Physics Department News

The results of the Cycle 18 competition for observing time on the Hubble Space Telescope were announced last night, and five Warwick-lead programs were approved, the largest number for any University in the UK. This is an extraordinary achievement, given that the orbit-oversubscription in this round of proposals was close to nine.

Tom Marsh is leading a programme to establish the evolutionary history of a remarkable pair of white dwarfs that should not exist according to all current models of their formation. Boris Gänsicke is leading a programme to determine an accurate temperature and mass for a white dwarf thought to be the progeny of an intermediate-mass star that barely failed to undergo a core-collapse supernova, he is also leading a programme to investigate the frequency of remnants of planetery systems around white dwarfs. Andrew Levan is leading a programme to unveil the birthplace and origin of one of the most extreme, and highly magnetic objects known in the Universe, as well as a programme that will use the power of gamma-ray bursts as lighthouses to study distant galaxies in unprecedented detail.

Thanks to all those who attended the 2^nd year PhD poster session this Monday. Congratulations to Pabitra Biswas (Superconductivity and Magnetism), Te Nguyen (Nano-Silicon) and Jennifer Harris (CFSA) who won prizes for their posters.Photos of the event can be found on the following link: http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/sci/physics/postgraduate/current/

Congratulations to Philip Petcher from the Ultrasound group who won 1^st prize for the best Science faculty poster at the Warwick PG poster competition, held in the Wolfson Resear Exchange this week. The link to the poster can be found here http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/sci/physics/research/ultra/members/phrbaw/research/ and the link to the competition can be found here http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/services/skills/rssp/activities/postercompetition/competitionwinners2010

Research led by the University of Warwick has found a way to use doughnut shaped by-products of quantum dots to slow and even freeze light. Watch PhD researcher Andrea Fischer and Dr. Rudolf A. Roemer explain quantum doughnuts here http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/newsandevents/news/quantumdoughnuts/