Department of Physics, Baylor University
Physics Newsletter
Volume 5, Issue 5
May / June 2011
Department caps off busy spring with Strategic Planning
The Department of Physics participated in the Spring 2011 call for feedback
and contributions to the University’s Strategic Planning. Highlights included:
Inside this issue:
Letter from the Chair
2

Strengthening Undergraduate Research opportunities in the Department
Undergraduate News
3

Enhancing facilities by developing plans for an observatory and planetarium
Graduate News
4

Examining innovations for the classroom learning environment
Baylor and Beyond
5

Supporting travel for graduate and undergraduates to attend conferences
Physics Meetings
6-7

Embracing our distinctive character and opportunities in the community
Out and About
8-9

Promoting the scholarly productivity and creativity of the Department
Calendars
10

Serving Waco and beyond with outreach programs to the community

Expanding efforts to bring the world to Baylor and Waco via invited speakers

Emphasizing our unique involvement in the Christian community

Advancing the strategic development of the Department’s strengths.
Special points of interest:
Ed Schaub Retires

Graduating Seniors

URSA & SURPh News

Physics in Pictures

New Computing Storage
Ed Schaub has been involved in the Baylor Physics
department for the past 26 years, first as an instrumentation engineer on the NASA CRAF/CoDEM project under
the leadership of Dr. Merle Alexander, then more recently
as a full-time lecturer, and finally promoted to the
position of Senior Lecturer.

Dates to Remember
Ed taught his last class on Friday April 29th. The
department held a gathering in his honor on May 3rd
which was hosted by Greg and Dana Benesh. Everyone
in the Department wishes Ed and his wife Judy well, and
we want Ed to know how dearly missed he will be.
Ed Schaub
Senior Lecturer
Department of Physics
Baylor University
Page 2
Physics Newsletter
A Letter from the Chair …
May 2011
Dear Friends,
Greetings from the Baylor Physics Department! As I write to you, the spring semester is finishing up; the summer is
nearly upon us; and we are in the process of saying goodbye to one faculty member and a number of graduating students.
Ed Schaub is retiring this spring after 26 years at Baylor. The past 24 years he has served as a lecturer in the Department—and is retiring as a Senior Lecturer. Ed has been an excellent instructor all of these years, and has taught our introductory survey courses and our electronics laboratory course, as well as developing our acoustics course. In addition
to the breadth of his teaching skills, Ed has preached for many years in a church in Pearl, TX! He will be greatly
missed—and we are hoping he will be a regular at our monthly retiree coffee.
With Ed‘s retirement, we will be having two new lecturers joining us in the fall. Daniel Bolton is joining us as a regular
lecturer—and he will be teaching the electronics course and several introductory courses. Daniel is completing his Ph.D.
in nuclear physics theory from the University of Washington this summer. Dr. David Talent is also joining us a lecturer
to assist us primarily with our astronomy and astrophysics courses. David‘s Ph.D. is in space physics and astronomy
from Rice University, and he has many years of experience in the space industry.
This coming 2011-2012 academic year, we will be implementing the final courses in the astronomy and astrophysics curricula—and graduating our first student. The newest courses are Introduction to Stellar Structure and Evolution (PHY
4350) and Introduction to Modern Cosmology (PHY 4351). Speaking of astronomy, we are still interested in developing
a near-campus observatory to be used by our introductory astronomy students as well as our astronomy and astrophysics
majors. We are also interested in developing a planetarium either in the Baylor Sciences Building or nearby. So, if you
have any interest in assisting with these projects, please contact the department.
The Department is proud to be graduating five seniors this year: Ian Reeves, Andy Yost, Roxy Stein, David George, and
(in a few months) Alex Sabey. Gilberto Villela graduated last December. We also have several graduate students completing degrees and moving forward in their careers. So far this spring, Martin Frank (Ph.D.), Samantha Hewamanage
(Ph.D.), and B. J. Enzweiler (M.A.) have completed their work. We thank all of our graduates for their contributions to
the department for the past several years!
A few weeks ago, construction concluded on Dr. Zhenrong Zhang‘s new laboratory for scanning tunneling microscopy
(STM). With the STM instrumentation, Dr. Zhang will be able to examine molecular processes on surfaces through direct imaging of the molecules(!) We are planning a June event to celebrate the opening of the laboratory, which is
located on the ground floor center wing of the Baylor Sciences Building.
We again thank you for your interest and support. Please continue to pray with us that we honor God in all of our work,
and that we accomplish goals that are pleasing to Him. If you find yourself in the area over the summer, please stop by
and say hello.
With warmest best wishes,
Greg Benesh
Professor & Chairman
Volume 5, Issue 5
Page 3
Undergraduate News
Physics major Ian Reeves successfully defended his Honors thesis, ―Computational Mid-Infrared Beam Analysis.‖ His advisor is Dr. Linda Olafsen, and Dr. Jeffrey Olafsen is a collaborator on the project. Dr. Darrin Bellert
(Chemistry) also served on Ian‘s committee.
The SURPh (Summer Undergraduate Research in Physics) Program is once again supporting students in undergraduate research over the summer term in 2011. This summer, the following students will be supported in their research endeavors by the program:
Will Barnes
Erwin Gostomski
Forrest Phillips
Kyle Brown
Amir Ali
Stephen Pickett
Kristen Deline
Nathan Beasley
Brandon Mattingly
This spring, the Society of Physics Students held a luncheon for graduating seniors:
Minors in Physics: Lauren Garofalo and Lindsay Buckingham
Majors in Physics with BS degrees: David George, Ian Reeves, Andrew Yost and Alex Sabey (December ‗11)
Majors in Physics: (Astronomy/Astrophysics) with a BA degree: Roxanne Stein
The luncheon was held on Friday, April 29 at 12:30 p.m. in Room E.234 of the BSB
Students inducted into Sigma Pi Sigma during the luncheon were:
Amir Ali
Kimberly Orr
Janie Hoorman
Andrew Yost
Kristen Deline
Erwin Gostomski
Brandon Doyle
At the end of the spring semester, the PHY 4196 students gave their final oral presentations on April 27 and 29 in Room
E.125 of the BSB. Giving presentations were David George and Ian Reeves on April 27 and Andy Yost, Lindsay Buckingham, and Alex Sabey on April 29.
Lindsay Buckingham, Ian Reeves, David
George, Andrew Yost, Roxanne Stein and
Alex Sabey eye the cake for Graduating
Seniors at the Department Luncheon!
Page 4
Physics Newsletter
Graduate Program News
Please remember to submit your student publications to the Graduate School. This is the time of year they compile and
publicize them. You may obtain the forms from Anna Henderson in the Graduate School.
Spring graduations:
B.J. Enzweiler
Martin Frank
Samantha Hewanamange
– M.A.
– Ph.D.
– Ph.D.
(Jeffrey Olafsen, advisor)
(experimental high energy physics; Jay Dittmann, advisor)
(experimental high energy physics; Jay Dittmann, advisor)
Congratulations to Dr. Martin Frank, who successfully defended his Ph.D. on March 14. The title of his dissertation is
―A Search for the Standard Model Higgs Boson Produced in Association with a W Boson.‖ Over the last couple of
years, Martin has made significant contributions to the search for the Higgs Boson at the CDF experiment at the Fermi
National Accelerator Laboratory. After graduation, Martin will be moving on to a postdoctoral research position at the
University of Virginia, where he will continue to pursue experimental high energy physics on the NOvA and Mu2e collaborations. Martin's thesis advisor is Dr. Jay Dittmann. The Presidential Scholar Dinner was Monday, April 11 and this
event paid special tribute to those so honored, which included our Martin Frank.
Dr. Samantha Hewamanage successfully completed his Ph.D. defense on March 15 with a dissertation entitled "Search
for Anomalous Production of Photon + Jets + Missing Transverse Energy in Proton-Antiproton Collisions." Sam's data
analysis was performed at the CDF experiment at Fermilab. His work has been approved for dissemination by the CDF
collaboration and an article for Physical Review D is in preparation. Sam plans to begin a new postdoctoral research
position at Florida International University in which he will continue to perform high energy physics research on the
CMS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider. Sam's thesis advisor is Dr. Jay Dittmann. Congratulations, Sam!
We are expecting Tim Renner (Gerald Clever, advisor) and Victor Guerrero
(Walter Wilcox, advisor) to graduate this summer, both with Ph.D. degrees.
New enrolling graduate students for the Fall 2011 Semester:
Eric McLaughlin – Letourneau University
Andrew Carnes – The Citadel
Xinwen Wang - Lanzhou University (China)
Dear Walter,
On behalf of the McMurry Physics Department, our faculty and our students, I would like to thank you for a wonderful
tour of the Baylor's Physics Department we had on Friday. We have enjoyed our visits of Dr. Zhang's and Dr. Linda
Olafsen's labs. Please express our gratitude to Dr. Zhang's graduate students and Dr. Olafsen for giving us interesting
insights into their experimental work. We are also grateful to Tim Renner and Dr. Cleaver for a very engaging talk on the
string theory models. I hope that this visit will be the starting point for long term relationships between our departments
and we hope to see you at McMurry with the return visit sometime during the next academic year. I would hope that
some of our students were inspired by Tim Renner's success and that this tour will help me to convince some of them to
apply to the Graduate School in Baylor. I hope that the exchange visits between our departments will become the long
time tradition.
Sincerely,
Tikhon V. Bykov, Ph.D.
Associate Professor and Chairman
Department of Physics
McMurry University
Volume 5, Issue 5
Page 5
Baylor and Beyond
The UHV scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) is installed and tested. Atomic resolved STM images on HOPG (highly
oriented pyrolytic graphite) were obtained.
We had a departmental Habitat for Humanity Physics workday, April 2, 2011. The work was on the morning shift doing
framing at 912 Martin Avenue. Thanks to all who participated!
The Bearathon had three BU physics participants (Teresa Ma, Kim Orr, and John Vasut — see picture on Page 7). There
were also at least two more physics alumni who ran the half (Mark Mastin and Matthew Benesh). The Bearathon is a lot
of things to a lot of people. It's ―the toughest half-marathon in Texas.‖ It's perhaps the greenest race in Texas, thanks to
the cup-free system used for the first time this year. And it's Student Foundation's biggest fundraiser of the year, with
proceeds (a record $35,000 from last month's race) going to student scholarships.
Also, another alumna gave her testimony at Columbus Ave. Baptist Church which has been uploaded to YouTube.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcJ8Trsucu0
Denyse Rogers is still in need of Marshals for this year‘s commencement activities. Please contact her asap if you can
help out on May 14!
POD Storage
A pilot project for a large-scale POD data storage system at Baylor will be initiated this summer, reported Dr. Jerry
Cleaver, the physics department representative for the project. The Baylor College of Arts and Science has purchased a
32 Terabyte (24 Terabyte usable) large-scale data storage system that will provide long-term data storage space for faculty members of all of the College of Arts &Sciences science departments. All six science departments (Physics, Biology, Chemistry & Bio-Chemistry, Geology, Psychology & Neuroscience, and Environmental Science) have requested
storage space. Of the 24 TB of data storage space, the Physics Department will be receiving 6 TB, to be divided up (so
far) among six research groups. Based on the briskness at which the 24 TB were requested, the College of Arts & Sciences may provide further data storage space to departments in 2012.
Carlos Stroud visit
The Department of Physics had the pleasure of hosting Dr.
Carlos Stroud, Professor of Optics and Professor of Physics
at the University of Rochester on April 11-12. In addition
to individual visits and conversations, Professor Stroud
made four presentations. The first lecture, ―Vacuum Fluctuations, Quantum Jumps, Quantum Noise, Casimir Force:
Different Guises, Same Physics,‖ was attended by Dr. Ken
Park‘s Quantum Mechanics II class, Dr. John Vasut‘s Physics 1430 Honors section, and several other interested physics majors and graduate students. The second presentation,
―Optics: Light Work,‖ discussed optics as a profession, and
was made to students in the Laser Electro-Optics Technology program at Texas State Technical College. Professor
Stroud delivered a Physics colloquium, ―Rydberg Electron
Wave Packets: the classical limit of an atom,‖ and presented a public lecture, ―Quantum Weirdness: Technology of the Future?‖ with an attendance of approximately
200. Many students and members of the greater Waco community went up and asked him questions after his talk. He
visited Baylor as a Distinguished Traveling Lecturer in Laser Science of the American Physical Society.
Page 6
Physics Newsletter
Baylor at the APS March and April Meetings
Baylor Physics at the APS March Meeting
The Department of Physics had a very nice showing at the 2011 March Meeting of the American Physical Society held
March 21-25 in Dallas, TX. Oral and poster presentations spanned the whole week, including:
Monday
Graduate student Nancy Yu gave a talk on ―Revisiting Low-Temperature Reconstruction of TiO2(001),‖ with co-authors
Dr. Ken Park, V.B. Nascimento, Z. Liao, G. Li, X. He, J. Teng, J. Zhang, and E.W. Plummer.
Physics major Alex Sabey presented a poster on ―Investigating Low Dimensional Chaos with Nearly Elastic Spheres,‖
with co-authors Corey LaFontaine and Dr. Jeffrey Olafsen.
Dr. Jeffrey Olafsen presented a poster on ―Trajectories for an Inelastic Gravitational Billiard.‖
Dr. Greg Benesh gave a talk on ―A New Boundary Condition for Embedding Atoms in Solids,‖ with co-author Roger
Haydock (who visited us from the University of Oregon and presented our Physics colloquium the week before!).
Tuesday
Physics major Ian Reeves presented a poster on ―Spatio-temporal beam profiling of pulsed infrared laser sources,‖ with
co-authors Dr. Linda Olafsen and Dr. Jeffrey Olafsen.
Wednesday
Dr. Zhenrong Zhang gave a talk on ―Propane-1,3-diol Adsorption and Dissociation on Rutile TiO2(110): A Scanning
Tunneling Microscopy Study,‖ with co-authors Xiao Lin, Bruce Kay, and Zdenek Dohnálek.
Dr. Linda Olafsen gave a talk on ―Gain-Induced Refractive Index Changes in Resonantly Pumped Optical Pumping Injection Cavity Lasers,‖ with co-authors Lauren Bain, Lauren Ice, and Ben Ball. She also chaired the session on Semiconducting Devices and Applications.
Friday
Dr. Jeffrey Olafsen gave a talk on ―Rotational statistics in dense granular flows of smooth cylindrical particles,‖ with co
-author Jacob Jantzi.
Additionally, Dr. Dwight Russell also attended the meeting, and Baylor alumnus Matthew Benesh, currently a graduate
student at the University of Cambridge, gave an oral presentation on Thursday, ―Spectrometry of electron pumping by
surface acoustic waves.‖
APS April Meeting
Martin Frank and Zhenbin Wu, members of the experimental high energy physics group, attended the April Meeting of
the American Physical Society in Anaheim, California from April 30 to May 3. Ben presented his research on the single
top quark in a talk entitled ―Measurement of the Single Top Quark Production Cross Section at CDF.‖ Martin presented
his improvements to the search for the Higgs Boson in a talk entitled ―Search for Standard Model Higgs Boson Production in Association with a W Boson at CDF.‖ In addition, Karen Bland, a graduate student in the experimental high energy physics group, was invited to give a seminar at the University of Virginia on April 20. Karen's research, recently
approved by the CDF collaboration, involves a search for the Higgs Boson in the diphoton decay channel.
Volume 5, Issue 5
The Department in Pictures
Above: Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison
greets constituents (including Dr. Linda
Olafsen) during a coffee at her Senate
Office on Congressional Visits Day, April 7.
Upper right: Theresa Ma, Kimberly Orr
and John Vasut take part in the Bearathon.
Right: The design for the SPS Physics TShirt, 2011.
Below: Truell Hyde, Lorin Matthews, Jonathan Perry and Theresa Ma and Lindsay
Buckingham attended the 42nd Lunar and
Planetary Science Conference.
Page 7
Page 8
Physics Newsletter
Out and About …
Daniel Bolton has accepted the offer to become a Lecturer in our department.
Dr. Jerry Cleaver was one of three Baylor faculty members again presenting the seminar ―Science and Faith: Breaking Down the Wall‖ on April 2 at First Baptist Church of San Marcos and on April 30 at First Baptist Church of Waco.
This seminar is sponsored by Baylor's Center for Ministry Enhancement and Educational Leadership, directed by Provost
Emeritus Dr. Donald Schmeltekopf. Dr. Cleaver‘s portion of the seminar is entitled ―Faith and the New Cosmology.‖
Theologian Barry Harvey of BIC presents ―What's God Got To Do Wish it? Why Theology and the Physical Science are
not in (Epistemic) Competition‖ and geologist Dr. Phyllis Tippit of BIC lectures on ―Does Life Have a History?‖ Each of
the three faculty members also contributes to ―Beyond the Culture Wars: Toward a Constructive Relationship Between
Faith and Science.‖
Dr. Jay R. Dittmann received notification of a grant renewal from the U.S. Department of Energy totaling $160,000
for 2011-2012. The grant supports experimental high energy physics research on the CDF experiment at Fermilab.
Dr. Kenichi Hatakeyama gave an invited talk at the Texas A&M Particle, Astrophysics and Cosmology Seminar:
―Dark Matter Hunting in the Large Missing Energy and Multijet Signature at the Large Hadron Collider,‖ on April 6.
Kenichi also will give a talk ―SUSY searches with CMS‖ at the PHENO 2011 conference, held in Madison, Wisconsin,
on May 9.
Jeff Olafsen‘s book Experimental and Computational Techniques in Soft Condensed Matter Physics was featured in
the Cambridge University Press display at HES70, Horizons in Emergence & Scaling meeting in Boston.
Dr. Linda Olafsen received a URC grant to continue work on Transparent Contacts for Dual Optical and Electronic
Excitation in Mid-Infrared Semiconductor Lasers and Dr. Jeffrey S. Olafsen received an URSA grant to supervise undergraduate students in soft condensed matter physics research.
Dr. Linda Olafsen has continued to visit local schools as part of the SPIE Education Outreach Award, presenting a
lecture on lasers and leaving behind classroom and laboratory resources, including a laser pointer and optics discovery
kits that include a lab manual and enough materials for 16 students/groups to perform experiments. The most recent visits have been to Vanguard School (April 5, Patty Flowers‘ 8th grade physical science class; May 2, Zach Siefert‘s high
school physics class) and Texas Christian Academy (April 27, 8th grade through high school physics students, hosted by
Ashlie Kaim). Upcoming visits include a trip to Midway High School.
Dr. Linda Olafsen participated in Congressional Visits Day April 6-7 with the Materials Research Society. It was her
sixth visit to Congress with colleagues from MRS. This trip included appointments in the offices of Senators Kay Bailey
Hutchison and John Cornyn as well as Representative Bill Flores, and her team had the privilege of briefly meeting Senator Hutchison and Congressman Flores in addition to more extensive meetings with members of their respective
staffs. Dr. Olafsen was teamed with Dr. Leonard Brillson from Ohio State University and Krystyn Van Vliet from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Their group also visited the offices of Senators Rob Portman (OH), John Kerry
(MA), Sherrod Brown (OH), and Scott Brown (MA), as well as Representative Steve Stivers (OH).
Jeff and Linda Olafsen attended the Lift up your Hearts service of worship and praise (and the associated luncheon)
on Monday May 2nd at the Truett Seminary Chapel. They highly recommend it as a wonderful way to worship at the
end a long academic semester and year.
Volume 5, Issue 5
Page 9
Out and About … (continued)
Drs. Truell Hyde and Lorin Matthews, accompanied by graduate students Jonathan Perry and Theresa Ma and
undergraduate Lindsay Buckingham attended the 42nd Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in The Woodlands,
Texas, March 6-8. Jonathan gave a talk titled ―The Influence of Monomer Shape on Aggregate Morphologies in First
Stage Protoplanetary Development.‖ Co-authors were Erwin Gostomski, Lorin Matthews, and Truell Hyde. Theresa
and Lindsay presented posters, ―Charging of Interplanetary Dust Grains and Consequences for Aggregation‖ and
―Tholin Aggregation in Titan‘s Atmosphere: Developing A Probabilistic Model.‖
On February 11, Dr. Lorin Matthews visited the lab of Drs. Larry Overzet and Matt Goeckner to discuss potential
collaborative research with the group at the University of Texas at Dallas. She also presented a seminar to the Departments of Physics and Electrical Engineering and the UTD chapter of Sigma Xi on ―Cosmic dust bunnies and laboratory
dust crystals: An introduction to complex plasma research.‖
Dr. Walter Wilcox‘s colleague, Dr. Chris Thron of Texas A&M Central Texas, and he had a graduate level electrodynamics book proposal to World Scientific accepted for publication. The name of the book is ―Macroscopic Electrodynamics‖; the working version is presently on Dr. Wilcox‘s OPEN TEXT PROJECT website. Dr. Wilcox‘s undergraduate quantum textbook, ―Quantum Principles and Particles‖, is due to be published this summer. It can be preordered on the website Amazon.com! Walter was also the ―shepherd‖ for a group of students and faculty visiting from
McMurry University on April 15. We toured Linda and Zhenrong‘s labs and Tim Renner, a McMurry graduate, gave a
presentation of his research. Finally, Gerald Cleaver, Jay Dittmann, Kenichi Hatakeyama, and Walter Wilcox went to
SMU for the Lightner-Sams Lecture and dinner, honoring Frank Wilczek, on Thursday April 28. His talk was at the
introductory level, but still inspiring!
Dr. Zhenrong Zhang published the article: Z. Li, Z. Zhang, B. D. Kay, Z. Dohnálek, Polymerization of Formaldehyde and Acetaldehyde on Ordered (WO3)3 Films on Pt(111), J. Phys. Chem. C, Article ASAP, DOI: 10.1021/jp202169x
On April 8th, the physics department participated in Breakfast for the Homeless through Mission Waco. The event
was held at the 1st Lutheran Church on the corner of Jefferson and North 10th. The Department and SPS would like to
thank all of the numerous faculty and students (and John Vasut‘s daughter, Jane) who made the event a success!
Dr. Jim Karban is pleased to inform you that Chandini Revanna began employment April 26 as the Arts and Sciences Chemical Hygiene Officer. He will be introducing her to all of you soon but he expects that it will take her a few
days to fully take charge of her duties. As most of the major issues that Chandini is facing are in the Baylor Sciences
Building and Marrs McLean Science Building, she will initially be spending the majority of her time in the laboratories
in those areas. Her office is C.119 in the Baylor Sciences Building, her office extension is 2357 and her email is
chandini_revanna@baylor.edu.
Chandini holds a Master‘s degree in Environmental and Occupational Health from
Texas A&M University Health Science Center, and has been employed in the Department of Environmental Health and
Safety at Texas A&M for four years.
Hi Everyone,
I want to thank all of you for the wonderful retirement dinner on May 3rd. To be a part of this department and to have
all of you as personal friends is one of the richest experiences of my life. The food was great, the fellowship even better, and I am simply overwhelmed with the kindness and generosity of your retirement gift. I especially want to thank
Greg and Dana for opening their home for the occasion. And, I am particularly appreciative of the efforts of Chava and
Marian in taking care of all the details that made the evening such a memorable occasion. I'm sure that all of us as faculty are aware that without these two ladies, the department would be in big trouble. All of you have been a great blessing to me over the years and it has been an honor and privilege to be your colleague.
Thanks again and may God bless each one of you, Edward Schaub
May 2011
Sun
Mon
Tue
Wed
Thu
Fri
Sat
1
2 Study Day
3 Study Day
4 Final Exams
5 Final Exams
6 Final Exams
7
Retiree Coffee
8
9 Final Exams
10 Final Exams
Grad Candidate
Grades due 5 pm
11 All other
grades due by
5 pm
12 Marshal
Luncheon
13 Graduation 14 Graduation
15
16 Minimester 17
Begins
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
Fri
Sat
First Thursday
Retiree Coffees
Memorial Day
10:30 am
June 2011
Sun
Mon
Tue
Wed
Thu
1 First Day of
First Summer
Term Classes
2
3 End of Mini— 4
mester / Exam
Retiree Coffee
Day
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
July 4 Holiday
July 6 End of
First Summer
Term / Exam