Volume 173

iTHEMS Weekly News Letter

Event Schedule

Events for the 2nd week of November 2021

2021-11-04

Monday, November 8, 14:00– 15:00 ABBL-iTHEMS Joint Seminar
Thursday, November 11, 12:30– 13:30 iTHEMS Biology Seminar
Friday, November 12, 12:30- Coffee Meeting

Hot Topic

Can social issues be solved by mathematical science? -attempts and challenges

2021-11-04

On Oct.26, the symposium "Can social issues be solved by mathematical science? -attempts and challenges" was held under the leadership of Takashi Sakajo (Kyoto Univ.) and Shingo Iwami (Nagoya Univ.) who are also iTHEMS colleagues. The symposium was held in a hybrid matter with more than 220 participants. After the presentations on various approaches to bridge the academia and industry, there were lively discussions on how to cross the valley between the mathematical science and social needs.

Seminar Report

Report of iTHEMS colloquium - High-Energy Neutrino Astrophysics in the Multimessenger Era

2021-11-02

Our Universe is filled with mysterious high-energy emissions: Cosmic-rays (CR), neutrinos, and gamma-ray photons. They could be generated at the same source populations although we have not yet confirmed. Among these messenger particles, the neutrino is a special one to probe their origins. Cosmic rays are deflected by the magnetic field, while high-energy photons are attenuated during its propagation. Only the neutrino could preserve the information about the production sites.

Also, the neutrino should be a messenger to physics beyond the Standard Model. The fact that the neutrinos have finite masses itself requires the extension of the Standard Model. Its origin could be related to dark matter, new kinds of interactions, and so on. On-going and planned experiments should enable us to access these problems by combining spectrum, timing, and flavor information.

In this colloquium, Prof. Kohta Murase reviewed the above contents focusing on the latest results from neutrino observations and the development of the source modeling in the multi-messenger approach.
About 100 people have enjoyed his talk. Lots of questions and some deep discussions related to the topic continued after the main part of the talk. We would like to thank him again and express our great appreciation for your attendance.

Reported by Nagisa Hiroshima

Upcoming Events

Seminar

iTHEMS Math Seminar

Geometry and Physics of Mirror Symmetry

November 5 (Fri) at 16:00 - 18:00, 2021

Naichung Conan Leung (Professor of Mathematics, Department of Mathematics, The Institute of Mathematical Sciences, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong)

In the first half of this talk, I will describe the geometry and physics behind mirror symmetry in layman's terms. In the second half of this talk, I will provide a more mathematical explanation of the concepts involved in this mysterious conjecture.

*Please contact Keita Mikami's mail address to get access to the Zoom meeting room.

Venue: via Zoom

Event Official Language: English

Seminar

Information Theory SG Seminar

Hunting hypernuclei by machine learning in nuclear emulsions

November 8 (Mon) at 14:00 - 15:00, 2021

Takehiko Saito (Chief Scientist, High Energy Nuclear Physics Laboratory, RIKEN Cluster for Pioneering Research (CPR))

A hypernuclus is a subatomic systems with strange quark(s). They have been studied already for seven decades for understanding the fundamental baryonic interaction and nuclear matters inside the core of neutron stars. The hypertriton is the lightest hypernucleus with a neutron, a proton and a Lambda hyperon, and it is the benchmark in hypernuclear studies. However, recent experimental studies with heavy ion beams have revealed that the nature of the hypertriton is unclear, especially on its biding energy and lifetime. The most urgent issue is to measure its binding energy very precisely. Measurements with nuclear emulsion have provided the best precision for the hypernuclear binding energy, however, it requires a huge human load on visual image analyses. We have developed machine learning models to detect events associated with production and decay of hypertriton in nuclear emulsions data, and we have already discovered hypertriton events [1]. In the seminar, we’ll discuss the challenges and developments of our machine learning models as well as the outcomes and perspectives of our works.

Reference

  1. Takehiko R. Saito et al., New directions in hypernuclear physics, Nature Reviews Physics (2021), doi: 10.1038/s42254-021-00371-w

Venue: Hybrid Format (Common Room 246-248 and Zoom)

Event Official Language: English

Seminar

iTHEMS Biology Seminar

Toward mathematical medicine: development of a new drug and digital medicine for sleep disorders

November 11 (Thu) at 12:30 - 13:30, 2021

Jae Kyoung Kim (Associate Professor, Department of Mathematical Sciences, KAIST, Republic of Korea)

In this talk, I will illustrate collaborative stories between our math group and medical researchers to treat disrupted circadian rhythms and sleep. First, I will illustrate the key molecular mechanism for robust circadian rhythms against spatio-temporal noise, which we identified by analyzing spatio-temporal timeseries data of clock molecules. This explains why Alzheimer's diseases, obesity, and aging cause unstable circadian rhythms and sleep-wake cycle: cytoplasmic traffic jam, which provides a new paradigm to treat sleep disorders. Next, I will talk about our collaboration story with Pfizer Inc: how we used mathematical modeling to help the development of a new drug modulating the circadian phase. Finally, I will introduce our collaboration with Samsung medical center: how we used mathematical modeling to analyze complex sleep patterns of shift workers measured with wearables to find optimal sleep patterns minimizing sleep disorders. This opens the chance for the development of an app providing a personalized sleep schedule for shift workers.

Venue: via Zoom

Event Official Language: English

Colloquium

The 17th MACS Colloquium thumbnail

MACS ColloquiumSupported by iTHEMS

The 17th MACS Colloquium

November 19 (Fri) at 15:00 - 18:00, 2021

Momoko Hayamizu (Assistant Professor, Faculty of Science and Engineering, School of Fundamental Science and Engineering, Waseda University / PRESTO Researcher, Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST))
Shigeru Kuratani (Chief Scientist, Evolutionary Morphology Laboratory, RIKEN Cluster for Pioneering Research (CPR) / Team Leader, Laboratory for Evolutionary Morphology, RIKEN Center for Biosystems Dynamics Research (BDR))

15:00- Talk by Prof. Momoko Hayamizu
16:15- Talk by Dr. Shigeru Kuratani
17:15- Discussion

Venue: via Zoom

Event Official Language: Japanese

Seminar

 thumbnail

Information Theory SG Seminar

Simulation-based inference for multi-type cortical circuits

November 29 (Mon) at 13:30 - 15:00, 2021

Enrico Rinaldi (Research Fellow, Physics Department, University of Michigan, USA)

In many scientific fields, ranging from astrophysics to particle physics and neuroscience, simulators for dynamical systems generate a massive amount of data. One of the crucial tasks scientists are spending their precious time on is comparing observational data to the aforementioned simulations in order to infer physically relevant parameters and their uncertainties, based on the model embedded in the simulator. This poses a problem because the likelihood function for realistic simulations of complex physical systems is intractable. Simulation-based inference techniques attack this problem using machine learning tools and probabilistic programming. I will start with an overview of the problem and explain the general application of simulation-based inference methods. Then I will describe an application of the methods to a model of neurons in the visual cortex of mice."

References

  1. Kyle Cranmer, Johann Brehmer, Gilles Louppe, The frontier of simulation-based inference, PNAS 117, 48, 30055-30062 (2020), doi: 10.1073/pnas.1912789117
  2. Agostina Palmigiano, Francesco Fumarola, Daniel P. Mossing, Nataliya Kraynyukova, Hillel Adesnik, Kenneth D. Miller, Structure and variability of optogenetic responses identify the operating regime of cortex (2021), doi: 10.1101/2020.11.11.378729

Venue: via Zoom

Event Official Language: English

Paper of the Week

Week 1, November 2021

2021-11-05

Title: Planckian Physics Comes Into Play At Planckian Distance From Horizon
Author: Pei-Ming Ho, Hikaru Kawai, Yuki Yokokura
arXiv: http://arxiv.org/abs/2111.01967v1

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