ICTP FULL TECHNICAL REPORT 2018 INTRODUCTION This document is the full technical report of ICTP for the year 2018. For the non-technical description of 2018 highlights, please see the printed “ICTP: A Year in Review” publication. 2 ICTP Full Technical Report 2018 CONTENTS Research High Energy, Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics (HECAP) ........................................................................ 7 Director's Research Group – String Phenomenology and Cosmology ...................................... 30 Condensed Matter and Statistical Physics (CMSP)............................................................................................ 32 Sustainable Energy Synchrotron Radiation Related Theory Mathematics ........................................................................................................................................................................ 63 Earth System Physics (ESP) ......................................................................................................................................... 71 Applied Physics Multidisciplinary Laboratory (MLab) ....................................................................................................... 97 Telecommunications/ICT for Development Laboratory (T/ICT4D) ....................................... 108 Medical Physics ................................................................................................................................................. 113 Fluid Dynamics ................................................................................................................................................... 116 Anchor Optics Research (AOR) Programme ........................................................................................ 117 Quantitative Life Sciences ........................................................................................................................................... 118 Training and Education Programmes Postgraduate Diploma Programme ........................................................................................................................ 128 ICTP-IAEA Sandwich Training Educational Programme (STEP) ............................................................. 131 Master's in Physics ........................................................................................................................................................ 135 PhD Programme in Earth Science, Fluid Dynamics and Mathematics: Interactions and Methods................................................................................................................................... 136 Joint International ICTP/SISSA PhD (JIISP) Programme in Physics and Mathematics ...................................................................................................................................... 138 Master’s in the Physics of Complex Systems ..................................................................................................... 139 Joint Master’s in High Performance Computing ………………………………………………………………… 140 Joint ICTP-UNITS Master of Advanced Studies in Medical Physics ……………………………………… 141 Career Support Associates Programme ................................................................................................................................................. 144 Federated Institutes Programme ............................................................................................................................ 148 Training and Research in Italian Laboratories (TRIL) .................................................................................. 150 ICTP-Elettra Users Programme ................................................................................................................................ 153 SESAME Programme ...................................................................................................................................................... 155 ICTP Full Technical Report 2018 3 Activities in Developing Countries Office of External Activities (OEA) .......................................................................................................................... 157 ICTP-South American Institute for Fundamental Research (ICTP-SAIFR) ......................................... 163 Mesoamerican Centre for Theoretical Physics …………………………………………………………………… 164 ICTP-East African Institute for Fundamental Research (ICTP-EAIFR)………………………………….. 166 ICTP-Asia Pacific .......................................................................................................................................................... 167 Physics Without Frontiers…………………………………………………………………………………………………. 168 Prizes and Awards ICTP Dirac Medal ............................................................................................................................................................. 169 ICTP Prize ............................................................................................................................................................................ 169 ICO/ICTP Gallieno Denardo Award ........................................................................................................................ 169 Ramanujan Prize for Young Mathematicians from Developing Countries......................................................................................................................................... 169 Scientific Support Services Marie Curie Library ........................................................................................................................................................ 170 Information and Communication Technology Section (ICTS) ................................................................... 172 The African Review of Physics ..................................................................................................................................... 172 Science Dissemination Unit ........................................................................................................................................ 174 Appendices ICTP Statistics 2018 ........................................................................................................................................................ 179 4 ICTP Full Technical Report 2018 ICTP Full Technical Report 2018 ICTP Full Technical Report 2018 5 RESEARCH 6 ICTP Full Technical Report 2018 HIGH ENERGY, COSMOLOGY AND ASTROPARTICLE PHYSICS There are four broad research areas in the High Energy, Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics Section: I. Phenomenology of Particle Physics II. Cosmology III. The ICTP ATLAS Experimental group at the CERN Large Hadron Collider IV. String and Quantum field theories I. Phenomenology of Particle Physics In 2018 the group has been active in different aspects of particle phenomenology, ranging from collider physics to studies of flavor anomalies, lepton masses and mixing, neutrino, QCD axion, dark matter, and theoretical developments. 1. LHC phenomenology In a recent study an updated analysis of the LHC possibilities for the measurements of the triple gauge couplings was performed. In particular W-Z and W-gamma final states were studied. The power of the exclusive observables was carefully estimated taking into account NLO QCD effects and carefully following the present experimental analysis. 2. Flavor Anomalies On the front of the flavour anomalies scientists at ICTP performed several studies. A model independent analysis of the R_D-R_D* anomalies was done which explicitly specified the requirements on new physics models needed to simultaneously explain the anomalies and pass all the other low and high energy constraints. Implications from R_D-R_D* anomalies on the Composite Higgs models have been studied, finding inevitable tensions with the electroweak precision observables in a model independent way. In another model independent study constraints on new physics models were analyzed where the R_D-R_D* anomalies are explained by processes with right-handed neutrinos in the final state. Constraints from cosmology as well as from the LHC experiments were also analyzed reducing to a very narrow window the allowed parameter space. In a third study a model-independent description of the flavour anomalies was studied in terms of the so-called SM effective field theory with the motivated assumption that the coefficients of the effective operators are determined by a single vector in flavour space. 3. Origin of the SM flavour structure Several studies have been performed at ICTP in order to uncover the origin of the flavour structure in the Standard Model both in model dependent and independent ways. A clue for understanding the neutrino masses and mixing could be the relation between the mixing matrices of leptons and quarks. Such relation implies grand unification and existence of a hidden (dark) sector with certain symmetry that leads to the smallness of neutrino masses. The residual symmetries of both the visible and hidden sectors are Z(2)√óZ(2). Their embedding in a unified flavor group leads to several possible structures, including BM mixing. ICTP Full Technical Report 2018 7 A realization based on the SO(10) grand unified theory with S4 flavor group is elaborated. The value of the leptonic CP phase in the interval 144¬∞- 210¬∞ is predicted. A study was performed about the conditions under which a symmetry constraining lepton matrices and observables gives the same results