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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

15:00-16:00 Talk by Dr. Yutaka Yoshikawa (Division of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Kyoto University) "The Earth Climate and Ocean Surface Waves"
16:15-17:15 Talk by Dr. Zhaomin Hou (Organometallic Chemistry Laboratory, RIKEN Cluster for Pioneering Research / Advanced Catalysis Research Group, RIKEN Center for Sustainable Resource Science) "New Catalysts, New Reactions and New Functional Materials"
17:15-18:00 Discussion

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.

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:

Having a complete quantum theory of gravity has long been a major goal of theoretical physics. This is because a naive merger of quantum mechanics and general relativity — though it works in certain limited regimes — suffers from major theoretical problems. A particularly acute one arises when one considers the quantum mechanics of black holes: two fundamental principles of modern physics — the conservation of probability in quantum mechanics and the equivalence principle of general relativity — seem to be incompatible with each other. I will explain how recent theoretical progress begins to address this problem and portray the emerging picture of how spacetime and gravity behave at the level of full quantum gravity.

This year’s meeting on “Outreach of RIKEN iTHEMS 2022@Kobe&Zoom” will be held from FRI July 29 to SUN July 31, as a face-to-face meeting as much as possible at iTHEMS SUURI-COOL Kobe using ZOOM for the necessary part as well. This is a meeting where members of iTHEMS and science journalists, science writers, etc meet together. iTHEMS researchers explain their research to journalists etc. and science journalists and writers talk about their experiences.