Description:

Building Stellar Nurseries: Using the Hubble Space Telescope to Investigate Interstellar Cold Clouds
Cody Dirks, Graduate Student

Understanding the star-formation process entails probing how interstellar gas transitions from a hot, diffuse phase (which fills the majority of the volume of the Galaxy) to a cold, dense phase where most of the interstellar mass and star formation reside. As this transition in both temperature and density occurs, the gas also undergoes changes in its chemical composition and ionization state, which can be studied using high-resolution spectroscopy of various atomic and molecular lines. In this talk, I will describe my work probing this transition using a multi-wavelength approach that combines infrared data from the Planck satellite with ultraviolet absorption spectroscopy using the Hubble Space Telescope.

Kicking a Molecule When it is Down (in a Potential Well)
James Dragan, Graduate Student

Arthur Schawlow (co-inventor of the laser) once famously said “A diatomic molecule is a molecule with one atom too many”. This is understandable when you look at the internal energic structure of a molecule, which contains vibrational and rotational levels, on top of the electronic, fine and, sometimes, hyperfine structure that defines atomic levels. However, this myriad of states and transitions make molecules, however challenging, excellent candidates for studies of quantum chemistry and controlled reactions, quantum information technology and precision measurements of fundamental constants. For example, vibrational transitions in a molecule have an electron to proton mass ratio (me/mp) dependence. In this talk, I will discuss our proposal to make a precise measurement of the time variation of me/mp with mono-aluminum hydride ion (AlH+) using the technique of Quantum Logic Spectroscopy (QLS).