Physics Department News
PVTree: Imagining a 3D solar future
Exhibition on Campus from Dec. 1st
The Departments of Physics and WMG in an ongoing research project funded by the Energy and Innovative manufacturing GRP's imagine a future where solar power photovoltaic cells can move beyond their current form of flat structures into something aesthetically more interesting and potentially as attractive such as a tree structure, while also yielding enormous benefits in terms of power produced per area. This project is a feasibility study involving computational geometry and optics as well as public perception and design research. As part of the project an exhibition on campus will take place during week 10 of term, i.e. from December 1st, at various prominent places in order to canvas opinions and reactions.
Vincenzo Ferraro Thesis Prize
Ersilia Leonardis, who succesfully defended her PhD in the CFSA, supervised by Sandra Chapman, has been awarded the Vincenzo Ferraro Thesis Prize for her PhD work. The prize was awarded following the careful evaluation of a qualified and esteemed commission. It is in honor of Prof Vincenzo Ferraro, an eminent Italian Astrophysicist who discovered the “Ferraro-Rosenbluth” sheath amongst many other discoveries. The prize supports and promotes studies of magneto hydrodynamics applied to astrophysics by giving an award every year to the best MSc or PhD thesis within the area of magneto hydrodynamics of space or laboratory plasma.
If the Large Hadron Collider made music, what would it sound like?
Results from the EPP team working on the LHCb experiment at the CERN Large Hadron Collider have been featured prominently in a new composition entitled "LHChamber music". Commissioned to mark the 60th anniversary of CERN, the piece uses "sonification" to turn data into music, and has been performed by physicists working on the LHC. This story has been picked up by media such as the Guardian newspaper.
The section of the composition related to the Warwick team's result can be found here.
More information on the Warwick LHCb group's research can be found by clicking here.
A previous Warwick Physics sonification project based on turning images into music can be found here.
White dwarfs crashing into Neutron Stars explain loneliest supernovae
A research team led by astronomers and astrophysicists at the University of Warwick have found that some of the Universe’s loneliest supernovae are likely created by the collisions of white dwarf stars into neutron stars. Read the full press release here.