Physics News

2024
 

Exciting News: Professor Michael Lubell Wins the Provost's Award for Pedagogical and Curricular Innovation!

We are thrilled to announce that Professor Michael Lubell has been honored with the distinguished Provost's Award for Pedagogical and Curricular Innovation!  

Please join us in congratulating Professor Lubell on this well-deserved recognition.

 

Professor Seth Cottrell at Quantum Alley

August 13, 2024

The New York Quantum Consortium, led by Westchester County and NYC Economic Development Corporation, took center stage at Q4I's Quantum Alley. The event highlighted New York's leadership in quantum technologies. Dr. Seth Cottrell, a professor at the City College of New York, gave a talk on educating the quantum workforce, emphasizing the importance of developing quantum talent, and showcased an interferometer with demonstrations of quantum properties, further highlighting their role in advancing quantum technologies. Professor Cottrell designed and regularly teaches the Introduction to Quantum Computation course at CCNY, the only undergraduate course of its kind offered in New York City. Additionally, Professor Cottrell oversees the newly established Undergraduate Quantum Lab, providing students with hands-on experience in cutting-edge quantum technologies The Consortium continues to grow, focusing on establishing New York as a leader in quantum tech and fostering a robust, inclusive STEM education pipeline.

For more details, visit Westchester County Press Release.

 

The IEEE Photonics Society is pleased to announce Robert Alfano as the recipient of the 2024

June 27, 2024

We are thrilled to announce that Professor Robert Alfano has been honored with the prestigious 2024 IEEE Photonics Society Laser Instrumentation Award.  Please join us in congratulating Professor Alfano on this well-deserved recognition. 

For more details about the award and Professor Alfano’s work, please visit: The IEEE Photonics Society

 

2023

Proposed CCNY Quantum Institute Earns $5M NSF Funding

August 17, 2023

ExpandQISE program image courtesy of the National Science Foundation The City College of New York is establishing a state-of-the-art quantum institute, funded by a five-year $5 million grant from the National Science Foundation [NSF], to advance quantum research.

Conceptualized by City College physicist Alexander Khanikaev – recipient of the NSF’s prestigious Special Creativity Award in 2021, and one of the most Highly Cited Researchers (HCR) worldwide in 2022 – The City College of New York Quantum Institute comprises leading experts in quantum at CCNY and scientific partners from Nokia Bell labs and the University of Central Florida College of Optics and Photonics (CREOL/UCF). The latter’s Andrea Blanco-Redondo is co-principal investigator on the project.

The CCNY experts and other co-PIs include:

The Institute also will include two quantum-dedicated faculty in electrical engineering and physics that will be hired with plans of expanding CCNY’s educational programs in quantum information sciences and applications.

Khanikaev said the new program and the quality of its faculty would make CCNY one of the leading institutions in quantum research.

From CCNY Press Release

2022

CCNY CCNY Physics Club (Society of Physics Students) Receives Blake Lilly Prize in recognition of their excellent outreach efforts. Physics club recognized as outstanding chapter for third year in a row

New Superlattice by CCNY team could lead to sustainable quantum electronics

New York Times Profile: Myriam Sarachik

In Memoriam
Myriam P. Sarachik, Distinguished Professor, passed away on October 7, 2021.  Read a tribute by Tony Liss and Parameswaran Nair in Inference: International Review of Science.   By Jonathan Friedman: Myriam P. Sarachik: Extraordinary physicist, indomitable spirit, enduring legacy 

Myriam Sarachik

 

Experience in Prof. Hernan Makse's lab helps Kathryn Le of Stuyvesant High School to be named Regeneraon Science Talent Search top 300 Scholar.

CCNY’s Sriram Ganeshan wins NSF Career Award for quantum hydrodynamics research

 

Nov. 27, 2020

CCNY team in Quantum algorithm breakthrough. 

Researchers led by City College of New York physicist Pouyan Ghaemi report the development of a quantum algorithm with the potential to study a class of many-electron quantums system using quantum computers. Their paper, entitled "Creating and Manipulating a Laughlin-Type ν=1/3 Fractional Quantum Hall State on a Quantum Computer with Linear Depth Circuits," appears in the December issue of PRX Quantum, a journal of the American Physical Society. (177 kB)
 

September 16, 2020

Hernan Makse was awarded a NIH-NIBIB R01 grant "Application of the principle of symmetry to eural circuitry: From building blocks to neural synchronization in the connectome", PD: Makse, co-PD: Manuel Zimmer (University of Vienna) to study the neural networks  of C. elegans with physical symmetry principles and fiber bundles, like in particle physics.  Grant Number: 1R01EB028157-01A1,  $1,064,970. And we have a trilogy  of nice papers on the matter: F. Morone, H.A. Makse. Symmetry group factorization reveals the structure-function relation in the neural connectome of Caenorhabditis elegansNat Commun 10, 4961 (2019); F. Morone, I. Leifer, H.A. Makse. Fibration symmetries uncover the building blocks of biological networks Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. USA. 117 (15) 8306-8314, April 14, 2020. SI; I. Leifer, F. Morone, S.D.S. Reis, J.S. Andrade Jr, M. Sigman, H.A. Makse. Circuits with broken fibration symmetries perform core logic computations in biological networks. PLoS Comput Biol 16(6): e1007776. (2020). SI.

Nature Communications

Symmetry group factorization reveals the structure-function relation in the neural connectome of Caenorhabditis elegans

The 302-neuron connectome of the nematode C. elegans has been completely mapped, yet the design principles that explain how the connectome structure determines its function are unknown. Here, the authors show that physical principles of symmetry and mathematical tools of symmetry groups can be used to understand C. elegans neural locomotion circuits.

PNASPNAS

Fibration symmetries uncover the building blocks of biological networks

The success of symmetries in explaining the physical world, from general relativity to the standard model of particle physics and all phases of matter, raises the question of why the same concept could not be equally applied to explain emergent properties of biological systems. In other words, we ask—if life is an emergent property of physics—why the same symmetry principles that explain physics could not explain the organizing principle of life. Here we show that a particular form of symmetry, called symmetry fibration, explains the building blocks of biological networks and other social and infrastructure networks. This result opens the way to understand how information-processing networks… 

Spring 2020 News Highlights

Mar 10, 2020

Ms. Moyosore Odunsi is among the three recipients of The Graduate Center’s Pre-dissertation Award. This annual award, for use in summer 2020, provides each recipient with a grant of $5,000 to jump start the early stage of their research.

Alumni News: Ethan Bendau, '18, BS Physics, has been awarded the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship to support his Ph.D. studies in Biomedical Engineering at Columbia University.  Mr. Bendau's undergraduate Research Honors presentation, "Early Detection of Triple Negative Breast Cancer with Multiphoton Microscopy and Resonance Raman Spectroscopy," was the culmination of his work with Distinguished Professor Robert Alfano. Congrats Ethan!

Fall 2019 News Highlights

Dec 6, 2019

Congratulations to the CCNY Physics Club, for their recent recognition as a 2019 Outstanding Chapter of the Society of Physics Students. This is the second time the chapter has been recognized for its excellence as a top-tier student-led physical sciences organization, a designation given to fewer than 15 percent of all SPS chapters at colleges and universities in the United States and internationally.

Nov 5, 2019

Two new patents have been awarded to Prof. Alfano and his team in the Institute for Ultrafast Lasers and Spectroscopy. The new 'Resonance Raman' technique will allow for rapid and more specific brain cancer diagnoses. 

Oct 31, 2019

Prof. Vinod Menon has been elected a 2020 Fellow in the Optical Society of America. Fellows are elected for "a history of achievement in optics and photonics, and a reputation for service to OSA and our field" says OSA President Ursula Gibson. Congratulations!

Aug 9, 2019

Distinguished Prof. Emerita Myriam Sarachik has been awarded the American Physical Society's highest research honor: the 2020 APS Medal for Exceptional Achievement in Research. "Myriam Sarachik has been one of the world’s leading experimental condensed matter physicists for over a half-century," said APS President-Elect Philip Bucksbaum. (tell us something we don't know!)

 

PUBLICATIONS ARCHIVE

Inclusion statistics and particle condensation in 2 dimensionshttps://arxiv.org/pdf/2303.08835.pdf, Mar. 15, 2023

Brane brick models for the Sasaki-Einstein 7-manifolds Y p,k(CP1 × CP1) and Y p,k(CP2), ArXiv ePrint: 2212.02523

Dynamics of a surface tension driven colloidal motor based on an active Janus particle encapsulated in a liquid drop,  Journal of Fluid Mechanics, 958, A12. doi:10.1017/jfm.2023.5

QCD Thermodynamics and Neutral Pion in a Uniform Magnetic Field: Finite Volume Effects, https://arxiv.org/pdf/2302.09179.pdf, Feb. 17, 2023

Ferromagnetic (Sb2Te 3)1-x (MnSb2Te4)x Structures with High Curie Temperature Grown by Molecular Beam Epitaxyhttps://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-2381594/v1, January 4, 2023

Ultra-Supercontinuum Generation and Higher Harmonic Generation from Intense Ultrafast Laser Pulses in Various States of Matter, The Supercontinuum Laser Source. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-06197-4_17, Jan. 1, 2023

Raman scattering multipole moment of OAM light interaction in methanol, Frontiers in Optics + Laser Science 2022 (FIO, LS) Technical Digest Series (Optica Publishing Group, 2022, paper JTu4B, 16 

Femtosecond Pump-Probe scattering from “Hot” Kerr Index of Refraction in Acetone and Methanol, Frontiers in Optics + Laser Science 2022 (FIO, LS), Technical Digest Series (Optica Publishing Group, 2022), paper FW7C.4

Brane Brick Models for the Sasaki-Einstein 7-Manifolds Y p,k(CP1 × CP1 ) and Y p,k(CP2 )https://arxiv.org/pdf/2212.02523.pdf, December 5, 2022

Room-temperature photo-chromism of silicon vacancy centers in CVD diamond, arXiv preprint arXiv …, 2022

Hele-Shaw flow for parity odd three-dimensional fluids, Phys. Rev. Fluids 7, 114201 – Published 16 November 2022

Optical manipulation of layer-valley coherence via strong exciton-photon coupling in microcavities, November 16, 2022

Anomalous Shiba states in topological iron-based superconductors PHYSICAL REVIEW B 106, L201107 (2022)

Quasifibrations of graphs to find symmetries and reconstruct biological networks

Gauge and scalar fields on CP2: A gauge-invariant analysis. II. The measure for gauge fields and a 4d WZW theory, Phys. Rev. D 106, 085013 – Published 31 October 2022

Gauge and scalar fields on CP2: A gauge-invariant analysis. I. The effective action from chiral scalars, Phys. Rev. D 106, 085012 – Published 31 October 2022

Eductions of Edge Mode Effects, arXiv preprint arXiv:2210.14137, October 25, 2022

Highly nonlinear dipolar exciton-polaritons in bilayer MoS2Nature Communications volume 13, Article number: 6341 (2022), October 25, 2022 

Spin-correlated exciton–polaritons in a van der Waals magnet, Nat. Nanotechnol. 17, 1060–1064 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41565-022-01204-2, September, 2022

Superluminal propagation and anisotropy on tilted and boosted braneworlds, https://arxiv.org/pdf/2210.11497.pdf October 24, 2022 

Information-Guided Dynamic Nuclear Polarization, Phys. Rev. Applied 18, 034039 – Published 15 September 2022

KK’s Role in Launching OCPA Conferences: Looking to the 21st Century  Looking Beyond the Frontiers of Science, pp 19-27. 2022

Synthesis, Optical Spectroscopy and Laser Potential of 2,4,6-Triphenylpyrylium ChlorideChemical Physics Letters, Available online 12 August 2022, 139927

Toward deep-learning-assisted spectrally-resolved imaging of magnetic noisehttps://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/2208/2208.01107.pdf, Physical Review Applied, 2022.

Towards Coherent Charge Transport Between Color Center Qubits as a Platform for Quantum Information ProcessingQuantum 2.0 Conference and Exhibition, Technical Digest Series (Optica Publishing Group, 2022), paper QTu4A.2.

Probing Geometric Excitations of Fractional Quantum Hall States on Quantum Computers, Phys. Rev. Lett. 129, 056801 – Published 25 July 2022

Symmetry-driven network reconstruction through pseudobalanced coloring optimization, Ian Leifer et al J. Stat. Mech. (2022) 073409

Sensing the local magnetic environment through optically active defects in a layered magnetic semiconductor, https://arxiv.org/pdf/2207.02884.pdf, 6 July 2022

The Octagon at large Mhttps://arxiv.org/pdf/2207.00525.pdf, July 1, 2022

Algebraic area enumeration for open lattice walks,arXiv preprint arXiv:2206.12428, 2022

The bulk van der Waals layered magnet CrSBr is a quasi-1D quantum material, May 26, 2022

Evolution of Acoustic Logic Gates in Granular Metamaterials, EvoApplications, 2022, LNCS13224

Digital contact tracing and network theory to stop the spread of COVID-19 using big-data on human mobility geolocalization, PLOS Computational Biology, April 11, 2022

Fano 3-Folds, Reflexive Polytopes and Brane Brick Models, UNIST-MTH-22-RS-01, March 29, 2022

Entanglement Entropy & Matter-Gravity Couplings for Fuzzy Geometry, CORFU21, March 27, 2022

Non-reciprocal parity-time symmetry breaking based on magneto-optical and gain/loss double ring resonators, Optical Materials Express, Vol. 12, Issue 4, pp. 1453-1460 (2022)

Quivers, Lattice Gauge Theories and Fractonshttps://arxiv.org/pdf/2203.01335.pdf, Mar. 2, 2022

Quantum mechanical rules for observed observers and the consistency of quantum theory, AP Polychronakos - arXiv preprint arXiv:2202.04203, 2022, Feb. 10, 2022

Fano resonance line shapes in the Raman spectra of tubulin and microtubules reveal quantum effects, Biophysical Reports 2, 100043, March 9, 2022 1

Thermalization of fluorescent protein exciton-polaritons at room temperaturehttps://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/2201/2201.12607.pdf, nd

Relaxing Symmetry Rules for Nonlinear Optical Interactions in Van der Waals Materials via Strong Light–Matter Coupling, American Chemical Society,
January 26, 2022

Microwave-Free Dynamic Nuclear Polarization via Sudden Thermal Jumps, Phys. Rev. Lett. 128, 037401, January 19, 2022

Characterizing protein protonation microstates using Monte Carlo sampling, January 10, 2022

Higher harmonic and supercontinuum generation arising fromelectronic self-phase modulation under ultrafast laser pulses for various states of matter, Optik Volume 247, December 2021, 167872

Shadow surface states in topological Kondo insulators, Areg Ghazaryan et al 2021 New J. Phys. 23 123042, December 2021

Gursey, Groups & Fluidshttps://arxiv.org/pdf/2112.09957.pdf, December 18, 2021

Superselection, Boundary Algebras and Duality in Gauge Theorieshttps://arxiv.org/pdf/2112.08631.pdf, December 16, 2021

Compositional Control and Optimization of Molecular Beam Epitaxial Growth of (Sb2Te3)x(MnSb2Te4)y Magnetic Topological Insulatorshttps://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/2112/2112.06293.pdf, 2021Reflectance statistics from a thin weakly disordered optical media: application to detection of structural alterations in cells/tissues, Optics Express Vol. 29, Issue 26, pp. 43612-43625, (2021), https://doi.org/10.1364/OE.444579, December 14, 2021

Uncertainties in Quantum Measurements: A Quantum Tomographyhttps://arxiv.org/pdf/2112.07520.pdf, December 14, 2021

Spin(7) Orientifolds and 2d N = (0, 1) Triality, https://arxiv.org/pdf/2112.03929.pdf, December, 2021

Generalized Darcy’s law for parity odd three-dimensional fluids,  arXiv preprint arXiv:2112.03076, 2021, Dec. 2021

Why polls fail to predict electionsJournal of Big Data; Heidelberg Vol. 8, Iss. 1,  (Dec 2021). DOI:10.1186/s40537-021-00525-8, December 2021

Symmetry-driven link prediction in networks through pseudobalanced coloring optimizationhttps://arxiv.org/pdf/2111.07821.pdf, November 15, 2021

Quasifibrations of Graphs to Find Symmetries in Biological Networkshttps://arxiv.org/pdf/2111.06999.pdf, November 6 2021

Ultra-supercontinuum generation with high intense femtosecond pulses, Optik - International Journal for Light and Electron Optics 249 (2022) 168208, October 2021

Highly non-linear interlayer exciton-polaritons in bilayer MoS2,  https://arxiv.org/pdf/2110.13326.pdf, October 26, 2021

Algebraic area enumeration for lattice pathshttps://arxiv.org/pdf/2110.09394.pdf, October 19, 2021

Length and area generating functions for height-restricted Motzkin meandershttps://arxiv.org/pdf/2110.06235.pdf, October 14, 2021

2d N = (0, 1) Gauge Theories and Spin(7) Orientifolds, arXiv:2110.03696v1 [hep-th] 7 Oct 2021

Investigation of photon emitters in Ce-implanted hexagonal boron nitride, Optical Materials Express, Vol. 11, Issue 10 pp. 3478-3485 (2021)

Systemic Consequences of Disorder in Magnetically Self-Organized Topological MnBi2Te4/(Bi2Te3)n SuperlatticesarXiv:2109.00044 [cond-mat.mtrl-sci], September 2021

Nonlocal topological insulators: Deterministic aperiodic arrays supporting localized topological states protected by nonlocal symmetries, PNAS August 24, 2021 118 (34) e2100691118

Purcell Effect of Plasmonic Surface Lattice Resonances and Its Influence on Energy TransferACS Photonics, DOI: 10.1021/acsphotonics.1c00616,  August 2021

Higher harmonic and supercontinuum generation arising from electronic self-phase modulation under ultrafast laser pulses for various states of matter, International Journal for Light and Electron Optics 247 (2021) 167872, August 2021

Induced axion-phason field in Weyl semimetalsPhys. Rev. B 103, 235113 – 7 June 2021

The Octagon and the non-supersymmetric string landscape, Physics Letters B, April 2021

Light-induced topological superconductivity via Floquet interaction engineering, Physical Review Research, April 2021

Enhanced nonlinear interaction of polaritons via excitonic Rydberg states in monolayer WSe2, Nature Communications, April 2021

Centralities in complex networks,  arXiv preprint arXiv:2105.01931, 2021

Biden's big science challenge: increasing public trust, Scientific American, March 2021

Pairwise hydrodynamic interactions of spherical colloids at a gas-liquid interface, Journal of Fluid Dynamics, March 2021

Hamiltonian and exclusion statistics approach to discrete forward-moving paths, arXiv preprint arXiv:2103.15827, 2021, March 2021

Dimers, orientifolds and anomalies, JHEP, February 2021

Synchronized eye movements predict test scores in online video education, Proceedings of the National Academy of Science of the United States of America, February 2021

Relativity and radiation balance for the classical hydrogen atom in classical electromagnetic zero-point radiation, European Journal of Physics, February 2021

Nuclear spin temperature reversal via continuous radio-frequency driving, Physical Review B, February 2021

Magnetic field induced delocalization in hybrid electron-nuclear spin ensembles, Physical Review B, February 2021

Shear response of granular packings compressed above jamming onset, Physical Review E, February 2021

Optical Valley Hall Effect of 2D Excitons in Hyperbolic Metamaterial, Optica January 2021​

Interactions and Mobility Edges: Observing the Generalized Aubry-André Model Physical Review Letters, January 2021

Dimers, orientifolds and stability of supersymmetry breaking vacua, Journal of High Energy Physics, January 2021

Spontaneous emission dynamics of Eu3+ ions coupled to hyperbolic metamaterials, Applied Physics Letters, January 2021

Jan. 29, 2021

Prof. Sriram Ganeshan and experimental collaborators published on quasiperiodic localization. This work experimentally realized a model of 1D localization with mobility edge.

https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.126.040603

Physical Review Letters

Interactions and Mobility Edges: Observing the Generalized Aubry-Andr\'e Model

A system that hosts an analytical mobility edge has been realized in a Bose-Einstein condensate through the use of laser-coupled momentum modes.

Dec. 18, 2020

Homogeneous Crystallization in Cyclically Sheared Frictionless GrainsWeiwei Jin, Corey S. O’Hern, Charles Radin, Mark D. Shattuck, and Harry L. Swinney
Phys. Rev. Lett. 125, 258003 – Published 18 December 2020

Physical Review Letters

Homogeneous Crystallization in Cyclically Sheared Frictionless Grains

Many experiments over the past half century have shown that, for a range of protocols, granular materials compact under pressure and repeated small disturbances. A recent experiment on cyclically sheared spherical grains showed significant compaction via homogeneous crystallization (Rietz et al., 2018). Here we present numerical simulations of frictionless, purely repulsive spheres undergoing cyclic simple shear via Newtonian dynamics with linear viscous drag at fixed vertical load. We show that for sufficiently small strain amplitudes, cyclic shear gives rise to homogeneous crystallization at a volume fraction $\ensuremath{\phi}=0.646\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}0.001$. This result indicates… 

 

Nov. 2020

 https://www.nsf.gov/discoveries/disc_summ.jsp?cntn_id=301744
nsf.govnsf.gov Algorithm breakthrough may lead to new applications for quantum computers  Results provide tools to improve quantum computing devices (63 kB)11:27
https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2020/SM/D0SM01137A#!divAbstract

PJ Tuckman, K Vanderwerf, Y Yuan, SY Zhang, J Zhang, MD Shattuck, CS O'Hern, Contact Network Changes in Ordered and Disordered Disk Packings,

Soft Matter 16(41):9443(13) 2020. PMID:32940321. Citations:1.

pubs.rsc.orgpubs.rsc.org

Contact network changes in ordered and disordered disk packings

We investigate the mechanical response of packings of purely repulsive, frictionless disks to quasistatic deformations. The deformations include simple shear strain at constant packing fraction and at constant pressure, “polydispersity” strain (in which we change the particle size distribution) at constant p (21 kB)

 

Nov. 3, 2020

PRX Quantum

Creating and Manipulating a Laughlin-Type $\ensuremath{\nu}=1/3$ Fractional Quantum Hall State on a Quantum Computer with Linear Depth Circuits

A clever quantum algorithm is designed to enable the study of a class of strongly interacting fermionic systems on a digitized quantum computer.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

High-temperature quantum anomalous Hall regime in a MnBi2Te4/Bi2Te3 superlatticeNature Physics, August 2020

The Role of Long-Lived Excitons in the Dynamics of Strongly Coupled Molecular PolaritonsACS Photonics, July 2020

Optically pumped spin polarization as a probe of many-body thermalizationScience Advances , May 2020

Apr 14th, 2020

journals.plos.orgjournals.plos.org

Circuits with broken fibration symmetries perform core logic computations in biological networks

Author summary We show that the core functional logic of genetic circuits arises from a fundamental symmetry breaking of the interactions of the biological network. The idea can be put into a hierarchy of symmetric genetic circuits that reveals their logical functions. We do so through a constructive procedure that naturally reveals a series of building blocks, widely present across species. This hierarchy maps to a progression of fundamental units of electronics, starting with the transistor, progressing to ring oscillators and current-mirror circuits and then to synchronized clocks, switches and finally to memory devices such as latches and flip-flops.

Last Updated: 09/13/2024 09:45