More than 200 physicists, researchers and students will converge on the University of Delaware campus this weekend as UD hosts the annual meeting of the American Physical Society’s 2023 Mid-Atlantic Section.

A wide range of topics is on the agenda, including studies in astrophysics, astroparticle physics, atomic and molecular and optical physics, biophysics, machine learning, solid-state physics, magnetism, quantum and 2D materials, physics education and much more.

UD researchers — faculty and students — will participate in scores of presentations during the three-day event and several are invited speakers, including Associate Professor Federica Bianco (machine learning), Assistant Professor Chitraleema Chakraborty (two-dimensional and quantum materials), Associate Professor Anderson Janotti (quantum materials), Professor Chaoying Ni (magnetism and spintronics) and postdoctoral researcher Quang To (magnetization dynamics and spin-transport phenomena).

The opening plenary session at 3 p.m. Friday in 120 Smith Hall is open to all. Prior registration was required for the rest of the meeting. Speakers at that plenary session are Professor Peter N. Armitage of Johns Hopkins University on “Ising’s Model of Ferromagnetism” and Professor Eun-Suk Seo of the University of Maryland on “Recent Progress in Direct Measurements of Cosmic Rays.”

The meeting was organized locally by Associate Professor Frank Schroeder of UD’s Bartol Research Institute and by Associate Professor Benjamin Jungfleisch, his colleague in the Department of Physics and Astronomy. Schroeder is chair-elect of the APS Mid-Atlantic Section and Jungfleisch also serves on the section’s executive committee. Other colleagues, students and department and college staff assisted as well.

The APS Mid-Atlantic Section, which marks its 10th anniversary this year, includes Delaware, New Jersey, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Washington, D.C., and West Virginia. It is the first time UD has hosted the annual event since 2016.

The Mid-Atlantic Section was established in 2013 to “engage and strengthen the physics community in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States, as well as to aid APS in its mission to advance and diffuse the knowledge of physics at the regional level,” according to its website.

The American Physical Society has about 50,000 members, including physicists in academia, national laboratories and industry throughout the world.