UW–Madison Physics Department

Congratulations to Puxin Lin @uwmadphysics.bsky.social for successfully passing the Prelim (PhD candidacy) exam!

Who was Amelia Frank? Amongst many important and well-researched answers presented in this piece is this one: she was a UW–Madison physics PhD alum, studying under John H. Van Vleck.

Congrats, Prof. Halzen!

Cary Forest directs the Wisconsin Plasma Physics Laboratory (WiPPL), which operates several multi-investigator plasma physics devices. #WARF100 @uwchancellor.bsky.social @uwmadphysics.bsky.social @uwmadisonls.bsky.social https://www.warf.org/commercialize/uw-madison-inventor-profiles/forest/

DSI Director and @uwmadphysics.bsky.social Professor @kylecranmer.bsky.social has been honored with the inaugural Pritzker Prize in AI for Science for his role in establishing a powerful new approach to data analysis that leverages advances in machine learning and AI. dsi.wisc.edu/2025/11/10/d...

Robert McDermott's research group develops technologies to enable scaling to quantum processors involving thousands or millions of qubits. #WARF100 @uwchancellor.bsky.social @uwmadphysics.bsky.social @uwmadisonls.bsky.social https://www.warf.org/commercialize/uw-madison-inventor-profiles/mcdermott/

Excited to share my 1st paper as a PhD student at @uwmadphysics.bsky.social working with @uwdsi.bsky.social!

Our paper introduces a novel way to benchmark self-supervised ML models and evaluate mutual information estimators on realistic data.

Glad to have worked with this group. More to come!

Mark Eriksson's group focuses on semiconductor quantum dot qubits, quantum computing and information, quantum measurement and more. #WARF100 @uwchancellor.bsky.social‬ @uwmadphysics.bsky.social‬ @uwmadisonls.bsky.social‬ https://www.warf.org/commercialize/uw-madison-inventor-profiles/eriksson/

Excited to share with you an exciting project with Jacky Yip @uwmadphysics.bsky.social and Charles Arnal and Francois Charton at Meta where we develop a transformer model to automate the generation of Calabi-Yau manifolds, extra dimensional spaces in string theory: arxiv.org/abs/2507.03732

First images from world's largest digital camera reveal galaxies and cosmic collisions Astronomers have been eagerly anticipating the images from the Vera C. Rubin Observatory, which experts say could help solve some of the universe's most enduring mysteries.

Stunning first images from the world’s largest digital camera at the Vera C. Rubin Observatory. And big shoutout to @uwmadphysics.bsky.social associate professor Keith Bechtol who helped make this celestial milestone happen! 🔭🪐✨

At the #RubinFirstLook watch party @uwmadphysics.bsky.social

UW–Madison physicists play key role in international observatory Physics professor Keith Bechtol and his research group have been key players in bringing the Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile to the main stage. Now its state-of-the-art telescope has started taking

First images of the greatest cosmic movie ever made will be released by the Vera C. Rubin Observatory on Monday, and one of the “directors” is @uwmadphysics.bsky.social
Prof. Keith Bechtol. Join the watch party to learn more about the observatory and UW–Madison’s involvement!

Congrats to physics instrument maker Bill Foster!

Attosecond inner-shell lasing at ångström wavelengths - Nature Strong lasing effects similar to those in the optical regime can occur at 1.5–2.1 Å wavelengths during high-intensity XFEL-driven Kα1 lasing of copper and manganese.

study in Nature: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Bergmann Group achieves shortest hard X-ray pulses to date Once only a part of science fiction, lasers are now everyday objects used in research, healthcare and even just for fun. Previously available only in low-energy light, lasers are now available in wave...

Today in @nature.com, Uwe Bergmann's group, with colleagues at SLAC, SACLA, and others, demonstrated generating the shortest (~100 attosecond!) X-ray pulses ever through the first demonstration of strong lasing phenomena.
Our story ⬇️, study linked in comments
www.physics.wisc.edu/2025/06/11/b...

A portrait of student Nathan Wagner.

A portrait of student Nicholas Rienstra.

Congrats to our 2025 Astronaut Scholars: Nathan Wagner (@uwmadphysics.bsky.social) & Nicholas Rienstra (Engineering) for their STELLAR dedication to innovation in STEM. 🚀🌟

I’m at a symposium in honor of Vernon Barger remembering the glory days of Pheno @uwmadphysics.bsky.social. Listening to Dieter Zeppenfeld (one of my PhD advisors) talking about the subject of my thesis: Vector Boson Scattering (jet veto & VBF H→ ττ). Nice memories.
agenda.hep.wisc.edu/event/2212/

An action packed week in Japan: KEK workshop on Topological Analysis in Data Science: www.kek.jp/ja/research/... a seminar on the weak gravity conjecture: www.kek.jp/en/research/... and finally a talk on “Topology and Brain Science”: ithems.riken.jp/en @uwmadphysics.bsky.social

Visiting @nordita.org for 2 days giving a colloquium and a seminar. This is how a physics institute should look like: a place to cultivate deep thoughts without forgetting fun! @uwmadphysics.bsky.social

Congratulations to my undergraduate advisee Qing (Helena) Huang for winning the Hilldale Undergraduate/Faculty Research Fellowship! While her major is in Statistics, Data Science and Information Science, her award winning work with me is deeply rooted in @uwmadphysics.bsky.social

Where pints and atoms collide! 🍻 Join us April 29, 2025, at 7 PM at Working Draft Beer Co. for Badgers on Tap with @uwmadphysics.bsky.social experts Noah Hurst and Juliana Pacheco Duarte. Bring your crew, grab a drink, and enjoy quick, engaging talks!

For more info: hubs.li/Q03jzd_60

#BadgerTalks

Join us and the @uwmadphysics.bsky.social for a physics-themed Badgers on Tap at Working Draft Beer Co. on April 29 at 7 PM! Hear from UW experts Noah Hurst and Juliana Pacheco Duarte as they share the latest in plasma and nuclear research.

Details: hubs.li/Q03j6tSD0

#BadgersOnTap

UW–Madison scientists part of team awarded Breakthrough Prize in Physics A team of 13,508 scientists, including over 100 from the University of Wisconsin–Madison, won the 2025 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics, the Breakthrough Prize Foundation announced April 5. T...

We're excited to have over 100 ATLAS and CMS researchers named on the 2025 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics! Read about the work UW scientists contributed at www.physics.wisc.edu/2025/04/15/u...

Home Latest News Support WPR Programming Featured Stories Find Your Local Station Stay informed on the latest news in your region and access your local station’s broadcast schedule Featured Episodes Politi...

Happy #WorldQuantumDay! Join @uwmadison.bsky.social CS professor and WI Quantum Institute member Swamit Tannu on @WPR today at noon CDT to hear the latest in quantum computing and UW–Madison's role in advancing research in the field. Listen to the live stream at www.wpr.org #MidwestQuantum

Congratulations to the @uwmadison.bsky.social physicists and @uwmadphysics.bsky.social collaborators at the Large Hadron Collider honored with the Breakthrough Prize, including DSI Director @kylecranmer.bsky.social. Data science and AI have been key to advancing particle physics. go.wisc.edu/6s5dn6

Generalized symmetry constraints on deformed 4d (S)CFTs - Craig Lawrie, DESY YouTube video by UW-Madison HEP Theory and Cosmology Seminar

Great to have Craig Lawrie fron DESY visiting us @uwmadphysics.bsky.social this week. His talk on “Generalized symmetry constraints on deformed 4d (S)CFTs is now on our YouTube channel: youtu.be/ALKNwSCkhqg?si…

Videos for the UW-Madison HEP Theory and Cosmology Seminar @uwmadphysics.bsky.social: physics.wisc.edu/events/?name... are now on YouTube. You can find the first few talks this year by Asher Berlin, Alberto Castellano, and Gordon Krnjaic on my playlist: youtube.com/@gary_shiu

Great to have Sash Sarangi (EMAlpha) visiting
@uwmadphysics.bsky.social for a couple of days and giving an interesting seminar on "Thinking Fast and Slow". The video recording of his talk is now on YouTube: youtube.com/watch?v=3WAa... Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: www.youtube.com/@Gary_Shiu

In the search for the elusive sterile neutrino, UW–Madison and NOvA scientists *still* didn't find any — but their work puts the tightest constraints on parameter space to date for where sterile neutrinos could be found. #Physics #Neutrinos
www.physics.wisc.edu/2025/02/26/n...