APS New England 2018 Fall section meeting
Organized by the Physics Department

Theme: Gravitational Wave Astronomy & Computational Physics

Since the first detection of Gravitational Waves by the LIGO Project in 2016 the promise of gravitational wave astronomy as a new window on the Universe has proven fruitful, invigorating both theoretical and observational efforts in the area. The Fall 2018 Meeting of the New England Section of the American Physical Society will feature invited talks focused on gravitational wave physics as well as the closely related area of computational physics.

All members of the APS are invited to submit an abstract for a presentation or a poster, including students. If you are not a member, you are welcome to join APS. Presentations and posters do not need to match the theme of the invited speakers.

Invited and contributed talks and posters will be scheduled for Friday afternoon and Saturday. The conference banquet will be held Friday evening with an after-dinner speaker talking about the LIGO project.

Deadline for abstract submission: October 29, 2018 (9am)
Keynote Speakers
  • Robert Coyne (University of Rhode Island)
  • Francois Foucart (University of New Hampshire)
  • Carl-Johan Haster (MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research)
  • Savvas Koushiappas (Brown University)
  • Salvatore Vitae (MIT) - Banquet Speaker
Basic Information
WhenNovember 2, 2018 - November 3, 2018
WhereSee below
TimeAfternoon (Friday) and all-day Saturday

Please join us!

Registration (CLICK HERE)
For planning purposes we kindly request that all participants Register by 9am on October 29, 2018. An accurate headcount is important!
Abstract submission (CLICK HERE)
Invited talks will be 40+5 minutes, and contributed talks will be 15+5 minutes. These numbers are estimates, and exact time slots will be determined shortly after October 29 once the total number of speakers is known.
Hotel: Disconunted rates are available (CLICK HERE).
You must book a room by October 26, 2018.
Venue and Parking

The conference will take place at multiple locations on the UMassD campus. To get to campus, set your GPS to 285 Old Westport Road, North Dartmouth, MA. Please park in Lots 13 & 14 or on Ring Road.


Schedule+Location
Locations are: Science and engineering building room 207 (SENG 207), Library Living Room, Charlton College of Business (CCB 247)
Friday 2:00pm - 2:45pmSENG 207Arrival and Registration
Friday 2:45pm - 3pmSENG 207Opening remarks by Dean / Chair of Physics; Richard Price / Grant O'Rielly from APS NES
Friday 3:00pm - 4:00pmSENG 207Rob Coyne (URI), TBA
Friday 4:00pm - 5:00pmSENG 207Carl-Johan Haster (MIT), Gravitational waves from compact binaries – Building evidence in what is observed
Friday 5:00pm - 7:00pmLibrary Living RoomPoster Session, 18 posters
Friday 7:00pm - 9:00pmTBABanquet with invited speaker Salvatore Vitae (MIT), The scientific potential of third-generation gravitational-wave detectors
Saturday 8:30am - 9:00amTBAArrival and Coffee
Saturday 9:00am - 10:00amCCB 247Savvas Koushiappas (Brown), Primordial black holes as dark matter
Saturday 10:00am - 11:00amCCB 247Astrophysics Parallel Session
Gabriel Casabona (Carbon Detonation Initiation in Highly Turbulent Electron­ Degenerate Matter),
Vishal Tiwari (Constraining Type Ia Supernovae with Models and Observations of Late­ Time Light Curves),
Andrea Biscoveanu (Constraining the Jet Properties of Gamma ­Ray Bursts with Multimessenger Astronomy)
Saturday 10:00am - 11:00amCCB 248Gravity Parallel Session
Yiwen Huang (Characterization of low­ significance gravitational ­wave compact binary sources),
William Spinella (Neutron Star Equation of State Constrained by Gravitational Waves),
Dwyer Deighan (Exploring Convolutional Neural Networks for Gravitational Wave data analysis)
Saturday 11:00am - 12:00pmCCB 248Francois Foucart (UNH), Numerical Simulations of Merging Black Holes and Neutron Stars
Saturday 12:00pm - 1:00pmCCB 247General Physics Parallel Session
David Browning (Global warming impact on acoustic propagation along the Maritime Silk Road),
Dipti Sharma (Existence of Multiple Glass Transitions in Amorphous Sb Doped Ge S Glassy Alloys),
Ben Placek (A Search For Planets in Binary Systems)
Saturday 12:00pm - 1:00pmCCB 248Gravity Parallel Session
Feroz Shaik (Parameter estimation of binary black hole systems using numerical relativity surrogates and a rapid inference framework),
Mathieu Beau (On the nature of space-time, cosmological inflation, and expansions),
Richard Kriske (Two space­times or one?)

Signs will be posted on campus directing you to these locations.

Organizing committee

Grant O'Rielly (grant.orielly - at - umassd.edu), Gaurav Khanna (gkhanna - at - umassd.edu), Robert Fisher (robert.fisher - at - umassd.edu), and Scott field (sfield - at - umassd.edu) with assistance from members of the Department of Physics at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth.