Groundbreaking Papers in Theoretical Physics

April 1- May 5, 2025

ICTP-SAIFR, São Paulo, Brazil

ICTP-SAIFR/IFT-UNESP

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Over five weeks, five highly impactful papers will be discussed. Each week, Prof. Vieira will present one paper (for 1h30m to 2h), and students should read it beforehand. The following week (for 2h), students will discuss recent papers that reference the original one, with each student presenting for 20 minutes (3 to 4 presentations in total). At the end of each class, students will grade the presentations based on “Physics,” “Presentation,” and “Question Handling.” Then Prof. Vieira will provide his own grading and comments. Familiarity with Quantum Field Theory and General Relativity is assumed.

There is no registration fee and limited resources are available for ground travel of participants.

Papers:

  1. Existence theorem for certain systems of nonlinear PDEs, Foures-Bruhat, 1952

    Topic: General relativity: Showing Einstein Equations have unique solutions

  2. Determination of an Operator Algebra for the 2D Ising Model by Kadanoff, Ceva, 1971

    Topic: Statistical Mechanics/Conformal Field Theory: Disorder Operators and Dualities

  3. Confinement of Quarks by Wilson, 1974

    Topic: Quantum Field Theory: Introduction of Line Operators in Quantum Field Theory

  4. A sequence of approximated solutions to the S-K model for spin glasses, Parisi, 1980

    Topic: Statistical Mechanics: Symmetry Breaking in Spin Glasses

  5. Anti de Sitter Space and Holography, Witten, 1998

    Topic: String Theory/Quantum Field Theory. Setting up the perturbative AdS/CFT dictionary

Lecturer:

  • Pedro Vieira (Perimeter/ICTP-SAIFR/IFT-UNESP)

 

Announcement:

Click HERE for online registration
Deadline to request reimbursement of ground travel: March 27, 2025

Program

Lectures:  First meeting from 10:30-12:30 on Tuesday April 1 in IFT-Unesp Auditorium. The times of the following lectures will be decided at the first meeting.

  • April 01: Paper 1
  • April 07: Paper 1 follow up by Students
  • April 08: Paper 2
  • April 14: Paper 2 follow up by Students
  • April 15: Paper 3
  • April 21: Paper 3 follow up by Students
  • April 22: Paper 4
  • April 28: Paper 4 follow up by Students
  • April 29: Paper 5
  • May 05: Paper 5 follow up by Students

Bibliography

Videos and Files

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Additional Information

Attention! Some participants in ICTP-SAIFR activities have received email from fake travel agencies asking for credit card information. All communication with participants will be made by ICTP-SAIFR staff using an e-mail “@ictp-saifr.org”. We will not send any mailings about accommodation that require a credit card number or any sort of deposit. Also, if you are staying at Hotel Intercity the Universe Paulista, please confirm with the Uber/Taxi driver that the hotel is located at Rua Pamplona 83 in Bela Vista (and not in Jardim Etelvina).

How to reach the Institute: The minicourse will be held at ICTP South American Institute, located at IFT-UNESP, which is across the street from a major bus and subway terminal (Terminal Barra Funda). The address which is closer to the entrance of the IFT-UNESP building is R. Jornalista Aloysio Biondi, 120 – Barra Funda, São Paulo. The easiest way to reach us is by subway or bus, please find instructions here.