SCIENCE AT THE SHINE DOME canberra 6 - 8 may 2009

Early-career researchers

Thursday, 7 May 2009

Thomas Ranken Lyle medal

Professor Victor Flambaum FAA
University of New South Wales

Victor Flambaum arrived to Australia in 1991 to start his work at University of New South Wales, Sydney as professor of theoretical physics. Currently he is scientia professor, head of the Department of Theoretical Physics and Australian Professorial Fellow. His previous position was as leading scientist at the Institute for Nuclear Physics and professor at Novosibirsk State University, Russia. He was awarded Lenin Komsomol Prize (USSR), Centenary Medal (Australia) and several senior visiting fellowships including those at Argonne, Princeteon, Harvard, Princeton Institute for Advanced Study and the Joint Institute for Laboratory Astrophysics (USA). He has over 250 publications in atomic, nuclear, elementary particle, solid state, statistical physics and astrophysics.

Search for space–time variation of fundamental constants of nature

Physics has a number of fundamental constants like the speed of light, electron electric charge and the quantum Plank constant. If the fundamental constants were even slightly different we could not exist. The spatial variation can explain the fine tuning of the fundamental constants which allows humans (and any life) to appear. We appeared in the area of the universe where the values of the fundamental constants are consistent with our existence. Some theories unifying gravity with other interactions suggest temporal and spatial variation of the fundamental ‘constants’ in an expanding universe. Physicists and astronomers perform a large number of different measurements aiming to search for the variation of the fundamental constants. There are some hints for the variation in quasar spectra and big bang nucleosynthesis data, however, they have not been confirmed yet. A very promising method to search for variation consists in comparison of different atomic clocks. Huge enhancement of the variation effects may happen in transitions between very close nuclear, atomic or molecular energy levels.