Comps, honors papers, and prize-winning works of the Physics and Astronomy Department are featured here. All works have been self-submitted by the student authors. Descriptive information about each work is available to search or browse. Access to the full text of the works is limited to current Carleton affiliates with faculty permission. Learn more about how to submit your work and how to request access to the full text of works.

In addition to this digital archive, physical copies of the Physics and Astronomy Department comps from 1978 to 2013 are available at Gould Library.

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Submissions from 2024

Henry Bowman, Physics (PHYS) 2024, Here Comes the Sun: An Overview of Semiconductor Photovoltaics

Submissions from 2023

Sebastian Fallon, Physics (PHYS) 2023, The Anomalous Zeeman Effect

Joshua S. Hanson-Kaplan, Physics (PHYS) 2023, The Higgs Boson, a Portal to the Dark Sector?

Elise Knutsen, Physics (PHYS) 2023, The Physics of Non-Volatile Solid State Memory

Kanishk Pandey, Physics (PHYS) 2023, Exploring the Images of the James Webb Space Telescope, a $10 Billion Time Machine

Natalie Soehnlin, Physics (PHYS) 2023, Global Warming and Its Effects on Astronomical Observations

Frank Sottrel, Physics (PHYS) 2023, Quantum Decoherence and the Problems it Solves

Andrew Thompson, Physics (PHYS) 2023, Optimizing the Ballistic Performance and Safety of Centerfire Rifles

Ben Turner, Physics (PHYS) 2023, The Physics of Satellite Internet: Formation of a New Artificial Constellation

Ian Wojtowicz, Physics (PHYS) 2023, The Interiors of Neutron Stars

Submissions from 2022

Kevin Clelland, Physics (PHYS) 2022, Radiative Cooling

Leif Dawson, Physics (PHYS) 2022, The Physics of Rivers as Energetic and Material Conduits

Lucas Demetriades, Physics (PHYS) 2022, Sustainable Energy at Carleton College

Kiran Digavalli, Physics (PHYS) 2022, Improving Airliner Efficiency Through Aerodynamic, Thermodynamic, and Metallurgical Design

Larry Donahue, Physics (PHYS) 2022, The Modern Baseball Pitch: A Physical Perspective

Helen Du, Physics (PHYS) 2022, Gate-Based Quantum Computing: Theory and Physical Realization

Gabrielle Evans, Physics (PHYS) 2022, Multi-Discipliniary Physical Analysis of Glass-Fiber Reinforced Polymer Composites, Taking Pole Vaulting to New Heights

Pinchen Fan, Physics (PHYS) 2022, The Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory

Lydia Fick, Physics (PHYS) 2022, The Physics of Snakes

Charles Hall, Physics (PHYS) 2022, The Physics of Audition and Cochlear Implants

Vincent F. He, Physics (PHYS) 2022, Antimatter: Theoretical Foundations and Beyond

Zachary Johnson, Physics (PHYS) 2022, Reaching for the Stars: The Physics of Space Elevators

Allison Keen, Physics (PHYS) 2022, Quenching: The Death of Galaxies

Yuto Miyazawa, Physics (PHYS) 2022, Quantum teleportation and its experimental realization

Ayaka Moriyama, Physics (PHYS) 2022, The Physics of Plasma Gasification with Plasma Arc

Katherine Oda, Physics (PHYS) 2022, Boldly Going, But Should We?: The Next Generation of Extremely Large Telescopes

Daria Palenova, Physics (PHYS) 2022, Physics of Neural Signals

Noah Pinkney, Physics (PHYS) 2022, Quantum Biology, Photosynthesis, and Resonance Energy Transfer

Logan Plasch, Physics (PHYS) 2022, Physics of Nuclear Fusion Reactors

Adam Ross, Physics (PHYS) 2022, Conduction, Electron Energies, and Correlated Electron Materials

Mohammed Mehdi Shahid, Physics (PHYS) 2022, Spinning Pixels: The Physics of Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI)

Yueheng Shi, Physics (PHYS) 2022, Physics of Laser Cooling

Will Taft, Physics (PHYS) 2022, A Survey of Nuclear Engineering (Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Atomic Power)

Yunping Wang, Physics (PHYS) 2022, The Physics of Lithography

Jan Williams, Physics (PHYS) 2022, Sonar, Acoustic Wave Propagation, and Signal Processing

Dylan Willick, Physics (PHYS) 2022, Chaos and Synchronization: An Unlikely Pair

Xinyan Xiang, Physics (PHYS) 2022, Spin Glasses

Submissions from 2021

Charles Bushman, Physics (PHYS) 2021, Physical Reservoir Computing for Classification of Temporal Data

Gregor Dairaghi, Physics (PHYS) 2021, Graphene-Based Smartphone Technologies

Kyle Fraser-Mines, Physics (PHYS) 2021, The Causes and Effects of the Carrington Event

Freja Olsen, Physics (PHYS) 2021, The Tunguska Event

April Reisenfeld, Physics (PHYS) 2021, Understanding Randomness in Classical and Quantum Physics

Evelyn Scott, Physics (PHYS) 2021, An Introduction to Neutrino Astronomy

Claire Williams, Physics (PHYS) 2021, The Far Future of the Universe

Submissions from 2020

Marshall Basson, Physics (PHYS) 2020, Physics of a Classic Rock Album

Grace Betz, Physics (PHYS) 2020, The Physics of Spacecraft: The Ascension

Eric Biddulph-West, Physics (PHYS) 2020, A Hypothetical Concentrating Solar Dish Engine for Energy Autonomous Communities

Sharan Ganjam, Physics (PHYS) 2020, Quantum Dots: Bridging Classical Chaos and Quantum Mechanics

Ann Isaacs, Physics (PHYS) 2020, Gamma Ray Bursts: Phenomenology and Origins

Lawrence Lin, Physics (PHYS) 2020, The Physics of Star Trek

Michael McClurg, Physics (PHYS) 2020, Modeling the Galactic Spiral Structure

Submissions from 2019

Joseph Gais, Physics (PHYS) 2019, The Thermodynamics of Black Holes

Winston T. Goldthwaite, Physics (PHYS) 2019, Classical Laser Cooling and Trapping

Hebba Ashraf Gouda, Physics (PHYS) 2019, Oh, Buoy!

Sacha R. Greenfield, Physics (PHYS) 2019, Conceptualizing quantum mechanics in pilot-wave theory

Abigail Herscovici, Physics (PHYS) 2019, Going with the Flow? Physical Models of Pedestrian Behavior

Kohl Johnson Sparrman, Physics (PHYS) 2019, MRI Imaging: An Investigation of the Underlying Physics

Daniel Cantrell Kupetsky, Physics (PHYS) 2019, The Arrow of Time

Erik Lagerquist, Physics (PHYS) 2019, The Technological Feasibility of Electric VTOL Aircraft for Sustainable Urban Mobility

Andrew David Maris, Physics (PHYS) 2019, Detecting gravitational waves in space: the physics of the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA)

Caroline Ann Mather, Physics (PHYS) 2019, The Physics of Auroras

Geoffrey Mo, Physics (PHYS) 2019, Cosmology of the Early Universe

Julianne Pyron, Physics (PHYS) 2019, Astrophysics in Film: The Physics of Interstellar

Emily Kathryn Schwartz, Physics (PHYS) 2019, The Physics of Sustainable Architecture: A Case Study of Carleton College's Science Complex

Sam Stevenson, Physics (PHYS) 2019, X-Wings and Movement: An Exploration of Modern and Near-Future Interstellar Propulsion

Max L. Trostel, Physics (PHYS) 2019, Predicting the Weather: The Physics of Earth’s Atmosphere

Submissions from 2018

Maximiliano Aldo Burgess, Physics (PHYS) 2018, The Raman Effect and Raman Spectroscopy

Gabriel Sebastian Bury, Physics (PHYS) 2018, Curvature of Spacetime: the Kerr metric

Maximilian Foster, Physics (PHYS) 2018, An even briefer history of time

Anne Hamilton, Physics (PHYS) 2018, Key Considerations in Implementation of Solar Photovoltaics

David Guadalupe Higgs, Physics (PHYS) 2018, Plasmonics

Zephyr Lucas, Physics (PHYS) 2018, Diodes

Matthew Thomas Maclay, Physics (PHYS) 2018, Mission to the Outer Solar System

Arthur Richard Chaput McCray, Physics (PHYS) 2018, The Physics of Ice

Henry Alexander Rook, Physics (PHYS) 2018, The Space Cable

John William Scott, Physics (PHYS) 2018, Josephson Junctions: From Physics to Functions

Jonah Krammer Shaw, Physics (PHYS) 2018, Radiative transfer in the earth-atmosphere-space system

Kendra L. Strode, Physics (PHYS) 2018, The CMS Detector at the LHC: Physics of the detector

Duo Tao, Physics (PHYS) 2018, Determining the Accelerating Expansion of the Universe by Observing Type Ia Supernovae

Submissions from 2017

Sanjay Nathan Field Chepuri, Physics (PHYS) 2017, The Cosmic Microwave Background

Mika Chmielewski, Physics (PHYS) 2017, Quantum Computation: Physical Realizations of Qubits and Quantum Gates

Evan Michael David, Physics (PHYS) 2017, The Curious Case of the Missing Mass

Brian Stephen DiGiorgio, Physics (PHYS) 2017, The Large-Scale Structure of the Universe

Yuping Huang, Physics (PHYS) 2017, Nuclear Waste Management and Disposal

Qiyuan Hu, Physics (PHYS) 2017, The Physics of Ion Beam Therapy

Paul Jenison Keller, Physics (PHYS) 2017, The Physics of Music

Yuan Shen Li, Physics (PHYS) 2017, An Introduction to Free-electron Lasers

Alphonso Gaston Cera Lopez, Physics (PHYS) 2017, Inventing the Universe of Matter: An Account of the Origin of the Elements by Astrophysical Nucleosynthesis

Moses Misplon, Physics (PHYS) 2017, Closing loopholes in experimental Bell tests

Alexander Christopher Newkirk, Physics (PHYS) 2017, The Evolution of C:The Development of the Modern Understanding of Light Speed

Joshua Bowman Ruebeck, Physics (PHYS) 2017, Quantum Communication, Shannon Theory, and Error Correction

Adam Alexei Rutkowski, Physics (PHYS) 2017, Physics of Fusion Energy

Submissions from 2016

Kathleen I. Casados, Physics (PHYS) 2016, Exploring the Physics of Diamonds and Their Applications

Natasha Alexis Flowers, Physics (PHYS) 2016, The Origins of the Cosmic Microwave Background

Berit Hansen Goodge, Physics (PHYS) 2016, Micro-scale Energy Generation

Brandon Michael Hagans, Physics (PHYS) 2016, Spacecraft Propulsion

Adam John Lacroix, Physics (PHYS) 2016, An Analysis of Space Elevator Physics

Nathaniel Allen Strauss, Physics (PHYS) 2016, The Thermodynamics of Black Holes: Energy and Quantum Mechanics in Spacetime

Hayden Phillip Tornabene, Physics (PHYS) 2016, Matter-Antimatter Asymmetry: Why is there something and not nothing?

Mason Fobes White, Physics (PHYS) 2016, The Physics of Self-Driving Cars