and 
Abstract: The ability to measure what students are learning (or not) is a crucial component of crafting effective learning environments. In particular, low-stakes, standardized diagnostic assessments can provide a valuable tool for tracking student learning over time and between instructional approaches to identify effective strategies that improve students' understanding of core physics content.
Abstract: Galaxies are intimately connected to the environments they live in. The haloes around them contain the gas reservoir from which the galaxies grow, while galactic outflows heat and enrich this circumgalactic medium (CGM). The elemental abundances of present-day stars are, in part, set by these cosmic gas flows. Using zoom-in cosmological simulations of galaxies, I will discuss the physical and observable properties of gas and stars in and around galaxies.
Abstract: Atomically thin van der Waals crystals like graphene and transition metal dichalcogenides allow for the creation of arbitrary, atomically precise heterostructures simply by stacking disparate monolayers without the constraints of covalent bonding or epitaxy. While these are commonly described as nanoscale LEGO blocks, many intriguing phenomena have been discovered in the recent past that go beyond this simple analogy.
When can isolated many body quantum systems fail to go to equilibrium under their own dynamics, and how robust can this 'ergodicity breaking’ be? This question has been a central theme of research in quantum dynamics and statistical mechanics over the past decade, and I will share with you some highlights, focusing on three key developments: many body localization, dynamics with multipolar symmetries, and dynamics with higher form symmetries. I will present the rich and exotic phenomena that arise in these three regimes, and how they may be realized experimentally.
Abstract: Polydopamine (PDA) is a widely employed anchoring layer across various applications. Despite its straightforward preparation, PDA's utility is restricted due to its notable chemical and topological variability. Understanding the formation process and physicochemical characteristics of the formed confluent layers, as well as the present adherent nanoaggregates [1 – 3], on a nanoscale level is essential for expanding the applications of PDA.
In the last decade, quantum gas microscopy has emerged as a powerful technique to probe and
manipulate quantum many-body systems at the single-atom level. So far, however, it has only been used for the study of lattice and spin chain physics, prominently to explore the Hubbard model and its generalizations. In this talk, I will present our recent efforts to extend quantum gas microscopy to the study of fermionic many-body systems in continuous space and characterize them at previously inaccessible levels of resolution and control.
Abstract: ‘Experiments whose data are processed using a computational model are often plagued by unc
Abstract: Laser-based measurement and control of atomic and molecular states form the foundation of modern quantum technology and provide deep insights to fundamental physics. The recent breakthrough of quantum-state-resolved thorium-229 nuclear laser spectroscopy marks the beginning of precision metrology for nuclear transitions. Using a state-of-the-art frequency comb in the vacuum-ultraviolet, we coherently excite the thorium nuclear clock transition and link its frequency directly to today’s most precise atomic clock based on strontium-87.
Abstract: Photosystems are protein complexes located in the thylakoid membranes of plants and other organisms and are the sites of the fundamental first steps of photosynthesis. In particular, Photosystem II (PSII) absorbs solar energy to catalyze the oxidation of water, generating oxygen as a byproduct. The photocatalytic reaction in PSII also initiates an electron transport chain and proton gradient, that results in the production of NADPH and ATP molecules.
In this work, we develop theoretical tools to explore
quantum correlations within the AdS/CFT framework. We examine the
holographic realization of optimized correlation measures in two-dimensional
thermal states corresponding to spacetimes with black hole horizons, enhancing
our understanding of how geometry encodes entanglement in AdS/CFT. We
further introduce cutoff-independent regularization techniques to compute these
entropies - addressing divergences due to infinite volume near the AdS
In this talk, I will describe my work on
Our group studies chemical reactions of ultracold Rb atoms in a state-to-state
resolved fashion, where we prepare reactants in well defined quantum states and
measure the quantum states of the molecular products. In particular, we focus on
three-body recombination where three atoms collide, forming a diatomic molecule.
The third atom carries away part of the binding energy. We are currently
investigating methods to gain control over this chemical reaction. By making use of