Thoughts on research and life in Iowa

So I've been doing the research for 2 days now. It's been a lot of reading books and papers on basic plasma theory, Langmuir probes, and the experimental techniques. My project will be to work on several methods for measuring the charge of a "dust" particle immersed in a plasma. We're studying 2-d plasma crystals. You take an argon radiofrequency discharge plasma and use what's basically a glorified salt shaker to sprinkle little 5 micron plastic microspheres into the plasma. The microspheres arrange themselves into a 2-d sheet, levitated in the "plasma sheath." I don't think I understand the sheath theory 100% but what basically happens is that the spheres acquire a negative charge as they fall through the plasma, and then when they get to the sheath region there's an electric field. An upward electrostatic force on the microspheres then balances gravity (I've neglected 1-2 smaller effects including an ion drag force). There are several ways we'll measure the charge on the microspheres. One involves basically jiggling the crystal and measuring resonance, another looks at how mechanical waves (phonons) propagate through the crystal. I think there are also 1 or 2 other methods that are variations on these.

Life here isn't bad. The postdoc I'm working with seems like a nice guy, even though he's not always easy to understand because he's not a native English speaker. I think we work a little bit more than with Doc; I'm supposed to be in from 9 to 6 whereas last summer I'd be in around 9:00 or 9:30 and be out by 5:30ish. But that's okay with me if we can get some nice results. I just need to get more sleep; I'm almost positive I fell asleep over 1 or 2 of those papers today.

Last night, I went with one of the REU students who goes to UIowa to play ultimate frisbee. I had a good time, met a few people, and got a nice hard workout from which I was really sore today. Tonight, I had a nice run in the big park across from my dorm. I'll have to take some pictures eventually and share them; perhaps I could learn a little HTML and put them on an SCCS webpage as did Blake. And now I've just finished dinner: rice with a potato/onion/garlic/green bean saute. Rather tasty, but my roommate thought the green beans undercooked. I disagreed; I do like my vegetables to be just a little crunchy and not limp. Probably a cultural difference, and also probably a reaction to how Sharples almost always overcooks the vegetables. Erdman isn't perfect in this regard either, but they seem to do a little better, at least the times I've been there.

Now, on to dishwashing, a little reading, showering, and sleep.