Past Events

Oct

23

Event

Physics Colloquium: “Phases: Geometric, topological and localized” Presented by Dr. Rahul Roy - UCLA

Location:

Lewis Lab, 316

October 23, 2025, 4:25 - 5:25pm

What makes one phase of matter different from another? For much of physics, the answer has been guided by symmetry and its breaking. Yet we now know that this is only part of the story. Topological phases of matter defy this framework: they can have no local order parameter and yet…

Oct

16

Event

Physics Colloquium: “Exploring order and disorder in quantum and classical networks” Presented by Dr. Bryce Gadway - Penn State

Location:

Lewis Lab 316

October 16, 2025, 4:25 - 5:25pm

Interactions can lead to ordering and synchronization in a range of physical systems, from the flocking of birds to the alignment of spin domains in magnets. Understanding the mechanisms for stabilizing or destabilizing synchronization and ordering is important in the classical world,…

Oct

9

Event

Physics Colloquium: "Quantum geometry beyond single flat bands and Euler exact projected entangled pair ground states" Presented by Dr. Robert Jan-Slager - Cambridge

Location:

Lewis Lab, 316

October 9, 2025, 4:25 - 5:25pm

The past few years have seen a revived interest in quantum geometrical characterizations. Although the metric tensor has been connected to many geometrical concepts for single bands, the exploration of these concepts to a multi-band paradigm still promises a new field of interest. I…

Oct

2

Event

Physics Colloquium: "Back to fundamental QCD - a tale of quarks and gluons!" Presented by Dr. Rithya Kunnawalkam Elayavalli - Vanderbilt University

Location:

Lewis Lab, 316

October 2, 2025, 4:25 - 5:25pm

Collider experiments have proven themselves immensely useful in studying the behavior of fundamental particles such as quarks and gluons. The last few years in particular have seen a push towards an exploration of QCD, the theory of strong interactions, that has hitherto been…

Sep

25

Event

Physics Colloquium: "Two-channel Kondo Physics: from intrinsic criticality to unconventional orders" Presented by Dr. Rebecca Flint - Iowa State

Location:

Lewis Lab, 316

September 25, 2025, 4:25 - 5:25pm

The interactions between local moments and itinerant electrons gives rise to a rich array of ``Kondo'' physics, from heavy Fermi liquids to unconventional superconductivity and quantum criticality.  Here, I'll introduce the even richer two-channel Kondo physics, where two…

Sep

18

Event

Physics Colloquium: “Large Quantum Gravity Effects” Presented by Dr. Finn Larsen - University of Michigan

Location:

Lewis Lab, 316

September 18, 2025, 4:25 - 5:25pm

It is common lore that quantum theory and gravity are somehow incompatible, and quantum gravity effects would anyway be so small that the subject is moot. This colloquium describes the theoretical status of quantum gravity, drawing on analogies with condensed matter physics and…

Sep

11

Lecture

Physics Colloquium: "Quantum Computing Optimization: QUBO reformulations of combinatorial problems" Presented by Dr. Luis Zuluaga - Lehigh Engineering

Location:

Lewis Lab 316

September 11, 2025, 4:25 - 5:25pm

Quantum computing (QC) harnesses the properties of subatomic particles to perform computations in a fundamentally different way than classical computing. QC has the potential to make a revolutionary impact on the way we model, and subsequently solve real-world optimization problems…

Sep

4

Event

Physics Colloquium: "Physics for Deep Learning: Towards a Theoretical Foundation" Presented by Dr. Yuhai Tu - Flatiron Institute

Location:

Lewis Lab, 316

September 4, 2025, 4:25 - 5:25pm

Artificial Neural Network (ANN) and Machine Learning (ML) have received a huge amount of attention amongphysicists triggered by the 2024 Nobel Physics Prize to John Hopfield and Geoff Hinton. Historically, ANN-based ML wasdeveloped based on ideas from neuroscience and statistical…

Aug

28

Event

Physics Colloquium: "Making ordered phases of matter at arbitrarily high temperature" Presented by Dr. Andrew Lucas - University of Colorado, Boulder

Location:

Lewis Lab, 316

August 28, 2025, 4:25 - 5:25pm

Usually in statistical physics, high temperature phases are disordered and featureless while low temperature phases are ordered.  For example, solid ice becomes liquid water upon heating; the solid is an ordered phase that spontaneously breaks translational and rotational…

May

1

Event

Physics Colloquium: "Fermions in an Optical Box" Presented by Dr. Nir Novan - Yale University

Location:

LL 316

May 1, 2025, 4:25 - 5:25pm

For the past two decades harmonically trapped ultracold atomic gases have been used with great success to study fundamental many-body physics in flexible experimental settings. However, the resulting gas density inhomogeneity in those traps has made it challenging to study…

Apr

24

Event

Physics Colloquium: "Cellular protrusion generation and length scale depend on curvature cues and actin network balances" Presented by Dr. Michael Henderson - Bowdoin College

Location:

LL 316

April 24, 2025, 4:25 - 5:25pm

Some of the most noticeable changes in the shape of a cell membrane are the formation of finger-like protrusions such as short filopodia (typically <5 μm long) that assist in environmental sensing and cell migration or tunneling nanotubes (TNTs) that connect cells up to 100 μm away…

Apr

17

Event

Physics Colloquium: "Exploring Intrinsic Disorder at the Protein-Lipid Interface" Presented by Dr. Wade Zeno - University of Southern California

Location:

LL 316

April 17, 2025, 4:25 - 5:25pm

Cellular membranes are critical interfaces for the biochemical interactions that regulate cell behavior and function. Composed of heterogeneous mixtures of lipids and proteins, these membranes create complex environments where protein-lipid interactions are functionally coupled,…