NORDITA Nordic Institute for Theoretical Physics Northern Highlights of the Year 2015 A WORD FROM THE DIRECTOR 2015 has been a great year for Nordita! This letter highlights some of the events, conferences, programs, awards, and grants, and introduces new faculty and new postdoctoral fellows arriving in 2015. Since its inception in 1957 Nordita has been one of the finest scientific institutes in the world, in 2007 it moved to Stockholm, and 2015 has been a wonderful time to be at Nordita. Most notable scientific event: Nordita hosted a conference "Hawking Radiation" from 2429 August 2015: http://www.nordita.org/hawkingradiation/ During this conference, Stephen Hawking along with a group of the world's most renowned physicists discussed one of the most pressing and complex questions in the field and, arguably, the world today: whether singularities in black holes exist and whether Hawking radiation has bearing on their existence. At the conference Hawking announced a radically new proposal for the solution to the information loss paradox. A video of this work presented by his collaborator Malcolm Perry (Cambridge University) can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1k3XKfl0CQ . More about this conference can be found later in the newsletter. 2015: The Spacetime Odyssey Continues This weeklong conference during the first week of June took place at the 17 th century estate Piperska Muren in the heart of Stockholm (see more description below).
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NORDITA Nordic Institute for Theoretical Physics
Northern Highlights of the Year 2015 A WORD FROM THE DIRECTOR 2015 has been a great year for Nordita! This letter highlights some of the events, conferences, programs, awards, and grants, and introduces new faculty and new postdoctoral fellows arriving in 2015. Since its inception in 1957 Nordita has been one of the finest scientific institutes in the world, in 2007 it moved to Stockholm, and 2015 has been a wonderful time to be at Nordita. Most notable scientific event: Nordita hosted a conference "Hawking Radiation" from 2429 August 2015: http://www.nordita.org/hawkingradiation/ During this conference, Stephen Hawking along with a group of the world's most renowned physicists discussed one of the most pressing and complex questions in the field and, arguably, the world today: whether singularities in black holes exist and whether Hawking radiation has bearing on their existence. At the conference Hawking announced a radically new proposal for the solution to the information loss paradox. A video of this work presented by his collaborator Malcolm Perry (Cambridge University) can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1k3XKfl0CQ. More about this conference can be found later in the newsletter. 2015: The Spacetime Odyssey Continues This weeklong conference during the first week of June took place at the 17th century estate Piperska Muren in the heart of Stockholm (see more description below).
Ladies at the Spacetime Odyssey Most important funding development: Nordita’s Nordic funding is up for review, as the funding is being transferred from the Nordic Council of Ministers (NMR) to NordForsk. We have dealt with a series of visits from NordForsk’s Advisory Committee as well as its External Review Committee, have produced a 250 page selfassessment document, and have received rave reviews from the external committee. There is no doubt we put our best foot forward. One suggestion of the review is to have joint postdocs and faculty with universities in other Nordic countries and this is now in progress. New Building: Nordita’s wonderful highceiling offices are located on Albanova campus in Stockholm. This year Nordita acquired a third building, Nordita South, which is housing the condensed matter group. Nordita West houses astrophysics while Nordita East houses the administrative center as well as particle physics and cosmology. Move of administration: The administrative support of Nordita is moving January 1, 2016, from the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) to Stockholm University (SU). Accompanying the move will be a
new head of administration as well as other new personnel. Otherwise Nordita will remain unchanged. Thank you all for a wonderful year at Nordita! Katherine Freese Director of Nordita 2015
credit: Alexis Brandeker
Grants Prestigious grants to Monica Guică. We congratulate Monica Guică for having been awarded a prestigious ERC Starting Grants 2015. Her project is on "Emergent spacetime and maximally spinning black holes". She has also become Nordita's first Wallenberg Academy Fellow. In addition, she received a VR grant of 3.6 MSEK. Monica is a Nordita Assistant Professor since 2014 and is supported jointly with Uppsala University, where she holds a tenured
senior lectureship position. She obtained her PhD from Harvard in 2008, after which she took up postdoc positions in Paris LPTHE and CEA Saclay, and at UPenn.
New Wallenberg Grant. Konstantin Zarembo jointly with Joseph Minahan from Uppsala University received a prestigious Wallenberg grant.
New Center for Quantum Materials. Supported through the Wallenberg Grant to Alexander Balatsky and with 1 MSEK by KTH. It started its operations earlier in 2015 and the research includes Topological Insulators, Superconductivity, Graphene, Strongly Correlated System, Econo Physics, and Dirac Materials. See http://stasmix.com/cqm/
Events Hawking Radiation
The conference on Hawking Radiation was one of the main highlights of the year. It started with a public lecture by Hawking himself in Stockholm Waterfront Congress Centre. All 3000 seats were sold out in no time. http://www.nordita.org/hawkingradiation/
At the Nordita hosted conference "Hawking Radiation", held 2429 August 2015 in Stockholm, Sweden, Stephen Hawking announced a new proposed solution to the black hole information paradox, work in collaboration with Malcolm J. Perry and Andrew Strominger. Later in the conference week, Malcolm Perry gave a talk at the neighbouring AlbaNova University Center outlining the background to this new proposal. See also the paper by Hawking: http://arxiv.org/abs/1509.01147 Freese together with conference organizer Laura Mersini took Hawking to meet King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden at the Royal Palace (see picture below). The day after the conference, a group of conference attendees sat at Nordita with their laptops answering questions from the public at reddit.com, made the front page, and reached a million people from around the world https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/3iuf6c/we_are_the_international_group_of_theoretical/? "We are the international group of theoretical physicists assembled in Stockholm to work on the paradoxes of black holes, Hawking radiation, and the deep mysteries of the Universe. Ask us anything!"
Conference 2—5 June 2015 Venue: Piperska Muren, Stockholm Coordinators: Lars Bergström, Jan Conrad, Joakim Edsjö, Chad Finley, Katherine Freese, Irina Galstyan, Ariel Goobar, Sabine Hossenfelder, Tomi
Koivisto, Christopher Savage, Douglas Spolyar, Stefan Vogl
www.nordita.org/odyssey2015 This conference was a 3day celebration of the remarkable advances in the fields of particle physics and cosmology from the turn of the millennium to the present day. There has been a series of talks and panels over the course of the three days by the invited participants. The conference took place at a 17th century estate Piperska Muren in central Stockholm.
Dinner in "Spegelsalen" (Hall of Mirrors) at Grand Hotel
The 6th Nordic Workshop on Statistical Physics: Biological, Complex and NonEquilibrium Systems
Workshop 25—27 February 2015
Coordinators: Ralf Eichhorn, Alberto Imparato www.nordita.org/nwsp2015
This workshop series provides a forum where scientists in the Nordic countries working in the area of Statistical Physics can meet regularly. Topics covered included diffusion problems, physics of DNA and biomolecules, population dynamics, pattern formation, nonequilibrium transport, bacterial motility, singlemolecule kinetics, dynamics and structure of networks, statistical inference, MonteCarlo simulation techniques, selfassembly, soft condensed matter (colloids, liquid crystals etc.), work relations and fluctuation theorems, and many more.
Extended Theories of Gravity
Program 2—20 March 2015
Coordinators: Kari Enqvist, David Fonseca Mota, Fawad Hassan, Lavinia Heisenberg, Tomi Koivisto
www.nordita.org/xgrav2015
The cosmological constant and the physics behind dark energy that accelerates the expansion of the universe remain among the biggest mysteries in theoretical physics. An intriguing possibility is that these problems stem from extrapolating Einstein's General relativity from the Solar system to the far infrared cosmological scales. In the other extreme, at the ultraviolet regime Einstein's theory encounters notorious infinities resulting in spacetime singularities and obstacles to quantisation, which suggest new gravitational physics with possible repercussions to early universe physics. The program aimed at establishing new links between fundamental physics and cosmological and astrophysical experiments from the fruitful interface of extended theories of gravity.
Sunspot formation: theory, simulations and observations Workshop 9—13 March 2015
Coordinators: Axel Brandenburg, Illa R. Losada, Göran Scharmer, Nishant Singh
Scientific recording of sunspots started with Galileo in 1609. Since Hale (1908) we know that sunspots are strong concentrations of magnetic field of up to 4000 gauss. They are generally thought to be formed by magnetic flux tubes rising from the bottom of the solar convection zone, and that eventually pierce the surface to form a pair of sunspots. Meanwhile, numerical simulations by many different groups suggest that strong magnetic fields can be generated in the bulk of the convection zone. This suggests that sufficiently strong magnetic fields may be generated not far from the surface. At this conference, the latest theories and simulations were discussed.
Probing the Fundamental Nature of Spacetime with the Renormalization Group
Workshop 23—27 March 2015
Coordinators: Dario Benedetti, Astrid Eichhorn, Frank Saueressig www.nordita.org/spacetime2015
Renormalization group methods are a key element of theoretical particle physics and may also be central for constructing a fundamental theory of gravity, e.g., based on Weinberg’s asymptotic safety conjecture. The conference brought together theorists and phenomenologists in order to discuss ideas related to the application of the renormalization group in quantum gravity and the consequences of asymptotic safety for cosmology, black holes and a possible ultraviolet completion of the standard model of particle physics including gravity.
Conference 20—22 April 2015 Coordinators: Ayse Atac Nyberg, Maria Doncel, Roberto Liotta www.nordita.org/cbn2015
The physics of exotic nuclear shapes, where the nuclear behavior is expected to be significantly altered, presents the possibility of the appearance of chiral bands and its related new physics. Chirality represents a novel feature of rotating triaxial nuclei, in which the chiral symmetry is spontaneously broken in the intrinsic reference frame and is observed in the laboratory frame. During the three days of the conference the theoretical and experimental status regarding chiral bands was highlighted. New observations and theoretical approaches, as well as the interaction between theories and experiments were discussed.
Control of Ultrafast Quantum Phenomena
Program 18 May — 12 June 2015
Coordinators: Jan Petter Hansen, Eva Lindroth, Esa Räsänen www.nordita.org/ultrafast2015
The aim was to study quantum control and dynamics of fewparticle systems in an active collaborative effort between experimentalists and theorists, as well as between recognized senior researchers and young investigators. The activity is motivated by recent advances in the physics of ultrafast phenomena in the femto and attosecond time scale a regime within reach of novel light sources. New insights into fundamental manybody physics are expected when ultrafast atomic and solidstate processes can be monitored in real time.
Workshop 27—30 May 2015 Venue: Mariehamn, Åland Coordinators: Mikko Alava, Marcelo A. Dias, Ralf Eichhorn, Petia Vlahovska www.nordita.org/sm2015
Manifestations of patterns such as wrinkles, folds, and singular creases, are ubiquitous mechanical instabilities found in nature and they happen at many different lengthscales, from cell membranes to leaves and flowers. The ways materials respond to external forcing, deformation, failure, etc, are intrinsically geometric effects that get transmitted across length scales, from the geometric microstructure to the bulk. This meeting was targeted at cutting edge questions on the mechanics of shape formation and response of intrinsically 2dimensional softmatter with focus on the question how microstructure architectures may result in macroscopic phenomena that are effectively nonlinear and anisotropic responses to external forces and strains.
Origin, Evolution, and Signatures of Cosmological Magnetic Fields Program 15 June — 10 July 2015
Coordinators: Axel Brandenburg, Tina Kahniashvili, Tanmay Vachaspati www.nordita.org/cmf2015
Focus themes during this program were observational tools, MHD in cosmology, and the origin of magnetic fields. A conference was organized in the second week of the program.
The photo on the left depicts a discussion about the use of polarized emission and
how to measure the helicity of the galactic magnetic field. On the right Reinhard Schlickeiser argues that plasma instabilities are very efficient in explaining the observed absence of halos around blazars, which is a blow to proposals that intergalactic magnetic fields are the reason
Magnetic Reconnection in Plasmas
Program 27 July — 21 August 2015
Coordinators: Yuri Khotyaintsev, Stefano Markidis, Åke Nordlund, Andris Vaivads www.nordita.org/mrp2015
Magnetic reconnection is a fundamental multiscale plasma process responsible for plasma transport, plasma heating and acceleration of energetic particles in many astrophysical environments, ranging from planetary magnetospheres and solar wind to solar flares, accretion disk corona, and other astrophysical plasmas. The major goal of this program was to increase the knowledge about the magnetic reconnection process in astrophysical plasma environments based on synergies between the studies of magnetic reconnection remotely, in situ, in numerical simulations and in laboratories.
Einstein Toolkit Workshop 2015 Workshop 11—14 August 2015
Coordinators: Axel Brandenburg, Oleg Korobkin, Stephan Rosswog
www.nordita.org/toolkit2015
This workshop was targeted at new and potential new users of the open source relativity infrastructure. It provided a general introductions into numerical relativity (although some previous knowledge would be beneficial) and in code development within large collaborations. Handson sessions have helped to familiarize attendees with the Einstein Toolkit.
Microphysics in Computational Relativistic Astrophysics
Coordinators: Axel Brandenburg, Emanuel Gafton, Oleg Korobkin, Stephan Rosswog, Emilio Tejeda
www.nordita.org/micra2015
This interdisciplinary workshop brought together researchers in nuclear and neutrino physics, nuclear astrophysics, and in numerical modelling of relativistic astrophysical phenomena such as the mergers of neutron stars and corecollapse supernovae. The overarching goal of the MICRA workshop was to improve the interaction and collaboration between different communities towards astrophysical simulations that combine stateoftheart microscopic (neutrinomatter interactions, equations of state, thermonuclear reaction rates) and macroscopic physics/methods (e.g. hydrodynamics, radiative transfer and relativity).
Physics of Interfaces and Layered Structures
Program 24 August — 11 September 2015
Coordinators: David Abergel, Alexander Balatsky, Annica BlackSchaffer, Philip Hofmann, Yoshihiro Iwasa www.nordita.org/pils2015
A major direction of research in contemporary condensed matter physics is the effort to design materials with specific functionality by utilizing the unique properties of interfaces between materials of different types. The prospect of using twodimensional interfaces between twodimensional layers at the nanoscale provides many potential avenues for tailoring materials. The program brought together world leaders in the fields of superconductivity and Dirac materials and young researchers from the Nordic region who can learn from them.
Coordinators: Erik Aurell, Astrid de Wijn, Ralf Eichhorn www.nordita.org/stbio2015
"Stochastic Thermodynamics" represents an exciting new research direction in statistical physics, which explores fundamental aspects of nonequilibrium processes. The common idea is to adapt and generalize concepts from equilibrium thermodynamics to the nonequilibrium realm, typically on the level of single particle trajectories monitored over the entire system evolution. The program gathered the worldleading experts to explore the possibilities of applying the tools of Stochastic Thermodynamics to open questions in biological systems, mainly on the cellular and molecular level.
Meeting on Bottlenecks for Particle Growth in Turbulent Aerosols
Meeting 12 October 2015
Coordinators: Axel Brandenburg, Bernhard Mehlig
www.nordita.org/bottleneck2015
This meeting was organized in connection with the project on Bottlenecks for Particle Growth in Turbulent Aerosols financed by the Knut och Alice Wallenberg Foundation.
Theia: Dark Matter and Exoplanets
Conference 2—3 November 2015 Coordinators: Celine Boehm, Katherine Freese, Anastasios Mentesidis, Douglas Spolyar
www.nordita.org/theia2015 This was a collaboration meeting to answer an ESA call about medium space missions (5th call) referred to as M5. The application is to launch a satellite capable of doing microlensing
and astrometry to discover (very best case scenario) exoplanets and dark matter, thus bring together two communities into one project.
Future Events The 7th Nordic Workshop on Statistical Physics: Biological, Complex and NonEquilibrium Systems
Workshop 16—18 March 2016
Coordinators: Ralf Eichhorn, Alberto Imparato
www.nordita.org/nwsp2016
This workshop series provides a forum where scientists in the Nordic countries working in the area of Statistical Physics can meet regularly.
Accretion Onto Magnetized Neutron Stars
Meeting 21—25 March 2016 Coordinators: Juri Poutanen www.nordita.org/xraypulsars2016
The workshop is devoted to the physics of the interaction between the accretion discs and stellar magnetospheres and structure of accretion flows onto magnetized neutron stars. The specific topics to be discussed during the workshop include but not limited to accreting millisecond pulsars (AMSP), Xray pulsars, and SuperEddington accretion flows around magnetized neutron stars.
Quantitative Perspectives on Cancer Conference 23—27 May 2016 Coordinators: Ran Friedman, Jens Lagergren, Markus Ringnér www.nordita.org/cancer2016
Physics and Social Network Dynamics of the Markets Conference 30 May — 3 June 2016 Coordinators: Alexander Balatsky, Stanislav Borysov, Nathan Kleeorin, Christopher Triola www.nordita.org/markets2016
The post Lehman market dynamics represent a fascinating case study of the evolution of the complex drive system. We propose to apply the methods of data mining, machine learning and social network analysis to analyze the behavior and possibly catch the tipping points and onset of new trends in the evolution of complex systems like markets. We envision a highly interactive exchange of ideas between social science, statistical physics, mathematics, Big Data and theoretical physics.
The Amplitudes 2016 conference will be devoted to exciting advances and developments in the field of amplitudes and related subjects: amplitudes in gauge, gravity, and string theories, AdS/CFT and integrability, the structure of SYM and supergravity, mathematics of polylogarithms, Grassmannians and twistor approaches, and connections to LHC phenomenology.
Inward Bound Conference on Black Holes and Emergent Spacetime
Conference 17—20 August 2016
Coordinators: Monica Guica, Niels Obers, Bo Sundborg, Lárus Thorlacius www.nordita.org/bh2016c
This conference is organized in connection with the Nordita program Black Holes and Emergent Spacetime. The conference will provide a forum for discussing recent advances in gravitational theory and its interplay with quantum theory, with a focus on quantum aspects of black holes and the holographic nature of spacetime.
Nordita Day
In April, postdoc Nishant Singh and his team organized the first Nordita Day. This was a wonderful opportunity for the people at Nordita to learn about each other’s latest science. In the evening, their families joined for dinner and music which facilitated new and lasting contacts. Nordita Day proved so successful that another Nordita Day was held on November 20, 2015.
Organizer: Dhrubaditya Mitra (Nordita), Paolo Di Vecchia (Nordita)
Nordita Winter School 2015 in Theoretical Particle Theory
7—16 January 2015
Nordita, Stockholm, Sweden
Coordinators: Konstantin Zarembo (Nordita), Paolo Di Vecchia (Nordita)
Additional information can be found on Nordita webpage: http://www.nordita.org/science/schools/list_of_schools/index.php
Faculty John S. Wettlaufer, the A.M. Bateman Professor at Yale University and visiting professor at Nordita 2011–2012, was awarded a 106 MSEK grant over a 10 year period from the Swedish Research Council under the scheme “Grants from international recruitment of leading researchers.” The grant has been placed at Nordita, and announcements for postdocs to be hired from the grant will be posted in February.
Anders Rosengren, Professor of Condensed Matter Physics at the Department of Theoretical Physics at KTH, has taken up a 5% position at Nordita, and will join the new Center for Quantum Materials.
New Assistant Professors Vladimir Juričić started as Nordita assistant professorship in condensed matter physics. He arrived in November.
Olof Ohlsson Sax started as assistant professor in highenergy physics and is supported through the ERC Advanced Grant of Konstantin Zarembo. Henrik Johansson arrived in October for a joint position at Nordita and Uppsala University as Senior Lecturer in theoretical highenergy physics.
With the help of external funding, Nordita's faculty now includes two additional assistant professors: Lars Mattsson (left), who received a VR grant, and Douglas Spolyar (right), who is hired on Katie Freese's VR grant.
New Postdoctoral Arrivals Several new Nordita fellows have arrived: Adrian Kantian in condensed matter physics, Stefan Bo in soft condensed matter physics, Marit Sandstad and Miguel Zumalacárregui in cosmology & gravitation, Jennifer Schober in astrophysics, as well as Anders Kvellestad and Joshua Nohle in high energy physics, The following postdocs have started at Nordita: Dario Bettoni, Alessandra Cagnazzo, Jón E. Guðmundsson, and Martina Gerbino. Pawel Caputa (highenergy physics) arrived in October for a postdoctoral position supported by a VR Grant awarded to Konstantin Zarembo. Yaron Kedem (condensed matter physics) has had his appointment at Nordita extended until Fall 2015, and will be funded by the Swedish Research Council (VR) grant
of Alexander Balatsky. Francesco Mancarella (condensed matter physics) also had his appointment extended until the Spring of 2015, on Alexander Balatsky’s VR grant. Harsha Raichur (astrophysics) started a one year postdoc at Nordita after having been a visitor for two years. Among other things, she has been working with Nishant Singh and Axel Brandenburg on new precursors to active region formation in the Sun. Several new PhD students have started their work at Nordita: Sebastian Baum, Adri Duivenvoorden, and Sunny Vagnozzi, all astroparticle physics and cosmology, and Erik Widen began his PhD studies in highenergy physics. Occasionally, Nordita hosts selffunded internship students.This year, Barbara Perri from ENSTA ParisTech worked in the astrophysics group. She received the prize for the best research at her school. Her report “Spontaneous magnetic flux concentrations beneath a radiating surface” is available as Nordita preprint 2015109. Bidya Binay Karak, who just finished his twoyear Nordita fellowship, has been awarded the prestigious Jack Eddy Fellowship to work for the next two years at the High Altitude Observatory at the National Center for Atmospheric Research at Boulder, Colorado. Jack Eddy discovered the socalled Maunder minimum, the period between 1645 and 1715 when the Sun produced hardly any spots. By coincidence, this is also a subject that Bidya has researched intensely.
Books "The Cosmic Cocktail: Three Parts Dark Matter" by Katherine Freese. This is the inside story of the epic quest to solve one of the most compelling enigmas of modern science — what is the universe made of, told by one of today’s foremost pioneers in the study of dark matter; see http://press.princeton.edu/titles/10196.html. Nordita's Corresponding Fellow, Bengt Gustafsson, just published his book "Kosmisk resa", in which he takes us on a journey into the universe, going from our planetary system, toward the nearest stars, gaseous nebulae past, super giants and neutron stars, out of the Milky Way and proceed towards distant galaxy clusters. After a visit to the microcosmos the journey goes back in time to the Big Bang.
NordForsk’s Assessment Report for Nordita. A delegation from NordForsk conducted a site visit to Nordita. Their findings are published in a 293 page document; see www.nordforsk.org/files/reports/norditareport/download
Awards/Memberships
John Wettlaufer is a new member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. At the General Meeting on October 7, Nordita professor John Wettlaufer was elected as foreign member of the Academy's Class for Physics; see http://www.kva.se/en/News/2015/TwonewmemberstotheAcademy/
Nordita’s corresponding fellow Yasser Roudi won the 2015 Eric Kandel Young Neuroscientist Award for research that was partly done at Nordita. Yasser Roudi was also selected as one of the 10 Bright Minds worldwide by Science News; see https://sciencenews.org/article/meet10scientistswhoaremakingtheirmark
Nordita preprints This year, the scientific work at Nordita has led to 181 preprints. Most of them have been submitted to or are already published in refereed journals. Dissertations and various reports, as well as work done by program participants is also sometimes listed, provided Nordita is mentioned in the acknowledgements. The link to the full list of preprints can be found on http://www.nordita.org/preprints/.
Next Nordita Board meeting The next Nordita Board meeting will take place in Reykjavik on February 1112, 2016.
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