| Space Weather | Space Weather | 35 | Space weather is very complex and there are all sorts of processes involved: from the Sun's ever changing magnetic field, to flares and coronal mass ejections, changes in the makeup of the solar wind, and the state of Earth's magnetic field and upper atmosphere. Because there is still so much to learn, our ability to forecast space weather is comparable to our ability to forecast meteorological conditions about 50 years ago! | Evenson, Paul;Clem, John;Maruca, Bennett;Matthaeus, William | evenson;jmc;bmaruca;whm | | <img alt="Diagram" src="/ResearchProjectsImages/cme.jpeg" style="BORDER:0px solid;" /> | | | | | |
| Solar Wind | Solar Wind | 34 | At times of extreme magnetospheric disturbance, the beauty of the auroras can be accompanied by less benign phenomena—radiation belt enhancements, for example, and ionospheric disturbances— that can disrupt the communications, navigation, and power systems on which modern society so extensively depends. | Bieber, John;Matthaeus, William;Maruca, Bennett | john;whm;bmaruca | | <img alt="Diagram" src="/ResearchProjectsImages/ulysses_1.jpeg" style="BORDER:0px solid;" /> | | | | | |
| Solar Physics | Solar Physics | 33 | By analyzing the spectrum of these oscillations, helioseismologists are able to measure the sound speed, density, and bulk velocity in the interior of the Sun as a function of depth and can determine the departures of these quantities from spherical symmetry. The sound speed is now known to about one part in 104 through most of the solar interior. | Matthaeus, William;Maruca, Bennett | whm;bmaruca | | <img alt="Diagram" src="/ResearchProjectsImages/helioseismologyjpg.jpeg" style="BORDER:0px solid;" /> | | | | | |
| Solar Energetic Particles | Solar Energetic Particles | 32 | The propagation of solar energetic particles and galactic cosmic rays depends on effects at the boundaries and also on small-scale turbulence. Thus the problems of cosmic ray modulation and energetic particle transport are particularly challenging, as they require a systemic understanding of heliospheric properties. | Matthaeus, William;Maruca, Bennett;Clem, John;Evenson, Paul | whm;bmaruca;jmc;evenson | | <img alt="Green Aurora" src="/ResearchProjectsImages/green_aurora.jpeg" style="BORDER:0px solid;" /> | | | | | |
| Cosmic Rays | Cosmic Rays | 31 | Cosmic rays are ubiquitous, existing throughout the heliosphere and the universe. Because of their mobility, speed, and responsiveness to electromagnetic fields, cosmic rays can serve as probes of otherwise inaccessible regions of the heliosphere and the Galaxy. | Maruca, Bennett;Clem, John;Evenson, Paul;Matthaeus, William | bmaruca;jmc;evenson;whm | | <img alt="graph" src="/ResearchProjectsImages/bieber1.gif" style="BORDER:0px solid;" /> | | | | | |
| Kinetic Theory | Kinetic Theory | 30 | For a macroscopic amount of plasma, a complete global simulation of such a large N-body system by direct integration of the Maxwell-Lorentz equations is impractical, even with the most powerful computers, and even if we could solve the system exactly we would have far more information than we would typically require. For these reasons a variety of statistical models of plasma dynamics have been developed. | Matthaeus, William;Shay, Michael;Maruca, Bennett | whm;shay;bmaruca | | <img alt="Black and white photographs hanging above a sitting area" src="/ResearchProjectsImages/bogolyubov.jpeg" style="BORDER:0px solid;" /> | | | | | |
| Magnetic Reconnection | Magnetic Reconnection | 29 | Recent observations in the magnetosphere and in the solar corona provide mounting evidence of the key role of reconnection in space plasmas. There are important outstanding questions concerning the small-scale structure of the reconnection region, in which plasma kinetic effects are dominant. | Shay, Michael;Maruca, Bennett;Matthaeus, William | shay;bmaruca;whm | | <img alt="Diagram" src="/ResearchProjectsImages/reconnection.jpeg" style="BORDER:0px solid;" /> | | | | | |
| MHD Turbulence | MHD Turbulence | 28 | Observations have stimulated an ongoing effort to develop theoretical treatments of MHD turbulence appropriate to the two similar systems. | Matthaeus, William;Maruca, Bennett | whm;bmaruca | | <img alt="Diagram" src="/ResearchProjectsImages/mhd_turbulence_0.jpeg" style="BORDER:0px solid;" /> | | | | | |
| Spintronics | Spintronics | 27 | The Spintronics group at Delaware, which also operates DOE EPSCoR funded Center for Spintronics and Biodetection with intedisciplinary connections accross the campus and specially funded graduate student and postdoctoral positions, is involved in the second-generation spintronics projects. | Xiao, John Q.;Nowak, Edmund R.;Ji, Yi;Jungfleisch, Benjamin | jqx;nowak;yji;mbj | | <img alt="CAS logo" src="/ResearchProjectsImages/BlueAsset%202.png" style="BORDER:0px solid;" /> | | | | | |
| Photovoltaics | Photovoltaics | 26 | Nanocomposites based on titania hold promise but TiO2 has a unsuitably wide band gap (~3.2 eV) which requires that either the material has to be sensitized, preferably by a solid sensitizer like Ge, or its band gap has to be tailored by doping or size manipulation. Our current research spread over both of these approaches. | Shah, S. Ismat;Gundlach, Lars | ismat;larsg | | <img alt="material" src="/ResearchProjectsImages/CdTe_Minimodule.jpeg" style="BORDER:0px solid;" /> | | | | | |
| Magnetic Nanoparticles | Magnetic Nanoparticles | 25 | Delaware researchers have recently synthesized novel iron-based nanoparticles (FeNPs) coated with biocompatible bis-carboxyl-terminated poly(ethylene glycol) (cPEG). In comparison to conventional iron oxide nanoparticles similar in size (10 nm), FeNPs particles have a much greater magnetization and coercivity based on hysteresis loops from sample magnetometry. Next-generation FeNPs with a biocompatible coating may in the future be functionalized with the attachment of peptides specific to cancer cells for imaging and therapy in the form of local hyperthermia. | Hadjipanayis, George C.;Shah, S. Ismat;Xiao, John Q.;Unruh, Karl M. | hadji;ismat;jqx;kmu | | <img alt="Diagram" src="/ResearchProjectsImages/basic_nanoparticle.jpeg" style="BORDER:0px solid;" /> | | | | | |
| Graphene Nanoelectronics | Graphene Nanoelectronics | 24 | The recent experiments have finally succeded in fabrication of very narrow graphene nanoribbons (GNR) with ultrasmooth edges, demonstrating that all sub-10-nm wide GNRs are semiconducting with large band gaps. This has made possible ON/OFF current ratios up to ∼106 in top-gated GNRFETs operating at room temperature, which makes such devices suitable for digital electronics applications. | Nikolic, Branislav K. | bnikolic | | <img alt="Diagram" src="/ResearchProjectsImages/qic_fet.png" style="BORDER:0px solid;" /> | | | | | |
| Ultrafast Spectroscopy | Ultrafast Spectroscopy | 23 | The DeCamp lab has a 1kHz Spectra-Physics Spitfire XP amplifier seeded by a KMLabs Oscillator. The laser generates 3mJ, sub-40 fs laser pulses for ultrafast spectroscopy. The laser output is currently being upgraded to 7+mJ at 1kHz by the instillation of a cyro cooled multipass power amplfier. Using modest focusing, this laser will be able to generated fields greater than 1017W/cm2 and with a power amplifier its output optical pulse energy will increase by a factor of three. | DeCamp, Matthew;Gundlach, Lars | mdecamp;larsg | | <img alt="Emissions and absorption chart" src="/ResearchProjectsImages/RTEmagicC_2d_scheme.png" style="BORDER:0px solid;" /> | | | | | |
| Time-Resolved X-rays | Time-Resolved X-rays | 22 | Construction and development of an ultrafast X-ray source; the pulsed X-ray source is based upon the generation of a dense plasma via intense (greather than 1015 W/cm2) laser excitation of solid targets, specifically a copper wire. | DeCamp, Matthew | mdecamp | | <img alt="Preliminary X-ray spectrum" src="/ResearchProjectsImages/featureTimeRes1.png" style="BORDER:0px solid;" /> | | | | | |
| Soft Condensed Phases | Soft Condensed Phases | 21 | Szalewicz group has proposed a method which combines symmetry-adapted perturbation theory (SAPT) of intermolecular interactions with the Kohn-Sham DFT representation of monomers. | Szalewicz, Krzysztof | szalewic | | <img alt="Diagram" src="/ResearchProjectsImages/RDX.jpg" style="BORDER:0px solid;" /> | | | | | |
| Intermolecular Forces | Intermolecular Forces | 20 | Szalewicz group has recently developed a potential derived entirely from first principles that captures properties of water "across-the-board" by reproducing experimental data from dimer spectra, through properties of small clusters, up to properties of liquid water and ice. | Szalewicz, Krzysztof | szalewic | | <img alt="van der Waals force " src="/ResearchProjectsImages/vanderwaalsblue.gif" style="BORDER:0px solid;" /> | | | | | |
| Particle Astrophysics | Particle Astrophysics | 19 | By comparing observations through different windows and at various energies, we aim to learn more about high-energy cosmic phenomena in the Universe and the violent processes that give rise to them. | Seckel, David;Evenson, Paul;Clem, John;Holder, Jamie;Schroeder, Frank G. | dseckel;evenson;jmc;jholder;fgs | | <img alt="Gamma shower with telescope" src="/ResearchProjectsImages/Gamma_shower_w_telescope.gif" style="BORDER:0px solid;" /> | | | | | |
| LHC Physics | LHC Physics | 18 | The LHC should finally provide definitive evidence for the physics that is responsible for the breaking of the electroweak symmetry, whether it be a single Higgs boson, or something more elegant. The LHC will be the machine that leads us toward the fundamental theories that extend our knowledge beyond the Standard Model, and connects particle physics more strongly to cosmology. | Shafi, Qaisar | qshafi | | <img alt="Graph" src="/ResearchProjectsImages/higgs.jpg" style="BORDER:0px solid;" /> | | | | | |
| Elementary Particle Theory | Elementary Particle Theory | 17 | The ultimate goal of elementary particle physics is to understand the basic constituents of matter and their interactions in terms of an economical set of principles. This hope for unified understanding of natural laws, cherished by our early pioneers such as Newton, Maxwell, and Einstein, appears to have come very close to fulfillment during the past two decades with the discovery of unified gauge theories of fundamental interactions. | Shafi, Qaisar | qshafi | | <img alt="Graph" src="/ResearchProjectsImages/merging_forces.gif" style="BORDER:0px solid;" /> | | | | | |
| Dark Matter & Dark Energy | Dark Matter & Dark Energy | 16 | We know how much dark energy there is because we know how it affects the Universe's expansion. Other than that, it is a complete mystery. But it is an important mystery. It turns out that 74% the Universe is dark energy. Dark matter makes up about 22%. The rest - everything on Earth, everything ever observed with all of our instruments, all normal matter - adds up to less than 4% of the Universe. | Shafi, Qaisar | qshafi | | <img alt="Dark matter galaxy" src="/ResearchProjectsImages/dark_matter_galaxy.jpg" style="BORDER:0px solid;" /> | | | | | |
| Cosmology | Cosmology | 15 | The Big Bang model is not complete. For example, it does not explain why the universe is so uniform on the very largest scales or, indeed, why it is so non-uniform on smaller scales, i.e., how stars and galaxies came to be. The Big Bang model is based on the Cosmological Principle which assumes that matter in the universe is uniformly distributed on all scales - large and small. This is a very useful approximation that allows one to develop the basic Big Bang scenario, but a more complete understanding of our universe requires going beyond the Cosmological Principle. Many cosmologists suspect that inflation theory, an extension of the Big Bang theory, may provide the framework for explaining the large-scale uniformity of our universe and the origin of structure within it. | Seckel, David;Shafi, Qaisar | dseckel;qshafi | | <img alt="Map" src="/ResearchProjectsImages/wmap_data_0.png" style="BORDER:0px solid;" /> | | | | | |
| Nonequilibrium Many-Particle Systems | Nonequilibrium Many-Particle Systems | 14 | - Vibrating granular media (Nowak)
- Fluctuations and noise in electronic transport through nanostructures far from equilibrium (Nowak, Nikolic)
- Nonequilibrium quantum statistical mechanics techniques for nonlinear and time-dependent transport problems (Nikolic)
- Nonequilibrium phase transitions in quantum many-particle systems (Nikolic).
| Nowak, Edmund R.;Chakraborty, Chitraleema | nowak;cchakrab | | <img alt="Equation" src="/ResearchProjectsImages/hf_born_gw.png" style="BORDER:0px solid;" /> | | | | | |
| Metamaterials | Metamaterials | 13 | - New classes of negative index metamaterials based on magnetic granular composites (Xiao and Chui)
- Photonic crystals and plasmonics (Chui)
- Mixtures of hard and soft magnets (Hadjipanayis and Chui)
- Creep of fiber reinforced magnetic materials (Chui).
| Xiao, John Q.;Hadjipanayis, George C.;Chakraborty, Chitraleema | jqx;hadji;cchakrab | | <img alt="Heat map" src="/ResearchProjectsImages/nagetive_mm.jpg" style="BORDER:0px solid;" /> | | | | | |
| Magnetic Materials | Magnetic Materials | 12 | The DMS fabricated in Delaware include: (1) Co doped ZnO in which defects play a vital role in promoting carrier-mediated ferromagnetism (Xiao), and (2) CoxTi1-xO2 anatase and rutile has been observed to have high Curie temperature (~400 K), while being transparent in the visible and near infrared regions with a sizable band gap and appreciable conductivity (Shah).
| Hadjipanayis, George C.;Shah, S. Ismat;Chakraborty, Chitraleema | hadji;ismat;cchakrab | | <img alt="Diagram" src="/ResearchProjectsImages/rare_earth.jpg" style="BORDER:0px solid;" /> | | | | | |
| Bose-Einstein Condensates | Bose-Einstein Condensates | 11 | The CMP researchers at the University of Delaware are involved in theoretical and computational modeling of BEC condensates in ultracold trapped gases of bosons or boson-fermion mixture and superfluid Helium. | Glyde, Henry R.;Chakraborty, Chitraleema | glyde;cchakrab | | <img alt="" src="/ResearchProjectsImages/bec_3.jpg" style="BORDER:0px solid;" /> | | | | | |
| Stellar Astrophysics | Stellar Astrophysics | 10 | The primary focus of astronomy research at Delaware is on stellar astrophysics; the branch of astronomy concerned with the study of stellar structure and evolution, the atmospheres and winds of stars, and stellar oscillations. NASA has identified four "Big Questions" for astrophysics aimed at discovering the origin, structure and evolution of the cosmos. | Gizis, John;Provencal, Judith L.;Holder, Jamie;MacDonald, James;Owocki, Stanley | gizis;jlp;jholder;jimmacd;owocki | | <img alt="Stellar astro" src="/ResearchProjectsImages/stellar_astro_3.jpeg" style="BORDER:0px solid;" /> | | | | | |
| Planetary Science | Planetary Science | 9 | Dodson-Robinson's group uses analytical theory and numerical simulations of the dynamical and chemical environment of planet growth to uncover the formation histories of as many worlds as possible. We also use spectroscopy to chemically analyze stars with planets and orbiting dust. | Dodson-Robinson, Sarah | sdr | | <img alt="UD College of Arts and Sciences logo" src="/ResearchProjectsImages/BlueAsset%202.png" style="BORDER:0px solid;" /> | | | | | |
| Gamma-Ray Astronomy | Gamma-Ray Astronomy | 8 | VERITAS is a new major ground-based gamma-ray observatory with an array of four 12m optical reflectors for gamma-ray astronomy in the GeV - TeV energy range. It consists of an array of imaging telescopes deployed such that they permit the maximum versatility and give the highest sensitivity in the 50 GeV - 50 TeV band (with maximum sensitivity from 100 GeV to 10 TeV). This VHE observatory will effectively complement.
AGIS is a next-generation ground-based gamma-ray observatory currently in the design and development phase. The goal is to improve the sensitivity over current instruments by an order of magnitude, which will likely be achieved by using a large array of telescopes to cover ~1km2 on the ground. | Holder, Jamie | jholder | | <img alt="Gamma diagram " src="/ResearchProjectsImages/gamma_image.jpeg" style="BORDER:0px solid;" /> | | | | | |
| Galactic & Extragalactic Astronomy | Galactic & Extragalactic Astronomy | 7 | The study of galaxies aims to understand how these systems of stars, gas, and dark matter form and evolve in time. Our Galaxy is a disk (spiral) galaxy, as can be seen clearly in images of the entire sky. | Gizis, John | gizis | | <img alt="Diagram" src="/ResearchProjectsImages/galactic_fig2.gif" style="BORDER:0px solid;" /> | | | | | |
| Asteroseismology | Asteroseismology | 6 | In addition to understanding how stars evolve, studying how they are born and how they die can lead to understanding how the heavy elements form, and how they are disseminated in the Universe. At Delaware, we intensively study white dwarf stars, the endpoints of the evolution of low mass stars like the Sun. | Provencal, Judith L. | jlp | | <img alt="Series A and B" src="/ResearchProjectsImages/Sirius_A_and_B_Hubble_photo.jpeg" style="BORDER:0px solid;" /> | | | | | |
| Strong Field Laser Physics | Strong Field Laser Physics | 5 | DeCamp Lab has recently produced and measured coherent Terahertz radiation from a dense laser-driven plasma in a copper target. This radiation is a direct measurement of the electron dynamics within the plasma, providing a novel method to performing laser-plasma diagnostics. | DeCamp, Matthew;Gundlach, Lars | mdecamp;larsg | | <img alt="Diagram" src="/ResearchProjectsImages/071126121732.jpeg" style="BORDER:0px solid;" /> | | | | | |
| Strong Field Laser Physics | Strong Field Laser Physics | 4 | Our recent research results have characterized this progression from the strong- to ultrastrong-field and shown this can have a significant effect on strong field "rescattering physics" that is responsible for high harmonic generation and multielectron ionization for atoms in strong laser fields. | Walker, Barry C.;Gundlach, Lars | bcwalker;larsg | | <img alt="Diagram" src="/ResearchProjectsImages/high_e_apparatus_0.jpeg" style="BORDER:0px solid;" /> | | | | | |
| High-Precision Atomic Calculations | High-Precision Atomic Calculations | 3 | Our research recently has aimed at the consistent inclusion of the triple excitations. We evaluate computational challenges involved in the efficient implementation of the all-order method with triple excitations balancing the need for accurate calculation and computational difficulties associated with an extremely large number of the corresponding triple excitation coefficients. | Szalewicz, Krzysztof;Safronova, Marianna;Morgan, John;Gundlach, Lars | szalewic;msafrono;jdmorgan;larsg | | <img alt="Diagram" src="/ResearchProjectsImages/Mirror20b.jpeg" style="BORDER:0px solid;" /> | | | | | |
| High Intensity Laser Technology | High Intensity Laser Technology | 2 | The optical technology part of the program currently involves the development of compact terawatt amplifier with an industrial partner ALTOS, Inc. The goal of this project is to build a laser system at the level of 1 microcent per watt of peak power. | DeCamp, Matthew;Walker, Barry C.;Gundlach, Lars | mdecamp;bcwalker;larsg | | <img alt="Laser in use warning sign" src="/ResearchProjectsImages/LaserInUse.jpeg" style="BORDER:0px solid;" /> | | | | | |
| Dynamics in Ultrahigh Fields | Dynamics in Ultrahigh Fields | 1 | The Collective Molecular to Atomic Transistion in Ultrastrong Fields | Walker, Barry C.;Gundlach, Lars | bcwalker;larsg | | <img alt="" src="/ResearchProjectsImages/BCW_Dynamic4.gif" style="BORDER:0px solid;" /> | | | | | |
