Food For Thought | Fahad Mahmood and Aleksei Aksimentiev

Food for Thought: A series of public events featuring research and creative projects by recent CAS Associates and Fellows.

We are delighted to showcase the work of some of our most productive and creative faculty in this informal series of intellectually and spiritually invigorating presentations. You are invited to drop in when you can to learn about the exciting projects undertaken by our faculty.

11:00am-11:45am: Fahad Mahmood, CAS Beckman Fellow 2023-24, Physics

Shine femtosecond light, the electrons are dancing

Quantum mechanics governs the electrons inside every material around us, yet this hidden world is notoriously difficult to see. Electrons move and interact far too quickly for any conventional camera, and many remarkable properties of matter emerge from what they do together. Professor Mahmood will describe new ways to measure electrons as they evolve and interact. Using flashes of light only quadrillionths of a second long, we can watch electrons evolve and even reshape their quantum states. He and his research group are also developing a technique that detects two entangled electrons at once, revealing the interactions behind exotic materials such as high-temperature superconductors.

Noon-12:45pm: Aleksei Aksimentiev, CAS Associate 2024-25, Physics

What we learned from modeling viruses on supercomputers

Viruses sit at the interface of physics and biology: they are compact, compositionally simple assemblies that invite mechanistic modeling, yet they are also major agents of human disease and targets for vaccines and antivirals. Recent advances in supercomputer hardware and the development of multiresolution computational methods have made it possible to simulate complete viral particles using physics-based models. This lecture will share insights gained from these simulations and explore opportunities for further development.