9 et 10 novembre 2023

On October 18, the French Académie des Sciences awarded François David the Médaille de Physique 2023.

Henri Navelet died on July 3, 2023 in Bordeaux, at the age of eighty-four.

Conference: June 5 - 9 Informal workshop: June 12-16

We are pleased to announce that Antoine Bourget will join the IPhT permanent researchers team, as of September 1, 2023. After studies at Ecole Polytechnique and Ecole des Mines, Antoine Bourget did a Ph.D. at LPTENS, followed by post-doctoral studies at the University of Oviedo, Imperial College London, and IPhT (joint with LPENS). Antoine is an expert of strong coupling phenomena in quantum field theory, which encapsulate the vast field of problems outside the reach of perturbation theory, from classical field configurations (monopoles, instantons) to quantum effects (quark confinement, low-energy structure of the proton). Using algebra and geometry, he has been striding the bridge provided by string theory and supersymmetric field theory to address the far-reaching problem of the classification of conformal field theories and the study of the renormalization group flows connecting them. Welcome among us Antoine!

The BACQ project, launched as part of France's national quantum strategy within the LNE's MetriQs program, aims to establish a benchmark for evaluating the performance of future quantum computer technologies. Coordinated by Thales, the consortium involves three CEA institutes. The consortium is crucial for the development of quantum computing, and will also be crucial for industrial end-users. Quantum computing is set to revolutionize a wide range of technical fields and business sectors, from optimization in logistics, finance and scheduling, to simulation in research, engineering and industry. But how to measure the performance of the various technologies being developed for future quantum computers, with objectivity, reliability and comparability? And this, in a context of media hype and strong competition. This is the challenge of the BACQ project, which aims to establish quantitative, meaningful and ergonomic benchmarks for end users in the industry.

The election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences of our friend and colleague Henri Orland (Institute of Theoretical Physics) crowns an outstanding scientific career dedicated to fundamental research. Henri Orland's work in statistical physics has led to essential advances in our understanding of disordered systems, combinatorial optimization, and the study of soft matter, while also giving rise to original applications to the biophysics of nucleic acid and protein folding and to the problem of sequence alignment in molecular biology. Full text: FM_Orland_EN.pdf (2.8 Mo)

The "Witten-Kontsevich intersection numbers" are scattering amplitudes in the context of the most simplified possible model of quantum gravity and string theory: a very low-energy quantum gravity, simplified to the extreme to keep only the fundamental phenomenon of topology fluctuations. These are positive integer or rational numbers, and they are the basis of all the more complex string theories, and of all surface enumerative geometry, in particular in algebraic geometry. Moreover, the conjecture of E. Witten, whose proof gave the Fields Medal to M. Kontsevich, indicates that these same numbers are relevant in almost all problems of mathematical physics: random matrices, statistical physics on a random surface, wave propagation in a canal, or the semi-classical approximation of the solutions of Schrödinger equations, and of all field theories in quantum physics. In particular, they play an important role in the black-hole model developed by Jackiw-Teitelboim.