Dr. Samuel Santana
Professor of Physics
Department of Physics

Samuel Santana


Research Interests

My research interest is centered around Particle Physics Theory, in particular, nuetrinos. Neutrinos are the most mysterious of the fundamentla particles. I am interested in finding the answers to some of the bigest questions related to neutrinos like their weight, flavors multiplicity, left-handedness, symmetry violation and origin. When it comes to neutrinos, mysteries abound. Here are some of the biggest questions physicists want to answer in their quest to better understand the neutrino: I a also interested in Quantum Computing and recently developed a basic coursein it and taught it to undergrads. I am working on tensor network and training models for quantum computing. I am collaborating with IAIFI institute at MIT to pursue my research passion in this direction.

My other reserach includes training students and teachers via Quarknet to enable STEM workforce pipeline

Education

  • Postdoctoral - The City University of New York, US (2008-2009) - High Energy Physics (Theory)
  • Ph.D. - Indiana University - Bloomington, IN,US (2004-2008) - High Energy Physics (Theory)
  • M.Sc. - University of Puerto Rico - Mayaguez, Puerto Rico (2000-2003) - Physics
  • B.Sc. - University of Puerto Rico - Mayaguez, Puerto Rico (1996-2000) - Physics and Mathematics

    • Teaching

  • Quantum Menchanics (Grad and Undergrads)
  • Particle Physics (Grad and Undergrads)
  • Modern Physics (Undergrads)
  • E&M (Grad and Undergrads)

    • Master Thesis Students

  • Ángel Pérez – 2016 - 2018 “Analytical approximations to parabolic curved beams”
  • José Mosquera – 2018 – 2020 “On effects of anapole interactions on the wavefunction of ionization electrons and energy spectra of the hydrogen atom”
  • Ángel Reyes – 2023 – present “Study of Non-Hermitian Hamiltonians with complex potentials”
  • Julian Salinas – 2023 - present “Curvature dependent effects on a quantum particle confined to a parabolic wire and other geometries

    • Undergrad student research

  • Pedro Valentin – 2015 “Study and comparison of neutrino mass models”
  • Stephanie Chan – 2015 - 2016 Poster: “SAC-CI Calculations of NIR transitions in Ar2 Excimer”
  • Enid Cruz – 2017 – 2018 Electronic structure studies of argon and xenon excimers Development of simple toroidal interaction models
  • Tiahra Aviles – 2021 – 2022 Poster/Presentation: “Study of infrared spectra of argon dimers”
  • Pedro Rodriguez – 2020 “Study of 1d time independent Schrödinger equation in parabolic coordinates”
  • Roy Cruz, Lee Rogers – 2020 – 2021 “Study on the impact of the Standard Model Extension on Special Relativity”
    • 7. Mario Escabi – 2021 – 2022 Poster/Presentation: “Analytical approach to the effective range expansion to describe a nuclear virtual state.” 8. Carlos Ortiz – 2023 – 2024 Presentation: A 2d generalization of a 1d study of plasma flow with a magnetic obstacle in the context of electromagnetohydrodynamics.