RIKEN Research covers an interview with Dr. Enrico Rinaldi.
See the article in the Fall issue (page 4 from the following link).

iTHEMS Colloquium was held on 4 Oct. 2019, inviting Prof. Yasuyuki Kawahigashi from the University of Tokyo (he is also a senior visiting scientist of iTHEMS). The title was "Topological phases of matter and operator algebras", and he explained his researches on operator algebra and their relations with theoretical physics. The central subject of the talk was modular tensor category (MTC). A subfactor (an inclusion of simple von Neumann algebra) has the symmetry of a tensor category, in an analogous way to the Galois theory of fields. MTC is an important class of tensor category having an interesting commutativity of the tensor product, and is also a useful tool to describe the anyonic statistics of quasi-particles. A powerful source of MTC is conformal field theory, and a comparison of two mathematical approaches (conformal net and vertex operator algebra) is a recent hot topic. In this talk Prof. Kawahigashi displayed three interesting examples in which a mathematical research, originated from its own motivation, helps the study of mathemtaical physics later. The first is a conjecture by Lan-Wang-Wen about the mathematical formulation of gapped domain wall, which is rejected by a knowledge in subfactor theory. The second is alpha-induction in the theory of MTC, which is now understood as a mathematical formulation of anyon condensation. The third is a work by Bultinck et. al. on tensor network, which turned out to be parallel with the subfactor theory (such as tube algebra and flat connection) studied by Ocneanu, Haagerup and Prof. Kawahigashi in 80-90's. Because the talk was organized coherently, we can enjoy a lot of topics in 90 minutes.

Virtual reality is a useful tool for exploring and presenting 3-D data because your brain is naturally tuned for interpreting the 3-D world. Experiencing the data in 3-D rather than on a 2-D screen takes advantage of these tunings. And, of course, it makes for a very memorable presentation of data, both to scientists and to the public.

iTHEMS researchers Gilles Ferrand and Don Warren hosted an all-RIKEN workshop on virtual reality on October 7. This workshop drew nearly 30 people from RIKEN and beyond. Almost everybody studied something other than astrophysics. Most people were not iTHEMS members. Several were not researchers! Attendees learned about the VR project that Gilles and Don have worked on for two years, and got to explore data using VR headsets.

The goal of the workshop was to build a community of researchers with a shared interest in VR. And, as Nathan Shammah demonstrated, any time you put scientists in a room together you can get discussion about their work. We hope that continued discussion of VR leads to more discussion of personal research, and maybe even new interdisciplinary projects!

If you missed the first workshop, but would like to join Gilles and Don for the second workshop (a day-long, hands-on experience to learn about the VR demo and teach you how to develop software for VR), send Gilles or Don an email.