winter 2011

InsIde the

PerImeterwww.perimeterinstitute.ca 31 Caroline Street North, Waterloo, ON, Canada N2L 2Y5 I 519.569.7600

whAts insideUPCOMING SCIENTIFIC EVENTS ............................... 2

NEILS NOTES ...................... 3

PI NEWS .............................. 4

CONFERENCE RECAPS ............................. 13

PI PUBLICATIONS ................ 16

GLOBAL OUTLOOK .............. 18

OUTREACH UPDATE ............ 20

CULTURE @ PI .................... 24

PI COMMUNITY ................... 26

THE LIFE OF PI IN PHOTOS ........................ 28

Guifre Vidal Joins pi p.4

$4 Million Gift from BMo Creates new Chair p.5Black Strings p.10

pi and Cita Join liGo p.9

02 winter 2011

ColloQuiaFor up-to-date information on colloquia, please visit: www.perimeterinstitute.ca/Scientifi c/Seminars/Colloquium

adrian Kent, University of Cambridge/ Perimeter Institute TBA MARCH 23 AT 2 PM, Theatre

Simon white, Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics The structure of the dark matter distribution on laboratory scales MARCH 30 AT 2 PM, Theatre

roger penrose, University of Oxford Conformal Cyclic Cosmology: Equations of Evolution, Observational Consequences APRIL 6 AT 2 PM, Theatre

Christopher Stubbs, Harvard University TBA APRIL 20 AT 2 PM, Theatre

eduardo Fradkin, University of Illinois TBA APRIL 27 AT 2 PM, Theatre

Sandu popescu, University of Bristol TBA MAY 11 AT 2 PM, Theatre

SeMinarSFor up-to-date information and locations, please visit: www.perimeterinstitute.ca/Scientifi c/Seminars/Series

Gil holder, McGill University Particle Physics MARCH 25 AT 1 PM abhay ashtekar, Pennsylvania State University ILQG

MARCH 29 AT 10 AM thomas Vidick, University of California, Berkeley PI Quantum Discussions

MARCH 30 AT 4 PM andreas ross, Carnegie Mellon University Strong Gravity

MARCH 31 AT 1 PM tarun Grover, University of California, Berkeley Condensed Matter April 1 at 11 AM tadashi takayanagi, Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe Strings

APRIL 5 AT 11 AM lawrence price, California Institute of Technology Cosmology & Gravitation

APRIL 5 AT 2 PM Brien nolan, Dublin City University Strong Gravity

APRIL 7 AT 1 PM Kristan Jensen, University of Victoria Strings APRIL 11 AT 11 AM

upCoMinG ConFerenCeS at piFor more details on PI conferences, please visit: www.perimeterinstitute.ca/Scientifi c/Conferences/Conferences

Back to the Bootstrap APRIL 12 14, 2011

4-Corner Southwest ontario Condensed Matter Symposium 2011 APRIL 26, 2011

Conceptual Foundations and Foils for Quantum information processing MAY 9 13, 2011

uPcOming scientiFic eVents

Scientific OrganizersGiulio Chiribella, Perimeter Institute (main organizer)Anne Broadbent, Institute for Quantum ComputingRobert Spekkens, Perimeter Institute

Deadline for registration is May 3, 2011

www.perimeterinstitute.ca/Conceptual_Foundations_and_Foils_for_QIP

Invited SpeakersScott Aaronson, MITAntonio Acn, ICFO BarcelonaHoward Barnum, University of New Mexico Jon Barrett, Royal Holloway*Gilles Brassard, Universit de MontralNicolas Brunner, University of BristolDan Browne, University College London*Caslav Brukner, University of ViennaBob Coecke, University of OxfordRoger Colbeck, Perimeter InstituteMauro DAriano, University of PaviaChris Fuchs, Perimeter InstituteLucien Hardy, Perimeter InstituteMarc Kaplan, Universit de MontralGen Kimura, Shibaura Institute of Technology*Tsuyoshi Ito, Institute for Quantum Computing Lluis Masanes, ICFOMarkus Mueller, Perimeter InstituteJonathan Oppenheim, University of CambridgePaolo Perinotti, University of PaviaSandu Popescu, University of BristolRenato Renner, ETH ZurichValerio Scarani, National University of SingaporeBen Schumacher, Kenyon CollegeAnthony Short, University of CambridgeStephanie Wehner, National University of SingaporeAlex Wilce, Susquehanna University Andreas Winter, University of Bristol*to be confirmed

Conceptual Foundations and Foils for Quantum Information ProcessingMay 9 - 13, 2011Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, Waterloo, Ontario, CanadaThe interplay between information-processing protocols and basic physical principles has attracted increasing interest in the past few years and has been the subject of many new and exciting results. Such investigations offer a new perspective on the foundations of quantum theory, a deeper understanding of the origin of quantum advantages for information-processing, and a framework for exploring the nature of information-processing within alternatives to quantum theory (foil theories).

PirsA Pick of the issuenew Best hope for Quantum Gravity? (http://pirsa.org/11020085/)

renate loll, utrecht university

Series: Colloquium

InsIde the PerImeter

winter 2011 03

Some view winter here as an ordeal: for me its a wonder, to look out on the deep, bright snow and see the land-scape transformed. Its also a reminder of how quickly things can change. Like Perimeter, now in the throes of a major renewal. Laying the seeds, we hope, for a springtime bringing transforma-tive insights to our research. As you have often read in these pages, we are building a research community here of exceptional depth, around the central themes of quantum theory and spacetime: the basic laws and the arena for physics. A major emphasis naturally falls on enlarging our research faculty, and I am delighted to report that Guifre Vidal, a pioneer working at the interface of quantum information and condensed matter physics, will shortly be joining PI from the University of Queensland. No other institute in our field, worldwide, has such ambitious growth plans. To support them and secure Perimeters long-term future, we have launched Expanding the Perimeter, a major campaign to build our endowment and widen our circle of supporters. We have been thrilled at the intensity of interest and commitment so far garnered across Canada. Innovators and leaders from many arenas have joined our Leadership Council and are generously lending their time and talents to the campaign. In late November, Expanding the Perimeter celebrated a major success. The BMO Financial Group contributed $4 mil-lion to create the BMO Financial Group Isaac Newton Chair in Theoretical Physics at Perimeter Institute. This is the largest single gift BMO has ever made to an academic institution. Coming from a major financial institution this is an extraor-dinary endorsement of our conviction that investment in fundamental research is an essential element of ensuring our shared future prosperity as a society. The Newton Chair is only the first of five Research Chairs we plan to create at Perimeter, each named after a scientist whose insights helped define modern physics: Isaac Newton, James Clerk Maxwell, Albert Einstein, Niels Bohr and Paul Dirac. The holders of the Perimeter Research Chairs will be chosen from among the worlds leading physicists, building the strength of our research community and helping us to fulfill our mission of fostering major breakthroughs in our understanding of the universe. Surprisingly, in view of Newtons pre-eminence in modern science, this Chair is, as far as I know, the first to be named

for him worldwide. And who was Newton? He came out of nowhere (the backwoods of Lincolnshire in England to be precise) to solve thousand-year-old riddles. He invented entirely new mathematics calculus and used it to create the new sciences of mechanics, gravitation, optics, fluids. His equations were far more powerful than even he knew. For example, they describe the expansion of the universe and the formation of galaxies and stars. As the Russian astrophysicist Zeldovich said: There is nothing wrong with Newtonian cosmology all it takes is courage. Today, giant supercomputers solve Newtons equations to describe the clustering of galaxies and stars, although even Newton him-self never attempted to describe the universe in this way. The economist John Maynard Keynes, who collected many of Newtons original manuscripts, stated that Newton was not the first of the age of reason, but rather the last of the magicians. In his rooms at Trinity College, Cambridge, he famously spent more time on alchemy than he did on physics. Some find this surpris-ing, but perhaps there is really no puzzle. One definition of theoretical physics is simply that it is magic which works. Newton was looking for magic, and he found it in physics, discovering that the world works according to mathematical rules. With persistence, we can reveal them and use them to create phenomena which are truly magical. So in a sense, Newton marked the transition from magic based on traditional beliefs and superstition to scientific magic which transcends us all and which is our greatest hope for the future. One of the most moving experiences of my career was to examine Newtons own private library, a small collection held in the Wren Library in Trinity College at Cambridge. It includes Galileos manuscripts, with Newtons comments scribbled in the margins. Newton and his peers were the beginning of the modern scientific community like us, they worked in special institutions which gave them the space and the support they needed. And just who will occupy the Newton Chair? Stay tuned...

Neil Turok

On Alchemy And Physics

NEILS NOTESInsIde the PerImeter

Dr. Etera Livine has been appointed as Perimeters first Visiting Fellow. The new Visiting Fellows program will bring accomplished early career scientists to Perimeter for extended research periods of up to six months each year, while maintaining their positions at other institutions. The appointments are for three-year terms. Dr. Livine is a Charg de Recherche for the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) at the Laboratoire de Physique of the cole Normale Suprieure de Lyon, in France. He works in the area of quantum gravity, with a focus on spinfoam models, and has recently developed an interest in deriving effective dynamics for quantum cosmology from these models. From 2003 - 2006, Dr. Livine was a Postdoctoral Fellow at PI, and he is looking forward to returning to Waterloo to

work with past collaborators including Faculty member Laurent Freidel and postdoc-toral researcher Valentin Bon-zom as well as developing new collaborations. As he puts it, I like the interactive atmosphere at PI; theres always something new and exciting every day. I like working on the comfortable sofas, discussing physics in the evening at the Bistro or sorting out controversies in the squash court. I like the whole friendly and very active ambiance at PI.

Natasha Waxman

Pi APPOints First Visiting FellOw

04 winter 2011

t his May, Perimeter Institute will welcome a new member to its research faculty, as current Distinguished Research Chair (DRC) Guifre Vidal is set to arrive with two post-doctoral researcher colleagues. In addition to serving as a DRC since 2009, Dr. Vidal is currently an Australian Research Council Federation Fellow at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia. In making the announcement, PIs Director Neil Turok said, Professor Vidal has pioneered powerful new methods for understanding large quantum systems which exhibit fascinating collective phenomena. His research combines insights from quantum information, computational physics, and condensed matter physics and lays the basis for a far more sophisticated understanding of the real quantum world around us. We are thrilled to have Guifre join us at PI he will greatly strengthen and broaden our expertise in quantum information, field theory and condensed matter. Dr. Vidal works at the inter face of quantum information and condensed matter physics. He has done extensive work on quantum entanglement, both with regards to quantum computing and in the broader context of many-body systems. He has developed new computational approaches, such as entanglement renormalization, to gain a better understanding of condensed matter systems. His present work concerns the use of tensor network states, such as the multi-scale entanglement renormalization ansatz (MERA) and projected entangled pair states (PEPS), to compute the ground state of quantum many-body systems on a lattice, and to issue a classification of the possible phases of quantum matter, corresponding to the different fixed points of the renormalization group flow. The tensor network formalism is likely to become relevant across many research areas involving many-body physics, which made Perimeters interdisciplinary environment particularly appealing. Dr. Vidal said, I very much look forward to starting to work as a Faculty member at Perimeter Institute. I have visited PI several times since its creation, and have always enjoyed the special atmosphere it offers to researchers. However,

what finally made me decide to join the Institute was the recent inclusion of condensed matter theory as one of its core research areas. Dr. Vidal received his PhD from the University of Barcelona in 1999 under the supervision of Prof. Rolf Tarrach. He was a postdoctoral fellow in Prof. Ignacio Ciracs group at the University of Innsbruck in Austria from 1999 - 2002 and then worked as a postdoctoral fellow with Prof. John Preskill at the Institute for Quantum Information at the California Institute of Technology from 2002 - 2005. He has been a professor in the School of Mathematics and Physics at the University of Queensland since 2005. Dr. Vidals past honours include a Marie Curie Fellowship, awarded by the European Union, and a Sherman Fairchild Foundation Fellowship.

Mike Brown

Further exploration: Dr. Vidal recently spoke with Science Watch about some of his highly-cited work. You can read that interview at: http://www.sciencewatch.com/ana/st/quantum/10julSTVida/

G. Vidal, J. I. Latorre, E. Rico and A. Kitaev. Entanglement in quantum critical phenomena. Physical Review Letters 90, 227902 (2003). http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0211074

G. Vidal. Efficient classical simulation of slightly entangled quantum computa-tions. Physical Review Letters 91, 147902 (2003). http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0301063

G. Vidal. Efficient simulation of one-dimensional quantum many-body systems. Physical Review Letters 93, 040502 (2004). http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0310089

G. Vidal. Entanglement Renormalization. Physical Review Letters 99, 220405 (2007).

guiFre VidAl tO JOin Pi FAculty

PI NEWSInsIde the PerImeter

i n the winter of 2009, Bill Downe, President and CEO of Bank of Montreal (BMO), came to Perimeter to satisfy his curiosity about what it is were doing here. He listened to PI Board Chair and founder Mike Lazaridis impassioned talk about his belief in the importance of supporting basic research, and how theoretical physics is behind some of the biggest technological advances in our history. Intrigued, Mr. Downe invited Mr. Lazaridis and PI Director Neil Turok to share the PI story at a special thought leadership event being hosted by BMO later that spring.

What resulted from their new association was the single largest donation ever made by BMO to support science $4 million to establish the BMO Financial Group Isaac Newton Chair in Theoretical Physics at Perimeter Institute, announced at PI on November 29, 2010. It is the first of five such chairs that will be named for the scientists whose insights defined modern physics: Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein, James Clerk Maxwell, Paul Dirac, and Niels Bohr. Appropriately, the first chair is named for Isaac Newton, one of the most brilliant and influential scientists in history, whose work marks the starting point of modern physics. Mr. Downe explained, We believe so strongly in the work that is happening at PI that we wanted to invest in it, contributing, we hope, to PIs and Canadas success. This donation is a celebration of Canadian science and the possi-bilities that will fire the imagination of the next generation of scientists. While BMO operates in the practical world of banking, we see ourselves as innovators as well. Its not easy to understand what the researchers at PI are doing, but what is easy to understand is the link between the questions theyre asking and the implications for us all, when they find the answers. Speaking at the announcement, Mr. Lazaridis said, What were trying to do at PI is live up to the remarkable tradition of research advancements, such as those of Newton and Einstein. BMO recognizes that in order to move science, technology, and society forward, we must invest in the breakthrough research that makes innovation possible. With this gift from BMO, we can continue to invest in important research that, one day, may transform our world once again.

Carrie Gabla

Pictured (L to R): Mike Lazaridis, Founder of Perimeter Institute; Bill Downe, President & CEO, BMO Financial Group; The Honourable Glen Murray, Minister of Research and Innovation; Neil Turok, Director of Perimeter Institute

The actual telescope that Newton built still exists, and resides at the Royal Society in London. This exact replica of Newtons telescope was pre-sented to Bill Downe, President and CEO of BMO Financial Group, in recognition of BMOs $4 million contribution to PI and to science.

$4 milliOn BmO giFt creAtes new reseArch chAir

Just 15 cm long, Sir Isaac Newtons little telescope sym-bolizes one of the biggest stories in science showing the nearly miraculous way Newton braided observation, theory and experiment to achieve breakthroughs. Newtons investigations into light, in which he used a prism showing that white light was composed of a spectrum of colours, led him to figure out the cause of a distortion that afflicted the telescopes of his day. He realized that light passing through the lenses was being refracted unevenly, causing fringes of colour to appear around the objects being observed, and obscuring them. By contrast, he reasoned, since light doesnt pass through a mirror, but simply bounces off its surface, there should be no such distortion. To prove his point, in 1668, Newton built the worlds first functional reflecting telescope, grinding the mirrors himself out of a highly reflective metal of his own composition. He continued to refine the design to achieve a telescope that enabled him to minutely observe and calculate the motions of the planets. These observations were crucial to the development of his law of universal gravitation, and the new

mathematics of calculus needed to precisely calculate their observed elliptical orbits. Astronomy took off as a science after the reflecting tele-scope was invented. Mirrors are still used in many modern telescopes, including the Hubble space telescope, whose huge mirrors have enabled it to reveal astounding new vistas.

Carrie Gabla & Natasha Waxman

thrOugh the lOOking glAss

winter 2011 05

06 winter 2011

Mike lazaridis, O.C., O.Ont. (Council Co-Chair)Founder, Perimeter InstitutePresident & Co-CEO, Research in Motion Ltd. (RIM)

Cosimo Fiorenza (Council Co-Chair)Vice Chair, Board of Directors, Perimeter InstituteVice-President and General Counsel, Infinite Potential Group

alexandra (alex) BrownPresident, Aprilage Inc.

David CaputoPresident & CEO, Sandvine

Jim CooperPresident & CEO, Maplesoft

Catherine (Kiki) Delaney, C.M.President, C.A. Delaney Capital Management Ltd.

arlene DickinsonCEO, Venture Communications Ltd.

Ginny DybenkoExecutive Strategic Initiatives, Wilfrid Laurier University

Jim estillPartner, Canrock Ventures

edward S. GoldenbergPartner, Bennett Jones LLP

tim JacksonCEO, Accelerator Centre

tom JenkinsExecutive Chairman & Chief Strategy Officer, Open Text

Carol leeCEO and Co-Founder, Linacare Cosmetherapy Inc.

Michael lee-Chin, o.J.Executive Chairman & CEO, Portland Investment Counsel Inc.

Don MorrisonChief Operating Officer, Research in Motion Ltd. (RIM)

Gerry remers President & COO, Christie Digital Systems Canada Inc.

Bruce rothneyPresident & Country Head, Canada, Barclays Capital Canada Inc.

Maureen SabiaChairman of the Board, Canadian Tire Corporation Ltd.

Kevin SheaChair, Ontario Media Development Corporation

t he Expanding the Perimeter Leadership Council, led by Co-Chairs Mike Lazaridis and Cosimo Fiorenza, has been created to bring business and community together to assist others in understanding the impact they can have on moving science forward through financial support of PI. The Council met as a group for the first time at PI on October 27, 2010. They spent the afternoon discovering why PI Founder Mike Lazaridis and Director Neil Turok are so excited about what were doing here. They heard from Lee Smolin, Latham Boyle, Natalia Toro, and Adrienne Erickcek about

their research, and from student Laura Piispanen about the PSI Masters program. Greg Dick and John Matlock also spoke about PI Outreach and Communications activities, with animated conversations continuing over a delicious dinner at the Black Hole Bistro and in the days that followed. We are honoured to have such an exceptional team of volunteers on our Council, which will continue to grow as new members are sought locally, nationally and abroad.

Carrie Gabla

exPAnding the Perimeter leAdershiP cOuncil

leaDerShip CounCil MeMBerS

carnegie group of international s&t leaders Visits PiPerimeter Institute hosted a visit by the worlds science and technology leaders during a Carnegie Group meeting in Ontario. Carnegies annual meetings provide a forum for open ex-changes among chief science advisors and ministers responsible for research from G13 countries and the European Union on science-related issues. Perimeter Institute Director Neil Turok gave a presentation on the importance of basic research in the broader science, technology and innovation ecosystem, as well as his insights on PIs unique strengths and linkages throughout the worlds research, training and outreach communities.

PI NEWSInsIde the PerImeter

winter 2011 07

Perimeter Institute Distinguished Research Chair Yakir Aharonov has been awarded the highest honour bestowed on scientists by the United States government, the National Medal of Science. The award was presented by President Barack Obama in a White House ceremony on November 17. PI Director Neil Turok commented, Within the world of physics, Professor Aharonov is simply a legend. His career has been characterized by a series of brilliant and unexpected insights into the deepest aspects of quantum theory and their manifestations in real phenomena. The National Medal, which recognizes outstanding contri-butions to the biological, social, physical or mathematical sciences, has been awarded annually since 1959. Previous recipients in physics include such luminaries as Richard Feynman and Hans Bethe. The Medal is the latest in a long list of accolades awarded to Professor Aharonov for his work on the foundations of quantum mechanics; he has previously been honoured with the Wolf Prize in Physics, and holds four honorary doctorates from universities on three continents. Professor Aharonovs best-known discovery is the Aharonov- Bohm effect, a quantum phenomenon which fundamentally advanced modern physics by demonstrating that potentials, not forces, were the most appropriate language in which to describe the quantum world. The implications of the Aharonov- Bohm effect are still being probed by researchers in quantum foundations, more than 50 years after its discovery. Other important contributions to physics made by Professor Aharonov include the theory of weak measurement, which allows certain classes of quantum systems to be measured without altering their state. He is also the co-discoverer of the Aharonov-Casher effect, an effect dual to the Aharonov-Bohm effect that has proven important to experimental quantum computing. According to PI Faculty member Lucien Hardy, Professor Aharonovs no-nonsense approach to the foundations of

quantum theory has been a tremendous inspiration to gen-erations of physicists interested in the detailed conceptual structure of the theory. His work on understanding quantum theory in terms of pre- and post-selected ensembles, in par-ticular, continues to provide deep and fundamental insights that will, I expect, prove important in future developments of theoretical physics. In addition to his visiting researcher appointment as a DRC, Professor Aharonov is the James J. Farley Professor in Natural Philosophy at Chapman University and Professor Emeritus at Tel Aviv University in Israel.

Natasha Waxman

Read more about the Aharonov-Bohm Effect on page 8.

PI DIstInguIsheD ReseaRch chaIR YakIR ahaRonov WIns us natIonal MeDal of scIence

BaRBaRa Palk JoIns PI BoaRD of DIRectoRs

P erimeter Institute welcomes Barbara Palk to the Institutes Board of Directors. The recently retired President of TD Asset Management Inc., one of Canadas leading money management firms, and former Senior Vice President of TD Bank Financial Group joined the Board on December 4, 2010. She is a Fellow of the Canadian Securities Institute, a CFA Charterholder, and a member of the Toronto Society of Financial Analysts. In addition to her distinguished career in financial services, Ms. Palk has a long record of community service. Currently, Ms. Palk is Vice Chair of the Board of Trustees of Queens University and the Chair of its Investment Committee, and a member of the Boards of The Shaw Festival and Greenwood College School. Previously, Ms. Palk has served as a director of Unicef Canada, CanStage, and the Investment Counsel

Association of Canada, as Vice Chair of the Board of the Canadian Coalition of Good Governance, and as a member of the Council of Examiners for The CFA Institute. She is a past Co-Chair of the Queens University Advancement Committee, and past President of The Ticker Club. In 2004, Ms. Palk was honoured as a recipient of the Ontario Volunteer Award and by The Womens Executive Network as one of Canadas Most Powerful Women: Top 100 in the Trailblazer category.

Natasha Waxman

08 winter 2011

One hurdle on the road to building quantum computers is that they are very vulnerable to errors caused by unintended interactions with the environment outside the computer. Indeed, errors are unavoidable in any device used for quantum information processing. Recently, researchers from Perimeter Institute and the Institute for Quantum Computing (IQC) implemented a novel way to cope with errors inherent to quantum systems, and published their results in Nature Communications. A number of error-correcting and fault-tolerant methods have been developed in recent years to overcome quantum imperfections. In particular, some methods rely on the ability to prepare quantum bits (qubits) in a special high-purity state: the so-called magic state. The researchers implemented, for the fi rst time, the magic-state distillation. This quantum algorithm involves applying quantum operations to fi ve imperfect magic states and distill-ing one with high-purity. The research team implemented the distillation protocol with a seven-qubit nuclear magnetic

resonance system. In order to successfully realize their experiment, they had to achieve a very high degree of control over their qubits and perform precise measurements of this large quantum system. The result is an important building block in the implementation of quantum information processing, according to PI Associate Faculty member and IQC Director Raymond Lafl amme, one of the papers co-authors. We know there are incredible advantages to quantum information processing over classical computing, but the hurdle we need to overcome is errors, he said. We cant completely eliminate errors, but we can learn to control them.

Colin Hunter

Further exploration:- Experimental magic state distillation for fault-tolerant quantum computing, Alexandre M. Souza, Jingfu Zhang, Colm A. Ryan, Raymond Lafl amme. Nature Communications, 2, 169 (2011), DOI 10.1038/ncomms1166. arXiv:1103.2178.

mAgic stAte imPlementAtiOn AchieVed

intuition, the tool that allows us to predict and thus function in our world, has been shown time and again to collapse in spectacular and surprising ways at the quantum scale. For example, we would expect that a charged particle moving through a region of space where it feels no force would experience no change, even if there was a magnetic fi eld in another region of space very close by. The Aharonov-Bohm effect, predicted by Yakir Aharonov and David Bohm in 1959, turns this logic on its head, and forced physicists either to reformulate their understanding of electrodynamics, or to abandon the concept of locality and accept what Einstein coined spooky action at a distance. Picture a long electric coil, wound into a cylinder, through which a current is running. Electrodynamics tells us the current induces a magnetic fi eld inside the coil, but no magnetic fi eld outside it. In a world without quantum mechanics, it would then be safe to assume that an electron passing outside the solenoid would be completely unaffected by it. Just as a charged particle in a Faraday cage feels no electric fi eld, one just outside a solenoid feels no magnetic fi eld. In classical electrodynamics, magnetic fi elds are described with the help of a vector potential, a quantity originally introduced only as a mathematical tool. In the classical world the vector potential is never measured; in fact, it is impossible even to say uniquely what it would be, as the same magnetic fi eld can be derived from a whole family of vector potentials. Importantly, though, the vector potential is non-zero in regions of space where the magnetic fi eld is zero, and although this effect cannot be measured classically, it has implications when we enter the quantum world. On the quantum scale, particles arent just particles, but behave like waves, too. Thus, electrons on the quantum scale can be in or out of phase, and can form diffraction patterns. If an electron is diffracted through a double slit, it will create an interference pattern on a screen. If a solenoid containing a magnetic fi eld is then placed between the two potential

paths of the diffracted electron (see Figure 1), we would expect nothing to change in the classical picture. However, the vector potential has the ability to shift the phase of the electron wave. This, in turn, shifts the diffraction pattern. A tangible effect of a supposedly imaginary potential, which exerts no force, has been observed.

The Aharonov-Bohm effect was fi rst confi rmed experimentally in Tokyo in 1985 by Akira Tonomura and collaborators. It leaves physicists with a choice: accept that the vector poten-tial is a real entity and that forces are not the fundamental engines of change in physics, or demand that the magnetic fi eld be capable of affecting regions of space in which it is zero. This choice has implications for the foundations of quantum mechanics and for the formulation of physics in general that are still being discussed today.

Imogen Wright

Further exploration:

- Detailed explanation of the Aharonov-Bohm Effect:

http://rugth30.phys.rug.nl/quantummechanics/ab.htm

- Journal of Physics A Special Issue on the Aharonov-Bohm Effect:

http://iopscience.iop.org/1751-8121/43/35

AnOther QuAntum surPrise: the AhArOnOV-BOhm eFFect

PI NEWSInsIde the PerImeter

Figure 1: A double slit experiment, where the phases of the two possible electron paths are altered with respect to each other by the presence of a non-zero magnetic fl ux contained in a solenoid.

winter 2011 09

Kipp and I are currently working on developing techniques for real-time gravitational wave astronomy to facilitate joint observation with optical, gamma-ray and radio telescopes. We hope to catch the full electromagnetic and gravitational spectrum for transient gravitational wave events such as the merger of neutron stars. It is a technically challenging task, given the computational complexity of searching the vast compact binary space, but may be critical for confirming unequivocally that the first gravitational wave detections have occurred. Ultimately, prompt electromagnetic observation (within seconds) following a gravitational wave observation will deepen our understanding of some of the mechanisms driving transient events in our universe, allowing us to correlate the gravitational wave signal with the electromagnetic signal throughout the event. Our work meshes well with the exciting work conducted by Luis Lehner (PI), Carlos Palenzuela (CITA) and collaborators on modeling electromagnetic emission from compact binary systems.

Gravitational wave observation will provide tests for strong gravity that are not possible in any conceivable laboratory. The joint PI and CITA MOU with the LSC will open up possibili-ties for current and future researchers at PI hoping to connect with gravitational wave experiments. Anyone interested in discussing such opportunities is invited to contact me (channa@perimeterinstitute.ca) or Kipp Cannon (kcannon@cita.utoronto.ca).

Chad Hanna

CITA-ICAT

Pi And citA BecOme First cAnAdiAn memBers OF the ligO scientiFic cOllABOrAtiOn

i joined Perimeter Institute as a postdoctoral researcher in October 2010 after working at the LIGO Laboratory (short for Laser Inter ferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory) at Caltech. Ive been involved with the LIGO Scientific Collaboration (LSC) in one form or another for about seven years and, as I was transitioning to PI, Kipp Cannon of the Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics (CITA) and I petitioned successfully to join the LSC on behalf of PI and CITA. We have signed a memorandum of understanding with the LSC to continue our research into gravitational wave observation, including the merger of neutron stars and black holes, cosmic string cusps and other transient phenomena. This venture marks the first Canadian membership in the LSC and further strengthens the relationship between PI and CITA. I think it also holds great potential as an opportunity to stimulate new observational tests for fundamental theories, and should fit nicely with the Institutes goal of engaging with scientists at leading experimental and observational centres. The LIGO Scientific Collaboration is paving the way for the era of gravitational wave astronomy. Founded in 1997, the LSC is an international collaboration of around 700 scientists from over 60 institutions and 11 countries worldwide, working on building and operating kilometre-scale laser interferometric gravitational wave detectors. Their primary objective is to observe gravitational waves from the nearby universe. The LSC oversees the scientific goals and analysis of the two American LIGO detectors located in Hanford, Washington and Livingston, Louisiana as well as the GEO detector near Hannover, Germany. Since May 2007, the LSC has operated jointly with the Virgo Scientific Collaboration operating a detector near Pisa, Italy. The LIGO project recently successfully completed its first phase, attaining a peak strain sensitivity of ~10 -23 Hz -1/2 which, just to provide the scale of that infinitesimal strain, is roughly equivalent to being able to detect when something the diameter of the Milky Way is stretched or squeezed by the width of your thumbnail. The two LIGO sites and the Virgo site are scheduled to have significant upgrades in the next five years that should further increase their sensitivity by a factor of 10. Pending funding, an advanced LIGO observatory in Australia and the Large-scale Cryogenic Gravitational wave

Telescope (LCGT) in Japan may also be operating this decade. With the development of advanced detectors on a global scale, the direct detection of gravitational waves is a near certainty in the next decade. The regular observation of gravitational waves will deepen our understanding of highly energetic phe-nomena in the universe and may reveal new and exciting physics.

Aerial view of Livingston, LA, LIGO Observatory.

10 winter 2011

Anew act has opened in a cosmic drama that began nearly 20 years ago, and features many PI-related characters weaving in and out of the story ... A recent paper published in Physical Review Letters by PI Associate Faculty member Luis Lehner and Frans Pretorius (Princeton University) describes the evolution and ultimate fate of a higher dimensional object the black string. It also dangles the tantalizing possibility that spacetime singularities not hidden behind an event horizon may exist. The cosmic censorship hypothesis conjectures that no such naked singularity is possible in nature, meaning that we are forever blind to the point where all known laws of physics break down and only quantum gravity can rule. Professors Lehner and Pretorius work suggests, however, that in five dimen-sions the end state of a spacetime containing a black string may indeed include a naked singularity. The question of stability whether a physical state is

robust when perturbed is crucial to an understanding of any physical system. Black holes have been known to be stable in four dimensions for nearly 40 years. As Lehner points out, it is crucial that black holes are stable in four dimensions, because, for instance, the black hole at the centre of our galaxy is continuously perturbed by objects surrounding it and falling into it. However, many unified theories postulate that we live in more than four dimensions. Here, higher dimensional cousins of black holes, black strings, can be studied mathematically. A black string is essentially a black hole extended in one dimension, and is a solution to Einsteins equations in five dimensions and higher. PI Associate Faculty member Raymond Laflamme and Professor Ruth Gregory (Durham University), a Perimeter Scholars International (PSI)

lecturer, conjectured in 1993 that, unlike black holes, black strings would be unstable and decayed into a chain of black holes. This conjecture was believed to be true but the dynamics behavior and final state of the system remained unknown for almost two decades. The complexity of the system and the computational power required to model it numerically proved a stumbling block for a decade. Lehner recalls that from 1993, several hundred papers were written assuming that this conjecture was correct, but no one ever proved it. It wasnt until Lehner and Pretorius were invited to lecture in PSI in early 2010 that they were able to concentrate for enough time together on the problem to finally solve it. They turned to the cutting-edge numerical relativity employing methods of adaptive mesh refinement to model a perturbed black string in five dimensions. They confirmed that the instability causes the string to pinch off, forming

a chain of black holes connected by thinner strings. These strings are affected by the same instability as the parent string, and in turn pinch off to form more black holes, con-nected by even thinner strings. Lehner and Pretorius were able to model the series of self-similar black hole formations accurately enough to predict the final state of the system. The curvature of each successive generation of black holes is dependent on string radius, meaning that the event horizon of each generation will be smaller than that of the last. The final generation of strings will thus coalesce into singulari-ties with no event horizon at all naked singularities. The time between generations also depends on string radius, so each generation of black holes forms more quickly than the last, meaning that the naked singularities form in finite time. Lehner explains that with a small enough black string this could happen in seconds, but that an object the mass of the supermassive black hole in the centre of our galaxy would takes weeks to terminate the series. Cosmic censorship the absence of naked singularities was supported by PI Distinguished Research Chair Stephen Hawking in a famous bet against John Preskill and Kip Thorne, both of the California Institute of Technology. Hawking was forced to concede the bet in 1996, however, when Professor Matt Choptuik of the University of British Columbia, also a PSI lecturer, demonstrated that a naked singularity could arise in a special case in a collapsing black hole. However, because of the amount of fine tuning involved, which Choptuik compares to balancing a pen on its tip with your finger, Hawking classed the concession as a technicality. In the black string scenario investigated by Lehner and Pretorius there is no such fine tuning. However, Lehner suspects that Dr. Hawking would nevertheless consider the scenario a technicality, since the existence of higher dimen-sions is itself unconfirmed. Where could the story go from here? According to Lehner, continuing the study of the black string system beyond the point where a singularity arises would require an understanding of quantum gravity that would remove the infinities present. However, assuming the resolution of these infinities, he predicts that small perturbations in spacetime would cause the many formed black holes in the series to merge, creating a single large black hole as the true final state of the system.

Imogen Wright

Editors Note: Imogen Wright was a member of the first class of Perimeter Scholar International, and stays in touch with regular contributions to PIs newsletter.

Further exploration:- APS Synopsis - http://physics.aps.org/synopsis-for/10.1103/

PhysRevLett.105.101102- L. Lehner and F. Pretorius, Black Strings, Low Viscosity Fluids, and Violation

of Cosmic Censorship, Phys. Rev. Lett. 105, 101102 (2010)- Watch an animation of Professors Lehner and Pretorius results here:

http://www.livescience.com/common/media/video/player. php?videoRef=LS_100921_black_strings

BrAiding BlAck strings, cOsmic censOrshiP, And Pi reseArchers

PI NEWSInsIde the PerImeter

winter 2011 11

Astrophysicist Andrea Lommen is an Associate Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Franklin & Marshall College. She is Chair of the International Pulsar Timing Array, an organization that seeks to foster collaboration amongst the worlds major pulsar timing arrays, and served as Charter Chair of the North American Nanohertz Observatory of Gravi-tational Waves (NANOGrav) until the end of 2010. Professor Lommen is also the founder of the Mid-Atlantic Relativistic Initiative in Education (MARIE), a science outreach program for high school students, and serves on the Program Advisory Council of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO). After connecting with Associate Faculty member Luis Lehner and Postdoctoral Researcher Chad Hanna through LIGO, she visited PI for the fi rst time in December, and presented a seminar about her work with NANOGrav (available on PIRSA at pirsa.org/10120035). She plans to return for another visit in September.

MB: What are your initial impressions of PI?

al: Its an amazing place. I love the way the space is set up the light and the windows and the chalkboards and the way they have it set up for visitors makes a lot of sense. Its really nice.

MB: Can you tell us a little bit about what youre working on these days?

al: I aim to detect gravitational waves using pulsars. Pulsars are these dead, dense stars that are about the mass of the sun, collapsed down to the size of Waterloo and spinning as fast as a kitchen blender. Theres a radio beacon thats emit-ted out one side of the pulsar, and so every time the pulsar spins, you see a pulse. Pulsars are intrinsically interesting we actually dont understand particularly well how you get this beam of radio emission out one side but I am sort of putting all that aside and saying, Well, lets just use them as celestial clocks. Basically, the universe has donated this system of clocks distributed throughout the galaxy for us to use. What Im interested in is any disturbance in the curvature of spacetime that would disturb the path between the pulsar and the Earth. The disturbance were most interested in is the gravitational wave, of course.

MB: How does this work relate to the work being done byground-based interferometry observatories such as LIGO?

al: Ground-based interferometry and pulsar timing are fairly analogous, actually theyre just at different scales and theyre actually quite complementary experiments. LIGO has three-kilometre baselines, and we have more like 3000-light-year arms. One of the things that means is that were sensitive to very low-frequency gravitational waves tens of nanohertz is our sweet spot, whereas LIGO is sensitive to kilohertz, so were actually 12 orders of magnitude away from each other in frequency space. So, our sources are quite different and, if you look at the whole spectrum of gravitational waves, from the Cosmic Microwave Background experiment at Hubble wavelengths down to the ground-based interferometers, weve actually got the whole spectrum sampled. I think its probably one of the fi rst times in history that we have the whole spectrum of something sampled before weve ever detected anything. Usually you have an entry point and then you go from there, but we know theres going to be something there and its going to be really exciting when that region starts to open up.

Continued on page 12

A chAt with Visiting scientist AndreA lOmmenInterview by Mike Brown

Associate Faculty member luis lehner named Fellow of the APsCongratulations to pi associate Faculty Member luis lehner, who was recently elected as a Fellow of the american physical Society (apS), for his important contributions to numerical relativity, most notably in the areas of black hole simulations, general relativistic magnetohydrodynamics, and algorithm development.

Congratulations to pi associate Faculty Member luis lehner, who was recently elected as a Fellow of the american physical Society (apS), for his important contributions to numerical relativity, most notably in the areas of black hole simulations, general relativistic magnetohydrodynamics, and algorithm development.

12 winter 2011

A chAt with Visiting scientist AndreA lOmmenContinued from page 11

MB: It sounds like a thrilling time to be working in gravita-tional wave astronomy. Would it be fair to say the field has gained prominence in recent years?

al: Its definitely coming into the public view; it got rated very highly in the Astro2010 Decadal Survey. Every 10 years, the National Academy of Sciences in the US does a broad study of, What are the most important questions in astronomy in the next decade going to be? LISA [Laser Inter ferometer Space Antenna] and the PTAs, the Pulsar Timing Arrays as we call them, both figured prominently in this Decadal Survey, and they said that gravitational waves and gravitational wave astronomy is one of the most important questions going forward.

As pulsar astronomers, somehow we got used to what I call the thrift store culture, where we sort of just take whatevers left over from everybody else. I keep trying to con-vince people that this is our time we have now come into money and notoriety and we can start thinking about what it is we would need, not what is left over from somebody elses experiment.

MB: What are your earlier memories of being interested in this type of work?

al: Well, my dad talked to me about it a lot his degree is in gamma ray astrophysics. As I was going to bed and trying to stall, Id say, Hey dad, whys the sky blue?, and hed give me this really long explanation about Rayleigh scattering, which, at seven years old, I just didnt quite appreciate. My mom is a PhD biologist, but somehow I got the message I think actually because my dad talked more about stuff than my mom did, and then maybe from Star Trek that space really was the final frontier. I wanted to do something where we didnt always know everything.

MB: And how has that attitude affected the outreach work you do, specifically with MARIE?

al: That has been my goal with MARIE as well I wanted to let high school students know that we dont know everything. Especially in high school and sometimes in college too, we give our students the impression that we know all this stuff already you know, Heres a textbook. Learn this. And the textbook just tells you about what we know; it doesnt say, Oh, were on the brink of discovering gravitational waves. Even if students dont go into astronomy, I really want them to understand why its important to put your taxes into basic research. People ask me, Whats the point of this? Is there spinoff research of what you do? And I say no. Gravita-tional wave astronomy is not going to produce a better post-it note, or make your toilet flush better, or anything like that. Its of no practical use, really. But if we stop trying to uncover the universe, trying to understand the universe we live in, I think something about human nature dies. I like it when the population as a whole understands about science, but what really excites me about doing outreach is

that maybe we will reach one or two girls that werent going to go into science, that will now just because they see a woman succeeding.

I try to put people in front of students that are near to them in age. Its probably useful for them to see me, but I think its more useful for them to see undergraduates in college who are only four years older than them or my postdoc, who is only eight years older than them, and star t to see, This is a trajectory that I could do. They dont have to but they could! Its an option. I want them to know that its an option.

reFerenCeS For proFeSSor loMMenS worK:Optimizing Pulsar Timing Arrays to Maximize Gravitational Wave Single Source Detection: a First Cut, Burt, B. J., Lommen, A. N., Finn, L.S. (2011) accepted by ApJ, http://arxiv.org/abs/1005.5163.

Detection, Localization, and Characterization of Gravitational Wave Bursts in a Pulsar Timing Array, Finn, L. S. and Lommen, A. N. (2010) ApJ 718: 1400. http://arxiv.org/abs/1004.3499

Image courtesy of David Champion. The figure illustrates the use of the pulsar timing array, array of pulsars (in purple) whose electromagnetic signals (in yellow) are used to detect gravitational waves (represented by the green grid which you should imagine fluctuating) here at earth (centre).

PI NEWSInsIde the PerImeter

AssOciAte FAculty POsitiOn OPen At PiPerimeter Institute is currently accepting applications for an Associate Faculty position in theoretical astroparticle physics to be held jointly with York University.

Visit www.perimeterinstitute.ca for more details.

winter 2011 13

t he universe is currently expanding at an accelerating rate, as it may also have done in a very early phase of inflation. In both cases, the geometry is close to that of de Sitter spacetime. Quantum physics in de Sitter is fraught with conceptual and technical difficulties compared to its cousins, flat and anti-de-Sitter space. Just as in black hole spacetimes, interesting quantum physics is happening on infrared (large spatial or long temporal) scales, set by the scale of the cosmological horizon. The dark energy we detect today and the growth, freezing and classicalization of quantum fluctuations during inflation are both horizon-scale phenomena, and this is the large-scale boundary of our understanding. The study of quantum fields in de Sitter was most widely pursued in the late 1970s and early 1980s, around the time inflation was invented, but in the past few years advances in cosmological observations have inspired a new look. The hope that the Planck satellite or various large-scale structure surveys may detect non-Gaussianity (in the form of higher point correlation functions of fluctuations in de Sitter) has revived the subject of doing quantum field theory beyond the tree-level power spectrum. Thanks to this possibility, there is a new crowd of young cosmologists who are suddenly re-learning the known issues and methods, but also bringing a new perspective to the field.

This workshop brought those younger cosmologists together with the original cast from the early days in a lively and very well attended workshop. We discussed formal aspects of quantum field theory in de Sitter, methods to compute loop computations, and the relevance for observation. The big fish of the conference was the issue of stability of de Sitter spacetime. Sasha Polyakov, whose work on this subject has inspired much debate, joined the workshop through a memorable phone call. Sasha prepared his talk by writing some notes (rare for him!) titled My Waterloo and told us that we should not define the de Sitter theory by analytically continuing from the sphere since this misses any potential instability. He compared this strategy to studying a black hole on life support. On the other hand, we had several talks about calculations that do seem to make sense when done on the sphere, and so the question is still unre-solved but very much on everybodys mind. In addition, we heard about new and simpler techniques to calculate loop amplitudes of gravitons and scalars, and interesting results are surely waiting to be discovered. In particular, we expect that the 15-year-old claim by Richard Woodard and Nick Tsamis (both of whom were present) of a large 2-loop graviton contribution to the stress-energy tensor may finally be checked by someone else using these new techniques. Also of note was the very interesting colloquium by Steve Giddings where he made the link between the infrared puzzles in de Sitter and in black hole physics. Steven Weinberg presented a new, very powerful way to regulate UV divergences in cosmological settings, and Leonardo Senatore attempted to settle his differences with Richard Woodard, who inadver-tently happened to be the chair for his session. Everybody was quite ready for a drink and the banquet after that! We hope this meeting was a catalyst for increased interac-tion between veterans of the field and the upstart young cosmologists, and that agreements will be reached on the most effective (and correct) way to calculate loop corrections. At the conceptual level, we are still left puzzled by the very strange behaviour of quantum fields at the horizon of our universe this large-scale boundary to our knowledge will surely continue to surprise us.

Louis Leblond, Conference Co-organizer

ir issues And lOOPs in de sitter sPAce

(From left) Cliff Burgess, Steven Weinberg, Rich Holman and Louis Leblond.

CONFERENCE RECAPSInsIde the PerImeter

14 winter 2011

Pi reseArch And reseArchers shOwcAsed At QiP 2011

Q IP 2011, the 14th annual workshop on Quantum Infor-mation Processing, was held in Singapore from January 10-14, and PI research and researchers were quite in evidence. Of the 183 submissions received for the conference, four of the 40 selected talks, and some additional posters, reported on results obtained by PI postdocs, an impressive showing. As well as myself (I was Chair of the Program Committee), the list of attendees included Associate Faculty member Ashwin Nayak, postdocs Hector Bombin, Zhengfeng Ji, Akimasa Miyake, and Markus Meller, and Distinguished Research Chairs Dorit Aharonov and Patrick Hayden, as well as numerous other familiar faces, including former PI postdocs Robin Blume-Kohout, Steve Flammia, and Robert Raussendorf and former PI graduate student David Poulin (who also spoke at the conference). There were also many people and a number of additional talks from the Institute for Quantum Computing, meaning Waterloos pres-ence was felt profoundly despite being 15,000 km, 13 time zones, and 40 degrees Celsius away. PIs presence at the conference became obvious from day one, with a Monday afternoon talk by postdoc Akimasa Miyake. Akimasa actually split a time slot with Tzu-Chieh Wei (currently at UBC, formerly an IQC postdoc). Wei was working in collaboration with former PI postdoc Robert Raussendorf and former SAC member Ian Affleck, and they simultaneously obtained nearly the same result as Akimasa about a universal resource for measurement-based quantum computation. Measurement-based quantum computation (invented by Raussendorf when he was a graduate student) is an approach to building a quantum computer where one does all the entanglement first, creating a large entangled state that need not depend on the computation to be performed. Then, the computer performs a sequence of measurements on indi-vidual quantum bits (qubits) from the entangled state. In the classical world, a sequence of measurements can only reveal information that is already present, but quantum measurement is a much more active process. Certain entangled resource states are universal, meaning that by performing different possible sequences of measurements, you can get results that correspond to the answers to arbitrary quantum compu-tations. The usual resource states used for measurement-based quantum computation are artificial and could only be produced by a system with a significant degree of control over quantum systems. The new results presented by Akimasa and Tzu-Chieh showed that the lowest energy state of a certain theoretical system of interacting spins called the AKLT model has the right kind of entanglement to act as a resource state for

measurement-based quantum computation. This raises the possibility that one could find a real physical system which naturally produces the right kind of entangled state without any human intervention. The next day brought more PI research. Xie Chen of MIT reported on research performed with PI postdoc Zhengfeng Ji and others in a contributed talk about the structure of solu-tions to quantum 2-SAT. Quantum 2-SAT is a computational problem, in which you are given a set of constraints on pairs of qubits and wish to satisfy them all. This is not always possible, of course, but because the constraints are only on

pairs of qubits, it turns out that there is an efficient (classical) procedure to determine whether or not a consistent solution always exists. This contrasts with the case of interactions on three or more qubits, where determining if there is a solution is difficult. However, two-qubit interactions are particularly interesting, because two-particle inter-actions are the kind most commonly encountered in the real world. Studying this sort of problem, Xie, Zhengfeng, and their collaborators showed that the ground states of solutions to quantum 2-SAT cannot be very entangled. You might want to create entangled states such as a resource state for measurement-based quantum computation by putting on a series of two-qubit constraints and letting the system cool down until it satisfies all of the constraints. However, the new results show that you wont get what you want unless you either work with more complicated interactions (larger par ticles or more qubits per constraint) or frustrated systems (for

which it is not possible to satisfy all constraints simultaneously). Another day, another PI talk. On Wednesday, PI postdoc Hector Bombin gave a featured talk on his work on twists in topological quantum computation. Topological order is an exotic new phase of matter which is completely resistant to any process which only affects a small region of the sub-stance. Consequently, a topologically ordered system could store quantum information for a long time, since errors will need some time to spread over the whole system. However, the simplest topologically ordered systems are not much good as quantum computers, since there are also few ways to deliberately alter the stored quantum information. More complicated systems can be used as quantum computers, but they are hard to make or find. In his talk, Hector showed how, by adding twists, which change the regular lattice structure of the atoms composing some simple topologically ordered systems, he can substan-tially increase the types of computation that can be performed with it. Even with this approach, the systems presented by Hector are not capable of the full range of quantum computa-tion. A poster presented on Monday by Lucy Liuxuan Zhang

CONFERENCE RECAPSInsIde the PerImeter

winter 2011 15

(of the University of Toronto) described her follow-up research in collaboration with Hector where they study adding twists to more complicated topologically ordered systems, perhaps allowing access to the full power of a quantum computer with a simpler system than previously possible.

On Friday, the last day of the conference, Christian Gogolin (from the University of Potsdam) spoke on work performed with Jens Eisert and PI postdoc Markus Meller. They applied ideas from quantum information theory to study when quan-tum systems thermalize. The notion of temperature is an everyday one, and in many cases, it is a completely sensible thing to discuss. However, an object only has a well-defined temperature if it has a particular distribution of energy among the atoms or molecules composing the object. From statistical mechanics, we know that thermal distributions are typical in a rigorous mathematical sense, which helps to explain why most things we encounter do have a temperature. It is still possible, of course, to have objects which dont have a ther-mal distribution, and while it is very common in practice for

those objects to thermalize (reach the thermal distribution) after a short time, it remains somewhat of a mystery exactly which ones do and which dont. A natural assumption is that very simple systems might not thermalize, but more compli-cated systems do. By applying some ideas from quantum information, Christian, Markus, and Jens gave some conditions on the properties of the thermalization process, and showed that it is possible to have some rather complicated systems that nevertheless do not thermalize. The PI talks only represent a fraction of the topics covered at QIP. We also learned about complexity and cryptography, about algorithms and entanglement. Quantum information as a field continues to expand, and QIP gets bigger and more elaborate, with more people and more posters. QIP 2012 will be held much closer to home, in Montreal. I think we can expect less swimming and more snow, but just as much great science.

Daniel Gottesman, Chair, QIP Program Committee

Pi-AtlAs lhc dAy

t his day-long meeting was the latest in a series initiated in 2009 for physicists interested in LHC physics in southwestern Ontario to gather to discuss the current status of LHC and exchange ideas. The meeting brought together a number of experimental and theoretical physicists from Toronto and PI, but we were also encouraged to see that attendance is broadening to include people from Guelph, McMaster and York in this latest meeting. The scientific component of the meeting was split between a series of experimental and theoretical talks. The primary experimental talk was given by Pekka Sinervo on the status of the LHC and ATLAS. There were also a series of nice talks in the afternoon by a number of experimental graduate students reporting on tau ID, searches for extra dimensions,

and exotic searches in dijet data. On the theoretical side, there was a talk by Bob Holdom on the possibility of a fourth generation, and talks by Michael Trott on MFV field content and Jim Cline on the possible linking of a two-scalar doublet model, that could allow Baryogenesis, to experiment. The scientific content of the meeting was quite interesting, but of equal importance was the opportunity supplied for theorists and experimentalists to get together and talk about the LHC physics program and exchange ideas. The meeting was successful in its goals and was run very smoothly due to the excellent behind-the-scenes work of PIs Conference Coordinator Stephanie Mohl and A/V Coordinator Jacob Stauttener.

William Trischuk, Cliff Burgess and Michael Trott, Co-organizers

16 winter 2011

The following is a list of recent publications by PI researchers, organized alphabetically by publication title. To search all publications by PI scientists, please visit www.perimeterinstitute.ca/en/Scientific/Papers/Publications_Search/.

A Note on Polytopes for Scattering Amplitudes, Nima Arkani-Hamed, Jacob L. Bourjaily, Freddy Cachazo, Andrew Hodges, Jaroslav Trnka, arxiv:1012.6030

A simple proof of orientability in the colored Boulatov model, Francesco Caravelli, arxiv:1012.4087

A taste of Hamiltonian constraint in spin foam models, Valentin Bonzom, arxiv:1101.1615

AdS/QHE: Towards a Holographic Description of Quantum Hall Experiments, Allan Bayntun, C.P. Burgess, Brian P. Dolan, Sung-Sik Lee, arxiv:1008.1917

Anomalous coupling of scalars to gauge fields, Philippe Brax, Clare Burrage, Anne-Christine Davis, David Seery, Amanda Weltman, arxiv:1010.4536

Application of Optimal Control to CPMG Refocusing Pulse Design, Troy W. Borneman, Martin D. Hurlimann, David G. Cory, arxiv:1002.1702

Astrometric Microlensing by Local Dark Matter Subhalos, Adrienne L. Erickcek, Nicholas M. Law, arxiv:1007.4228

Asymptotes in $SU(2)$ Recoupling Theory: Wigner Matrices, $3j$ Symbols, and Character Localization, Joseph Ben Geloun, Razvan Gurau, arxiv:1009.5632

Background independent condensed matter models for quantum gravity, Alioscia Hamma, Fotini Markopoulou, arxiv:1011.5754

Beyond Feynmans Diagrams, Neil Turok, Nature January 13 2011 Vol 469

Big Bang Nucleosynthesis as a Probe of New Physics, Maxim Pospelov, Josef Pradler, Journal-ref: Ann.Rev.Nucl.Part.Sci. 60 (2010) 539-568, arxiv:1011.1054

Black holes in an ultraviolet complete quantum gravity, Leonardo Modesto, John W. Moffat, Piero Nicolini, Physics Letters B 695 (2011) 397-400, arxiv:1010.0680

Boosting jet power in black hole spacetimes, David Neilsen, Luis Lehner, Carlos Palenzuela, Eric W. Hirschmann, Steven L. Liebling, Patrick M. Motl, T. Garrett, arxiv:1012.5661

Bootstrapping Null Polygon Wilson Loops, Davide Gaiotto, Juan Maldacena, Amit Sever, Pedro Vieira, arxiv:1010.5009

Bulk Axions, Brane Back-reaction and Fluxes, C.P. Burgess, L. van Nierop, arxiv:1012.2638

Chern-Simons theory, Stokes Theorem, and the Duflo map, Hanno Sahlmann, Thomas Thiemann, arxiv:1101.1690

Chiral symmetry breaking in cascading gauge theory plasma, Alex Buchel, arxiv:1012.2404

Commuting Simplicity and Closure Constraints for 4D Spin Foam Models, Muxin Han, Thomas Thiemann, arxiv:1010.5444

Comparing space+time decompositions in the post-Newtonian limit, Barak Kol, Michele Levi, Michael Smolkin, arxiv:1011.6024

Complete Characterization of the Ground Space Structure of Two-Body Frustration-Free Hamiltonians for Qubits, Zhengfeng Ji, Zhaohui Wei, Bei Zeng, arxiv:1010.2480

Component Specification in the Cactus Framework: The Cactus Configuration Language, Gabrielle Allen, Tom Goodale, Frank Lffler, David Rideout, Erik Schnetter, Eric L. Seidel, arxiv:1009.1341

Composite gravitational-wave detection of compact binary coalescence, Kipp Cannon, Chad Hanna, Drew Keppel, Antony C. Searle, arxiv:1101.0584

Correlated stability conjecture revisited, A.Buchel, C.Pagnutti, arxiv:1010.5748

Cosmology of the selfaccelerating third order Galileon, David F. Mota, Marit Sandstad, Tom Zlosnik, Journal-ref: JHEP 1012:051,2010, arxiv:1009.6151

Critical phenomena in N=2* plasma, A.Buchel, C.Pagnutti, arxiv:1010.3359

Discreteness and the transmission of light from distant sources, Fay Dowker, Joe Henson, Rafael Sorkin, Journal-ref: Phys.Rev. D82:104048,2010, arxiv:1009.3058

Einstein gravity as a 3D conformally invariant theory, Henrique Gomes, Sean Gryb, Tim Koslowski, arxiv:1010.2481

Einstein Wrote Back: My Life In Physics, John Moffat, Thomas Allen Publishers, Sept 2010

Einsteins action in terms of Newtonian fields, Barak Kol, Michael Smolkin, arxiv:1009.1876

Ensuring Correctness at the Application Level: a Software Framework Approach, Eloisa Bentivegna, Gabrielle Allen, Oleg Korobkin, Erik Schnetter, arxiv:1101.3161

EPRL/FK Group Field Theory, Joseph Ben Geloun, Razvan Gurau, Vincent Rivasseau, arxiv:1008.0354

Experimental investigation of the uncertainty principle in the presence of quantum memory, Robert Prevedel, Deny R. Hamel, Roger Colbeck, Kent Fisher, Kevin J. Resch, arxiv:1012.0332

Extending Quantum Coherence in Diamond, C.A. Ryan, J.S. Hodges, D.G. Cory, Journal-ref: Phys. Rev. Lett. 105:200402 (2010), arxiv:1008.2197

First Observational Tests of Eternal Inflation, Stephen M. Feeney (UCL), Matthew C. Johnson (Perimeter Institute), Daniel J. Mortlock (Imperial College London), Hiranya V. Peiris (UCL), arxiv:1012.1995

First Observational Tests of Eternal Inflation: Analysis Methods and WMAP 7-Year Results, Stephen M. Feeney (UCL), Matthew C. Johnson (Perimeter Institute), Daniel J. Mortlock (Imperial College London), Hiranya V. Peiris (UCL), arxiv:1012.3667

From Low-Distortion Norm Embeddings to Explicit Uncertainty Relations and Efficient Information Locking, Omar Fawzi, Patrick Hayden, Pranab Sen, arxiv:1010.3007

Group theoretic structures in the estimation of an unknown unitary transformation, G. Chiribella, arxiv:1012.2130

Holographic c-theorems in arbitrary dimensions, Robert C. Myers, Aninda Sinha, arxiv:1011.5819

Holographic Quantum Critical Transport without Self-Duality, Robert C. Myers, Subir Sachdev, Ajay Singh, arxiv:1010.0443

Holomorphic Linking, Loop Equations and Scattering Amplitudes in Twistor Space, Mathew Bullimore, David Skinner, arxiv:1101.1329

Informational derivation of Quantum Theory, G. Chiribella, G. M. DAriano, P. Perinotti, arxiv:1011.6451

Large Dimensions and Small Curvatures from Supersymmetric Brane Back-reaction, C.P. Burgess, L. van Nierop, arxiv:1101.0152

Lessons for Loop Quantum Gravity from Parametrised Field Theory, Thomas Thiemann, arxiv:1010.2426

Local Integrals for Planar Scattering Amplitudes, Nima Arkani-Hamed, Jacob L. Bourjaily, Freddy Cachazo, Jaroslav Trnka, arxiv:1012.6032

Locking classical information, Frdric Dupuis, Jan Florjanczyk, Patrick Hayden, Debbie Leung, arxiv:1011.1612

Measurement contextuality is implied by macroscopic realism, Zeqian Chen, Alberto Montina, arxiv:1012.2122

MHV Diagrams in Momentum Twistor Space, Mathew Bullimore, Lionel Mason, David Skinner, arxiv:1009.1854

Muon Capture Constraints on Sterile Neutrino Properties, David McKeen, Maxim Pospelov, Journal-ref: Phys.Rev.D82:113018, 2010, arxiv:1011.3046

Muonic hydrogen and MeV forces, David Tucker-Smith, Itay Yavin, arxiv:1011.4922

Normal completely positive maps on the space of quantum operations, G. Chiribella, A. Toigo, V. Umanit, arxiv:1012.3197

Observable Signatures of Inflaton Decays, Diana Battefeld, Thorsten Battefeld, John T. Giblin Jr., Evan K. Pease, arxiv:1012.1372

On Lorentz violation in Horava-Lifshitz type theories, Maxim Pospelov, Yanwen Shang, arxiv:1010.5249

On the Classification of Residues of the Grassmannian, Sujay K. Ashok, Eleonora DellAquila, arxiv:1012.5094

PUBLICATIONSInsIde the PerImeter

winter 2011 17

On theories of enhanced CP violation in B_s,d meson mixing, Michael Trott, Mark B. Wise, Journal-ref: JHEP 1011:157,2010, arxiv:1009.2813

One-shot Multiparty State Merging, Nicolas Dutil, Patrick Hayden, arxiv:1011.1974

One-Way Entanglement of Assistance, Nicolas Dutil, Patrick Hayden, arxiv:1011.1972

Overcoming Gamma Ray Constraints with Annihilating Dark Matter in Milky Way Subhalos, Aaron C Vincent, Wei Xue, James M Cline, Journal-ref: Phys.Rev.D82:123519,2010, arxiv:1009.5383

Pathologies in Asymptotically Lifshitz Spacetimes, Keith Copsey, Robert Mann, arxiv:1011.3502

Primordial beryllium as a big bang calorimeter, Maxim Pospelov, Josef Pradler, arxiv:1010.4079

Principle of Maximum Entropy and Ground Spaces of Local Hamiltonians, Jianxin Chen, Zhengfeng Ji, Mary Beth Ruskai, Bei Zeng, Duanlu Zhou, arxiv:1010.2739

Private Randomness Expansion With Untrusted Devices, Roger Colbeck, Adrian Kent, arxiv:1011.4474

Progress toward scalable tomography of quantum maps using twirling- based methods and information hierarchies, Cecilia C. Lpez, Ariel Bendersky, Juan Pablo Paz, David G. Cory, Journal-ref: Phys. Rev. A 81, 062113 (2010), arxiv:1003.2444

Pulsar timing arrays as imaging gravitational wave telescopes: angular resolution and source (de)confusion, Latham Boyle, Ue-Li Pen, arxiv:1010.4337

Quantum Capacity Approaching Codes for the Detected-Jump Channel, Markus Grassl, Zhengfeng Ji, Zhaohui Wei, Bei Zeng, arxiv:1008.3350

Quantum codes give counterexamples to the unique pre-image conjecture of the N-representability problem, Samuel A. Ocko, Xie Chen, Bei Zeng, Beni Yoshida, Zhengfeng Ji, Mary Beth Ruskai, Isaac L. Chuang, arxiv:1010.2717

Quantum computational capability of a two-dimensional valence bond solid phase, Akimasa Miyake, arxiv:1009.3491

Quantum Computing, Thaddeus D. Ladd, Fedor Jelezko, Raymond Laflamme, Yasunobu Nakamura, Christopher Monroe, Jeremy L. OBrien, arxiv:1009.2267

Quantum dispersion relations for excitations of long folded spinning superstring in AdS_5 x S^5, S. Giombi, R. Ricci, R. Roiban, A.A. Tseytlin, arxiv:1011.2755

Resonant Trispectrum and a Dozen More Primordial N-point functions, Louis Leblond, Enrico Pajer, arxiv:1010.4565

Review of AdS/CFT Integrability: An Overview, Niklas Beisert, Changrim Ahn, Luis F. Alday, Zoltan Bajnok, James M. Drummond, Lisa Freyhult, Nikolay Gromov, Romuald A. Janik, Vladimir Kazakov, Thomas Klose, Gregory P. Korchemsky, Charlotte Kristjansen, Marc Magro, Tristan McLoughlin, Joseph A. Minahan, Rafael I. Nepomechie, Adam Rej, Radu Roiban, Sakura Schafer-Nameki, Christoph Sieg, Matthias Staudacher, Alessandro Torrielli, Arkady A. Tseytlin, Pedro Vieira, Dmytro Volin, Konstantinos Zoubos, arxiv:1012.3982

Review of AdS/CFT Integrability, Chapter III.3: The dressing factor, Pedro Vieira, Dmytro Volin, arxiv:1012.3992

Space as a low-temperature regime of graphs, Florian Conrady, arxiv:1009.3195

Speckers Parable of the Over-protective Seer: Implications for Contextuality, Nonlocality and Complementarity, Yeong-Cherng Liang, Robert W. Spekkens, Howard M. Wiseman, arxiv:1010.1273

State space dimensionality in short memory hidden variable theories, Alberto Montina, arxiv:1008.4415

String Junctions and Holographic Interfaces, Marco Chiodaroli, Michael Gutperle, Ling-Yan Hung, Darya Krym, arxiv:1010.2758

Strongly Coupled Inflaton, Xingang Chen, arxiv:1010.2851

Supersymmetric P(X,phi) and the Ghost Condensate, Justin Khoury, Jean-Luc Lehners, Burt Ovrut, arxiv:1012.3748

Surface operators in 3d Topological Field Theory and 2d Rational Conformal Field Theory, Anton Kapustin, Natalia Saulina, arxiv:1012.0911

t Hooft Operators in Gauge Theory from Toda CFT, Jaume Gomis, Bruno Le Floch, arxiv:1008.4139

Tailoring Three-Point Functions and Integrability, Jorge Escobedo, Nikolay Gromov, Amit Sever, Pedro Vieira, arxiv:1012.2475

The 1/N expansion of colored tensor models, Razvan Gurau, arxiv:1011.2726

The All-Loop Integrand For Scattering Amplitudes in Planar N=4 SYM, Nima Arkani-Hamed, Jacob L. Bourjaily, Freddy Cachazo, Simon Caron-Huot, Jaroslav Trnka, arxiv:1008.2958

The Complete Planar S-matrix of N=4 SYM as a Wilson Loop in Twistor Space, Lionel Mason, David Skinner, Journal-ref: JHEP 1012:018,2010,

arxiv:1009.2225

The general theory of porcupines, perfect and imperfect, Latham Boyle, arxiv:1008.4997

The Hamiltonian constraint in 3d Riemannian loop quantum gravity, Valentin Bonzom, Laurent Freidel, arxiv:1101.3524

The principle of relative locality, Giovanni Amelino-Camelia, Laurent Freidel, Jerzy Kowalski-Glikman, Lee Smolin, arxiv:1101.0931

U(N) tools for Loop Quantum Gravity: The Return of the Spinor, Enrique F. Borja, Laurent Freidel, Iaki Garay, Etera R. Livine,

arxiv:1010.5451

Unimodular loop quantum gravity and the problems of time, Lee Smolin, arxiv:1008.1759

Using Dark Matter Haloes to Learn about Cosmic Acceleration: A New Proposal for a Universal Mass Function, C. Prescod-Weinstein, N. Afshordi, arxiv:1010.5501

Pi chats with The Current About innovationDuring a stint as guest host of CBC radios The Current, arlene Dickinson, whom you may recognize from CBCs tV show The Dragons Den, visited pi and interviewed pi Board Chair and founder Mike lazaridis, Director neil turok, and pi Faculty members latham Boyle and raymond la amme. the episode is available online through The Currents website at http://www.cbc.ca/thecurrent/interview-panel/2011/01/14/innovation-in-canada/index.html.

18 winter 2011

glOBAl diAlOgue On energy tO Be held At Perimeter institute

Over the next 20 years, our global population is expected to reach nine billion. Today, two billion people dont have access to modern energy. Global coal and oil consumption is as its highest peak in history, energy prices are soaring, and the world is running out of cheap sources of energy-dense fuel. The climate impact of fossil fuels constitutes a growing threat to the planet. In short, the need for solutions to the problems facing humanity has never been greater and invest-ment in scientifi c and technological advancements can be part of the answer. The Waterloo Global Science Initiative (WGSI) aims to help reboot this global conversation through its inaugural Equinox Summit: Energy 2030, to be situated at Perimeter Institute from June 5 - 9, 2011. WGSI is a non-profi t partnership between Perimeter Institute and the University of Waterloo. Its mandate is to catalyze long-term thinking and possible solutions for the world through science and technology. The fi rst Equinox Summit will examine energy concerns and the need for cleaner and more sustain-able production, distribution and storage of electricity. Orga-nizers have designed a unique format and cross-disciplinary approach to facilitate constructive engagement of scientifi c and policy experts with young leaders, as well as a series of events for students and the general public. Over three days of working sessions (June 6, 7 and 8), this cross-disciplinary group will collectively work toward producing a blueprint document that shortlists a set of key technologies that could help transform the current, carbon-heavy scenario. The fi rst part of the blueprint will address the most promising technologies proposed by a group of scientifi c experts, called the Quorum. The second part, led by the Forum of future

leaders in politics, policy, civil society and business, will address implementation strategies for each of the technolo-gies proposed. A third group of expert advisors will guide the blueprint creation and gauge the plausibility, process, and timelines for the recommendations. Through its public programming, the Equinox Summit will promote basic energy literacy by benchmarking our present capabilities while exploring the state of low carbon technolo-gies, and refi ning ideas that could transform how we produce, distribute and store energy within the next 20 years. Each day of the summit will feature a morning plenary, an afternoon public lecture and an evening panel discussion all of which will be free to view on-site and online. Visit wgsi.org to learn more about the Equinox Summit and follow developments as the planning continues.

RJ Taylor

next einstein initiAtiVe wins 2010 wise AwArd

As part of its quest to recognize innovative educational initiatives that have had a transformative impact on societies, the World Innovation Summit for Education (WISE) has selected the AIMS Next Einstein Initiative (NEI) as one of six winners for the 2010 WISE Awards, from more than 300 applications spanning 89 countries. Each winner will receive US$20,000 towards their project. PI Director Neil Turok founded the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences (AIMS) in Cape Town, South Africa in 2003. Its mission is to rapidly and cost-effectively expand Africas scientifi c and technological capacity by providing advanced training to exceptional African graduates. The Next Einstein Initiative (NEI), stemming from Professor Turoks 2008 TED Prize wish that the next Einstein be from Africa, is a strategic plan to build on the success of the fi rst AIMS centre and create a coordinated pan-African network of 15 AIMS centres by 2020. Professor Turok accepted the award on behalf of AIMS-NEI, which is the current centrepiece of Perimeter Institutes Glob-al Outreach initiative, during a three-day summit on education in Doha, Qatar. WISE is an initiative of the Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development.

Professor Turok said, We are thrilled with this recognition from WISE. AIMS has succeeded through the combined efforts of many people and organizations. WISE represents an opportunity to extend our partnerships around a simple agenda: to enable Africas brightest scientifi c talents to fl ourish and, ultimately, to transform Africas future. We hope our success in Africa will inspire similarly creative efforts elsewhere.

Mike Brown

Follow the developments of all the winning projects on the WISE blog at http://awardsblog.wise-qatar.org.

GLOBAL OUTLOOKInsIde the PerImeter

winter 2011 19

FiVe cAnAdiAn uniVersities suPPOrt Aims thrOugh One FOr mAny schOlArshiP PrOgrAm

Basic science continues to change our world in innumer-able ways, reshaping the global economy and enabling the free flow of information which opens societies and connects cultures. The influence of science in seeding new technologies is evident. What is less discussed is the fact that science is a powerful unifying force for humanity: it cuts across cultures, languages, and religious differences, in ways which few other human activities can. Perimeter Institute has explicitly recognized this power in launching a Global Outreach effort to promote emergence of scientific talent in the developing world. The first focus is on Africa: Perimeter serves as the North American partner institute for the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences (AIMS) project, and its Next Einstein Initiative, which plans to open many AIMS centres across Africa over the next decade. The Next Einstein Initiative received $20 Million in Canadian federal funding last year, and several of the new centres are in advanced planning stages. Founded in 2003 by PI Director Neil Turok, AIMS is a globally recognized centre of excellence for postgraduate education and research based in Cape Town, South Africa. Its mission is to rapidly and cost-effectively expand Africas scientific and technological capacity by providing advanced training to exceptional African graduates. PI is helping to coordinate the One for Many scholarship campaign for the Next Einstein Initiative. The program gives universities across North America and Europe the opportunity to contribute the equivalent cost of one graduate student per year on their own campus to an AIMS centre in Africa, where it will support 4-5 African students. Partnering universities also have the opportunity to send faculty members and graduate students to AIMS centres as lecturers and tutors, where they gain valuable international experience as they contribute to the development of science in Africa. Five Canadian universities have now signed on as supporters of the One for Many campaign, joining forces with Perimeter in a shared belief that a vast pool of scientific and technical talent lies waiting to be unlocked in Africa, and that doing so will be vital to the development of the continent.

neil turok Appointed to canadas science, technology and innovation council

the honourable tony Clement, Canadas Minister of industry, recently announced the appointment of six new members, including pi Director neil turok, to the Science, technology and innovation Council (StiC), the governments advisory body on science, technology and innovation issues. Members are selected to cover many sectors of the Canadian economy and have varied competencies and areas of specialization.

these talented Canadians come from the public, private and academic sectors. they have the broad range of experience that is essential to advise the government on science and technology matters of national importance, said Minister Clement. i am pleased they have agreed to serve on the Council and am certain their contributions will advance the governments innovation agenda.

The University of Ottawa, the University of Victoria, Simon Fraser University, the University of Waterloo, and the University of Guelph have all recently signed five-year agreements, total-ing between $100,000 and $250,000 from each institution. Speaking about the One for Many campaigns first members, Professor Turok said, The commitment from these five Canadian universities is extraordinary: their farsighted invest-ment will yield an excellent return. Africa is full of brilliant young people who will make the most of the opportunity to develop their minds and skills in Africa, and then go on to tackle the many challenges their continent faces. James P. Anglin, Director of the Office of International Affairs at the University of Victoria explained, The University of Victoria was pleased to become one of the first Canadian university partners in the AIMS-NEI initiative. We support this innovative model as it combines academic and financial support from well-established international universities with Africa-based country and institutional commitments, making it an exemplar of true partnership in the advancement of knowledge leader-ship across the continent of Africa. We look forward to devel-oping fruitful collaboration between the AIMS-NEI programs and students, and members of UVics academic community. Talks are ongoing with other universities that have expressed interest in joining the One for Many program.

Mike Brown

20 winter 2011

Better thAn cOOl: hOw cAnAdAs yOuth PerceiVes science

C lear skies and brisk winter air always make me reflective, and there has been plenty of oppor-tunity for reflection of late. While looking back recently, I found myself comparing the results of an online survey with the experience of the Outreach team here at PI, and contemplating what it all means for scien-tific literacy in Canada. In November, Angus Reid released survey results declaring scientists uncool, with only 4% of high school-aged youth stating otherwise. This statistic resonated with media across Canada and cries of a crisis in education followed predictably. But lets look a little more closely at what the online survey of 502 Canadian youth aged 16 to 18 actually had to say about science in Canada. A video game, a backside 720, even a toque can be cool but is this really a relevant bar to measure the perceived value of science to young people? The survey offered more data to consider: one out of three students is considering science at the post-secondary level one out of three! Con-sider the full breadth of post-secondary options from law, business, literature, fine arts, and mathematics to aesthetics, interior design, pipe-fitting, and auto repair and yet one-third are considering science. This seems, if anything, dispro-portionately large. The conclusion I draw when one-third of Canadian teens are considering a future in science is that science teachers across this country are doing an effective job illustrating and promoting the importance of science. To me, this is a more valuable goal than trying to make something cool.

PI Outreach is well-positioned to fill a niche that supports this third of Canadas youth, with rigorous and enriched programs and products that bring the true mystery and wonder of modern science alive. Canada