Overview of quantum error correcting codes

July 7 (Tue) 15:00 - 16:30, 2026

Takaya Matsuura (Postdoctoral Researcher, Quantum Computing Theory Research Team, RIKEN Center for Quantum Computing (RQC))

Venue: Seminar Room #359 (Main Venue) / via Zoom

Event Official Language: English

Watching SMBE

July 6 (Mon) 17:00 - 18:30, 2026

Watching some selected talks form SMBE 2026 conference.

Venue: via Zoom / 4F Common Space, Main Research Building

Event Official Language: English

PopGen Book Club (IV)

July 6 (Mon) 15:00 - 16:00, 2026

Alba Nieto Heredia (Postdoctoral Researcher, Mathematical Genomics RIKEN ECL Research Unit, Division of Fundamental Mathematical Science, RIKEN Center for Interdisciplinary Theoretical and Mathematical Sciences (iTHEMS))

Fourth session of the PopGen Book Club on chapter 2.2 "More on genetic drift: The coalescent"

Venue: via Zoom / 4F, Main Research Building

Event Official Language: English

Toward an understanding of microbial circulation in the Mongolian nomadic ecosystem

July 6 (Mon) 13:00 - 14:00, 2026

Akari Shinoda (Assistant Professor, Faculty of Environmental, Life, Natural Science and Technology, Okayama University)

I have been studying microorganisms in the Mongolian nomadic ecosystem from several perspectives. First, I seek to characterize the microbial communities in traditional fermented dairy products—most notably airag (fermented mare's milk)—and their features. Second, I am analyzing the relationship between the traditional Mongolian diet and the gut microbiome. Third, focusing on environmental microorganisms (bioaerosols) in regions undergoing desertification, I aim to trace their origins and atmospheric transport. In the course of these studies, I have come to suspect that microorganisms may circulate among humans, livestock, fermented foods, and the environment. In this research, I aim to understand such microbial circulation by combining approaches from each of these perspectives and by investigating the relationships among these elements. In this talk, I will provide an overview of each topic and discuss the potential of an interdisciplinary approach that connects them.

Venue: Seminar Room #359 (Main Venue) / via Zoom

Event Official Language: English

Thom polynomials relative to prescribed maps around the boundary

July 3 (Fri) 15:00 - 17:30, 2026

Masato Tanabe (Special Postdoctoral Researcher, Division of Fundamental Mathematical Science, RIKEN Center for Interdisciplinary Theoretical and Mathematical Sciences (iTHEMS))

Thom polynomials are universal cohomological obstructions to the appearance of singularities of given types in differentiable maps. Introduced by R. Thom in the 1950s, they have been extensively studied ever since. In the first half of this talk, I would like to recall their theory with introduction of algebro-topological materials. In the second half, I would also like to talk about applications of Thom polynomials to topology of non-singular maps. Since this century, various invariants of immersions/embeddings have been expressed in terms of singularities of their extensions (a.k.a. singular Seifert surfaces). However, those formulas are obtained in different forms and remain somewhat scattered. As the first step to unify them, I would like to introduce Thom polynomials relative to prescribed maps around the boundary. As a main result, we show a structure theorem of Thom polynomials relative to framable immersions. In fact, most earlier formulas are summarized as the vanishing of "correction terms" appearing in the structure theorem. This is an advanced seminar for mathematical researchers.

Venue: Seminar Room #359, Seminar Room #359 (Main Venue) / via Zoom

Event Official Language: English

Cosmic-ray bath in a past supernova gives birth to Earth-like planets

July 3 (Fri) 14:00 - 15:15, 2026

Ryo Sawada (Special Postdoctoral Researcher, Division of Fundamental Mathematical Science, RIKEN Center for Interdisciplinary Theoretical and Mathematical Sciences (iTHEMS))

A key question in astronomy is how ubiquitous Earth-like rocky planets are. The formation of terrestrial planets in our Solar System was strongly influenced by the radioactive decay heat of short-lived radionuclides (SLRs), particularly 26 Al (aluminum-26), likely delivered from nearby supernovae. However, current models struggle to reproduce the abundance of SLRs inferred from meteorite analysis without destroying the protosolar disk. We propose the "immersion" mechanism, where cosmic-ray nucleosynthesis in a supernova shockwave reproduces estimated SLR abundances at a supernova distance (~1 parsec), preserving the disk. We estimate that solar mass stars in star clusters typically experience at least one such supernova within 1 parsec, supporting the feasibility of this scenario. This suggests that Solar System─like SLR abundances and terrestrial planet formation are more common than previously thought.

Venue: #424-426, Main Research Building

Event Official Language: English

Gauge and Homological Structures in Quantum Error Correction

July 2 (Thu) 16:00 - 17:00, 2026

Junichi Haruna (Program-Specific Researcher, Graduate School of Informatics, Kyoto University)

Gauge theory, quantum error correction, and homology theory share a common mathematical backbone that, when made explicit, becomes a practical toolkit for fault-tolerant quantum computation. A CSS code is naturally a length-2 chain complex in which the X-stabilizers act as Gauss-law generators and the code space is the gauge-invariant subspace, the toric code being the prototypical realization of a Z_2 lattice gauge theory. Building on this correspondence, I present two results. First, I introduce a gauge-field formalism in which logical gates are written as exponentials of polynomials of operator-valued cochains—the lattice gauge fields—on the underlying chain complex. Requiring no special structure on the code, the construction applies to general CSS codes and yields explicit physical-gate decompositions of logical S, H, CZ, and T gates whose action depends only on the cohomology class of the logical qubits. Second, I show that the transversal implementability of logical Pauli-Z rotations has a purely homological origin: their logical action is classified by a Z_{2^m}-module extending logical Pauli operators to higher levels of the Clifford hierarchy, and transversality is governed by compatibility and lifting obstructions on homology classes beyond the usual Z_2 coefficient. From a high-energy-physics viewpoint, a level-m transversal gate is a gauge-invariant "2^{m-1}-th root of a Wilson loop." Together these results offer a unifying language for designing logical gates and point toward fault-tolerance from lattice gauge theory and algebraic topology. This talk is based on arXiv:2511.15224 and arXiv:2602.14499.

Venue: Hybrid Format (3F #359 and Zoom), Seminar Room #359

Event Official Language: English

Cosmology with Galaxy Shapes: Intrinsic Alignments as a Probe of Fundamental Physics

July 2 (Thu) 14:00 - 16:00, 2026

Teppei Okumura (Research Fellow, ASIAA, Academia Sinica, Taiwan)

Galaxies in the Universe are not oriented randomly. Their shapes exhibit coherent alignments across cosmological scales due to the surrounding tidal gravitational field. For many years, these intrinsic alignments were regarded mainly as a contaminating effect in weak gravitational lensing observations. In recent years, however, they have emerged as a new cosmological probe, complementary to conventional galaxy-clustering analyses.  In this talk, I will review recent theoretical and observational developments that establish galaxy shapes as a tool for studying the growth of cosmic structure and testing gravity on cosmological scales. I will present the first measurements demonstrating that intrinsic galaxy alignments can constrain cosmological parameters directly from observational data. The results are consistent with general relativity and provide information complementary to traditional galaxy-clustering analyses. I will also discuss future prospects for using galaxy alignments to probe dark energy, modified gravity, gravitational waves, and the physics of the early Universe with next-generation galaxy surveys.

Venue: Hybrid Format (3F #359 and Zoom), Seminar Room #359

Event Official Language: English

120th Data Assimilation and Prediction Science Seminar

July 2 (Thu) 14:00 - 16:00, 2026

Upmanu Lall (Professor, Columbia University, USA)
Mengqian Lu (Professor, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong)
Hyun-Han Kwon (Professor, University of Seoul, Republic of Korea)

Speaker: Professor Lall (Columbia University) Title: "Taming the Storm: Can We Predict, Engineer, and Reduce Losses from Climate and Weather Extremes?" Abstract: Climate and weather extremes — storms, heat waves, floods, droughts, and compound events — have become the defining natural hazard challenge of the 21st century. Their growing frequency and intensity are overwhelming engineered infrastructure, disrupting global supply chains, and propagating risks across societies through teleconnections that no single country can insulate itself against. While climate change mitigation through decarbonization remains an urgent priority, even optimistic emissions trajectories leave us facing decades of increasing exposure. Climate adaptation efforts — improved infrastructure design, financial instruments, early warning systems — are essential but are constrained by limited data, deep uncertainty in future projections, and the diffuse question of who bears responsibility for action. This talk argues that a third pillar is emerging and demands serious scientific and institutional attention: Climate Stabilization, or the deliberate modification of developing weather and climate extremes to reduce their societal impact. Rather than waiting for disasters to unfold and recovering afterward, this paradigm asks whether the physical dynamics of the atmosphere offer leverage points — windows in time and space — where strategically placed, small perturbations could redirect the trajectory of an extreme event. This is the core idea of Weather Jiu-Jitsu: exploiting the inherent instabilities and nonlinear sensitivities of atmospheric circulation to achieve large-scale redirection of an extreme using energy borrowed from the circulation itself, not brute-force external forcing. J The talk will address the foundational questions this agenda raises for a forecasting and Earth science community: What physical mechanisms enable or constrain atmospheric steering? How can ensemble prediction systems, adjoint methods, and emerging AI tools be harnessed to identify intervention points and compute impact outcomes with spatial specificity? What are the data and modeling gaps? How do we frame the ethical and governance dimensions as this moves from laboratory curiosity to potential operational deployment and commercial application?  I will sketch a research roadmap integrating chaos-informed perturbation theory to AI-enabled adaptive control optimization that builds on AI-accelerated impact forecasting to provide the foundation for Climate Stabilization as a rigorous scientific enterprise and, within a decade, a viable business with measurable returns to investors and societies alike. We hope that this will stimulate discussion with RIken's Moonshot Goal 8 program, which is exploring similar scientific and technological frontiers. Speaker: Professor Mengqian Lu (Hong Kong University of Science and Technology) Title: Bridging Climate Data to Actionable Decision-Making Across Industries Abstract: Extreme weather is escalating—impacting infrastructure, supply chains, and profitability across the world. At the same time, sustainability targets demand that businesses go green without sacrificing growth. The question is no longer if climate risk matters, but how to act on it—quickly and smartly. This talk presents climate solutions that combine advanced climate modeling with AI to deliver industry-specific, actionable insights. Developed at HKUST through the Center for Climate Resilience and Sustainability (CCRS) and the World Sustainable Development Institute (WSDI), this AI–dynamical hybrid system is already being applied across key sectors, including renewable energy, Arctic logistics, and disaster risk management. These tools enable organizations to make faster, more informed decisions under uncertainty. Backed by UNESCO and the WMO, this Research-to-Operation (R2O) framework turns complex climate data into operational tools that drive resilience, reduce losses, and uncover new opportunities. Real-world case studies will be shared to spark cross-sector collaboration between science, business, and policy. Speaker: Professor Hyun-Han Kwon (University of Seoul) Title: Bayesian Mixture Extreme-Value Modeling of Nonstationary Extreme Precipitation Across U.S. Regions Abstract Extreme precipitation is a major driver of flood risk, infrastructure stress, and climate-related disaster losses. However, annual maximum rainfall often reflects multiple physical mechanisms, including frontal or convective systems, tropical-cyclone-related rainfall, and transitional atmospheric regimes. Treating these extremes as samples from a single homogeneous process can obscure how regional rainfall risks are changing. This talk presents an ongoing study of nonstationary extreme precipitation using a Bayesian mixture extreme-value model. The model represents annual maximum daily precipitation as a combination of latent low- and high-intensity rainfall regimes, with time-varying component behavior and regime probabilities. This allows changes in return levels to be separated into contributions from baseline rainfall intensity, high-intensity event magnitude, and the probability of entering an extreme-producing regime. The framework is applied to long-term U.S. station records across the Southeast/Gulf, Mid-Atlantic, Northeast, and inland-control regions. Tropical-cyclone proximity and ERA5-based atmospheric diagnostics are used as external physical evidence, rather than as imposed predictors in the likelihood, to interpret the latent high-intensity regime and its regional variability. The broader goal is to move extreme-value analysis beyond stationary design estimation toward mechanism-aware and decision-relevant understanding of climate risk. By linking Bayesian uncertainty quantification, hydrometeorological interpretation, and regional comparison, this work provides a basis for improved infrastructure planning, impact-based forecasting, and future AI-enabled climate risk services.

Venue: Hybrid Format (RIKEN R-CCS room C107 and Zoom)

Event Official Language: English

Genome Structural Variation and the Evolutionary Potential of Sex in the Unicellular Green Alga Closterium

July 2 (Thu) 13:00 - 14:00, 2026

Yawako W. Kawaguchi (Postdoctoral Researcher, Molecular Life History Laboratory, National Institute of Genetics)

Genome size varies widely among eukaryotes, even between closely related species and within species. However, we still know relatively little about where such variation originates, how organisms tolerate its potential negative effects, and whether it can contribute to adaptation. In this seminar, I will present our studies on the unicellular green alga Closterium peracerosum–strigosum–littorale complex. I will first show that genome size variation in this alga is largely explained by extensive genome-wide copy number variation, and that gene expression can be buffered against changes in gene copy number. I will then show that a single episode of sexual reproduction can generate substantial variation in population growth rates under dual environmental stressors, with some F1 populations growing even when both parental strains decline. Finally, I will discuss how sexual reproduction may drive rapid evolutionary change not only by reshuffling alleles, but also by rearranging genome structure.

Venue: Seminar Room #359 (Main Venue) / via Zoom

Event Official Language: English

Lectures on Quantum Measurement Theory: IV

June 30 (Tue) 15:30 - 17:00, 2026

Masanao Ozawa (Professor Emeritus, Nagoya University)

Lecture IV: Instruments in classical mechanics, quantum field theory, and cognitive science In algebraic quantum field theory, measurements describable by interactions between the field and the measuring apparatus are characterized by the class of completely positive instruments that satisfy the condition called the normal extension property (NEP) (Okamura-Ozawa 2016). In classical mechanics, traditionally only non-invasive measurements—those with trivial interaction—were considered admissible, for the observability of the trajectory of motion. Here, however, the full class of measurements realizable by classical-mechanical interactions is characterized in terms of instruments with NEP for the basis of the study of invasive measurements of classical systems. Cognitive processes are also represented by completely positive instruments, along with the long-standing paradigm provided by von Helmholtz, who described a sensation-perception process as a sort of measuring interaction and referred to it as an unconscious inference. This framework is used to show the compatibility of the question order effect and the response replicability effect (Ozawa-Khrennikov 2019), which failed to be explained in an earlier approach using only projective measurement models. It is shown that there exists an instrument model, realizing both the question order effect and the response replicability effect, that is also capable of almost faithfully reproducing public-opinion survey data such as the well-known Clinton-Gore survey by Gallup in 1997 (Ozawa-Khrennikov 2021).

Venue: Seminar Room #359 (Main Venue) / via Zoom

Event Official Language: English

Phase Transitions as the Breakdown of Statistical Indistinguishability

June 29 (Mon) 15:00 - 16:00, 2026

Hideyuki Miyahara (Associate Professor, Faculty of Information Science and Technology, Hokkaido University)

We introduce a novel characterization of phase transitions based on hypothesis testing. In our formulation, a phase transition is defined as the breakdown of statistical indistinguishability under vanishing parameter perturbations in the thermodynamic limit. This perspective provides a general, order-parameter-free framework that does not rely on model-specific insights or learning procedures. We show that conventional approaches, such as those based on the Binder parameter, can be reinterpreted as special cases within this framework. As a concrete realization, we employ a distribution-free two-sample run test and demonstrate that the critical point of the two-dimensional Ising model is accurately identified without prior knowledge of the order parameter.

Venue: Hybrid Format (3F #359 and Zoom), Seminar Room #359

Event Official Language: English

Primitive Ideals and Hilbert Space Representations of Quantized Coordinate Algebras of Complex Semisimple Lie Groups

June 26 (Fri) 16:30 - 18:00, 2026

Heon Lee (Postdoc Researcher, Institute for Advanced Study in Mathematics, Harbin Institute of Technology, Republic of Korea)

The primitive ideals of the coordinate algebra $ \mathcal{O} ( G ) $ of a complex semisimple Lie group $ G $ are in bijection with the points of $ G $, via the correspondence assigning to each point of $ G $ the kernel of the associated evaluation homomorphism on $ \mathcal{O} ( G ) $. This establishes a direct link between the algebraic structure of $ \mathcal{O} ( G ) $ and the geometry of $ G $. In this talk, we investigate the quantum analogue of this classical relationship for the $ q $-deformation $ G_q $. Specifically, we establish a sharp dichotomy: primitive ideals in homogeneous Joseph strata arise as kernels of irreducible representations of $ \mathcal{O} ( G_q ) $ by bounded operators on Hilbert spaces, which provide a quantum analogue of evaluation homomorphisms at points of $ G $, whereas those in inhomogeneous Joseph strata do not. This clarifies the extent to which the primitive spectrum of $ \mathcal{O} ( G_q ) $ can be accessed through operator-theoretic methods. We also analyze the semiclassical consequences of this result in light of the fact that the primitive ideals of $ \mathcal{O} ( G_q ) $ are parametrized by the symplectic leaves of the natural Poisson structure on $ G $. This talk is based on joint work with Christian Voigt.

Venue: via Zoom / Seminar Room #359

Event Official Language: English

Symmetry origin of the quantum-classical transition, hydrodynamics, and decodability.

June 26 (Fri) 14:00 - 16:00, 2026

Cenke Xu (Professor, University of California, Santa Barbara, USA)

We discuss the following question: when a quantum system evolves into classical one, is there a sharp transition? We will show that the “strong-to-weak” spontaneous symmetry breaking (SW-SSB) provides a sharp onset of classical physics. We present the theoretical framework and summarize recent experimental progress toward observing SW-SSB. We will also discuss the consequence of the SW-SSB, including the emergence of hydrodynamics, and also its information aspect, such as the transition of decodability and distinguishability. Much of the theoretical analysis maps to a problem of defect in the Euclidean spacetime.

Venue: Hybrid Format (3F #359 and Zoom), Seminar Room #359

Event Official Language: English

Mathematical Application Research Team Meeting #16

June 26 (Fri) 10:30 - 12:00, 2026

Yuichi Ike (Associate Professor, Graduate School of Mathematical Sciences, The University of Tokyo)

Mathematical Application Research Team is honored to invite Prof. Yuichi Ike from the University of Tokyo to this meeting. Everyone is welcome to join the meeting to listen to his seminar. Title: Persistent Homology: Theory and Applications Abstract: Persistent homology is one of the main tools in topological data analysis (TDA), encoding the topological features of given data into persistence diagrams, which are multisets in two-dimensional space. It has been successfully applied to various fields such as materials science and computer graphics. In this talk, I will provide an overview of persistent homology from both theoretical and practical viewpoints. I would also like to discuss persistent-homology-based loss functions, which can be used to control the topological structure of parameters in machine learning.

Venue: #359, 3F, Main Research Building (Main Venue) / via Zoom

Event Official Language: English

Classical and quantum computing of Nash equilibria of two-player games

June 25 (Thu) 10:30 - 11:30, 2026

Erik Loetstedt (Senior Research Scientist, Quantum Mathematical Science Team, Division of Applied Mathematical Science, RIKEN Center for Interdisciplinary Theoretical and Mathematical Sciences (iTHEMS))

Nash equilibrium is an important concept in game theory. However, finding mixed-strategy Nash equilibria is computationally hard even for relatively small games. I will review some aspects of the numerical computation of Nash equilibria of two-player games including the Lemke-Howson algorithm. I will also discuss preliminary attempts at solving the Nash equilibrium problem on a quantum computer by the quantum approximate optimization algorithm.

Venue: Seminar Room #359 (Main Venue) / via Zoom

Event Official Language: English

Fermionic modes of D-instanton wormholes from broken local supersymmetry

June 24 (Wed) 15:30 - 17:00, 2026

Hiroshi Itoyama (Specially Appointed Professor, Nambu Yoichiro Institute of Theoretical and Experimental Physics (NITEP), Osaka Metropolitan University)

In low-energy supergravity treatment of type IIB superstring on general D-instanton wormhole profiles in the bulk, we obtain non-vanishing scalar two-point functions in addition to the vanishing　〈τ＊τ＊〉 that corresponds to the BPS amplitude detected by two D-instantons at their respective boundaries. This is exploited to show that the modes of broken local supersymmetry in the bulk deliver the fermionic (diagonal) modes on the boundaries through the deformation by the form of current-current two point functions propagating on the tree level cylinder geometry. Our treatment is generalizable to multi D-instanton cases and general Euclidean branes.

Venue: #359, 3F, Main Research Building (Main Venue) / via Zoom

Event Official Language: English

Machine-learned fixed-point actions and observables for SU(3) lattice gauge theory

June 24 (Wed) 10:30 - 11:30, 2026

Müller David (Postdoctoral Researcher, Institute for Theoretical Physics, TU Wien, Austria)

Lattice regularization is the established approach for studying non-perturbative phenomena in quantum chromodynamics, but accurate predictions for the continuum theory remain challenging because standard actions exhibit large lattice artifacts. The renormalization group on the lattice provides a way of suppressing these artifacts: classically perfect fixed-point (FP) actions. In this talk, I show how gauge-equivariant neural networks yield accurate parametrizations of FP actions. Using these machine-learned actions, we perform Monte Carlo simulations to measure gradient-flow scales with highly suppressed artifacts compared to unimproved actions. I will also present preliminary results for machine-learned FP observables to improve the extraction of the topological susceptibility in four-dimensional SU(3) gauge theory.

Venue: Seminar Room #359 (Main Venue) / via Zoom

Event Official Language: English

Lectures on Quantum Measurement Theory: III

June 23 (Tue) 15:30 - 17:00, 2026

Masanao Ozawa (Professor Emeritus, Nagoya University)

Lecture III: Measurement error, disturbance, the universally valid reformulation of Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, and a quantitative generalization of the Wigner–Araki–Yanase theorem Definitions of measurement error and disturbance are introduced (Ozawa 2002, 2019) and it is shown that there exists a solvable model for a physically realizable measurement that serves as a counterexample both to Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle in the conventional formulation and to the SQL (Ozawa 1988, 1989, 2002). Thus, those limits are no more considered as universal limits. In fact, the above counter example to SQL was found in 1988 using the idea of contractive state measurements by Yuen (1983) and the LIGO was started in 1994 to succeed in the gravitational wave detection in 2015 as announced in 2016. New formulations are then proved for the uncertainty principle concerning the errors in the approximate simultaneous measurement of two physical quantities, called the "joint error relation" (Ozawa 2003b, 2004), and for the uncertainty principle concerning the error and disturbance associated with the measurement of a single physical quantity, called the "error-disturbance relation" (Ozawa 2003a). From the error-disturbance relation, a quantitative relation for measurement error under an additive conservation law is proved (Ozawa 2002a, 2003b), generalizing the "Wigner–Araki–Yanase theorem" (Wigner 1952, Araki-Yanase 1960), which states that a physical quantity not commuting with a conserved quantity cannot be measured accurately by a measurement interaction satisfying an additive conservation law. The above relation also derives limits for realizing quantum computing and operations under conservation laws (Ozawa 2002b), the results later developed as the resource theory of asymmetry.

Venue: Seminar Room #359 (Main Venue) / via Zoom

Event Official Language: English