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Other Physics Research
- Dynamics of Disordered Non-equilibrium Systems: Hysteresis, Noise, and Domain Wall Dynamics in Systems Ranging from Magnets to Earthquakes
- The Dynamic Metamorphosis of Science
- Quantum Optics and Quantum Information Science
^ Dynamics of Disordered Non-equilibrium Systems: Hysteresis, Noise, and Domain Wall Dynamics in Systems Ranging from Magnets to Earthquakes
K. A. Dahmen*
National Science Foundation, DMR 99-72783/66
(In cooperation with the NFS funded Materials Computation Center and the Materials Research Laboratory)
Magnets, earthquake faults, and many other systems respond to slowly changing external conditions with discrete, impulsive events that span a huge range of sizes (Barkhausen noise or avalanches in the case of magnets, and earthquakes in the case of the earth). Researchers study Barkhausen noise in disordered magnets as a representative of these systems and compute predictions for the universal aspects of the behavior on long length scales as a function of disorder, field sweep rate, history, and temperature. This research uses ideas from phase transitions, the renormalization group, and disordered systems theory.
^ The Dynamic Metamorphosis of Science
E. A. Jackson
University of Illinois
A study is being made to understand how the increasing scientific information from many different natural dynamic phenomena may lead to an understanding of how different fields of science may be related to each other. This will depend in part on realizing that there are different scientific modes of understanding dynamics phenomena, which can be more appropriate in different fields, as illustrated in the recently published book, Exploring Nature's Dynamics. This will fundamentally change the basis of the accepted scientific understanding, based on new modes of dynamic understanding.
^ Quantum Optics and Quantum Information Science
P. Kwiat,* D. Branning, N. Peters, E. Jeffrey, D. Achilles
University of Illinois
In this quantum optics lab, researchers are using photons to investigate a range of topics from foundations of quantum mechanics (such as tests of nonlocality, the quantum Zeno effect, and so forth) to quantum cryptography (enabling for the first time provable unconditional security), communication (including "teleportation"), and computation (investigating simple quantum logic, algorithms, and decoherence-defeating measures). Researchers have developed methods to produce pairs of photons that share the most mysterious of all quantum properties—entanglement. The goal now is to improve these systems, to explore uncharted waters of novel quantum mechanical states, and to learn to use them to advantage in all areas of information processing.
