Towards rock-solid evolutionary genomics

2026年5月28日(木) 13:00 - 14:00

シュパイデル 玲雄 (理化学研究所 数理創造研究センター (iTHEMS) 数理基礎部門 数理遺伝学理研ECL研究ユニット 理研ECL研究ユニットリーダー)

I will present an overview of ongoing and future projects in our lab. We aim to understand how human genomes retain information about our evolutionary past; a central goal is to reconstruct a high-resolution history of humans, pushing the limits of what we can learn about our origins, past migrations, and adaptation to changing environments and survival pressures. Our genomes reveal events that would otherwise be lost to history, revealing how evolutionary forces have shaped genetic variation and influence our health today. How can we confidently infer events that occurred tens of thousands of years ago? I will discuss how converging and independent lines of genomic evidence can provide “rock-solid” support for major evolutionary events, including archaic admixture, large-scale migrations across continents, and population bottlenecks, and how we aim to extend these approaches to study the evolutionary history and origins of humans and other species.

会場: via Zoom / セミナー室 (359号室)

イベント公式言語: 英語

Introduction to categorification and link homology

2026年5月28日(木) 14:00 - 15:30

Mikhail Khovanov (Professor, Department of Mathematics, Johns Hopkins University, USA)

Quantum link invariants relate topology in 3 dimensions to mathematical physics and representation theory. They admit liftings to 4-dimensional structures, known as link homology. We will explain how the skein relations for quantum invariants turn into homological structures at this higher level and how semisimple representation theory turns into non-semisimple representations and homological algebra upon categorification.

会場: 大河内記念ホール (メイン会場) / via Zoom

イベント公式言語: 英語

Bootstrapping Cosmological Correlators

2026年5月28日(木) 16:00 - 18:00

Mang Hei Gordon Lee (Post-Doctoral fellow, Leung Center for Cosmology and Particle Astrophysics, National Taiwan University, Taiwan)

Currently there are hundreds of models describing inflation, a period of accelerated expansion in our universe. Each model lead to different imprints in cosmological observables, and for the purpose of testing the idea of inflation itself, it is essential to understand which predictions are model independent. This lead to the idea of cosmological bootstrap, a set of constraints from physical principles and symmetries alone. In this talk I will give an overview on the cosmological bootstrap program. I will first explain how locality, unitarity and symmetry can constrain the kinematics of cosmological correlators. I will then talk about some recent progress on constructing positivity bounds on cosmology, which places constraints on the interactions of fields in inflation.

会場: 研究本館 3階 359号室とZoomのハイブリッド開催

イベント公式言語: 英語

Closed Seminar on Quantum Topology and Related Topics

2026年5月29日(金) 14:00 - 18:00

星野 真生 (理化学研究所 数理創造研究センター (iTHEMS) 数理基礎部門 基礎科学特別研究員)
北村 侃 (立教大学 理学部 数学科 助教)
村上 友哉 (理化学研究所 数理創造研究センター (iTHEMS) 数理基礎部門 研究員)
ウアジーミャ・ソスニロ (理化学研究所 数理創造研究センター (iTHEMS) 数理基礎部門 研究員)

We will hold a closed seminar on quantum topology and related topics. The talks will be given by the following four speakers. The talks will not be streamed online or recorded. 14:00–14:30 Mao Hoshino 14:30–15:00 Kan Kitamura (15:00–15:30 Coffee break) 15:30–16:00 Yuya Murakami 16:00–16:30 Vladimir Sosnilo (16:30–17:30 Casual reception)

会場: セミナー室 (359号室)

イベント公式言語: 英語

t' Hooft anomaly matching and symmetry enforced gaplessness

2026年6月1日(月) 13:00 - 14:00

大森 寛太郎 (理化学研究所 数理創造研究センター (iTHEMS) 数理基礎部門 上級研究員)

I will talk about the 't Hooft anomaly matching and its enforcement of gaplessness. I will also briefly touch on my recent work with Takamasa Ando on this topic.

会場: via Zoom

イベント公式言語: 英語

Lectures on Quantum Measurement Theory: I

2026年6月2日(火) 15:30 - 17:00

小澤 正直 (名古屋大学 名誉教授)

Lecture I: Conventional approach: Repeatability, Heisenberg’s original uncertainty principle, and the SQL for gravitational-wave detection The conventional approach to quantum measurement theory taken by von Neumann (1932), Dirac (1958), and Schrödinger (1935) assumes the "repeatability hypothesis" stating that if a physical quantity is measured twice in succession, then the same value is obtained each time, which is often quantitatively generalized to the "approximately repeatable hypothesis" stating that after a measurement of a physical quantity with error ε, the post-measurement deviation around the measured value is no larger than ε; this is equivalent to saying that the state after obtaining a measurement result with error ε becomes an ε-approximate eigenstate corresponding to that measurement result. From the approximate repeatability hypothesis, one can derive "Heisenberg’s original formulation of the uncertainty principle," namely, that when position and momentum are approximately measured simultaneously, the product of their respective errors is at least ℏ/2 (Heisenberg 1927, Kennard 1927, Ozawa 2015), as well as the "standard quantum limit (SQL) for monitoring the free-mass position", which states that when the position of a free mass m is measured at a time interval τ, the result of the second measurement cannot be predicted with uncertainty smaller than (ℏτ/ m)^{1/2} (Caves 1985). The last result leads to a sensitivity limit for interferometric gravitational-wave detectors, and in the early 1980s it was therefore argued that gravitational waves of the expected strength could not be observed using interferometric detectors (Braginsky et al. 1980, Caves et al. 1980).

会場: セミナー室 (359号室) (メイン会場) / via Zoom

イベント公式言語: 英語

AI and Scientific Discovery

2026年6月3日(水) 14:00 - 15:30

Joseph Ledsam (Google Health Lead, Japan, Google Japan)

Artificial intelligence is having a transformative impact on health and scientific discovery. This presentation will trace the evolution from foundational breakthroughs to the sophisticated capabilities of today's large-scale AI models. It will explore how these advanced systems are creating new possibilities across the healthcare landscape, from accelerating therapeutic development to enhancing diagnostic processes and interpreting complex medical data. The session will also take a deeper look at the future possibilities for AI in health and explore the emerging role of agentic AI in scientific discovery. The core theme is the responsible development of AI to create tools that assist scientists, support healthcare professionals, and empower users. Bio: Dr Joseph Ledsam leads Google Health in Japan, where he works across AI research, digital health and health in Google products. He has led research in medical AI, genomics and drug discovery published in journals including Nature, Nature Medicine and Nature Methods. Before moving to Japan he worked as a medical doctor in the UK, and founded the Health Research and Genomics teams in Google DeepMind. He obtained his medical degree from The University of Leeds, UK, and was a research fellow at University College London during his clinical residency.

会場: 研究本館 435-437号室 (メイン会場) / via Zoom

イベント公式言語: 英語

Membrane Geometry Regulates Phase Morphology in Postsynaptic Condensates

2026年6月4日(木) 14:00 - 15:00

山田 莉彩 (京都大学 大学院理学研究科 生物科学専攻 博士課程)

Biomolecular condensates are generally regarded as membrane-less organelles formed through liquid–liquid phase separation (LLPS). However, some condensates in living cells emerge in close proximity to biological membranes, where spatial confinement and surface geometry can critically influence their organization and function. In this talk, I will discuss recent advances in understanding how membrane association regulates the phase behavior of postsynaptic density (PSD) condensates. Using mesoscale molecular simulations constrained by experimental interaction data, our study reproduced the distinct condensate architectures observed in solution and on membranes. In three-dimensional solution, AMPA receptor/PSD-95 complexes form the condensate core, whereas NMDA receptor/CaMKII complexes localize to the shell. Strikingly, this organization becomes reversed in membrane-associated two-dimensional systems. The analysis revealed that this transition arises from the competition between CaMKII’s large excluded volume and its highly multivalent interactions. While excluded-volume effects dominate in solution, membrane confinement favors specific multivalent interactions, stabilizing distinct receptor nanodomains. These results provide a physical framework for understanding how spatial dimensionality and molecular architecture regulate biomolecular condensates and synaptic organization.

会場: セミナー室 (359号室) 3階 359号室とZoomのハイブリッド開催

イベント公式言語: 英語

reflection positivity in de Sitter space

2026年6月5日(金) 10:30 - 11:30

鈴木 優樹 (京都大学 基礎物理学研究所 博士課程（学術振興会特別研究員）)

会場: セミナー室 (359号室) (メイン会場) / via Zoom

イベント公式言語: 英語

Disorder and Defects in Critical Systems

2026年6月8日(月) 13:30 - 15:00

Baishali Roy (Postdoctoral Fellow, Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, India)

Real critical systems are often constrained by boundaries and affected by impurities. In 3d, the effect of disordered impurities on the boundary can be modeled by a random magnetic field on a two-dimensional defect. In this talk, I will discuss how such disorder affects the Wilson-Fisher fixed point in d=4−\epsilon dimensions. By analyzing the one-loop RG flow of the defect couplings using the replica formalism, we find a non-trivial "dirty" fixed point which represents a new boundary universality class, stabilized by the bulk \phi^4 interaction. Disordered systems at critical points are known to exhibit logarithmic behavior — I will also discuss how operator mixing in the replica limit gives rise to a logarithmic defect CFT in our setup.

会場: 研究本館 3階 359号室 (メイン会場) / via Zoom

イベント公式言語: 英語

Quantum Improved Black Holes in Asymptotically Safe Gravity

2026年6月11日(木) 15:00 - 16:30

Chiang-Mei Chen (Professor, Department of Physics, National Central University, Taiwan)

In this talk, I will explore quantum-improved black hole solutions within the framework of asymptotic safety. In this approach, the Newton coupling becomes scale-dependent, necessitating a meaningful identification between the energy scale and a corresponding physical (length) scale to derive observable consequences for black hole spacetimes. I will argue that the requirement of consistency with the first law of black hole thermodynamics provides a physically motivated criterion for this scale-setting, particularly near the event horizon. Applying this principle, we propose a specific identification scheme that leads to a regularized geometry capable of resolving the ring singularity of Kerr black holes.

会場: セミナー室 (359号室) 3階 359号室とZoomのハイブリッド開催

イベント公式言語: 英語

Testing quantum gravity

2026年6月12日(金) 10:30 - 12:00

Daniel Carney (Scientist, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), USA)

I will give an overview of proposals to test the quantization of the gravitational field using terrestrial experiments. This will include gravitational entanglement experiments, "single-graviton detection" experiments, and searches for anomalous gravitational noise and decoherence.

会場: セミナー室 (359号室) 3階 359号室とZoomのハイブリッド開催

イベント公式言語: 英語

Noncritical Conformal Gravity and 4D Liouville Theory

2026年6月12日(金) 15:00 - 16:30

太田 信義 (大阪公立大学 南部陽一郎物理学研究所 客員教授)

We study the quantum aspects of the conformal gravity in four dimensions, specifically addressing a known discrepancy in beta functions between general quadratic curvature theories and conformal gravity, which corresponds to two scalar degrees of freedom. We demonstrate that this mismatch is resolved by carefully introducing gauge-fixing and ghost terms via the BRST symmetry, which effectively adds the two scalar modes. Drawing lessons from two-dimensional quantum gravity and Liouville theory, we proceed to integrate the four-dimensional trace anomaly to derive a consistent Liouville action, which is given by a free-field action for the conformal mode with a consistent conformal anomaly. We give the condition that the BRST transformation is anomaly free. Finally I would like to talk about some application of this theory.

会場: セミナー室 (359号室) 3階 359号室とZoomのハイブリッド開催

イベント公式言語: 英語

Which Cosmological EFTs Survive the UV? A first step from quantum consistency to late-time cosmology

2026年6月15日(月) 10:00 - 11:30

Carlos Pastor-Marcos (Ph.D. Student, ITP, Heidelberg University, Germany)

EFTs for cosmology are one of our best tools to describe possible departures from GR in the Universe we observe. However, not every low-energy theory can arise from a consistent quantum theory at high energies. In this talk, I will discuss how this question can be addressed using asymptotic safety (AS), and how UV consistency can constrain the space of viable modified-gravity EFTs. Instead of treating all EFT parameters as equally possible, we can ask which regions of theory space are connected to a well-defined fixed point in the UV. This provides the first ingredients of a UV-to-IR strategy, restricting the allowed low-energy theories and indicating how quantum-gravity information may reach cosmology. I will first give a pedagogical introduction to AS and the functional RG, focusing on the physical picture rather than technical details. I will then apply the framework to generalized Proca theories, a class of vector–tensor modified-gravity EFTs with relevant cosmological applications, to illustrate how this analysis is performed in practice and how it can constrain viable IR theories. I will close by discussing how UV completion can become a practical guide for cosmology, translating quantum-consistency conditions into phenomenological signatures, from late-time modified gravity to early-universe observables, strong-gravity tests and GW probes.

会場: セミナー室 (359号室) 3階 359号室とZoomのハイブリッド開催

イベント公式言語: 英語

Prediction of viral evolution and exploration of next-pandemic viruses

2026年6月15日(月) 15:00 - 16:00

伊東 潤平 (大阪大学 微生物病研究所 附属バイオインフォマティクスセンター 教授)

One of the major challenges in controlling viral infectious diseases is that viruses continuously alter their properties through evolution. During the COVID-19 pandemic, for example, variants with enhanced immune escape and increased fitness emerged successively, thereby making epidemic control substantially more difficult. In this seminor, I will introduce our research on understanding and predicting viral evolution and epidemic dynamics by integrating protein language models, massive viral genome sequence data, and large-scale experimental datasets to model the relationships among viral genotypes, antigenicity, and fitness. Another major factor complicating the control of viral infectious diseases is the cross-species transmission of viruses harbored by wild animals to humans and livestock, leading to the emergence of novel infectious diseases. The COVID-19 pandemic, for instance, is thought to have originated from a coronavirus carried by horseshoe bats that subsequently spilled over into humans. To prepare for future pandemics, it is essential to comprehensively identify and systematically catalog viruses circulating in wildlife populations. In this seminar, I will also present our research on efficiently discovering novel viruses from massive public RNA-seq datasets by predicting viral infection based on host immune responses.

会場: セミナー室 (359号室) (メイン会場) / via Zoom

イベント公式言語: 英語

Lectures on Quantum Measurement Theory: II

2026年6月16日(火) 15:30 - 17:00

小澤 正直 (名古屋大学 名誉教授)

Lecture II: Modern approach: Quantum instruments, POVMs, measuring processes, intersubjectivity, and value reproducibility The modern approach to quantum measurement theory is based on the "realizability theorem" stating that a measurement is physically realizable if and only if its statistical properties are represented by a completely positive instrument, and this is also equivalent to saying that the measurement can be described by an interaction with a measuring apparatus (Ozawa 1984, 2004). The conventional analysis of a measuring process determines the post-measurement object state by applying the "projection postulate" to the meter measurement in the post-measurement state that "entangles" the object and the apparatus, but the above result has been established without assuming the projection postulate altogether; rather we use only the classical Bayesian probability update rule (Ozawa 1984). We introduce the "intersubjectivity theorem" that states that, when multiple observers simultaneously and statistically correctly measure the same physical quantity, they obtain the same measurement value and the "value reproducibility theorem" that states that a statistically correct measurement correctly reproduces the value of the physical quantity immediately before the measurement (Ozawa 2025). The above three theorems essentially solves the so-called measurement problem, since we eliminate the collapse of the wave function and we establish the reality of the the pre-measurement value of the measured observable to be copied to the meter value and to be recorded by the observer.

会場: セミナー室 (359号室) (メイン会場) / via Zoom

イベント公式言語: 英語

iTHEMS Cosmology Forum n°6 - Cosmological Collider Physics

2026年6月22日(月) 9:15 - 17:00

Yi Wang (Professor, Department of Physics, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong)
山口 昌英 (Director, Center for Theoretical Physics of the Universe, Institute for Basic Science, Republic of Korea)
向田 享平 (高エネルギー加速器研究機構 (KEK) 理論センター 助教)
秋津 一之 (R&D, Proxima Technology)

This sixth workshop will bring together researchers exploring the physics of the early universe through cosmological collider signatures. Primordial non-Gaussianities generated during inflation provide a unique opportunity to probe heavy particles and high-energy interactions in the early universe, potentially accessing energies much larger than that probed by terrestrial experiments. In recent years, the subject has developed rapidly, incorporating ideas from inflationary cosmology, quantum field theory in curved spacetime, effective field theory, and scattering amplitudes.

会場: 大河内記念ホール

イベント公式言語: 英語

Gravitational Properties of the Monopole Bag

2026年6月23日(火) 13:30 - 15:30

Yu Komiya (京都大学 基礎物理学研究所 博士課程)

Processes such as phase transitions and symmetry breaking in the early universe are well-studied and thought to be instrumental in giving rise to the nature and composition that we observe. In particular, axionic cosmologies constitute a class of phenomenologically rich models with symmetry breaking, UV relevance, and potentially detectable consequences. In the case where monopoles are also present in such a background, the axion profile may be deformed; it is possible to construct a "monopole bag" state composed of a central monopole within a closed axion domain wall. We consider the gravitational properties of this hybrid defect, and find a both horizon-less and a black hole-like final state can result as remnants of the monopole-domain wall system after gravitational collapse for different input parameters

会場: セミナー室 (359号室) 3階 359号室とZoomのハイブリッド開催

イベント公式言語: 英語

Lectures on Quantum Measurement Theory: III

2026年6月23日(火) 15:30 - 17:00

小澤 正直 (名古屋大学 名誉教授)

Lecture III: Measurement error, disturbance, the universally valid reformulation of Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, and a quantitative generalization of the Wigner–Araki–Yanase theorem Definitions of measurement error and disturbance are introduced (Ozawa 2002, 2019) and it is shown that there exists a solvable model for a physically realizable measurement that serves as a counterexample both to Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle in the conventional formulation and to the SQL (Ozawa 1988, 1989, 2002). Thus, those limits are no more considered as universal limits. In fact, the above counter example to SQL was found in 1988 using the idea of contractive state measurements by Yuen (1983) and the LIGO was started in 1994 to succeed in the gravitational wave detection in 2015 as announced in 2016. New formulations are then proved for the uncertainty principle concerning the errors in the approximate simultaneous measurement of two physical quantities, called the "joint error relation" (Ozawa 2003b, 2004), and for the uncertainty principle concerning the error and disturbance associated with the measurement of a single physical quantity, called the "error-disturbance relation" (Ozawa 2003a). From the error-disturbance relation, a quantitative relation for measurement error under an additive conservation law is proved (Ozawa 2002a, 2003b), generalizing the "Wigner–Araki–Yanase theorem" (Wigner 1952, Araki-Yanase 1960), which states that a physical quantity not commuting with a conserved quantity cannot be measured accurately by a measurement interaction satisfying an additive conservation law. The above relation also derives limits for realizing quantum computing and operations under conservation laws (Ozawa 2002b), the results later developed as the resource theory of asymmetry.

会場: セミナー室 (359号室) (メイン会場) / via Zoom

イベント公式言語: 英語

Phase Transitions as the Breakdown of Statistical Indistinguishability

2026年6月29日(月) 15:00 - 16:00

宮原 英之 (北海道大学 情報科学研究院 准教授)

We introduce a novel characterization of phase transitions based on hypothesis testing. In our formulation, a phase transition is defined as the breakdown of statistical indistinguishability under vanishing parameter perturbations in the thermodynamic limit. This perspective provides a general, order-parameter-free framework that does not rely on model-specific insights or learning procedures. We show that conventional approaches, such as those based on the Binder parameter, can be reinterpreted as special cases within this framework. As a concrete realization, we employ a distribution-free two-sample run test and demonstrate that the critical point of the two-dimensional Ising model is accurately identified without prior knowledge of the order parameter.

会場: セミナー室 (359号室) 3階 359号室とZoomのハイブリッド開催

イベント公式言語: 英語

Lectures on Quantum Measurement Theory: IV

2026年6月30日(火) 15:30 - 17:00

小澤 正直 (名古屋大学 名誉教授)

Lecture IV: Instruments in classical mechanics, quantum field theory, and cognitive science In algebraic quantum field theory, measurements describable by interactions between the field and the measuring apparatus are characterized by the class of completely positive instruments that satisfy the condition called the normal extension property (NEP) (Okamura-Ozawa 2016). In classical mechanics, traditionally only non-invasive measurements—those with trivial interaction—were considered admissible, for the observability of the trajectory of motion. Here, however, the full class of measurements realizable by classical-mechanical interactions is characterized in terms of instruments with NEP for the basis of the study of invasive measurements of classical systems. Cognitive processes are also represented by completely positive instruments, along with the long-standing paradigm provided by von Helmholtz, who described a sensation-perception process as a sort of measuring interaction and referred to it as an unconscious inference. This framework is used to show the compatibility of the question order effect and the response replicability effect (Ozawa-Khrennikov 2019), which failed to be explained in an earlier approach using only projective measurement models. It is shown that there exists an instrument model, realizing both the question order effect and the response replicability effect, that is also capable of almost faithfully reproducing public-opinion survey data such as the well-known Clinton-Gore survey by Gallup in 1997 (Ozawa-Khrennikov 2021).

会場: セミナー室 (359号室) (メイン会場) / via Zoom

イベント公式言語: 英語

iTHEMS-UTokyo Intensive Lectures on Quantum Gravity

2026年8月31日(月) - 9月2日(水)

川合 光 (大阪公立大学 南部陽一郎物理学研究所 客員教授)

iTHEMS-UTokyo Intensive Lectures on Quantum Gravity (10th Quantum Gravity Gatherings Lecture Series) The 10th QGG Lecture Series is a special three-day installment of the intensive lecture series organized by the Quantum Gravity Gatherings (QGG) study group at RIKEN iTHEMS. This celebratory edition will feature Professor Hikaru Kawai from Nambu Yoichiro Institute of Theoretical and Experimental Physics (NITEP), who will deliver a series of lectures on themes related to quantum gravity. This lecture series will follow a style similar to Prof. Kawai's first QGG lectures, held three years ago at RIKEN (Wako) as the inaugural QGG event, which explored fundamental questions in quantum gravity, string theory, and the quantum universe. A distinctive feature of this 10th installment is that it will take place on the Komaba campus of The University of Tokyo, where one of the iTHEMS satellite offices is located. This will be the first QGG lecture series held outside Wako, with the aim of making the event more accessible to a broader group of participants. Format: Lectures will be given mainly in blackboard style and in English, encouraging active participation and in-depth Q&A discussions. Poster sessions will also be held, giving participants an opportunity to present their own work or topics of interest. These sessions are intended to foster communication and stimulate the exchange of ideas among participants. This event will take place in person only. Target audience: Senior scholars, early-career researchers, and students are all warmly welcome. Registration deadline: July 31, 2026

会場: 21 Komaba Center for Educational Excellence (21 KOMCEE) East Building, Room K214, Komaba Campus, The University of Tokyo

イベント公式言語: 英語