Issue 1, 2014
Issue 2, 2012
We look forward to welcoming Stephen Powell of the University of Maryland to
Nordita, where he will be Assistant Professor of Theoretical Condensed Matter
Physics, starting September 2012.
His work has focused on phase transitions in quantum systems, including
fermion-?boson mixtures near a Feshbach resonance and spin dynamics near the
superfluid-?insulator transition of cold atoms in optical lattices. He has developed
a theory of a wide class of frustrated systems exhibiting ?spin-?liquid? states and
exotic phase transitions. His recent work includes spin vortices and Majorana
fermions in cold atomic systems.
Nordita welcomes Elizabeth Yang to our administrative staff.
Elizabeth joined Nordita in March as Scientific Program Coordinator.
She will be assisting program organizers with all aspects of preparation
and execution of Scientific Programs and she will be the primary contact
person at Nordita for program participants. Elizabeth will also work with
planning program budgets and with cost reporting and budget follow-up
for the programs.
At its meeting in February 2012, the Nordita Board approved six new Scientific Programs for 2013 - 2014 and they have now been added to the program schedule
For further information about these and other Nordita Scientific Programs, see the program schedule.
Nordita has signed cooperation agreements with the Asia Pacific Center for Theoretical Physics (APCTP) in Pohang, Korea, and the Scuola Internazionale Superiore di Studi Avanzati (SISSA) in Trieste, Italy, to promote scientific collaboration and facilitate the exchange of visitors. Nordita is looking to establish formal ties with several other international research institutions in Europe and worldwide in the near future and is open to co-sponsoring workshops and organizing other joint scientific activities.
This unique book, edited by Paolo Di Vecchia from Nordita together with Andrea Cappelli, Elena Castellani, and Filippo Colomo, explores the history of String Theory's early development, as told by many of its main protagonists. The book journeys from the first version of the theory (the so-called dual resonance model) in the late sixties, as an attempt to describe the physics of strong interactions outside the framework of quantum field theory, to its reinterpretation in the mid-seventies as a quantum theory of gravity unified with the other forces, and its subsequent development up to the superstring revolution in 1984.
The 2012 Nordita MasterClass is open until May 17 for applications from undergraduate students in the Nordic and Baltic countries. The school aims at introducing frontier areas of physics research at a level understandable for undergraduate students, and to stimulate their interest in further studies. It gives a unique possibility for students to meet outstanding scientists both in class and in an informal atmosphere.
The following five series of lectures, each of four hours, will be given. The lectures will be accompanied by group exercises and discussion sessions.
The 2012 Nordita MasterClass will be held in Hillerød, a picturesque suburb north of Copenhagen, Denmark, from 28 July 2012 to 04 August 2012. It is organized by Paolo DiVecchia and Dhrubaditya Mitra.
The visiting PhD student program at Nordita is open for applications for visits during the 2012 fall term. The program, primarily intended for PhD students in the Nordic and Baltic countries, offers 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 for the students. Visiting PhD fellows may also be interested in taking PhD-level courses offered at Stockholm area universities.
April 16 ? May 11, 2012
In this program we gather scientists working on the subject to study: (a) Techniques and algorithms that are developed using statistical mechanics to process high dimensional data. These include, but are not restricted to, various exact and approximate algorithms used for ?tting statistical models, Bayesian inference and sampling methods. (b) The biology of information processing in organisms, importantly in large scale neuronal networks. This part involves both experimental and theoretical work. (c) The application of statistical mechanics techniques for analyzing high-throughput experimental data collected form neuronal and genetic networks and the implementation of learning and inference algorithms in biological systems
Coordinators: John Hertz, Peter Latham, Yasser Roudi
28 May ? 22 June 2012
The program is dedicated to the present and future phenomenological impact of the first years of results from the Large Hadron Collider experiments at CERN. The aim is to have a very active scientific environment with theorists and experimentalists discussing the latest results and investigating future directions.
Coordinators: Paolo Di Vecchia, Sten Hellman, Francesco Sannino, Kimmo Tuominen, Chris Kouvaris, Claudio Pica
30 July ? 25 August 2012
Topological states of matter, such as topological insulators, topological superconductors, and quantum Hall liquids, are of great recent interest, both theoretically and experimentally. The purpose of this program is to gather experts on these different types of topological states, to discuss recent developments and create an exciting atmosphere where we can come up with new ideas.
Coordinators: Eddy Ardonne, Annica Black-Schaffer, Hans Hansson
23 May 2012
The purpose of the meeting is to explore common interests in the area of protoplanetary disks evolution in young solar systems and discuss possible Nordita initiatives to support further collaboration.
May 23 ? 26, 2012
The two main issues for this meeting are 'unsatisfiability' or in computer science language max-K-SAT problems and their variants, and glasses, where for the dynamical properties and real examples the low-lying energy landscape structure defines the physics. The meeting aims to extend the reach of statistical mechanics from satisfiability to unsatisfiability, and the eventual connection to glasses.
Coordinators: Mikko Alava, Erik Aurell, Ralf Eichhorn, Pekka Orponen
June 11 ? 17, 2012
The conference is part of the program Origin of Mass 2012. It is the third in a series of meetings organized with the main aim of bringing together experts working at the frontier of research on the origin of bright and dark matter in particle physics, astrophysics and cosmology.
Coordinators: Paolo Di Vecchia, Francesco Sannino, Sten Hellman, Kimmo Tuominen, Claudio Pica, Chris Kouvaris
June 27 ? 29, 2012
The workshop focuses on non-locality in quantum foundations, quantum information, and quantum gravity, including string theory and emergent gravity. The aim of the workshop is to bring together researchers working on various aspects of non-locality, to identify commonalities as well as differences in the role non-locality plays in different approaches to a fundamental description of space, time and matter.
Coordinator: Sabine Hossenfelder
1?7 July 2012
The Thirteenth Marcel Grossmann Meeting on Recent Developments in Theoretical and Experimental General Relativity, Gravitation, and Relativistic Field Theory will take place at Stockholm University and AlbaNova in Stockholm, Sweden. Nordita is one of the sponsors of this international conference.
28 July ? 4 August 2012
The traditional Nordita one-week summer school in physics for students from the Nordic and Baltic countries will be organized this year in Danhostel Hillerød; Nordisk Lejrskole & Kursuscenter in Hillerød, a picturesque town north of Copenhagen, Denmark. The school aims at introducing frontier areas of physics research by world top scientists at a level understandable for undergraduate students, and also to stimulate further studies. It gives a unique opportunity for students to learn the newest most exciting developments in theoretical physics and to work together with other Nordic/Baltic students.
Coordinators: Dhrubaditya Mitra, Paolo Di Vecchia
6?10 August 2012
Owing to their large length scales and small viscosities, astrophysical objects are often observed to be turbulent. Given that laboratory experiments are usually not available and analytical techniques are very limited, numerical simulations become the most valuable tool to study these complicated systems. By bringing together renowned experts from around the world, some of the goals of this workshop are to provide a suit of clear and simple test cases, and find ways to improve existing numerical algorithms.
Coordinators: Chi-Kwan Chan, Dhrubaditya Mitra, & Axel Brandenburg
The generation of large-scale magnetic fields in the Sun is generally ascribed to the α effect, a pseudo-scalar composed of the dot product of angular velocity (Ω, an axial vector) and the gradients (polar vectors) of density ρ and turbulence intensity u. But what is the relative importance of density and turbulence intensity? Two different proposals have been around, Ω.∇ln(ρu) put forward by Steenbeck, Krause, & Rädler (1966) and Ω.∇ln(ρSu) with S=3/2 suggested by Rüdiger & Kitchatinov (1992).
During the last Informal discussion on magnetic fields in the Universe on 30 April, Axel Brandenburg from Nordita's astrophysis group offerred a bottle of wine to the person able to figure out which, if any, is right.
On May 8 the prize went to
Oliver Gressel,
pictured above receiving a 2003 Spätburgunder Beerenauslese.
His result was Ω.∇ln(ρu3)
for his supernova-driven turbulence simulations, which Axel subsequently
confirmed via completely independent simulations.
This result is now keeping the members and visitors of the
AstroDyn project busy,
because they know that in the solar convection zone
ρu3 is approximately constant!
Whether the α effect therefore really vanishes in the convection zone will hopefully soon be clarified.
The next Nordita Board meeting will take place in Oslo on May 24 - 25, 2012.
→ 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 www.nordita.org/news/nordita_news/available_issues.