Seminar
603 events
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Seminar
Testing Astrophysical Models from the Shadow of the Galactic Center Black Hole
August 26 (Fri) at 14:00 - 15:00, 2022
Yosuke Mizuno (T.D. Lee Fellow / Associate Professor, Tsung-Dao Lee Institute, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China)
We present the first Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) observations of Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*), the Galactic center source associated with a supermassive black hole. These observations were conducted in 2017 using a global interferometric array of eight telescopes operating at a wavelength 1.3 mm. A variety of imaging and modeling analyses all support an image that is dominated by a bright, thick ring with a diameter of ~50 micro-arcsecond. Using a large suite of numerical simulations, we demonstrate that the EHT images of Sgr A* are consistent with the expected appearance of a Kerr black hole with mass ∼4 million solar mass, which is inferred to exist at this location based on previous infrared observations of individual stellar orbits, as well as maser proper-motion studies. Our model comparisons disfavor scenarios where the black hole is viewed at high inclination (i > 50 deg), as well as non-spinning black holes and those with retrograde accretion disks. Our results provide direct evidence for the presence of a supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way. In this talk, I will focus on more theoretical interpretation and model comparison to understand the accretion flow properties nearby Sgr A*.
Venue: via Zoom
Event Official Language: English
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Seminar
A rooted phylogeny of bacteria resolves early evolution
August 25 (Thu) at 16:00 - 17:00, 2022
Adrian Davin (JSPS Research Fellow, Department of Biological Sciences, Graduate School of Science, The University of Tokyo)
Bacteria are the most diverse life forms on Earth and yet, we know surprisingly little about their early evolution. In this talk, I will explain how phylogenetic reconciliations and models of genome evolution can be used to answer some of the most interesting open questions in biology, such as the nature of the last bacterial common ancestor or whether a tree is a meaningful representation of evolution in the presence of abundant lateral gene transfer.
Venue: via Zoom
Event Official Language: English
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Seminar
How does subatomic matter organize itself? A low-energy nuclear physics perspective
August 3 (Wed) at 16:30 - 18:00, 2022
Xavier Roca-Maza (Associate Professor, Department of Physics, University of Milan, Italy / Sezione di Milano, INFN, Italy)
This seminar is a part of the RCNP workshop (RCNP研究会「低エネルギー核物理と高エネルギー天文学で読み解く中性子星」). Those who want to attend this seminar are required to register for the workshop by July 31. This seminar is supported by Gravitational Wave and Equation of State Working Group (GW-EOS WG), RIKEN iTHEMS.
Venue: Research Center for Nuclear Physics (RCNP), Osaka University (Main Venue) / via Zoom
Event Official Language: English
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Seminar
Product Replacement Algorithm, Semidefinite Programming, and Operator Algebras
August 2 (Tue) at 16:00 - 17:00, 2022
Narutaka Ozawa (Professor, Research Institute for Mathematical Sciences (RIMS), Kyoto University)
Suppose you are given a large finite set G and want to estimate the size |G| or see how a typical element x in G looks like. In this talk, G will be a finite group generated by g_1,...,g_d. The "Product" Replacement Algorithm" is a popular algorithm for random sampling in the group G. The PRA shows outstanding performance in practice, but the theoretical explanation has remained mysterious. I will talk how an infinite-dimensional topological-algebraic analysis (operator algebra theory) connects this problem to a convex (semidefinite) optimization problem that can be rigorously solved by computer. This talk is intended for a general audience.
Venue: Hybrid Format (Common Room 246-248 and Zoom)
Event Official Language: English
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Seminar
Test of the Cosmological principle by observing the primordial gravitational waves
July 27 (Wed) at 13:30 - 15:00, 2022
Yuko Urakawa (Associate Professor, High Energy Accelerator Research Organization (KEK))
In this talk, using the generalized deltaN formalism, which dramatically facilitates a computation of the primordial density perturbation and the primordial GWs (PGWs), we address a violation of the Cosmological principle, namely a violation of the global isotropy in the Universe. It’s turned out that measuring the PGWs provides a powerful tool to explore a violation of the global isotropy. If time permits, I will also discuss some prospects on LiteBIRD.
Venue: Hybrid Format (Common Room 246-248 and Zoom)
Event Official Language: English
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Seminar
Introduction to instanton knot homology
July 25 (Mon) at 16:00 - 18:00, 2022
Hayato Imori (Ph.D. Student, Division of Mathematics and Mathematical Sciences, Graduate School of Science, Kyoto University)
Floer theory is an infinite-dimensional version of Morse theory and has provided powerful invariants in the study of low-dimensional topology. In the context of Yang-Mills gauge theory, some versions of Floer homology groups for knots have been developed. These knot invariants are called instanton knot homology groups and are strongly related to representations of the fundamental group of the knot complement. In this talk, the speaker introduces basic constructions of instanton knot homology groups and recent developments related to the equivariant version of instanton knot homology theory.
Venue: Hybrid Format (Common Room 246-248 and Zoom)
Event Official Language: English
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Seminar
Superconducting-like heat current: Effective cancellation of current-dissipation trade-off by quantum coherence
July 25 (Mon) at 13:30 - 15:00, 2022
Tajima Hiroyasu (Assistant Professor, Graduate School of Informatics and Engineering, The University of Electro-Communications)
Recent developments in statistical mechanics have revealed a tradeoff between heat current and dissipation [1,2]. In various situations, this current-dissipation tradeoff represents a relationship between thermal energy flow and entropy increase, similar to Joule’s law W=RI^2. On the other hand, the coherence effect on the current-dissipation tradeoff has not been thoroughly analyzed. Here, we systematically analyze how coherence affects the current-dissipation tradeoff [3]. The results can be summarized in the following three rules:
Venue: via Zoom
Event Official Language: English
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Seminar
Bayesian optimization of multivariate genomic prediction models based on secondary traits for improved accuracy gains and phenotyping costs
July 21 (Thu) at 16:00 - 17:00, 2022
Kosuke Hamazaki (Ph.D. Student, Graduate School of Agricultural and Life Sciences, The University of Tokyo)
In recent years, the genomic prediction that predicts phenotypic values from marker genotype data has attracted much more attention in the area of breeding. Especially, genomic selection using prediction values based on genomic prediction models has been contributing to more efficient and rapid breeding. In genomic prediction, it is important to construct the prediction model so that its accuracy becomes higher. Thus, multivariate genomic prediction models with secondary traits, such as data from various omics technologies including high-throughput phenotyping (e.g., unmanned aerial vehicle-based remote sensing), have started to be applied to many datasets because it offers improved accuracy gains compared with genomic prediction based only on marker genotypes. Although there is a trade-off between accuracy gains and phenotyping costs of secondary traits, no attempt has been made to optimize these trade-offs. In this study, we propose a novel approach to optimize multivariate genomic prediction models with secondary traits measurable at early growth stages for improved accuracy gains and phenotyping costs. The proposed approach employs Bayesian optimization for efficient Pareto frontier estimation, representing the maximum accuracy at a given cost. The proposed approach successfully estimated the optimal secondary trait combinations across a range of costs while providing genomic predictions for only about 20% of all possible combinations. The simulation results reflecting the characteristics of each scenario of the simulated target traits showed that the obtained optimal combinations were reasonable. Analysis of real-time target trait data showed that the proposed multivariate genomic prediction model had significantly superior accuracy compared to the univariate genomic prediction model.
Venue: via Zoom
Event Official Language: English
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Seiberg-Witten Floer homotopy
July 15 (Fri) at 14:00 - 16:30, 2022
Hokuto Konno (Assistant Professor, Graduate School of Mathematical Sciences, The University of Tokyo)
I will survey a mathematical object called the Seiberg-Witten Floer homotopy type introduced by Manolescu. This is a machinery that extracts interesting aspects of 3- and 4-dimensional manifolds through the Seiberg-Witten equations. This framework assigns a 3-manifold to a "space" (more precisely, the stable homotopy type of a space), and this space contains rich information that is strong enough to recover the monopole Floer homology of the 3-manifold, which is known already as a strong invariant. I shall sketch how this theory is constructed along Manolescu's original work, and introduce major applications. If time permits, I will also explain recent developments of Seiberg-Witten Floer homotopy theory. If you are not familiar with the mathematical formulation of TQFT and categorification, I recommended you to watch Dr. Sano's recent talk in advance (see related links).
Venue: Hybrid Format (Common Room 246-248 and Zoom)
Event Official Language: English
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Seminar
Dual stochasticity of neurons and synapses for sampling-based learning in the brain
July 14 (Thu) at 16:00 - 17:00, 2022
Jun-nosuke Teramae (Associate Professor, Nonlinear Physics Division, Department of Advanced Mathematical Sciences, Graduate School of Informatics, Kyoto University)
Neurons and synapses behave highly stochastically in the brain. However, how this stochasticity is beneficial for computation and learning in the brain remains largely unknown. In this presentation, we will see that the stochastic processes in neurons and synapses can be integrated into a unified framework to optimally sample events from the environments, resulting in an efficient learning algorithm consistent with various experimental results. In particular, the learning algorithm enables us to reproduce the recently discovered efficient power-law coding in the cortex. These results suggest that synapses and neurons work cooperatively to implement a fundamental method for stochastic computing in the brain.
Venue: via Zoom
Event Official Language: English
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Speed limits for macroscopic transitions
July 13 (Wed) at 13:30 - 15:00, 2022
Ryusuke Hamazaki (RIKEN Hakubi Team Leader, Nonequilibrium Quantum Statistical Mechanics RIKEN Hakubi Research Team, RIKEN Cluster for Pioneering Research (CPR))
Speed of state transitions in macroscopic systems is a crucial concept for foundations of nonequilibrium statistical mechanics as well as various applications in quantum technology represented by optimal quantum control. While extensive studies have made efforts to obtain rigorous constraints on dynamical processes since Mandelstam and Tamm, speed limits that provide tight bounds for macroscopic transitions have remained elusive. Here, by employing the local conservation law of probability, the fundamental principle in physics, we develop a general framework for deriving qualitatively tighter speed limits for macroscopic systems than many conventional ones. We show for the first time that the speed of the expectation value of an observable defined on an arbitrary graph, which can describe general many-body systems, is bounded by the “gradient” of the observable, in contrast with conventional speed limits depending on the entire range of the observable. This framework enables us to derive novel quantum speed limits for macroscopic unitary dynamics. Unlike previous bounds, the speed limit decreases when the expectation value of the transition Hamiltonian increases; this intuitively describes a new trade-off relation between time and the quantum phase difference. Our bound is dependent on instantaneous quantum states and thus can achieve the equality condition, which is conceptually distinct from the Lieb-Robinson bound. We also find that, beyond expectation values of macroscopic observables, the speed of macroscopic quantum coherence can be bounded from above by our general approach. The newly obtained bounds are verified in transport phenomena in particle systems and nonequilibrium dynamics in many-body spin systems. We also demonstrate that our strategy can be applied for finding new speed limits for macroscopic transitions in stochastic systems, including quantum ones, where the bounds are expressed by the entropy production rate. Our work elucidates novel speed limits on the basis of local conservation law, providing fundamental limits to various types of nonequilibrium quantum macroscopic phenomena.
Venue: Hybrid Format (Common Room 246-248 and Zoom)
Event Official Language: English
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Seminar
Adiabatic pumps in quantum spin systems
July 12 (Tue) at 16:00 - 17:15, 2022
Ken Shiozaki (Assistant Professor, Yukawa Institute for Theoretical Physics, Kyoto University)
The Thouless pump is a one-parameter cycle of 1-dimensional gapped quantum systems with U(1) symmetry, which is classified by integers. In this talk, I introduce a generalization of the Thouless pump to quantum spin systems in any dimension with any finite group onsite symmetry. I show a simple model with Z_2 onsite symmetry, and how it is nontrivial via boundary degrees of freedom. Using the framework of the injective matrix product state, one can construct the topological invariant in a way similar to the Berry phase. If time allows, I will briefly introduce a group cohomology model by Roy and Harper for generic space dimensions and discuss its properties.
Venue: via Zoom
Event Official Language: English
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Seminar
Stem cells determine complexity of hematopoiesis and immunity: A key in maintenance of homeostasis and fighting disease
July 11 (Mon) at 10:00 - 11:30, 2022
Fumihiko Ishikawa (Team Leader, Laboratory for Human Disease Models, RIKEN Center for Integrative Medical Sciences (IMS))
The hematopoietic system, is a complex organ in which all cells, including white blood cells (also known as leukocytes), red blood cells and platelets originate from the hematopoietic stem cells. White blood cells/leukocytes are critical effectors of immunity. At baseline, we have about 5000-10000/microL circulating white blood cells/leukocytes, composed of more than ten distinct subsets. Among them, the most abundant (50-60%) is the neutrophil, which are capable of preventing bacterial and fungal infection. Others include T lymphocytes which attack tumors and virus-infected cells and B lymphocytes that produce immunoglobulins. Each of the leukocyte subsets have different roles in protecting us from diseases. Defects in white blood cell number or function expose us to risks of infections and tumors. Maintenance of normal homeostasis of these white blood cells is governed by expression levels of approximately 20,000 genes in hematopoietic stem cells. In this presentation, first, I will discuss current understanding of a hierarchical system of stem cells generating many different kinds of leukocytes. Second, I will talk about leukemia, a cancer of white blood cells, in which critical genes are hit by mutations, resulting in a loss or gain of function of those genes in stem cells. Third, I would like to discuss with the iTHEMS scientists potential approaches by which we can collaborate to understand the normal and diseased human blood/immune systems.
Venue: Hybrid Format (Common Room 246-248 and Zoom)
Event Official Language: English
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Seminar
Virus vs. Bacteria: Art of the war in the microbial world
July 7 (Thu) at 16:00 - 17:00, 2022
Namiko Mitarai (Associate Professor, Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, Denmark)
A virulent phage (virus that infects bacteria) infection to a host bacterial cell results in lysis of the cell, where possibly hundreds of phage particles are released after a latency time. The phage pressure is believed to be an important factor to shape the microbial communities and a driving force of their evolution, and yet we are far from having a full picture of their warfare. In this talk, I highlight a few factors that play significant roles in phage-bacteria interactions and their coexistence, such as the effect of herd immunity and the importance of the spatial structure in a few cells scale to the colony scale. *Her talk will be accessible to physicists, mathematicians, and also biologists.
Venue: via Zoom
Event Official Language: English
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Seminar
Gradient flow exact renormalization group 2
July 6 (Wed) at 13:30 - 17:00, 2022
Hiroshi Suzuki (Professor, Graduate School of Science, Kyushu University)
Wilson’s exact renormalization group (ERG), which tells how a system changes under the scale transformation, provides a fundamental framework to define quantum field theory even beyond the perturbation theory. It has however been known that it is difficult to preserve a manifest gauge symmetry in ERG because of the usage of the momentum cutoff in ERG. Here, we propose a possible modification of ERG, the gradient flow exact renormalization (GFERG), which preserves a manifest gauge symmetry being based on a gauge-covariant diffusion equation. I explain the basic idea and properties of GFERG. If time permits, I want to present a possible application of GFERG to the consideration of the axial anomaly.
Venue: via Zoom
Event Official Language: English
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Seminar
Gradient flow exact renormalization group 1
July 5 (Tue) at 13:30 - 17:00, 2022
Hiroshi Suzuki (Professor, Graduate School of Science, Kyushu University)
Wilson’s exact renormalization group (ERG), which tells how a system changes under the scale transformation, provides a fundamental framework to define quantum field theory even beyond the perturbation theory. It has however been known that it is difficult to preserve a manifest gauge symmetry in ERG because of the usage of the momentum cutoff in ERG. Here, we propose a possible modification of ERG, the gradient flow exact renormalization (GFERG), which preserves a manifest gauge symmetry being based on a gauge-covariant diffusion equation. I explain the basic idea and properties of GFERG. If time permits, I want to present a possible application of GFERG to the consideration of the axial anomaly.
Venue: via Zoom
Event Official Language: English
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Seminar
Long-term evolution of a supernova remnant hosting a double neutron star binary
July 1 (Fri) at 14:00 - 15:00, 2022
Tomoki Matsuoka (Ph.D. Student, Graduate School of Science, Kyoto University)
Stellar mass loss is one of the crucial elements which determine the fate of progenitors of core-collapse supernovae (SNe). Since the material released from the progenitor will be distributed as circumstellar medium (CSM), it can also have an influence on the subsequent evolution of the SN or supernova remnant (SNR). Despite its importance, mass loss histories predicted by stellar evolution models have not been incorporated with modeling for SNRs. As a first step, we investigate the dynamical evolution of an ultra-stripped supernova remnant (USSNR), originated from a type of core-collapse SN explosion proposed to be a candidate formation site of a double neutron star binary. By accounting for the mass-loss history of the progenitor binary using a model developed by a previous study, we construct the large-scale structure of the CSM up to a radius ∼100 pc, and simulate the explosion and subsequent evolution of a USSN surrounded by such a CSM environment. We find that the CSM encompasses an extended region characterized by a hot plasma with a temperature ∼10^8 K located around the termination shock of the wind from the progenitor binary (∼10 pc), and the USSNR blast wave is drastically weakened while penetrating through this hot plasma. Radio continuum emission from a young USSNR is sufficiently bright to be detectable if it inhabits our galaxy but faint compared to the observed Galactic SNRs. In this seminar I will talk about the background of the connection between the models for stellar evolution and SNRs, the details of our methods, and future prospects.
Venue: via Zoom
Event Official Language: English
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Seminar
Topological quantum effects in low-dimensional spin systems - The power of the boundary
June 30 (Thu) at 17:00 - 18:15, 2022
Thore Posske (Group Leader, I. Institute for Theoretical Physics, University of Hamburg, Germany)
Manipulating the boundary of low-dimensional magnetic structures could grant control about topological magnetic quantum sates. I will discuss the creation of one- and two-dimensional topological quantum magnets by manipulating the boundary magnetization, address their stability against external perturbations, and discuss their possible application to quantum information processing.
Venue: via Zoom
Event Official Language: English
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Seminar
Predicting local patterns of diversity: coexistence models, networks and wildflowers
June 30 (Thu) at 10:00 - 11:30, 2022
Margie Mayfield (Professor, University of Melbourne, Australia)
The question of how species coexist in diverse natural communities has challenged ecologists for generations. Theoretical models of species coexistence have been developed, but primarily as proof of concept for specific coexistence theories. These theories and associated models focus on coexistence between species pairs and ignore the great complexity of interactions found in most natural systems. Though useful for advancing ecological theory, these models are often of limited use for understanding and predicting diversity in real natural communities. In this talk, I explore the three main assumptions made by coexistence models developed under the framework of Modern Coexistence Theory (MCT): that only direct competition is important, that demographic variation is noise, not valuable biological information, and that only the average environment matters. Using Bayesian statistical approaches with population growth models applied to field data from the annual plant communities of the York gum woodlands of SW Western Australia, I illustrate the issues with these assumptions in predicting coexistence in diverse systems. I show how these Bayesian approaches to MCT can improve on frequentist approaches and discuss the potential value of interaction networks for studying coexistence dynamics in diverse natural systems.
Venue: Okochi Hall (Main Venue) / via Zoom
Event Official Language: English
603 events
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