Spatially Varying Liquid Crystal Order: Theory and Simulations

Spatially Varying Liquid Crystal Order: Theory and Simulations Gavin-Rae Barnaby with Rolfe Petschek Hard Tetrahedra and shapes close to hard tetrahedra pack well when they are oriented in ways different from their neighbors.  The Petschek group has hypothesized that long-range periodic orientation or liquid crystal order explains the complicated crystalline structures...

Read more

Hearing the Shape of the Universe

John Dulin with Glenn StarkmanHearing the Shape of the UniverseThe past few years of work on discerning the topology of the universe have focused on methods like cosmic crystallography and circles-in-the-sky searches, as well as examinations of the correlation matrix to uncover manifolds with non-trivial topology.  While helping to...

Read more

Dirac theory of topological insulator boundaries

Joseph Flannery with Harsh MathurDirac theory of topological insulator boundariesA topological insulator is a material that behaves as an insulator in its interior but whose surface contains bound conducting states. The bulk of a topological insulator may be described by a massive Dirac model while the gapless surface states follow the massless Dirac...

Read more

Evaluation of US Renewable Portfolio Standards in Terms of Effectiveness and Intention

Jacob Derzon with Justin Gallagher Evaluation of US Renewable Portfolio Standards in Terms of Effectiveness and Intention In the past several decades, there have been several attempts by lawmakers to increase the use of renewable resources in various states through legislation known as the renewable portfolio standard (RPS), which mandates increased...

Read more