Physics Senior Thesis Projects (PHYS 499W)
The faculty listed below anticipate having senior thesis projects for the Summer 2007 semester. Please contact the person with whom you would like to work in order to discuss details of the project.
Do not simply sign up for Physics 499W before speaking to a faculty member. An individual call number will be assigned for each faculty member.
If you would like to work with a professor not listed below, please contact the professor directly to see if any additional projects are available.
- Prof. Des Cook
- Prof. Charles Sukenik
- Prof. Gail Dodge
- "Experimental Nuclear Physics with the CLAS 12 Detector"
- Summer: We have an opening for a student to work in the experimental nuclear physics group to work on the design and prototyping of the Region 1 drift chamber that will be built as part of the proposed CLAS12 detector in Hall B of Jefferson Lab. Summer work would include surface conductivity tests on a prototype drift chamber endplate and working with existing small drift chambers. The student would learn about experimental nuclear physics, particle detectors and perhaps data acquisition software. The student does not necessarily need to drive to Jefferson Lab. In the fall we will be doing something similar along the same path. We anticipate building a 144 cell prototype for the Region 1 drift chamber.
- Prof. Mark Havey
- Analysis of rotational and vibrational spectra for diatomic lithium helium molecules. Goals: learn the basic physics of diatomic molecular spectroscopy and how to analyze the spectra to obtain information on the molecular interaction potential energy.
- Prof. Charles Hyde-Wright
- "Imaging the Proton"
- There exists a world data set of about 100 data points for elastic electron scattering on the proton as a function of the momentum transfer to the proton. These data represent the fourier transforms of the charge and magnetization densities of the proton. In this project, we will construct the numerical inversion of the data to obtain densities in the transverse 2-D coordinates of a fast moving proton. Some familiarity with unix/linux and C/C++ is helpful. I would prefer to start this project in the summer, with registration for Phys499 in Autumn 2006. Please email me at chyde@odu.edu for further discussions prior to enrolling.
- Prof. Gil Hoy
- "Observation of Stimulated Emission of Gamma Radiation: Estimate the Size of the Effect"
- Prof. Sebastian Kuhn
- "Performance of a Radical Time Projection Chamber"
- Prof. Gary Copeland
- Computational Methods in Astrophysics
- time evolution of orbital elements of planets and their climate implications
- planetary orbit stability in binary star systems
- computational investigation into Doppler methods for discovery of extraterrestrial planets
- Computational Methods in Molecular physics
- calculate r-centroids and Franck-Condon Factors in diatomic molecules
- Observational Methods in Astrophysics
- Cepheid Light intensity Curves
- Asteroid spectroscopy and rotational rate measurements
- Robotism Telescope Instrumentation
- Transformation of our current student observatory into a automatic robotic observatory useable from an Internet Brower
