Australian Institute of Physics

South Australian Branch


Notice of a
FREE PUBLIC LECTURE
presented by the
Australian Institute of Physics
(SA branch)

http://www.physics.adelaide.edu.au/aip-sa
aip-sa@physics.adelaide.edu.au
Ph: (08) 8201 2093 or (08) 8234 6112 (a.h.) Fax: (08) 8201 2905
Post: AIP-SA secretary, c/o SoCPES, Flinders University, GPO Box 2100, Adelaide SA 5001

at 8:00 pm on Thursday 6th May 2010 in

Napier 102, Napier building at the University of Adelaide

including presentation of the Gold Bragg medal,
awarded for the best Australian PhD thesis in Physics in 2008-9, on:
"Looking for the highest energy particles in nature using the Moon and radio-telescopes"

by Dr Clancy James

Radboud University, Nijmegen, the Netherlands

Abstract: For approximately 50 years, scientists have been observing `ultra-high energy cosmic rays': particles (mostly protons) hitting the Earth from space with more than ten million times more energy than humans can acheive on Earth. And yet we still don't know what is producing these extreme particles. A key to this puzzle is the observation (or lack thereof) of ultra-high energy neutrinos, which are predicted both from models of cosmic ray production, and from their interactions whilst travelling through the universe. Since neutrinos are almost mass less and uncharged, they will travel directly from their source to us, so observing them will point back to the source of the cosmic rays. One method to detect both the cosmic rays themselves and any accompanying neutrinos is to look for bursts of radio-waves lasting only a few billionths of a second when these particle hit the Moon. My phd project was to investigate how best to use Earth-based radio-telescopes to detect these very short radio pulses, and apply this knowledge to a search with the Australian Telescope Compact Array in NSW. In this talk, I describe my research, and how even though my collaborators and I did not manage to detect these elusive particles, we learnt valuable lessons for future observations with the next generation of more sensitive radio-telescopes.

Biography: Clancy James grew up in Stirling in the Adelaide Hills, graduating from Westminster High School in 2000. He studied Economics and Physics at the University of Adelaide, getting degrees in both in 2004, an honours degree in theoretical physics in 2005, and finally a PhD in astrophysics in 2009. He now works at Radboud University, Nijmegen, the Netherlands, where he is working on a new radio-telescope ('LOFAR').

Medal Presentation
AIP President A/Professor Brian James presents the 2010 Gold Bragg medal to Dr Clancy James