Archived Newsletters

Officers

  • Chair: Louis F. DiMauro
  • Chair Elect: Christopher Monroe
  • Vice Chair: Gerald Gabrielse
  • Past Chair: Pierre Meystre
  • Secretary/Treasurer: Carol E. Tanner
  • Councillor: Paul Julienne

Members-at-Large

  • Elizabeth McCormack
  • Jun Ye
  • Linda Young
  • Nicolas Bigelow
  • Paul Lett
  • Chii-Dong Lin

From the Chair

Lou DiMauro

From: Lou DiMauro, Ohio State University

There are some signs of Spring in the air which means that the DAMOP Annual meeting is rapidly approaching. The meeting dates are May 25-29, 2010 and the venue is the Hyatt Regency in downtown Houston. Information on hotel accommodations, registration and other can be found at the DAMOP 2010 website.

The official DAMOP program starts on Wednesday morning with the Prize session. However, a graduate student symposium will be held on Tuesday, May 25 at the Rice campus along with laboratory tours. The lectures this year will help celebrate the 50th anniversary of the laser by describing leading edge advances in the technology and their application. There will be additional activities planned throughout the week but let me highlight a few others. On Wednesday evening, Prof. Gérard Mourou will present a public lecture that will take the audience from the genesis of the laser to the pinnacle of laser technology. Prof. Mourou is Director of the Institut de Lumière Extrème in France and a pioneer in development and application of ultra-fast high intensity lasers. The LaserFest organization, a collaboration of the professional societies, will have a demonstration booth in the hotel lobby which will be opened to the general public. On Saturday, May 29 the APS will also host a Teacher’s Day, which will continue the theme of laser’s impact on society, with a program on LIGO featuring Prof. Nergis Mavalvala from MIT. There is nothing better for cleaning optics than oil, so our after dinner banquet talk will be presented by Dr. Brian Clark from Schlumberger on the “Physics and the Search for Hydrocarbons”, after all the meeting is in Houston.

The DAMOP sorter meeting was held on Saturday January 30, 2010 at the Physics Department at Rice University. This year continued the trend of a growing meeting, the number of submitted papers increased by 12.5% raising the total to nearly a thousand. Sorting these papers was an all day activity and represented the hard work of several people. I like to recognize the efforts of the Rice folks: Randy Hulet, Barry Dunning, Satyan Bhongale, Adilet Imambekov, Tom Killian, Han Pu and Sophie Rittner. The out-of-towners were Chris Monroe (Maryland), Vinaya Sathyasheelappa (APS), Alexei Sokolov (TAMU), Carol Tanner (Notre Dame), Daniel Vrinceanu (TSU), Tom Weinacht (Stony Brook) and George Welch (TAMU). Special thanks to Umbe Cantu, the Rice meeting administrator, for coordinating the sorters meeting and overseeing all the details for the Annual meeting, plus she prepared a homemade Mexican breakfast for all the sorters.

The continued growth of the meeting certainly signifies a healthy and vibrant community but with success comes new challenges. The chairline, along with the input of the community, has anticipated and planned ahead. As you know, starting in 2011 the APS will manage the DAMOP Annual meeting into the near future. However, certain issues are coming to fruition and it is important to get some additional feedback from the community. The length of the meeting, thus the number of sessions, has been fixed for the last few years. Already in 2009 the meeting was saturated with respect to the number of contributed oral presentation slots and this is further amplified in 2010. In the July 2007 Newsletter our former chair, Bill Stwalley, foresaw this issue and proposed some future options:

  • A longer meeting (more days or longer days or both),
  • More parallel sessions,
  • Fewer invited talks,
  • Shift of a sizable number of presentations from contributed to poster.

The last item is already being implemented. I think it would be useful for the chairline to hear from the community on this issue. I encourage you to attend the DAMOP business meeting on Friday evening, May 28, 2010.

As a reminder for 2011, the meeting will take place at Marriott Atlanta Marquis Hotel in Atlanta, GA from June 13-17.

I hope that you enjoy the Springtime and look forward to seeing you in Houston!

DAMOP 2010 Elections

The DAMOP election started earlier this year than last. As a courtesy to the candidates, the goal over the last two years has been to complete the election before the DAMOP 2010 early registration deadline. We succeeded this year with the close of on-line voting on March 23. At that point all paper ballots were counted, online and paper totals were combined, and the candidates were notified a few days before the deadline. We would like to thank the nominating committee for their hard work in putting together an excellent slate of candidates and all of the candidates for agreeing to participate in the election. If you are interested in running again or ready to get your feet wet in the political arena please notify someone on the nominating committee: Bill Stwalley (Chair), Nora Berrah, Dave Wineland, Deborah Watson, Lew Cocke.

The election outcome is as follows:

  • Vice-chair: David Schultz, Oak Ridge National Laboratory
  • APS Councilor: Thomas Gallagher, University of Virginia
  • EC Member at Large: Murray Holland, JILA-University of Colorado
  • EC Member at Large: Carl Williams, NIST-Gaithersburg

Congratulation to the newly elected. Your terms officially begin at the close of the business meeting on May 28, 2010.

Changes to the by laws:

The ballot this year also included a vote on changes to the by laws. The changes were accepted. The main change was the addition of a one-year term for the most recent Past Secretary Treasurer as a member of the executive committee. A link to the updated bylaws appears on the following web page.

DAMOP/DAMPhi 2010 Information

The 41st meeting of the Division of Atomic Molecular and Optical Physics (DAMOP) of the American Physical Society (APS) is being held jointly this year with the Division of Atomic and Molecular Physics and Photon Interactions (DAMPΦ) of the Canadian Association of Physicists (CAP). The conference is hosted by Rice University and will take place at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in downtown Houston, TX from Tuesday 25 May through Saturday 29 May 2010. Houston is a diverse vibrant city with many cultural and historic sites within an easy walk, ride, or drive of the conference hotel. The conference web site contains detailed information about the conference and the attractions available for accompanying persons.

Abstract Submission
The deadline for contributed abstracts was Friday 22 January 2010. The total number of submitted abstracts, 1029, reached a new record high (93 invited, 469 oral, and 467 poster). We are grateful to and would like to thank all those who participated in the abstract sorter’s meeting: Randy Hulet, Barry Dunning, Satyan Bhongale, Adilet Imambekov, Tom Killian, Han Pu and Sophie Rittner all from Rice U. and Alexei Sokolov (TAMU), Daniel Vrinceanu (TSU), Tom Weinacht (Stony Brook), George Welch (TAMU), Lou DiMauro (OSU), Chris Monroe (U. Maryland), and Carol Tanner (Notre Dame). Vinaya Sathyasheelappa of the APS meetings department expertly guided the process. All of the sorters would also like to thank Umbe Cantu (Conference Administrator) for taking such good care of everyone by making breakfast and suggesting the restaurant where we celebrated the completion of a long day. The sorting took a little more time than usual because of the record number of submissions. Some difficult decisions were required in order to fit the all of abstracts into the five day conference with only six parallel sessions. The program is now online at the APS web site.

Registration
The registration fee includes all receptions, breaks, and the conference banquet. On-line registration is still open until Friday 30 April 2010 through the APS web page.

After 30 April 2010, registration is only on-site beginning Tuesday 25 May 2010 at 4 pm at Imperial Ballroom Foyer in the Hyatt Regency downtown Houston. Additional information about registration and fees can be found through the links on the above web page.

Preregistration totals have already reached 947 participants with 457 of those being students. This preregistration total is higher than all previous DAMOP meetings and is extrapolated to reach ~1050 during the meeting.

Accommodations
Blocks of rooms have been reserved in Hyatt Regency and the nearby Crowne Plaza Hotel. If you have not made your reservation, make your reservation now as rooms are filling up quickly. Special conference rates are available at both hotels. The conference rate at the Hyatt is available until April 25, but it is probably full already. The conference rate at the Crowne Plaza Hotel is available until May 10, 2010. Links to both hotels are listed on the conference website.

The conference organizers have reached an agreement with a new overflow hotel called Club Quarters, downtown. Their contact information is Club Quarters, 720 Fannin Street, Houston, TX 77002, phone number for reservations is 212-575-0006. The code name to receive the negotiated rate of $89/night for single/double occupancy is DAMOP.

Registrants who encounter problems making a hotel reservation should contact:

Umbe Cantu
Conference Administrator
Rice University
Department of Physics and Astronomy
MS-108
Houston, TX 77005

Accompanying Persons Program
A list of suggested tourist activities in the Houston/Galveston area is available on the conference web site.

Travel to Houston by Air
Houston is served by two major airports that are approximately equidistant from the conference hotel: George Bush Intercontinental Airport (IAH) and William P. Hobby Airport (HOU).

Travel from Airports to Hotels

Student Travel Support
The level of student participation at DAMOP meetings rises every year, and we believe it is one of the reasons why the meeting is so energetic and interesting. The DAMOP Education Committee works hard every year to obtain Student Travel Support funds from various government agencies to assist as many students as possible. This year over 150 students applied for support. Each year priority is given to students who have submitted an abstract and have not received support in the past. At this time, 80 students were notified by email that they have been selected to receive support. Many thanks are due to the DAMOP Education Committee Jan Chaloupka (Chair), Tom Donnelly, Kat Gillen-Christandl, and Barry Walker for their hard work in obtaining funds.

Invitation Letter for Visa Purposes
Individuals requiring an official letter of invitation in order to attend the meeting may write to the DAMOP 2010 conference administrator. This procedure is designed to assist participants who need to obtain a visa or permission to attend the meeting. The letter does not imply that registration fees or other expenses will be assumed by the meeting organizers. Address requests to:

Umbe Cantu
Conference Administrator
Rice University
Department of Physics and Astronomy
MS-108
Houston, TX 77005

Oral Sessions
There are six parallel oral sessions, which will run from 8:00 am to 12:30 pm and 2:00 pm to 4:00 pm, Wednesday-Friday and from 8:00 am to 12:30 PM on Saturday. There will be a break in the morning sessions from 10:00 am to 10:30 am and ample time for lunch from 12:30 pm to 2 pm. Note that poster sessions begin at 4:00 pm approximately when the oral sessions end.

Presenters in the oral sessions must report to their sessions 20 minutes prior to the start of the session to set up their talks. VGA switch boxes will be provided in each presentation room that allows each presenter to separately connect their own laptops to the projector. A backup copy of the presentation stored on a USB memory stick will enable multiple presenters in a session to share a single laptop. This needs to be arranged before the start of the session.

Special Undergraduate Research Session
A special undergraduate research session will once again be held at the DAMOP Annual Meeting. Six outstanding students will present their work on Thursday 27 May 2010. See detailed session information.

Poster Sessions
The Poster Sessions I, II, and III will be held in the Hyatt Regency Exhibit Hall (lower level) from 4:00pm to 6:00pm on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday respectively. Poster presenters are encouraged to put up their posters in the morning of the day the poster is presented and are asked to remove them by 6:30 pm the same day. The area provided for each poster is 4 foot high by 8 foot wide.

Vendor Exhibits
As in previous years, vendor exhibits will be set up near the poster sessions. The vendors this year include Lockheed Martin Aculight, New Journal of Physics, Journal of Physics B, Cold Quanta, Toptica, CVI Melles Griot, and Vescent Photonics, and Sacher Lasertechnik.

CAMOS BOOTH AT DAMOP-2010
The Board on Physics and Astronomy's Committee on Atomic, Molecular, and Optical Physics (CAMOS) will have a display booth at DAMOP 2010 in Houston. At recent meetings the Committee has had discussions and focus sessions on topics including Quantum Information Science, AMO Physics addressing issues related to Energy and the Environment, and research at the interface of AMO and Condensed Matter Physics. Recent publications will be available, including the AMO 2010 report, "Controlling the Quantum World." Please stop by to talk about the committee's past and current activities, and to share ideas for future discussions.

Special Events – Tuesday 25 May 2010

Graduate Student Symposium and Rice Lab Tours
The Graduate Student Symposium is being held on Tuesday 25 May 2010. Advanced registration is required and the fee is $50. A complimentary box lunch will be provided to all participants. The registration fee for this event must be received before April 30 and can be paid through the APS registration web site. There will be no onsite registration for the symposium.

The symposium celebrates the 50th anniversary of the invention of the laser. The program is designed to introduce students to modern technologies and applications of lasers. The talks span a wide range of topics including new techniques for diagnostics and treatment in life sciences, earth science, ultrafast, and ultra intense applications. This symposium will be held in Herzstein Hall room 210 on the campus of Rice University. The speakers this year are: Vanderlei Bagnato (Universidade Federal de São Carlos - Brasil), Zheng-Tian Lu (Argonne National Laboratory), Jun Ye (JILA), and Todd Ditmire (Univ. Texas-Austin).

Rice University AMO Lab Tours
Barry Dunning, Randy Hulet, and Tom Killian will host tours of their Rice University AMO Physics Labs after the graduate Student Symposium on Tuesday 25 May from 4 pm to 6 pm. The lab tours are open to all participants of the DAMOP/DAMPΦ meeting.

Welcome Reception
DAMOP/DAMPΦ 2010 welcome reception takes place in the Hyatt Regency Imperial East and Center Ballrooms at 6:00 pm to 8:00 pm Tuesday May 25.

Special Events – Wednesday 26 May 2010

Plenary Prize Session
The scientific program begins with the Plenary Prize Session at 8:00 am Wednesday May 26 in the Hyatt Regency’s Imperial Ballroom. The prize recipients this year are the Davisson-Germer Prize recipient, Chris Greene (JILA-University of Colorado), and the Will Allis Prize recipient, Mark Kushner (University of Michigan).

Public Lecture
A public lecture will be given by Prof. Gérard A. Mourou on Wednesday 26 May at 8:00 pm in the Hyatt Imperial Ballroom.

Gérard Mourou is a Professor at the Ecole Polytechnique and Director of the Institut de la Lumière Extrême at ENSTA, Palaiseau, France. He is also the A. D. Moore Distinguished University Emeritus Professor of the University of Michigan, Professor Mourou has made numerous important contributions in the field of ultrafast lasers, high-speed electronics as well as in medicine where he introduced the field femtosecond ophthalmology. However one of his most important contributions is the invention of the laser amplification technique known as Chirped Pulse Amplification (CPA).

Title: Extreme Light Laser: Analyzing the texture of matter from the atom to vacuum

Abstract: On the eve of the laser's fiftieth anniversary, we cannot but marvel at the astounding progress accomplished since the first laser shot rang in the Hughes Research Laboratory in May 1960. The range of the laser applications is stupefying. At one extreme, it can be used to slow down the atoms to almost a complete stop in order to investigate its structure with meticulousness or make, ultra accurate clocks. At the other extreme, laser light can provide enormous electric fields capable of accelerating electrons from rest to close to the speed of light over only a fraction of a micrometer in a femtosecond, leading to extremely compact laser accelerator for material science, medical and environment applications. In the near future, the laser will produce pulses with peak power in the exawatt regime or hundred thousand times the world grid power during few femtoseconds. This laser called ELI for Extreme Light Infrastructure, is being designed and constructed in Europe. It will produce bursts of high energy particles and radiations in the attosecond and zeptosecond range and will be the gateway of a new laser-matter interaction regime: the ultra relativistic regime where not only electrons but ions are thrust to relativistic velocity. Finally, its intensity will be so large that it will be able to break down the vacuum into its fundamental elements and hence offering a new paradigm to analyze the texture of vacuum.

PRA/PRL Reception
The Physical Review A/Physical Review Letters "Meet the Editors" reception will be held at 3:30 pm Wednesday.

DAMOP Women Scientists Reception
The DAMOP Women Scientists reception will be held at 5:30 pm Wednesday.

Special Events – Thursday 27 May 2010

Conference Banquet
The conference banquet will be held Thursday 27 May 2010 at 6:30 pm in the Hyatt Regency’s Imperial Ballroom. One banquet ticket is included with the conference registration. Additional banquet tickets can be purchased for $50 in advance or at the meeting registration table in the Hyatt.

DAMOP/DAMP Φ 2010 Ancillary Event Schedule
As of 4 April 2010 from Randy Hulet (Rice U.)

Tuesday, May 25

  • Graduate Student Symposium and Rice Lab Tours, 9:00-6:00 pm (Rice)
  • DAMOP Executive Committee Meeting, 2:00-6:00 pm
  • Welcome Reception, 5:30–8:00 pm
  • TAMOC Business Meeting, 8:00-10:00 pm

Wednesday, May 26

  • Physical Review Staff Lunch Meeting 11:30 am-1:30 pm
  • Fellowship Committee Lunch Meeting 12:00-2:00 pm
  • GPMFC Executive Committee Lunch Meeting 12:30-2:00 pm
  • PRA/PRL Meet the Editors Reception, 3:30-5:30 pm
  • GPMFC Business Meeting 5:00-7:00 pm
  • DAMOP Women Scientists Reception 5:30-7:30 pm
  • PRA/PRL Editorial Board Reception, 6:30-7:00 pm
  • PRA Editorial Board Dinner Meeting, 7:00-10:00 pm
  • PRL Divisional Associate Editors Dinner Meeting 7:00-10:00 pm
  • Public Lecture 8:00-10:00 pm

Thursday, May 27

  • Program Committee Lunch Meeting 12:00-2:00 pm
  • Thesis Prize Committee Lunch Meeting 12:00-2:00 pm
  • Undergraduate Research Luncheon 12:00-2:00 pm

Friday, May 28

  • DAMOP Business Meeting, 4:30-6:00 pm

Saturday, May 29

  • Teacher’s Day at DAMOP 8:00 am-3:00 pm

APS Prize and Fellowship Nomination Procedures

Prize and Award Nomination Procedures
Prize and award nomination packets include a substantial amount of supporting material so it is never too early to start. More information on APS prizes and awards and their deadlines can be found at these web sites. The deadline for most prizes is usually July 1, so there is still time if you are planning to submit a nomination in 2010.

Fellowship Nominations Procedures
DAMOP sponsors several candidates for APS Fellowship each year. The successful candidates are elected by APS Council. The next nomination deadline is April 1, 2011. It is never too early to start preparing these nominations. Packets are submitted on-line through the APS web page. Details can be found at:

Other Upcoming Conferences and Workshops

FIFTH MEETING ON CPT AND LORENTZ SYMMETRY (CPT'10)
June 28 - July 2, 2010, Physics Department, Indiana University, Bloomington

The Fifth Meeting on CPT and Lorentz Symmetry will be held in Bloomington, Indiana, on June 28 - July 2, 2010. The meeting will focus on tests of these fundamental symmetries and on related theoretical issues, including scenarios for possible violations. You are cordially invited to attend and participate in this event. Topics to be covered include:

  • searches for CPT and Lorentz violations involving
    • birefringence and dispersion from cosmological sources
    • clock-comparison measurements
    • CMB polarization
    • electromagnetic resonant cavities
    • equivalence principle
    • gauge and Higgs particles
    • high-energy astrophysical observations
    • laboratory and gravimetric tests of gravity
    • matter interferometry
    • neutrino oscillations
    • oscillations and decays of K, B, D mesons
    • particle-antiparticle comparisons
    • post-newtonian gravity in the solar system and beyond
    • second- and third-generation particles
    • space-based missions
    • spectroscopy of hydrogen and antihydrogen
    • spin-polarized matter
  • theoretical studies of CPT and Lorentz violation involving
    • physical effects at the level of the Standard Model, Gen. Relativity, & beyond
    • origins and mechanisms for violations
    • classical & quantum issues in field theory, particle physics, gravity, & strings

Information about the meeting and online registration, including instructions on submitting a talk or poster, are available on the meeting web site.

Deadline for early registration: May 1, 2010

Deadline for block accommodations: May 21, 2010

Contact: Alan Kostelecky

22nd INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON ATOMIC PHYSICS (ICAP2010)
The 22nd International Conference on Atomic Physics (ICAP2010) will be held from 25-30 July 2010 in Cairns, Tropical North Queensland, Australia - gateway to the Great Barrier Reef, and the famous World Heritage rainforests of the Daintree and Cape Tribulation. The regular registration deadline is 28 June 2010.

The conference will present an outstanding program of invited speakers and contributed posters covering the most recent advances in the broad field of atomic physics, including atomic tests of fundamental physics and basic symmetries; precision measurements (including atomic clocks, atom interferometers and fundamental constants); ultracold gases and Bose Einstein Condensates; ultracold Fermi gases; ultracold molecules; quantum simulators with atoms and ions; few-body systems; quantum information with atoms and ions; quantum optics and cavity QED with atoms; hybrid and optomechanical systems; and ultrafast phenomena and free electron lasers. The provisional program with invited speakers and provisional titles is now available on the conference website.

Satellite meetings, workshops and related conferences planned for the weeks before and after ICAP2010 include an ICAP Student Workshop at Cape Tribulation, a Workshop on Variation of Fundamental Constants and Violation of Fundamental Symmetries P, T(EDM), CPT, Lorentz Invariance in Cairns (24-25 July); the XXIV International Conference on Statistical Physics (STATPHYS 24) in Cairns (19-23 July); and the Tenth Quantum Communication, Measurement and Computation Conference (QCMC2010) in Brisbane (19-23 July, 2010).

Contact: Peter Hannaford

2010 Michigan Quantum Summer School
August 2-13, 2010, Ann Arbor, MI

Organizers: Aaron Leanhardt, Luming Duan, Hui Deng, and Christopher Monroe
School URL

The 2010 Michigan Quantum Summer School will serve as an exploratory workshop on Quantum Simulation and Metrology. The summer school is designed to serve a graduate student and postdoc audience, although all are welcome to attend. The school will be held Aug. 2-13, 2010 in Ann Arbor, MI, with a registration date of June 1, 2010. The workshop will cover simulation of many-body, strongly-correlated systems with controllable quantum platforms as well as classical computers, squeezed state and entangled state preparation, and their use to achieve high-precision measurements and to implement quantum information processing. For further information, including invited speakers and registration, please see the website above.

DAMOP 2011 the 42nd Annual Meeting

Finally, it is not too early to mark your calendars with the dates of the next annual meeting, DAMOP 2011 Atlanta, GA, June 2011. Since the DAMOP meetings have grown to over 1000 participants, they have become too large for most campus venues and local organizing committees. The APS will be organizing the DAMOP annual meets starting with DAMOP 2011. In order to maintain, the look and feel of DAMOPs past, the Chair of our division has appointed a nonlocal organizing committee chair. For the upcoming Atlanta meeting David Schultz (and now newly elected Vice-chair) has agreed to take on this task for DAMOP 2011. If you would like to help out, please contact David Schultz.