Lorentz Institute

day for the institute ! We enjoyed a fantastic competition in followed by an amazing .

How do you think we did to get to the ? The answer is so obvious! Living in the Netherlands means moving by !

PhD Ana Marta Pinho from the Institute of Theoretical Physics from University of Heidelberg University has been in charge today of the one of the last of this season in our Institute. The title has been "Applications of Information Theory to Cosmology". Ana Marta, who started working with Dr. Matteo Martinelli during her Erasmus exchange period in Heidelberg, has enjoyed her visit in , experiencing from to typical Dutch weather. Thanks for the visit and for a fantastic seminar!

PhD Ana Marta Pinho

A new art acquisition has just arrived at the institute! This piece was painted by artist Gregory Hondeski, former physicist and known by his contribution to theory of during the ‘70s. His work has found several applications, in particular within cosmological models of dark energy. He focused seriously on painting in the ‘80s, producing numerous paintings that can been contemplated in many exhibitions these days.

In this painting, Horndeski’s theory is shown (his well-known langrangian). We are super happy to host one of his pieces for our little art collection!

In the picture: Alessandra Silvestri admiring the work. Check out our stories to see the .

Cosmologist Dr. Alessandra Silvestri has been awarded the prestigious grant. She works intensively with her group trying to understand the origin of , which is responsible of making our universe expand in an accelerated way. She is interested in how we can test different models of Dark Energy and by using the available (and future) cosmological data sets. For that, she focuses on the observational predictions of the different models, studying them systematically from an Effective Field Theory approach. For this goal, she and her group have developed a computational tool to perform all the analysis, called .

She is highly involved in the Consortium, a future mission destined to obtain a Large Scale Structure Survey of Galaxies, and she is looking carefully to gravitational waves as they can put constraints in Dark Energy models too. Apart from research duties, she is also very active in lecturing and a dedicated supervisor to her master and students. She even organised a workshop for her group to learn how to bake delicious italian and pizzas.

Congratulations Alessandra! Are you interested in her work? Check-out her we page: https://wwwhome.lorentz.leidenuniv.nl/~silvestri/Home.html

In the pictures: some moments during the workshop and the celebration during the coffee break at the institute.

We are starting the new season of the Colloquium Ehrenfestii in two weeks, with a top speaker: Sean Carroll.

Sean Carroll is a Research Professor of theoretical physics at the California Institute of Technology. His research has focused on fundamental physics and cosmology, especially issues of dark matter, dark energy, spacetime symmetries, and the origin of the universe. And for those students in Leiden, he’s the writer of the famous book you have probably used in the course of Theory of General Relativity: “Spacetime and Geometry: An Introduction to General Relativity”.

Do not miss the date!! 26th Sept at 19:30 in the main auditorium of the Oort Building (De Sitterzaal)

For those insterested, follow the live streaming at https://goo.gl/muEWqn

Do not forget that you can also read the story of the Colloquium Ehrenfestii here: https://www.lorentz.leidenuniv.nl/history/colloquium/colloquium.html

Did you know that the first video of our YouTube channel is ready? Click and watch Alexey Boyarsky telling a little bit about his life as a researcher!

Stay tuned for new videos coming soon...

Alexey Boyarsky Interview - Lorentz Institute Interview with the theoretical physicist Alexey Boyarsky, an associate professor at Lorentz Institute, the theoretical physics institute of Leiden University...

Do you know about the cosmology seminars at the Lorentz Institute and the De Sitter Club?

On the one hand, every other week, on Wednesdays, cosmologists from Leiden Observatory and from Lorentz Institute meet with each other in other to discuss their research projects or different cosmology papers. This is the so called De Sitter Club, and if you are interested in joining, you can always subscribe to the e-mail list here: https://mail.strw.leidenuniv.nl/mailman/listinfo/desitterclub or talk to PhD Candidate Omar Contigiani. Today, 28th March, Maria Cristina will be talking about the uses and complications connected to the intrinsic alignment of galaxies and Kyrylo will be discussing a recent nature paper.

On the other hand, during the Leiden Cosmology Seminars, which also usually takes place on Wednesday, guest speakers all over the world in the field of cosmology give a talk about a challenging current research topic. If you are interested in getting to know when those seminars are taking place, the best thing is to check https://www.lorentz.leidenuniv.nl/cosmology/seminars.html.

A cluster of cosmologists during the group meeting !

Coffee time for our new Erasmus MSc student, Francesca, working with Alessandra Silvestri this semester !

Lorentz Institute updated their business hours.

What do you do when there is a light problem in the Institute? Move the Institute to a pub.

Today, on the day we celebrate the birth of Albert Einstein, we also mourn the passing of the great Stephen Hawking.

Thank you, Prof. Hawking, for your enormous contribution to modern Cosmology and for being an example of scientific outreach to the general population, as well as a truly admirable human being. This obituary was written by his colleague and great physicist Roger Penrose.

Requiescat in pace

'Mind over matter': Stephen Hawking – obituary by Roger Penrose Theoretical physicist who made revolutionary contributions to our understanding of the nature of the universe

birthday celebration today in De Sitterzaal, starting at 13:30.

Prof. Ana Achúcarro and Prof. Masahide Yamaguchi, from Tokyo Institute of Technology. He is our speaker in today's Cosmology Seminar at 15:30 in room 276, the Casimir Room, of the Oort building. The title of the talk will be: "Are redshift-space distortions actually a probe of growth of structure?"

Meet Lizzy Dresselhaus, our Fulbright student visiting from USA. She is working in Prof. Carlo Beenakker's group, navigating the quantum zoo for one year here in Instituut-Lorentz!

Lorentz Institute updated their website address.

Did you know that the Delta Institute for Theoretical Physics, a consortium formed by theoretical physics institutes within University of Amsterdam, Leiden University, and Utrecht University, offers two courses per year in Advanced Topics in Theoretical Physics, aimed at advanced Master’s students, PhD and postdoctoral researchers?

This spring's Delta ITP Course Advanced Topics in Theoretical Physics is built around the general theme of "Spontaneous symmetry breaking”, and Alexey Boyarsky (in the pic) is in charge of teaching module 2 of this course in the Lorentz Institute, every Monday starting at 11:00, for the next 5 weeks.

For more information about it: https://web.science.uu.nl/drstp/DeltaITP/deltaitp.html

Did you know about the Theoretical Cosmology meetings? To actively encourage the field of theoretical cosmology and to set an informal stage for the exchange of ideas, the Dutch theoretical cosmology community organizes Friday afternoon meetings approximately 6 times a year — usually on the first Friday of the month. The meetings typically start in the afternoon with a main speaker, followed by a short break to continue with another seminar or journal club discussion on some topic of current interest. We end the afternoon with drinks. Apart from the theoretical cosmology group of Lorentz Institute, groups of Amsterdam, Groningen, Utrecht and Leuven also participate!

For more, check: http://cosmology.nl/?post_type=tribe_events

In the picture: some PhD candidates from Lorentz Institute talking to the guest of this week in Utrecht, Cristiano Germani

Meet Slava Ostroukh and Yaroslav Herasymenko, our PhD Ukrainian members of Beenakker’s group.
Slava works in superconducting quantum transport and graphene superlattices. He is also in charge of the maintenance of our supercomputer.
He is next on the list to graduate in our institute.

On the opposite, Yaroslav is the newest and youngest member. He is interested in topological phases of matter (topological insulators, quantum Hall effect, Weyl semimetals) and recently has focused on quantum computing and random matrix theory problems.

Meet . He is a master student in cosmology working with Alessandra Silvestri. He is working in parametrization of modified gravity using computational simulations.

Meet Elena Garuccio. She's a PhD candidate in the group of Dr. Diego Garlaschelli working on complex networks applied to economical and financial systems.

Meet Fré Vink. He is a master student in cosmology working with Alessandra Silvestri in modified gravity. He is studying theoretical conditions on modified gravity parametrization.