04 Mar

Extending the reach of nuclear ab initio approaches with tensor factorization

04 March 2025 - 11:00 AM
1200 FRIB Laboratory and Online via Zoom
Centre DAM-Île de France

Lars Zurek

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Nuclear ab initio calculations are commonly limited by the computational cost of handling very large tensors, especially when breaking rotational symmetry. Applying a singular value decomposition to nucleon-nucleon and three-nucleon potentials obtained from chiral effective field theory reveals that such interactions possess low-rank structure. Exploiting these low-rank properties could allow to extend the reach of ab initio approaches to heavy open-shell nuclei. However, this is a nontrivial task as it requires reformulation of the computational method used to solve the many-body Schrödinger equation. I will present our ongoing work on employing tensor factorization techniques in Bogoliubov many-body perturbation theory, which uses modern linear algebra algorithms and avoids to construct large many-body tensors in the first place.
07 Mar

ASG Violin and Piano Recital: Lin He (violin) and Michael Gurt (piano)

07 March 2025 - 7:30 PM
1300 FRIB Laboratory
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Program: Sonata No. 1 for Violin and Piano, B. 42 Ernest Bloch (1880-1959) I. Agitato II. Molto quieto III. Moderato Intermission Sonata No. 2 for Violin and Piano, Op. 36a Ferruccio Busoni (1866-1924) I. Langsam II. Presto III. Andante, piuttosto grave. Andante con moto Lin He is Associate Professor of Violin at the Louisiana State University School of Music and Associate Concertmaster of the Baton Rouge Symphony. Prof. He also teaches at the Las Vegas Chamber Music Institute, Summit Music Festival and Institute, Sewanee Summer Music Festival, InterHarmony International Summer Music Festival, Montecito International Music Festival and BayView Music Festival. He has performed at Carnegie Hall with principal players from the Metropolitan Opera, New York Philharmonic and Philadelphia Orchestra. Over the past seasons, he has performed the Bruch Scottish Fantasy with the Sonoma County Philharmonic, Chausson Poeme and Korngold Concerto with the Rapides Symphony Orchestra, Mendelssohn Violin Concerto with the Shippensburg Symphony, and the Sibelius Concerto with the Lake Charles Symphony. The 2024-2025 season of concerts include recitals in Oklahoma City University, Houghton University, University of Oklahoma, and the US premiere of the first edition of Verdi’s String Quartet. His recordings include “French Sonatas for Violin and Piano” with pianist Gregory Sioles and “Trios by Saint-Saëns, Piston, and Zemlinsky: Piano Trios” with cellist Daniel Cassin and pianist Constance Carroll, both released by Centaur Records. Recently, he shared the stage with the Shanghai String Quartet and violinists Charles Castleman and Richard Lin and presented solo recitals and master classes at Arizona State University, Florida State University, Longy School of Music, San Francisco Conservatory of Music, University of Houston, University of Las Vegas, University of North Texas, and University Alberta, Edmonton, Canada. Born in Shanghai, China, Lin He began his musical training began at the age of five and received his doctorate from the Eastman School of Music, where he studied under the tutelage of Zvi Zeitlin. Other major influences include Steven Staryk, Sylvia Rosenberg, Kyung Sun Lee, Paul Kantor and Dating He, concertmaster of the Shanghai Opera House for 22 years. Michael Gurt is Paula Garvey Manship Distinguished Professor of Piano at Louisiana State University. He won First Prize in the Gina Bachauer International Piano Competition in 1982, and was a prize winner in international competitions in Pretoria, South Africa, and Sydney, Australia. He has performed as soloist with the Chicago Symphony, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Utah Symphony, the Baltimore Symphony, the Memphis Symphony, the Capetown Symphony, the China National Symphony Orchestra, and the Natal Philharmonic Orchestra in Durban, South Africa. He has made solo appearances in Alice Tully Hall and Weill Recital Hall (Carnegie Hall) in New York, Ambassador Auditorium in Los Angeles, Orchestra Hall in Detroit, City Hall in Hong Kong, the Victorian Arts Center in Melbourne, Australia, Baxter Hall in Capetown, South Africa, and the Attaturk Cultural Center in Istanbul, Turkey. He has made several tours of Brazil and recently performed in Porto and Lisbon, Portugal. Gurt has collaborated with the Takacs String Quartet and the Cassatt String Quartet, and has performed at the Australian Festival of Chamber Music in Townsville, Queensland. He has served on the juries of both the Gina Bachauer International Piano Competition and the New Orleans International Piano Competition, and he has recorded on the Naxos, Centaur, and Redwood labels. Gurt serves as Piano Mentor at the National Music Festival in Chestertown, Maryland, and was the chair of the piano department at the Sewanee Summer Music Festival from 1987 through 2007. He has served as Piano Chair of the Louisiana Music Teachers Association, and has taught at two summer music seminars held at Tunghai University in Taichung, Taiwan. Professor Gurt holds degrees from the University of Michigan and the Juilliard School.
10 Mar

Neutron stars as unique probes of nuclear physics

10 March 2025 - 12:00 PM
1200 FRIB Laboratory and Online via Zoom
IRAP, University of Toulouse

Sebastien Guillot

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More than 50 years after the discovery of neutrons stars, their interior composition and structure remains unknown. Because the extreme densities and matter asymmetry in neutron star interiors are out of reach for Earth laboratories, the equation of state of bulk nuclear matter is unknown, with important implication for astrophysics and nuclear physics. Thankfully, measurements of neutron stars masses and radii are direct probes of the interior of these compact objects. In the past two decades, X-ray observatories have provided some measurements of neutron star radii and therefore some constraints on the dense matter equation of state. But recently, the results from the NICER Observatory have provided the most promising, robust and precise constraints. I will review some of the key results from the NICER mission (including the most recent measurements) and give an overview of other existing measurements of masses and radii, as well as present their impact on our knowledge of dense nuclear matter. Finally, I will detail future prospects to constrain the equation of state of dense nuclear matter with upcoming X-ray observatories.
10 Mar

Understanding and Quantifying Impacts of the Continuum on Nuclear Structure

10 March 2025 - 2:00 PM
1200 FRIB Laboratory and Online via Zoom
FRIB Graduate Research Assistant

Joshua Wylie

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Committee: Witold Nazarewicz (Chairperson), Metin Aktulga, Paul Gueye, Filomena Nunes, Johannes Pollanen. Thesis is available @ https://pa.msu.edu/graduate-program/current-graduate-students/draft-dissertations-for-review.aspx - Select student name
11 Mar

Novel Computational Approaches for Nuclear Fission Theory

11 March 2025 - 12:00 PM
1200 FRIB Laboratory and Online via Zoom
FRIB Graduate Research Assistant

Daniel Lay

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Committee: Witold Nazarewicz (Chairperson), Heiko Hergert, Ryan LaRose, Hendrik Schatz, Yang Yang Thesis is available @ https://pa.msu.edu/graduate-program/current-graduate-students/draft-dissertations-for-review.aspx - Select student name
11 Mar

Some recent trends in nuclear reaction theory for basic science and applications

11 March 2025 - 2:00 PM
1200 FRIB Laboratory and Online via Zoom
University of Seville, Spain

Gregorio Potel Aguilar

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In recent times, it has become commonplace to mention the unification of structure and reaction nuclear theory as one of the hot topics in low-energy nuclear physics. This interest is, of course, not new, but some present circumstances might have made it more acute. First, the experimental access to very weakly bound or unbound nuclei has blurred the limits between structure and reaction theory. Second, the fast development of computational tools and resources has rendered scattering problems tractable with bound states techniques. We will also address some ideas in the path to another important unification: the theory of direct and compound nucleus reactions. This line of research is important in order to address important processes, such as capture reactions, involving nuclei away from the stability valley, where an unusually low level density calls for the description of a transition between the statistical and direct reaction regimes.
14 Mar

Study of Pulse Length Limitations and Current Density Measurement Optimization for Low-b Electron Beams

14 March 2025 - 3:00 PM
1300 FRIB Laboratory and Online via Zoom
FRIB Graduate Research Assistant

Madison Howard

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Committee: Steven Lidia (Thesis Advisor), Scott Pratt (Committee Chair), Sergey Baryshev Joshua Coleman, Artemis Spyrou. Thesis is available @ https://pa.msu.edu/graduate-program/current-graduate-students/draft-dissertations-for-review.aspx - Select student name
14 Mar

String Quartet and String Trio Concert

14 March 2025 - 6:00 PM
1300 FRIB Laboratory
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Trio in A major for two violin and viola by Mykola Lysenko I. Andante. Allegro animato II. Romance III. Scherzo IV. Finale Bios: Mengyuan Song is a violist from China. She is currently a first year DMA student at Michigan State University, studying violia performance with Professor Mike Chen. She previously completed the master degree from The University of Northern Colorado and completed Graduate Professional Diploma from The Hartt School. Min-Han Tsai is a violinist from Taiwan. He is currently a first year DMA student at Michigan State University, studying violin performance with Professor I-Fu Wang. He previously completed the master degree and a performance Certificate from Bowling Green State University, and he was the concertmaster of the BGSU Philharmonia and performed in the Graduate String Quartet. Min-Han is currently an active performer in Michigan. Lyudmila Gofurova is a violinist from Tashkent, Uzbekistan. She is currently pursuing a Master's degree in Violin Performance at Michigan State University under the guidance of Professor Yvonne Lam. She earned her Bachelor's degree in Tashkent. As a member of the Uzbekistan Youth Symphony Orchestra and the National Symphony Orchestra of Uzbekistan, she has performed in over 10 countries. Lyudmila is an active performer, chamber musician, and dedicated educator in Michigan.
20 Mar

Putin's Veiled Threats of Nuclear Weapons Use

20 March 2025 - 6:00 PM
1300 FRIB Laboratory
Columbia University, School of International and Public Affairs

Peter Clement

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Since the outbreak of the Russian-Ukrainian war, Russian President Putin has made a range of veiled nuclear threats. Is he bringing us back to the 1950s-60s, when the US-Soviet nuclear confrontation was the centerpiece of the Cold War? Can his remarks be compared to Khrushchev’s famous ‘we will bury you’ speech? This talk will examine Putin’s remarks in light of Russia’s increased reliance on nuclear weapons at a time when old arms control treaties and regular nuclear dialogue have lapsed. What does Putin think of nuclear weapons and why has he made them so central to his public presentation of Russian national security?” Bio: https://www.sipa.columbia.edu/communities-connections/faculty/peter-clement Peter Clement is a Senior Research Scholar/Adjunct Professor at the Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs. He teaches courses on Contemporary Russian Security Policy and Intelligence and Foreign Policy. Clement came to Columbia following his retirement from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in 2018. Among his senior CIA positions: Deputy Assistant Director of CIA for Europe and Eurasia (2015-2017); Deputy Director for Intelligence for Analytic Programs (2005-2013); Director of the Office of Russian and Eurasian Analysis and CIA’s Russia Issue Manager (1995-2003). Clement served as the President’s Daily Brief (PDB) daily briefer for Vice President Dick Cheney, National Security Council (NSC) Adviser Condoleezza Rice and Deputy NSC Adviser Stephen Hadley in 2003-2004. He briefly served at the National Security Council as the Director for Russia and later served as the senior CIA representative to the U.S. Mission to the United Nations. Clement has been a member of the Council on Foreign Relations since 2001. He has published some dozen journal articles and book chapters on Soviet and Russian foreign policy, most recently “Putin’s Risk Spiral: The Logic of Escalation in an Unraveling War” in Foreign Affairs online, and a forthcoming book chapter assessing Putin’s foreign policy since 2000. He also is finishing a book about CIA analysts, their work and career trajectories. Clement earned a PhD in Russian history and a master’s degree in Modern European history from Michigan State University, and a bachelor’s degree in liberal arts from SUNY-Oswego
21 Mar

TBD

21 March 2025 - 3:00 PM
1200 FRIB Laboratory and Online via Zoom
Fermilab

Jacopo Bernardini

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TBD
23 Mar

How hyperbolic organization facilitates learning in biology

23 March 2025 - 1:00 PM
Online via Zoom
Salk Institute for Biological Studies

Tatyana Sharpee

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Learning is one way how biological systems change. Evolution can also be thought of as learning but on longer time scales. This presentation will describe emerging evidence showing that biological systems organize them according to hyperbolic surfaces and that these surfaces expand according to similar principles in both learning and evolution. Across different scales of biological organization, biological networks often exhibit hierarchical tree-like organization. For networks with such structure, hyperbolic geometry provides a natural metric because of its exponentially expanding resolution. I will describe how the use of hyperbolic geometry can be helpful for visualizing and analyzing information acquisition and learning process from across biology, from viruses, to plants and animals, including the brain. We find that local noise causes data to exhibit Euclidean geometry on small scales, but that at broader scales hyperbolic geometry becomes visible and pronounced. The hyperbolic maps are typically larger for datasets of more diverse and differentiated cells, e.g. with a range of ages. We find that adding a constraint on large distances according to hyperbolic geometry improves the performance of t-SNE algorithm to a large degree causing it to outperform other leading methods, such as UMAP and standard t-SNE. For neural responses, I will describe data showing that neural responses in the hippocampus have a low-dimensional hyperbolic geometry and that their hyperbolic size is optimized for the number of available neurons. It was also possible to analyze how neural representations change with experience. In particular, neural representations continued to be described by a low-dimensional hyperbolic geometry but the radius increased logarithmically with time. This time dependence matches the maximal rate of information acquisition by a maximum entropy discrete Poisson process, further implying that neural representations continue to perform optimally as they change with experience. Tatyana Sharpee received her PhD in condensed matter physics from Michigan State University studying under the supervision of Mark Dykman. After her PhD, she started to work in computational neuroscience at UCSF where she developed statistical methods for analyzing neural responses to natural stimuli, which exhibit strong correlations and non-Gaussian effects. These methods made it possible to reveal new adaptation processes in the brain by comparing neural responses to white noise and natural stimuli. Her independent research program has started at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies where she is currently a Professor in the Computational Neurobiology and Integrative Biology Laboratories. Dr. Sharpee is a fellow of the American Physical Society.
11 May

Nuclear Science Summer School

11 May 2025 - 8:30 AM
1221A and 1221B FRIB Laboratory
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The Nuclear Science Summer School (NS3) is a summer school that introduces undergraduate student participants to the fields of nuclear science and nuclear astrophysics. NS3 is hosted by FRIB on the campus of Michigan State University (MSU). The school will offer lectures and activities covering selected nuclear science and astrophysics topics.
20 Jul

Physics of Atomic Nuclei (PAN)

20 July 2025 - 8:00 AM
1221A and 1221B FRIB Laboratory
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PAN introduces participants to the fundamentals of the extremely small domain of atomic nuclei and its connection to the extremely large domain of astrophysics and cosmology.

The PAN @ Michigan State Experience

  • Learn about research in one of the top rare-isotope laboratories in the world.
  • Get introduced to the fascinating fields of astrophysics, precision measurement, and nuclear science.
  • Perform your own nuclear physics experiments.
  • Meet researchers who are exploring a wide array of questions.
  • Discover the surprising array of career opportunities in science.
  • Experience the atmosphere of college life.
  • Participants in the 2024 program get free room and board on campus (if required).

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