January 2022 - sps-list

by Morin, David

If you are doing research through Phys 90r this semester, this google form replaces the old paper form: https://forms.gle/YgQhmxz4f54CvAT8A Please fill this out as soon as your 90r research plan is settled. This is just an internal physics form, so don’t forget to officially sign up for 90r in your crimson cart. Let me know if you have any questions.

4 months

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Phys, Chem/Phys Advising

by Morin, David

I hope everyone has had an enjoyable summer. The new semester is fast approaching, so here we go... This email is relevant to the Physics and Chem/Phys concentrators among you. It's a long email, but please pay special attention to the "YOUR TASK" item below. THE SHORT VERSION: Email your concentration advisor and set up a zoom meeting sometime between Mon 8/16 and Wed 8/25 (Thurs 8/26 is the course registration deadline). Your advisor will lift the hold on your crimson cart (sometimes called “study card”). More info on the various dates can be found here: https://college.harvard.edu/guides/course-preview-period THE LONG VERSION: (1) A picture of your Individual Concentrator Advisor should show up in your my.harvard list of advisors. If it doesn't, or if there are any issues (you want to change advisors, etc.), please let me know right away. (However, I’ll be away from 8/14 to 8/21.) (2) All of you automatically have Prof. Georgi (Head Tutor) and me (Co-Head Tutor) as academic advisors. You can talk with us about anything at any time, ranging from course selection, to future plans, to lab work, to concentration requirements. Our office hours are posted at: www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~hgeorgi<http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~hgeorgi> and https://scholar.harvard.edu/david-morin/office-hours, zoom link: https://harvard.zoom.us/j/95258793192?pwd=cEViNis1d1ozNDk3MmdpWjRyOVY1QT09<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__harvard.zoom.us_j_9525…> We encourage you to drop by zoom, but email also works. (3) In addition, we give all of you another faculty advisor. The purpose of this Individual Concentration Advisor is to act as a mentor, and to help you down the Physics or Chem/Phys path. However, concerning concentration requirements, Prof. Georgi and I have seen all the ins and outs and variations on these, so we encourage you to save such questions for us. In short, when talking with your faculty advisor, you can pretend that there are no course numbers or requirements to worry about. Just get some real physics advice about what subjects are good to know, what lab experience is good to have, etc. You can view your faculty advisor in my.harvard. (4) YOUR TASK: Email your faculty advisor to set up a meeting to discuss your classes and future plans and such. In addition to providing you with advice, your advisor will also provide you with the necessary electronic signature on your crimson cart. If you'd like to also meet with Prof. Georgi and/or me, by all means stop by zoom, but please do so in addition to (not instead of!) seeing your individual advisor. NOTE: Occasionally more than one email is needed to set up a meeting with your advisor. All of us let an email slip away now and then. So don't hesitate to send a second email after a day or two if you haven't heard back. Also, ***PLEASE CC THE FACULTY ASSISTANT** for your advisor on your FIRST email, unless you're sure that your advisor will get back to you right away (and definitely cc if a second email is required). This person can be identified by clicking on your advisor on the page: www.physics.harvard.edu/people/faculty<http://www.physics.harvard.edu/people/faculty> The Faculty Assistant is listed below the advisor's research blurb. If you have trouble getting a response from your advisor, let me know, and we can always switch advisors. (5) The Physics FAQ page is: https://www.physics.harvard.edu/undergrad/faqs-concentrators Please let me know if there's a topic you would like added. Enjoy the last few days of summer! DJM

9 months

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concentration reqs

by Morin, David

For the SENIOR Physics and Chem/Phys concentrators among you (but also for non-seniors, for future reference): I checked through all of the seniors' records and emailed you of any remaining concentration requirements. But just as a double check, in case I missed anyone, here are some general comments and caveats: 1. Even though I checked through things, you should also check through the requirements listed in the Handbook. 2. Ignore the "Advising Report" in my.harvard, as far as the Physics concentration reqs go. It may very well say that some requirements aren't satisfied when in fact they are. The information I emailed to you supersedes the Advising Report. (However, the Gen Ed part of the Advising Report is probably correct, so you _should_ pay attention to that.) 3. Students who skipped 15b and/or 15c (and took an approved substitute instead) are still required to do the labs, on a pass/fail basis. (But no need to do the 15b lab if you took AP50b or PS12b.) 4. The secondary-field information isn't recorded in the system, so I didn't take that into account in my assessment of any remaining requirements. If you are doing a secondary, be aware that only one course can double count for concentration and secondary. (In contrast, there is unlimited double counting in joint concentrations.) 5. Similarly, for the very few students doing the AB/AM program, the system sometimes doesn't show which courses are bracketed. Be aware that bracketed courses can't count for the undergrad part of the degree.

1 year, 4 months

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summer research, REUs

by Morin, David

For those of you who are planning to do research this coming summer, this email contains important information, as does the physics summer-research webpage: https://www.physics.harvard.edu/undergrad/summer You can do research either with a Harvard professor, or in a program somewhere else. For the latter case, there are a zillion REU opportunities listed at: https://www.nsf.gov/crssprgm/reu/reu_search.jsp<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.nsf.gov_crssprgm_r…> And others are listed on the above summer webpage. In you want to do research with a Harvard prof, your main task is to find an advisor by searching the faculty webpage: https://www.physics.harvard.edu/people/faculty and sending out emails. Feel free to look in related departments too. Stop by office hours if you have any questions about contacting profs. Once you find a lab (let me know if you have any trouble with this), the funding is guaranteed to work out, with the following caveat: Assuming that the usual number of students apply for Physics Dept funding (pieced together with HCRP and faculty funding), we'll been able to give awards of about $5000 (total from all sources). In the event that the number of students increases significantly, the amount will probably be more like $4500. Additionally, as we did last year, we’ll be able to give supplements based on the level of financial need. The standard time span is 10 weeks of full-time work (don't try to add on a summer course). If you are planning on heading to grad school, my personal recommendation is to do at least one summer of research with a Harvard prof, and then another summer either here or elsewhere. Variety can be nice - it's good to see some other places in the country/world. But it’s also certainly fine to spend all your summers here. Try to bookend at least one of those with a semester or two of research, so that you have a longer total time in the lab. You should strongly consider applying for PRISE (for research here) and for the Herchel Smith fellowship (for here or elsewhere). See the above summer webpage. These deadlines are early. If you get one of these, then there is no need to apply to Physics or HCRP. Because of this, the Physics application purposely won’t be available until early March. I’ll send out a link to a google form then. If you're a first-year who is going to be a Physics or Chem/Phys concentrator, then you're certainly eligible for Physics Dept funding (item #3 on the above summer webpage). Let me know if you have any questions. Office hour schedule: https://scholar.harvard.edu/david-morin/office-hours DJM

1 year, 5 months

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15b, 15c lab requirement

by Morin, David

This email is a reminder about the Physics Department's rule for the 15b and 15c labs. This rule applies to Physics concentrators, Chem/Phys concentrators, and students completing a Physics secondary: If you skip 15b and/or 15c and satisfy the E&M and/or waves requirement by taking an alternative course (approved by Prof. Georgi or me), then you must still complete the 15b and/or 15c labs at some point, on a pass/fail basis. (However, you don't need to do the 15b lab if you took AP50b or PS12b.) You can complete the labs in a future semester if you wish, but my recommendation is that you do them at the same time you take the alternative course. (Students in 15b and 15c must of course do the lab when taking the course.) To schedule your lab time, please email, as soon as possible: 15b: Dr. Carey Witkov (witkov(a)fas.harvard.edu) 15c: TF Kristine Rezai (kristinerezai(a)gmail.com) Please let me know if you have any questions.

1 year, 9 months

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FW: TA help needed for Phys E-1bxl lab course

by Morin, David

From: "Crockett, Allen" <arcrock(a)g.harvard.edu> Date: Monday, January 31, 2022 at 11:32 AM To: David Morin <djmorin(a)g.harvard.edu> Cc: "Milbourne, Timothy William" <tmilbourne(a)g.harvard.edu> Subject: TA help needed for Phys E-1bxl lab course Hi David, I hope your 2022 is going well so far. Tim Milbourne and I are running Physics E-1bxl this spring, and we have a couple of TA positions still open that we need to fill ASAP. Please forward this message to any who might be interested. The course is a single-credit lab course offered by the Harvard Extension School. Topics include electrostatics, DC circuits, geometric optics, and diffraction. All sections meet online roughly every other week for three hours—please see the attached syllabus for specific dates and meeting times. Currently we need help with Section 2 (Tuesday 2-5 pm) and Section 6 (Saturdays 9am-noon). I believe the stipend is $2,000 per section. Anyone who is interested, please let me know as soon as possible, as time is running short. Many thanks, Allen Crockett arcrock(a)g.harvard.edu<mailto:arcrock@g.harvard.edu>

2 years, 3 months

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Harvard Physics Colloquium - 1/31/22 - Monika Aidelsburger, LMU Munich

by Clayman, Stephanie D

Harvard Physics Colloquium Monday, 1/31/22 4:30 PM - 5:30 PM via Zoom (link below) Monika Aidelsburger LMU MUNICH Quantum simulation with ultracold atoms - from Hubbard models to gauge theories Well-controlled synthetic quantum systems, such as ultracold atoms in optical lattices, offer intriguing possibilities to study complex many-body problems in regimes that are beyond reach using state-of-the-art numerical techniques. This enables us, for instance, to shed new light on fundamental questions about the thermalization of isolated quantum many-body systems. Recently, a class of models has been identified that lies in between the extreme limits of thermal and localizing behavior. Here ergodicity-breaking occurs due to an emergent fragmentation of the many-body Hilbert space. A versatile platform that paves the way towards studying these phenomena is the 1D Fermi-Hubbard model with a strong linear potential. During the last years the range of accessible condensed matter model Hamiltonians has been extended towards topological systems. One important ingredient was the realization of artificial gauge fields via the technique of periodic driving, also known as Floquet engineering, which further allows the realization of genuine out-of-equilibrium topological phases that do not have any static counterpart. The success of Floquet engineering triggered new efforts among experimentalists to build on this vast toolbox and realize non-trivial matter-gauge couplings - a central ingredient for the simulation of so-called lattice gauge theories (LGTs). LGTs play a fundamental role in a variety of areas including high-energy physics and topological quantum computation. So far successful experimental implementations, however, were limited to small building blocks of few sites due to the complex local structure of the theory. We are currently developing a new scheme based on correlated tunneling of fermionic atoms and local state-dependent control using optical tweezers to realize a scalable platform for the simulation of U(1) LGTs, relevant for quantum electrodynamics. https://harvard.zoom.us/j/97436600302?pwd=WmJEdFdaYWZ1RFRxVjVXWS82ZUIwUT09 Password: 053794 Join by telephone (use any number to dial in) +1 929 436 2866 +1 301 715 8592 +1 312 626 6799 +1 669 900 6833 +1 253 215 8782 +1 346 248 7799 International numbers available: https://harvard.zoom.us/u/aRjoaNgbD One tap mobile: +19294362866,,97436600302# US (New York) Meeting ID: 974 3660 0302, 97436600302(a)zoomcrc.com<mailto:97436600302@zoomcrc.com> Stephanie Clayman (she/her) Reception Harvard University Physics Department Jefferson 360, 17 Oxford Street Cambridge, MA 02138 617-495-2872

2 years, 3 months

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FW: Weekend weather- adjusted testing schedule

by Bokios, Despina

Dear all, Please review the below notice regarding testing for the weekend. Despina -- Despina Bokios, Executive Director Department of Physics, Harvard University Jefferson 351 O: 617-495-2620 My pronouns are: she/her/hers From: Madden, Sarah LH <sarah_madden(a)harvard.edu> Date: Friday, January 28, 2022 at 8:48 AM To: Stillman, Sarah <sstillman(a)huhs.harvard.edu> Cc: Subject: Weekend weather- adjusted testing schedule Good morning, We will be suspending testing operations (pickup and processing) tomorrow, Saturday January 29th, in anticipation of the inclement weather. If anyone in your community wants to be assured a test result today, we would encourage a drop-off no later than 1pm. The test bins will stay in place throughout the weekend. Any tests that are dropped off late today or all day tomorrow will be collected and processed on Sunday. We alerted the AdDeans to this schedule change this morning and updates have been made to the Coronavirus testing, calendar and public dashboard pages. Please reach out to me or Sarah Stillman if you have any questions. Thank you, Sarah ______________ Sarah LH Madden Strategic Initiatives Project Manager for Campus Services Harvard University Mobile: (516) 658-5851

2 years, 3 months

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Lab CAs for PS3

by Morin, David

PS3 is looking for CAs to teach labs: --------------------------- Undergraduate course assistants needed to teach labs in Physical Sciences 3. PS3 lab focuses on topics in electricity, magnetism, DC circuits, optics, and sound. The labs are also designed to teach experimental skills and data analysis. CAs will be responsible for teaching one or two laboratory sections approximately once every two weeks. Comfort with Python is recommended, but not required. Please contact Tim Milbourne tmilbourne(a)g.harvard.edu<mailto:tmilbourne@g.harvard.edu> if interested.

2 years, 3 months

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Physics Niight starts next week

by Georgi, Howard

Neither David Morin nor I will be in the Physics Library tonight. We encourage everyone to be careful until we understand better what the situation is now that everyone is back on campus. Assuming all goes well, I will be at Physics Night next week. I don't know yet when we will be able to serve refreshments, but will let you know.

2 years, 3 months

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sps-list January 2022