On June 21–24, 2022, the Harvard Black Hole Initiative and the CMSA hosted the Joint BHI/CMSA Conference on Flat Holography (and related topics). The recent discovery of infinitely-many soft symmetries for all quantum theories of gravity in asymptotically flat space has provided a promising starting point for a bottom-up construction of a holographic dual for […]
Abstract: The statistical analysis of genomic data has incubated many innovations for computational method development. This talk will discuss some simple algorithms that may be useful in analyzing such data. Examples include algorithms for efficient resampling-based hypothesis testing, minimizing the sum of truncated convex functions, and fitting equality-constrained lasso problems. These algorithms have the potential to […]
Abstract: Entanglement is a type of correlation found in composite quantum systems, connected with various non-classical phenomena. Currently, entanglement plays a key role in quantum information applications such as quantum computing, quantum communication, and quantum sensing. In this talk the concept of entanglement will be introduced along with various methods that have been proposed to detect […]
Interdisciplinary Science Seminar Speaker: Fouad El Baidouri, Broad Institute Title: The phenotype of the last universal common ancestor and the evolution of complexity Abstract: A fundamental concept in evolutionary theory is the last universal common ancestor (LUCA) from which all living organisms originated. While some authors have suggested a relatively complex LUCA it is still […]
Speaker: Kenichi Konishi (UNIPI.IT) Title: Anomalies, dynamics and phases in strongly-coupled chiral gauge theories: Recent developments Abstract: After many years of efforts, still very little is known today about the physics of strongly-coupled chiral gauge theories in four dimensions, in spite of an important role they might play in the physics of fundamental interactions beyond […]
Abstract: Introducing internal degrees of freedom in the description of crystalline insulators has led to a myriad of theoretical and experimental advances. Of particular interest are the effects of periodic perturbations, either in time or space, as they considerably enrich the variety of electronic responses. Here, we present a semiclassical approach to transport and accumulation […]
Abstract: The establishment of neural circuitry during early infancy is critical for developing visual, auditory, and motor functions. However, how cortical tissue develops postnatally is largely unknown. By combining T1 relaxation time from quantitative MRI and mean diffusivity (MD) from diffusion MRI, we tracked cortical tissue development in infants across three timepoints (newborn, 3 months, and 6 months). […]
CMSA Interdisciplinary Science Seminar Speaker: Sumit Sinha, Harvard University Title: Statistical Mechanical theory for spatio-temporal evolution of Intra-tumor heterogeneity in cancers: Analysis of Multiregion sequencing data (https://arxiv.org/abs/2202.10595) Abstract: Variations in characteristics from one region (sub-population) to another are commonly observed in complex systems, such as glasses and a collection of cells. Such variations are manifestations of heterogeneity, whose […]
A Conference in Honor of Elliott H. Lieb on his 90th Birthday On July 30 - Aug 1, 2022 the Harvard Mathematics Department and the CMSA co-hosted a birthday conference in honor of Elliott Lieb. This meeting highlights Elliott’s vast contribution to math and physics. Additionally, this meeting features Prof. Lieb’s more recent impact in […]
On August 2–5, the CMSA hosted a workshop on Phase Transitions and Topological Defects in the Early Universe. The workshop was held in room G10 of the CMSA, located at 20 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA and online via Zoom webinar. The next decade will see a wealth of new cosmological data, which can lead to new insights into […]
Interdisciplinary Science Seminar Speaker: Yang P. Liu Title: Recent Advances on Maximum Flows and Minimum-Cost Flows Abstract: We survey recent advances on computing flows in graphs, culminating in an almost linear time algorithm for solving minimum-cost flow and several other problems to high accuracy on directed graphs. Along the way, we will discuss intuitions from linear […]