iTHEMS-phys Study Group

The main purpose of the “iTHEMS-phys” study group is to keep a regular seminar series and sometimes have an intensive lecture or workshop on any topics from all fields of theoretical physics. At RIKEN iTHEMS, we have a variety of researchers working on diverse areas of mathematical sciences from pure mathematicians to biologists. Even if we restrict ourselves to physicists, they cover most research topics in broad areas of theoretical physics; particle and nuclear physics, lattice field theory, astrophysics, cosmology, condensed matter physics, atomic, molecular, and optical physics, statistical physics, and mathematical physics. While they are independently and freely working on their own research topics as specialists, it is also important to promote a strong interaction between all of them. This is because one mainstream, which drives the development of modern physics, is a notion of universality: A fundamental concept in theoretical physics often appears in apparently unrelated areas of physics (and sometimes independently discovered), and yet one has eventually realized their relationship, or universality: One classic example is the Wilson’s renormalization group method, originally developed in the context of critical phenomena in the statistical physics, but it has eventually changed our notion of quantum field theory. Thus, it is crucially useful to have a common activity like regular seminars as a theoretical physics group, which helps us share the prominent ideas from different areas of physics.