Date: 2026-03-20
Time: 11 am
Venue: Room 1.35, Department of Physics and Astronomy, UWC and Zoom
Format: In-person hybrid
(While the hybrid option is available, we strongly encourage in-person attendance!)
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Speaker: Prof. Malik Maaza
Affiliation: University of South Africa, South Africa.
Title: Room temperature Quantum mechanics peculiarities in nanoscaled systems
Abstract:
The intrinsic surface and interface properties of nanoscaled systems are correlated to their surface to volume ratio, surface atomic coordination, electron and phonon confinement, and other factors.
Such shape & size dependent features are established to give a birth to peculiar quantum mechanics responses. Among such, one could mention; (i) the Fermi Total reflection of cold neutron wave-packet & their trapping within the picosecond time regime [1], (ii) the Anderson Infrared light localization in semi-disordered Carbon Nanotubes [2], (iii)the size dependent bandgap tunability in Mott transition Semiconductor-Metallic phase transition systems[3], (iv) the relativistic Dirac “S” orbitals contration & room temperature solid mercury[4], and last but not least (v)the enhanced thermal conductivity of nananofluids conceptualized by the Father of electromagnetism, James Clerk Maxwell [5-6]. This seminar reports on the theoeretical & experimental observations of the above mentioned unusual quantum mechanics governed peculiar phenomena.
[1]. The trapping of neutrons in Fabry–Pérot nano-structures and potential applications for cold neutron lifetime Investigations, M. Maaza, B. Pardo, D. Hamidi, M. Akbari, R. Morad,
M. Henini and A. Gibaud, Journal of Neutron Research, -1 (2023) 1–16.
[2]. Anderson localization of IR light in 1D nanosystems, M. Maaza, C. N. R. Rao, Journal of the Optical Society of America A, Vol. 37, No. 11(2020) 10.1364/JOSAA.394917.
[3]. Phase transition in a single VO2 nano-crystal: Femtosecond tunable optoelectronic nano-gating Maaza, M., Simo, A., Itani, B.M., ...Doyle, T.B., Luk'Yanchuk, I. Journal of Nanoparticle Research, 2014, 16(5), 2397/ 10.1007/s11051-014-2397-z
[4]. Mercury goes Solid at room temperature at nanoscale & a potential Hg waste storage, N. Kana, M. Maaza et al, Nature scientific Reports, (2022) https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-06857-6
[5]. “A novel approach for engineering efficient nanofluids by g-radiolysis” https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-14540-z
[6].”Remarkable thermal conductivity enhancement in Ag—decorated graphene nanocomposites based nanofluid by laser liquid solid interaction in ethylene glycol” https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-67418-3
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Date: 2026-02-27
Speaker: Dr. Steven Murray
Affiliation: Stellenbosch University, Stellenbosch, South Africa.
Title: First Results from HERA Phase II
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Date: 2026-02-18
Speaker: Dr. Chenoa Tremblay
Affiliation: The SETI Institute, United States.
Title: Billions of Stars, One Question: Radio Astronomy and the Search for Life.
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Date: 2026-02-06
Speaker: Prof. Patrick Dorey
Affiliation: Department of Mathematical Sciences, Durham University, Durham, United Kingdom
Title: the ODE/IM correspondence
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Date: 2025-11-21
Speaker: Prof. André Ferrari
Affiliation: Observatoire de la Côte d'Azur, Nice, France
Title: Detection of Fast Radio Bursts using a hybrid neural architecture
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Date: 2025-11-07
Speaker: Geoff Murphy
Affiliation: Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of the Western Cape (UWC)
Title: High-dimensional Bayesian modelling approaches for 21cm cosmology
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Date: 2025-10-31
Speaker: Dr Verlon Etsebeth
Affiliation: Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of the Western Cape (UWC)
Title: Astronomaly: From Large-Scale Anomaly Detection to Targeted Discovery
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Date: 2025-10-17
Speaker: Bhivek Singh
Affiliation: Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of the Western Cape (UWC)
Title: Unmasking Anomalies: The Puzzle of Second Class Currents in 22Na
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Date: 2025-10-10
Speaker: Prof. D.J. Pisano
Affiliation: Department of Astronomy, University of Cape Town (UCT), Cape Town, South Africa
Title: Probing the Magneto-Ionized Circumgalactic Medium of M31 with HI and Rotation Measures
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Date: 2025-10-03
Speaker: Daniel Johnson
Affiliation: Laboratoire Univers et Particules de Montpellier (LUPM), Université de Montpellier, Montpellier, France
Title: Strong lensing, cosmology, and the line of sight
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Date: 2025-08-29
Speaker: Mohamed Kamil
Affiliation: Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of the Western Cape (UWC)
Title: From novae to neutrinos: Insights from neutron-removal reactions
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Date: 2025-07-18
Speaker: Dr Julien Larena
Affiliation: Laboratoire Univers et Particules de Montpellier (LUPM), Université de Montpellier, Montpellier, France
Title: Cosmology with Einstein rings; a path to a 6x2pt analysis
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Date: 2025-06-13
Speaker: Dr Aman Chokshi
Affiliation: McGill University, Montreal, Canada
Title: Towards an Epoch of Reionization Detection — Challenges in a Pre-SKA Era
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Date: 2025-06-11
Speaker: Dr Santiago Avila
Affiliation: Centro de Investigaciones Eneréticas Medioambientales y Tecnológicas (CIEMAT), Madrid, Spain
Title: Implications of cosmological expansion models from the final Dark Energy Survey BAO and SN data
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Date: 2025-05-30
Speaker: Prof. Andrei Albert Mesinger
Affiliation: Classe di scienze, Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa, Italy
Title: Status and future of 21-cm cosmology during the first billion years
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Date: 2025-05-23
Speaker: Prof. Roy Maartens
Affiliation: Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of the Western Cape (UWC)
Title: Covariant Cosmography: a new perspective on H0 and the local Universe
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Date: 2025-04-25
Speaker: Dr Sthabile Kolwa
Affiliation: University of South Africa (UNISA), Pretoria, South Africa
Title: A MIGHTEE view of radio emission in faint AGN and star-forming galaxies
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Date: 2025-04-14
Speaker: Dr Chris Gordon
Affiliation: School of Physical and Chemical Sciences, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand
Title: How Stars May Shred Axion Minihalos and What That Means for Dark Matter Searches