The Institute for Fundamental Science (IFS) enhances the experimental, theoretical, and astronomy research activities at the University of Oregon. IFS is one of several centers and institutes supported by the Office of the Vice President for Research and Innovation, and maintains close relationships with the Department of Physics, the Department of Chemistry, the Department of Mathematics, and the Materials Science Institute.
The institute hosts visiting scientists, supports graduate and undergraduate student research, facilitates interaction between the experimental activities and theoretical investigations of IFS members, and fosters communication of research to the broader community.
IFS members have major involvement in international collaborations including the ATLAS and FASER Experiments at CERN, LIGO’s gravitational wave observatories, and others. We have vigorous programs of research in astronomy and astrophysics; condensed matter theory and statistical mechanics; data science; mathematics; particle theory; quantum information and quantum optics; and the International Linear Collider project.
Center Activities
The LHC experiment collaborations at CERN receive Breakthrough Prize
The Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics was awarded to the ALICE, ATLAS, CMS and LHCb collaborations during a ceremony held in Los Angeles on 5 April
7 April, 2025 || Source
This weekend, the ALICE, ATLAS, CMS and LHCb collaborations at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN were honoured with the Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics by the Breakthrough Prize Foundation. The prize is awarded to the four collaborations, which unite thousands of researchers from more than 70 countries, and concerns the papers authored based on LHC Run-2 data up to July 2024. It was received by
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IFS Seminar April 21, 2025: Jean Somalwar (Caltech)
Expanding the diversity of tidal disruption events
Speaker: Jean Somalwar
Date: Monday, April 21, 2025
Time: 4:00 – 5:00 pm
Location: 472 Willamette Hall (IFS Seminar Room)
Abstract: Tidal disruption events (TDEs) occur when a star is tidally shredded by a supermassive black hole (SMBH). They are a key probe of SMBH demographics and accretion physics. Optical surveys have been key for identifying TDEs, but searches have, until recently, relied on the properties of known TDEs to develop selection criteria, leading to TDE samples that likely suffer from significant selection effects. This
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Particle or wave? Getting to the heart of quantum mechanics
Watch UO physicist–and IFS Director–Graham Kribs walk you through one of the seminal experiments that helped open the quantum age.
9 April 2025 || University Communications
Quantum mechanics is a branch of physics that attempts to explain the behavior of matter and energy at their smallest level, down to the size of subatomic particles like electrons, photons and quarks. And at that size, reality is very different from our everyday world.
The quantum world is distinct from the classical world familiar to us because particles in the quantum world exhibit both particle-like and
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