Andrew J. R. Puckett, Associate Professor, Department of Physics
The photo above shows members of the group on the BigBite Spectrometer service platform in Hall A of Jefferson Lab during the SBS installation in July 2021. From left to right: Prof. Puckett, Dr. Eric Fuchey, Graduate Research Assistants Sebastian Seeds and Provakar Datta. Professor Puckett is an experimental nuclear/particle physicist studying the internal structure of strongly interacting matter in high-energy fixed-target electron-nucleon and electron-nucleus scattering experiments at Jefferson Lab (JLab). The recently completed 12 GeV upgrade of JLab's Continuous Electron Beam Accelerator Facility to a maximum beam energy of 11 GeV (12 GeV) for electron-beam (photon-beam) experiments, augmented by state-of-the-art target and detector systems, together with high-speed data acquisition and high-performance computing, has enabled a world-leading physics program leading to three-dimensional imaging of the internal quark structure of protons, neutrons and nuclei with unprecedented precision in both coordinate and momentum space. The ultimate goal of the experiments is to understand how strongly interacting matter is built from its elementary quark and gluon constituents in terms of Quantum Chromodynamics, the generally accepted theory of the strong interaction within the Standard Model. Click the image to see the list of publications and citations (according to Google Scholar).
Recent news/events
UConn/SBS Graduate Students Win JLUO Poster Competition
Graduate students from the SBS collaboration won the first (Provakar Datta, UConn) and 3rd (Maria Satnik, College of William and Mary) prizes and an honorable mention (Sebastian Seeds, UConn) in the graduate student poster competition at the Jefferson Lab Users’ Organization annual meeting. Links to the posters and short video overviews of the posters can […]
[Read More]Graduate students Datta and Seeds accepted to NNPSS at MIT
Current UConn PhD students and group members Provakar Datta and Sebastian Seeds were accepted to the National Nuclear Physics Summer School (NNPSS) to take place at MIT this July. https://web.mit.edu/2022nnpss/index.html
[Read More]First two SBS experiments completed (Feb. 2022)
From Oct. 2021-Feb. 2022, experiments E12-09-019 and E12-20-008 were completed in Jefferson Lab’s Experimental Hall A. Data were collected that will determine the neutron’s magnetic form factor (GMN) in a previously unexplored Q2 regime up to 13.6 (GeV/c)2 with unprecedented precision. These experiments were the first large-scale deployment and operation of Gas Electron Multipliers (GEMs) […]
[Read More]Physics Department Upcoming Events
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Jun
28
PhD Dissertation Defense2:00pm
PhD Dissertation Defense
Tuesday, June 28th, 2022
02:00 PM - 04:00 PM
Storrs Campus GS-119
Graduate Student Bradley Clarke, Department of Physics, University of Connecticut
Development of an Amplified Chirp System and its Application to Ultracold Molecules
We have developed a system for producing amplified pulses of frequency-chirped light at 780 nm on nanosecond timescales for use in ultracold 87Rb photoassociation (PA) experiments. The system starts with tunable cw laser light and employs a pair of fiber-based phase modulators, a semiconductor optical amplifier, and a tapered amplifier to generate arbitrary optical frequency chirps with peak powers greater than 1 W. Driving the modulators with an arbitrary waveform generator enables arbitrary chirp shapes, such as one/two-frequency linear chirps, which enhance the rate of PA molecule formation compared to unchirped light. We overcome the optical power limitations of the modulators by duty cycling and avoid unseeded operation of the tapered amplifier by multiplexing the chirped pulses with “dummy” light from a separate diode laser. Despite amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) making up only 3% of the amplified chirp system's output, its presence can be a considerable hindrance to PA experiments. However, advantageous use of ASE has helped to illuminate the mechanisms for 87Rb magneto-optical-trap formed ultracold molecules.
Webex URL: https://uconn-cmr.webex.com/uconn-cmr/j.php?MTID=m9e6a251aaa194fda7c0a8aefa5048d9f
YepiXUFD529Contact Information: Prof. P. Gould
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Sep
23
Katzenstein Distinguished Lecture Series4:00pm
Katzenstein Distinguished Lecture Series
Friday, September 23rd, 2022
04:00 PM - 05:00 PM
Storrs Campus SU Ballroom 330
Katzenstein Distinguished Physics Lecture
“Generating High-Intensity, Ultrashort Optical Pulses”
Dr. Donna Strickland
Nobel Laureate 2018
Department of Physics & Astronomy
University of Waterloo
With the invention of lasers, the intensity of a light wave was increased by orders of magnitude over what had been achieved with a light bulb or sunlight. This much higher intensity led to new phenomena being observed, such as violet light coming out when red light went into the material. After Gérard Mourou and I developed chirped pulse amplification, also known as CPA, the intensity again increased by more than a factor of 1,000 and it once again made new types of interactions possible between light and matter. We developed a laser that could deliver short pulses of light that knocked the electrons off their atoms. This new understanding of laser-matter interactions, led to the development of new machining techniques that are used in laser eye surgery or micromachining of glass used in cell phones.
Friday, September 23, 2022
4:00 p.m.
Student Union Ballroom,
Room 330/331
Refreshments will be prior to the talk at 3:00 p.m. in the
Gant Science Complex Light CourtContact Information: Prof. Nora Berrah
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Oct
21
UConn Physics Colloquium3:30pm
UConn Physics Colloquium
Friday, October 21st, 2022
03:30 PM - 04:30 PM
Storrs Campus GW-001
Dr. William D. Ratcliff, NIST
Title and abstract TBAContact Information: Prof. P. Mannheim
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Contact Information
| Phone: | (860) 486-7137 (Office) |
|---|---|
| E-mail: | andrew.puckett@uconn.edu |
| Address: | 196 Auditorium Road, Unit 3046 Storrs, CT 06269-3046 |
| More: | https://physics.uconn.edu/person/andrew-puckett/ |