About the Department

The Department of Physics & Astronomy

The stimulating atmosphere in which students of the Department of Physics & Astronomy find themselves immersed arises from exposure to the teaching and research activities of 29 regular faculty members, as well as research, adjunct, and part-time faculty members, postdoctoral research associates, and more than one hundred graduate students. This extends to the Center for Advanced Studies, the New Mexico Center for Particle Physics , and the Institute for Astrophysics, which are housed in the department, and includes the Center for High Technology Materials (CHTM) at which physicists and engineers are at work on understanding and developing optoelectronic materials and devices with novel properties.

There are also collaborative projects that the faculty and students carry out with neighboring laboratories such as Sandia National Laboratories and the Los Alamos National Laboratory, with local industries such as CVI, EG&G, Mission Research, and SAI, and with institutes, universities, and other centers of learning throughout the world. Collaborators include the following:

• the Universities of Stuttgart and Duesseldorf,
• the Max Planck Institute in Munich,
• the Central Research Institute for Physics in Budapest, Hungary,
• and the Centro de IEA del Instituto Politecnico Nacional in Mexico.

Students also benefit from visits by outstanding international scientists (for a few weeks to as much as a full academic year), and from weekly seminars and colloquia. The research atmosphere is very active…work is pursued in the following areas:

• astrophysics and cosmic radiation physics,
• optical sciences,
• atomic and molecular physics,
• biophysics and medical physics,
• chemical physics,
• condensed matter and statistical physics,
• general relativity and field theory,
• high and intermediate energy physics,
• nonlinear physics,
• and plasma physics.

The research is funded at a high level by various external agencies such as the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy, the National Institute of Health and NASA. There are also close interactions with scientists and students at the Kirtland Air Force Base and the Air Force Weapons Laboratory.

The University of New Mexico

The University of New Mexico was founded in 1889, and now occupies 600 acres along old Route 66 in the heart of Albuquerque, a city of half a million people. It has become one of the nation’s major state universities. There are over 24,000 students, including approximaely 4,000 enrolled in many different graduate programs, including the law and medical schools. The distinctive architectural style of the campus is contemporary in treatment with strong influence from the Spanish and Pueblo Indian cultures.

The campus lies a mile above sea level on a plateau overlooking the Rio Grande and about 12 miles west of the 10,700-foot Sandia Mountains. Because of its altitude and its semiarid southwestern location, the climate is mild and dry. Although the weather undergoes the normal seasonal changes, temperatures are not extreme. The daily range in temperature averages about 30 degrees, with summer maxima reaching the high 90s and winter minima about 15 degrees. Annual precipitation is only 8.5 inches, some of it in the form of snow.

Riding, tennis, skiing, mountain climbing, and golf are popular activities in the immediate vicinity. Forests, Indian ruins, ghost towns, and Indian pueblos are nearby. Culturally, the city has an extensive art colony, theater groups, and a wide variety of musical entertainment including the New Mexico Symphony Orchestra concert series and several smaller groups.