Jammed States of Matter

Almost any system composed of discrete pieces large enough that thermal fluctuations can be ignored can have a jamming transition: a point at which fluid flow is impeded by a change of state into a stable amorphous solid.  The behavior is general enough to explain a pile of sand, a jar of candies, or cars in a traffic jam.  Professor Andrea Liu was involved in recent theoretical breakthroughs in the study of this phenomenon.

 

Extrasolar Planet Searches

Prof. Cullen Blake studies stars of late-M and L spectral types, collectively known as Ultracool Dwarfs, searching for Earth-size planets which transit the star. Telluric lines are used as a wavelength reference for radial velocity measurements at deep red and near infrared wavelengths.

 

SDSS Galaxy Survey

The UPenn Fit Catalog provides 2-d galaxy profile fits in several visible bands using SDSS data.  Additional data collected from other sources is provided to facilitate analysis. The catalog is constructed and maintained by Professor Mariangela Bernardi and her group.

 

Atacama Cosmology Telescope - in the north of Chile

The Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) is a 6-meter telescope located in the Atacama Desert of Chile on Cerro Toco.  It's goals are to study how the universe began and evolved to its current state and to discover its major constituents.  By observing the cosmic microwave background with great precision, the ACT experiment should get unprecedented measurments of cosmological parameters.

CNT Transistor with Antibodies

Prof. Charlie Johnson's lab has produced new experiments demonstrating that carbon nanotube transistors (CNT) can detect minute quantities of biomarkers of diseases in less time than conventional methods.  Antibodies attached to 
CNT on a silicon chip change the electrical properties of the chip upon antibody-antigen binding hence detecting disease biomarkers.

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