Team name: Doofenshmirtz Evil Incorporated
Inspiration
Pedagogical interests propelled by academic curiosity.
What it does
Since middle school, we all have learned the fact that accelerated charges emit electromagnetic waves. However, it is cumbersome to visualize such complicated phenomena, especially when their equations come into the picture. In our project, we take a proton and observe its motion under the influence of a planar electromagnetic wave. The resulting motion, which is accelerated, makes the proton emit electromagnetic radiation. We have tried to model this and simulate the process for pedagogical aid. At the same time, we calculate the system's properties like the energy of the particle, the incident em wave, and the radiated wave (varying with time) to analyze it quantitatively.
How we built it
It was challenging for us to choose a coding language/software to model this, given our experience in all of them is that of a beginner. Nevertheless, we ended up using Python. We started with reading about the Physics and Math of the problem. To solve the ordinary differential equations that come up, we use the 4th order Runge-Kutta method. A couple of integrals were handled numerically too. We heavily used NumPy arrays for calculations of vectors in three spatial dimensions. Further, the plots and simulations were taken care of by the matplotlib package.
Challenges we ran into
Learning and using Python and its packages on the go, learning IPython notebooks, going beyond our comfort areas in Physics.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
Not giving up and completing the project, the prospective use of the project/approach to teach undergraduate STEM students.
What we learned
How cool is the McGill Physics Hackathon, the Importance of collaboration and teamwork, of course lot of Physics and programming.
What's next for There and Back Again- A proton's tale
If we had more time, we would have loved to add a lot of effects. For starters, we would like to make the entire scenario relativistic and explore any quantum or semi-classical effects that can be added. We can also include radiation back-reaction force and explore conservation laws in the process. Further, it would be good to generalize it and change the project into an interactive tool for STEM enthusiasts to play around with and learn.
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