Andrew Cook

I'm a graduate student studying optical physics at the University of Oregon. I study classical electromagnetism and quantum chaos with my advisor, Jens Noeckel . I'm interested in understanding the fundamental differences between classical and quantum physics. I'm also interested in finding traces of chaos in optical resonators. Currently, I'm analyzing paraxial mixing between light's angular momentum with its polarization in cavities. I'm also studying electromagnetic modes that owe their existence to a sensitive Goos Haenchen phase shift. Finally, we're extending the semiclassical Bogomolny transfer operator to describe spin-orbit coupling in vector electromagnetic fields.

Fractally Patterned Poincare SOS

This is a surface of section that gives a phase space portrait of the ray dynamics of a truncated dome cavity. The x-axis is the azimuthal ray coordinate from theta=0 to theat=pi/2; the y axis represents the momentum of the ray in the theta direction. This SOS is generated by taking a look at rays with a large phi momentum component. This geometry is only near-integrable. It should exhibit chaotic behavior, but where the chaotic sea begins is not obvious. All dots analyzed thus far at lower resolution scans turn out to be exteremly tiny stable orbits represented by concentric circles at higher resolution scans. Link to more images





Publications

"Goos Haenchen induced vector eigenmodes in a dome cavity",
David H. Foster, Andrew Cook, and Jens Noeckel,
Optics Letters 32, 12 1764-1766, 2007

"Cavity QED with Diamond Nanocrystals and Silica Microspheres",
Young-Shing Park, Andrew Cook and Hailin Wang,
Nano Letters, 6, 2075-2079, 2006

"The effects of microgravity on nanoparticle size distributions generated by the ultrasonic reduction of an aqueous gold-chloride solution",
Justin Reed, Andrew Cook, Dave Halaas, Paul Parazzoli, Alex Robinson, Tom Matula and Franz Grieser,
Ultrasonics Sonochemistry, 10, 285–289, 2003

Random Stuff:

My public PGP key . Now that we've been granted the right of strong encryption, everyone should use it! First install GnuPG . Then at a terminal type: gpg --import Andrews.key
To decrypt the PGP message in File.txt, type: gpg -d File.txt More detailed tutorial here .
Alternatively, get a mac and effortlessly use PGP from within the Apple Mail program. Instructions here .
My e-mail: acook1(-at-)uoregon.edu


Weather loop over North America and the North Pacific . This is where I go to try to guestimate weather conditions a few days ahead. Darker grey regions are blue or almost blue sky. White clouds mean nasty rain. Hot weather and non-windy days at the coast happen when clouds push up towards us from CA and NV. Weather forecasts here are only accurate to within a couple of days, and this loop gives you a feel for whether the forecast could be horribly wrong. Here's a local version (green means rain). Here's a link to Weather forecast resources at the University of Washington .

great map of local trails and parks.

Ridgeline Trail mileages:

Federal Open Market Committee calender

Undergraduate "Vomit Comet" research project