The Department of Physics and Astronomy has the distinction of being ranked 32nd nationwide in the Research-Doctorate Programs in Physics out of almost 300 departments. The survey was taken by the National Research Council in 1993. We were among the few physics departments which were rated highly improved in the previous five years.
In the U.S. News and World Report rankings of all U.S. institutions for undergraduate education, U.C. Irvine as a whole has made the top 50 list with a ranking of 48th. U.C. Berkeley is 26th, U.C.L.A. is 28th, U.C. Davis is 40th and U.C. San Diego is 43rd.
Prof. Gaurang Yodh has been elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He was cited for contributions to high energy physics and cosmic rays, and for the development of air shower detectors to study high energy radiation from astrophysical sources.
The MILAGRO gamma ray telescope in New Mexico has been dedicated with the completion of the light-tight bag 5000 square meters in area and 8 meters deep. This will be filled with water and will house 800 photo-multiplier tubes. The UCI contingent consists of Profs. Gaurang Yodh and Steve Barwick, postdoctorate Anthony Shoup, graduate students Scott Hugenberger and Isabel Leonor, and technical assistant Scott Delay. High energy astrophysical gamma rays (50 GeV to 100 TeV) create air showers which upon entering the water will generate Cherenkov light. Sources could be Active Galactic Nuclei, supernovae remnants, and Gamma Ray Bursters.
The ceremony for the dedication of Super-K took place on Nov. 11 in the mine in Kamiokande, Japan. There were over 280 people seated on the floor of the massive underground detector, including the President of the University of Tokyo, the Governor of the GIFU prefecture, the head of the Japanese funding agency (Monbusho), the heads of many companies, etc. Everything is on schedule for filling the water Cherenkov detector beginning in the end of December and data taking beginning next April. The Long Baseline experiment pointing a neutrino beam toward SuperK from the KEK accelerator is also on schedule. The beam horn is designed and being built, and the detector design has now been fixed. It is expected to begin data taking in 1998.
The Academic Reseach Infrastructure program of the NSF recently awarded $3.8M to UCI and the University of Wisconsin (Steve Barwick of UCI and Frances Halzen of UW are co-PIs) for the expansion and upgrade of the AMANDA neutrino telescope located at the South Pole. AMANDA consists of a large array of light sensors buried about a mile beneath the surface of the ice. The expanded array will permit a more thorough search for sources of high energy neutrinos in the universe. In addition to UCI and UW, the AMANDA collaboration includes astrophysicists from UC-Berkeley, Stockholm and Uppsala Universities in Sweden, and DESY-Zeuthen in Germany. The ARI program requires that 30% of the funds be matched by university, industrial, or private contributions. Vice Chancellor of Research Fred Wan and the UCI administration were essential components to the success of this proposal.
Physics and Astronomy major Cawley D. Vaccarella was awarded a prestigious Barry Goldwater Scholarship. He was one of the two students at UC Irvine receiving the scholarship, and there were only two other winners in the UC system. He is also President of the Society of Physics Students at UCI.