Sub-relativistic outflows are seen as blueshifted absorption troughs in the spectra of roughly one third of all quasars. I will describe how we determine the mass flux and kinetic luminosity of these outflows and show that the derived values suggest that absorption outflows may be a main agent of AGN feedback scenarios.

Studies of rare decays of muons, pions, and kaons have been important in establishing the current picture of particle physics and in constraining hypothetical approaches which go beyond the Standard Model to deal with its known deficiencies. Experimental capabilities have increased in concert with theoretical understanding making this approach to searching for new physics more viable than ever and essential, even in the era of new high energy colliders like the LHC. In this talk, I will discuss the current state of a few of the most interesting and incisive rare decay experiments and the prospects for future advances.

The fundamental processes involved in gene expression are inherently random. This intrinsic stochasticity can give rise to phenotypic heterogeneity even if the cells in a population are genetically identical. Correspondingly, there is considerable interest in understanding how different cellular regulatory mechanisms impact the stochasticity or 'noise' in gene expression. Of particular interest are regulatory mechanisms involving genes called small RNAs, which often act as central elements of global regulatory pathways. Two prominent examples which will be discussed are the quorum-sensing (QS) and CsrA pathways in bacteria which control important bacterial processes.

We propose and analyze general stochastic models of gene expression and, in certain limits, derive exact analytical expressions quantifying the noise in protein distributions. Focusing on specific regulatory mechanisms, we analyze two different models, based on the QS and CsrA pathways, for regulation of stochastic gene expression. The results obtained provide new insights into the role of post-transcriptional regulation in controlling the noise in gene expression. The derived results also suggest novel applications, validated by stochastic simulations, for inferring gene expression parameters using regulation by small RNAs.

When a massive star collapses at the end of its life, nearly all of the gravitational binding energy of the resulting remnant is released in the form of neutrinos. I will discuss the nature of the core collapse neutrino burst and what we will learn about particle physics and about astrophysics from the detection of the burst. I will cover supernova neutrino detection techniques in general, current supernova neutrino detectors, and prospects for specific future experiments.

We present results from the UCNA experiment, the first attempt to measure angular correlations in neutron beta-decay using ultracold neutrons (UCN). Neutron beta-decay provides a clean system to study the weak interaction of the nucleon. High precision measurements of the weak force are of considerable interest to the particle and nuclear physics community, where beta-decay measurements can be used to extract, for example, the axial coupling constant of the nucleon. This coupling constant plays an important role in our understanding of nucleon spin and flavor structure and is a critical parameter in the solar fusion rate.

UCNA is designed to measure the angular correlation between the neutron spin and the emission direction of the electron following beta-decay. Our experimental approach utilizes UCN because of several important advantages they offer in controlling the systematic errors in our measurement. Their use required the development of a solid deuterium source at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, a guide system, and superconducting magnet systems to polarize the UCN and measure their decays. We present an overview of our source, the UCNA experiment and our recent result, a 1.4% measurement of the beta-asymmetry, and finish with a look at some of our goals during the next two years.

The controlled pumping and mixing of microliters of fluid in microgeometries is a challenging problem. The state-of-the-art approach to flow delivery and regulation in complex microfluidic devices requires targeted actuation of arrays of pumps and valves using active control and requires an entire associated tabletop system of accessories to power and control the flows in a single microscale device. In contrast, insects have evolved over millions of years to manage fluid flows at the microscale very efficiently. The honey bee, for example, is a small, autonomous organism containing two microfluidic systems, its respiratory and circulatory systems, that can increase its metabolic rate by two orders of magnitude almost instantaneously when it takes off in flight, demonstrating a dynamic range and level of control that are unparalleled in current engineered microsystems. Inspired by the superior performance of insects to engineered microsystems, a group of biologists and engineers from Virginia Tech and Arizona State University have begun to study the respiratory and circulatory systems in the carabid ground beetle, the American locust, and the silk moth with the hope of discovering new principles for managing fluid flows at the microscale more efficiently. In this talk, I will discuss the initial attempts by the VT-ASU group, using pioneering synchrotron x-ray imaging work, microfluidics experiments, and modeling, to understand features of the beetle respiratory system, a complex network of rigid, collapsible millimeter- to micrometer-scale valveless tracheal tubes that appear to be passively activated and controlled by their material response to macroscopic abdominal motions.

The last decade has produced remarkable discoveries in neutrino physics including the only laboratory evidence to date for physics beyond the Standard Model. New neutrino experiments are planned to further explore the properties of neutrinos and to continue this era of neutrino discoveries. In addition, new experimental programs are poised to explore the Terascale, where massive new particles in the TeV range are expected to be discovered. These new experiments include measurements of fundamental symmetries that can help reveal the nature of new physics at the Terascale (and beyond) and provide complementary information to direct searches for new particles at the Large Hadron Collider. I will present an overview of the exciting prospects for new discoveries in these areas of experimental research.

The pervasiveness of decision-making in every area of human endeavor highlights the importance of understanding choice mechanisms and their detailed relationship to underlying neurobiological function. This talk surveys some of the recent and productive application of game-theoretic probes (economic games) to mental function and mental disorders. Such games typically possess concrete concepts of optimal play, thus providing quantitative ways to track when subjects' choices match or deviate from optimal. This feature equips economic games with natural classes of control signals that should guide learning and choice in the agents that play them.

These signals and their underlying physical correlates in the brain are now being used to generate objective biomarkers that may prove useful for exposing and understanding the neurogenetic basis of normal and pathological human cognition. Thus, game-theoretic probes represent some of the first steps toward producing computationally principled, objective measures of cognitive function and dysfunction useful for the diagnosis, treatment, and understanding of mental disorders.

Over fifty years ago, Feynman predicted the rise of nanotechnology, even before it was on the horizon. Today, not only have we made significant strides in the fields he proposed - nanomedicine, nanolithography and nanofabrication; but we have developed tools that allow us to go 'small' in the 'other' component of space - time. With the advent of femtosecond pulses of light, we have been able to pursue physics at the femtosecond timescale in systems characterized by a nanometer length scale.

In today's talk, I will present three very different ideas from my own research background that involve physics at the femto-nano scale. Using a Metamaterial - an artificially fabricated nano-material, I will demonstrate the ability to do develop ultrafast, nanoscale, tunable, photonic devices. Next, in graphene - a newly discovered allotrope of carbon, using a counter-intuitive technique in ultrafast spectroscopy, I will demonstrate the relativistic nature of an electron-hole plasma within 100 femtoseconds of photoexcitation. Lastly, in the quantum Hall system - a two-dimensional electron gas in a large magnetic field, I will demonstrate the photoexcitation of complex, many-body states and then observe their quantum interference that can been seen only within the first few hundred femtoseconds.

The apparent asymmetry of matter and antimatter in the visible universe is one of the greatest unsolved problems in physics. So says a current entry in Wikipedia. We can blame this asymmetry on something called "CP violation", but none of the known CP-violating phenomena can account for it. There is hope, though, that CP violation in neutrino interactions may hold the key for understanding the production of matter from energy in the early universe.

We will review the basic ideas behind CP violation and how it might account for the matter/antimatter asymmetry. Neutrinos and their properties, both known and still unknown, will be discussed, and the set of experiments now underway will be reviewed. We will focus on two experiments. One is the so-called Daya Bay Reactor Neutrino experiment, the most sensitive of the current generation to a critical, but yet unknown, parameter. The other is the Long Baseline Neutrino Experiment, a new, major undertaking by the US High Energy Physics community, which aims to eventually observe CP violation in neutrino interactions.

As the size of devices shrinks down, interfaces in nanostructures more strongly govern the electronic, magnetic and mechanical properties of nanodevices. I will discuss our recent scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) and spectroscopy (STS) explorations of microscopic systems, where size quantization and electron-electron interactions induce novel magneto-electronic behaviors at nanostructure interfaces. This includes graphene nanoribbons (GNRs) and other quasi-1D nanostructures. Our results provide compelling evidence for theoretically predicted edge states and a size-tunable energy gap of chiral GNRs, both of which are crucial for potential applications of graphene in nanoelectronics, photovoltaics and spintronics. I will additionally show how interfaces at the nanoscale on a metal surface change dynamically due to electron scattering and thermal fluctuations.

Metallic nanostructures have provided us with a unique opportunity to manipulate light in an unconventional manner. They have enabled both new fundamental physics and fascinating practical applications. Collectively, subwavelength metallic structures serve as building blocks for optical metamaterials with properties that were not observed or even speculated about in the past. Individually, metallic structures can be crafted into plasmonic nanodevices that enable routing, concentration, and active control of light beyond the conventional diffraction limit. This is a very exciting frontier in optics and materials science, with the promising goal of yielding better solar cells, faster computer chips, ultrasensitive biochemical detectors, and even invisible devices. In this talk I will present my recent work on both plasmonics and metamaterials. Topics to be discussed on metamaterials include experimental demonstrations of the first magnetic metamaterial across the entire visible spectrum, and the world's first negative-index material at optical frequencies. The unique flexibility in tailoring material prosperities rendered by metamaterial research allows us to control electromagnetic waves using a tool called transformation optics, with optical cloaking being a prominent example. As for individual plasmonic devices, I will discuss passive routing elements using three-dimensional metallic slot waveguides as well as active plasmonic electrooptic modulators. Finally I will show an extreme case of light creation and manipulation in plasmonics: electrically controlled nonlinear harmonic generation of light in a metallic nanocavity.

In condensed matter, new physics often results from novel forms of broken symmetry. Identifying and characterising such states requires close interaction between theory and experiment. The challenge is to extract as many conclusions as possible from the experimental data without relying on specific microscopic models. This can sometimes be achieved through group-theoretical symmetry analysis.

I will illustrate this by our recent work on LaNiC₂ [1,2], a superconductor whose crystal lacks inversion symmetry. I will show that the superconducting state of this material must feature non-unitary triplet pairing. I will highlight the uniqueness of this state by reviewing and comparing it to known triplet, non-centrosymmetric, and non-unitary superfluids and superconductors.

[1] A. D. Hillier, J. Quintanilla, & R. Cywinski, Phys. Rev. Lett. 102, 117007 (2009).
[2] J. Quintanilla, A. D. Hillier, J. F. Annett, & R. Cywinski, Phys. Rev. B 82, 174511 (2010).

What happens when you ask physicists to improve a physics course? They approach it as an experiment: they design a "learning experiment," measure students' learning, and then drive the curriculum change and reform based on the measurements. The results of the reform are then tested again, and the cycle of measurement-improvement continues. As an example of this process, I will describe a pedagogy aimed to teach students better problem-solving skills in introductory mechanics: Modeling Applied to Problem Solving (MAPS). I will present the underlying motivation for MAPS, the implementation, and the results of assessments designed to measure various aspects of students' performance: problem-solving skills, attitudes towards science, and improvement in subsequent electricity and magnetism course.

I will also talk about the Integrated Learning Environment for Mechanics (ILEM); an open-source online environment we are developing to teach mechanics (http://loncapa.mit.edu). In ILEM, learning modules (with snippets of text, videos, animations and illustrative examples) are integrated with research-based problems which vary in cognitive complexity. We are implementing Item Response Theory to accurately measure student skill and the efficacy of educational resources. I will present the ILEM design, its features and infrastructure.

The fundamental physics underlying the magnetoelectric effect, together with attractive device applications have propelled the investigation of novel materials and heterostructures that maximize the coupling between the electric and magnetic order parameters. The ability to change magnetic properties with electric (rather than magnetic) fields has immediate applications in the quest for "faster, smaller, colder" memory devices, by taking advantage of the much tighter spatial extent and low power requirements of electric (as compared to magnetic) fields. Magnetoelectric coupling in layered heterostructures of ferroelectric (or piezoelectric) and magnetic thin films typically arises from volume effects which couple magnetic and electrical order parameters via the strain. However, there also exist subtle interfacial effects involving fundamental physical changes at the interface that can result in striking magnetoelectric coupling. We discuss an experimental investigation of these effects, in a system with negligible strain coupling.

We have seen unambiguous evidence of the electric field control of magnetic anisotropy in a Cobalt/ polymer ferroelectric heterostructure. Strain in the soft polymer ferroelectric, a copolymer of 70% vinylidene fluoride with 30% trifluoroethylene, P(VDF-TrFE) is unlikely to cause significant strains in the much stiffer metallic Co film, thus ruling out substantial volume effects. As the ferroelectric polarization is switched from up to down, the magnetic anisotropy of the Co films changes from out-of plane to in-plane, enabling us to switch a significant fraction of the magnetization at constant magnetic field, merely by switching the ferroelectric polarization. We attribute this significant change in the magnetic properties to the large electric field at the ferroelectric/ferromagnet interface arising from the polarization of the ferroelectric polymer.