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NORDITA NEWSLETTER. 2010, ISSUE 3

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New staff members at Nordita

Nordita welcomes several new staff at Nordita, including the new professor of high energy physics, three new Nordita fellows (with another three arriving later this fall), as well as two visiting professors. We wish all of them a pleasant and productive time at Nordita!

Konstantin Zarembo joins the Nordita Faculty

Professor Konstantin Zarembo started at Nordita on September 1. His field of research is theoretical high energy physics where he has made a number of seminal contributions. His recent work has mainly been in the area of integrability in gauge theories and string theory. Professor Zarembo received his PhD in 1997 at the Steklov Mathematical Institute in Moscow. He comes to Nordita from École Normale Supérieure in Paris and has previously held positions at Uppsala University and the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. He has selected Uppsala University for his tenured professorship but will be on extended leave from that position while serving at Nordita, in accordance with the agreement on Nordita professorships between the Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm University, and Uppsala University. His office is 132:007.


Visiting Professors

Professor Bengt Gustafsson is emeritus professor at the University of Uppsala. This fall he will be spending time at Nordita to work on the theory of the formation of pre-main-sequence stars. Textbooks tell us that these stars have undergone a temporary phase where they stayed somewhere along the Hayashi line for some time and were thus fully convective. However, they did not get hot enough in their interior to burn lithium, and in the ensuing progress towards the main sequence the gradually warmer radiative core developed but did not allow much of the burnt Li-free material to the surface. This poses a problem for observed Li in the Sun, which seems depleted by two orders of magnitude and thus must have been mixed and burnt in the core. Instead, much of the lithium still prevails, and new theory suggests that this textbook explanation is flawed, Various ideas about mechanisms that have provided the extra mixing needed are around, mainly related to the rotationally driven circulation and shear instabilities. Gustafsson will explore another current idea, that stars form through gradual accretion onto a core that got quite hot but was never fully convective. He will relate the result to recent results that the solar surface composition is affected by infall of chemically fractionated material from the remains of the proto-planetary disk. Bengt's stay at Nordita promises to be an exciting time for us at Nordita and its surrounding environment. He plans to be here mostly on Wednesdays and is sitting in 122:004.


Professor Leonid Kitchatinov from the Institute for Solar-Terrestrial Physics, in Irkutsk, Russia, will participate in the ERC project on astrophysical dynamos. His main interests include late-type stars (especially the theory of differential rotation, dynamos, and spin-down), the Sun (especially dynamo models, sunspots), the Global stability of rotating fluids, and mean-field MHD (especially the theory of turbulent diffusion, alpha-effect, turbulent transport of angular momentum). Kitchatinov has contributed to the first meaningful predictions about stellar differential rotation, the discovery of the magnetically controlled tachocline, as well as the magneto-rotational instability at low magnetic Prandtl numbers. During his stay at Nordita he plans to focus on stellar spin-down and turbulent transport in the tachocline. He is sitting in 122:017.



Nordita Fellows

Dr. Chi?Kwan Chan, or CK for short, received his PhD in 2007 from the University of Arizona and then worked at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. CK's primary area of expertise is numerical simulations of hydrodynamic and magnetohydrodynamic flows, especially with applications to accretion disks.


Dr. Sean Nowling received his PhD in 2007 from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and was a post-doc at the University of Helsinki before joining Nordita. His recent work is on gauge theory/gravity duality and its application to condensed matter systems while previously he has worked on entanglement entropy in Chern-Simons quantum field theories and on time-dependent backgrounds in string theory.


Dr. Sigurdur Örn Stefánsson received his PhD from the University of Iceland in 2010. He works on mathematical physics including various models of random trees and random growth processes.



Open positions

All Nordita positions are announced through the job application manager, jam.nordita.org, where one also finds electronic application forms.

Visiting PhD student fellowships

Application deadline 30 November 2010

A Visiting PhD Fellowship will be awarded for a period of one to four months, providing accommodation and a contribution towards travel and living expenses in Stockholm. Fellows must be registered PhD students in theoretical physics or a related subject at a university in the Nordic or Baltic countries at the time of the fellowship visit to Nordita.

Nordita Post-Doctoral Fellowships

Application deadline: 15 November 2010
For details see www.nordita.org/people/positions/archive

Post-doc in Astrophysical Dynamos

Application deadline: 1 December 2010
For details see http://www.nordita.org/~brandenb/AstroDyn/positions/post-doc-2010.html

In connection with a 5-year project on Astrophysical Dynamos, there is a vacancy for a 2-year post-doc position at the Nordic Institute for Theoretical Physics (Nordita) in Stockholm. The project is supported through an Advanced Grant of the European Research Council to improve our understanding of astrophysical dynamos. For details, see the project page http://www.nordita.org/~brandenb/AstroDyn/ on Astrophysical Dynamos.



Status of the Astrophysical Dynamo project

The first 18 months of the Astrophysical Dynamo project are now over. This project has led to considerable activity in the Nordita astrophysics building with regular Wednesday seminars, group meetings, as well as astro-ph meetings organized by our Nordita fellow Niccolo Bucciantini.

The objectives for the first reporting period and the corresponding achievements can be inspected at http://www.nordita.org/~brandenb/AstroDyn/progress/report1/. In this report, 34 scientific publications are listed that all acknowledge the ERC grant. Work done within the framework of this project has been presented at several conferences, especially at the Symposium 271 of the International Astronomical Union in Nice in June 2010. The project has also been presented through a interview with the PI by British Publishers in January 2010: Cycles of the Sun, http://www.projectsmagazine.eu.com/randd_projects/cycles_of_the_sun, and http://www.nordita.org/~brandenb/AstroDyn/material/Solar_Activity_10.pdf.



Nordita Programs

Nordita programs are open events. Anyone can apply. Participation is however limited to a maximum of about 25 participants. Notifications will be sent out by Nordita. See the list of all Nordita programs on our home paper, or on: http://agenda.albanova.se/categoryDisplay.py?categId=270

Quantum Information

from 27 September 2010 to 29 October 2010

Details and application form

The interdisciplinary field of quantum information processing and communication connects at its deepest level quantum mechanics, photonics, solid state physics, atomic physics, and electronics with computer science and information theory in order to gain features in cryptography, communication, and computing that are impossible to achieve using classical methods. Quantum information science has also revitalized the discussions about the foundations of quantum theory. This field has grown explosively and is now one of the hottest subfields of both computer science and physics.

The scientific program on Quantum Information is primarily focusing on physical and theoretical aspects of quantum information processing and communication, as well as on their physical implementation. The aim of the program is to bring together key and active researchers in the foundations of quantum mechanics, quantum information theory, quantum communication, quantum key distribution, and quantum computing to review, present and discuss recent important results.

Random Geometry and Applications

from 01 November 2010 to 10 December 2010

Details and application form

The goal of this program is to bring together leading researchers in random geometry and related fields that represent a broad selection of the topics previously mentioned. It is our hope to create an environment of intensive research and mutual interaction between workers in the field across the traditional subject borders, and at the same time providing young researchers from the Nordic countries with an ideal opportunity to enter a field of research that covers a rich variety of appropriate research topics.

The influence of confinement on phase transitions (part 2)

from 12 to 17 December 2010

Details and application form

The impressively successful classical theories on phase transitions are based on the thermodynamic limit, which implies in?nitely large or small extension on all the systems that are considered. These theories fail, however, to address many important aspects, as ?niteness in extension is apparent in most physical systems. The question is of highly generic nature and has signi?cance within condensed matter physics, chemistry as well as biology.



Nordita Board

A new Nordita Board has been appointed for a three-year term starting July 1, 2010. The board members are:

Chairman: Thordur Jonsson, University of Iceland

Denmark: Jes Madsen, University of Århus, Karsten Flensberg, University of Copenhagen (reserve member)

Finland: Kalle-Antti Suominen, University of Turku, Keijo Hämäläinen, University of Helsinki (reserve member)

Iceland: Gunnlaugur Björnsson, University of Iceland, Ivan Shelykh, University of Iceland (reserve member)

Norway: Susanne Viefers, University of Oslo, Per Osland, University of Bergen (reserve member)

Sweden: Lars Börjesson, Chalmers Technical University, Olle Eriksson, Uppsala University (reserve member)


The next meeting of the Nordita Board will be in Stockholm on September 24, 2010.



Nordita Preprints

→ 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:

2010-040
Autocatalyses
Raphaël Plasson, Axel Brandenburg, Ludovic Jullien, Hugues Bersini
proceedings of AlifeXII

2010-041
On string integrability. A journey through the two-dimensional hidden symmetries in the AdS/CFT dualities
Valentina Giangreco M. Puletti
Advances in High Energy Physics, Special Issue on "Gauge/String Duality"
2010-042
Ultracold atoms in a cavity mediated double-well system
J. Larson and J.-P. Martikainen
2010-043
Magnetic helicity flux in the presence of shear
A. Hubbard, A. Brandenburg
Astrophys. J. (submitted)
2010-044
Comment on "Normal phase of an imbalanced Fermi gas"
Zhenhua Yu, Sascha Zöllner, C. J. Pethick
2010-045
Constraints on neutron star radii based on chiral effective field theory interactions
K. Hebeler, J. M. Lattimer, C. J. Pethick, and A. Schwenk
2010-046
Direct numerical simulations of statistically steady, homogeneous, isotropic fluid turbulence with polymer additives
Prasad Perlekar, Dhrubaditya Mitra and Rahul Pandit
submitted to Phys. Rev. E
2010-047
Mass Functions in Fractal Clouds: The Role of Cloud Structure in the Stellar Initial Mass Function
Mohsen Shadmehri, Bruce G. Elmegreen
Monthly Notices Roy. Astron. Soc. (in press)
2010-048
Chiral correlators of the Ising conformal field theory
Eddy Ardonne, Germán Sierra
2010-049
Micro?uidic Sorting of Stereoisomers
Ralf Eichhorn Phys. Rev. Lett. 105, 034502 (2010)
2010-050
A theoretical model of torsional oscillations from a flux transport dynamo model
Piyali Chatterjee, Sagar Chakraborty, Arnab Rai Choudhuri
IAU Symposium 273, Physics of Sun and star spots, Ventura, California 22-26 August 2010
2010-051
Strongly anharmonic current-phase relation in ballistic graphene Josephson junctions
Annica M. Black-Schaffer and Jacob Linder
2010-052
Magneto-rotational instability and accretion discs: Numerical study of the turbulence and influence of the boundary conditions
Emeric Bron
Internship Report
2010-053
Alleviating alpha quenching by solar wind and meridional flow
Dhrubaditya Mitra, David Moss, Reza Tavakol and Axel Brandenburg
Astron. Astrophys. (submitted)
2010-054
Exploiting Lattice Potentials for Sorting Chiral Particles
David Speer, Ralf Eichhorn, Peter Reimann
Phys. Rev. Lett. 105, 090602 (2010)
2010-055
High energy string brane scattering: leading eikonal and beyond
Giuseppe D'Appollonio, Paolo Di Vecchia, Rodolfo Russo, Gabriele Veneziano
2010-056
Interfacial effects of Al termination on spin transport in magnetic tunnel junctions
T. Tzen Ong, A. M. Black-Schaffer, W. Shen, and B. A. Jones
Phys. Rev. B 82, 054429 (2010)
2010-057
Turbulent front speed in the Fisher equation: dependence on Damkohler number
A. Brandenburg, N. E. L. Haugen, N. Babkovskaia
Phys. Rev. E (submitted)
2010-058
Influence of Magnetic Helicity in MHD
Simon Candelaresi, Fabio Del Sordo, Axel Brandenburg
IAU Symp. 271, Astrophysical Dynamics: from Stars to Galaxies, ed. N. Brummell and A.S. Brun, CUP
2010-059
Recurrent flux emergence from dynamo-generated fields
Jörn Warnecke and Axel Brandenburg
Cambridge University Press IAU Symposia 271
2010-060
Proto-Magnetars as GRB Central Engines: Uncertainties, Limitations, and Particulars
Todd A. Thompson, Brian D. Metzger, Niccolò Bucciantini
Proceedings for Deciphering the Ancient Universe with GRBs, Kyoto, Japan, April, 2010
2010-061
Vorticity production through rotation, shear and baroclinicity
F. Del Sordo and A. Brandenburg
Astronomy & Astrophysics (Submitted)
2010-062
Vorticity from irrotationally forced flow
F. Del Sordo and A. Brandenburg
To be published in Proceeding of IAU Symp. 271, Astrophysical Dynamics: from Stars to Galaxies, ed. N. Brummell and A.S. Brun, CUP
2010-063
Deformed Special Relativity from Asymptotically Safe Gravity
Xavier Calmet, Sabine Hossenfelder, Roberto Percacci
2010-064
Dielectrophoretic trapping and polarizability of DNA: the role of spatial conformation
Jan Regtmeier, Ralf Eichhorn, Lukas Bogunovic, Alexandra Ros, and Dario Anselmetti
Anal. Chem. 82, 7141-7149 (2010)
2010-065
The Persistence Problem in Two-Dimensional Fluid Turbulence
Prasad Perlekar, Samriddhi Sankar Ray, Dhrubaditya Mitra, and Rahul Pandit
PRL (submitted)
2010-066
On the equivalence of the Komargodski-Seiberg action to the Volkov-Akulov action
A.A. Zheltukhin
2010-067
Superfluid dynamics in neutron star crusts
C. J. Pethick, N. Chamel, S. Reddy
2010-068
Photonic Josephson effect, phase transitions, and chaos in optomechanical systems
Jonas Larson and Mats Horsdal



Items for Nordita News

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 http://www.nordita.org/news/nordita_news/available_issues/index.php

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