CENTERFOR THEORETICAL PHYSICS (CNRS / ECOLE POLYTECHNIQUE) ACTIVITY REPORT 2013-2018 LISTOF ACRONYMS CNRS is the French acronym for “Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique” “l’X” is the nickname of the Ecole Polytechnique CRCN CNRS Researcher at CNRS * ´ DR2 CNRS 2nd grade Senior Researcher at CNRS ´ DR1 CNRS 1st grade Senior Researcher at CNRS ´ ESR CNRS Emeritus Senior Researcher at CNRS ´ AP X Assistant Professor at Ecole Polytechnique ´ PR X Full Professor at Ecole Polytechnique ´ AE X Assistant Engineer at Ecole Polytechnique ´ AE CNRS Assistant Engineer at CNRS ´ RE X Research Engineer at Ecole Polytechnique ´ RE CNRS Research Engineer at CNRS ´ HPC High-Performance Computing ´ *The CRCN position (“Chargé de Recherche de Classe Normale”) is the merging of the former CR2 and CR1 positions, that is, 2nd grade Researcher and 1st grade Reseacher, respectively. iii CONTENTS OVERVIEW OF THE CPHT AND ITS EVOLUTION OVER THE 2013-2018 PERIOD 1 SCIENTIFIC RESULTS,RESEARCH ACTIVITIES, AND COMPUTING RESSOURCES 17 1 Condensed Matter 21 2 Laser Plasma Interaction 45 3 Magnetized Plasmas 65 4 Mathematical Physics 81 5 Particle Physics 95 6 String Theory 115 7 The PHYMATH IT staff and mesocenter 131 SWOT ANALYSIS AND SCIENTIFIC PROJECT FOR THE NEXT FIVE YEARS 139 8 SWOT Analysis 141 9 Scientific Project: Main Lines 145 v CONTENTS (DETAILED) OVERVIEW OF THE CPHT AND ITS EVOLUTION OVER THE 2013-2018 PERIOD 1 Bird’s eye view............................................... 3 Research highlights ........................................... 4 Permanent staff and organization at a glance ............................ 10 Evolution of the staffing......................................... 11 Evolution of the budget......................................... 13 A glance at “local”, national, and international collaborations .................. 13 About the functioning of the lab.................................... 14 About teaching activities ........................................ 14 About gender balance.......................................... 15 SCIENTIFIC RESULTS,RESEARCH ACTIVITIES, AND COMPUTING RESSOURCES 17 1 Condensed Matter 21 1.1 Introduction ............................................ 21 1.2 Models of correlated fermions – methods and algorithms.................. 22 1.3 Ab initio electronic structure calculations for correlated electron materials . 23 1.4 Ultracold atom gases and quantum simulators........................ 26 1.5 Driven hybrid systems and quantum electrodynamics ................... 27 1.6 Topological Quantum Matter .................................. 27 1.7 PhD supervisions ......................................... 28 1.8 Contracts and grants ....................................... 29 1.9 Administrative duties....................................... 30 1.10 Publications ............................................ 32 2 Laser Plasma Interaction 45 2.1 Introduction ............................................ 45 2.2 Modelling of laser-plasma interaction in the context of laser fusion............ 45 2.3 Interaction of intense short laser pulses in plasmas ..................... 48 2.4 Nonlinear light matter interaction at moderate laser intensities.............. 51 2.5 PhD supervisions ......................................... 55 2.6 Contracts and grants ....................................... 55 2.7 Administrative duties....................................... 55 2.8 Publications ............................................ 56 3 Magnetized Plasmas 65 3.1 Presentation of the team..................................... 65 3.2 Tokamak plasmas......................................... 66 3.3 Astrophysical plasmas ...................................... 71 3.4 Hall thruster ............................................ 73 3.5 PhD supervisions ......................................... 73 3.6 Contracts and grants ....................................... 74 3.7 Administrative duties....................................... 74 vii viii CONTENTS (DETAILED) 3.8 Numerical research codes and model bases.......................... 74 3.9 Publications ............................................ 75 4 Mathematical Physics 81 4.1 Introduction ............................................ 81 4.2 Field Theory ............................................ 82 4.3 Mathematical ecology....................................... 83 4.4 Dynamical systems and mathematical statistical physics.................. 84 4.5 Stochastic processes........................................ 86 4.6 Applied mechanics ........................................ 87 4.7 PhD supervisions ......................................... 87 4.8 Contracts and grants ....................................... 87 4.9 Administrative duties....................................... 87 4.10 Publications ............................................ 88 5 Particle Physics 95 5.1 Introduction ............................................ 95 5.2 Towards a 3-D tomography of the nucleons.......................... 96 5.3 High-energy QCD......................................... 97 5.4 Lattice QCD............................................. 101 5.5 Interface between perturbative and non-perturbative QCD ................ 101 5.6 PhD supervisions ......................................... 103 5.7 Contracts and grants ....................................... 104 5.8 Administrative duties....................................... 104 5.9 General prospects......................................... 104 5.10 Publications ............................................ 105 6 String Theory 115 6.1 Introduction ............................................ 115 6.2 Formal aspects of string and supergravity theories...................... 116 6.3 Cosmology and particle phenomenology ........................... 117 6.4 Quantum gravity and black holes................................ 118 6.5 General aspects of holography.................................. 119 6.6 Holographic applications..................................... 120 6.7 PhD supervisions ......................................... 121 6.8 Contracts and grants ....................................... 121 6.9 Administrative duties....................................... 122 6.10 Publications ............................................ 122 7 The PHYMATH IT staff and mesocenter 131 7.1 The common resources...................................... 131 7.2 Resources owned by the CPHT ................................. 133 7.3 Protection of the scientific and technical heritage ...................... 136 7.4 Projects and perspectives..................................... 137 CONTENTS (DETAILED) ix SWOT ANALYSIS AND SCIENTIFIC PROJECT FOR THE NEXT FIVE YEARS 139 8 SWOT Analysis 141 8.1 Strengths .............................................. 141 8.2 Weaknesses............................................. 141 8.3 Opportunities ........................................... 142 8.4 Threats ............................................... 142 9 Scientific Project: Main Lines 145 9.1 Condensed Matter......................................... 145 9.2 Laser Plasma Interaction..................................... 147 9.3 Magnetized Plasmas........................................ 148 9.4 Mathematical Physics....................................... 149 9.5 Particle Physics........................................... 150 9.6 String Theory............................................ 151 OVERVIEW OF THE CPHT AND ITS EVOLUTION OVER THE 2013-2018 PERIOD 1 3 We describe the CPHT and its evolution over the past 5 years, in successively finer steps. BIRD’S EYE VIEW The CPHT (acronym for Centre de Physique Théorique) is a Mixed Research Unit (UMR is the French acronym) between the CNRS and the Ecole Polytechnique. It was created in 1958 by Louis Michel. Snapshot view as of June 30 2018. The CPHT has 80 members.† This number is composed as fol- lows. The permanent research staff consists of 36 people: • 23 CNRS Researchers; • 2 Research Engineers at Ecole Polytechnique; • 5 Teachers-Researchers (4 at Ecole Polytechnique and 1 Professor at Collège de France‡) ); • 6 Emeritus Senior Researchers at CNRS. There are 19 PhD theses in progress and 18 Postdoctoral Fellows. The administrative staff consists of 4 people and the IT staff consists of 2 people. Structure of the CPHT as of June 30 2018. The lab is structured in six groups. We indicate the number of permanent researchers for each group in parentheses, without counting Emeritus Senior Researchers at CNRS. This structure is the same as that of the previous 5-year period. RESEARCH GROUPS CONDENSED MATTER (7) LASER PLASMA INTERACTION (2.6) MAGNETIZED PLASMAS (5.4) MATHEMATICAL PHYSICS (4) PARTICLE PHYSICS (5) STRING THEORY (6) Note: there is a researcher working for two groups, which explains the non-integer values. A few figures. The following figures are relevant indicators of the vitality of the CPHT: • about 530 publications in international refereed journals for the 2013-2018 period; • about 1400 “missions” for the 2013-2018 period. By “missions” we mean invitations of researchers at the CPHT, or researchers from the CPHT going to other labs or to conferences in France and abroad; • 3 ongoing ERC grants (one “Starting”, one “Consolidator”, and one “Synergy”) / 9 ANR projects (8 of them managed by the CPHT), with 5 ongoing ones / 3 EUROfusion projects / 1 Simons Foundation grant; • 21 defended PhD theses during the 2013-2018 period, and 19 PhD theses in progress. †One should also aggregate the visitors and undergraduate interns to have the effective size of the lab. ‡A formalization