November 10, 2000

Physics department making headway at the speed of light

It's an exciting time for Loyola's physics department. With headline research being conducted by current Loyola professors and the addition of a new faculty member and a visiting research assistant from Japan, the physics department is rapidly making headway and progressing into the future.

Physics Professor Carl Brans, Ph.D., who won the Humboldt Senior Research Award from the German government in 1998 and currently holds the Bank One/Rev. James C. Carter, S.J., Professorship, is making history once again thanks to his research. In the 1960s, Brans and his partner Robert Dicke created what has come to be known as the "Brans-Dicke," or "scalar-tensor," theory. This theory involved modifying Einstein's version of "gravity as geometry" by adding a new field, a scalar.

The Brans-Dicke theory caused great excitement in the mid 1960s and '70s and led to much experimentation. NASA placed the lunar laser reflector on the moon during manned lunar expeditions to test this theory against Einstein's theory. The data collected suggested that the Brans-Dicke theory was not valid in its original form. However, new variations of the Brans-Dicke theory, especially motivated by super-string and inflationary cosmology, are currently being pursued.

This resurgence of interest in Brans-Dicke theories was one of the experimental justifications for the recent construction of the massive Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO) at a site approximately 75 miles from New Orleans in Livingston, La. The LIGO project is operated jointly by Caltech and MIT with research conducted by scientists from more than 20 universities and institutions around the world.

The detection of gravitational radiation with LIGO or other detectors has been at the center of the research activities of Martin McHugh, Ph.D., the latest member of Loyola's physics department. McHugh brings to the department a wealth of experimental background in this area as well as an enthusiasm for teaching and involving undergraduates in this work. Also, some investigators have suggested that Brans-Dicke fields may give rise to "wormholes," topological paths that might lead to time travel, or at least to distant parts of the universe. Such structures seem to be forbidden by Einstein's standard theory, but may be possible in the one suggested by Brans and Dicke.

In addition to performing research on scalar-tensor theories, Brans, along with Duane Randall, professor in Loyola's math department and recipient of the Rev. John F. Keller, S.J., Distinguished Professorship, are investigating the possible physical significance of recent mathematical discoveries in differential topology. These discoveries mean that in certain four dimensional spaces there may be an infinity of different ways to do calculus globally. Brans and Randall are working with Torsten Asselmeyer, a mathematician from Berlin who is currently writing a book on these topics with Brans.

This year, Loyola's physics department also has welcomed Akihito Miyazaki, Ph.D., a visiting research associate from Japan who is working with Brans on scalar-tensor theories.

Raymond Willhoft, A'00, Intern in the Offices of Public Affairs and Publications