Sashank Karri with Tom ShuttSystem for Radon Assay of WaterObservations such as galaxy rotation curves, orbital motions of galaxy clusters, and gravitational lensing in the light of Newton’s law of gravity and general relativity overwhelmingly suggest that much of the matter in the universe is invisible. This dark matter...
2009
Craig Lawrie with John RuhlCluster Detection in Maps Generated by the South Pole TelescopeFurther constraints on cosmological parameters are progressed by determining the abundance of galaxy clusters in the universe. Bayesian analysis is applied to maps generated by the South Pole Telescope (SPT), to locate and classify galaxy clusters...
Benjamin McCabe with Rolfe PetschekAnimating Tessellations of the Plane with Statistical ModelsArtists, particularly M.C. Escher, have made many attractive tessellations of the plane, incidentally illustrating many of the two dimensional space groups. Such pictures may have different space groups or attractiveness based on the patterning and symmetry of various...
Amit Misra with Glenn StarkmanDetecting Dark Matter Clumps in White Dwarf Binary SystemsDark matter exists in earth-mass to solar-mass mini-halos, or clumps. As these clumps move through the galaxy, it is possible that part of the clump may interact with a binary star system, leading to a capture of...
Michael Moorman with Craig CopiAngular Correlation of Anisotropy Polarization in the CMBThere has been much work done in determining temperature correlations in the WMAP cosmic microwave background (CMB) data, through the angular power spectrum data with Fourier parameters and through the two-point correlation data in real parameters. Each technique provides...
Jordan Murray with Iwan AlexanderAn Investigation of the Feasibility of a Lake Erie Based Solar Energy Heat Pump Electric Power Plant A local inventor has designed a heat engine to generate electricity from lake water. In his rather unspecific design, the working fluid, a low temperature liquid refrigerant, enters...
Katarzyna Oldak with Corbin CovaultThe Building and Testing of a Cherenkov Radiation Detector for the Auger ProjectDetecting Cherenkov radiation is a way to obtain information about the ultra-high-energy cosmic rays that enter the Earth’s atmosphere. By measuring this radiation, we can discover the energy-level and direction of the incoming...
Thomas Reid with Anthony Jack and Robert BrownAnalysis of Topographic Maps from fMRI DataIn recent years, a number of studies have attempted to demonstrate the presence of retinotopic maps in occipital, parietal and frontal cortex. The evidence for these maps has come from inspection of color-coded maps based on...
Ryan Sacks with Dan Akerib and Mike DragowskyMonte Carlo Testing of a Gamma Veto Shielding System for LUXDark matter detection requires effective reduction and rejection of background events to accurately detect dark matter interactions. The LUX detector consists of a volume of liquid xenon with photo multiplier tubes inside...
Aaron Shojinaga with Jie ShanAC Conductivity of Silver NanoparticlesThe electrical conductivity for bulk metal is described by the well-known Drude model. As the size of the metal is reduced to the nanometer scale however, the energy levels become discrete, rather than continuous. The average spacing between adjacent energy levels...