PHYS 495B: Seminar on Current Problems in Physics (Winter quarter, 2018)
Instructor: < 1/18/18 Boris Spivak B440 OH:
Instructor: > 1/18/18 Silas Beane B457 OH: T Th 2-4pm
Course Structure
This course involves supervised, independent study of a topic ---chosen by you--- of current interest in physics.
The aim of this course is to provide you with an opportunity to learn about your chosen topic and at the same time
gain experience in doing literature research, preparing a scientific presentation, and writing a scientific article.
My role as instructor will be to help you choose an appropriate topic, help answer questions that come up as you
research this topic, and provide feedback on the drafts of your paper and on your presentation.
You are expected to select a research topic in experimental, observational or theoretical physics (see below for
sample topics) and submit a short (less than half a page) abstract through Canvas by 10 January. After your
abstract has been approved by the instructor, you will do literature research on your topic. You will give one
in-class oral presentation. Oral presentations should be created on the computer (e.g. using keynote, powerpoint
or something of comparable quality). They will be 30 minutes long, with five minutes for discussion. You will
prepare a research paper by the end of the quarter on your chosen topic. The report can address a number of
issues about the topic or focus more specifically on a particular question or experiment. You should provide a
draft of your paper via Canvas by 20 February. You will receive comments on your initial draft and then your
revised version will be reread and graded. The paper should be submitted as a PDF file using Canvas. It should
be "scientific" in style, with an abstract, an introduction, the body, and then a conclusion and references. The
references should consist of journal articles and possibly a few books; no websites please. The final paper will
be due by 6 March. Late submissions will not be accepted. You are expected to participate in class
discussions, and hence you will have to attend the class. Note that there will be no class on 17 January. Please
use that week to prepare your presentation in case you are selected to present the next week!
Course Grade
Your course grade will be based on 3 criteria:
10% participation in class discussions,
45% on your oral presentation,
45% on your final paper.
There is no final exam. Normalization: 75% corresponds to a grade of 3.5. A grade of 0.0 will
be given to anyone who does not complete both their paper AND their presentation.
Sample Presentation Topics
Relativistic heavy-ion collisions, Controlled nuclear fusion, Equation of state of neutron stars,
Structure of the proton, Modern theory of nuclear forces, Hypernuclear physics, Quark mass
dependence of nuclear forces, The QCD phase diagram, Parton distribution functions, Superfluidity,
Superconductivity, Topological superconductors, Quantum Hall effect, Graphene, Spin control of
nitrogen vacancy centers in diamond, Topological insulators, Cold atoms, Efimov effect, Unitary
Fermi gas, Bose-Einstein condensation, Atomic physics in two spatial dimensions, Feschbach
resonances, Discovery of the Higgs boson, Measurements of the fine structure constant, Experimental
status of supersymmetry, Survey of recent neutrino experiments, Survey of the Standard Model, Tests
of parity and time-reversal invariance, Measuring the anomalous magnetic moment of the muon, Status
of searches for physics beyond the Standard Model, Status of string theory, Biophysics of DNA sequencing,
Quantum computing, Entangled quantum systems, Bell’s theorem, Entanglement entropy, Gravitational
waves and LIGO, Large scale structure of the universe, Zeldovich-Sunyaev effect in the spectrum of CMB
radiation, Greisen-Zatsepin-Kuzmin limit in high-energy cosmic rays, Discovery of B-mode in CMB
radiation, Inflation, Status of dark matter searches, Status of high-energy cosmic ray searches, Gravitational
lensing, Black hole information paradox, Holography, AdS/CFT correspondence, 21cm cosmology.
No-No's
There are a few things that your presentations and papers should not contain: no movies allowed, no history
lessons allowed (focus on the physics!), no recycled projects allowed. (Nota bene: I will be using neural networks and
advanced machine-learning technology to search for recycled projects).
Resources
Designing effective physics presentations
Figures for scientific documents and presentations
Writing numbers in technical documents
Calendar