Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Developing A Data Acquisition System For Use In Cold Neutral Atom Traps, Jonathan E. Fuzaro Alencar

Physics

The rising interest in quantum computing has led to new quantum systems being developed and researched. Among these are trapped neutral atoms which have several desirable features and may be configured and operated on using lasers in an optical lattice. This work describes the development of a new data acquisition system for use in tuning lasers near the precise hyperfine transition frequencies of Rb 87 atoms, a crucial step in the functionality of a neutral atom trap. This improves on previous implementations that were deprecated and limited in laser frequency sweep range. Integration into the experiment was accomplished using an …

Out-Of-Core Gpu Path Tracing On Large Instanced Scenes Via Geometry Streaming, Jeremy Berchtold

Master's Theses

We present a technique for out-of-core GPU path tracing of arbitrarily large scenes that is compatible with hardware-accelerated ray-tracing. Our technique improves upon previous works by subdividing the scene spatially into streamable chunks that are loaded using a priority system that maximizes ray throughput and minimizes GPU memory usage. This allows for arbitrarily large scaling of scene complexity. Our system required under 19 minutes to render a solid color version of Disney's Moana Island scene (39.3 million instances, 261.1 million unique quads, and 82.4 billion instanced quads at a resolution of 1024x429 and 1024spp on an RTX 5000 (24GB memory …

Unique Signed Minimal Wiring Diagrams And The Stanley-Reisner Correspondence, Vanessa Newsome-Slade

Master's Theses

Biological systems are commonly represented using networks consisting of interactions between various elements in the system. Reverse engineering, a method of mathematical modeling, is used to recover how the elements in the biological network are connected. These connections are encoded using wiring diagrams, which are directed graphs that describe how elements in a network affect one another. A signed wiring diagram provides additional information about the interactions between elements relating to activation and inhibition. Due to cost concerns, it is optimal to gain insight into biological networks with as few experiments and data as possible. Minimal wiring diagrams identify the …

Van Kampen Diagrams And Small Cancellation Theory, Kelsey N. Lowrey

Master's Theses

Given a presentation of G, the word problem asks whether there exists an algorithm to determine which words in the free group, F(A), represent the identity in G. In this thesis, we study small cancellation theory, developed by Lyndon, Schupp, and Greendlinger in the mid-1960s, which contributed to the resurgence of geometric group theory. We investigate the connection between Van Kampen diagrams and the small cancellation hypotheses. Groups that have a presentation satisfying the small cancellation hypotheses C'(1/6), or C'(1/4) and T(4) have a nice solution to the word problem known as Dehn’s Algorithm.

Wildfire Risk Assessment Using Convolutional Neural Networks And Modis Climate Data, Sean F. Nesbit

Master's Theses

Wildfires burn millions of acres of land each year leading to the destruction of homes and wildland ecosystems while costing governments billions in funding. As climate change intensifies drought volatility across the Western United States, wildfires are likely to become increasingly severe. Wildfire risk assessment and hazard maps are currently employed by fire services, but can often be outdated. This paper introduces an image-based dataset using climate and wildfire data from NASA’s Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS). The dataset consists of 32 climate and topographical layers captured across 0.1 deg by 0.1 deg tiled regions in California and Nevada between …

Automation Of The Transition Identification Procedure For Trapping Rubidium Atoms In A Magneto-Optical Trap, Michael P. Fletcher

Physics

The words “quantum computer” often conjure images of science fiction and unrealistic technology from an impossible future. Some may even believe that they aren’t real or are only theoretical. The truth is that quantum computers are real, tangible systems with real life uses and rooted in credible scientific research. Today, many groups of scientists collaborate on research into better ways of implementing and improving quantum computing techniques. This paper will be addressing the systems required and phenomena used to achieve neutral atom trapping for quantum computation. This thesis will outline the physical phenomena involved with the frequency tuning process for …

Electrochromic Windows: Return On Investment Analysis, Thomas Michael Caprio

Construction Management

In recent years, sustainability in construction has become a topic of undeniable interest. With sustainability certifications becoming more prominent and desirable, members of the construction industry have begun to seek alternatives for standard systems to keep up with market trends. One of the main issues that the construction industry faces is accessibility of technology. While there are new products and technologies being released frequently, members of the construction industry lack knowledge on the specific details and implications of working with newer systems. One piece of technology that was recently introduced is electrochromic glass, or smart glass. Electrochromic windows analyze sunlight …

One-Dimensional Array Of Optical Dark Spot Traps From Nested Gaussian Laser Beams For Quantum Computing, Katharina Gillen-Christandl, Travis Daniel Frazer

Physics

Quantum computing is rapidly becoming a practical technology, driven by new and advanced quantum systems, each with its own advantages and disadvantages. For neutral atoms as a host system, the natural advantage of long lifetimes is limited by decoherence mechanisms like light scattering. In this work, we computationally investigate a blue-detuned one-dimensional optical dipole trap array to reduce light scattering by holding atoms in minimum light intensity regions. The array consists of two counter-propagating Gaussian beams of differing widths, such that light walls from the larger beam radially confine the standing wave generating the dipole traps. We find this system …

One‑Dimensional Arrays Of Optical Dark Spot Traps From Nested Gaussian Laser Beams For Quantum Computing, Travis Frazer, Katharina Gillen

Physics

Quantum computing is rapidly becoming a practical technology, driven by new and advanced quantum systems, each with its own advantages and disadvantages. For neutral atoms as a host system, the natural advantage of long lifetimes is limited by decoherence mechanisms like light scattering. In this work, we computationally investigate a blue-detuned one-dimensional optical dipole trap array to reduce light scattering by holding atoms in minimum light intensity regions. The array consists of two counter-propagating Gaussian beams of differing widths, such that light walls from the larger beam radially confine the standing wave generating the dipole traps. We find this system …

Energy Analysis For Neutron Induced Ternary Fission Events In The Niffte Fission Time Projection Chamber, Vanessa Aguilar

Physics

In this paper, energy analyses were made for investigating ternary fission in neutron-induced fission of U235 and U238 using the Neutron Induced Fission Fragment Tracking Experiment (NIFFTE) collaboration’s fission time projection chamber (TPC) data. The Neutron kinetic energy was calculated from neutron time of flight (nToF) for energy ranges of 0.1 to 32 MeV. Along with this, the Stopping and Range of Ions in Matter (SRIM) software was used to simulate alphas going through an argon gas target in order to calibrate observed energy loss of alphas from ternary fission.

The Close Agn Reference Survey (Cars): Ifu Survey Data And The Bh Mass Dependence Of Long-Term Agn Variability, B. Husemann, M. Singha, J. Scharwächter, R. Mcelroy, J. Neumann, I. Smirnova-Pinchukova, T. Urrutia, S. A. Baum, V. N. Bennert, F. Combes, S. M. Croom, T. A. Davis, Y. Fournier, A. Galkin, M. Gaspari, H. Enke, M. Krumpe, C. P. O'Dea, M. Pérez-Torres, T. Rose, G. R. Tremblay, C. J. Walcher

Physics

Context. Active galactic nuclei (AGN) are thought to be intimately connected with their host galaxies through feeding and feedback processes. A strong coupling is predicted and supported by cosmological simulations of galaxy formation, but the details of the physical mechanisms are still observationally unconstrained.

Aims. Galaxies are complex systems of stars and a multiphase interstellar medium (ISM). A spatially resolved multiwavelength survey is required to map the interaction of AGN with their host galaxies on different spatial scales and different phases of the ISM. The goal of the Close AGN Reference Survey (CARS) is to obtain the necessary spatially resolved …

Patterns Of Academic Help-Seeking In Undergraduate Computing Students, Augie Doebling

Master's Theses

Knowing when and how to seek academic help is crucial to the success of undergraduate computing students. While individual help-seeking resources have been studied, little is understood about the factors influencing students to use or avoid certain re- sources. Understanding students’ patterns of help-seeking can help identify factors contributing to utilization or avoidance of help resources by different groups, an important step toward improving the quality and accessibility of resources. We present a mixed-methods study investigating the help-seeking behavior of undergraduate computing students. We collected survey data (n = 138) about students’ frequency of using several resources followed by one-on-one …

Fire Effects In Montane Meadows, Rosie Deak

Master's Theses

The impact of forest fires on downstream meadow communities across California is of great ecological interest, as meadows are an important source of biodiversity in this region. Over a century of fire suppression has led to increased forest stand densities, which in turn has resulted in less water availability due to increased transpiration of densely growing trees. This potentially has left less available water for downstream plant communities in meadows. If true, then high mortality wildfires in surrounding forest are predicted to lead to an increase in available downstream moisture where obligate and facultative-wetland taxa increase and dry-adapted upland taxa …

Memory Capacity In A System Of Swelling Particles, David T. Keating

Physics

A system has the ability to store memory if one is able to write, retrieve, and erase information from it. Some systems are capable of storing multiple transient memories; with no noise in these systems, at long time, the memories degrade until one or two remain. The addition of noise to these systems can extend the retention of multiple memories, in some cases indefinitely [2, 3]. While this behavior was first observed in simulations of charge density waves, it has since appeared in other systems [1].

Past research has shown that sheared non-Brownian liquid suspensions of particles exhibit similar behavior …

An Optimization Model For Minimization Of Systemic Risk In Financial Portfolios, Zachary Alexander Gelber

Master's Theses

In this thesis, we study how sovereign credit default swaps are able to measure systemic risk as well as how they can be used to construct optimal portfolios to minimize risk. We define the clustering coefficient as a proxy for systemic risk and design an optimization problem with the goal of minimizing the mean absolute deviation of the clustering coefficient on a group of nine European countries. Additionally, we define a metric we call the diversity score that measures the diversification of any given portfolio. We solve this problem for a baseline set of parameters, then spend the remainder of …

The Lick Agn Monitoring Project 2016: Velocity-Resolved Hβ Lags In Luminous Seyfert Galaxies, Vivian U, Aaron J. Barth, H. Alexander Vogler, Hengxiao Guo, Tommaso Treu, Vardha N. Bennert, Gabriela Canalizo, Alexei V. Filippenko, Elinor Gates, Frederick Hamann, Michael D. Joner, Matthew A. Malkan, Anna Pancoast, Peter R. Williams, Jong-Hak Woo, Bela Abolfathi, L. E. Abramson, Stephen F. Armen, Hyun-Jin Bae, Thomas Bohn, Benjamin D. Boizelle, Azalee Bostroem, Andrew Brandel, Thomas G. Brink, Sanyum Channa, M. C. Cooper, Maren Cosens, Edward Donohue, Sean P. Fillingham, Diego González-Buitrago, Goni Halevi, Andrew Halle, Carol E. Hood, Keith Horne, J. Chuck Horst, Maxime De Kouchkovsky, Benjamin Kuhn, Sahana Kumar, Douglas C. Leonard, Donald Loveland, Christina Manzano-King, Ian Mchardy, Raúl Michel, Melanie Kae B. Olaes, Daeseong Park, Songyoun Park, Liuyi Pei, Timothy W. Ross, Jordan N. Runco, Jenna Samuel, Javier Sánchez, Bryan Scott, Remington O. Sexton, Jaejin Shin, Isaac Shivvers, Chance L. Spencer, Benjamin E. Stahl, Samantha Stegman, Isak Stomberg, Stefano Valenti, L. Villafaña, Jonelle L. Walsh, Heechan Yuk, Weikang Zheng

Physics

We carried out spectroscopic monitoring of 21 low-redshift Seyfert 1 galaxies using the Kast double spectrograph on the 3 m Shane telescope at Lick Observatory from 2016 April to 2017 May. Targeting active galactic nuclei (AGNs) with luminosities of λLλ(5100 Å) ≈ 1044 erg s−1 and predicted Hβ lags of ∼20–30 days or black hole masses of 107–108.5 M⊙, our campaign probes luminosity-dependent trends in broad-line region (BLR) structure and dynamics as well as to improve calibrations for single-epoch estimates of quasar black hole masses. Here we present the first results from the campaign, including …

The Lick Agn Monitoring Project 2016: Velocity-Resolved Hβ Lags In Luminous Seyfert Galaxies, Vivian U, Aaron J. Barth, H. Alexander Vogler, Hengxiao Guo, Tommaso Treu, Vardha N. Bennert, Gabriela Canalizo, Alexei V. Filippenko, Elinor Gates, Frederick Hamann, Michael D. Joner, Matthew A. Malkan, Anna Pancoast, Peter R. Williams, Jong-Hak Woo, Bela Abolfathi, L. E. Abramson, Stephen F. Armen, Hyun-Jin Bae, Thomas Bohn, Benjamin D. Boizelle, Azalee Bostroem, Andrew Brandel, Thomas G. Brink, Sanyum Channa, M. C. Cooper, Maren Cosens, Edward Donohue, Sean P. Fillingham, Diego González-Buitrago, Goni Halevi, Andrew Halle, Carole E. Hood, Keith Horne, J. Chuck Horst, Maxime De Kouchkovsky, Benjamin Kuhn, Sahana Kumar, Douglas C. Leonard, Donald Loveland, Christina Manzano-King, Ian Mchardy, Raúl Michel, Melanie Kae B. Olaes, Daeseong Park, Songyoun Park, Liuyi Pei, Timothy W. Ross, Jordan N. Runco, Jenna Samuel, Javier Sánchez, Bryan Scott, Remington O. Sexton, Jaejin Shin, Isaac Shivvers, Chance L. Spencer, Benjamin E. Stahl, Samantha Stegman, Isak Stomberg, Stefano Valenti, L. Villafaña, Jonelle L. Walsh, Heechan Yuk, Weikang Zheng

Physics

We carried out spectroscopic monitoring of 21 low-redshift Seyfert 1 galaxies using the Kast double spectrograph on the 3 m Shane telescope at Lick Observatory from 2016 April to 2017 May. Targeting active galactic nuclei (AGNs) with luminosities of λLλ(5100 Å) ≈ 1044 erg s−1 and predicted Hβ lags of ∼20–30 days or black hole masses of 107–108.5 M⊙, our campaign probes luminosity-dependent trends in broad-line region (BLR) structure and dynamics as well as to improve calibrations for single-epoch estimates of quasar black hole masses. Here we present the first results from the campaign, including …

Procedural Plant Generation With Floragen, Christopher Wesley Wright

Computer Engineering

A particularly challenging aspect of game design revolves around asset creation. Often new developers become lost in nuances and time investment required to learn 3d asset creation software. While many game development platforms provide an internal asset store, these assets are often expensive or limited. These assets restrict the flexibility for a creator to fully control the product they create. A critical asset type in many games is flora. Good looking trees and plants add environmental variation when added properly. In this project, I designed and implemented an add-on dubbed FloraGen to the 3D modeling software Blender in which users …

Lorentz Violations And The Casimir Effect, Samuel G. Christensen

Physics

The background and calculation for the corrections to the Casimir Energy stored on parallel conducting plates due to minimal violations of Lorentz invariance are presented as a test of the Standard Model. A direction-dependent photon dispersion relation using operators of dimension 4 and higher is used in the calculation of the spacetime anisotropy correction terms to the Casimir energy. The calculation includes discussion of Riemann zeta function regularization and its equivalence to Euler-Maclaurin sum-integral formulas in a Casimir effect calculation. The two plate geometry result is mapped onto a one plate and sphere geometry to cater to modern precision tests …

Millipyde: A Cross-Platform Python Framework For Transparent Gpu Acceleration, James B. Asbury

Master's Theses

The prevalence of general-purpose GPU computing continues to grow and tackle a wider variety of problems that benefit from GPU-acceleration. This acceleration often suffers from a high barrier to entry, however, due to the complexity of software tools that closely map to the underlying GPU hardware, the fast-changing landscape of GPU environments, and the fragmentation of tools and languages that only support specific platforms. Because of this, new solutions will continue to be needed to make GPGPU acceleration more accessible to the developers that can benefit from it. AMD’s new cross-platform development ecosystem ROCm provides promise for developing applications and …

Plant Disease Detection Through Convolutional Neural Networks: A Survey Of Existing Literature, Best Practices, And Implementation, Kevin Label

Master's Theses

In the United States alone, common diseases spread among plants account for billions of dollars lost in crop yield each year. This issue is exacerbated in countries with less infrastructure to defend against crop epidemics, and can lead to famine and forced migration. Farmers can seek the help of plant pathology experts to defend against diseases and detect crop irregularities early on. However, access to experts can be difficult, and even those trained in the field may miss symptoms before it is too late. To assist in early disease detection, a number of papers have been released on the potential …

Adapting Single-View View Synthesis With Multiplane Images For 3d Video Chat, Anurag Venkata Uppuluri

Master's Theses

Activities like one-on-one video chatting and video conferencing with multiple participants are more prevalent than ever today as we continue to tackle the pandemic. Bringing a 3D feel to video chat has always been a hot topic in Vision and Graphics communities. In this thesis, we have employed novel view synthesis in attempting to turn one-on-one video chatting into 3D. We have tuned the learning pipeline of Tucker and Snavely's single-view view synthesis paper — by retraining it on MannequinChallenge dataset — to better predict a layered representation of the scene viewed by either video chat participant at any given …

On The Mobility Of Small Aperture Telescopes For Initial Orbit Determination And Apparent Magnitude Derivation Of Low Earth Satellites, Jonathan Ian Hernandez

Master's Theses

Maintaining Space Domain Awareness (SDA) of satellites in low Earth orbit (LEO) requires effective methods of tracking and characterization. Optical measurements of these objects are generally sparse due to limited access intervals and high angular rates. Light pollution and geographic obstructions may also preclude consistent observations. However, a mobile small aperture telescope grants the ability to minimize such environmental effects, thereby increasing capture likelihoods for objects within this regime. By enhancing LEO satellite visibility in this way, extensive orbital and visual data are obtainable.

An 8-inch Meade LX200GPS telescope equipped with a Lumenera SKYnyx2-0M CCD camera comprises the system that …

Measuring Hydraulic Conductivity Using Flexible Walled Permeameter And Astm Method D5084, Bradon Povah

Master of Science in Environmental Sciences and Management Projects

This project is a guide that details the protocol synthesized from the ASTM D5084-16a method, the Humboldt control panel manual, and the time spent learning the intricacies of the Permeability Cell instrument.

Plasma-Laser Wakefield Acceleration, Jonathan Babu

Physics

Many texts detailing the derivations and science of Wakefield Acceleration are aimed at graduate and doctorate level scholars, and these may seem intimidating to new physics students. This paper is meant to be an introduction to the nature of plasmas, lasers, laser-plasma interactions, and Laser Wakefield Acceleration (LWFA), with sources given where extra detail may be required. I recognize that this paper is not meant to be an all-encompassing review on the nature of the topics, as these topics are complex and subject of entire textbooks. Instead, I aim to provide an introduction to these topics to a college-level scholar …

Swarming Oscillators With Time-Delayed Interactions, Nicholas S. Blum

Physics

We investigate the role of delay in the collective dynamics of particles that swarm in space and possess an internal oscillatory degree of freedom, called swarmalators. Swarmalators were introduced recently by O’Keeffe, Hong, and Strogatz in Nature Communications 8, 1504 (2017). The addition of a time delay into the system of swarmalators was motivated by the biology of early embryonic development. This delay leads to a rich phenomenology, which includes two new collective states, which we call "semi-static crystal" and "boiling". In the semi-static crystal state, all particles in a cluster undergo decaying radial oscillations completely in phase with one …

Modeling Cherenkov Light Detection Timing For The Very Energetic Radiation Imaging Telescope Array System, Keilan Finn Ramirez

Physics

The Very Energetic Radiation Imaging Telescope Array System (VERITAS) is an array of four 12-meter telescopes which use the Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Technique to conduct high-energy gamma-ray astronomy. VERITAS detects magnitude and location information associated with Cherenkov light, and uses this information to indirectly observe gamma-rays through a software reconstruction process. VERITAS also records timing information corresponding to Cherenkov light detection, and this additional information could theoretically be incorporated into the reconstruction process to improve the accuracy of gamma-ray observations. The first step to including timing information is to understand when Cherenkov light detection would be expected from a known …

Rigid Aggregation Of Inclusions Embedded In Quasi 2d Fluids, Natalie Xochitl Ryan

Physics

Diffusion is a transport process common in several biological systems. In this process particles of different species mix together through random (stochastic) motion at molecular length scales. Diffusion in fluids is unique as the coupling of the flow and fluid have been found to produce giant concentration fluctuations. The molecular length scale of these concentration fluctuations are magnitudes larger than the movement of the particles themselves, earning them the title “giant”. The diffusion of particles in bio-membranes displays a combination of 2D and 3D hydrodynamic properties; the movements of the particles are restricted to the plane of the membrane and …

Jited: A Framework For Jit Education In The Classroom, Caleb Watts

Master's Theses

The study of programming languages is a rich field within computer science, incorporating both the abstract theoretical portions of computer science and the platform specific details. Topics studied in programming languages, chiefly compilers or interpreters, are permanent fixtures in programming that students will interact with throughout their career. These systems are, however, considerably complicated, as they must cover a wide range of functionality in order to enable languages to be created and run. The process of educating students thus requires that the demanding workload of creating one of the systems be balanced against the time and resources present in a …

Hα Reverberation Mapping Of The Intermediate-Mass Active Galactic Nucleus In Ngc 4395, Hojin Cho, Jong-Hak Woo, Tommaso Treu, Peter R. Williams, Stephen F. Armen, Aaron J. Barth, Vardha N. Bennert, Wanjin Cho, Alexei V. Filippenko, Elena Gallo, Jaehyuk Geum, Diego González-Buitrago, Kayhan Gültekin, Edmund Hodges-Kluck, John C. Horst, Seong Hyeon Hwang, Wonseok Kang, Minjin Kim, Taewoo Kim, Douglas C. Leonard, Matthew A. Malkan, Raymond P. Remigio, David J. Sand, Jaejin Shin, Donghoon Son, Hyun-Il Sung, Vivian U

Physics

We present the results of a high-cadence spectroscopic and imaging monitoring campaign of the active galactic nucleus (AGN) of NGC 4395. High signal-to-noise-ratio spectra were obtained at the Gemini-N 8 m telescope using the GMOS integral field spectrograph (IFS) on 2019 March 7 and at the Keck I 10 m telescope using the Low-Resolution Imaging Spectrometer with slit masks on 2019 March 3 and April 2. Photometric data were obtained with a number of 1 m-class telescopes during the same nights. The narrow-line region (NLR) is spatially resolved; therefore, its variable contributions to the slit spectra make the standard procedure …