High School Physics Talks

CMP01: Ultrafast Lasers: Observing Nature in a Trillionth of a Second
Dr. Frank Hegmann
Understanding how light interacts with matter is a fundamental question in physics and the focus of many research labs around the world. When light is absorbed in a material, the resulting excitations tell us a lot about the nature of that material. However, the life span of many excitations is typically much shorter than a nanosecond (a billionth of a second) and can even occur over time scales faster than a picosecond (a trillionth of a second). Ultrafast lasers, which produce pulses of light less than a picosecond in duration, provide the only tool with which physicists can observe such ultrafast events in materials. This talk will discuss how ultrafast lasers (and lasers in general) work and how they are used to help us understand the nature of materials that may lead to new applications in electronics or solar cell technologies. (Demos can be included.)

CMP02: The Greenest Tech: Atom-Scale Computers
Dr. Robert Wolkow
Our phones and laptops, and the giant computers run by Google and Amazon--all computers--use a lot more energy than necessary. About 1000x times more. More pollution is created by our computers (at coal-fired electricity generating stations) than by all the commercial jet airplanes that carry us around the world! And the problem is rapidly getting worse because we use more and more computers every year. No one has been able to figure out how to fix this run-away problem. Until now. Right here in Edmonton, we have the world-leading scheme for building next generation, ultra-low power computers and a new company has formed to start that work. In this presentation, we will see individual atoms and we will learn how to pick up and move atoms to build perfect atom defined structures and circuits that are about 1000 times smaller than today's circuits. We will talk about why today's computers are not efficient and how it is that control over atoms allows us to make highly efficient computers.

CMP03: Exploring the Quantum World: Lasers, Atoms, and the Coldest Stuff in the Universe
Dr. Lindsay LeBlanc
Quantum mechanics, which governs matter at the atomic scale, is perhaps the most successful description of nature ever put forth. If, for example, allows us to make the most sensitive measurements of time, gravity, and the fundamental constants. In order to study matter's quantum properties, all sources of randomness have to be eliminated, and this generally means working at extremely cold temperatures. One path towards this realm is with' lasers: using the momentum that light carries, lasers "push on the atoms to oppose their motion and slow them down to speeds of just millimetres per second. In this presentation, we'll explore how labs like the Ultracold Quantum Gases lab at the University of Alberta use these tools used to make atoms cold, discuss how cold temperatures lead to quantum behaviours, and look forward to a new generation of technologies that harness these quantum effects.

CMP04: Superconductors - Wonder Materials without Resistivity
Dr. Igor Boettcher
Electrical devices like laptops become warm as they are running. But you did not buy them to heat your lap! The heating occurs due to electrical resistivity and, in fact, this energy is lost and wasted--not very sustainable or economic. A certain kind of materials, however, called superconductors, do not have an electrical resistance and are thus maximally power-efficient. Sounds too good to be true? Well, there is a problem. They only operate at extremely low temperatures: the best ones we found around -150 degrees Celsius, which is not too useful either. Nonetheless, physicists study the marvelous properties of superconductors resulting from the electrons inside them performing a curious dance, and already use them to create gigantic magnetic fields that could levitate a train. Furthermore, the hunt is on to find superconductors that work at room temperature. This talk will highlight the history, physics, and applications of these wonderful materials.

Cosmology and Gravity Physics

COS01: Mysterious and secretive: What happens in and around black holes?
Dr. Saeed Rastgoo
Black holes are, literally, the most secretive objects in our universe. There are so many strange characteristics and phenomena associated with them that makes them a near-perfect playground and laboratory for new physics. They have horizons and singularities. They evaporate, are described by only a few quantities yet seem to have a lot of possible configurations, bend space and time around them, and when merge together, release energies more than the entire energy of the visible light radiation in the Universe. Although black holes are theoretically known to exist since 1916, we have not been able to crack all the mysteries surrounding them. This talk will cover some of the most exciting discoveries we have made about their interior and exterior, and will also go over some of the most perplexing puzzles about them that we have not been able to solve.

Geophysics

GPH01: Plate Tectonics, Earthquakes and Volcanoes
Dr. Martyn Unsworth
Earthquakes and volcanic eruptions show us that the Earth is a very dynamic planet. In this presentation I will describe how Earth scientists in the 1960s came to understand that the surface is made up of about 10 major plates that move across the surface at a speed of centimetres per year. The theory of plate tectonics has since answered many questions about volcanoes, earthquakes and the geological history of the earth. This talk can be adapted to many audiences and topics could include:

• The physics of earthquakes. Why do they occur and can they be predicted? What are the different types of earthquake, and why do some cause more damage than others?
• Plate tectonics and the Himalaya. How were the highest mountains on Earth formed by plates colliding with each other?
• What are the different types of volcano? What do volcanic rocks tell us about the interior of the Earth?

GPH02: Shake up! Earthquakes in Canada and Beyond
Dr. Claire Currie
Earthquakes are among the most destructive events on Earth but they also provide much information about how the Earth works. This talk will discuss the origin of earthquakes and the hazards that they pose to different parts of Canada. Significant recent earthquakes from around the world will also be presented, including the 2004 Sumatra and 2011 Japan earthquakes (two of the largest earthquakes ever recorded). Will we ever have a "big one" in Canada? The last part of the talk will look at the solar system -- can other planets have earthquakes?

GPH03: The Days are Getting Longer! Studying Earth's Rotation with Ancient Eclipse Observations
Dr. Mathieu Dumberry
Observations of solar and lunar eclipses over the past 2,500 years reveal that the speed of rotation of Earth is gradually slowing down (an effect produced by tidal interaction with the Moon). The days are then getting longer, though only by a small amount, at a current rate of about 2 millisecond per century. Small oscillations about that trend can also be observed, and these can inform us about the dynamics taking place in the Earth's fluid core.

GPH04: Fasten Your Seat Belt for an Atmospheric Tsunami
Dr. Bruce Sutherland
A tidal wave can devastate coastal communities where they crash inland as an unstoppable wall of water. Also potentially devastating, but invisible and unpredictable, are waves that move within the atmosphere. The breaking waves are responsible for the formation of Chinook winds that can raise temperatures by 30 degrees while blowing up to hurricane force. They have caused airplanes to fall by hundreds of meters in a matter of seconds. A space shuttle nearly didn't re-enter the Earth's atmosphere after encountering one of these waves hundreds of kilometers above the surface. In a gentler form they provide recreation for gliders to surf the sky and they make attractive rippled cloud patterns known as a "mackerel sky''. This talk will reveal the waves through table-top experiments and will explore some of their unusual properties through theoretical predictions confirmed by laboratory experiments, computer simulations and observations.

Particle Physics

PPH01: Icecube: Physics Beyond the LHC Energy Frontier
Dr. Roger Moore

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN is the highest energy particle accelerator ever created and in 2012 completed the Standard Model of particle physics with the discovery of the Higgs boson. However, the Standard Model cannot explain Dark Matter, a mysterious form of matter that does not consist of atoms and which makes up about a quarter of the universe and, so far, the LHC has seen no hints of what it might be.

The Icecube experiment at the south pole studies neutrinos, light neutral particles that hardly interact with ordinary matter, deep in the Antarctic ice sheet. The detector consists of hundreds of optical modules frozen into a cubic kilometre of ice. It has observed neutrinos with energies over 1,000 times the energy of protons in the LHC. We can use such extreme energies to probe physics at and beyond the energy that the LHC can reach in a hunt for the new physics beyond the Standard Model that we know has to be out there and some examples of searches for new physics will be shown. Icecube also presents a completely new way to look at the universe and the discovery of the first two sources of extreme energy neutrinos will be shown too. Finally we’ll discuss the future with the new P-ONE neutrino detector we are building in Canada deep in the pacific ocean off the coast of Vancouver Island.

PPH02: Dark Matter Searches and Boiling Liquid
Dr. Carsten Krauss
Dark Matter is one of the most intriguing things that surround us yet we are completely unable to feel its impact in our everyday experience. Yet dark matter strongly shaped the process of galaxy and star formation and searching for its properties is a very promising path towards finding out more about the world of the smallest particles. This talk will introduce what we know about dark matter and what we would still like to find out. Canadian researchers are at the forefront of the worldwide hunt for the direct discovery of dark matter in experiments in a nickel mine in Ontario deep underground. The PICO bubble chamber project will be highlighted and the concept of a bubble chamber will be explained.

PPH03: Dark Matter: The Hunt for the Unknown
Dr. Marie-Cécile Piro
Despite all of our advancements in science, physics, and astronomy, we still try to understand what approximately 80%-90% of the content of the Universe is. However, astronomical and cosmological observations strongly suggest the presence of a new form of matter different from the ordinary matter that surrounds us and which would be five times more abundant named “Dark Matter”. This makes it one of the greatest unsolved mysteries of our universe. Even if its direct detection escaped to the scientific community in our time, dark matter remains a fundamental concept that would explain how our Universe formed and would provide a unique chance to discover physics beyond the standard model. Currently many experiments around the world are searching for dark matter and we hope that in the near future we will solve this mystery and understand its properties. After reviewing why dark matter matters and the strong evidence of its existence, an overview of direct dark matter searches with emphasis in our involvement in Canada will be presented.

PPH04: A Quest for the Theory of Everything at the Highest Energies
Dr. James Pinfold
The Standard Model explains how the basic building blocks of matter interact, governed by three fundamental forces: the electromagnetic, weak, and strong nuclear forces. While the Standard Model (SM) has been remarkably successful in predicting and explaining a wide range of experimental results, it has significant limitations and problems that lead to the conclusion that the Standard Model is just the low energy limit of a more fundamental theory, ultimately the Theory of Everything (ToE). A ToE would resolve the problems with the Standard Model i.e. it would: incorporate gravity; explain the matter-antimatter asymmetry, account for dark matter; explain dark energy, provide a natural explanation for the large disparity in the strengths of the fundamental forces; and, account for the neutrino Mass Hierarchy. We will describe the quest for evidence for the ToE at the world's highest energy collider the Large Hadron Collider, also called the Big-Bang Machine, and at the Future Circular Collider which will operate at an energy roughly ten times higher than the LHC.

PPH05: Hidden and invisible: the dark matter enigma
Dr. Nassim Bozorgnia
Our cosmos is full of a mysterious substance called "dark matter", which is invisible to us. The ordinary and visible matter, including the atoms in our bodies, planets, stars, and galaxies make up only about 15% of the total matter content of the Universe. The elusive dark matter makes up the other 85%. All evidence for dark matter comes from its gravitational interaction with ordinary matter. However, the nature and distribution of dark matter in the Universe still remain unknown. A variety of experiments are currently operating around the globe and searching for the dark matter particle. This talk will describe what we currently know about this mysterious type of matter, and how our current and future experiments, astronomical data, and cosmological simulations will help unravel its secrets.

Space Physics

SPH01: Space Exploration and Environment
Dr. Richard Marchand
Modern space exploration started with the launch of Sputnik by the USSR in 1958 and it culminated with the expedition to the Moon by the US in 1969. Many years before rockets and telescopes, however, philosophers constructed models explaining how planets and other celestial objects evolved around us. This is a review of these models, of the progress made so far in space exploration, and a prospective of where this might takes us in the future.