Issue 1, 2014
Issue 2, 2010
Chris Pethick reached retirement age at the end of February after 37 years of service as Nordita Professor but he has by no means retired from his active life as a researcher and we look forward to his future contributions as Emeritus Professor at NBI and Nordita. His main current research interests are in ultracold atomic gases, especially strongly correlated Fermi gases, and in neutrino interactions in dense matter. In the latter area he has embarked on a programme to improve theoretical estimates of rates of neutrino processes in hot dense matter, which are a crucial ingredient in calculations of stellar collapse, supernovae, neutron star formation, gravitational wave generation, and neutron star cooling. Chris has contributed to diverse fields of physics, especially the properties of quantum liquids, both normal and superfluid, and the properties of dense matter and neutron stars. In 2008 he, together with Gordon Baym and Jason Ho, received the Lars Onsager Prize of the American Physical Society for his work on quantum liquids. He is a foreign member of the The Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters and of the Royal Norwegian Society of Sciences and Letters, and a Fellow of the Americal Physical Society.
Nordita is announcing a tenured professorship in theoretical condensed matter physics with an expected starting date in January 2011. This holder of the position is expected to play an important role in the ongoing buildup of Nordita in Stockholm, carrying out high-quality research and providing leadership in theoretical condensed matter physics. This will include guiding postdoctoral fellows, interacting with colleagues and visitors at Nordita and elsewhere in the Nordic countries, and taking an active part in organizing research programs and other events. There are no teaching obligations at Nordita, but faculty members are encouraged to engage in PhD supervision and advanced level teaching at Nordic universities. Strong candidates from any subfield of theoretical condensed matter physics and related areas, including biological physics, complex systems, and statistical physics, will be considered. The application deadline has been extended to September 15, 2010.
Further information can be found in the advertisement for the professorship on our homepage.
Nordita, the Nordic Institute for Theoretical Physics, has announced a new program, intended for PhD students in the Nordic and Baltic countries, offering selected students the opportunity to spend time at Nordita and take advantage of the research environment and ongoing scientific activities at the institute and the AlbaNova University Center in Stockholm. This can, in particular, include collaboration on research projects with Nordita academic staff and participation in Nordita Scientific Programs in areas of interest to the students, but should also be viewed as an opportunity to broaden their general knowledge and to interact with researchers working in diverse areas of modern theoretical physics. Visiting PhD fellows may also be interested in taking PhD-level courses offered at Stockholm area universities.
A Visiting PhD Fellowship will be awarded for a period of one to four months, providing accommodation and a contribution towards travel and living expenses in Stockholm. Fellows must be registered PhD students in theoretical physics or a related subject at a university in the Nordic or Baltic countries at the time of the fellowship visit to Nordita. Applications for the fellowship program can be submitted at http://phdfellows.nordita.org and please note that only on-line applications will be considered. A letter of recommendation from a senior scientist who is familiar with the work of the candidate is required and should be submitted via the on-line system.
Fellowships are awarded twice a year but starting dates for stays at Nordita are flexible. The application deadline for Fall 2010 has been extended to June 15, 2010 and applications for Spring 2011 should be received by November 30, 2010. Please direct enquiries about Nordita Visiting PhD Fellowships to the Director of Nordita, Professor Larus Thorlacius (larus@nordita.org).
Nordita programs are open events. Anyone can apply. Participation is however limited to a maximum of about 25 participants at any given time. Notifications will be sent out by Nordita. See the list of all Nordita programs on our home page.
→ Details
The program has two main themes. One is integrability in N = 4 gauge theories, where there has been remarkable progress over the last six years. The scienti?c goal of this part of the program is to bring together leaders in the ?eld in order to attack the many remaining problems in the subject. The core participants for the program are expected to be specialists in integrability, gauge theories and/or string theory, fostering an environment to aid in the search for new directions in N = 4 gauge theories and other theories that have an underlying integrable structure.
The 2010 conference on Integrability in Gauge and String Theories (IGST2010) will be held at the program site from 28 June to 2 July.
The other theme of the program is applications of AdS/CFT duality. The goal of this part of the program is further advance the exciting developments that have taken place with regard to quark-gluon plasmas, non-relativistic CFTs, hydrodynamics, and possible applications to condensed matter systems.
Another objective of the program is to support interaction between the two main themes. It is anticipated that specialists from each group will be simultaneously present, allowing for the exchange of new ideas between the two groups.
from 19 July 2010 to 27 August 2010
→ Details and application form
This program will focus on frontiers in the physics of quantum solids, liquids and gases (defined in a broad sense) including recent developments in superfluids, supersolids, superconductors, excitonic condensates and Bose-Einstein condensates in traps. Specific topics include: Topological defects, phase transitions and improved numerical methods for their investigation, novel materials, novel realizations of superfluid states and supersolidity.
from 30 August 2010 to 24 September 2010
→ Details and application form
The program is aimed at bringing together experts in the ?elds of nanoscale and low-dimensional condensed matter physics, quantum gases, integrable models, statistical and quantum ?eld theory, and mathematical physics, to develop interdisciplinary communication and collaborations. Experimentalists will be visiting for shorter periods, to provide overview talks on recent developments. An important aspect of the workshop is to boost fundamental theoretical research on nanoscale and low-dimensional systems.
from 27 September 2010 to 29 October 2010
→ Details and application form
The interdisciplinary field of quantum information processing and communication connects at its deepest level quantum mechanics, photonics, solid state physics, atomic physics, and electronics with computer science and information theory in order to gain features in cryptography, communication, and computing that are impossible to achieve using classical methods. Quantum information science has also revitalized the discussions about the foundations of quantum theory. This field has grown explosively and is now one of the hottest subfields of both computer science and physics.
The scientific program on Quantum Information is primarily focusing on physical and theoretical aspects of quantum information processing and communication, as well as on their physical implementation. The aim of the program is to bring together key and active researchers in the foundations of quantum mechanics, quantum information theory, quantum communication, quantum key distribution, and quantum computing to review, present and discuss recent important results.
The next meeting of the Nordita Board will be in Stockholm on June 4, 2010.
→ Link to electronic preprints: www.nordita.org/preprints The following preprints have been posted to the Nordita on-line archive since the last newsletter issue:
If you have information about meetings or other items that would be useful to include in Nordita News, please send it to Anne Jifält, Nordita, email: anne@kth.se.
For back issues of the Nordita newsletter, see http://www.nordita.org/news/nordita_news/available_issues/index.php