IOP Groups
Mathematical and Theoretical Physics Group
Mathematical and Theoretical Physics Group
Contents:
- Welcome
- Reports on recent meetings
- Forthcoming meetings supported by the group
- Other forthcoming meetings which may be of interest to group members
- Call for proposals
- Forthcoming AGM and call for nominations
- Current committee membership
This is the third newsletter of the Mathematical and Theoretical Physics Group in 2006. We have already supported five meetings so far this year and the group will be supporting at least one more meetings this year at which we will be holding our AGM. See below for more details. There will be several vacancies on the committee and it is not too late to get in touch with one of the current committee members to find out what being a committee member is like and see if you are interested in standing for election.
There have been a few changes in the way the group operates – some technical details about the length of committee service and the AGM arrangements – but next year will see a change in the group finances. We have now started “bidding” for funds from the Institute along with all the other groups and have a budget of about £6000 to support group activities for 2007. If there is an activity which you are considering organising and would like support for, or if there is an activity which you strongly feel the group should be organising itself, please get in touch with a member of the committee so that we can consider these at our next committee meeting in December.
The 10th annual UK meeting on Integrable and Conformal Field Theory, University of Durham, 26-27 May 2006
As in previous years, the meeting was highly successful in attracting participants and speakers from a broad spectrum of backgrounds ranging from pure mathematics, through string theory, integrable quantum/conformal field theory and solvable lattice models to condensed matter physics. The participants were also from a wide variety of institutions in the UK and elsewhere. This meeting encouraged both academic and social connections between these groups of people.
All eight speakers gave excellent accounts of recent developments in the subject of integrable models and conformal field theory. In particular, the meeting endeavours to promote the work of students, and Adam Gamsa, who works in Oxford under John Cardy's supervision, gave his very first talk at an international meeting, on the scaling properties of loops in the loop gas picture of the O(n) model, which encompasses a large group of physically interesting models including the Ising model, percolation and self-avoiding loops. It was extremely well received and was a great encouragement for all other students present.
(report P Dorey, edted)
Exactly solvable systems in quantum field theory, University of York, 10-11 August 2006
This meeting was organised to celebrate the 60th birthday of Ed Corrigan and attracted an exceptional set of speakers and audience. The topics covered ranged from the early days of string theory to Kapustin and Witten's recent paper on the Langlands programme and its connections with field theory and many other topics in between. York was an excellent venue with good accommodation and the dinner was enjoyed by all. The meeting was very successful, both scientifically and socially.
(report G Watts)
Andrew Chamblin Memorial Conference, (co-sponsored with the gravitational physics group), Trinity College, Cambridge, 14 October 2006
The meeting consisted of talks by G Gibbons (Cambridge), C Johnson (UCLA), R Emparan (Barcelona), R Caldwell (Dartmouth), R Bousso (Berkley) and S Hawking (Cambridge) on various topics related to the scientific interests of Andrew Chamblin. In particular the talks discussed issues such as discrete symmetries of spacetime, Black holes in the ADS/CFT correspondence, Black Ring solutions, the Cosmological Constant, Predictions in the String Landscape and brane worlds. The meeting attracted approximately 100 participants from as far away as the USA, Europe and Japan.
(report N Lambert, edited)
Forthcoming conferences and meetings supported by the group :
Themes at the Interface of Physics and Representation Theory , City University, 11-15 December 2006
Contact Professor Paul Martin, p.p.martin@city.ac.uk, for more details.
Forthcoming meetings which may be of interest to group members:
Strong Fields, Integrability and Strings , Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences, 23 July - 21 December 2007
The Mathematical and Theoretical Physics group organises and supports scientific meetings and occasionally other activities of interest to its members. People interested in organising a meeting are invited to contact the Honorary Secretary (Dr Uwe Grimm, u.grimm@physics.org) who will be happy to provide details of the sorts of support provided. You do not have to be a member of the Institute to ask for funding. The group supports around 6 meetings a year on average.
The Mathematical and Theoretical Physics group also supports travel for early-career members to attend overseas meetings. Currently, it does not itself consider applications, but instead supports members who are successful in obtaining funds from the Institute C R Barber Trust and will match the funding offered by that trust.
Forthcoming AGM and call for nominations
The AGM will be held in on Wednesday December 13 – see enclosed announcement for details. Nominations are invited for the position of Honorary Treasurer and for three ordinary committee members. Nominations should be proposed by at least two members of the group and be accompanied by the consent of the nominee, and should be sent to the Honorary Secretary at the address given below. Nominations and consent may be sent by email.
Dr Gerard Watts (Chair):gmtw@mth.kcl.ac.uk
Dr Uwe Grimm (Honorary Secretary): u.grimm@physics.org
Prof Ruth Gregory (Honorary Treasurer): r.a.w.gregory@durham.ac.uk
Dr Almut Beige: a.beige@imperial.ac.uk
Prof Jens Marklof: j.marklof@bristol.ac.uk
Prof Ian Moss: ian.moss@ncl.ac.uk
Dr Nicola Wilkin: n.k.wilkin@bham.ac.uk
Uwe Grimm, Honorary Secretary: Email: u.grimm@physics.org
Address:
Dr Uwe Grimm
Department of Mathematics
The Open University
Walton Hall
Milton Keynes MK7 6AA
UK
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