This Year's Program

INSTRUCTORS: Steven Theg , Damien Martin, Richard Scalettar, Dubarrie Fagout
MORE INSTRUCTORS!: Matt Lawson, Ralph McNeilage, Jada Hollins

GENERAL DESCRIPTION, PROJECT ONE:
The condensed matter research group at the University of California, Davis, studies the properties of solids: What makes them magnetic, metallic, insulating, semi-conducting, and so on. Often these properties are calculated using computer simulations. We consider a collection of electrons in a lattice of atomic positions and use the forces between them to determine where they will move. Each electron also carries around with it a small magnet, and we try to figure out if these small magnets all line up in the same direction or not.

In the last five years a new set of experiments which involve artificial lattices made from laser beams has opened up a new way to analyze this problem. The plan this summer is to look at a specific question concerning these experiments: Why do particles pushed through such a lattice oscillate back and forth instead of move in the direction of the push?

We will begin by reviewing aspects of programming in C to make sure the basic skills are in place before writing the more complex codes which are needed for the research project. We will also do some background reading and exercises.

GENERAL DESCRIPTION, PROJECT TWO:
A second project involves research in molecular biology as it applies to issues in chloroplast biogenesis. Chloroplasts are the organelles in plants cells responsible for photosynthesis, upon which all life on Earth depends. With an understanding of the basic mechanisms involved in chloroplast biogenesis as the laboratory's major goal, students will learn basic techniques in molecular biology, such as isolation of plant DNA, restriction digest of cDNA clones and transforming and genotyping transgenic plants. The students will be supervised by professional members of the PI’s laboratory, and their experiments will contribute to ongoing laboratory projects.

BACKGROUND ARTICLES ON LIGHT:
Wave Interference
Wave Nature
BACKGROUND ARTICLES ON OPTICAL LATTICES:
The Mad Dash to Make Light Crystals
Optical Lattices: Questions and Answers
Ultra-cold physics will be a hot topic
BACKGROUND ARTICLES ON CHLOROPLAST BIOGENESIS:

BACKGROUND ARTICLES ON SOLID STATE PHYSICS:
Solids
Conductors and Insulators
Some notes on atoms and magnetism
DARPA PROGRAM WORKSHEETS:
Properties of Solids
Computers
Logging in and linux beginnings
Editing and hello.c
C programming- quadratic.c
C programming- intersect.c
C programming- arithmeticseries.c
C programming- Storing Numbers, Base 2
C programming- Geometric Series
C programming- Factorials
C programming- Exponentials from polynomials
C programming- sine function from polynomial
C programming- Writing to a file
C programming- do-while loops
C programming- integer arithmetic; the modulo function
C programming- root finding by bisection
C programming- a random number generator
C programming- two more random number generators
C programming- moments of random numbers
C programming- Checking random number generator visually
C programming- a first random walk
SOME EXTRA PROGRAMMING TASKS AND NOTES:
The Fibonacci Numbers
CHAOS!
Collatz Conjecture
Molecular Dynamics: Oscillations
Molecular Dynamics: Satellite Motion
Gambler's Ruin
COMPUTING GUIDES:
The vi editor
The linux operating system
Introduction to xmgrace