Physics & Astronomy Research at the University of Louisville

The Department of Physics & Astronomy has an active research program with a large number of different projects involving its faculty. All our faculty members are research active; many of their research programs are externally funded. A substantial fraction of the faculty are involved in interdisciplinary research with faculty from other departments in the College of Arts & Sciences and from the Speed School of Engineering. Most of the research in the Department falls into these fields:

Astrophysics

Faculty and students in the Department of Physics and Astronomy pursue research in extragalactic, galactic, and stellar astrophysics, laboratory astrophysics, and instrumentation development.

Atmospheric Physics

Atmospheric physics research at the University of Louisville includes modeling and data analysis of phenomena spanning mesoscale to planetary scale, the troposphere to the middle atmosphere, and includes planetary atmospheres.

Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics

Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics research in the department includes theoretical work on small molecules focusing on those of astrophysical interest, laboratory astrophysics investigating radiative processes in stellar atmospheres, and applied optical physics, providing advanced technology and analysis to infrared imaging.

Condensed Matter Physics

The faculty members of the Condensed Matter Physics research are engaged in theoretical, computational, or experimental studies of a wide-variety of novel material systems, from inorganic materials to biomolecular films, with the goal of determining their properties, providing insights into observed phenomena, and exploring their potential in innovative technological applications.

High Energy Physics

The High Energy Physics group at the University of Louisville is concerned with fundamental questions about the basic structure of matter and its interactions. We ask why the visible universe seems to be dominated by ordinary matter (where has the anti-matter gone?), why are the masses of the particles in nature what they are, and how do the interactions among these particles help shape the universe? Do particles undergo heretofore unexpected interactions and what new information can we gain about the universe by studying such rare processes? In particular, we study the production of particles collectively referred to as hadrons in an attempt to better understand the strong nuclear force, and we contribute to a search for the first evidence of the direct conversion of a muon to an electron.