Nearly Perfect Fluids: From the Quark-Gluon-Plasma to Ultracold Atoms; Durham, NC

该奖项将支持年轻科学家参加将于2009年4月6日至8日在北卡罗来纳州达勒姆举行的近乎完美的液体2009研讨会。该讲习班将尝试综合实验室产生的最热物质(超过2万亿开尔文的夸克物质)和最冷的物质(几十亿开尔文的冷却原子)之间的物理关系，从超弦理论中获得的新见解，使其有可能从五维或更多维黑洞物理中推断某些强耦合热系统的性质，以及强耦合系统多体理论的最新进展。研讨会的目的是增进对近乎完美液体的物理知识。最近人们认识到，流体无摩擦流动的能力受到基本量子效应的限制；但这种限制的确切形式和绝对性质是一个猜想。直到最近已知的所有物质都远离猜想的宇宙界限；只有在本十年中才发现并研究了接近宇宙界限的物质(夸克物质和超冷原子)。目前还不能完全理解是否在所有情况下都有一个共同的机制在起作用，或者是否有几种不同的途径可以导致完美的流动性。虽然超弦理论为这种流体提供了一个易于处理的理论模型，但目前还不清楚它与实验室中发现的两种材料之间的关系。通过将不同领域的专家聚集在一起进行密集的思想交流，讲习班将有助于在物理科学的前沿领域为这些范围广泛的问题的答案制定新的想法。希望该讲习班的跨学科性质能够促进上述所有物理学领域的科学进步，并与许多硬科学领域日益严重的区隔现象相抗衡。

This award will support the participation of young scientists at the NEAR PERFECT LIQUIDS 2009 workshop, to be held April 6-8 2009 in Durham, NC. The Workshop will attempt a synthesis between physical relationships among the hottest matter (quark matter at more than 2 trillion degrees Kelvin) and the coldest matter (cooled atoms at a few billionth degree Kelvin) produced in the laboratory, new insights gained from superstring theory, which make it possible to infer the properties of certain strongly coupled thermal systems from the physics of black holes in five or more dimensions, and recent progress in the many-body theory of strongly coupled systems. The Workshop aims at advancing the knowledge of the physics of nearly perfect liquids. It has recently been recognized that the ability of fluids to flow frictionless is limited by fundamental quantum effects; but the precise form and the absolute nature of this limitation is a conjecture. All material substances known until recently were far away from the conjectured universal bound; only during the present decade has matter (quark matter and ultra-cold atoms) been discovered and studied that approaches it. It is not fully understood whether a common mechanism is at work in all instances or whether there are several distinct paths leading to perfect fluidity. While superstring theory has furnished a tractable theoretical model of such a fluid, it remains unclear how it relates to the two materials discovered in the laboratory. By bringing experts in the different areas together for an intense exchange of ideas, the Workshop will help to develop new ideas for answers to these wide-ranging questions at a forefront area in the physical sciences. It is hoped that the cross-disciplinary nature of the workshop may lead to scientific advances in all of the above fields of physics and counter the increasing compartmentalization found in many areas of the hard sciences.