EXPLORING THE WORLD OF MAGNETS

While many of Jefferson Lab's employees have traveled overseas to work at international laboratories, the opportunity is usually not available to the most scholastically apt students at the Laboratory. However, for one Jefferson Lab student that opportunity presented itself last March.

Devin Walker, a junior physics major at Hampton University (HU) and a student researcher in the Lab's Theory Group, traveled to Guttenberg University in Mainz, Germany, to conduct groundbreaking research on magnetic monopoles.

For two weeks, Walker lived and worked at the University's Institute for Nuclear Physics. With help from Warren Buck, Walker's advisor and a researcher in Jefferson Lab's Theory Group, Walker continued work on a theory that, with experimental measure, would place limits on the existence of a magnetic monopole.

Walker is faced with a difficult task since all magnets occur in pairs, with a north pole and a south pole. When a magnet is cut, that north and south pole still exist, no matter how small the magnet is. By placing a magnet in the hydrogen atom, the resulting energy level shifts of the atom will determine the existence of the magnetic monopole. "It's a fun experiment to look at," says Walker. "People are very interested in it because the magnetic monopoles existence can prove other theories." Walker's trip was funded by HU's Nuclear High Energy Physics Center of Excellence. Without this opportunity, he would not have been able to travel to Mainz, and a valuable part of his research would have been affected, says Walker.

"I was at a point in my research where I had been struggling for three or four months. I went to Germany to conduct research and work on a computer program that analyzes the hydrogen atom, a central part of my theory." Unfortunately, two weeks was not enough time for Walker to accomplish all that he needed to, and he never got the chance to work with the computer program. "I was so busy with other aspects of my research that I never got the chance to use it," says Walker.

With this experience, Buck says that Walker will have a great advantage over other students when he progresses to the graduate- and doctoral-levels of his education. "This trip gave him the ability to set up a working collaboration with physicists from a different country, and it gets him working on an interesting problem that, if solved, will be dramatic,"says Buck.

Buck adds that this is the best time for Walker to start a research project of this magnitude. "I wouldn't recommend this problem to a graduate student because he may not be able to solve it due to time constraints," says Buck. "As an undergraduate, Devin is learning a lot of techniques and a lot of physics that he can use in many other problems."

Walker has only positive things to say about his experiences in Germany. "The people at Guttenberg University are the best in their field," says Walker. "This trip will be something that will benefit me the rest of my career in the world of physics."

Rebecca James, Directors's Office Intern

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