Annual Report Theoretical Physics Institute (Founded 1960)
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Annual Report Theoretical Physics Institute (Founded 1960) This report summarizes the activities and publications of the Institute Members, Research Associates, Postdoctoral Fellows, Graduate Students and Visitors for the period July 1, 2017 – June 30, 2018 Further information can be obtained from: The Director Theoretical Physics Institute Department of Physics University of Alberta Edmonton, Alberta T6G 2E1 Canada http://www.physics.ualberta.ca July 1, 2018 1 Table of Contents Director’s Report .............................................................................................................. 3 TPI Council and Members ............................................................................................... 4 Council of the Institute .................................................................................................... 4 Emeritus Members ........................................................................................................... 5 Postdoctoral Fellows/Research Associates ...................................................................... 5 Graduate Students ............................................................................................................ 6 Research Programs ........................................................................................................... 7 Research Highlights ........................................................................................................ 40 International Collaborations ......................................................................................... 44 Visitor Programs ............................................................................................................. 45 Hiromi Umezawa Lecture ............................................................................................. 45 TPI Seminars ................................................................................................................. 46 Conferences ..................................................................................................................... 47 2 Director’s Report The Theoretical Physics Institute (TPI) enters its 58th year and continues to play an important role in fostering contacts and collaborations, particularly among Physics, Mathematics and Chemistry Departments in the Faculty of Science and the University. The TPI is a unique Canadian institution and through the excellence of its members and scientific activities it is widely recognized internationally. This report describes accomplishments of Institute members in the 2017-2018 academic year. The Institute currently has 26 Active members, 9 Emeritus members and 2 Honorary members (Werner Israel and Juergen Kreuzer) along with 17 Postdoctoral/Research Associates and 66 Graduate Students. The two newest members of the TPI who joined last year are Prof. Rodrigo Fernandez (Theoretical Astrophysics) from the Department of Physics and Prof. Thomas Creutzig (Mathematical Physics) from the Department of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences. Both gave overviews of their research programs in TPI seminars last fall. Two other new members of the Institute include Dr. Rufus Boyack (PhD, University of Chicago) who is the recipient of the inaugural TPI Postdoctoral Fellowship and Dr. Yasaman K. Yazdi (PhD, Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics), recipient of the Avadh Bhatia Postdoctoral Research Fellowship. These outstanding young researchers play an important role in the major goal of the Institute which is creating new fundamental ideas and expanding the role of mathematical concepts in expressing the laws of nature. The Research Programs and Research Highlights sections of the report give detailed accounts of subject areas and presents examples of the topics which are investigated in the Institute. The research of the members includes topics such as mathematical physics, gravitation and cosmology, subatomic physics and quantum field theory, condensed matter physics, quantum computing, theoretical chemistry, astrophysics, plasma physics, geophysics and biophysics. International Collaborations are a key element to the success of the Institute and two of the recent major efforts include the recent TPI participation in the Canadian membership of the Asian Pacific Center for Theoretical Physics (APCTP) and the TPI – Charles University, Czech Republic, spearheaded by Prof. Valeri Frolov. The Canadian membership in the APCTP consists of the 3 institutions: TPI, Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics and TRIUMF at UBC. With the support of the APCTP we were able to co-organize and host the Joint Canada-Asia Pacific Conference on General Relativity and Relativistic Astrophysics here at the University of Alberta, June 25-29,2018. Highlights of the conference are presented in the Conference section of this report. As part of this conference a Stephen Hawking Memorial Session was held with excellent presentations by some of his colleagues. As part of the Hiroomi Umezawa Lecture Series we had the pleasure of hosting Professor Patrick Diamond, Distinguished Professor from the Department of Physics and Center for Astrophysics and Space Science, University of California, San Diego. In addition there were 10 TPI Seminars presented by TPI members and International and Canadian researchers. Finally, the TPI sponsored the annual Lake Louise Winter Institute where members were involved in the organization and presentation of invited talks. A special highlight of the TPI was the 2 day workshop on “Contemporary Topics in Mathematical Physics” held at the Banff Research Station (BIRS) last fall, organized by Thomas Creutzig, Terry Gannon and myself. It consisted of TPI members and two visiting professors, Juergen Fuchs and Marcus Berg, internationally renowned researchers in String and Conformal Field Theory as well Prof. Mark Walton, University of Lethbridge. 3 TPI Council and Members Council of the Institute Director: Richard D. Sydora, Department of Physics Ex Officio Institute Members Mauricio Sacchi, Chair, Department of Physics Jonathan Schaeffer, Dean, Faculty of Science Peter Minev, Applied Mathematics Institute Matthias Ruth, Vice-President Research Honorary Members W. Israel, PhD (Dublin), FRS, FRSC H.J. Kreuzer, PhD (Bonn, Germany), DSc, FRSC Active Members • Vincent Bouchard, PhD (Oxford) • Marc de Montigny, PhD (Université de • John Bowman, PhD (Princeton) Montréal) • Alexander Brown, PhD (University of • Sharon Morsink, PhD (Alberta) Western Ontario) • Don Page, PhD (California Institute of • Thomas Creutzig, PhD (Hamburg, Technology), FRSC Germany) • Alexander Penin, PhD (Moscow • Andrzej Czarnecki, PhD (Alberta) Institute for Nuclear Research) • Charles Doran, PhD (Harvard) • Dmitri Pogosyan, PhD (Tartu • Rodrigo Fernández, PhD (Toronto) University, Estonia) • David Favero, PhD (University of • Wojciech Rozmus, PhD (Warsaw) Pennsylvania) • Mauricio Sacchi, PhD (UBC) • Valeri Frolov, PhD (PN Lebedev • Barry Sanders, PhD (Imperial College, Physical Institute, Russia) London), DSc, FRSC • Terry Gannon, PhD (McGill) • Richard Sydora, PhD (University of • Gabriel Hanna, PhD (Toronto) Texas, Austin) • Natalia Ivanova, PhD (Oxford) • Jack Tuszynski, PhD (Calgary) • Mariusz Klobukowski, PhD (Nicolas • Eric Woolgar, PhD (Toronto) Copernicus University, Poland) • Andrei Zelnikov, PhD (Moscow • Joseph Majiecko, PhD (Stanford) Institute of Physics and Technology) • Frank Marsiglio, PhD (McMaster) 4 Emeritus Members FA Baragar, PhD (Brandeis) G Ludwig, PhD (Brown University) W Brouwer, PhD (Alberta) RV Moody, PhD (Toronto), OC, FRSC AN Kamal, PhD (Liverpool) M Razavy, PhD (Louisiana) FC Khanna, PhD (Florida State) HS Sherif, PhD (University of Washington) HP Künzle, PhD (King’s College, London) Postdoctoral Fellows/Research Associates (17) Aghil Alaee (PDF), PIMS Postdoctoral Fellow Felix Oghenekohwo (PDF) Amsalu Anagaw (PDF) Jordane Preto (PDF) Rufus Boyack (PDF), TPI Postdoctoral Fellow Pouri Ramazi (PDF) Chun Chen (PDF) Namrata Shukla (PDF) Coleman Dean (RA) Yasaman Kouchekzadeh Yazdi (PDF), Avadh Bhatia Postdoctoral Research Fellowship Shashank Kanade (PDF) Fenglong You (PDF) Junjie Liu (PDF) Guangpeng Zhang (PDF) Tao Liu (RA) Mohammad Akbar Hosain Zuberi (PDF) Akihiro Nishiyama (PDF) Graduate Students (66) Charlee Amason, MSc student Fernanda Carozzi, PhD student S. Arabimoghadam, PhD student Nitin Chidambaram, PhD student Jean Auger, PhD student Minako Chinen, MSc student Breno Figuereido Bahia, PhD student Archismita Dalal, PhD student Clayton Bell, MSc student Masoud H. Davijani, MSc student Tobias Bernstein, MSc student Pedram Emami, PhD student Travis Boblin, MSc student Steven Fahlman, MSc student Jens Boos, PhD student Shankar Ganesh, MSc student Colin Bruulsema, PhD student Wenlei Gao, PhD student 5 F. Gentile, PhD student Meagan Oakley, PhD student Zayd Ghoggali, MSc student S.I. Omar, PhD student Matharu Gian, PhD student Adrien Ooms, MSc student Victor Arturo Mora Gomez, PhD student Kento Osuga, PhD student Chantelle Hanratty, PhD student Eduardo Paez, PhD student Roger Hatull, MSc student Pantita Palittaponggarnpim, PhD student Dylan Hennessey, MSc student Iliana Papathanasaki, PhD student Miriam van Hoeve, MSc student Min Jun Park, MSc student Joel Hutchinson, PhD student Shyam Parshotam, PhD student James Iverson, MSc student Hamza Qureshi, MSc student Aniket Joshi, MSc student Mason Protter, MSc student Aarat Kalra, MSc student Ahmed Rayyan, MSc student Scott Karbashewski, PhD student Wolfgang Riedler, PhD student Abdullah