Outstanding Undergraduate AMO Researchers

DAMOP has held an annual competition to select the best undergraduate AMO research being performed for the last four years. All DAMOP advisors are asked to encourage their outstanding undergraduates to apply. Candidates submit an abstract of their work and a brief description of their involvement and contribution to the research project. An international committee selects the best of these to present an invited talk and be recognized at a ceremony at the annual DAMOP meeting. Undergraduate recipients have all expenses paid to the meeting. Don Madison, University of Missouri-Rolla organized the competition. This year, five students were selected to present talks at the Santa Fe meeting. The talks covered a wide variety of topics. Dan Chitwood from the University of Missouri-Rolla discussed quantum mechanical interference effects occurring in atomic ionization when the ionized electron energy coincides with the energy of an atomic autoionizing state. David Griggs from Georgia Southern University talked about the dynamical behavior of cold-atom Bose-Einstein condensates driven by an oscillating magnetic trap. Brooks Hitt from the University of Nebraska presented a novel method for creating polarized electrons through collisions with optically pumped rubidium. Robert Komara from Youngstown State University discussed ion-core parameters for argon by analyzing transitions between high-L Rydberg states. Finally, Chris Maloney from the University of Missouri-Rolla presented theoretical calculations for electrons colliding with argon atoms in a metastable state.