ICRANet Newsletter
February - April
Marcel Grossmann Awards 2015
The awards to the following scientists were delivered at International Conference on Gravitation and Cosmology /the fourth Galileo-Xu Guangqi meeting in Beijing (4th May 2015):
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Frank C.N. Yang
"For deepening Einstein's geometrical approach to physics in the best tradition of Paul Dirac and Hermann Weyl"
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"… I would like to discuss some influence Fermi had in China: this is the case in which two of Fermi’s Chinese students and collaborators had an unprecedented impact on science at the international level and triggered the scientific development of the largest nation in the world: China. During my second visit to China in 1979 I went to Kun Ming: it was quite an experience to see this beautiful location on the border of a lake so vividly described by Marco Polo. There was a train line constructed by the French reaching this town from Hanoi. There was also a beautiful university where two young students studied physics during World War II, there the professors from the Bei DA and Qing Hua university of Beijing and their families having escaped from the east of China ahead of the Japanese invasion. Their names were Chen Ning Yang and Tsung Dao Lee. At the end of the war they transferred to the USA: Frank C.N. Yang became Fermi’s assistant and T.D. Lee was followed in his Ph.D. thesis by Fermi. The remarkable scientific career of these two young Chinese scientists is well recorded in the history of science. After Nixon’s visit to China in 1972, Yang and Lee frequently went back to China to deliver lectures based on the Fermi tradition and today they are spending the greater part of their time in China organizing scientific centers and activities.
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In 1979 Yang gave a lecture at the second MG meeting in Trieste (see figure on the right: C.N. Yang speaking with a thoughtful Pam Dirac listening). During the Third Galileo-Xu Guangqi Meeting in 2011 I had another pleasant meeting with C.N. Yang. This also gave me the opportunity to see Beijing University again, having originally seen it in 1978 after the cultural revolution with all its libraries burned, now renewed and reaching a new splendor. Next to the Zhou Pei-Yuan Institute are the offices of the C.N. Yang Center. We talked about our common friend Isidor Rabi and his role in collaborating with Eisenhower as President of Columbia University prior to the latter’s election as President of the USA. We also talked about Fermi’s role in formulating his theory of beta decay, of the adventures of the A-bomb and H-bomb projects and many other topics. This also gave me the chance to introduce him to our ongoing projects with ICRANet in Brazil."
From "Einstein, Fermi, Heisenberg and Relativistic Astrophysics: Personal Reflections by Remo Ruffini" World Scientific Singapore 2015
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T.D. Lee
"For his work on white dwarfs motivating Enrico Fermi's return to astrophysics and guiding the basic understanding of neutron star matter and fields"
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"… Returning to the main topic of Fermi and astrophysics, it is interesting that according to T.D. Lee Fermi's original critical attitude expressed in his Trento lecture on the interior of stars was evolving towards the end of his life. As recalled by T.D. Lee in a talk held at a joint meeting of the APS and AAPT in February, 2010 "Remembering Enrico Fermi," Fermi was beginning to warm up towards astrophysics in his final years: Fermi asked Lee during his Ph.D. thesis the approximate temperature of the Sun at its center. Lee replied, "Ten million degrees." Fermi asked: "How do you know?" Lee told him he had looked it up. Fermi asked if he'd verified the number and Lee replied, "It's really complicated. It's not so easy to integrate these equations." Fermi suggested that Lee build a huge specialized slide rule that would enable the solution of two radiative transfer equations, one that involved the 18th power of the temperature, and the other that involved the reciprocal of temperature to the 6.5th power. Over the next few weeks Lee built a slide rule that was 6.7 feet long and carried out the necessary integration. 'It was great fun'…
In the imperial Chinese tradition of the past, in each town in China there was a palace in which every year the best young astronomers were examined and selected and brought to the imperial palace to perform their study and research. Great credit goes to T.D. Lee for having reactivated this selection process on a large scale and having sent the most qualified young students not to the imperial palace in Beijing but to the leading universities in the USA for many years a similar program has been activated in Tokyo.
These experiences, as well as our more limited effort with ICRA and ICRANet, have been significant components in guaranteeing that most impressive scientific, technological and industrial development that the entire world admires today in China. In some sense this authentic scientific and cultural evolution of modern China was triggered directly and indirectly by the influence of Fermi."
From "Einstein, Fermi, Heisenberg and Relativistic Astrophysics: Personal Reflections by Remo Ruffini" World Scientific Singapore 2015
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The Institutional Award and the awards to the following scientists will be delivered at 14th Marcel Grossmann Meeting in Rome (13 th July 2015):
Institutional Award
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"For the tremendous success of its scientific space missions in astronomy, astrophysics, cosmology and fundamental physics which have revolutionized our knowledge of the Universe and hugely benefited science and mankind"
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(Credits: ESA/Rosetta/Philae/CIVA)
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Ken'ichi Nomoto
"For heralding the role of binary systems in the evolution of massive stars" |
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Martin Rees
"For fostering Research in Black Holes, Gravitational Waves and Cosmology" |
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Yakov Sinai
"For applying the mathematics of chaotic systems to physics and cosmology" |
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Sachiko Tsuruta
"For pioneering the physics of hot neutron stars and their cooling" |
The 2nd ICRANet César Lattes Meeting
Satellite meeting of MG14
and other ICRANet activities in Brazil
The meeting, dedicated to the coordination of the ICRANet Scientific activities in Brazil prior to the MGXIV meeting in Rome in July 2015, celebrated the 100th anniversary of the Einstein Equations. The scientific meeting took place at Fundação Planetário da Cidade do Rio de Janeiro, at Universidade Federal Flumimense (UFF) and at Centro Brasileiro de Pesquisas Físicas (CBPF).
The opening address was given by Prof. Celso Cunha, President of Fundação Planetário and by Prof. Remo Ruffini, Director of ICRANet.
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There were about 90 participants from Argentina, Armenia, Belarus, Brazil, China, Colombia, France, Germany, India, Italy and other countries.
Public lectures have been delivered at the Fundação Planetário, by Prof. Thaisa Storchi Bergmann, one of the 5 outstanding women scientists honored with a L'Oréal-UNESCO For Women in Science Awards for their ground-breaking discoveries in the physical sciences, at UFF, by Prof. Rodrigo Picanço Negreiros, at the Cassino da URCA, by Prof. Ulisses Barres de Almeida from CBPF, Prof. Marcelo Guzzo from IFGW/UNICAMP and by Prof. Ruffini, at Universidade Federal de Pernambuco (UFPE), at Universidade Federal de Paraiba (UFPB) and at Instituto Federal de Educação Ciência e Tecnologia do Ceará (IFCE).
The proceedings will be published in the AIP Conference Proceedings series.
The website of the meeting: http://www.icranet.org/2cl
During his visit to Fortaleza (Ceará), Prof. Ruffini, Director of ICRANet, signed the Memorandum of Understanding between ICRANet and IFCE (Instituto Federal de Educação Ciência e Tecnologia do Ceará). This agreements, together with those already signed with CAPES, CBPF, FAPERJ, the Government of the State of Ceará, ITA, EURJ, UFF, UFPB, UFPE, UFRGS, UFSC, UNIFEI, and INPE, is strategic for international scientific research promoting the development and dissemination of scientific and technological research in the fields of relativistic astrophysics.
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Public lecture of prof. Ruffini in João Pessoa
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The international Conference on Gravitation and Cosmology/the fourth Galileo-Xu Guangqi Meeting
Satellite meeting of MG14
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The year 2015 is the 100th anniversary of Albert Einstein's presentation of the Theory of General Relativity. To celebrate the big event, the International Conference on Gravitation and Cosmology/the fourth Galileo-Xu Guangqi Meeting (Satellite meeting of MG14) was held on May 4-8, 2015 at the Institute of Theoretical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences (ITP-CAS), Beijing, China, associated with the KITPC/ITP-CAS program “The Next Detectors for Gravitational Wave Astronomy” (April 6 to May 8, 2015). The goal of this conference was to bring the leading scientists working on gravitation, cosmology and relativistic astrophysics together, to review the current status and to present further directions in gravity, cosmology and relativistic astrophysics, and to promote relevant researches in China.
Almost 200 scientists participated to the meeting.
Two MG Awards were delivered at the opening to Nobel Laureates Prof. C.N. Yang and Prof. T.D. Lee.
On Monday Prof. C.N. Yang gave a 15 minutes speech, mostly on Fermi and his influence on him.
On Monday evening Prof. R. Ruffini delivered a public lecture in KITPC.
For information please see web pages of the meeting:
http://www.icranet.org/4gx - http://www.kitpc.ac.cn/?p=ProgDetail&id=CP20150504&i=main
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ICRANet lecture series for PhD students
On the beginning of March 2015 we have started the first series of the ICRANet lectures for PhD students. The lectures consist in general open talks regarding the main research themes developed at the ICRANet. The lectures are held each Wednesday mainly in Rome.
Thanks to the GoToMeeting software, we are able to broadcast the talk via internet. Everyone interested can directly participate to the discussion using this software.
We have started with a series of lectures regarding the data reduction and analysis of high-energy sources in the X and gamma energy range, held by Luca Izzo, see: http://lucagrb.altervista.org/lectures.html
Each lecture is also accompanied by a mini talk (30 minutes) by a PhD student or a post-doc, which will be devoted to a selected article recently published on journals or onto the arXiv.
In the style of Journal Club, the discussion is open to everybody so that discussions can help students to understand better some delicate points or widen their knowledge.
The program is still not completely defined, and is subject to changes which depend on many reasons. For this motivation it is strongly suggested to check often (mainly on Tuesday, the day before the lecture) the lecture website, or to subscribe to the mailing list of the lecture by simply request via mail to Dr. Carlo Luciano Bianco (bianco@icra.it), Vittorio Vannini (vannini@icra.it) or Gabriele Brandolini (gabriele.brandolini@icranet.org).
Recent publications
Proceedings of the MG13 Meeting on General Relativity (in 3 Volumes). Edited by Kjell Rosquist, Robert T Jantzen and Remo Ruffini, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., 2015 with contributions of:
Aksenov, A. G.; Argüelles, C.; Bianco, C. L.; Boshkayev, K; de Carvalho, S. M.; Enderli, M.; Fraga, B. M. O.; Izzo, L.; Muccino, M.; Rueda, J. A.; Pisani, G. B.; Ruffini, R.; Siutsou, I.; Vereshchagin, G. V.; Wang, Y.
R. Ruffini, G.V. Vereshchagin, S.-S. Xue, Cosmic absorption of ultra high energy particles, arXiv:1503.07749
Eckhard Strobel and She-Sheng Xue, Semiclassical pair production rate for rotating electric fields (Phys. Rev. D 91 (2015) 045016)
Upcoming Conferences
Updates on the Marcel Grossmann Meeting (MG14)
There are updates regarding the Fourteenth Marcel Grossmann Meeting on Recent Developments in Theoretical and Experimental General Relativity, Gravitation, and Relativistic Field Theory to be held at the University of Rome Sapienza July 12 - 18, 2015. http://www.icra.it/mg/mg14/
Information on the financial support for participants can be found in http://www.icra.it/mg/mg14/financial_support.htm
There will be five satellite meetings of MG14 to be held in Brazil, China, Cuba, Monaco and France, and Mexico, for details see http://www.icra.it/mg/mg14/satellite_meetings.htm
During MG14 four public lectures will be delivered, for details see http://www.icra.it/mg/mg14/public_lectures.htm
The tour program for accompanying persons include tours to: The Vatican (on Monday 13), Galleria Borghese (on Tuesday 14), Walking tour in the Baroque Rome (Wednesday 15), Ghosts of Rome and … Hora Felix with Michelangelo and Caravaggio (Thursday 16), Ancient Rome (Friday 17). For details see http://www.icra.it/mg/mg14/social_activities.htm
The conference banquet will be held on Wednesday 15 at Palazzo Colonna http://www.galleriacolonna.it/en/
The International Organizing Committee chaired by Remo Ruffini can be found here http://www.icra.it/mg/mg14/ioc.htm
The International Coordinating Committee including representatives from 55 nations and chaired by Robert Jantzen can be found here http://www.icra.it/mg/mg14/icc.htm
The Local Organizing Committee chaired by Massimo Bianchi can be found here http://www.icra.it/mg/mg14/loc.htm
The registration to the meeting and abstract submission is open in http://www.icra.it/mg/mg14/registration.htm
The MG Awards are announced in http://www.icra.it/mg/awards/#14th.htm
Please see also the previous MG Awards here http://www.icra.it/mg/awards/
The updated information on the proceedings including the new submission policy is given in http://www.icra.it/mg/mg14/proceedings.htm
The list of plenary speakers has been recently updated http://www.icra.it/mg/mg14/invited_speakers.htm
The list of about 100 parallel sessions is given in http://www.icra.it/mg/mg14/parallel_sessions.htm
Time grid of parallel sessions can be found in http://www.icra.it/mg/mg14/timetable.htm
The information on transportation, including the special Air France fare can be found in http://www.icra.it/mg/mg14/transportation.htm
14th Italian-Korean Symposium on Relativistic Astrophysics, July 20-24, 2015, ICRANet, Pescara, Italy
This symposium started in 1987, then continued for every two years alternatively in Korea and Italy with the support from Korea Science and Engineering Foundation (KOSEF), Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR), International Center for Relativistic Astrophysics Network (ICRANet) and hosting institutes. Main purpose of this symposium is to accelerate the exchange between scientists of Italy and Korea, especially young researchers.
The result of every symposium was published in Journal of Korean Physical Society (JKPS) or in Il Nuovo Cimento B. Traditionally, the subjects of this series of symposium have been mainly theoretical astrophysics, especially in the fields of relativistic astrophysics.
In the symposium, we want to extend it to include relevant astrophysical observations and experiments, including gravitational wave detection experiments in which Korean astrophysicists are actively participating.
The registration is now open at: http://ntsrvg9-2.icra.it/meetings/registration_ik14.htm
The webpage of the meeting: http://www.icranet.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=935
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