Physics & Astronomy Honors Program Theses
Theses from the Physics and Astronomy Department Honors Program.
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(Vanderbilt University. Department of Physics and Astronomy, 2013-04-22)Electron microscopy has been the recent subject of molecular imaging due to the strength of the electrons' interaction with the target molecule making for a detailed pattern at a small scale.[1] To achieve the best 4D ...
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(Vanderbilt University. Department of Physics and Astronomy, 2013-04-22)In 2012, the collaboration overseeing the Daya Bay Reactor Neutrino Experiment announced results which determined the magnitude of the mixing angle \theta_{13} with unprecedented precision. However, no attempt was made in ...
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(Vanderbilt University. Department of Physics and Astronomy, 2013-04-22)We demonstrate the acceleration obtained from using GPU/CPU hybrid clusters and supercomputers for N-body simulations of gravity based in part on the author's new code development. Validation tests are shown for ...
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(Vanderbilt University. Department of Physics and Astronomy, 2013-04-22)Time Dependent Density Functional Theory is used to probe the structure of matter. Coulomb explosion of small hydrocarbons driven by strong laser pulses and electron holography of molecules are studied in a theoretical ...
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(Vanderbilt University. Dept. of Physics and Astronomy, 2012-04)Rotation period distributions for older open clusters are difficult to obtain because of the general scarcity of clusters with ages greater than 200 Myr, as well as the challenge of measuring rotation periods for less ...
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(Vanderbilt University. Dept. of Physics and Astronomy, 2012-04)Cosmic microwave background (CMB) observations suggest the possibility of an extra dark radiation component, while the current evidence from big bang nucleosynthesis (BBN) is more ambiguous. Dark radiation from a decaying ...
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(Vanderbilt University. Dept. of Physics and Astronomy, 2012-05-04)Density functional theory is utilized in real-time, real-space simulations of LEED measurements and attosecond electron scattering. For LEED measurements, we find that our simulation results agree well with experimental ...
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(Vanderbilt University. Dept. of Physics and Astronomy, 2011-04)The study of living specimens is essential to the understanding of organismal behavior. Unfortunately, a major difficulty in the study of live organisms is that many move in and out of the field of view or focal plane ...
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(Vanderbilt University. Dept. of Physics and Astronomy, 2011-04)I develop a perturbation theory for resonant frequency shifts caused by thin layer of material added to dielectric systems. This development can be used to effectively model photonic surface-sensing systems, which use ...
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(Vanderbilt University. Dept. of Physics and Astronomy, 2011-04)The Pauli Exclusion Principle places a fundamental limit on the brightness of an electron beam. Developing a cathode which can reach this limit is useful for achieving maximum operation in current applications of ...
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(Vanderbilt University. Dept. of Physics and Astronomy, 2011-04)Finite element modeling was performed using COMSOL Multiphysics to study the thermal dynamics of gold::vanadium dioxide (VO$_{2}$) nanocomposites. These simulations were done to understand the data from transient ...
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(Vanderbilt University. Dept. of Physics and Astronomy, 2011-04)Due to the complex nature of the spectra of low-mass M type stars, it is difficult to determine their metallicities and temperatures directly. By studying eclipsing binary pairs comprising one F, G, or K type star with ...
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(Vanderbilt University. Dept. of Physics and Astronomy, 2010-04)
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(Vanderbilt University. Dept. of Physics and Astronomy, 2010-04)
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(Vanderbilt University. Dept. of Physics and Astronomy, 2010-04-27)Current models of nuclear structure describe nuclear states in terms of collective vibrations and rotations of a ground state. - One such quadrupole vibrational band is the gamma-band formed by vibrations of the short ...
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(Vanderbilt University. Dept. of Physics and Astronomy, 2010-04)Enclosed microfluidic devices provide excellent systems for the study of biological processes such as cell-cell, paracrine, and autocrine signaling systems. By minimizing the fluid volume within the chambers, ...
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(Vanderbilt University. Dept. of Physics and Astronomy, 2008-04-20)We use projected number density profiles of galaxy groups to investigate the relationship between galaxy group structure and dark matter structure within halos. We primarily study a specific model of how galaxies populate ...
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(Vanderbilt University. Dept. of Physics and Astronomy, 2009-04-20)Precise control of fluid delivery in analytical devices may be achieved by harnessing electroosmotic flow (EOF) in oxidized poly(dimethylsiloxane) microfluidic channels fabricated via soft lithography. However, the ...
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(Vanderbilt University. Dept. of Physics and Astronomy, 2009-04-20)A retarding mesh analyzer was used to measure the electron energy spectrum field emitted from a single tip of a Diamond Field Emitter Array. The emission was dominated by adsorbed gas atoms and molecules on the surface ...
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(Vanderbilt University. Dept. of Physics and Astronomy, 2009-04-20)We report time-series CCD I-band photometry for the pre-main-sequence cluster NGC 6530, located within the Lagoon Nebula. The data were obtained with the 4Kx4K imager on the SMARTS 1.0m telescope at CTIO on 36 nights over ...