Volume 352
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iTHEMS x academist online event was held on April 19, 2025
2025-04-23
iTHEMS held an online lecture event for the general public with the help of Academist Inc., on April 19, 2025.
This year’s speakers were Yuuka Kanakubo, Kan Kitamura, Leo Speidel, and Yuki Yokokura, who delivered clear and easy-to-understand lectures that even middle school students could comprehend. Each speaker also served as a commentator for other lectures and facilitated Q&A sessions based on audience questions.
During the lunch break, as part of the lunch program, Director Iso, a physicist, and Prof. Fumiharu Kato, a mathematician, engaged in a discussion about the future possibilities of mathematics, moderated by Ms. Shinozaki. The event was organized and hosted by Ms. Michibayashi and Mr. Katada from Academist, who helped make the event a success. The event was attended by 414 people, and at one point there were over 250 in the audience.
iTHEMS x academist Online Event "World of Mathematical Sciences 2025"
April 19 (Sat) 10:00 - 15:30, 2025
Upcoming Events
Internal Meeting
2nd Mathematical Application Research Team Meeting
April 25 (Fri) 16:00 - 17:30, 2025
Seminar
iTHEMS Theoretical Physics Seminar
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, RIKEN Wako Campus / via Zoom
Event Official Language: English
Seminar
iTHEMS Biology Seminar
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
Seminar
iTHEMS Theoretical Physics Seminar
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, RIKEN Wako Campus
Event Official Language: English
Seminar
Math-Phys Seminar
The index of lattice Dirac operators and K-theory
May 15 (Thu) 13:30 - 15:00, 2025
Hidenori Fukaya (Assistant Professor, Department of Physics, Osaka University)
We show that the Wilson Dirac operator in lattice gauge theory can be identified as a mathematical object in K-theory and that its associated spectral flow is equal to the index. In comparison to the standard lattice Dirac operator index, our formulation does not require the Ginsparg-Wilson relation and has broader applicability to systems with boundaries and to the mod-two version of the indices in general dimensions. We numerically verify that the K and KO group formulas reproduce the known index theorems in continuum theory. We examine the Atiyah-Singer index on a flat two-dimensional torus and, for the first time, demonstrate that the Atiyah-Patodi-Singer index with nontrivial curved boundaries, as well as the mod-two versions, can be computed on a lattice (This seminar is co-organized with FQSP).
Venue: Seminar Room #359, 3F Main Research Building, RIKEN / via Zoom
Event Official Language: English
Seminar
Math-Phys Seminar
Stable homotopy theory of invertible quantum spin systems
May 16 (Fri) 16:00 - 18:00, 2025
Yosuke Kubota (Associate Professor, Graduate School of Science, Kyoto University)
In the past decade, A. Kitaev proposed that the set of invertible gapped quantum spin systems would form an \Omega-spectrum. This conjecture is considered to have potentially significant application to the study of SPT phases. Recently, we give a mathematically rigorous realization of this proposal with the language of functional analysis and operator algebra. This gives a unified proof of a series of existing researches. The proof also suggests to understand Kitaev's proposal from the viewpoint of coarse geometry of metric spaces. This association leads us to the concept of localization flow.
Reference
- Yosuke Kubota, Stable homotopy theory of invertible gapped quantum spin systems I: Kitaev's Ω-spectrum, arXiv: 2503.12618
Venue: Seminar Room #359, 3F Main Research Building, RIKEN / via Zoom
Event Official Language: English
Seminar
iTHEMS Biology Seminar
Ecology and Evolution of Mammal-Microbe Interactions
May 29 (Thu) 16:00 - 17:00, 2025
Taichi A Suzuki (Assistant Professor, Biodesign Center for Health Through Microbiomes, Arizona State University, USA)
A critical open question in microbiome research is identifying key host-microbial interactions that influence host fitness. While the disruption of coevolved host-microbial interactions is known to affect host fitness in simpler systems (e.g., insects and their symbionts), understanding the extent and consequences of host-microbial coevolution in more complex systems (e.g., mammals and their gut microbiota) remains a major challenge. My research has identified multiple species of gut microbes in adults and children that share a parallel evolutionary history with humans by analyzing paired human genotypes and bacterial strain genotypes. In another line of work, I applied a selection experiment demonstrating that selection and transmission of the microbiome and its metabolites can alter mouse locomotion behavior within four rounds of microbiome transfer, without any changes to the mouse genome. Finally, I will briefly outline my future plans to study the effects of disrupting evolutionary stable host-microbial associations on the phenotypes of deer mice (Peromyscus spp.) in the Madrean Sky Islands and genetically diverse human populations in Arizona.
Biosketch:
Assistant Professor at Arizona State University since 2023. MS at University of Arizona, PhD at University of California Berkeley, and Postdoc at Max Planck Institute for Biology. My group integrates evolutionary genomics, microbial ecology, and biomedical research to study host-microbial interactions using wild rodents and humans.
Venue: Hybrid Format (3F #359 and Zoom), Seminar Room #359, 3F Main Research Building, RIKEN / via Zoom
Event Official Language: English
Seminar
ABBL-iTHEMS Joint Astro Seminar
From Galaxies to Cosmological Structures: The Multi-Scale Influence of Cosmic Rays
June 13 (Fri) 14:00 - 15:15, 2025
Ellis Owen (Special Postdoctoral Researcher, Astrophysical Big Bang Laboratory, RIKEN Pioneering Research Institute (PRI))
Cosmic rays interact with astrophysical systems over a broad range of scales. They go hand-in-hand with violent, energetic astrophysical environments, and are an active agent able to regulate the evolution and physical conditions of galactic and circum-galactic ecosystems. Depending on their energy, cosmic rays can also escape from their galactic environments of origin, and propagate into larger-scale cosmological structures. In this talk, I will discuss the impacts of cosmic rays retained in galaxies. I will show they can deposit energy and momentum to alter the initial conditions of star-formation, modify the circulation of baryons around galaxies, and have the potential to regulate long-term galaxy evolution. I will highlight some of the astrophysical consequences of contained hadronic and leptonic cosmic rays in and around galaxies, and how their influence can be probed using signatures including X-rays, gamma-rays and neutrinos. I will also discuss what happens to the cosmic rays that escape from galaxies, including their interactions with the magnetized large-scale structures of our Universe, and the fate of distant high-energy cosmic rays that do not reach us on Earth.
Venue: Hybrid Format (3F #359 and Zoom), Seminar Room #359, 3F Main Research Building, RIKEN
Event Official Language: English
Workshop
iTHEMS-TheoryCenter(KEK) Scientific Writing and DEI Workshop
June 24 (Tue) - 25 (Wed) 2025
Ashleigh Griffin (Professor, Department of Biology, University of Oxford, UK)
Stuart West (Professor, Department of Biology, University of Oxford, UK)
Ryosuke Iritani (Senior Research Scientist, Division of Fundamental Mathematical Science, RIKEN Center for Interdisciplinary Theoretical and Mathematical Sciences (iTHEMS))
This is a two-day KEK-iTHEMS workshop on scientific writing and diversity, equity, and inclusion.
For more details, please visit the workshop website via the relevant link.
Venue: 2F Large Conference Room, Administrative Headquarters, RIKEN Wako Campus
Event Official Language: English
Workshop
Recent Developments and Challenges in Tensor Networks: Algorithms, Applications to science, and Rigorous theories
July 28 (Mon) - August 8 (Fri) 2025
Venue: Panasonic Hall, Yukawa Institute for Theoretical Physics, Kyoto University
Event Official Language: English
Workshop
iTHEMS-NCTS Workshop
August 18 (Mon) - 21 (Thu) 2025
This workshop aims to strengthen collaboration between researchers at RIKEN iTHEMS and the National Center for Theoretical Sciences in Taiwan. It will be a four-day event, with the first two days dedicated to interdisciplinary topics. The last two days will focus on specialized areas, with one day devoted to condensed matter physics and the other to high-energy physics, including quantum gravity.
Venue: via Zoom / RIKEN Wako Campus
Event Official Language: English
Paper of the Week
Week 4, April 2025
2025-04-24
Title: Cosmic ray neutrons in magnetized astrophysical structures
Author: Ellis R. Owen, Yoshiyuki Inoue, Tatsuki Fujiwara, Qin Han, Kinwah Wu
arXiv: http://arxiv.org/abs/2504.15802v1
Title: A magnetar powers the luminous supernova 2023pel, associated with a long gamma-ray burst
Author: L. M. Roman Aguilar, M. M. Saez, K. Ertini, M. C. Bersten
arXiv: http://arxiv.org/abs/2504.11414v1
Title: Performance guarantees of light-cone variational quantum algorithms for the maximum cut problem
Author: Xiaoyang Wang, Yuexin Su, Tongyang Li
arXiv: http://arxiv.org/abs/2504.12896v1
Title: Computing $n$-time correlation functions without ancilla qubits
Author: Xiaoyang Wang, Long Xiong, Xiaoxia Cai, Xiao Yuan
arXiv: http://arxiv.org/abs/2504.12975v1
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