Press Portal

Unraveling the Quantum Chaos of Black Holes
1:30 p.m. EDT
Room: Broadway North

Black holes are the ultimate takers, absorbing anything near their event horizon. But they’re also givers, emitting strangely behaving radiation that doesn’t evaporate as it should according to the rules of quantum mechanics. In this session, researchers discuss how to understand this phenomenon, called the black hole information paradox. They explain why black hole radiation behaves the way that it does by synthesizing quantum chaos with gravitational theories displayed on holographic screens.

Contact: Davie Lowe, Brown University

Harnessing Muon Particles for the Ultimate Pyramid Scheme
3:57 p.m. EDT
Room: Salon 4

Atmospheric muons are archaeology’s solution to penetrating the impenetrable – for peering into sites too dangerous, too at risk, or too culturally important to physically explore. These subatomic particles rain down onto Earth after being formed by cosmic high energy protons that collide with atomic nuclei in Earth’s atmosphere. By studying how these muons scatter and are absorbed in archaeological sites, researchers can map the unseen. Here, scientists in American and Mexican institutions present how they’ve used non-invasive atmospheric muon tracking technology to learn more about the ancient Mayan pyramid El Castillo, or the Temple de Kulkulcan.

Contact: Michael Guadarrama, Dominican University

The Story Behind the 100-Year-Old Photos That Proved General Relativity
8:30 a.m. EDT
Room: Salon 1

From 1907 to 1915, Einstein refined his theory of general relativity. But the theory remained controversial until four years later, when astronomers Frank Dyson and Arthur Eddington finally proved that theory by leading two expeditions to take solar eclipse pictures that quantified the gravitational deflection of starlight near the eclipsed Sun. But Eddington and Dyson’s eclipse pictures and astrometrical calculations were not the first of their kind. In this session, learn the history behind astronomical photography and the inventions that made Eddington and Dyson’s eclipse photos possible.

Contact: Matthew Stanley, New York University

Train-ing the LIGO Detector to Ignore the Noise
9:06 a.m. EDT
Room: Marquis C

The world’s largest gravitational wave observatory, LIGO, detects signals from celestial objects like black holes to map the universe. But its galactic focus is regularly disrupted by a uniquely terrestrial problem: seismic activity from trains that rumble by LIGO’s detectors each day. Here, scientists share what they’ve deduced about how these anthropogenic background noises impact LIGO’s ability to pick up gravitation waves and identify what types of events train noise is most likely to obscure.

Contact: Jane Glanzer, Louisiana State University

LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA Ramps Up Its Public Alert System
2:30 p.m. EDT
Room: Soho

Although it may be the best at recording gravitational waves from events like neutron star collisions, LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA (LVK) can’t detect any of the electromagnetic radiation that follows these events. Yet, studying electromagnetic and neutrino fallout is just as important for understanding the cosmos. That’s why LVK has a public alert system designed to let observatories and researchers know when it picks up significant gravitational waves. Here, scientists explain how they’ve further optimized this system to make LVK’s fourth observational run in December 2022 even more fruitful for astrophysical research.

Contact: Geoffrey Mo, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Determining How Spacetime Terminates
11:57 a.m. EDT
Room: Broadway North

Stephen Hawking and Roger Penrose's theorems on singularities - points where spacetime ends - show that spacetime must terminate. These popularized theorems concern the theory of general relativity and work under general assumptions about the initial configuration of the universe. Yet, the singularity theorems do not show what happens at the end of spacetime. In this session, scientists present a mathematical theorem that proves exactly how it terminates. While the precise initial configuration of the universe is not known, the presenter's mathematical framework proves that many initial configurations would lead to the generation of ferocious gravitational waves that cause the universe to evolve into a curvature singularity, colloquially known as a Big Bang. It also suggests the possible existence of erratic gravitational phenomena that have not yet been understood.

Contact: Jared Speck, Vanderbilt University

Quartz: The Original Ultraheavy Dark Matter Detector that Rocks
5:09 p.m. EDT
Room: Lyceum

All dark matter is hard to detect, but some dark matter is harder to detect than others. Thanks to their rarity, ultraheavy dark matter particles fall into the latter category. For this session, scientists propose using ancient quartz samples as ultraheavy dark matter detectors. According to the presenters, quartz’s longevity means it may hold a billions-years-old record of interactions with these particles, while its crystalline lattice structure makes it easier to distinguish geometrically distinct signs of these interactions.

Contact: Reza Ebadi, University of Maryland at College Park

CDF Measurement of the W Boson Mass
7 a.m. EDT
Room: Salon 1

A careful analysis of 10 years of data collected from the Collider Detector at Fermilab (CDF) reveals the most precise mass measurement yet of the W boson, a force-carrying particle related to the weak nuclear force. The CDF team measures the W boson to be much more massive than what physicists predict based on the Standard Model — physicists’ current understanding of subatomic particles and their interactions. If confirmed, the discrepancy could indicate the presence of a new particle or interaction currently unknown to physicists. In a special session, a leader of the CDF collaboration will present the new results. A panel discussion with experts from the team will follow. The session will be live streamed to the April Meeting website and YouTube.

Contact: Ashutosh Kotwal, Duke University

Qubits Entangle Quantum Computing and Dark Matter
3:45 p.m. EDT
Room: Broadway South

Qubits – the famed building blocks for quantum computing – may have another darker purpose. This talk explores how qubits could be used in dark matter detection and discusses how advances in dark matter research can be repurposed to answer ongoing quantum computing questions, like how qubits behave in the face of cosmic and terrestrial radiation.

Contact: Rakshya Khatiwada, Illinois Institute of Technology