Volume 399

iTHEMS Weekly News Letter

Hot Topic

XIIIth International Symposium on Nuclear Symmetry Energy (NuSym25) on September 8-13, 2025

2026-03-11

The XIIIth International Symposium on Nuclear Symmetry Energy (NuSym25) was held from September 8 to 13, 2025, at the Integrated Innovation Building, RIKEN Kobe Campus. The symposium brought together approximately 78 researchers working on nuclear physics, astrophysics, and related fields to discuss recent developments in the study of the nuclear equation of state (EoS) and nuclear symmetry energy.

The nuclear symmetry energy plays an important role in understanding properties of neutron-rich nuclear matter, which is relevant for nuclear structure, heavy-ion collisions, and astrophysical phenomena such as neutron stars and their mergers. The symposium aimed to connect experimental, observational, and theoretical efforts across these areas.
The scientific program included invited and contributed talks covering a broad range of topics, including nuclear structure and reactions, heavy-ion collision experiments and transport model simulations, microscopic calculations of dense neutron-rich matter, and astrophysical observations of compact stars. Recent progress in multi-messenger observations of neutron stars and their implications for the nuclear equation of state were also discussed.

The symposium provided an opportunity for researchers from different communities to exchange ideas and strengthen collaborations in addressing common challenges related to the nuclear equation of state. Following the main scientific sessions, a meeting of the Transport Model Evaluation Project (TMEP) was held to discuss benchmarking and uncertainty quantification in transport model simulations for heavy-ion collisions.

Reported by Shuntaro Aoki

Hot Topic

RIKEN–Nara Women’s University Joint Diversity Promotion Workshop 2026 was held

2026-03-09

Students from various courses at Nara Women’s University—including mathematics, physics, chemistry, biological sciences, and environmental sciences—visited RIKEN for two days, March 2–3. A total of 21 students (first-, second-, and third-year undergraduate students and first-year master’s students) participated in the visit.

During their stay, the students toured several research facilities at RIKEN, including the Multiscale Brain Function Research Team at the RIKEN Center for Brain Science (CBS), the RIBF facility at the RIKEN Nishina Center, and the Optical Quantum Control Research Team at the RIKEN Center for Quantum Computing (RQC). At iTHEMS, they attended talks by Megumi Oya (Postdoctoral Researcher, Medical Science Data-driven Mathematics Team, iTHEMS) and Leo Speidel (iTHEMS ECL Research Unit Leader).

At each laboratory, the students had the opportunity to observe cutting-edge research up close near experimental equipment and learn about ongoing research activities. During the evening networking session with RIKEN researchers, they asked questions to iTHEMS researchers and learned about researchers’ daily lives and career paths. The event provided a valuable opportunity for meaningful交流 and discussion for the students.

This diversity promotion initiative is conducted jointly by the Faculty of Science at Nara Women’s University and RIKEN iTHEMS, and is organized in conjunction with a series of lectures held at Nara Women’s University.

Seminar Report

RIKEN–Berkeley Workshop on Quantum Gravity 2025 on October 23-24, 2025

2026-03-11

The RIKEN–Berkeley Workshop on Quantum Gravity 2025 was held on October 23–24, 2025, at the RIKEN Center for Interdisciplinary Theoretical and Mathematical Sciences (iTHEMS), RIKEN Wako Campus, Japan. The workshop marked the first meeting of a new collaboration between the Leinweber Institute for Theoretical Physics (LITP) at the University of California, Berkeley and iTHEMS. A total of 38 participants attended the workshop.

The workshop brought together researchers working on quantum gravity and related areas to discuss recent developments and future directions in the field. The scientific program featured talks on a range of topics, including quantum aspects of spacetime, black hole physics, holography, and their connections to quantum information and condensed matter physics.

The meeting provided an opportunity for researchers from Berkeley, RIKEN, and other institutions to exchange ideas and explore potential collaborations. Discussions during the workshop highlighted current progress in the field and encouraged interactions among participants from different research backgrounds.

The workshop served as the first step in strengthening collaboration between LITP and iTHEMS, with the aim of promoting continued exchanges and future joint research activities between the two institutions.

The workshop was organized by Gabriele Di Ubaldo (LITP Berkeley and RIKEN iTHEMS), Tetsuo Hatsuda (RIKEN iTHEMS), Masazumi Honda (RIKEN iTHEMS), Satoshi Iso (RIKEN iTHEMS), Masamichi Miyaji (RIKEN iTHEMS), Shigehiro Nagataki (RIKEN iTHEMS) and Yasunori Nomura (LITP Berkeley and RIKEN iTHEMS).

Reported by Masamichi Miyaji

Upcoming Events

Seminar

Testing the quantum nature of gravity "ab absurdo"

March 18 (Wed) 14:00 - 16:00, 2026

Emanuele Panella (Postdoctoral Researcher, Tor Vergata University of Rome, Italy)

The quest for a quantum description of gravity has been long, diverse, and productive. Yet, despite decades of theoretical progress, there is still no direct experimental evidence for the quantum nature of spacetime. In this talk, I explore an alternative, indirect route to probing quantum gravity by assuming the fundamental classicality of the gravitational field and examining the resulting observational conflicts. In particular, I will discuss a key consistency condition—known as the decoherence–diffusion trade-off—that any theory of fundamentally classical gravity coupled to quantum matter must satisfy. By analysing a toy model of a linearised classical–quantum (CQ) gravity–matter system, I will explicitly show how this trade-off implies unavoidable, measurable effects, such as a fundamental stochastic gravitational-wave background, which cannot be eliminated by fine-tuning the model parameters.

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

Event Official Language: English

Seminar

Critical Phenomena on the Bethe Lattice

March 18 (Wed) 16:00 - 18:00, 2026

Saswato Sen (Ph.D. Student, Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University (OIST))

We investigate the critical behavior of a family of Z2-symmetric scalar field theories on the Bethe lattice (the tree limit of regular hyperbolic tessellations) using both the non-perturbative Functional Renormalization Group and perturbation theory. Due to the hyperbolic nature of Bethe lattices, the Laplacian lacks a zero mode and exhibits a spectral gap. We demonstrate that closing the spectral gap via a modified Laplacian leads to novel critical behavior governed by interacting fixed points. This stands in contrast to the nearest-neighbor Ising model, which exhibits a phase transition with mean-field critical exponents. We further comment on the possible reasons for such a deviation.

Reference

  1. Rudrajit Banerjee, Nicolas Delporte, Saswato Sen, Reiko Toriumi, Critical Phenomena on the Bethe Lattice, (2026), arXiv: 2601.01961

Venue: via Zoom / #359, Main Research Building, RIKEN Wako Campus

Event Official Language: English

Workshop

Perspectives and applications of Koopman Operator Theory

March 19 (Thu) 9:00 - 18:00, 2026

Yoshihiko Susuki (Professor, Graduate School of Engineering, Kyoto University)
Hiroya Nakao (Professor, Department of Systems and Control Engineering, Institute of Science Tokyo)
Alexandre Mauroy (Associate Professor, Mathematics, University of Namur, Belgium)
Yuzuru Kato (Associate Professor, Department of Complex and Intelligent Systems, School of Systems Information Science, Future University-Hakodate)

PROGRAM:

9h45 - 10h15 Registration & Coffee

10h15 - 10h20 Opening Remarks - Satoshi Iso (RIKEN), Director of iTHEMS

10h20 - 11h20 SESSION 1 - Chair: Tetsuo Hatsuda (RIKEN)

Yoshihiko Susuki (Kyoto University): Koopman resolvents in dynamical systems and control

11h20 -11h40 Free Discussions

11h40 - 13h00 Lunch Break & Discussions

13h00-14h00 SESSION 2 - Chair: Narumi Fujii (Institute of Science Tokyo)

Alexandre Mauroy (University of Namur, Belgium): Analytic EDMD method for spectral analysis of fixed point dynamics

14h00 - 14h30 Coffee Break & Discussions

14h30 - 15h30 SESSION 3 - Chair: Tetsuo Hatsuda (RIKEN)

Hiroya Nakao (Institute of Science Tokyo): Koopman operator analysis of coupled oscillator systems

15h30 - 16h00 Coffee Break & Discussions

16h00 - 17h00 SESSION 4 - Chair: Riccardo Muolo (RIKEN)

Yuzuru Kato (Future University Hakodate): Analysis of quantum nonlinear oscillators on the basis of Koopman operator theory

17h00 - 17h05 Closing Remarks - Tetsuo Hatsuda, Chair of the Workshop

17h05 - 18h00 Free Discussions

Venue: Room 535-537, 5F, Main Research Building, RIKEN Wako Campus

Register: Event registration form / Zoom registration form

Event Official Language: English

Seminar

iTHEMS Biology Seminar

Mouse Limb Bud Skeletal Patterning Description and Modelling

March 19 (Thu) 13:00 - 14:00, 2026

Laura Aviñó Esteban (Ph.D. Candidate, European Molecular Biology Laboratory, Barcelona, Spain)

Understanding how complex organs reliably form during development remains a key question in biology. In this talk, I discuss how gene regulatory networks may generate skeletal patterns in the vertebrate limb, using Sox9 expression as a proxy, as it marks the earliest stages of cartilage formation. To address this, I developed new computational tools for reconstructing spatiotemporal gene expression and built models ranging from machine learning approaches to mechanistic frameworks. These analyses reveal that limb patterning cannot be explained by a single universal mechanism. Instead, different regions of the limb appear to use distinct regulatory strategies, uncovering an unexpected qualitative modularity in skeletal development. Together, these findings lead to a new hypothesis in which other systems, such as the vasculature may actively shape skeletal spacing in specific limb regions.

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

Event Official Language: English

Seminar

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Quantum Foundation Seminar

Quantum States Over Time: From Foundations To Applications

March 24 (Tue) 15:30 - 17:00, 2026

Minjeong Song (Research Fellow, Centre for Quantum Technologies, National University of Singapore, Singapore)

In this talk, I will introduce quantum states over time (QSOT), a formalism for describing quantum systems over space-time. I will begin by reviewing how QSOT has emerged in the literature. While conventional density operator formalism has been effective across many areas of quantum information theory, QSOT was developed to meet more specialized research needs— most notably, as a key ingredient to develop a quantum version of Bayes’ theorem. I will end the first part of my talk by comparing various QSOT that have been proposed.

In the second part, I will discuss the causal compatibility problem as an application of QSOT. I will focus on the temporal compatibility problem, which asks the following: from correlations in measurement outcomes alone, can two otherwise isolated parties establish whether such correlations are atemporal (i.e., temporally incompatible)? That is, can they rule out that they have been given the same system at two different times? I will first explain how characterizing measurement statistics in a causal agnostic scenario is equivalent to characterizing a specific type of QSOT, known as pseudo-density operators. I will then present our recent findings obtained by analyzing pseudo-density operators; In particular, we demonstrate that atemporality is distinct from entanglement, though they appear to be equivalent at first glance. Specifically, we show atemporality implies entanglement, but not vice versa, thus revealing that atemporality is a strictly stronger form of quantum correlations than entanglement. Nevertheless, we also find that sufficiently strong entanglement does imply atemporality.

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

Event Official Language: English

Lecture

Quantum Simulation of Non-Abelian Gauge Theories: Correcting Common Misconceptions (1/3)

March 24 (Tue) 18:00 - 19:00, 2026

Masanori Hanada (Reader, School of Mathematical Sciences, Queen Mary University of London, UK)

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

Event Official Language: Japanese

Seminar

Math-Phys Seminar

QFT as a set of ODEs

March 27 (Fri) 13:30 - 15:30, 2026

Qiao Jiaxin (Project Researcher, Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (Kavli IPMU), The University of Tokyo)

Correlation functions of local operators in Quantum Field Theory (QFT) on hyperbolic space can be fully characterized by the set of QFT data. These are the scaling dimensions of boundary operators, the boundary Operator Product Expansion (OPE) coefficients and the Boundary Operator Expansion (BOE) coefficients that characterize how each bulk operator can be expanded in terms of boundary operators. For simplicity, we focus on two dimensional QFTs and derive a universal set of first order Ordinary Differential Equations (ODEs) that encode the variation of the QFT data under an infinitesimal change of a bulk relevant coupling. In principle, our ODEs can be used to follow a renormalization group flow starting from a solvable QFT into a strongly coupled phase and to the flat space limit.

References

  1. Manuel Loparco, Grégoire Mathys, João Penedones, Jiaxin Qiao, Xiang Zhao, Locality constraints in AdS2 without parity, arXiv: 2511.20749
  2. Manuel Loparco, Grégoire Mathys, Joao Penedones, Jiaxin Qiao, Xiang Zhao, QFT as a set of ODEs, arXiv: 2601.04310

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

Event Official Language: English

Lecture

Quantum Simulation of Non-Abelian Gauge Theories: Correcting Common Misconceptions (2/3)

March 31 (Tue) 18:00 - 19:00, 2026

Masanori Hanada (Reader, School of Mathematical Sciences, Queen Mary University of London, UK)

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

Event Official Language: Japanese

Seminar

iTHEMS Biology Seminar

A mathematical promenade in microscopic locomotion

April 2 (Thu) 13:00 - 14:00, 2026

Clément Moreau (CNRS Researcher, CNRS, France)

The microscopic world offers a fascinating diversity of locomotion strategies, relying primarily on the use of flagella and cilia. These slender structures, capable of complex periodic deformations, serve as a major source of inspiration for medical microrobotics.
At this scale, fluid dynamics is governed by the predominance of viscosity over inertia. This low-Reynolds number regime imposes strict physical constraints, summarized by the famous « scallop theorem »: a reciprocal deformation cannot produce any net displacement. Mathematically, this is framed by the Stokes connection, which links changes in body shape to net movement in space.
This presentation proposes a journey through the modeling principles of microscopic swimmers. We will see how to derive analytical solutions to the locomotion problem by simplifying degrees of freedom or by assuming small deformation amplitudes. I will then present the perspective of control theory to address the « controllability » property, i.e. the ability of a locomotor to reach any target position and shape.
Finally, I will question a classic hypothesis in the field: the inextensibility of flagella. Although the literature often assumes these structures are rigid in the longitudinal direction, certain micro-organisms and artificial robots exhibit significant compression variations. I will present recent results, based on classical modeling tools, exploring the influence of compression-curvature coupling on locomotion efficiency at low Reynolds numbers.

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

Event Official Language: English

Seminar

ABBL-iTHEMS Joint Astro Seminar

A Hybrid Pseudo-spectral–PINN Approach to Black Hole Quasinormal Modes

April 3 (Fri) 14:00 - 15:15, 2026

Alexandre M. Pombo (PD, Institute of Physics of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Czechia)

Gravitational-wave detections by the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA network have turned compact-object mergers into precision probes of strong gravity. The post-merger ringdown is particularly incisive: it is governed by quasinormal modes (QNMs), the damped oscillations that encode the remnant's structure and provide a fingerprint of the final object. While current detectors constrain the dominant mode, next-generation observatories will resolve multiple modes with high precision, placing stringent demands on the accuracy of theoretical predictions. Computing QNMs for rotating black holes is, however, a non-trivial task, as it requires solving highly coupled, complex-valued perturbation equations where standard methods struggle. In this talk, I present SpectralPINN, a hybrid solver combining Pseudo-spectral methods with Physics-Informed Neural Networks, validated at 10⁻⁵ relative accuracy. I will present results for Kerr and Kerr-Newman black holes, demonstrating the method's robustness and accuracy across parameter space, and discuss its potential for extension to more exotic compact objects relevant to next-generation detector science.

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

Event Official Language: English

Lecture

Quantum Simulation of Non-Abelian Gauge Theories: Correcting Common Misconceptions (3/3)

April 7 (Tue) 18:00 - 19:30, 2026

Masanori Hanada (Reader, School of Mathematical Sciences, Queen Mary University of London, UK)

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

Event Official Language: Japanese

Seminar

ABBL-iTHEMS Joint Astro Seminar

Clumpy Outflows from Super-Eddington Accreting Black Holes

April 10 (Fri) 14:00 - 15:15, 2026

Haojie Hu (JSPS Research Fellow, University of Tsukuba)

Recent advances in X-ray spectroscopic observation have enabled researchers to reveal distinct clumpy structures in the super-Eddington outflows from the supermassive black hole in PDS 456 (XRISM Collaboration 2025), initiating detailed investigation of fine-scale structures in accretion-driven outflows. In this talk, I will introduce our high-resolution, two-dimensional radiation-hydrodynamics simulations with time-varying and anisotropic initial and boundary conditions that reproduce clumpy outflows from super-Eddington accretion flows. The resulting clumpy outflows extend across a wide range of radial distances and polar angles, exhibiting typical properties such as a size of ~10 rg (where rg is the gravitational radius), a velocity of ~0.05–0.2 c (where c is the speed of light), and about five clumps along the line of sight. Although the velocities are slightly smaller, these characteristics reasonably resemble those obtained from the XRISM observation. The gas density of the clumps is on the order of 10^-13–10^-12 g cm^-3, and their optical depth for electron scattering is approximately 1–10. The clumpy winds accelerated by radiation force are considered to originate from the region within <300 rg.

Venue: #220, 2F, Main Research Building, RIKEN Wako Campus / via Zoom

Event Official Language: English

Paper of the Week

Week 3, March 2026

2026-03-12

Title: Effective theory of surface oscillations in self-bound superfluid droplets
Author: Jun Mitsuhashi, Keisuke Fujii, Masaru Hongo
arXiv: http://arxiv.org/abs/2603.10304v1

Title: Phase diagram of 4D SU(3) Yang-Mills theory at $θ=π$ via imaginary theta simulations
Author: Akira Matsumoto, Mitsuaki Hirasawa, Jun Nishimura, Atis Yosprakob
arXiv: http://arxiv.org/abs/2603.09604v1

Title: Rovibrational energy levels of H$_2$O by quantum computing
Author: Erik Lötstedt, Tamás Szidarovszky
arXiv: http://arxiv.org/abs/2603.05795v1

Title: Schwinger effect in QCD and nuclear physics
Author: Hidetoshi Taya
arXiv: http://arxiv.org/abs/2603.07847v1

Title: Bergman space, Conformally flat 2-disk operads and affine Heisenberg vertex algebra
Author: Yuto Moriwaki
arXiv: http://arxiv.org/abs/2603.06491v1

Title: Mean-Field Convective Phase Separation under Thermal Gradients
Author: Meander Van den Brande, François Huveneers, Kyosuke Adachi
arXiv: http://arxiv.org/abs/2603.06214v1

Title: When minor issues matter: symmetries, pluralism, and polarization in similarity-based opinion dynamics
Author: Brian Mintz, Daniel Simonson, Dominik Wodarz, Feng Fu, Natalia L. Komarova
arXiv: http://arxiv.org/abs/2603.04939v1

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