students that I have run across in all my years in this profession. My career at UNM was accordingly based on building bridges of physics with two quite different subjects: engineering (materials science) on the one hand and biology (more recently ecology as in the spread of epidemics) on the other.” He moved to the University of Rochester the following year and spent the next 12 years as an assistant and associate professor before moving to the high desert. Since then, Kenkre, who has been described as a physicist, humanist, humorist, magician, philosopher, scholar, writer, and more, has made an indelible mark in the world of interdisciplinary science not only at UNM but worldwide. “I wanted to be a poet, at least a writer in general, dabbling in languages and literature, nothing like a physicist.”