Volume 248

iTHEMS Weekly News Letter

Research News

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Tomoki Nosaka thumbnail
Masahiro Nozaki thumbnail

RIKEN Research: Quantum ‘magic’ could help explain the origin of spacetime

2023-04-24

A quantum property dubbed ‘magic’ could be the key to explaining how space and time emerged, a new mathematical analysis by three RIKEN physicists suggests.
It’s hard to conceive of anything more basic than the fabric of spacetime that underpins the Universe, but theoretical physicists have been questioning this assumption. “Physicists have long been fascinated about the possibility that space and time are not fundamental, but rather are derived from something deeper,” says Kanato Goto of the RIKEN Interdisciplinary Theoretical and Mathematical Sciences (iTHEMS).

To read more, please visit the related link.

Reference

  1. Kanato Goto, Tomoki Nosaka, and Masahiro Nozaki, Probing chaos by magic monotones, Phys. Rev. D 106, 126009 (2022), doi: 10.1103/PhysRevD.106.126009

Seminar Report

iTHEMS Biology Seminar by Mr. Naoki Konno on April 20, 2023

2023-04-27

In April 20, Mr Naoki Konno (University of Tokyo) gave a fantastic talk about the machine leaning method for the prediction of evolution. The talk was entitled, “Machine learning predicts biological system evolution by gene gains and losses”. To my knowledge, this study using genome data of ~3000 species is one of few seminal attempts to theoretically predict long-term and system-level evolution. The seminar by Konno san was very clear and we understood the predictability of the proposed framework, called “Evodictor”. In the beginning of the talk, he kindly explained the theoretical basis about phylogenetic tree estimation and machine learning for non-specialists for which we could enjoy and learn from his seminar a lot. Thank you, Konno-san for the great talk!!

Reported by Gen Kurosawa

Reference

  1. Naoki Konno and Wataru Iwasaki, Machine learning enables prediction of metabolic system evolution in bacteria, Science Advances (2023), doi: 10.1126/sciadv.adc9130

Seminar Report

ABBL-iTHEMS Joint Astro Seminar by Dr. Kumiko Kotera on April 18, 2023

2023-04-24

We are living exciting times: we are now able to probe the most violent events of the Universe with diverse messengers (cosmic rays, neutrinos, photons and gravitational waves). One challenge to complete the multi-messenger picture resides in the highest energies, as no ultra-high energy neutrinos have been observed yet. This challenge could be undertaken by the GRAND (Giant Radio Array for Neutrino Detection) project, which aims at detecting ultra-high energy particles, with a colossal array of 200'000 antennas over 200'000 km2, split into ~20 sub-arrays of ~10'000 km2 deployed worldwide. In this talk, Kumiko Kotera presented preliminary designs and simulation results, plans for the ongoing, staged approach to construction, and the rich research program made possible by the proposed sensitivity and angular resolution.

Reported by Shigehiro Nagataki

Upcoming Events

Seminar

iTHEMS Math Seminar

On the Beem-Nair conjecture

May 9 (Tue) at 15:00 - 16:00, 2023

Syun Furihata (Ph.D. Student, Research Institute for Mathematical Sciences (RIMS), Kyoto University)

Given a simple Lie group G, we have an open immersion (constructed by Beem and Nair) from the Kostant-Toda lattice associated to G into the universal centralizer of G. They expected that a free field realization of the chiral universal centralizer of G at the critical level will be obtained by the
chiralization of this immersion. In this talk, we will verify this conjecture is true by constructing an embedding from the chiral universal centralizer into an appropriate vertex operator algebra at any level.

This seminar is on-site only.

Venue: Seminar Room #359, 3F Main Research Building, RIKEN

Event Official Language: English

Seminar

iTHEMS Math Seminar

Generalized AKS scheme of integrability via vertex algebra

May 9 (Tue) at 16:15 - 17:15, 2023

Wenda Fang (Ph.D. Student, Research Institute for Mathematical Sciences (RIMS), Kyoto University)

In this talk, we define and study the classical R-matrix for vertex Lie algebra, based on which we propose to construct a new vertex Lie algebra. As an application, using the classical R-matrix we defined, we give a new scheme to construct infinite-dimensional (Liouville) integrable systems via the Feigin-Frenkel center.

This seminar is on-site only.

Venue: Seminar Room #359, 3F Main Research Building, RIKEN

Event Official Language: English

Seminar

NEW WG Seminar

Quantum transport with cold atoms

May 10 (Wed) at 13:30 - 15:00, 2023

Shun Uchino (Researcher, Advanced Science Research Center, Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA))

Quantum transport occurring through a mesoscopic conduction region allows us to extract interesting quantum many-body phenomena. For decades, solid-state systems have been the playground of such transport and revealed nontrivial outcomes such as the conductance quantization in a quantum point contact system and the fractional charge measurement in a fractional quantum Hall system. More recently, cold atoms trapped in the vacuum have served as the complementary system to study the quantum transport phenomena.

In this seminar, I wish to discuss the recent progresses of quantum transport with cold atoms. The great advantages of those systems are that one can control quantum statistics, inter-particle interactions, dissipation, and dimensions. I try to show that such controllability enables to explore a regime of quantum transport that has yet to be reached with solid-state materials, including transport of bosons, dissipation effect in transport, and transport with synthetic dimensions.

Venue: Seminar Room #359, 3F Main Research Building, RIKEN / via Zoom

Event Official Language: English

Workshop

Co-hosted by iTHEMS

Exploring GPT’s Influence on Natural Science and Mathematics

May 17 (Wed) at 10:00 - 15:00, 2023

We are organizing a workshop to explore the application of ChatGPT in natural sciences, with a focus on theoretical physics and mathematics. Advances in GPT-4 and plugin technology are expected to bring about transformative changes in the way research is conducted. We will investigate the potential for another shift in research methodology following the advent of computers. Expert-led lectures on large language models (LLMs/ChatGPT) will also be conducted. We aim to deepen the discussion on the effective utilization of LLMs as tools to support the research of physicists and mathematicians.

This workshop will be held in a hybrid format, combining online streaming with in-person presentations, to accommodate a larger number of participants. In addition to the lectures, short talks and discussions will be held entirely offline. The target audience is mainly students and researchers in the natural sciences, but please note that there will be a limit to the number of in-person attendees.

The aim of this event is to provide a forum for researchers to engage in earnest discussions. Those who do not align with the objectives of this workshop are kindly asked to refrain from participating.

We look forward to this opportunity to consider, together with all of you, new research methods and perspectives in the fields of theoretical physics and mathematics in the natural sciences, utilizing ChatGPT.

(The above text was created by modifying the text generated by Chat-GPT and GPT-4.)

All talks will be delivered in Japanese.

Venue: #435-437, 4F, Main Research Building, RIKEN / via Zoom

Event Official Language: Japanese

Seminar

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iTHEMS Biology Seminar

Excursion Theory, Galton Watson Trees and their Scaling Limits

May 18 (Thu) at 16:00 - 17:00, 2023

Christy Koji Kelly (Special Postdoctoral Researcher, iTHEMS)

In this talk we aim to introduce a recent perspective in probability theory that views random trees as random excursions with additional data. This perspective is particular suited to the study of the scaling limit of tree-valued random processes. Excursion theory is a useful and relatively elementary tool allowing one to derive rather explicit information about the local and global geometry of the resultant continuum trees which in turn can be used to derive information about large random trees. We illustrate these ideas in the context of the Brownian continuum random tree, the scaling limit of critical Galton-Watson trees and a structure that arises naturally in various contexts in physics; in particular the Brownian continuum random tree is a pathological model of quantum spacetime. Despite the fundamentally mathematical nature of the talk, the aim is to keep the presentation essentially heuristic emphasising key intuitions over rigorous proof. The content itself should be relevant to biologists interested in the theory of branching processes or coalescent theory.

Venue: Seminar Room #359, 3F Main Research Building, RIKEN / via Zoom

Event Official Language: English

Seminar

ABBL-iTHEMS Joint Astro Seminar

X-ray study on the synchrotron emission in Kepler's SNR

May 19 (Fri) at 14:00 - 15:15, 2023

Vincenzo Sapienza (Ph.D. Student, Department of Physics, Graduate School of Science, The University of Tokyo)

Synchrotron X-ray emission in young supernova remnants (SNRs) is a powerful diagnostic tool to study the population of high energy electrons accelerated at the shock front.
We performed a spatially resolved spectral analysis of the young Kepler's SNR, where we identify two different regimes of particle acceleration.
In the north, where the shock interacts with a dense circumstellar medium (CSM), we found a more efficient acceleration than in the south, where the shock velocity is higher and there are no signs of shock interaction with dense CSM.
We also studied the temporal evolution of the synchrotron flux, from 2006 to 2014.
A number of regions show a steady synchrotron flux and equal cooling and acceleration times.
However, we found some regions where we measured a significant decrease in flux from 2006 to 2014.
Our results display a coherent picture of the different regimes of electron acceleration observed in Kepler's SNR.
Also If I will have time during the seminar it will be nice to present also some preliminary results I will have in the SN 1987A project.

Venue: Seminar Room #359, 3F Main Research Building, RIKEN / via Zoom

Event Official Language: English

Seminar

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iTHEMS Theoretical Physics Seminar

Spectral correlations and scrambling dynamics in Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev type models

May 30 (Tue) at 13:30 - 15:00, 2023

Masaki Tezuka (Assistant Professor, Division of Physics and Astronomy, Graduate School of Science, Kyoto University)

Note: Due to unexpected trouble, we have made the decision to postpone the seminar scheduled for February 21 to May 30. Sorry for the trouble.

Abstract:
The Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev (SYK) model, proposed in 2015, is a quantum mechanical model of N Majorana or complex fermions with all-to-all random four-body interactions. The model has attracted significant attention over the years due to its features such as the existence of the large-N solution with maximally chaotic behavior at low temperatures and holographic correspondence to low-dimensional gravity.
The sparse version of the SYK model reproduces essential features of the original model for reduced numbers of disorder parameters. We recently proposed [1] a further simplification, where we set the nonzero couplings to be +1 or -1 rather than sampling from a continuous distribution such as Gaussian. This binary-coupling model exhibits strong correlations in the spectrum, as observed in the spectral form factor, more efficiently in terms of the number of nonzero terms than in the Gaussian distribution case. We also discuss the scrambling dynamics with the binary-coupling sparse SYK model, comparing the model with the original model as well as the SYK model with random two-body terms [2], where the localization of the many-body eigenstates in the Fock space has been quantitatively studied [3,4].

References

  1. Masaki Tezuka, Onur Oktay, Enrico Rinaldi, Masanori Hanada, and Franco Nori, Binary-coupling sparse Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev model: An improved model of quantum chaos and holography, Phys. Rev. B 107, L081103 (2023), doi: 10.1103/PhysRevB.107.L081103, arXiv: 2208.12098
  2. Antonio M. García-García, Bruno Loureiro, Aurelio Romero-Bermúdez, and Masaki Tezuka, Chaotic-Integrable Transition in the Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev Model, Phys. Rev. Lett. 120, 241603 (2018), doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.120.241603
  3. Felipe Monteiro, Tobias Micklitz, Masaki Tezuka, and Alexander Altland, Minimal model of many-body localization, Phys. Rev. Research 3, 013023 (2021), doi: 10.1103/PhysRevResearch.3.013023
  4. Felipe Monteiro, Masaki Tezuka, Alexander Altland, David A. Huse, and Tobias Micklitz, Quantum Ergodicity in the Many-Body Localization Problem, Phys. Rev. Lett. 127, 030601 (2021), doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.127.030601, arXiv: 2012.07884

Venue: Hybrid Format (3F #359 and Zoom), Main Research Building, RIKEN

Event Official Language: English

Workshop

iTHEMS Science Outreach Workshop 2023

June 16 (Fri) - 18 (Sun), 2023

This year's meeting on "Outreach of RIKEN iTHEMS 2023@Sendai&Zoom" will be held from FRI June 16 to SUN June 18, as a face-to-face meeting at TOKYO ELECTRON House of Creativity of Tohoku Forum for Creativity in cooperation with iTHEMS SUURI-COOL (Sendai) using ZOOM for the necessary part as well.

Venue: TOKYO ELECTRON House of Creativity, Katahira Campus, Tohoku University / via Zoom

Event Official Language: Japanese

School

g-RIPS-Sendai 2023 thumbnail

Co-hosted by iTHEMS

g-RIPS-Sendai 2023

June 19 (Mon) - August 8 (Tue), 2023

The Research in Industrial Projects for Students (RIPS) program has been held at the Institute for Pure & Applied Mathematics (IPAM) of the University of California, Los Angeles. In 2018, the Advanced Institute for Materials Research (AIMR) at Tohoku University in Sendai launched the g-RIPS-Sendai program in collaboration with IPAM, targeting graduate-level students in mathematical science and related disciplines. Participants from the U.S. and Japan will work on cross-cultural teams on research projects designed by industrial partners. The projects are expected to be of great interest to the partners and offer stimulating challenges to students. For more information on this year's g-RIPS-Sendai 2023, please visit the program website at the related link.

Organizers:
Research Alliance Center for Mathematical Science (RACMaS), Tohoku University
Tohoku Forum for Creativity (TFC), Tohoku University
Advanced Institute for Materials Research (AIMR), Tohoku University

In cooperation with the following organizations:
RIKEN Interdisciplinary Theoretical and Mathematical Sciences Program (iTHEMS)
Institute for Pure & Applied Mathematics (IPAM), UCLA

Venue: Advanced Institute for Materials Research (AIMR), Tohoku University

Workshop

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Supported by iTHEMS

6th Workshop on Virus Dynamics

July 4 (Tue) - 6 (Thu), 2023

Catherine Beauchemin (Deputy Program Director, iTHEMS)
Shingo Iwami (Professor, Graduate School of Science, Nagoya University)

The Workshop on Virus Dynamics is an international meeting held every 2 years. It brings virologists, immunologists, and microbiologists together with mathematical and computational modellers, bioinformaticians, bioengineers, virophysicists, and systems biologists to discuss current approaches and challenges in modelling and analyzing different aspects of virus and immune system dynamics, and associated vaccines and therapeutics. This 6th version of the workshop builds on the success of previous ones held in Frankfurt (2013), Toronto (2015), Heidelberg (2017), Paris (2019) and virtually (2021). It is supported by the Interdisciplinary Theoretical and Mathematical Sciences (iTHEMS) program at RIKEN, by Nagoya University, and by the Japan Science and Technology Agency. Up-to-date information and registration is available via the website. The workshop is for in-person participation only (no virtual or hybrid option).

Venue: Noyori Conference Hall, Higashiyama Campus, Nagoya University

Event Official Language: English

Seminar

ABBL-iTHEMS Joint Astro Seminar

A dynamical model for IRAS 00500+6713: the remant of a type Iax supernova SN1181 hosting a double degenerate merger product WD J005311

July 7 (Fri) at 14:00 - 15:15, 2023

Takatoshi Ko (Ph.D. Student, Research Center for the Early Universe (RESCEU), The University of Tokyo)

Iras 00500+6713 is a bright nebula in the infrared, and X-ray observations show it consists of diffuse region and strong illuminated central region. In addition, optical spectral observations have recently revealed that fast wind with about 15,000 km/s is blowing from the massive white dwarf at the center. The properties of this nebula and white dwarf are very similar to those theoretically predicted by the binary white dwarf merger. In addition, its position on the celestial sphere and the extent make it a prime candidate for the remnant of SN 1181, a historical supernova. In this study, we propose that such a multilayered structure is formed by the collision between the remnant of SN 1181 and the stellar wind blowing from the central white dwarf, and succeeded in constructing a model that is consistent with the multi-wavelength observations. The results show that the progenitor of SN 1181 is a binary white dwarf with 1.3-1.9 solar mass and that their merger triggered an explosion that ejected mass with 0.2-0.6 solar mass to form the present object. The extent of the X-ray source concentrated in the center reveals that these winds began blowing within the last 30 years, and we will discuss this property as well.

Venue: Seminar Room #359, 3F Main Research Building, RIKEN / via Zoom

Event Official Language: English

Lecture

Higher Algebra in Geometry

July 31 (Mon) - August 10 (Thu), 2023

Hiro Lee Tanaka (Assistant Professor, Department of Mathematics, Texas State University, USA)

In these lectures, we will shed light on modern tools of higher algebra, where the traditional structures of algebra yield themselves only after controlled deformations. We will introduce infinity-categories, spectra, operads, and other standard tools of the last decade. The main applications will be to encode various higher-algebraic structures that inevitably arise in, and shed light on, geometry and topology. If time permits, we will illustrate how spectra naturally arise in geometric invariants.

The audience is imagined to consist of mathematicians interested in applications of infinity-categorical tools -- so a broad range of geometers (including topologists) and algebraists. From Lecture Two onward, I will assume basic knowledge of algebraic topology (e.g., the material of Hatcher) and homological algebra.

These lectures will be held between July 31 and August 10, each from 10:30 to 12:00, for a total of 8 lectures.

1st Week: Jul 31(mon), Aug 1(tue) - 3(thu)
- Introduction to ideas of higher algebra in geometry, for a general audience.
- Introduction to infinity-categories and to spectra.

2nd Week: Aug 7(mon) - 10(thu)
- Examples in geometry and topology, including invariants of Legendrian links and generating functions.
- Future Directions.

Profile:
Hiro Lee Tanaka is an assistant professor in the Department of Mathematics. After receiving his Ph.D. from Northwestern University and completing postdoctoral work at Harvard University, he conducted research at the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute in Berkeley, California, and at the Isaac Newton Institute in Cambridge, England. His research aims to fuse the higher structures in modern algebra with geometries emerging from both classical mechanics and supersymmetric field theories. Beyond research, Tanaka engages in efforts to create more equitable and supportive environments throughout the mathematics community.

References

  1. Jacob Lurie, Higher Topos Theory (PDF 4.8MB), doi: 10.1515/9781400830558
  2. Jacob Lurie, Higher Algebra (PDF 6.9MB)
  3. Kerodon - an online resource for homotopy-coherent mathematics
  4. Jacob Lurie, Hiro Lee Tanaka, Associative algebras and broken lines, arXiv: 1805.09587
  5. Jacob Lurie, On the Classification of Topological Field Theories, arXiv: 0905.0465
  6. Oleg Lazarev, Zachary Sylvan, Hiro Lee Tanaka, The infinity-category of stabilized Liouville sectors, arXiv: 2110.11754
  7. Araminta Amabel, Artem Kalmykov, Lukas Müller, Hiro Lee Tanaka, Lectures on Factorization Homology, Infinity-Categories, and Topological Field Theories, arXiv: 1907.00066
  8. David Ayala, John Francis, Hiro Lee Tanaka, Factorization homology of stratified spaces, arXiv: 1409.0848
  9. David Nadler, Hiro Lee Tanaka, A stable infinity-category of Lagrangian cobordisms, arXiv: 1109.4835
  10. David Gepner, An Introduction to Higher Categorical Algebra, arXiv: 1907.02904

Venue: #435-437, Main Research Building, RIKEN / via Zoom

Event Official Language: English

Person of the Week

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Self-introduction: Rongyang Sun

2023-04-28

My name is Rongyang Sun. I joined RIKEN in October 2021 as a Postdoctoral Researcher in R-CCS and RQC. Now, I am very glad to hold this concurrent position in iTHEMS. As a full-stack researcher in computational quantum many-body physics, my ultimate goal is to understand the fantabulous nature of quantum many-body systems by taking advantage of modern supercomputing systems and quantum computers. Towards this goal, I am developing advanced tensor network algorithms, maintaining high-performance tensor computing software, and applying these tools to the study of strongly correlated systems like interacting electrons and frustrated spins. Meanwhile, I am also exploring the possibility of utilizing near-term quantum computers to arrive at the same destination.

Person of the Week

Tomonori Shirakawa thumbnail

Self-introduction: Tomonori Shirakawa

2023-04-28

My name is Tomonori Shirakawa. I joined iTHEMS as a Senior Research Scientist in April 2023.
I am interested in quantum many-body phenomena in condensed matter physics.
To better understand quantum many-body phenomena, I have been working with various numerical methods. In particular, I have recently been exploring more efficient ways to solve quantum many-body problems using quantum-classical hybrid algorithms, quantum algorithms, and tensor network methods.

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