Seminar

Global Thermodynamics for Heat Conduction Systems

December 2 (Mon) at 14:00 - 15:30, 2024

Naoko Nakagawa (Professor, Ibaraki University)

Non-equilibrium phenomena are typically addressed through continuum descriptions based on local equilibrium and linear response theory, such as hydrodynamics. While effective, these approaches often overlook global characteristics. We propose Global Thermodynamics as a minimal-variable framework to describe weak non-equilibrium systems, focusing on two-phase coexistence under weak heat flux. By introducing a unique global temperature and extending entropy to non-equilibrium systems with a non-additive term, the framework predicts phenomena like metastable state stabilization—beyond the scope of traditional heat conduction equations. This talk will outline the framework, its key predictions, and validation efforts through numerical simulations and experiments. (This is a joint seminar with Informatin Theory Study Group.)

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

Event Official Language: English

White dwarf binary stars as physics laboratories

November 29 (Fri) at 14:00 - 15:15, 2024

Lucy McNeill (Postdoctoral Researcher, iTHEMS)

White dwarfs are the most common remnant of stellar evolution, and most often orbit a binary companion. Orbital decay from gravitational radiation and binary stellar evolution can proceed to mass transfer onto the white dwarf, which may result in a Type Ia supernova. While these reliable thermonuclear explosions are essential tools for observational cosmology, the nature of the progenitor binary (double white dwarf, or white dwarf + evolved star) is still not clear. Surprisingly, recent galaxy surveys revealed that most Type Ia supernova come from exploding white dwarfs below the Chandrasekhar limit of 1.4 solar mass. Plus, observations of Milky Way white dwarf binaries suggest unexpectedly hot temperatures in double white dwarf merger progenitors. I will summarise our recent developments on the stellar structure and orbital evolution of finite temperature, partially degenerate white dwarfs in binary systems. Tidal heating can explain how candidate white dwarf merger progenitors are generically hot, which places more restrictive conditions required for a double white dwarf merger.

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

Event Official Language: English

asymptotics in astrophysics SG session 4: helioseismology

November 29 (Fri) at 10:30 - 12:00, 2024

Ryota Shimada (Ph.D. Student, Department of Astronomy, Graduate School of Science, Kyoto University)

Constraining the distribution of internal magnetic fields through observations is considered to advance solar dynamo models aimed at understanding the 11-year cycle of solar magnetic activity. This paper [1] is on the frequency shift of standing acoustic waves inside the Sun caused by internal magnetic fields. Quasi-degenerate perturbation theory is applied to treat perturbation by magnetic fields. I’d like to discuss their methods and application in the session.

Venue: #359 3F, Seminar Room #359 / via Zoom

Event Official Language: English

Analysing and Visualising Single Cell Omits Data

November 28 (Thu) at 15:30 - 16:30, 2024

Dorothy Ellis (Postdoctoral Researcher, Laboratory for Integrative Genomics, RIKEN Center for Integrative Medical Sciences (IMS))

Single cell multimodal omics data are characterized by sparsity, noise, and high dimension. Incorporating information across modalities is challenging. We developed a non-negative matrix factorization based algorithm to identify latent factors that can facilitate improved cell-type clustering and visualizations for multimodal single cell omics count data. We then extend this algorithm to larger datasets and for different distributions of data in different modalities.

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

Event Official Language: English

Crop domestication

November 25 (Mon) at 15:00 - 17:00, 2024

Cheng-Ruei Lee (Professor, Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, National Taiwan University, Taiwan)
Jeffrey Fawcett (Senior Research Scientist, iTHEMS)

This is a joint seminar hosted by the Mathematical Biology lab of Kyushu University where Jeffrey Fawcett (iTHEMS) and Cheng-Ruei Lee (National Taiwan University) will give talks about plant domestication. Both talks will be aimed at students and will include some basic introduction of the topic. The seminar will be held on-site at Kyushu University and also by zoom so please free to register and join. Program: Title: Domestication and dispersal process of common buckwheat Speaker: Dr. Jeffrey Fawcett (RIKEN iTHEMS) Abstract: Crop domestication has not only been an ideal model to study how selection drives evolution, it is also tightly linked to past human activity and contains useful information that can improve plant breeding. Common buckwheat (Fagopyrum esculentum), which is used to make “soba” noodles in Japan, was domesticated from a wild progenitor species distributed in Southwest China. We have been using whole-genome sequences of several hundred cultivated accessions from around the world and some wild progenitor accessions to study its process of domestication and subsequent dispersal throughout Eurasia including Japan. In this talk, I will first provide an overview of the domestication and dispersal process of common buckwheat based on archaeological findings. I will then discuss the domestication and dispersal process and adaptive evolution of common buckwheat based on results of our population genetic analyses [1]. Title: The domestication and expansion history of mung bean and adzuki bean: evidence from population genomics Speaker: Prof. Cheng-Ruei Lee (National Taiwan University) Abstract: Who domesticated the crops we eat? When and where? What happened after domestication? How did crops spread across the world? These are the questions that have fascinated archaeologists for a long time. Using modern genomics techniques, we aim to answer these questions from a different angle. In mung bean (Vigna radiata), we uncovered a unique route of post-domestication range expansion. This route cannot be explained simply by human activities alone; instead, it is highly associated with the natural climates across Asia. We showed how the trans-continental climatic variability affected the range expansion of a crop and further influenced local agricultural practices and the agronomic properties of mung bean varieties. In adzuki (Vigna angularis), we obtained solid evidence of its domestication in Japan, most likely by the Jomons. We identified and validated the causal mutations for the seed coat color change during domestication. Contrary to the common belief that important yield-ensuring phenotypes (e.g., loss of pod shattering) should be selected early during domestication, we revealed a unique order of domestication trait evolution that cannot be observed from archaeological records directly [2]. Please register via the form by November 22nd (Fri.). We will share the Zoom link with online participants on the morning of the event day.

Venue: W1-C-909, Ito Campus, Kyushu University /

Event Official Language: English

Solving inverse problem via latent variable optimization of diffusion models: An application to CT reconstruction

November 25 (Mon) at 14:00 - 15:00, 2024

Sho Ozaki (Assistant Professor, Graduate School of Science and Technology, Hirosaki University)

Inverse problems are widely studied in various scientific fields, including mathematics, physics, and medical imaging (such as CT and MRI reconstructions). In this talk, I will present a novel method for solving inverse problems using the diffusion model, with an application to CT reconstruction. The diffusion model, which is a core component of recent image-generative AI, such as Stable Diffusion and DALL-E3, is capable of producing high-quality images with rich diversity. The imaging process in CT (i.e., CT reconstruction) is mathematically an inverse problem. When the radiation dose is reduced to minimize a patient's exposure, image quality deteriorates due to information loss, making the CT reconstruction problem highly ill-posed. In the proposed method, the diffusion model, trained with a large dataset of high-quality images, serves as a regularization technique to address the ill-posedness. Consequently, the proposed method reconstructs high-quality images from sparse (low-dose) CT data while preserving the patient's anatomical structures. We also compare the performance of the proposed method with those of other existing methods, and find that the proposed method outperforms the existing methods in terms of quantitative indices.

Venue: #359, 3F, Seminar Room #359 (Main Venue) / via Zoom

Event Official Language: English

Theoretical analysis of High-dose/Refuge strategy for durability of pest control

November 21 (Thu) at 16:00 - 17:00, 2024

Sayaki Suzuki (Postdoctoral Researcher, Research Center for Integrative Evolutionary Science, The Graduate University for Advanced Studies)

When using chemicals to control pathogens or pests, a problem that always arises is that parasites develop resistance to the chemicals. In many cases, the amount of chemical used must be reduced for using the chemicals sustainably. However, if certain conditions are met, a method is known that can suppress the development of resistance in diploid organisms such as pest insects. This is the high-dose/refuge strategy (HD/R) proposed by Comins (1977). This unique method combines high doses of pesticide spraying with ‘Refuge’ that are completely pesticide-free, and is a rare example of a successful method that actually fields. In this presentation, I will provide an overview of the HD/R strategy, a formulation that incorporates the entire life cycle of the insect, which was an issue that Comins had not yet resolved. And show the life cycle of the insect and the conditions under which the HD/R strategy is effective, based on the results of an approximation using a source-think model.

Venue: via Zoom

Event Official Language: English

Nuclear clustering phenomena revealed by knockout reaction

November 20 (Wed) at 15:30 - 17:00, 2024

Kazuki Yoshida (Assistant Professor, Research Center for Nuclear Physics, Osaka University)

Nuclear clustering is one of the unique phenomena in the nucleon many-body system. Historically, alpha formation has been known since the very early years of the nuclear physics, in the light and heavy mass regions. The former is known as the alpha clustering and its threshold rule, which was introduced by the Ikeda diagram in 1968. The latter has been known since the beginning of the nuclear physics as the alpha decay phenomena; the formation of alpha particles and their tunneling through the Coulomb barrier. Recently, the alpha clustering has been experimentally confirmed in the medium mass nuclei, 112-124Sn (Tin isotopes), using the alpha knockout reaction. Triggered by the experimental observation, the alpha knockout reaction is used as a reaction probe for the alpha clustering phenomena. In this talk, I will give an overview of the clustering phenomena and its reaction observables, in particular I will introduce the idea that the alpha knockout reaction can be a probe for the alpha formation on the alpha decay nuclei. In general, this idea can be applied to probe the particle trapped in the potential resonance.

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

Event Official Language: English

Machine learning applications in neutron star physics

November 19 (Tue) at 15:00 - 16:30, 2024

Márcio Ferreira (Researcher, Physics Department, University of Coimbra, Portugal)

The equation of state and the internal composition of a neutron star are still unanswered questions in astrophysics. To constrain the different composition scenarios inside neutron stars, we rely on pulsars observations and gravitational waves detections. This seminar shows different applications of supervised/unsupervised machine learning models in neutron stars physics, such as: i) extract the equation of state; ii) infer the proton fraction; iii) detect the possible existence of a second branch in the mass-radius diagram; and iv) detect the presence of hyperons. Márcio Ferreira is a researcher at the Center for Physics at the University of Coimbra, Portugal, focusing on the application of machine learning to astrophysics and materials science. His work utilizes generative and descriptive models to address key questions in these fields. With a PhD in high energy physics and a Master’s in quantitative methods for finance, Márcio also merges his expertise in physics with an interest in financial market dynamics.​

Venue: #359, 3F, Seminar Room #359 (Main Venue) / via Zoom

Event Official Language: English

Finding Rules for Condensation of Disordered Protein Sequences

November 14 (Thu) at 16:00 - 17:00, 2024

Kyosuke Adachi (Research Scientist, iTHEMS)

Event Official Language: English

Emergence of wormholes from quantum chaos

November 12 (Tue) at 16:30 - 18:00, 2024

Gabriele Di Ubaldo (Postdoctoral Researcher, iTHEMS)

I will give a broad introduction to some aspects of quantum gravity and the so-called black hole information problem. I will introduce wormholes as novel contributions to the gravitational path integral and how they provide a solution to the black hole information problem. Wormholes, however, are rather mysterious and we don’t have a good microscopic understanding of them and why we should include them in the our theory. In particular, wormholes seem to imply that gravity is not a proper quantum system but rather an average over a statistical ensemble of quantum systems. I will then transition into my own work which addresses these questions in the context of holography. I will show how wormholes in 3D quantum gravity can emerge from quantum chaos in the dual 2D Conformal Field Theory, without averaging. Wormholes capture coarse-grained properties of the CFT and conversely an individual chaotic CFT can effectively behave as an averaged system. Furthermore we will be able to explicitly factorize wormholes to extract microscopic information on black hole microstates. To achieve this I will (briefly) introduce and use tools such as Random Matrix Theory, the Gutzwiller Trace formula and Berry’s diagonal approximation, and the theory of SL(2,Z) non-holomorphic modular forms.

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

Event Official Language: English

Forming primordial black holes

November 11 (Mon) at 14:00 - 15:30, 2024

Zachary Picker (Postdoctoral Researcher, University of California, Los Angeles, USA)

Primordial black holes (PBHs) are black holes which form in the early universe. Not only are PBHs good dark matter candidates, but they have a wide range of fascinating phenomenology (even if they are only a fraction of the dark matter). In this talk I will review a somewhat under-discussed aspect of the PBH gospel---their formation mechanisms. In fact, there is a wide variety of ways to form PBHs of different sizes and abundances, and many of our favorite BSM theories can have PBHs in their spectra. I will then discuss some of our particular upcoming research on PBH formation, where attractive Yukawa forces in a dark sector can lead to the early formation of dense dark structures called Fermi balls which can collapse to black holes, with novel cosmological implications.

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

Event Official Language: English

Mathematical modeling of circadian rhythm: temperature compensation and after effect

November 7 (Thu) at 16:00 - 17:00, 2024

Yuta Kitaguchi (Ph.D. Student, Graduate School of Natural Science & Technology, Kanazawa University)

Almost all organisms have a circadian clock. This circadian clock consists of negative transcriptional-translational feedback loops (TTFLs) between various circadian clock genes in cells. Collective gene expression rhythms in the central circadian pacemaker tissue regulate nearly 24-hour behavioral rhythms of organisms. The circadian clock has three characteristics: (1) autonomous oscillation, (2) temperature compensation of the period, and (3) entrainment to external cycles such as a light-dark cycle. In this presentation, I will talk about theoretical studies on temperature compensation, and the entrainment to light-dark cycles. For temperature compensation, I will show that only a few temperature-insensitive reactions in the complex TTFLs of the circadian clock are sufficient to maintain the circadian period under increasing temperature. For entrainment to the light-dark cycle, I will show the mechanism for after-effect where the period of the circadian clock in constant darkness correlates with that of a previously entrained light-dark cycle for several months.

Venue: via Zoom

Event Official Language: English

Heterostyly and the evolution of mating system in plants

October 31 (Thu) at 16:00 - 17:00, 2024

Jeffrey Fawcett (Senior Research Scientist, iTHEMS)

Many organisms exhibit various strategies to avoid self-fertilization and promote outcrossing (mating with different individuals). Such strategies have repeatedly evolved and been disrupted throughout evolution, resulting in a remarkable diversity of mating systems. The most well-known strategy is sexual dimorphism, in which mating is only successful between opposite sexes (e.g. male and female) which exhibit different morphology (e.g. males and females look different). However, some plants, including buckwheat that I have been studying, have evolved a strategy where all individuals either have flowers with long or short styles (female organ), referred to as heterostyly or distyly, and mating is typically only successful between individuals with long-styled flowers and those with short-styled flowers, i.e., outcrossing is promoted by floral dimorphism that is not associated with sexes. While how such a system evolves and its genetic basis are still largely unknown, the genomic region responsible for heterostyly has been identified in many different species within the past year or two, revealing some interesting parallels between independently evolved systems. In this seminar, I will introduce these recent findings and discuss how heterostyly may be linked to the diverse mating systems observed in plants. I will also introduce what we have been doing and are planning/hoping to do in buckwheat and its related species.

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

Event Official Language: English

Quantum signature kernels

October 30 (Wed) at 14:00 - 15:00, 2024

Samuel Crew (Postdoctoral Fellow, Imperial College London, UK)

Arising from rough path theory, the signature transform captures features of time-series data by constructing a so-called path signature. This feature has proven valuable for various machine learning tasks. However, computing the associated signature kernel classically remains computationally intensive. In this talk, I will present recent developments in generalising the signature kernel to randomised Lie group path developments. I will discuss a quantum approach via matrix models with an associated unitary quantum signature kernel to propose a quantum algorithm for its computation.

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

Event Official Language: English

Holographic Gubser flow

October 29 (Tue) at 13:30 - 14:30, 2024

Sukrut Mondkar (Postdoctoral Researcher, Harish-Chandra Research Institute, India)

Gubser flow is an evolution with cylindrical and boost symmetries, which can be best studied by mapping the future wedge of Minkowski space ℝ^{(3,1)} to dS_3 × ℝ in a conformal relativistic theory. Here, we sharpen the analytic results of Banerjee, Mitra, Mukhopadhyay Soloviev, EPJC (2024) and validate them via the first numerical exploration of the Gubser flow in a holographic conformal field theory. Remarkably, the leading generic behavior at large de Sitter time is free-streaming in transverse directions and the sub-leading behavior is that of a color glass condensate. We also show that Gubser flow can be smoothly glued to the vacuum outside the future Minkowski wedge generically given that the energy density vanishes faster than any power when extrapolated to early proper time or to large distances from the central axis. We find that at intermediate times the ratio of both the transverse and longitudinal pressures to the energy density converge approximately to a fixed point which is hydrodynamic only for large initial energy densities. We argue that our results suggest that the Gubser flow is better applied to collective behavior in jets rather than the full medium in the phenomenology of heavy ion collisions and can reveal new clues to the mechanism of confinement. The talk will be based on Mitra, Mondkar, Mukhopadhyay, Soloviev, arxiv:2408.04001/hep-th (accepted for publication in JHEP).

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

Event Official Language: English

Asymmetries in Stripped Envelope Supernovae

October 25 (Fri) at 14:00 - 15:15, 2024

Thomas Maunder (Ph.D. Student, Department of Astronomy, Monash University, Australia)

The explosion mechanism of supernovae is not yet fully understood. In order to better understand the inner-workings of the explosion we need to be able to test our models with observations. Current hydrodynamic simulations of stellar explosions often do not provide photometry or spectroscopy as this requires a treatment of the radiation transport of the ejecta. This project takes hydrodynamic simulations of Type Ib/c (stripped-envelope) supernovae and then performs Monte Carlo Radiative Transport simulations on the ejecta to obtain results we can compare with observations. We choose stripped-envelope supernovae because the lack of Hydrogen shell provides a more direct view into the core and the asymmetries of the explosion mechanism. Through these comparisons between models and observations we can improve our understanding of the explosion mechanism in core-collapse supernovae.

Venue: via Zoom

Event Official Language: English

The hidden language of light: Polarization signals in cuttlefish courtship

October 24 (Thu) at 16:00 - 17:00, 2024

Arata Nakayama (Postdoctoral Fellow, Atmosphere and Ocean Research Institute, The University of Tokyo)

The most conspicuous signals are generally the most attractive; this principle underlies the evolution of sexual signal. While the sexual signal design and its exceptional diversity have primarily explored on the color (wavelength) of light, various animals utilize a different property of light for signaling: polarization. In short, polarization is a third physical property of light, alongside color and intensity, and refers to the orientation of light waves' vibrations. While most vertebrate species, including humans, cannot perceive polarized light, some invertebrate species, such as crustaceans and cephalopods (e.g., octopus, squid, and cuttlefish), can detect the polarization of light and reflect polarized light from their body surfaces, suggesting that the polarization of light might function as a communication signal. In our study, by focusing on the sexually ornamented trait and the courtship behavior of specific cephalopod species, we found an polarization courtship signal, which is extremely conspicuous from the perspective of cephalopod polarization vision. Additionally, we conducted morphological observations and optical analyses of their polarization-reflective body surfaces, uncovering a novel mechanism for generating complex polarization patterns. In this gethering, I will provide a general introduction to the role of polarization as a visual cue and signal, followed by an overview of our study on the unique courtship behavior involving polarization signaling in the cuttlefish Sepia andreana.

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

Event Official Language: English

Young's convolution inequality on locally compact groups

October 18 (Fri) at 15:00 - 17:00, 2024

Takashi Satomi (Special Postdoctoral Researcher, iTHEMS)

Young's convolution inequality is one of the elementary inequalities in functional and harmonic analysis, and this inequality is related to various theories in mathematics, physics, and computer theory. In addition, it is known that Young's inequality can be generalized to any locally compact group. In this talk, we introduce the definition of locally compact groups and the statement of Young's inequality with several examples. Finally, we see the speaker's recent results about refining Young's inequality for several locally compact groups, including the special linear groups.

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

Event Official Language: English