Brett Fadem
Education
- Ph.D. – Physics / Iowa State Univeristy
- B.A. – Physics / Grinnell College
Teaching Interests
I love to teach physics at all levels, from first year physics for scientists (as well as first year physics for non-scientists) to our Advanced Projects culminating educational experience course that stresses really fun advanced laboratory activities. It is also very fulfilling to participate in the first year seminar program where I have taught the course, “Now I am Become Death: Brains, the Bomb, and the Bellicose” which combines history, history of science, science, and ethics and focuses on developing writing skills. My goal is to engender interest in how nature works, encourage lively discussion, and take pleasure in the scientific investigation or the works around us. A pet project of mine has been the development of a muon telescope to be used in the undergraduate laboratory that allows the study of high energy particle physics.
Research and Scholarship
My students and I have participated in the scientific program at Brookhaven National Laboratory’s Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC). The particle accelerator is used to study matter under extreme conditions such as those that existed microseconds after the big bang. The quark-gluon plasma, a new state of matter in which even protons and neutrons are melted into their constituent parts, was discovered at RHIC in 2005, and has been studied ever since. Muhlenberg College was an institutional member of the PHENIX collaboration and is an institutional member of the sPHENIX collaboration, a large group of scientists and engineers who are constructing a new detector at RHIC and we look forward to Muhlenberg College students participating in the construction of this detector!
- Analytical Mechanics
- CUE: Advanced Projects
- General Physics I
- General Physics I - Lab
- General Physics I - Recitation
- General Physics II
- General Physics II - Lab
- General Physics II - Recitation
- Introduction to Astronomy
- Introduction to Quantum Mechanics
- Physics Independent Study/Research: Cosmic Ray Showers
- Physics Independent Study/Research: Muon Lifetime
- Physics Independent Study/Research: Muon Lifetime Experiment
- Physics Independent Study/Research: SiPM-Based Detectors
- Physics Independent Study/Research: Variable Star Photometry
"Transverse single-spin asymmetries of mid-rapidity π^0 and η mesons in polarized p+p collisions at √(S_NN ) = 200 GeV", U. A. Acharya et al., PHENIX Collaboration, including Brett Fadem, Phys. Rev. D 103, 052009 -- published 22 March, 2021
"Production of π^0 and η mesons in U+U collisions at √(S_NN ) = 192 GeV", U. A. Acharya et al., PHENIX Collaboration, including Brett Fadem, N. Cronin*, N.Crossette*, A. Isinhue*, M. Moskowitz*, M. Skolnik*, S. Solano*, Phys. Rev. C 102, 064905 – Published 4 December 2020
“Creation of quark–gluon plasma droplets with three distinct geometries”, C. Aidala et al., PHENIX Collaboration, including Brett Fadem, N. Cronin*, E.O. Lallow*, Nature Physics, published 10 December 2018
"Particle Physics with Low Cost SiPM Based Detectors", Brett Fadem, Proceedings of the third Alpha Beyond the First Year (BFYIII) conference, 2018, available at https://www.compadre.org/AdvLabs/items/detail.cfm?ID=14961
"Cross section and longitudinal single spin asymmetry AL for forward W^±→μ^± ν production in polarized p+p collisions at √s = 510 GeV", A. Adare et al., PHENIX Collaboration, including Brett Fadem, N.Cronin*, N. Crossette*, A. Isinhue*, M. Moskowitz*, M. Skolnik*, S. Solano*, Phys. Rev. D 98, 032007 – Published 14 August 2018
“Single-spin asymmetry of J/ψ production in p + p, p + Al, and p + Au collisions with transversely polarized proton beams at √(s_NN )=200 GeV”, C. Aidala et al., PHENIX Collaboration, including Brett Fadem, Phys. Rev. D 98, 012006 – Published 30 July 2018
“Measurement of emission-angle anisotropy via long-range angular correlations with high-pT hadrons in d + Au and p + p collisions at √(s_NN )=200 GeV”, A. Adare et al., PHENIX Collaboration, including Brett Fadem, A. Caringi*, P. Lichtenwalner*, Phys. Rev. C 98, 014912 – Published 26 July 2018, (Fadem presented poster on these results at Quark Matter 2018)
“Lévy-stable two pion Bose-Einstein correlations in √(s_NN )=200 GeV Au + Au collisions”, A. Adare et al., PHENIX Collaboration, including Brett Fadem, S. Motschwiller*, A. Nederlof*, Phys. Rev. C 97, 064911 – Published 14 June 2018
“Measurements of mass-dependent azimuthal anisotropy in central p + Au, d + Au, and 3He + Au collisions at √(s_NN )=200 GeV”, A. Adare et al., PHENIX Collaboration, including Brett Fadem, N. Cronin*, B. Kimelman*, Phys. Rev. C 97, 064904 – Published 11 June 2018
“Measurements of Multiparticle Correlations in d + Au Collisions at 200, 62.4, 39, and 19.6 GeV and p + Au Collisions at 200 GeV and Implications for Collective Behavior”, C. Aidala et al., PHENIX Collaboration, including Brett Fadem, E.O. Lallow*, Phys. Rev. Lett. 120, 062302 – Published 6 February 2018
“Nuclear Dependence of the Transverse-Single-Spin Asymmetry for Forward Neutron Production in Polarized p+A Collisions at √SNN = 200 GeV”, C. Aidala et al., including Brett Fadem, E.O. Lallow*, Phys. Rev. Lett. 120, 022001 – Published 8 January 2018
- Hoffman Award, 2017-2018
- Bridge Builder Award (multiple years)
Physics
Contact: brettfadem@muhlenberg.edu