Professor explores smallest particles in universe

Wed, December 21, 2005 |

For nearly four decades Dr. Donald Koetke, a Valparaiso University professor of physics and astronomy, has been working to understand the nature of the tiniest building blocks of the universe.

Dr. Koetke, who recently was appointed to a three-year term as a senior research professor at Valpo, started his research in fundamental physics in 1962 as a graduate student and has conducted research at some of the world’s top research facilities in the years since then, including Fermi, Brookhaven, Los Alamos and Argonne National Laboratories.

“My research is aimed at trying to understand nature at its most fundamental level by studying the smallest particles in nature from which everything else is made,” Dr. Koetke said.

Currently, Dr. Koetke, along with two colleagues and undergraduate physics students at VU, are currently involved in two research projects – the STAR experiment at Brookhaven National Laboratory and TWIST at the University of British Columbia.

The STAR experiment, named after the Solenoid Tracker at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider, recently discovered a new form of matter that existed in the brief seconds following the Big Bang. As part of the STAR program, Dr. Koetke, his students and other scientists around the world are studying the nucleus of the hydrogen atom to learn why it appears to rotate (spin) as it does.

“When we discover that,” he said, “we will have learned something very significant about this most fundamental of all nuclei in nature. This knowledge will become part of the Standard Model of all fundamental physics and guide studies on other fundamental particles in nature.”

In TWIST, the Tri-Universities Meson Facility Weak Interaction Symmetry Test, Dr. Koetke is collaborating with an international group of physicists to study the decay of elementary particles called muons that live for 2.2 millionths of a second. The experiment tests present-day theories of radioactivity that imply nature is not symmetric, and is significantly aiding the search for a more fundamental theory of nature.

“There’s been an emphasis over the last 20 years of connecting nature at the very smallest scale, which is the research I’m working on, with nature at the largest scale in astronomy and astrophysics,” Dr. Koetke said. “These experiments help make those exciting connections.”

Since Dr. Koetke joined the faculty in 1977, more than 40 students have worked with him on his research projects. Dr. Koetke’s research projects at Valparaiso have received more than $3 million in funding support from the U.S. Department of Energy over the past 22 years, and the grant supporting those projects recently was renewed at $542,000 through 2009.

“When I came to Valparaiso, we made a strong commitment to building a research program in physics and astronomy to complement our reputation for excellent teaching,” Dr. Koetke said. “Research is a very strong motivator for students and an enlivening part of the academic life. It’s also an opportunity for our students to be engaged in world-class research as undergraduates.”

Dr. Koetke said he’s glad to be able to continue his research and mentor physics students in his position as a senior research professor.

“While working on research is very exciting, in the end, I’d like to be remembered as a teacher, because that’s what gives me the most satisfaction,” Dr. Koetke said.