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:
- Existence theorem for certain systems of nonlinear PDEs, Foures-Bruhat, 1952
Topic: General relativity: Showing Einstein Equations have unique solutions
- Determination of an Operator Algebra for the 2D Ising Model by Kadanoff, Ceva, 1971
Topic: Statistical Mechanics/Conformal Field Theory: Disorder Operators and Dualities
- Confinement of Quarks by Wilson, 1974
Topic: Quantum Field Theory: Introduction of Line Operators in Quantum Field Theory
- A sequence of approximated solutions to the S-K model for spin glasses, Parisi, 1980
Topic: Statistical Mechanics: Symmetry Breaking in Spin Glasses
- 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
Photos
Additional Information
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.