Dear colleagues, this week we have a special ITAMP seminar: In a triple feature the students working at ITAMP will give short talks introducing us to their research. Kind regards, Richard and Swati ITAMP Topical Lunch Discussion - Special triple feature Date: Friday, January 16th Time: 12:00-1:30 pm Pizza will be served. Location: B-106 @ Center for Astrophysics (60 Garden Street) Directions: after entering the lobby of the CfA, turn right to enter the hallway of the B building. In the hallway, turn right again, and B-106 is there. Speaker: Bill Lee, ITAMP Title: A glimpse into the novel master equation formalism to describe superradiance with the driving electric field Abstract: Developments and difficulties arisen in the recently developed method to describe superradiance with the external driving field. I will discuss some special techniques such as Schwinger-Keldysh contour, cumulant expansion, and Dyson equation applied in finding the time evolution of superradiance decay rate, as well as the validity of some important approximations. Speaker: David W. Marshall, ITAMP Title: Simulations of dynamics of carbon-rich molecules on surfaces Abstract: Not only has mid-IR imaging revealed an extraordinary variety of carbon-rich molecules present in galaxies, but also that they can be seen in a host of different astronomical bodies; from HII regions to planetary nebula, and from young stellar objects to old post-AGB sources. The range of organic species discovered so far include PAHs, fullerenes, long chain hydrocarbons and carbonaceous dust grains, some of which are biologically important. There is strong evidence that much of the terrestrial water was delivered to Earth during the Late Heavy Bombardment (LHB) approximately 3.8 - 4.1 Gyr ago. Comparisons of the deuterium-hydrogen ratio of the Vienna Mean Standard Ocean Water and comets like Hartley 2, have revealed a striking similarity. It's not without reason to assume that prebiotic molecules may have been delivered to Earth in a similar way. In this work, reactive molecular dynamics simulations are performed to probe the formation of carbon-rich molecules and clusters on graphitic surfaces. The simulations are run over a range of temperatures, densities and carbonaceous surfaces and a comparison is made of the distribution of chain and cluster formation in the gas and condensed phases. Speaker: Sam Markson, ITAMP Title: Pathways to heavy Rydberg states Abstract: We examine various ways in which the 2013 methods toward creating 'heavy rydberg states' in rubidium 87 may be optimized, along with describing various numerical algorithms useful in characterizing these states and their lifetimes. --------------------------- Dr. Richard Schmidt Institute for Theoretical Atomic, Molecular, and Optical Physics (ITAMP) Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics MS-14 60 Garden St. Cambridge, MA 02138 U.S.A. richard.schmidt(a)cfa.harvard.edu Tel. +1 (617) 496-7610 Fax +1 (617) 496-7668