Justin Albert
Position
Contact
Credentials
A.B. (Harvard), Ph.D. (Princeton)
Area of expertise
Experimental particle and astroparticle physics
Prof. Albert is heavily involved in three major research effort areas in physics around the world: 1) The ATLAS experiment at CERN in Switzerland, where his work in searching for and measuring the properties of the Higgs boson addresses the question of the source of mass of the fundamental particles in the universe; 2) Co-founding of, and current senior leadership positions on, both the ALTAIR and ORCASat projects, which produce calibrated light sources to fly on high altitude balloons and in space to calibrate ground-based telescopes, in order to address the question of why the expansion of the universe is accelerating; and 3) The BABAR experiment at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory in California, where his work addresses the question of why the universe is made of matter rather than antimatter.
Prior to coming to the Univ. of Victoria in 2006, Prof. Albert was a Millikan* postdoctoral fellow at Caltech, after receiving his Ph.D. in physics at Princeton in 2002.
Research interests
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- Particle physics
- Particle astrophysics
Please read our two new articles (Oct. 2021) (or their published journal versions -- Oxford University Press is 100% to blame for the poor formatting of the journal versions...) !
Our invited brief " Research Highlight " article intended for a general scientific audience, based on the above two articles, is the cover article (Apr. 2022 issue) in Natural Sciences journal (Wiley Publishing's new "flagship" science journal)! (Here are arXiv and Authorea links for this article as well.)
And, here's a very useful white paper on how to calculate astronomical magnitudes of reflected light from satellites (etc.)!
And, an (also useful) earlier article on artificial photometric (& radiometric) calibration standards in space!
Here's a one-page CV.
* Due to the since-well-documented profound racism and harmful eugenics advocacy of Robert A. Millikan during his lifetime, in 2020 Caltech renamed the Robert A. & Greta B. Millikan Fellowship Endowment Fund and its resulting postdoctoral fellowships simply as “Prize Postdoctoral Fellowships.” I fully support this change, and entirely disavow any connection whatsoever with the deeply racist and harmful legacy of Millikan’s eugenics and sterilization advocacy. (There however still exists some controversy over Millikan’s actual views.)
- Dark energy -- ALTAIR and ORCASat
- ATLAS
- BaBar
The list of our ORCASat student team members (and alumni!), both graduate and undergraduate, can be found here!
Current graduate students:
- Damandeep Kaur (starting ATLAS M.Sc. in Sept. 2022)
- Antony Huber (astronomical instrumentation Ph.D. student, co-supervised with Scott Chapman)
Graduated UVic graduate students whom I have supervised:
- Dr. Meisam Ghasemi-Bostanabad (Ph.D. 2021, ATLAS)
- Benjamin Wright (M.Sc. 2021, ATLAS)
- Paul Kovacs (M.Sc. 2016, astronomical instrumentation)
- Dr. Eric Ouellette (Ph.D. 2014, ATLAS)
- Michael Jarrett (M.Sc. 2011, ATLAS)
- Kuhan Wang (M.Sc. 2010, ATLAS)
And the (long) list of UVic undergraduate students whom I am currently supervising, or have directly supervised, on research projects will be added soon!
Current Postdoctoral Researcher and Research Associates
- Dr. Clément Camincher
- Dr. Kenji Hamano
- Dr. Ellis Kay
- Dr. Gerardo Vasquez
Former
- Dr. Christopher Anelli
- Dr. Swagato Banerjee
- Dr. Vikas Bansal
- Dr. Frank Berghaus
- Dr. Florian Bernlochner
- Dr. Margret Fincke-Keeler
- Dr. Naoko Kanaya
- Dr. Emma Siân Kuwertz
- Dr. Damir Lelas
- Dr. Christopher Marino
- Dr. Alex Martyniuck
- Dr. Mathieu Plamondon
- Dr. Carla Sbarra
- Dr. Rolf Seuster
- Dr. Monica Trovatelli
- Dr. Manuela Venturi
- Dr. Kai Voss
- Dr. Monika Wielers
Refereed publications other than ATLAS or BaBar publications (e.g., dark energy, ALTAIR, ORCASat, LPRS, etc. publications) (BTW, the lists of ATLAS and BaBar publications are linked just below this list!):
- J. E. Albert, D. Budker, & H. R. Sadeghpour, “From atomic physics, to upper-atmospheric chemistry, to cosmology: A ‘laser photometric ratio star’ to calibrate telescopes at major observatories,” Nat. Sci. 2, e20220003 (“research highlight” cover article, Apr. 2022 journal issue) [arXiv:2203.07556 (astro-ph), Authorea:553588].
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J. E. Albert, D. Budker, K. Chance, I. E. Gordon, F. Pedreros Bustos, M. Pospelov, S. Rochester, & H. R. Sadeghpour, “A precise photometric ratio via laser excitation of the sodium layer – I. One-photon excitation using 342.78 nm light,” MNRAS 508, 4399 (2021) [arXiv:2001.10958 (astro-ph)].
- J. E. Albert, D. Budker, K. Chance, I. E. Gordon, F. Pedreros Bustos, M. Pospelov, S. Rochester, & H. R. Sadeghpour, “A precise photometric ratio via laser excitation of the sodium layer – II. Two- photon excitation using lasers detuned from 589.16 nm and 819.71 nm resonances,” MNRAS 508, 4412 (2021) [arXiv:2010.08683 (astro-ph)].
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J. E. Albert, “Satellite-mounted light sources as photometric calibration standards for ground- based telescopes,” AJ 143, 8 (2012) [arXiv:1101.5214 (astro-ph)].
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My other papers in this category will be added here shortly.
All ATLAS Collaboration publications (refereed)
All ATLAS public conference notes
All BaBar Collaboration publications (refereed)
- A "UVic on the Peninsula" public talk that I gave at the Mary Winspear Centre in Sidney, BC on Nov. 9, 2022 on "Using Particle Physics to Understand the Universe" (.pdf) (.ppt) (BTW, thanks very much to each of Cormac O'Raifeartaigh, Rocky Kolb, and Chris Stubbs for various slides in the above. The ATLAS movie that I showed at the beginning of the presentation can also be found on Youtube [in two parts] here and here, and other ATLAS Collaboration video presentations can be found on the ATLAS Youtube channel.)
More recent presentations will be added here soon!!!
Spring 2021-22, and Spring 2022-23: PHYS 317: Thermodynamics
Spring 2021-22, and Fall 2022-23: PHYS 521A: Experimental Techniques in Particle, Nuclear, and Astroparticle Physics
In fall of 2019 and 2020, I also co-taught PHYS 515 (Data Analysis Techniques for Physics and Astronomy) together with Dean Karlen and Jody Klymak. The syllabus for PHYS 515 can be found here.
In each of 2018-19, 2017-18, and 2016-17 I also taught PHYS 317 and PHYS 521a, and back in Fall 2015, I taught PHYS 214 (Electronics), and I managed the department colloquia (PHYS/ASTR 460/560) during the full academic year for all of the years 2011-16.
Undergraduate classes I've additionally previously taught so far at UVic include:
- PHYS 421A and 421B (4th-year Honours Laboratory),
- PHYS 217 (Thermodynamics, we listed this as PHYS 317 ten years ago and earlier, and five years ago we changed it back to 317 again),
- PHYS 321B (Advanced Classical Mechanics),
- PHYS 421 (Statistical Mechanics),
- PHYS 424 (Particle Physics), and
- various directed studies classes (PHYS 490).
Graduate classes I've additionally taught so far at UVic include:
- PHYS 506A and 506B (Particle Physics),
- PHYS 521A (Experimental Techniques in Particle, Nuclear, and Astroparticle Physics), and
- various directed studies classes (PHYS 580 and ASTR 580).