All four members of the Physics Department faculty have ongoing research programs that students are encouraged to be involved in. Members have published a number of articles in important research journals in recent years.

Erin Flater - Atomic Force Microscopy, Friction and wear at the nanoscale, Determination of chemical and physical properties of surfaces and probes.

Todd Pedlar - Development of electronics and software for particle physics experiments, Meson structure and binding, Heavy quark physics.

James Perez - Interactions between slow, highly charged ions and surfaces, Physics of very highly charged ions, Atomic collision simulations.

Jeffrey Wilkerson - Soft gamma ray detection of galactic sources, Gamma ray detector design.

RECENT GRANTS AWARDED TO THE LUTHER PHYSICS DEPARTMENT :

Grant money is used to buy the equipment and supplies that make research possible. It also can support travel to research facilities and conferences, as well as stipends for student work during the summer.

In 2007, the Department received a $159,000 Major Research Instrumentation grant from the National Science Foundation. This grant allowed for the purchase of an atomic force microscope used for Dr. Flater's research projects designed to probe the nature of friction at the nanoscale.

In 2007 an Iowa College Foundation Grant of $2,000 provided funds used by Dr. Wilkerson and his students to search for new variable stars in the field of open cluster NGC2286.

In 2006 the National Science Foundation provided an RUI grant of $138,000 for Dr. Pedlar's study of heavy quark mesons. The grant funds equipment, student stipends and travel associated with the research.

In 2006 the Department received two Iowa College Foundation McElroy grants for a total of $4,000. The grants supported work in particle physics and astrophysics.

In 2004 an Iowa College Foundation McElroy Grant of $1,750 supported the study of variable stars in star clusters by Dr. Wilkerson and his students.

In 2001 the Department received an Iowa College Foundation Maytag Grant of $2,000 for the spectroscopic study of supernovae.

In 2000 an Iowa College Foundation McElroy Grant of $2,000 supported the development of an astronomical spectrograph.

In 1999 the Roy J. Carver charitable Trust provided $129,000 for upgrading the astronomical observing facilities at Luther. The grant provided equipment and facilities used in research as well as classroom work and public outreach.

In 1998 an NSF ILI grant of $10,171 was used to acquire telescopes, cameras and filters for astronomical work.

RECENT PUBLICATIONS AND PRESENTATIONS

Recent Conference Presentations by Students

“Stellar Variability in the Field of Open Cluster NGC7380,” Nathan Rengstorf, McElroy Research Symposium, Waverly, IA, May 2007.

“Investigation of Hadronic Transitions Among States of Bottomonium with the CLEO Experiment,” Kris Klein and John Xavier, McElroy Research Symposium, Waverly, IA, May 2007.

“New Variable Stars in the Field of Open Cluster NGC7380,” Nathan Rengstorf, 37 th Mid-American Regional Astrophysics Conference, Kansas City, MO, April 2007.

“BVRI Photometry of the Field containing Open Star Cluster M23,” Andrea Schiefelbein, 37 th Mid-American Regional Astrophysics Conference, Kansas City, MO, April 2007.

“Evidence of Period Evolution in Short-period Eclipsing Binaries in the Field of Open Star Cluster M23,” Ujjwal Joshi, 37 th Mid-American Regional Astrophysics Conference, Kansas City, MO, April 2007.

Conference Presentations by Faculty with Student Co-Authors

“A Technique to Search for Rapid variations in Stellar Flux”, J.A. Wilkerson, T.S. Brown, K.A. Frank, U. Joshi, B. K. Lacoul, N.P. Rengstorf and A.M. Schiefelbein, 210 th Meeting of the AAS, Honolulu, HI., May 2007.

Journal Publications with Student Co-Authors

"Measurement of the Near Infrared Xenon Scintillation Yield Near Atmospheric Pressure," J. Wilkerson, J. McLaren and U. Raut, Nucl. Inst. and Meth. A., 500, pp. 345-350, 2003.

Summer 2007

• Ujjwal Joshi worked at Luther College monitoring period evolution in short-period eclipsing binary stars discovered in the field of open cluster M23.
• Andrea Schiefelbein worked at Luther College searching for new variable stars in the field of open star cluster NGC2286.
• Kris Klein worked at Luther College continued his study of Summer 2006, with the goal of observing two important, but as yet unobserved states in the bottomonium system. Observation of either of these states would fill an important void in the understanding of quark-antiquark interactions.
• Andrew Webber worked at Luther College, studying the decays of bottomonium and charmonium states to a proton-antiproton pair. His work ultimately will result in a comparison between the decay rates in the two systems, which will yield information about the strong nuclear interaction.
• Isaac White worked at Luther College developing MatLab-based algorithms for the determination of atomic force microscope (AFM) tip shape as extracted from AFM images. He spent time at the Univ. of Wisc.-Madison learning AFM and transmission electron microscope imaging techniques, in order to compare MatLab tip reconstructions with electron microscope images of AFM tips.
• Josh Bruflodt worked at Luther College installing and testing a Linux based operating system called ROCKS on the 8-node (15 processor) Beowolf parallel computing cluster maintained by the Physics Department. He modified existing atomic collision simulation code used to run on the Beowolf cluster.

Summer 2006

• Ujjwal Joshi worked at Luther College searching for evidence of period evolution in eclipsing binary stars with periods less than a day located in the field of open cluster M23.
• Nathan Rengstorf worked at Luther College conducting a survey of rotating variable stars in the young open cluster NGC7380.
• Andrea Schiefelbein studied the effects of observing conditions on photometric resolution at the Luther College observing site.
• John Xavier worked at Luther College studying hadronic transitions in the Bottomonium system that involve the emission of an eta meson. His work is aimed at observing two previously unseen transitions, and possibly discovering one of several previously unobserved states of the bottomonium system.
• Kris Klein worked at Luther College searching for transitions in the bottomonium system involving two pi mesons, and which may yield the observation of a previously unobserved state in the bottomonium system.
• Dan Gonzalez worked at Luther College modifying and testing a computer simulation being developed to study the interaction of carbon-60 molecules ( Buckminster Fullerenes) with a variety of charged particles.

PAST RESEARCH by Luther students