Posts in category Organization
First week Aspen
Aspen does not appear to be a good place for blogging: the second week is almost over, yet I still have to write about the first week.
Aspen Center for Physics is certainly a good place for doing science: it hosts many workshops during summer, and a bunch of people communicating, writting formulas, listening to talks, making fun and hiking in nearby mountains. There are two workshops going simultaneously: Low Dimensional Topological Matter (here matter as in consensed matter not as in matter of routine) and Quantum Many-Body Physics in One Dimension. According to traditional classification, most participants belong to strongly correlated community, to more theoretical and abstract part of it. While it’s not precisely my community, I certainly enjoy intellectual intensity and logical taste of their discussions, something I sometimes miss in quantum transort. I could listen to a talk not understanding a bit and still find it interesting and inspiring.
As to talks, we,ve got plenty for workshops of the style. Yuval Oreg told about Creating and braiding of 1D non Abelian Majoranas (that is, 1d superconductor with spin-orbit in polarizing magnetic field). Thierry Giamarchi discussed Non-Luttinger liquids (that is, cold atom chains). Alexey Bezryadin has reported his quest for phase-slips in 1d superconducting wires. Jay Deep Sau told about Majorana fermions and non-Abelian statistics at the interface of ordinary semiconductor and superconductors (that is, polarized superconductor again).
I could not escape entaglement over here, of course. Daniel Arovas gave a colloquium on that in complicated many-body states. I was surprised by abundance of the results he reviewed. Besides, I discussed the stuff with Israel Klych and Karyn Le Hur: they also did a work on Renyi entropies and their relation to full counting statistics.
Alina and Ciprian were kind enough to send me frequent progress reports about our projects, so I do not feel guilty for letting them alone without my valuable supervision.
My personal interest is in collaboration with Leonid Glazman, we go on with the stuff I described in Grenoble. The progress is slow, and we encounter many strange things not fitting our plans, but we do not give up. It’s like a difficult hike without a good map.
As to hikes, I wish I could enjoy them as usual. My last time in Aspen was four years ago. When I get to a familiar Ute trail, I’ve clearly understood that that time I was four years younger. I could not make it to the top of Aspen mountain… Providence was so much displeased with my hiking performance as to dispatch a truck with a good Samaritan of driver: he brought me down to the town saving me from hiking back in darkness. Another attempt was to bike to Snowmass village: again, I was dissappointed with my performance, though I could breath normally at least a third of the way. Looks like I could not adopt to height during the whole week.
Busy week before Aspen
I’d love to write more to the blog this week, but, owing to bad organization, the week has turned busy. On Sunday I’ll depart to Aspen, Colorado for three weeks to attend traditional summer workshop in the Physics Center over there. So I had to do a lot this week, and the lot appeared to be lotter than usual. I was writting response to referee reports with Alina, freshly reboot the project with Mihajlo (partly, by means of a bureacratical evaluation procedure: it may work as well), do noisy with Ciprian (and perhaps we will soon explain some experimental puzzles), spend half a day discussinng quantum bifurcation with Alec Massen van der Brink and talk to another dozen of people (actually counted…) Doing all that was fun, yet some important things I had to skip: bad feelings…
To Colorado!
No ERC Advanced Grant
So I have learned today that my ERC proposal is rejected. Therefore there will be no unified theory of quantum transport. Instead, somebody will excercise first-year physics or kick molecules over the substrate. Will write more about when get to normal.
Still a chance to devise a polaron …
In the end of April I’ve submitted a grant application to FOM (see http://yuli.weblog.tudelft.nl/2010/05/01/proposal-fom-projectruimte) whereby I hope to get a Ph.D. student to devise polarons in carbon nanotubes. Today they annouce the results of the first round. My application is still pending, however the chances for its approval do not look much better than in the beginning…
They say they got 42 applications and can grant no more than a quarter. Several proposals have been immediately approved, some have been rejected while mine belongs to the group of 12 that they want to send to the referees. Wish me some luck.
In case you wish to see the proposal, I’ve uploaded it to Rapidshare
http://rapidshare.com/files/405740053/fom_projectruimte_2010_Nazarov_v2.pdf.html
Enjoy.
Pieter de Groot
born in Marken, has reached the Ph.D. title today. His promotor, Hans Mooij, flanked by Kees Harmans, has stressed several times that in case of Pieter the title should read "doctor of engineering" thereby showing his appreciation for perfect designs of qubits and read-outs Pieter has accomplished in the course of his promotion work.
The work presented in the thesis is of exceptional quality and resonance. However here in Delft this is very usual. What was unusual is a high quality of the defence: with no exaggeration, it was one of the best defences I ever attended. Pieter managed not only to answer all the questions and keep the opponents at bay: he did so without telling any unjustified and/or scientifically ambigouos things. His propositions were both provocative and formulated in such a way that people with opposite views could sign them: Pieter could be indispensible in formation of Dutch government.
Yet I hope he would not rush to politics and stay in research: we all would profit form this.
Diego Riste
nato ad Ancona, graduated today. I was in the commission and was surprised to learn that diamond dust is not at all toxic: I always thought it was a poison of choice in Middle Ages. Diego did quantum manipulation of NV centers in diamond in the group of Ronal Hanson and has produced a good harmonic thesis where everything was present: theorical background, very sucsessful experiment, a promising analysis of possible applications and even a bit of physics.
He’s got a mark that is highest possible one in quantum transport group, 9. Good luck, Diego, with future research.
Juriaan van Tilburg
student of Leo Kouwenhoven, has got this Ph. D. title today. He’s fabricated, contacted and measured more than a thousand of nanowire samples, so their total length spans almost a centimeter. Close to the end of the Ph.D. term he’s been awarded by – how he puts it – "intense happiness" of observation of single electron spin. Good work, good thesis, good person: the whole science is founded on shoulders of such people.
Though I had to object one of his propositions. He wrote that the influence of the position of plant Venus on one’s birth is identical to that of an apple at 1 cm distance. I believe that this statement has arised from a theoretical estimation based on a model where the concrete details of birth process have been oversimplified if not at all neglected. Well, it’s just a matter of experience…
Kavli lunch
has taken place yesterday. Robert Kohn, president of Kavli Foundation, and Miyong Chung, vice-president of science programs, were visiting our institution, as you remember, Kavli institute of NanoScience. They wanted to meet and talk to some faculty, this gave the reason for the lunch.
The lunch was "foreign", that is, deviated in all aspects from traditional bisness Dutch lunch. Food was warn and tasty, milk was absent. Excellent fish.
Faculty were few, half were freshly-hired assistant professors from biological part, eager to talk about their research. We’ve started noticing that we’ve plenty of time and decided to introduce ourselfs. After introduction there was hardly any time left. Yet Robert Kohn told us of ways Kavli foundation likes its money to be spent, and some new initiatives. Everything made sense, it was a clear and informative presentation.
Sad news
I have learned today. Alex Savchenko, professor of condensed matter physics of University of Exeter, has passed away on Sunday as a result of a sudden heart failure. Strong, handsome man, always smiling friendly. Sportive: first dan in aikido. This could happen to anybody, not to him.
Alex Savchenko did quantum transpot under resonant conditions, studied interaction effects, Quantum Hall. Did many spectacular noise measurements. Last years was one of the leaders of graphene research in UK.
Me and my students have intensively collaborated with Savchenko and his team in 2002-3. There were more collaborative projects that we have postponed. Seems like indefinitely…
Grant rest, o Lord, to the soul of Thy servant Alexander.
Departure Raoul Bino
Our dean Raoul Bino leaves his post from June 1. He was executing the function for nine full months.
There are traditions everywhere, there are traditions in Delft. It comes frequently that people are so immersed in a tradition as to regard it as a law of Nature. I’ve seen many deans in Delft, and for many I know from personal experience that they are gentle, intellectual and compassionary beings. Yet everybody, while in function, found it appropriate to wear a sort of ritual mask, a kind of Europeans buy for an African ritual mask, you know, that with frightening features and long sharp teeth. I never saw Raoul Bino wearing this mask, though in the course of his deanship he had to make tough decisions. I liked this fact and hoped he’d stay longer with us.
Fare well, Raoul, full suscess with managing Agro- and Food Sciences, we know you’ll do it well.