| TRACK: | Science Innovation: Physical Science Frontiers |
| TITLE: | The Physics of Extra Dimensions |
| DATE: | Saturday, February 15, 2003 |
| TIME: | 8:30 a.m. - 11:30 a.m. |
| ORGANIZERS: | Maria Spiropulu, The Enrico Fermi Institute |
| PARTICIPANTS: | |
| Maria Spiropulu (Organizer),The Enrico Fermi Institute |
| Joseph Lykken (Speaker),Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory: The Physics of Extra Dimensions |
| Sean Carroll (Speaker),University of Chicago: Extra Dimensions and the Energy of Nothingness |
| Eric Adelberger (Speaker),University of Washington: Laboratory Tests of Gravity |
| Lisa Randall (Speaker),Harvard University: Extra Dimensions: Flouting Conventional Wisdom in Particle Physics and Cosmology |
| Maria Spiropulu (Speaker),The Enrico Fermi Institute: Space Exploration with Colliders |
Session Chair: Leon Lederman
| FOR THE AAAS PRESS OFFICE: Short summaries, bios all materials embargoed until Saturday Feb. 15 8:30 am | |
| Physicists have launched ambitious new experiments to prove the existence of extra dimensions of space. At this year's "physics of extra dimensions" symposium the world's leading experts will present new evidence that extra dimensions are behind everything that we see, from the Big Bang to the fundamental forces of nature. |
Joe Lykken on the evidence, already in our hands, for the existence of extra
dimensions of space
Joe Lykken is a theoretical particle physicist at the Fermi National
Accelerator Laboratory, and a professor in the Physics Department and
Enrico Fermi Institute at the University of Chicago. After receiving his
Ph.D. from M.I.T. in 1982, he migrated to the University of Texas, where
he worked with Steven Weinberg on the first realistic theoretical models
of supersymmetry. In 1984 he joined the stampede of particle theorists
into superstring theory, and spent the next decade wrestling with deep
issues of how strings are related both to quantum gravity and to particle
physics. In a 1996 paper he was the first to suggest that superstrings and
quantum gravity might appear directly in the next generation of particle
physics experiments. He also co-authored two of the early papers on the
physics of large or warped extra dimensions. Since joining the theory
group at Fermilab in 1989, he has been involved in planning experimental
searches for supersymmetry, the Higgs boson, and for extra dimensions. He
has served and continues to serve on number of special panels and
committees charged with shaping the future of particle physics. He is a
fellow of the American Physical Society and is the Scientific Secretary of
the Aspen Center for Physics.
Lecture Summary and video (requires realplayer) and SLIDES
Sean Carroll on connecting the first zero seconds of the universe with the
observations today
Sean Carroll is an assistant professor in the Physics Department and
Enrico Fermi Institute at the University of Chicago, and head of the
Theory Research Component of the Center for Cosmological Physics. He
did his undergraduate work at Villanova University, and received his
Ph.D. from Harvard in 1993 for work on violations of spacetime
symmetries, the possibility of time travel in general relativity, and
topological defects in field theories. While a postdoc at MIT he won
the Graduate Student Council Teaching Award for his course on General
Relativity; the lecture notes from this course have been widely
disseminated over the web, and are being developed into a textbook for
Addison-Wesley. During a second postdoc at the Institute for
Theoretical Physics in Santa Barbara, he worked on theoretical and
observational issues related to dark energy and the accelerating
universe. Since become a faculty member at Chicago in 1999, he has
been awarded fellowships from the Sloan and Packard foundations, as
well as the Malmstrom Lectureship at Hamline University and the
Resnick Lectureship at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. He is active
in education and outreach, giving public lectures (such as at the 2002
April Meeting of the American Physical Society) and appearing on radio
and television. His current research interests include models of dark
energy in the universe, tests of alternatives to Einstein's general
relativity, the effects of extra dimensions on spacetime dynamics, the
physics of inflationary cosmology, and social and philosophical
implications of science.
Lecture Summary and video (requires realplayer) and SLIDES
Eric Adelberger
on the most sensitive device ever built to look for new forces
Eric Adelberger, a Professor of Physics at the University of Washington,
has been making precise measurements of very weak forces (such as gravity)
since 1987, when he and Prof. Blayne Heckel formed a collaboration (the
Eot-Wash Group) to investigate whether a proposed "fifth force" based on the
old experiment of Eotvos really existed. It did not. Since then, the Eot-Wash
Group has made the best tests of Einstein's Principle of Equivalence, the
most precise measurement of Newton's constant G, and the first measurements of
gravity at length scales comparable to the diameter of a human hair. When
he is not working on gravity, Adelberger does experiments in nuclear physics,
teaches undergraduate and graduate classes, and enjoys the natural environment
of the Pacific Northwest.
Lecture Summary and video (requires realplayer)
Lisa Randall on how we unify the forces of nature with extra dimensions
Lisa Randall is a professor of physics at Harvard University where she
also received her BS (1983) and Ph.D. (1987) in physics. She was a
President's Fellow at the University of California at Berkeley, a
postdoctoral fellow at Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory and a junior fellow
at
Harvard University. As an assistant professor at M.I.T., she worked with
Alan Guth on supersymmetric models of cosmic inflation. In 1998, as a
professor at Princeton, she collaborated with Raman Sundrum on the
discovery of a new framework for realizing supersymmetry in particle
physics. In 1999, Randall and Sundrum discovered a tremendously puzzling
and exciting connection between particle physics and warped extra
dimensions of space. She is one of the top cited scientists in high
energy physics and her work is prominently featured in news sources,
ranging from journals, popular science magazines and newspapers to
radio programs and TV shows all over the world (New York Times, BBC, BBC Horizons, NOVA).
She is a fellow at the
Radcliffe Institute and has earned numerous awards, including Sloan,
Department of Energy, and National Science Foundation Young
Investigator.
Video (requires realplayer), and SLIDES
Maria Spiropulu on how to find extra dimensions with colliders
Maria Spiropulu is a Fermi Fellow at the Enrico Fermi Institute. Born
and educated in Greece, she became interested in experimental physics
early on and worked in international laboratories in Europe (BESSY,
CERN) as an undergraduate. She moved to the US in 1993 to pursue her
Ph.D. at the Collider Detector at Fermilab with Harvard University.
She worked on silicon sensors to detect high energy particle decays
and on supersymmetric searches using the "blind" data analysis method
for the first time in hadron collider data. By analyzing the debris
of very high energy particle collisions, she is looking to find
whether extra dimensions or supersymmetric particles are relevant to
the physics that connects the traditional very high energy scale of
gravity with the scale of elementary particle masses. She has given a
series of ten public lectures at the University of Chicago, a number
of public talks at different places ranging from the Divinity school
at UofC to the Wheeler Opera House in Aspen, and has appeared in radio
shows and science documentaries.
Lecture Summary and slides (short clip on last slide here)
Page updated on Thu, 20 Feb 03--
The lectures slides of all talks will be linked to this page.
Four talks are linked already, the remaining one by the end of the week.
Agenda, Saturday Feb 15, Convention Center, 8:30 am:
chair : Leon Lederman