Program
All the session will be held in "Panasonic Auditorium" of
the Yukawa Memorial Hall.
Download timetable in pdf format
Invited Speakers
- Michael Creutz (Brookhaven National Laboratory)
For the strong nuclear forces, it is crucial
to understand the strong coupling regime. The primary technique
for this is the lattice. While basically an ultraviolet
regulator, the lattice avoids the use of a perturbative
expansion. I discuss some of the historical circumstances that
drove us to this approach, which has had immense success,
convincingly demonstrating quark confinement and obtaining
crucial properties of the strong interactions from first
principles.
Slide : pdf
- Akira Furusaki (RIKEN)
"Topological insulators and superconductors"
[Show abstract]
Topological insulators are a band insulator
with metallic surface (boundary). The massless boundary
excitations are stable because of nontrivial topological
property of electronic wavefunctions in the bulk. Similarly,
topological superconductors are a BCS superconductor with fully
gapped excitations in the bulk and gapless surface states. I
will review some theoretical aspects of these new states of
matter.
- Gary W. Gibbons (Cambridge)
"General Relativity Applied to Non-Gravitational Physics"
[Show abstract]
In this talk I will survey how basic ideas and
concepts in General Relativity may be applied to areas of
physics where gravitation plays no role
Slide : pdf
- Tetsuo Hatsuda (Tokyo/RIKEN)
"QCD Structure of Hadronic Matter"
[Show abstract]
I review the current understanding of the
strongly interacting nuclear system on the basis of the
fundamental theory of strong interaction, the
quantum chromodynamics (QCD).
Slide : pdf
- Kazuo Hosomichi (YITP)
"M-theory and exact results in SUSY gauge theories"
[Show abstract]
In superstring theory and M-theory, there are various spatially
extended solitons called branes. Understanding their worldvolume
dynamics has been a major problem in formal quantum field theory
for the last 15 years. In this talk I will first review some recent
developments in supersymmetric gauge theories based on explicit
path integration using SUSY localization principle. I will then discuss
some application of the results which led to a new understanding
of branes in M-theory.
Slide : pdf
- Christian Maes (Leuven)
A major part of theoretical and mathematical nonequilibrium
studies of the last 150 years have been devoted to the relaxation
to and the response in equilibrium. Where steady regimes further
away from equilibrium are considered, the emphasis has remained on
entropic considerations, either in the study of entropy production
(as dissipated heat) or from the point of view of
information-theoretic aspects.
Since some two decades, nonequilibrium studies have revisited steady
regimes further away from equilibrium, and a fluctuation-response
theory is starting to emerge. Yet most results concern specific
(often toy-)models, be it stochastic or highly chaotic. In general
the broader theoretical ideas concentrate on entropy production as
inherited from irreversible thermodynamics. The present talk will
emphasize the time-symmetric fluctuation sector. We will
investigate the role of dynamical activity in the construction of
steady state statistical mechanics. Illustrations include
nonequilibrium heat capacities and modified Sutherland-Einstein
relations.
Slide : pdf
- Hitoshi Murayama (IPMU/Berkeley)
"What have we learned from the LHC so far?"
- Tsvi Piran (Hebrew)
"Gamma Ray Bursts Enigma and a Tool"
[Show abstract]
Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs) are the brightest explosions in our
universe. For a few seconds a single source emits energy just a
few orders of magnitude below the rest of the universe
combined. Their enigmatic nature has been the focus of high
energy astrophysics for almost fifty years, since their
serendipitous discovery in the late sixties. I review our
current understanding of GRBs, focusing on their unique
properties such as the association with a black hole formation,
with ultrarelativistic jets and with the acceleration of
particles to ultrahigh energies. I examine possible GRBs
sources: collapsing stars, merging neutron stars and
supernovae shock breakout. The later are the sources of the
newly discovered population of low luminosity GRBs. As a tool
GRBs enable us to explore new physics that cannot be reached
otherwise. For example GeV emission from GRBs has been used to
set the best current limits on deviations from Lorentz
violation. I explore these and other implications of GRB
observations.
Slide : pdf
- Eliezer Rabinovici (Hebrew)
"Confirming Prejudices and Encountering Surprises in the Study of
the AdS/CFT correspondence"
[Show abstract]
I will describe on the one hand how the sting was removed from
the so called Black Hole Information Paradox confirming a wide
spread prejudice. On the other hand I will describe how doubt is
cast upon a prejudice regarding the need to resolve some
singularities in theories of gravity. The work described is based
on work in collaboration with J.L.F. Barbon. I will present, as
requested, some perspectives.
- Peter Schuck (Orsay)
"Nuclei and Nuclear Systems: Structure, Clusters, Quantum
Condensates"
[Show abstract]
In the first part of the talk I shortly review recent highlights
and open problems in nuclear stucture physics mostly related to
exotic nuclei and outer crust of neutron stars: pairing,
drip-lines, symmetry energy and more. In the second part I will
review the present state of the art of nuclear cluster physics,
specially quartet or alpha-particle condensation in finite nuclei
and also nuclear matter.
Slide : pdf
- Gordon Semenoff (British Columbia)
"Holography and Strongly Coupled Gauge Theories in 3D"
[Show abstract]
The AdS/CFT correspondence of string theory offers the hope of
direct, mathematically precise and systematically correctable study
of the strong coupling limit of quantum systems. I will describe
some progress toward this goal in a simple example: the probe
D-brane dual of a class of relativistic field theories which
resemble the description of graphene by relativistic fermions.
Slide : pdf
- Naoshi Sugiyama (Nagoya)
"Have we understood the Universe?"
[Show abstract]
We are living in the golden age of cosmology. Observations lead
the progress of the field. Two Nobel prizes went to cosmology in
last 5years. Now we have known the contents of the universe very
precisely from recent observations, especially whole sky
temperature measurements of cosmic microwave background radiation
by WMAP satellite. It turns out, however, 73% is dark energy, 23%
is dark matter and only 4.6% is atoms. We don’t know anything
about dark energy besides that it dominates the universe and makes
the universe accelerate. We haven’t yet found out what is the
dark matter though it was discovered more than 80 years ago. Now we
are very much confident that there exists a period of super-luminal
expansion, i.e., inflation, in the very early universe. However we
don’t know anything about the mechanism of inflation although too
many models are proposed. So a question arises. Have we really
understood the Universe?
- Xin-Nian Wang (LBNL/CCNU)
"Properties of dense matter in high-energy heavy-ion collisions"
[Show abstract]
Nuclear matter is predicted to undergo a phase transition and
become a plasma of quarks and gluons (QGP) at high temperature
and density. I will discuss some expected features of QCD at
high temperature and density, theoretical interpretations of
recent experimental observations and challenges in unraveling
some of the basic properties of dense matter in the strongly
interacting regime.
Slide : pdf
- Jan Zaanen (Leiden)
"Quantum criticality, high Tc superconductivity
and the AdS/CFT correspondence of string theory"
[Show abstract]
The general nature of matter formed from fermions is
mysterious. The established methods of many body quantum physics
fail and empirically one finds that the phenomenological
Fermi-liquid and BCS theories fail: non Fermi-liquid quantum
critical metals are observed in heavy fermion systems and
cuprate high Tc superconductors. Remarkably, it appears that the
mathematics of string theory is capable of describing such
states of fermion matter. The AdS/CFT correspondence translates
this problem into an equivalent general-relativity problem
involving the propagation of classical fields in an
Anti-de-Sitter space-time with a black hole in its
center. Triggered by the success of AdS/CFT predicting the low
viscosity of the quark-gluon plasma, the focus shifted very
recently to the fermions, creating much excitement. It appears
that both emergent Fermi-liquids and non Fermi-liquids can be
gravitationally encoded, as well as ‘holographic’
superconductors having suggestive traits in common with the real
life high Tc variety.
Timetable (as of January 24, 2012)
