In the June RIKEN Day, we will have a talk with Akinori Tanaka, a researcher who is researching on the theme of "Can Artificial Intelligence Draw Pictures?"

See related links for details.

The equation of state (EoS) of dense baryonic/quark matter is the crucial ingredient for understanding neutron stars. I briefly review the current state of the high-density matter EoS based on the QCD perspectives. In this talk, I particularly focus on the perturbative QCD (pQCD) EoS, which was previously thought to be useless at realistic density because it is plagued by the large uncertainty. I introduce our recent analysis of the EoS calculated within the pQCD framework with the resummation [Fujimoto & Fukushima, 2011.10891]. I discuss our scheme for the Hard Dense Loop resummation, which turns out to reduce the uncertainty compared with the conventional pQCD estimate without resummation. Our result apparently extends the applicability of the QCD-based EoS down to densities realized inside neutron stars and infers a smooth matching with the baryonic EoS.

Chromatin moves dynamically inside the cell nucleus, and its motion is often correlated with gene functions such as DNA recombination and transcription. A recent study has shown that during early embryogenesis of the nematode, Caenorhabditis elegans, the chromatin motion markedly decreases with the cell stage. However, the underlying mechanism for this transition has yet to be elucidated. Here we systematically investigate the impact of nuclear size to demonstrate that it is indeed a decisive factor in chromatin mobility. We show that a simple theoretical description, which takes into account the length and time scales of chromatin polymer solution, can quantitatively describe the relationship between the nucleus size and the chromatin motion in vivo. Our results emphasize a regulatory role of nuclear size in restricting chromatin motion, and a generic polymer physics model plays a guiding role in capturing this essential feature.

*Please refer to the email to get access to the Zoom meeting room.

Moonshine phenomena are certain mysterious connections between modular functions and finite groups. The first example is the celebrated monstrous moonshine, which connects the J-invariant and the Monster group. Surprisingly, this relationship can be well understood in terms of chiral conformal field theory. In this talk, I would like to explain what is chiral conformal field theory and how it gives moonshine phenomena.
In the first part of the talk, the notion of modular function will be introduced and the precise statement of the monstrous moonshine will be given. Then the monstrous moonshine will be explained in terms of vertex operator algebra, a mathematical model of chiral conformal field theory.
In the second part of the talk, we focus on the question: what is chiral conformal field theory mathematically? In addition to vertex operator algebras, other mathematical models of chiral conformal field theory, namely conformal nets and Segal conformal field theories, will be introduced. Recent progress on the relationship among these three models, including the Carpi--Kawahigashi--Longo--Weiner correspondence and the geometric realization of conformal nets will also be reviewed.

15:00- Talk by Prof. Yoshitaka Tanimura
16:15- Talk by Prof. Hidetoshi Nishimori
17:15- Discussion

Through the course of life, from the moment of birth till death, an organism will achieve various states of equilibrium or ‘homeostasis’ which will inevitably encounter perturbations. The processes of cell growth, differentiation, infection, mutation, evolution and adaptation work together as a coordinated ‘system’, described by mathematical models for population dynamics, to maintain a healthy state. Any disruptions to this system leads to disease including infection, allergy, cancer, and aging. We are conducting interdisciplinary research to elucidate “Quantitative Population Dynamics” through the course of life with original mathematical theory and computational simulation, which are both our CORE approach. Our mathematical model-based approach has quantitatively improved a current gold-standard approach essentially relying on the statistical analysis of “snapshot data” during dynamic interaction processes in life sciences research. In this talk, I will explain how our interdisciplinary approach extends our understanding for complicated clinical data and apply real world problem with an example of the Novel Coronavirus Disease, COVID-19.

RIKEN iTHEMS, an interdisciplinary Theoretical and Mathematical Sciences Program (RIKEN iTHEMS), was established in November 2016. RIKEN iTHEMS aims to use interdisciplinary methods with a focus on mathematics to elucidate the universe, matter and life, and to solve fundamental problems in society. Building on the achievements of the past exchanges through the Journalist in Residence Program, we will hold an outreach workshop to explore the relevance of the research of the RIKEN iTHEMS to society and to discuss how to build interactive relationships between journalists and researchers in the future. Like last year, this year's workshop will be held as a ZOOM workshop as the seminar house is closed.

Contact: Takashi Tsuboi (iTHEMS Deputy Director)