Search Event

2d Cardy-Rabinovici model with the modified Villain lattice formulation

May 9 (Fri) 14:00 - 15:00, 2025

Nagare Katayama (Ph.D. Student, Yukawa Institute for Theoretical Physics, Kyoto University)

One of the most famous scenarios of the quark confinement problem is the dual superconductor picture. In this picture, the quark confinement is induced by monopole condensation, but in the theory with a θ term, we expect that not only monopole but also dyon condensation is induced, as suggested by Cardy and Rabinovici through their intuitive arguments. In this study, the Witten effect of the theory of two-dimensional compact bosons with the θ term is examined using a modified Villain-type lattice theory that can treat the θ term and dion in a rigorous manner. In addition, we construct the 2d Cardy-Rabinovici model and analyze the phase diagram through the scaling dimension argument and the anomaly matching constraint.

Venue: Hybrid Format (3F #359 and Zoom), Main Research Building

Event Official Language: English

The role of the visual information of fish schooling via selective decision-making

May 8 (Thu) 16:00 - 17:00, 2025

Susumu Ito (Ph.D. Student, Department of Physics, Graduate School of Science, Tohoku University)

Visual cues play crucial roles in the collective motion of animals, birds, fish, and insects. Recently, experiments have revealed that organisms such as fish selectively utilize a portion, rather than the entirety, of visual information. This method of the visual interaction avoids heavy load for small brain of the organisms. However, the previous models using visual interaction implicitly assume that an agent interacts with all visible neighbors. Therefore, we study the effect of the selective decision-making on the collective motion via the agent-based model and the coarse grained continuous model. In the former study, we have constructed a visual model which takes into account the motion of visual attention of agents induced by the visual stimuli, and our model can simultaneously show the spontaneous appearance of various collective patterns and the bifurcation process of the tracking of a neighbor. The later study, the agents corresponds to the density field by the coarse graining, and the visual occlusion is treated in a self-consistent manner via a coarse-grained density field, which renders the interaction effectively pairwise. The model exhibits a discontinuous transition as in the conventional models by the local collision, and but the discontinuity is weakened by the non-locality of visual interaction. Our studies clarify the comprehensive coincidence with experimental results via selective decision-making and the essential role of non-locality in the visual interactions.

Venue: via Zoom

Event Official Language: English

Supernova axion emissivity with Δ(1232) resonance in heavy baryon chiral perturbation theory

May 1 (Thu) 16:00 - 17:30, 2025

Shu-Yu Ho (Postdoctoral Researcher, Institute of Physics, Academia Sinica, Taiwan)

Abstract: In this talk, we evaluate the energy loss rate of supernovae induced by the axion emission process π− + p → n + a with the Δ(1232) resonance in the heavy baryon chiral perturbation theory for the first time. Given the axion-nucleon-∆ interactions, we include the previously ignored Δ-mediated graphs to the π− + p → n + a process. In particular, the Δ_0-mediated diagram can give a resonance contribution to the supernova axion emission rate when the center-of-mass energy of the pion and proton approaches the Δ(1232) mass. With these new contributions, we find that for the typical supernova temperatures, compared with the earlier work with the axion-nucleon (and axion-pion-nucleon contact) interactions, the supernova axion emissivity can be enhanced by a factor of ∼ 4(2) in the Kim-Shifman-Vainshtein-Zakharov model and up to a factor of ∼ 5(2) in the Dine-Fischler-Srednicki-Zhitnitsky model with small tanβ values. Remarkably, we notice that the Δ(1232) resonance gives a destructive contribution to the supernova axion emission rate at high supernova temperatures, which is a nontrivial result in this study.

Venue: #345-347, 3F, Main Research Building (Main Venue) / via Zoom

Event Official Language: English

Insights on Issues in the Cold Dark Matter Hypothesis

April 25 (Fri) 14:00 - 15:15, 2025

Yuka Kaneda (Ph.D. Student, University of Tsukuba)

Dark matter accounts for 85% of the matter component of our universe, but its true nature is still unclear. The Lambda-Cold Dark Matter (CDM) model, which thought to be the standard model, reproduces well the statistical properties of the large-scale structure of our universe. However, at the scale of galaxies and dwarf galaxies, serious discrepancies between the predictions of the CDM model and observations have been pointed out. In this study, we tackle on the “cusp-core problem” and the “missing satellite problem,” which are typical examples of such discrepancies, using N-body simulations. In the talk, the physical trigger of cusp-to-core transition and the novel method to find missed satellites are presented.

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

Event Official Language: English

iTHEMS x academist Online Event "World of Mathematical Sciences 2025"

April 19 (Sat) 10:00 - 15:30, 2025

Yuuka Kanakubo (Postdoctoral Researcher, RIKEN-Berkeley Center, Division of Global Collaborations and Research Talent Development, RIKEN Center for Interdisciplinary Theoretical and Mathematical Sciences (iTHEMS))
Kan Kitamura (Special Postdoctoral Researcher, Division of Fundamental Mathematical Science, RIKEN Center for Interdisciplinary Theoretical and Mathematical Sciences (iTHEMS))
Leo Speidel (RIKEN ECL Research Unit Leader, Mathematical Genomics RIKEN ECL Research Unit, Division of Fundamental Mathematical Science, RIKEN Center for Interdisciplinary Theoretical and Mathematical Sciences (iTHEMS))
Yuki Yokokura (Senior Research Scientist, Division of Fundamental Mathematical Science, RIKEN Center for Interdisciplinary Theoretical and Mathematical Sciences (iTHEMS))

Venue: via Zoom

Event Official Language: Japanese

Artificial Intelligence and Neuroscience

April 11 (Fri) 14:00 - 15:30, 2025

Junichi Chikazoe (Professor, Center for Brain,Mind and KANSEI Sciences Research, Hiroshima University)

Recent advancements in artificial intelligence have led to various discoveries in the field of neuroscience. For example, it has been demonstrated that the information on orientation columns in the visual cortex and the basic taste information in the gustatory cortex can be extracted by applying machine learning to relatively low-resolution functional MRI data. Additionally, intriguing findings have emerged, such as the information processing structures of artificial neural circuits—designed independently of the brain—showing similarities to those of biological neural networks. In this talk, I will discuss the applications of artificial intelligence in neuroscience and explore future directions in this field.

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

Event Official Language: English

A Strategy for Proving the Strong Eigenstate Thermalization Hypothesis: Chaotic Systems and Holography

April 3 (Thu) 16:00 - 17:00, 2025

Taishi Kawamoto (Ph.D. Student / JSPS Research Fellow DC, Yukawa Institute for Theoretical Physics, Kyoto University)

The strong eigenstate thermalization hypothesis (ETH) provides a sufficient condition for thermalization and equilibration. Although it is expected to hold in a wide class of highly chaotic theories, there are only a few analytic examples demonstrating the strong ETH in special cases, often through methods related to integrability. In this talk, I will explore sufficient conditions for the strong ETH that may apply to a broad range of chaotic theories. These conditions are expressed as inequalities involving the long-time averages of real-time thermal correlators. Specifically, I will discuss bottom-up holographic models that satisfy these conditions under certain assumptions, which are expected to hold in such models. This talk is based on the preprint 2411.09746 [hep-th].

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

Event Official Language: English

Omega Meson from Lattice QCD

April 2 (Wed) 15:00 - 16:00, 2025

Haobo Yan (Ph.D. Student, School of Physics, Peking University, China)

The three-body problem, renowned for its unsolvable nature in celestial mechanics and homonymous science fiction, is not only solvable in the quantum realm regarding spectra but also offers profound insights into QCD. In this talk, I will present the first-ever lattice calculation of the resonance parameters for the lightest hadron decaying into three particles, the -meson. By mapping finite-volume energy levels to infinite-volume scattering amplitude, a pole position trajectory is obtained that, when extrapolated to the physical point, shows good agreement with the experiment.

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

Event Official Language: English

The rarer-sex effect

March 27 (Thu) 16:00 - 17:00, 2025

Andy Gardner (Professor, School of Biology, University of St Andrews, UK)

The study of sex allocation—that is, the investment of resources into male versus female reproductive effort—yields among the best quantitative evidence for Darwinian adaptation, and has long enjoyed a tight and productive interplay of theoretical and empirical research. The fitness consequences of an individual's sex allocation decisions depend crucially upon the sex allocation behaviour of others and, accordingly, sex allocation is readily conceptualized in terms of an evolutionary game. I will discuss the historical development of understanding of a fundamental driver of the evolution of sex allocation—the rarer-sex effect—from its inception in the writing of Charles Darwin in 1871 through to its explicit framing in terms of consanguinity and reproductive value by William D. Hamilton in 1972. I will show that step-wise development of theory proceeded through refinements in the conceptualization of the strategy set, the payoff function and the unbeatable strategy.

Venue: #445-447, 4F (Hybrid), Main Research Building / via Zoom

Event Official Language: English

A Century of Quantum Mechanics

March 24 (Mon) 14:00 - 15:30, 2025

Gordon Baym (Professor Emeritus, University of Illinois, USA)

This is a RIKEN iTHEMS - The Univ. of Tokyo, Phys. Dept. Joint Seminar. This year, 2025, the "International Year of Quantum Science and Technology (IYQ)," is the 100th anniversary of the "formal" start of quantum mechanics, the description of the microscopic world. 1925 is the year in which Werner Heisenberg and others formulated "matrix mechanics," and physicists began to understand how to accurately predict microscopic phenomena. In this talk I will describe how quantum mechanics came about, starting with physicists in the late nineteenth century trying to understand the colors of hot metals and other hot objects, noting crucial advances leading to the fully developed wave and matrix quantum mechanics in the mid 1920's, to steps towards understanding real materials, culminating with spectacular applications such as smartphones, scarcely a century later.

Venue: The Univ. of Tokyo, Faculty of Science Building #4, room 1220 (Main Venue) / via Zoom

Event Official Language: English

Fast radio bursts as precursor radio emission from monster shocks

March 21 (Fri) 16:00 - 17:15, 2025

Arno Vanthieghem (Assistant Professor, Observatoire de Paris and Sorbonne Université, France)

It has been proposed recently that the breaking of MHD waves in the inner magnetosphere of strongly magnetized neutron stars can power different types of high-energy transients. Motivated by these considerations, we study the steepening and dissipation of a strongly magnetized fast magnetosonic wave propagating in a declining background magnetic field, by means of particle-in-cell simulations that encompass MHD scales. Our analysis confirms the formation of a monster shock, that dissipates about half of the fast magnetosonic wave energy. It also reveals, for the first time, the generation of a high-frequency precursor wave by a synchrotron maser instability at the monster shock front, carrying a fraction of 0.1% of the total energy dissipated at the shock. The spectrum of the precursor wave exhibits several sharp harmonic peaks, with frequencies in the GHz band under conditions anticipated in magnetars. Such signals may appear as fast radio bursts.

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

Event Official Language: English

The puzzle of angular momentum conservation in beta decay and related processes.

March 21 (Fri) 14:00 - 15:30, 2025

Gordon Baym (Professor Emeritus, University of Illinois, USA)

This is a iTHEMS-FQSP joint seminar. We ask the question of how angular momentum is conserved in a number of related processes, from elastic scattering of a circularly polarized photon by an atom, where the scattered photon has a different spin direction than the original photon; to scattering of a fully relativistic spin-1/2 particle by a central potential; to inverse beta decay in which an electron is emitted following the capture of a neutrino on a nucleus, where the final spin is in a different direction than that of the neutrino – an apparent change of angular momentum. The apparent non-conservation of angular momentum arises in the quantum measurement process in which the measuring apparatus does not have an initially well-defined angular momentum, but is localized in direction in the outside world. We generalize the discussion to massive neutrinos and electrons, and examine nuclear beta decay and electron-positron annihilation processes through the same lens, enabling physically transparent derivations of angular and helicity distributions in these reactions.

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

Event Official Language: English

iTHEMS - Nishina Center Joint Seminar: The Golden Age of Neutron Stars

March 17 (Mon) 15:30 - 17:00, 2025

Gordon Baym (Professor Emeritus, University of Illinois, USA)

This is a iTHEMS - Nishina Center Joint Seminar. Neutron stars were first posited in the early thirties, and discovered as pulsars in the late sixties; however we are only recently beginning to understand the matter they contain. After touching briefly on the history of neutron stars, I will describe the ongoing development of a consistent picture of the liquid interiors of neutron stars, now driven by ever increasing observations as well as theoretical advances. These include, in particular. observations of at least three heavy neutron stars of about 2.0 solar masses and higher; ongoing simultaneous inferences of masses and radii of neutron stars by the NICER telescope; and past and future observations of binary neutron star mergers, through gravitational waves as well as across the electromagnetic spectrum. I will also discuss pulsar timing arrays to detect very long wavelength gravitational waves, a remarkable role for neutron stars. Theoretically an understanding is emerging in QCD of how nuclear matter can turn into deconfined quark matter in the interior, and be capable of supporting heavy neutron stars, which I will illustrate with a discussion of modern quark-hadron crossover equations of state.

Venue: 2F Large Meeting Room, RIBF Building (E01) (Main Venue) / via Zoom

Event Official Language: English

It’s about time! Daily rhythms in malaria infections matter for parasite survival and transmission

March 13 (Thu) 17:00 - 18:00, 2025

Reece Sarah (Professor, University of Edinburgh, UK)

The Reece lab provides a unique perspective on parasites, examining their world within hosts and vectors (insects that transmit parasites). Working at the intersection of parasitology, chronobiology, and evolutionary ecology, our research asks: “what makes a successful parasite” and “what are their evolutionary limits”? Unlike most infection research, that focuses solely on genetics and molecular aspects, our approach considers parasites in their ecological and evolutionary contexts. This has enabled us to uncover the sophisticated strategies that malaria parasites possess, such as optimizing the balance between transmission and replication, strategic investment in each sex of transmission stages, and scheduling activities according to the time of day. By understanding how parasites navigate their challenging lifestyles and seize opportunities, we contribute to interventions that can outsmart parasites and reduce the risk of resistance evolution. Our findings extend beyond the laboratory, showcasing the potential of environmental research to curb the impact of parasitic infections, whether in humans, wildlife, livestock, or agriculture, and helping to protect ecosystems.

Venue: via Zoom

Event Official Language: English

Kyushu IAS-iTHEMS conference: Non-perturbative methods in QFT

March 10 (Mon) - 14 (Fri) 2025

The most commonly used approach in the study of QFT is perturbation theory. Indeed, we have succeeded in extracting various physical quantities from perturbative (asymptotic) expansions. However, some physical phenomena cannot be captured through perturbative analyses alone. How can we extract these non-perturbative effects? In QFTs with conformal symmetry (i.e., CFTs), correlation functions can be computed using a method called the conformal bootstrap. This non-perturbative method differs entirely from the usual correlation function analysis methods of QFT, as it does not even assume the existence of a Lagrangian. Through the use of the conformal bootstrap, we have actually made significant progress in the non-perturbative understanding of CFTs. Furthermore, according to the holographic principle, CFTs provide a non-perturbative formulation of QFTs with gravity (i.e., quantum gravity). By applying the holographic principle to various non-perturbative results from CFTs, such as those obtained from the conformal bootstrap, we have made remarkable advances in understanding the non-perturbative aspects of quantum gravity. Conversely, the holographic principle is also used to understand properties of QFTs that are difficult to analyze perturbatively, through gravity.

Venue: Kyushu University Ito Campus, Inamori Hall

Event Official Language: English

Smart heuristics of a single-celled organism

March 7 (Fri) 14:00 - 15:30, 2025

Toshiyuki Nakagaki (Professor, Research Institute for Electronic Science, Hokkaido University)

Although we rarely question how smart unicellular organisms are, it has become clear that unicellular organisms are smarter than we expected. In fact, various protozoa (unicellular eukaryotes) can take actions that are advantageous for their survival even in complex environments in the wild environments. In this talk, I will introduce some typical examples of smart behaviors in a protozoan amoeba (the plasmodium of Physarum polycephalum): (1) maze-solving, (2) formation of multi-functional transport network that mimics public transportation network among cities in Tokyo region, and so on. We will propose a mathematical model of these behaviors and extract the heuristics (simple rules of behavior) that give rise to their smartness. In general, we will discuss the future potential of research into the behavioral intelligence of protozoa.

Venue: Okochi Hall (Main Venue) / via Zoom

Event Official Language: English

From the Andes to the Lab Bench: Genomic, Evolutionary, and Functional Insights into Amylase Gene Variation and Metabolic Adaptation

March 6 (Thu) 16:00 - 17:00, 2025

Gokcumen Omer (Professor, Department of Biological Sciences, University at Buffalo, USA)

Our laboratory investigates how genomic structural variations (SVs) uniquely drive biological diversity and evolution, surpassing smaller-scale variations like single nucleotide polymorphisms. This talk highlights our work on the amylase locus, a rapidly evolving genomic region shaped by dietary adaptations, frequent duplications, and high mutation rates. I will discuss its convergent evolution across mammals, driven by natural selection linked to starch-rich diets, and describe how long-read sequencing uncovered the mutational mechanisms behind its rapid evolution. We also examine local positive selection in indigenous Andean populations with historically starch-rich diets and how these adaptations impact metabolic health. Finally, I will summarize functional experiments in transgenic mice and diabetic-prone Western Nile rats, relevant models for human metabolism, to investigate the broader metabolic roles of amylase gene duplications. This research provides a roadmap for studying complex SVs in evolution, offering insights into human adaptation and health.

Venue: via Zoom / Seminar Room #359

Event Official Language: English

Density-dependent dispersal promotes female-biased sex allocation in viscous populations: From theory to experiment

March 4 (Tue) 16:00 - 17:00, 2025

Chedhawat Chokechaipaisarn (Ph.D. Student, School of Biology, University of St Andrews, UK)

A key prediction in sex allocation theory is that the optimal sex ratio is completely independent to the rate of dispersal. This result challenges the notion of any relationship between dispersal and sex ratio evolution. However, the invariant result is based on the assumption that an individual's dispersal behaviour is not modulated by population density. In this talk, I will explore how density-dependent dispersal impact upon the evolution of sex allocation in a viscous-population setting. Additionally, I will discuss the process of testing this prediction through experimental evolution in spider mites.

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

Event Official Language: English