Texas A&M Physicists Earn Prestigious Hyer Research Award

Two physicists from Texas A&M University, Xingbo Zhao and Dr. Ralf Rapp, were awarded the 2009 Robert S. Hyer Research Award of the Texas Section of the American Physical Society (TSAPS).

The annual award recognizes a physics student and his or her adviser for physics research that demonstrates excellence and relevance to the scientific community. Zhao was presented with the award during an October 23 banquet dinner ceremony as part of the Texas Physics 2009 conference, held October 22-24 at Texas State University in San Marcos. Zhao and Rapp each received a plaque, while Zhao also received a $500 prize.

Rapp, a member of the Texas A&M faculty since 2003, and Zhao, a student research assistant under Rapp’s mentorship in the Texas A&M Department of Physics and Astronomy and Cyclotron Institute, were cited for their contributions to the theory of the Quark-Gluon Plasma (QGP) — a dense, hot state of matter that existed in the first microseconds after the Big Bang — with their studies of charmonium production in heavy-ion collisions involving QGP and the suppressive and regenerative effect of the J/&#968 particle.

The duo’s prize-winning research was featured as one of the discussions in the annual Joint Fall Meeting of TSAPS as well as the Texas Sections of the American Association of Physics Teachers and the Society of Physics Students-Zone 13, held in conjunction with Texas Physics 2009. It was one of several hundred presentations that were given over the course of the weekend by world renowned physicists from Texas and the world in a showcase of international excellence in physics.

“We did deep levels of research involving the origins of our matter, and it answers many questions about our matter,” Zhao said. “This is the type of research that attracted me to this field.”

Rapp explained that their work involved theoretical studies of collisions of heavy atomic nuclei where the collision energy is converted into thermal energy possibly producing a QGP, essentially creating “Little Bangs” and important clues to the origins of matter in their large-scale experiments at Brookhaven National Laboratory.

“The J/&#968 particle consists of two heavy quarks, and the idea is that if QGP is formed, then J/&#968 should dissolve in QGP,” Rapp said. “Then you would observe less J/&#968, which is the J/&#968 suppression signature. We later realized that in QGP, you can create or restore J/&#968, meaning you have a suppressive or regenerative effect. We were doing systematic investigation in terms of how you can understand both mechanisms. We tried to set up a thermal framework to interpret the data.”

While the research is limited in its practical applications, Rapp noted it is significant in its revelations of the Universe and the structure of matter.

The award’s namesake, Robert S. Hyer, was a pioneer of physics teaching and research. Hyer was a founder of Southern Methodist University, where he was a professor of physics until his death in 1929. He conducted experiments that were independent yet nearly simultaneous to those of Guglielmo Marconi, who was considered by many to be the grandfather of wireless communication, beating Marconi to his Nobel Prize-winning discovery by a year. Hyer also was instrumental in early X-ray experiments that were demonstrated to several scientific and medical groups throughout Texas.

“I was very surprised to receive this honor,” Zhao said. “It’s a highly competitive award. Dr. Rapp has been a very good adviser to me.”

Zhao and Rapp are the second Texas A&M pair to win the Hyer Award since its inception in 2007, the same year Texas A&M physicists Dmitry S. Pestov and Dr. Alexei V. Sokolov were honored as the inaugural recipients for their groundbreaking work as members of a joint Texas A&M-Princeton University team that developed a new approach to detect biochemical molecules in real time using lasers.

For more information on Zhao and Rapp’s research, visit http://cyclotron.tamu.edu/rapp/.

-aTm-

Contact: Chris Jarvis, (979) 845-7246 or cjarvis@science.tamu.edu or Xingbo Zhao, xbzhao@tamu.edu, or Dr. Ralf Rapp, (979) 845-1411 or rapp@comp.tamu.edu.