The power of virtual reality for physics (and STEM) education

While there has been much hype around VR in education, there has been limited research around what is truly novel about the technology. This workshop will share best practice around the how and why Virtual Reality can be used to enhance student learning in Physics education. Inspired by the Force Concept Inventory (FCI), we developed a novel app at ANU that asks students what forces act on a basketball, and then presents them with the physical world based on their answer. This allows student to experience unphysical worlds that manifest their misconceptions around forces. Guided by a narrator, students reflect on their answers to correct their misconception. Participants of this workshop will hear about the positives and challenges of using highly immersive VR in education, including recent research that demonstrates its effectiveness with over 150 students. They will also experience the learning journey of students, including taking the FCI, watching a live demo of the VR experience, then a chance to retake the FCI. The workshop will conclude with a facilitated discussion around other ways VR might be useful in Physics education, including a second demo of our EM-field VR simulator. Intended Audience: Undergraduate and Secondary-School Physics Educator

SCALABLE AND EFFECTIVE USE OF VIRTUAL REALITY FOR PHYSICS EDUCATION

At ACSME2019, we presented early work on Virtual Reality (VR) software for correcting student misconceptions related to Newton’s laws. This software now runs on the next generation headsets, which has enabled us to scale the experience to entire classes. Since 2019, we have collected data from 109 students who have used VR as part of their physics coursework at ANU. Inspired by questions from Force Concept Inventory (FCI; Hestenes, Wells, & Swackhamer, 1992), our VR experience asks students to play with a basketball and decide which forces act on the ball. They are presented with the world that represents their choices, and therefore manifests their misconceptions. A narrator guides them with feedback to reconsider and reflect on their choices until they choose the correct answer. When compared with 350 students who did not use VR but have undertaken the same course at ANU over several years, there is a statistically significant improvement in FCI metrics. Both overall score and questions relating to relevant misconceptions show improvements. The non-VR and VR groups both have equivalent baselines in their pre-course FCI test. We also present recent work on a multiplayer, electromagnetism sandbox to allow for VR-based tutorials targeting EM visualisation and concepts. REFERENCE Hestenes, D., Wells, M., & Swackhamer, G., (1992) Force Concept Inventory, The Physics Teacher, 30, 141-151

The worlds simplest electric train: a tool for progressive understanding in electromagnetism

This activity is the basis of a ‘lab’ session run with first year students at ANU, who are learning about the Lorentz Force and electromagnetism more generally. Using just 4 simple objects, the goal is to build the world’s simplest electric train, and then explain its operation using a physics model. The fantastic aspect of this system is that it can be understood using everything from very simple conceptual models introduced in high school as early as year 9-10, through to a full analysis using Maxwell’s Equations (2nd/3rd year university). The opportunity to use this system as a way to revisit concepts and build a progressively deeper understanding of electromagnetism over several years is profound. It also incorporates an understanding of mechanics, friction, and is quite frankly, very cool and a lot of fun. The session will first give everyone the chance to undertake the challenge themselves (no Google!). Afterwards we’ll explain its operation using several models and share how the theoretical description can be anything from conceptual, to back of envelope, and finally a full analytic calculation

The Role of Source Coherence in Atom Interferometery

The role of source cloud spatial coherence in a Mach-Zehnder type atom interferometer is experimentally investigated. The visibility and contrast of a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) and three thermal sources with varying spatial coherence are compared as a function of interferometer time. At short times, the fringe visibility of a BEC source approaches 100 % nearly independent of pi pulse efficiency, while thermal sources have fringe visibilities limited to the mirror efficiency. More importantly for precision measurement systems, the BEC source maintains interference at interferometer times significantly beyond the thermal source

80hk Momentum Separation with Bloch Oscillations in an Optically Guided Atom Interferometer

We demonstrate phase sensitivity in a horizontally guided, acceleration-sensitive atom interferometer with a momentum separation of 80hk between its arms. A fringe visibility of 7% is observed. Our coherent pulse sequence accelerates the cold cloud in an optical waveguide, an inherently scalable route to large momentum separation and high sensitivity. We maintain coherence at high momentum separation due to both the transverse confinement provided by the guide, and our use of optical delta-kick cooling on our cold-atom cloud. We also construct a horizontal interferometric gradiometer to measure the longitudinal curvature of our optical waveguide.Comment: 6 pages, 6 figure

Virtual reality for physics education

Virtual reality (VR) has reached a point of development where its accessibility and immersion is sufficient to give realistic and memorable experiences. One of the most exciting possibilities is the ability to visualise invisible or impossible worlds. For example, electricity and magnetism are frequently challenging concepts to teach, in particular because students need to build a mental model of what a ‘field’ is. VR gives us the ability to give people a realistic representation of vector fields, of far higher complexity than that possible on a traditional computer screen. Furthermore, it can allow dynamic manipulation, simulation, and testing – effectively offering students a sandbox in which to experiment with these systems. Another exciting application is the use of VR to allow students to experience worlds that manifest their misconceptions. Led by misconceptions well studied and measured using the Force Concept Inventory (Hestenes, Wells, & Swackhamer, 1992), students can be asked to predict what forces exist in a given situation. They are then given a world in which those forces are present, and thus if incorrect, experience a situation that behaves counter-intuitively, thereby triggering cognitive dissonance. They can then be guided via narration, or an instructor to reassess their views and ideally correct their misconception. At ANU, we have been developing both of these apps over the last two years. We will share some positive preliminary results with small groups of student, both qualitative and quantitative

A Bright Solitonic Matter-Wave Interferometer

We present the first realisation of a solitonic atom interferometer. A Bose-Einstein condensate of $1\times10^4$ atoms of rubidium-85 is loaded into a horizontal optical waveguide. Through the use of a Feshbach resonance, the $s$-wave scattering length of the $^{85}$Rb atoms is tuned to a small negative value. This attractive atomic interaction then balances the inherent matter-wave dispersion, creating a bright solitonic matter wave. A Mach-Zehnder interferometer is constructed by driving Bragg transitions with the use of an optical lattice co-linear with the waveguide. Matter wave propagation and interferometric fringe visibility are compared across a range of $s$-wave scattering values including repulsive, attractive and non-interacting values. The solitonic matter wave is found to significantly increase fringe visibility even compared with a non-interacting cloud.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figure

Collapse and three-body loss in a 85 Rb Bose-Einstein condensate

Collapsing Bose-Einstein condensates are rich and complex quantum systems for which quantitative explanation by simple models has proved elusive. We present experimental data on the collapse of high-density 85Rb condensates with attractive interactions and find quantitative agreement with the predictions of the Gross-Pitaevskii equation. The collapse data and measurements of the decay of atoms from our condensates allow us to put new limits on the value of the 85Rb three-body loss coefficient K3 at small positive and negative scattering lengths

Why momentum width matters for atom interferometry with Bragg pulses

We theoretically consider the effect of the atomic source's momentum width on the efficiency of Bragg mirrors and beamsplitters and, more generally, on the phase sensitivity of Bragg pulse atom interferometers. By numerical optimization, we show that an atomic cloud's momentum width places a fundamental upper bound on the maximum transfer efficiency of a Bragg mirror pulse, and furthermore limits the phase sensitivity of a Bragg pulse atom interferometer. We quantify these momentum width effects, and precisely compute how mirror efficiencies and interferometer phase sensitivities vary as functions of Bragg order and source type. Our results and methodology allow for an efficient optimization of Bragg pulses and the comparison of different atomic sources, and will help in the design of large momentum transfer Bragg mirrors and beamsplitters for use in atom-based inertial sensors.Comment: 25 pages, 11 figure