Society of Physics Students

Come join our Society of Physics Students (SPS) chapter at BHSU and meet other students interested in physics! This club meets monthly for different activities including pizza paries, movie nights, and outreach events such as Surf's Neutrino Day.

For more information, please contact SPS President Katie Pedneau (Katie.Pendneau@YellowJackets.BHSU.edu) or SPS Faculty Mentor Brianna Mount (Brianna.Mount@BHSU.edu)

Women in STEM

Women in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (WiSTEM) is an organization to help better an celebrate women in STEM-related careers or academia.

Work With Daculty During The Semeter

Students are always encouraged to contact faculty members if they are interested in research at BHSU! Funded opportunities as well as opportunities to conduct research for course are available.

Summer Opportunities

REU

Want to participate in research a mile underground?!

Black Hills State University will host a 10-week REU program centered on underground science at the Sanford Underground Research Facility (SURF) each summer. A cohort of students will participate in exciting underground research projects as well as professional development, social, and outreach activities.

Learn more about this opportunity here!

GEMADARC

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Collaboration with Universtiy of Michigan

BHSU is collaborating with the University of Michigan to support BHSU students at Ann Arbor for a ten week program each summer for students to become involved in LZ data analysis.

Learn more about this opportunity here!

Presenting Your Results!

• State-Wide Poster Session

• BHSU Research Symposium

• National Conference for Undergraduate Research

• CUWiP

APS Career Information

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List of Careers

• Particle Physics

• Medical Physics

• Optoelectronics

• Nuclear Power

• Financial Market Modelling

• Astronomy and Space

• Quatum Technologies

• Science Education

• Patent Law

• Software Engineering

• Science Communication

• Excellent preparation for graduate school, medical school, and other pre-professional programs.

• Careers of the Future in which the boundaries between traditional boundaries become blurred.

BHSU has an impressive track record of student acceptance into graduate schools.

Student Spotlights

Madison Jilek

Madison is currently pursuiing her PhD at the University of Colorado, Boulder and is a recipient of the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program. At BHSU, Madison participated in both chemistry and physics research.

Ayla Rodriguez

Ayla is currently pursuing her PhD at the University of Michigan and was awarded an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program. Ayla transferred to BHSU from Oglala Lakota College. At BHSU, she worked on projects with the BHSU Underground Campus and the LZ direct dark matter experiment.

*Student Testimonial Video TBA*

The BHSU Underground Campus (BHUC)

The BHUC is a unique, multidisciplinary research facility located at the Ross Campus of the 4850' level of SURF with ~4300 meter water equivalent shielding from cosmic rays (See Figure 1). 

Figure 1: Left: 4850', 7400' levels of SURF, Right: BHUC Campus Cavern

The facility is comprised of two separate cleanroom spaces and an outside staging area for research and development activities (See Figure 1). The 200 sq. ft. class 10,000 cleanroom houses lab benches and the 60 sq. ft. class 1,000 cleanroom space is partially occupied with low background counters.

The BHUC has available standard power outlets within the cleanroom and the work area, access to a 'star' ground within the cleanroom, standard internet connections (ethernet and wifi), N, gas distribution and an automated liquid nitrogen (LN) system. Figure 2 shows a proposed configuration of the counting cleanroom. Currently, only about half of this cleanroom is utilized.

Figure 2: BHUC Counting Clean Room

Four 180 L dewars outside the cleanroom supply each counting station with liquid nitrogren via vacuum-jacketed piping that runs along three walls of the cleanroom and out into the work area. These liquid nitrogen dewars also supply gaseous nitrogen via their boil-off which in turn is supplied to each counting station as radon purge gas by stainless steel tubing running along the walls.

There are currently three single-crystal low background counting stations in the BHUC: Morgan, Maeve, and Mordred (See Figure 4). BHSU manages these detectors on behalf of LBNL. Each of these current counting stations are HPGe detectors surrounded by lead and copper shielding and purged with low activity N, gas.

Figure 4: Current Single-Crystal Counting Stations in the BHUC Counting Room. From Left to Right: Mordred, SOLO (now above-ground), Maeve, Morgan HPGe detectors inside their shielding castles. The rack of electronics to the right provides the DAQ and networking for all four detectors. Along the walls of the clean room can be seen the LN, and N, lines.

In addition to the three traditional, single, HPGe crystal detectors, the Twins is a dual detector low background counting station in development. (See Figure 5). Access to a dual-crystal system in development by LLNL is also possible.

Figure 5: Twins Detector. Left: Installed at the BHUC; Right: Top view of schematic showing two crystals in one shield

 

Table 1: Current HPGes underground at BHUC.

Resources:

• BHUC Tour

• Link to BHUC SURF Webpage

• Deep Thoughts Video

• Academic Minute

• BHUC Publications

  • Background determination for the LUX-Zeplin dark matter experiment, [LZ Collaboration], Phys. Rev. D 108, 012010 (2023).

  • Counting Facilities at the Black Hills Underground Campus, D. Tiedt, B. Mount, A. Rodriguez, AIP Conf. Proc. 2908, 020003 (2023).

  • Supporting Capabilties for Underground Facilities, A. Kamaha, B.J. Mount, R.W. Schnee, Snowmass UF4 Topical Group Report.

  • The LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) Radioactivity and Cleanliness Control Programs, [LZ Collaboration], Eur. Phys. J. C, 80, 1044 (2020).

  • Black Hills State University Underground Campus, B.J. Mount et al., Appl Radiat Isot., 126, 130 (2017).

  • Identification of Radiopure Titanium for the LZ Dark Matter Experiment and Future Rare Event Searches, [LZ Collaboration], Astropart. Phys. 96, 1 (2017).

Spectroscopy Lab

The Physics department at BHSU has created a state-of-the-art spectroscopy laboratory for ongoing research in association with the Sanford Underground Lab. The spectroscopy lab is building a custom Cavity Ring-Down Spectroscopy system for detecting very low levels of chemical impurities in Argon gas. This gas will be employed as the detection medium in future dark matter experiments in Lead, SD at the Sanford Underground Reserach Facility (SURF).

BHSU Above-Ground Campus

There is 1100 sq. ft. of dedicated lab space available for SURF projects in the newly-renovated Jonas Science Building at BHSU. THis space houses a 12'x12' cleanroom (class 1,000) room as well as a sample prep area for ICP-MS. It also includes fume hoods and access to a Nanopure deionized water system.

Figure 3: Left: BHSU dedicated lab for SURF-focused research (including the ICP-MS lab)

Additionally, this lab houses a High Purity Germanium (HPGe) detector, SOLO. SOLO will be used as a pre-screener for the BHUC detectors and as a training ground for undergraduate students.

Learn more about the ICP-MS with cleanroom here!

Physics

* Courses offered by different SDBOR schools (Collaboration with SDSU, SDSM, USD)

Gen Ed Requirements

• 3 ENGL 101 Composition I

• 3 ENGL 201 Composition II

• 3 CMST 101, 215, or 222 Credits

• 3 MATH Credits (See Major)

• 3-5 Natural Science & Lab Credits (See Major)

• 3-5 Natural Science & Lab (See Major)

• Social Science: Take 2 courses from two different subject areas.

• Arts & Humanities: Take 2 courses from two different subject ares (ART/H are the same subject), or a Foreign Language Sequence.

Major Requirements: Required Core (58 Semester Hours)

• 4 CHEM 112/L General Chemistry I & Lab

• 4 CHEM 114/L General Chemistry II & Lab

• 3 CSC 150 Computer Science

• 4 MATH 123 Calculus I

• 4 MATH 125 Calculus II

• 4 MATH 225 Calculus III

• 3 MATH 321 Differential Equations

• 5 PHYS 211/L University Physics I & Lab

• 5 PHYS 213/L University Physics II & Lab

• 2 PHYS 312 Experimental Physics Design I*

• 3 PHYS 331 Introduction to Modern Physics

• 3 PHYS 341 Thermodynamics

• 2 PHYS 343 Statistical Physics*

• 4 PHYS 421 Electromagnetism*

• 4 PHYS 451 Classical Mechanics

• 3 PHYS 471 Quantum Mechanics

• 1 PHYS 490 Seminar*

• Choose 4 courses from the following: (8-22 Hours)

  • PHYS 321 Implications of Space Travel*

  • PHYS 361 Optics*

  • PHYS 424 Digital Electronics*

  • PHYS 433 Nuclear & Elementary Particle Physics*

  • PHYS 439 Condensed Matter Physics*

  • PHYS 454 Semiconductor Materials*

  • PHYS 481 Mathematical Physics*

  • PHYS 492 Topics*

  • PHYS 498 Research*

*Current students, please refer to the DegreeWorks Dashboard in MyBHSU to confirm your major requirements.*

 Apply Now

Deep Thoughts Articles:

• http://sanfordlab.org/article/bhsu-underground-campus-finds-new-home-4850-level

• http://sanfordlab.org/article/quieting-quantum-realm

• http://sanfordlab.org/article/becoming-scientist-undergraduate-research-opportunities

• http://sanfordlab.org/article/doe-grant-empowers-science-workforce-tomorrow

• http://sanfordlab.org/article/surf-scientific-community-celebrate-10-years-davis-campus

• http://sanfordlab.org/article/success-experiment-requires-testing

• http://sanfordlab.org/article/undergraduate-faces-sanford-lab

• http://sanfordlab.org/article/life-low-background

Other Press Releases:

• http://www.keloland.com/news/education/bhsu-underground-campus-at-sanford-lab-gives-opportunities-for-students/

• http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2016-05-06/south-dakotas-black-hills-state-university-opening-underground-campus

• http://listen.sdpb.org/education/2023-09-21/bhsu-awarded-520k-grant-for-recruitment-and-research