The Department of Physics and Astronomy offers programs leading to the Master of Science and the Doctor of Philosophy degrees. Research toward a degree may be conducted in either experimental or theoretical areas.
Experimental programs include magnetic materials, high-energy physics, materials science, observational extragalactic astronomy, and particle astrophysics. Theoretical programs include condensed matter, elementary particles, atomic and molecular physics, extragalactic astronomy, astrophysics, and particle astrophysics.
Faculty
Chair
- Patrick R. LeClair
Graduate Director
- Dean Townsley
Professors
- Benjamin Harms
- Raymond E. White III
- Jimmy A. Irwin
- Tim Mewes
- Nobuchika Okada
- Andreas Piepke
- Paolo Rumerio
- Rainer Schad
- Ion Stancu
- Allen Stern
- Dawn Williams
Associate professors
- Paulo Araujo
- Jeremy Bailin
- Thejesh Bandi
- Adam Hauser
- Matthias Kaminski
- Preethi Nair
- Igor Ostrovskiy
- Dean Townsley
- Wang-Kong Tse
Assistant professors
- Sergei Gleyzer
- Marcos Santander
- Georg Schwiete
- Emanuele Usai
- Ryan Wang
- Chao-Chin Yang
Courses
Graduate credit will not be granted to physics students for 400-level physics or astronomy courses. Graduate students enrolled in 500-level courses that are also offered at the 400 level are expected to perform extra work of an appropriate nature.
Astronomy Courses
This course provides a broad introduction to the theoretical foundations of astrophysical phenomena, demonstrating how fundamental phenomenology arises from physical laws. Several broad domains of astrophysics are covered, including planetary and stellar orbits, radiation, radiative transfer, ionization, star and planet formation, stellar evolution, binary stars, special and general relativity (including black holes), galactic structure and dynamics (including dark matter), active galaxies, spacetime structure, formation of large scale matter structure, and cosmology (including the accelerating expansion of the Universe, dark energy, and Grand Unification of forces in the early Universe).
Theoretical and practical aspects of modern astronomical observational techniques. Photometry, spectroscopy, interferometry, and optical and radio data reduction and image processing.
Physics Courses
Variational principles and Lagrange's equations; two-body central-force problems; kinematics of rigid-body motion; rigid-body equations of motion; special relativity; Hamilton's equations of motion; and canonical transformations.
Selected topics in contemporary physics for high school and post-secondary science teachers.