A Word from the Head of Department

Good news!

There will be some congratulating in this week's issue of IFT-posten. With great pleasure and satisfaction I can inform you that both Kjellmar Oksavik and Jesper Gjerloev have accepted the offer of a tenure in space physics at our department. Since the position has initially been announced as associate professorhsip, they will both now be employed as associate professors. Thus this Friday's open seminar will be far more than the celebration of the AISM-contract! Congratulations to the space physics group, this will be very exciting! More information on the actual start later on.

Jesper Gjerloev completed his MSc at the University of Copenhagen in 1994, and a PhD in space physics at the DTU in 1997. He held several research positions both in Denmark and USA, and since 2003 has worked as senior researcher at the John Hopkins University – Applied Physics Laboratory, where he now holds the title of PPS (Principal Professional Staff). Jesper's research is directed towards power systems in magnetosphere, coupling between these and the ionosphere, substorms and conjugated phenomena. He has been involved in rocket-satellite experiments and was also the initiator and leader of an international network of magnetographers.

Kjellmar Oksavik is certainly well known at our department. He finished his major in 1998 and completed his PhD in 2003, with Finn Søraas as his supervisor. He also worked at the University of Oslo, John Hopkins University in the USA, and is at the time employed as professor at the UNIS on Svalbard. Kjellmar's field of interest lies in experimental space physics, with focus on radar and satellite measurements. He has been the initiator and project leader of several larger projects at UNIS. With Kjellmar back in the UoB's space physics group, the cycle is finally complete.

We wish Kjellmar and Jesper a warm welcome to our department!

News and general information

The first results of the heavy ion collisions are about to be published

Just three weeks upon the start up of the LHC the first results are to be published, and along with them some new insights. Congratulations to ATLAS and ALICE department from Bergen! Read Professor Anna Lipnicka's report below, along with the press report pressemeldingen from CERN if you want to find out more. Last Thursday there was a seminar on CERN: First results from Heavy Ion collisions at the LHC (ALICE, ATLAS, CMS) – these presentations can also be downloaded.

Last Friday ATLAS had its first paper from heavy ion collisions accepted for publication after being submitted last Thursday night! The effect it shows is a strong hint for quark-gluon plasma and can be observed “with naked eye”, as on the attached figure 1 from the paper. The effect is easy to explain in pedagogical terms:

In heavy ion collisions (as in proton proton collisions at these energies) it is mostly quark or gluons that are interacting. The most popular outcome of quark-quark or similar collision is a production of a pair of quarks or gluons which are symmetric in the plane perpendicular to the beam. Quark or gluon leads to a jet, so in proton proton collision the most popular outcome is a pair of jets (dijet) symmetric in the plane perpendicular to the beam. However, as the paper shows in heavy ion collisions the jets come out mostly asymmetric- one of the to jets of a dijet has much lower energy most of the times.

This suggest that quark or gluon at origin of the jet looses energy when going through plasma of the hot colliding nuclea- in a similar way as an electron would loose energy in a standard plasma. This is a strong hint that such a plasma really is produced there, so that the colliding nuclea are not just a collection of protons and neutrons.

Our Bergen colleagues in ALICE studied similar effects at RHIC experiments at lower energies, but it is the first time this effect can be seen with “naked eye”- provided the naked eye has ATLAS detector-die.

Erwin Schrödinger Gesellschaft für Nanowissenschaften

This week we would also like to congratulate Thomas Reisinger (in the middle) who was awarded this Monday the ESG-award in the field of nanoscience together with 5 other younger researchers! The photo above was taken at the award ceremony in Vienna and here are a few words on the award itself:

The Erwin Schroedinger Society for Nano-science donates the Erwin Schoerdinger Society Nano-Price 2010 for extraordinary, innovative work in the field of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology. The price is particularly thought as a support for young scientists and can only be given to people younger than 35 years. Donations can be granted on the basis of publications from the last two years in peer reviewed journals, where the applicant is first author and where the work has been done mainly in an Austrian institute. (Thomas was supported by Bergens Research Foundation (BFS) during his last months in Austria in 2007 where he did the experimental part of the work, the theoretical work was completed in Bergen.) The price is worth a total of 3000 Euros.

Open seminar, Friday, December 3

Ø Detecting Terrestrial Gamma Ray Flashes from the International Space Station

Open colloquium with professor Nikolai Østgaard, Friday, December 3, at 14:15 in auditorium B. Refreshments will be served from 14:00. Welcome!

Detecting Terrestrial Gamma Ray Flashes from the International Space Station - The ASIM project: September this year, the space physics group at UiB signed a contract with European Space Agency to build, together with Denmark and Spain, a Modular X- and Gamma-ray Sensor (MXGS) for ASIM. ASIM is short for Atmosphere Space Interaction Monitor, which will be launched to the International Space Station in 2014. ASIM comprises one large X- and gamma-ray detector, 2 optical cameras and 3 photometers. These instruments are designed to measure:

· Terrestrial Gamma Flashes (TGF)

· Sprites, Elves and Blue Jets (Transient Luminous Events, TLE)

· Lightning

All these phenomena are related to electric discharges in thunderstorms, but we do not know how they are interrelated. We know a lot about the damaging effects of lightning, but not so much about the physical processes. For example, TGFs were discovered 15 years ago, and we thought they were produced above 40 km. Now we believe they are produced at 10-20 km; at the top of the troposphere and closely related to intercloud lightning. TGF is the most energetic photon phenomenon produced naturally on Earth (up to 45 MeV). Nikolai Østgaard, project leader in Bergen, will present the ASIM project and the scientific goals of the mission.

BKK's energy conference Climate, energy and value

BKK will arrange a conference at Grieghallen on 26. January 2011. More information on its programme and registration will be published later. The conference is primarily aimed at Western Norwegian businesses, energy companies and politicians. BKK hopes this conference will draw the attention to the potential for the values and development of the local communities on the western coast of Norway (Vestlandet). The lecturers will include:

· Marius Holm – Deputy Manager Bellona.

· Per Rune Henriksen – State Secretary of the Ministry of Oil and Energy (Ap).

· Erna Solberg - Leader of the Norwegian Right-Wing Party (Høyre).

· Anders Bjartnes – General Manager of the Norwegian Climate Foundation.

· Oluf Ulseth – Managing Director of Energi Norge.

This is the penultimate issue of IFT-posten before Christmas. The first issue in the next year will be published on January 7, so all information regarding the first week in January must be submitted for the next week's issue, latest by Thursday, December 9. On Friday, December 17, IFT-posten will be published as a summary of the past year.

PhD-news

The forthcoming disputations

Thursday, 09.12.10, at 13:15 in Auditorium 2, Realfagbygget:

MSc. Szabolcs Endre Horvát will hold his PhD disputation on the following topic:

“Phase transitions in non-equilibrium dynamical systems”

Friday, 10.12.10, at 10:15 in Auditorium 2, Realfagbygget:

MSc. Yun Cheng will hold his PhD disputation on the following topic:

“Hydrodynamics and Freeze Out Problems in Energetic Heavy Ion Reactions”

All are welcome to attend. Please make sure that you come a bit ahead of time!

Trial lecture

Friday 10.12.2010, at 14:15 in Room 546, IFT

MSc. Øyvind Jensen will hold his PhD trial lecture of the following title:

"Antihydrogen - manufacturing and properties"

All are welcome to attend!

Mediation

Lars Egil Helseth: Giant Diffusion on Magnetic Conveyor Physical Review Focus, 29. November 2010.