Two of our undergraduate students did well at the Canadian Undergraduate Physics Conference 2009.

Ashley Cook was awarded 1st place for her talk titled "Modeling Semiconductors with Impurities". Ronald Gagne took 2nd place for his poster Looking for the "Kick": White Dwarf Off-Centring in Planetary Nebulae Systems.

Congratutions, Ashley & Ron !

see the CUPC 2009 page for more information.

Willard S. Boyle, who was born in Amherst, Nova Scotia, and George E. Smith were honoured for inventing an imaging semiconductor circuit known as the CCD sensor. Charles K. Kao was cited for his breakthrough involving the transmission of light in fibre optics.

CCD, charge-coupled devices are at heart of most astronomical digital detectors and many of the consumer digital camera. This invention certainly revolutionized astronomy data acquisition and the field of photography.

Ever wonder how that UTube video gets to your desktop so quickly? Thank Dr. Kao! Fibre-optics have completed transformed the field of communications allowing near instanteous transfers of data around the world.

see the Nobel Prize Announcement page for further information.

Amid speculation of a Nobel Prize being awarded for the discovery of exo-planets, (in this the Year of Astronomy) a Globe and Mail article outlines the Canadian contribution to this field. Indeed the article makes the case that 2 Canadians, UBC professor emeritus Gordon Walker and former collegue Bruce Campbell should be considered for the prize.

The first evidence of exo-solar planets were detected in a system with a pulsar, PSR B1257+12, and the results were published in Nature by Wolszczan & Frail in 1992. In 1995 when the Swiss team of Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz published results on 51 Peg from optical spectroscopy.

Starting back in the 1980's, Gordon and Bruce developed a a technique to drive down errors in radial velocity measurements. Starlight was directed through an absorption cell filled with hydrogen floride before going to a dispersion grating & a digital detector. The Hydrogen floride absorption lines provided a fidical from which the stellar lines were measured with previously unheard of accuracies. In 1992 Walker et al published results on gamma Cephei which showed a 2.5 year period, but they attributed the variation to effects in the stellar atmosphere.

Later, Marcy & Butler used a variation of the absorption cell technique to discover many exo-solar planets.

The Canadian team recieved a Silver and three Bronze Medals at the 40th International Physics Olympiad, IPhO 2009, held in Merida, Yucatan, Mexico, from July 12 to 19, 2009. The team leader was Andrzej Kotlicki. High school students from over 70 ocuntries from throughout the world competed in this year's Olympiad.

The Canadian results were

• Jixuan Wang Silver
• Remy Mock Bronze
• Shawn Xu Bronze
• Jonathan Zung Bronze
• Michael Zhang Honorary Mention

See the IPhO 2009 for details.

Added 2009-08-18:: Report on the Canadian Team Experience provided by Guillaume Chabot-Couture and Andrzej Kotlicki, Team leaders.

'May we please use your space telescope?'

That what Jaymie Matthews remembers thinking when NASA came calling with a collaboration proposal for time on MOST.

The MOST (Microvariability & Oscillations of STars) microsatellite recently finished observing a target proposed by astrophysicist Dr. John Monnier of the University of Michigan. Monnier, the first NASA "Guest Observer" to use MOST, is an expert in taking 'pictures' of stars through a technique known as interferometry. His earlier work with alpha Ophiuchi, combined with about a month of MOST data, should constrain many of physical parameters of this rapidly spinning and vibrating star.

NASA, the operator of a number of space telescopes, all of which are larger than MOST, recognised that MOST's unique abilities would be of benefit to Americam astronomers. Thus a collaboration between the MOST teams, the Canadian Space Agency, and NASA was established to allowed NASA guest observers use of the Telescope.

David R. Cooper, President & CEO, Microsat Systems Canada Inc. (MSCI), the prime contractor in the building of MOST, noted that MOST "...has been bringing home amazing astronomical data for more than six years. This collaboration is further recognition of the value and contribution that MOST is making to this body of knowledge and to the cost effectiveness of the microsatellite platform."

MOST, NASA and the CSA will soon announce the second opportunity for American scientists to apply for observing time on Canada's space telescope. This is another example of the spirit of cooperation which exists among astronomers and space scientists in Canada, the US, and other countries in the world.

See also this article.

The Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) has funded the new "Superconducting Electron Accelerator at TRIUMF" with an award of $17,761,281 (99.7% of requested funds!) to build the new $52M high intensity electron accelerator at TRIUMF. The development of this accelerator plays a central role TRIUMF's next five year plan released in July 2008.

The superconducting RF accelerator technology at the heart of this accelerator is key for many research programs, from the radioactive beam expansion program at ISAC, to the International Linear Collider, as well as to research in medical imaging, particle astrophysics and materials science. Many research programs will be centered upon this new accelerator technology being developed by a team of Canadian researchers, lead by Dean Karlen (UVictoria) and Shane Koscielniak (TRIUMF), to be carried out here at TRIUMF, on the UBC campus.

In the Physics and Astronomy Department, Rob Kiefl, Jens Dilling, Chris Hearty, Nigel Lockyer, Andrew MacFarlane, Tom Mattison, Janis McKenna, and Lia Merminga are among the 19 co-applicants on this new CFI project.

See the press release from TRIUMF.

In a May 21, 2008 ScienceExpress article, scientists including UBC's Ingrid Stairs describe a double star system in which there is one "normal" Sun-like star and one rapidly-spinning millisecond pulsar (a neutron star emiiting beams of radio waves). Accretion of material onto the neuton star may be origin of the rapid rate of spin.

The milli-second pulsar, called J1023, was discovered in a 2007 survey by the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope (GBT) in West Virginia. The astronomers retroactively found that the object had been detected NSF's Very Large Array (VLA) radio telescope during a large sky survey in 1998, and had been observed in visible light by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey in 1999, revealing a Sun-like star. However when observed again in 2000, the object had changed dramatically, showing evidence for a rotating disk of material, called an accretion disk, surrounding the neutron star. By May of 2002, the evidence for this disk had disappeared.

"This strange behavior puzzled astronomers, and there were several different theories for what the object could be," said Stairs. A similar type of binary system, with a normal star accreting matter onto a fast spinning neutron star, but not emitting radio waves, is known as Low-Mass X-Ray Binary (LMXB). J1023 appears to be the 'missing link' connecting the two types of systems: "... this thing has flipped from looking like an LMXB to looking like a pulsar, as it experienced an episode during which material pulled from the companion star formed an accretion disk around the neutron star. Later, that mass transfer stopped, the disk disappeared, and the pulsar emerged" explained Scott Ransom of the NRAO.

This collaborative research was accomplished by a large team which was led by Anne Archibald, of McGill University, and included Ingrid H. Stairs (UBC), Scott M. Ransom (NRAO), Victoria M. Kaspi (McGill), Duncan R. Lorimer (West Virginia/NRAO), Maura A. McLaughlin (West Virginia/NRAO), and others.

Ingrid leads a team at UBC dedicated to finding and understanding pulsars and their companions. Pulsar searches include the tremendously successful multibeam survey at the 64-m Parkes telescope in Australia (which doubled the number of pulsars known); a similar large-scale survey at the 300-m Arecibo telescope in Puerto Rico; and a drift-scan survey at the 100-m Green Bank Telescope. Much of the followup work involves pulsars in binary systems. Besides the strange object discussed above, there is a double-neutron-star binary that allows very stringent tests of general relativity. (see news item Twin Pulsar again confirms General Relativity) Ingrid has been on sabbatical leave at the Australia Telescope National Facility and the Centre for Astrophysics & Supercomputing, Swinburne University of Technology.

See the NRAO Press Release.

Stephan Ettenauer, a P&A graduate student working with TRIUMF researcher and adjunct professor Jens Dilling, has been selected to receive the prestigious Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship, an award valued at $50,000 per year for up three years. Ettenauer hails from Vienna, Austria.

Ettenauer's research proposal is entitled, "High precision measurements of superallowed nuclear beta decays for tests of fundamental symmetries."

The Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship (CGS) program aims to attract and retain world-class doctoral students by supporting students who demonstrate a high standard of scholarly achievement in graduate studies in the social sciences and humanities, natural sciences and engineering, and health; as well as leadership skills. The program is administered by the country's three federal research granting agencies - the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.

At this year's CAP University Prize Examination two Physics & Astronomy students fared exceedinly well. Placing first, nationwide was Cedric Lin a 3rd year Honours Computer Science and Physics Program student. Alan Robinson (BSC (Honours Physics), Year 4) placed 5th overall. ,

The University Prize Examination run by Canadian Association of Physicists (CAP), is a nation-wide competition among undergraduates studying physics. The 2009 Examination was run by representatives from the University of British Columbia and was held on February 3rd, 2009.

Results Page.

Mark Halpern, Douglas Scott, Ed Chapin, and Gaelen Marsden are among the authors of a Nature article which discuss the results from BLAST and shows that one half of the starlight of the Universe comes from young, star-forming galaxies several billion light years away. Because of dust absorption these galaxies remained hidden until observations at sub-millimetre and far infrared wavelengths became possible.

BLAST, Balloon-borne Large-Aperture Sub-millimeter Telescope, was flown at an altitude above 36,000 meters in Antarctica in 2006. This allowed observations at wavelenghts near 0.3 mm which are not observable from the ground. These observations combined with shorter wavelength data from the Spitzer Space Telescope show a population of dust-obsurced star-forming galaxies.

UBC Press Release
BLAST Press Release

Congratations to Cedric !!

Cedric Lin was the UBC high scorer on the 2008 Putnam exam for the third year in a row, this time placing in the top 15 in the entire competition (out of a total of 3,627 participants).

Cedric is in the 3rd year Honours Computer Science and Physics Program.

The Sixty-Eighth Annual William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition was held on Saturday, December 6, 2008 and is administered by the Mathematical Association of America. The examination is constructed to test originality as well as technical competence. Teams of 3 undergraduate students from colleges and universities from the United States and Canada compete on problems of sophisticated mathematical concepts.

Douglas Scott has been recognized by the APS has an Outstanding Referee.

The Outstanding Referee program expresses appreciation for the essential work that anonymous peer reviewers do for our journals. Each year a small percentage of our 42,000 referees are to be selected and honored with the Outstanding Referee designation. Selections are made based on the number, quality, and timeliness of referee reports as collected in a database over the last 20 years. A full listing and further details on the program are available at publish.aps.org/OutstandingReferees .

See also copy of the APS press release.

Graduate student Patrick Bruskiewich has been awarded a Certificate of Recognition from Federal Member of Parliament Marc Garneau. M. Garneau you may remember is a former astronaut and head of the Canadain Space Agency. The award recognizes Patrick's many contributions to government debate and public issues, including the recent controversy surrounding our satellite program and Radarsat-2. Last year MacDonald Dettwiler & Associates (MDA) proposed to sell its space divsion including Radarsat-2 to a US-based firm. The Federal government eventually blocked the sale following strong negative public reaction.

Patrick is working on a PhD with Janis McKenna on the Lithium Anomaly in standard Big Bang Nucleosynthesis models.

Dorian Gangloff, 5th year Engineering Physics, has won two key co-op awards - the 2008 UBC Science Co-op Student of the Year award and the 2008 BC/Yukon Association of Co-operative Education Co-op Student of the Year award.

See the Science Coop Newsletter for further details.

A University of British Columbia invention that brings natural sunlight into multi-floor office buildings will receive up to $2.1 million in funding from Sustainable Development Technology Canada (SDTC).

Lorne Whitehead and collegues in the Structured Surface Physics Laboratory developed the patented Solar Canopy Illumination System. The system consists of exterior façades with specially designed arrays of mirrors to track and collect the sunlight; and customizable light guides to bring the light into the building replacing traditional light fixtures. Dimmable flourescent lights within these guides provide the illumination when there is no sun.

A UBC spin-off company, SunCentral Inc., has recently been established to carry out six demonstration projects in Canada, including a prototype system that has already been installed in a building on the British Columbia Institute of Technology campus.

See UBC Media Release for further details.

A documentary about BLAST, the balloon borne telescope that was flown in Antarctica two years ago, made by Emmy award winning documentary film maker Paul Devlin will be shown this Saturday on the Discovery Channel.

"The film is fun to watch." said one earlier reviewer. "It is not at all the film I might have made, which is to say that it is actually exciting and tells a compelling personal story." The film focuses on Mark Devlin, the filmaker's brother and a Prof. at U. Penn. UBC's role in building BLAST is seriously underplayed in this film, but you'll get a real sense of what it feels like to bring a telescope to Antarctica. Filmed on 5 continents, the film has suspense and a few touching moments.

Apparently the air time is 4:30 pm PST, not as incorrectly reported & listed at 10:30 pm PST; check with your local provider.

The UBC BLAST team are Gaelen Marsden, Ed Chapin, Mark Halpern, Douglas Scott, Henry Ngo, and Guillaume Patanchon.

A representation of a Feymann diagram carved into stone is featured on the cover of the latest issue of Electronic Journal of Theoretical Physics.

This stone is one of the specially carved pavers that grace the front entrance of the Hennings Building. Each of the 6 pavers depict some important aspect of Physics & Astronomy.

SPIRES publishes a list each year of the most highly cited articles in high energy physics and related fields. This year there are three papers by the WMAP team (which includes Mark Halpern, UBC) in the top ten and six WMAP papers in the top 50. This is the 5th year in a row with at least two WMAP papers in the top 10.

SPIRES is a searchable online database of particle physics literature run by the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center.

WMAP, the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe, is a NASA Explorer mission. WMAP produced the first full-sky map of the microwave sky with a resolution of under a degree, about the angular size of the moon. The patterns in the map result from well-understood physical processes that happened when the universe was young. By matching the patterns in the map to the physics we know, WMAP has produced a convincing consensus on the contents of the universe, erasing lingering doubts about the existence of dark energy, and severely limiting the density of hot dark matter.