|
In the 21st century, the rapid expansion of the scope of theoretical physics beyond its traditional boundaries calls for new approaches to nurturing excellence in theory. The Center for Theoretical Physics, a cooperative venture of theoretical physicists at Princeton University across several departments, is an innovative response to this challenge.
The mission of the Center will be to promote and support the exploration at Princeton of the most exciting frontiers of theoretical natural science. The Center will engage faculty, post-doctoral fellows and students in research and educational activities that cross the boundaries between Princeton’s traditional areas of strength in fundamental theory: particle and string theory, condensed matter and materials theory, cosmology and astrophysics, theoretical biophysics, theoretical chemistry and mathematical physics. Cooperation between faculty members from a range of theoretical disciplines will be needed to exploit many of the most important scientific opportunities of the coming decades and the Center is designed to encourage and facilitate such cooperation.
The Center will be associated with the Physics Department and will be housed in newly-renovated space in the Department. The Center will have a Director, responsible for the overall intellectual direction of the enterprise, and a corps of Center Faculty Fellows from Physics and other departments, whose responsibilities will include choosing the programs and overseeing the selection and mentoring of Center Postdoctoral Fellows. Its activities will be organized around two principal components:
-- a prestigious Center Postdoctoral Fellowship program aimed at recruiting outstanding theorists from many disciplines who are interested in broadening their scientific horizons under the mentorship of a corps of Center Faculty Fellows, drawn from Princeton faculty theoreticians. Every year, three Center Postdoctoral Fellows will be selected competitively, with the aim of identifying the most outstanding and promising theorists. Fellows will be appointed for a three-year term, will have complete freedom to pursue their own research interests, and will be encouraged to participate in, and help organize, Center programs.
-- year-long thematic programs focused on forefront issues in theoretical physics, selected from proposals submitted by Princeton faculty and Center Postdoctoral Fellows having different central research interests but sharing a desire to explore a new area requiring their joint expertise. A core group of interested faculty will be in residence in the Center for the duration of each program and will, with the participation of interested Center Postdoctoral Fellows, organize pedagogical seminars, research seminars and discussion groups on the chosen topic. The audience for the program activities will be the broader Princeton theory community, including graduate students and suitably prepared undergraduates.
Two thematic programs, chosen for their intrinsic importance and broad interest, will inaugurate the Center’s activity in 2007 and 2008:
-- Frontiers in Quantum Computation (beginning Fall 2007) will bring together experts from condensed matter, materials science and computer science to discuss three aspects of realizing quantum computers: first, the interface between quantum algorithms and physics (can classes of quantum algorithms be mapped onto problems interesting to physicists?); second, the design of practical quantum computing hardware and the specialization of algorithms to that hardware; third, the possible realization of the “topological quantum computing” approach using quantum many-body systems exhibiting “topological phases.” This program will be led by Princeton faculty members W. Brinkman, R. Calderbank and S. Sondhi.
-- Big Bang and Beyond (beginning Fall 2008) will bring together leaders in astrophysics, cosmology, general relativity and string theory to address the following inter-related questions: Is the big bang the beginning of space and time? Does it make sense to talk about what the universe was like before the big bang? How does string theory resolve the cosmic singularity problem? Are there ways to use observations and experiments to test what happened during the very early instants when the temperature approached the Planck scale? How can experiments at the Large Hadron Collider provide new insights into the earliest moments of the universe? This program will be led by Princeton faculty members (I. Klebanov, D. Spergel and P. Steinhardt, Hermann Verlinde) along with N. Arkani-Hamed (IAS) and Matt Strassler (Rutgers).
Examples of programs under consideration for Fall 2009 include the following:
-- Evolution, Adaptation, and Optimization, bringing together leading theorists in biology, physics, and chemistry to explore current theoretical approaches for understanding biological evolution and adaptation.
-- Rare Events, a comparison of theoretical approaches in physics, chemistry, biology, and cosmology for understanding sudden transitions or slow dynamics that occur on timescales much longer than the microscopic dynamics, such as crystal nucleation , self-assembly of macromolecules, protein folding, earthquakes and avalanches, strong effects of rare fluctuations in quantum and disordered systems, and phase transitions in the early universe.
Further details of program plans will be published on the Center website
http://www.pctp.princeton.edu/pctp
when they become available. Please consult this site for more information about personnel, programs, nomination procedures, etc.
|
