Chris Engelbrecht Summer School

‘Recent Trends in Gravitation’

Date: 31 March-7 April 2024

Venue: Alpine Heath Resort and Conference Centre, Drakensberg

This School will provide a platform for emerging researchers, postdoctoral fellows and established academic staff to physically interact and collaborate. The aim is for emerging researchers to see their contributions as part of the broader scientific landscape. Discussion sessions, focusing on the link between different branches of mathematics and physics, are an integral part of the workshop. The programme will allow plenty of opportunity for delegates to reflect and interact, generate greater collaboration and identify new research directions.

Speakers include:

• Zurab Janelidze (Stellenbosch University)
• Rituparno Goswami (University of KwaZulu-Natal)
• Jacek Banasiak (University of Pretoria)
• Aroon Beesham (Mangosuthu University of Technology)
• Naresh Dadhich (Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics)

School topics:

The lectures are to be in the areas of:

• Mathematics of manifolds and categories
• Semi-tetrad covariant methods in astrophysics and cosmology
• Modelling and dynamical systems
• Bulk viscosity and thermodynamics
• From Newton to Einstein

Organising Committee:

• Sunil Maharaj (University of KwaZulu-Natal) – Chair
• Francesco Petruccione (University of Stellenbosch)
• Sfundo Gumede (Mangosuthu University of Technology)
• Sifiso Ngubelanga (Durban University of Technology)
• Pedro Mafa Takisa (University of South Africa)

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‘Gravitational Waves’

Date: 20 – 29 January 2020

Venue: University of Cape Town

The Cosmology and Gravity Group Group at the University of Cape Town is hosting the 31st Chris Engelbrecht Summer School. This Summer School is motivated by recent advances in the field of gravitational wave science. The lecture series will cover a broad range of topics related to gravitational wave science, such as numerical simulation of gravitational wave sources, gravitational waves in modified gravity, cosmology and the gravitational wave background.

Speakers include:

• Rituparno Goswami (UKZN)
• Lavinia Heisenberg (EHT Zurich)
• Denis Pollney (Rhodes University)
• Alicia Sintes (UIB LIGO collaboration)
  and more to be confirmed.

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Foundations of Theoretical and Computational Science:
The 30th Chris Engelbrecht Summer School
and
the 9th CHPC Introductory Programming School

Date: 26 January – 06 February 2019
Venue: Premier Resort Sani Pass, Drakensberg

The School will start with a Basic Scientific Programming Course to introduce students to Linux (Ubuntu) Command line and bash scripting and the Python programming Language. This will be followed by introductions to topics as

• Foundations of Theoretical and Computational Physics,
• Foundations of Theoretical and Computational Biology,
• Foundations of Theoretical and Computational Chemistry,
• Foundations of Quantum Information Processing and Computation,
• Machine Learning as a Tool for Theoretical and Computational Science,

and advanced tutorials and workshops to put the theoretical material into practice. The School is structured in such a way to encourage students to actively solve challenging problems that the lectures will pose. Students will learn by doing!

School syllabus

• Introduction to Linux. It will cover a basic introduction to Linux command line, bash scripting and Introduction to PBS Pro and job submission at CHPC (Dr Krishna Govender, Centre for High-Performance Computing, CSIR).
• Introduction to Python Programming: It will cover basic of python and syntax, advanced function and using matplotlib with python and the use of advanced mathematical packages such as numpy and scipy (Dr Andrew Gill, Centre for High-Performance Computing, CSIR).
• Foundations of Theoretical Physics [Title to be confirmed] (Prof Neil Turok, Perimeter Institute)
• The Square Kilometer Array and Its Science: Indirect imaging in the SKA era; Real-time classification at SKA-scale for time domain astrophysics; Data-centric machine learning for SKA post-processing (Prof Anna Scaife, University of Manchester)
• Foundations of Quantum Technology (Prof Artur Ekert, National University of Singapore and University of Oxford)
• Foundations of Quantum Biology and Chemistry (Prof Birgitta Whaley, University of California, Berkeley)
• Computational Biology

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Nuclei and Nucleonic Systems – Exotic nuclei, halos, nuclear synthesis and more

Venue: Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study (STIAS)

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Soft Condensed Matter and Physics of Biological Systems

Venue: Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study (STIAS)

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Theoretical Foundations of Quantum Information Processing and Communication

Salt Rock Hotel, Dolphin Coast, KwaZulu-Natal

‘The Dark Side of the Universe:

• Testing the Concordance Model of Cosmology
• Compact Objects
• Gravitational Waves’

Venue: Alpine Heath Resort, Drakensberg
Date: 17-27 January 2006

Speakers and topics:

Gordon Baym (Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)
‘General structure of neutron stars (NS), including nuclear physics of the crust; equation of state of liquid interior; superfluidity, vortices and glitches; states of matter at extreme densities: quark matter and quark droplets; pion and kaon condensation; NS cooling’

Nigel Bishop (University of South Africa)
‘Gravitational radiation, including theory of generation, propagation and detection’

Phil Charles (SAAO / University of Southampton)
‘Measuring Compact Object Masses in X-ray Binaries’

Daniel Eisenstein (University of Arizona)
‘Large-scale structure of the universe, including redshift surveys, new probes and cosmological parameters’

Andrew King (University of Leicester)
‘Accretion-driven objects, including energy yields; thin accretion discs; thick accretion disks; accretion processes; jets; disk instabilities; X-ray sources; black-hole spin-up; Lense-Thirring effect; AGN’s as mergers’

Valery Rubakov (Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow)
‘The early universe, including inflation; brane-worlds; dark matter relics; dark energy models’

Patrick Slane (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics)
‘Pulsars, including supernovae and their remnants; neutron star (NS) demographics; NS Cooling and atmospheres; X-Ray observations of NS; pulsar wind nebulae (PWNe)’

David Spergel (Princeton University)
‘Cosmic microwave background radiation, including linear perturbations; primary anisotropies; cosmological parameters; secondary anisotropies; polarization; first stars; non-Gaussianity; topology’

Organisers:

• Fabio Frescura (University of the Witwatersrand) – Chair
• Chris Engelbrecht (jnr) (University of Johannesburg) – Secretary
• Catherine Cress (University of KwaZulu-Natal)
• Okkie de Jager (Northwest University)
• Robert de Mello Koch (University of the Witwatersrand)
• Peter Dunsby (University of Cape Town)
• Hendrik Geyer (University of Stellenbosch)
• Dieter Heiss (University of Stellenbosch)
• Pieter Meintjes (University of the Free State)
• Kavilan Moodley (University of Kwazulu-Natal)
• Raoul Viollier (University of Cape Town)
• Patricia Whitelock (South African Astronomical Observatory)

‘Advanced Scientific Computing’

Venue: Alpine Heath Resort, Drakensberg
Date: 18-28 January 2005

Speakers and topics (international and national):

Ian Bush (Daresbury, UK)
‘Parallel algorithms on a cluster of PC’s’

David Ceperley (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA)
‘Quantum Monte Carlo’

Markus Diesmann (Albert-Ludwigs-University, Freiburg, Germany)
‘Synchronization in cortical neural networks: results, techniques, and tools’

Domenico Giulini (University of Freiburg, Germany)
‘Einstein’s legacy, 100 years onwards’

Sonja Gruen (Free University Berlin, Germany)
‘Correlation analysis of multi-dimensional neuronal spike data’

Werner Krauth (Ecole Normale Superieure at Paris, France)
‘Computational statistical physics: the example of hard spheres’

Paul Ricker (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA)
‘Computational Astrophysics’

Nandini Trivedi (Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Bombay India and the Ohio State University, USA)
‘New Phases and Quantum Phase Transitions’

Etienne Barnard (University of Pretoria)
‘Artificial Intelligence’

Clemens Dempers (Blue Stallion Technologies)
‘Mathematica in Physics’

Assen Ilchev (Integrated Seismic System International)
‘Modelling Seismic events in South African Gold Mines’

Robert Lindebaum (University of KwaZulu-Natal)
‘The method of lines for solving PDE’s’

Phuti Ngoepe (University of the North)
‘Computational Materials Science at the University of the North’

Francesco Petruccione (University of KwaZulu-Natal)
‘Monte Carlo Wave Function Methods for Open Quantum Systems’

Cathal Seoighe (South African Bioinformatics Institute/University of Cape Town)
‘Computational Biology in South Africa’

Organisers:

• Nithaya Chetty (University of KwaZulu-Natal) – Chairperson
• David Ceperley (University of Illinois)
• Jean Cleymans (University of Cape Town)
• Hendrik Geyer (Stellenbosch University)
• Dieter Heiss (Stellenbosch University)
• Daniel Joubert (University of Witwatersrand)
• Robert Lindebaum (University of KwaZulu-Natal)
• Francesco Petruccione (University of KwaZulu-Natal)

‘Nanoscale Physics’

Venue: Alpine Heath Resort, Drakensberg
Date: 21 January to 30 January 2004

Speakers and topics:

Boris Altshuler (Princeton University)
‘Introduction into mesoscopic theory: Anderson localisation, disordered conductors, decoherence, universality aspects; interacting systems’

Carlo Beenakker (Leiden University)
‘Random-matrix theory of quantum transport; mesoscopic superconductivity’

Leonid Glazman (University of Minnesota)
‘Coulomb blockade; quantum fluctuations of charge; discrete electron states in a quantum dot; Kondo effect’

Leo Kouwenhoven (Technical University Delft)
‘Quantum transport in nanoscale devices; quantum point contacts; nanowires and nanotubes, design aspects of qubit circuits’

Ramamurti Shankar (Yale University)
‘Introduction to the renormalization group in general; introduction to Fermi liquid theory using the RG; application of these ideas to quantum dots’

Jan von Delft (Ludwig-Maximilians University Munich)
‘Spectroscopy of discrete energy levels in ultrasmall metallic grains’

Organisers:

• WD Heiss (University of Stellenbosch) – Chairperson
• N Chetty (University of Natal)
• J von Delft (Munich University)
• DP Joubert (University of the Witwatersrand)
• HB Geyer (Stellenbosch University)
• FG Scholtz (Stellenbosch University)

‘Quantum gravity, String Theory and Cosmology’

Venue: Devon Valley, Stellenbosch
Date: 23 January to 1 February 2002

Speakers and topics:

Jonathan Dorfan (Director: SLAC, Stanford, USA)
‘Background of experiments performed at SLAC; basic theory and implications for the standard model’

Sylvester James (Jim) Gates, University of Maryland, USA)
‘Introduction to Supersymmetry; state of the art in supergravity and M theory’

Brian Greene (Columbia University, USA)
‘Calabi-Yau manifolds and topology change in spacetime’

David Gross (ITP Santa Barbara, USA)
‘Introduction to String Theory; the Bosonic Open String Field Theory’

Antal Jevicki (Brown University, USA)
‘Introduction to the AdS/CFT (Anti-de Sitter/Conformal Field Theory) correspondence; Non-commutative Gravity / Stringy exclusion principle’

Clifford Johnson (University of Durham, UK)
‘Enhancon mechanism’

Ashoke Sen (Harish-Chandra Research Institute, Allahabad, India)
‘Introduction to D-branes; Tachyon Condensation’

Leonard Susskind (Stanford University, USA)
‘Introduction to Back Holes, the Information Loss Paradox; the Holographic Principle; Infra-red/Ultra-violet correspondence; Wilson loops as precursors’

Neil Turok (Cambridge University, UK)
‘Introduction to Cosmology: problems and challenges for our current understanding of cosmology; the Ekpyrotic Universe’

Organisers:

• HB Geyer (University of Stellenbosch) – Co-chairperson
• JP Rodrigues (University of the Witwatersrand) – Co-chairperson
• A Bawa (University of Natal)
• J Cleymans (University of Cape Town)
• R De Mello Koch (University of the Witwatersrand)
• WD Heiss (University of the Witwatersrand)
• FG Scholtz (University of Stellenbosch)
• L Susskind (Stanford University)
• Z Vilakazi (University of Cape Town)

‘Quantum Computing, Communication and Decoherence’

Venue: Devon Valley Protea Hotel, Stellenbosch
Date: 24 January to 2 February 2001

Speakers and topics:

D Bouwmeester (University of Oxford, UK)
‘Introduction to fundamentals: superposition, qubits, entanglement and non-locality; quantum teleportation and the creation of entanglement’

I Cirac (University of Innsbruck, Austria)
‘Quantum optical implementations for quantum computing, quantum error correction and purification of states’

A Ekert (University of Oxford, UK)
‘Quantum algorithms and logical gates; universality; cryptography’

A Leggett (University of Illinois, USA)
‘Entanglement; decoherence and various models of environment’

D Loss (University of Basel, Switzerland)
‘Devices for quantum computing and communication (semiconductors; quantum dots); spin qubits’

W Zurek (Theory Group, Los Alamos, USA)
‘Information transfer (measurement, entanglement); decoherence, chaos and entropy production; classical / quantum correspondence; Maxwell’s demon’

‘Sandpiles, Random Systems and Random Walks: Analytic Methods and Simulation’

Venue: Devon Valley Hotel, Stellenbosch
Date: 27 January to 5 February 1999

Lecturers and topics:

P Bak (Niels Bohr Institute, Denmark)
‘Self-organised criticality in physics and elsewhere’

D Dhar (Tata Institute, Mumbai, India)
‘The sandpile model of self-organized criticality’

P M Goldbart (University of Illinois, USA)
‘Rubber, glass and other amorphous solids: a statistical mechanical view’

P Grassberger (Juelich and BUGH Wuppertal, Germany)
‘Self-avoiding walks: from the renormalization group to proteins’

B Huckestein (University of Cologne, Germany)
‘Localization-delocalization transitions’

K Mueller-Nedebock (University of Mainz, Germany)
‘Random interactions in polymers’

R M Ziff (University of Michigan, USA)
‘Percolation’

‘Hadrons in dense matter and hadrosynthesis’

Venue: Cape Town
Date: 4-13 February 1998

Proceedings published in Springer Lecture Notes in Physics, Vol 516 (Eds J Cleymans, HB Geyer and FG Scholtz)

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Density functionals: theory and applications

Date: 1997
Venue: Meerensee

‘Field theory, topology and condensed matter physics’

Date: 17-28 January 1994
Venue: Storms River Mouth, Tsitsikamma

Proceedings published in Springer Lecture Notes in Physics, Vol 456 (Ed HB Geyer)

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Date: 13–24 January 1992
Venue: Blydepoort, Mpumalanga

‘Quantum Optics’

Date: 2001
Venue: Cathedral Peak, Drakensberg