{"id":223138,"date":"2016-08-22T17:19:45","date_gmt":"2016-08-22T20:19:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/?p=223138"},"modified":"2016-08-24T15:13:22","modified_gmt":"2016-08-24T18:13:22","slug":"a-northern-pole","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/a-northern-pole\/","title":{"rendered":"A Northern pole"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"New

Cyro Lucas Souza\/IIF<\/span>New headquarters have offices for up to 70 researchersCyro Lucas Souza\/IIF<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n

Natal, the capital of Rio Grande do Norte, has taken a step towards becoming an international center for theoretical physics research. The March 2016 inauguration of the headquarters of the International Physics Institute (IIF) on the campus of the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte (UFRN) promises to further work and partnerships on the frontiers of knowledge by bringing together researchers from all over the world to attend events lasting up to three months. With an area of 4,000 square meters, it contains a 150-seat auditorium, two rooms for seminars, a high-performance computer laboratory and offices for the institution\u2019s staff and dozens of visitors. \u201cNow we have offices for up to 70 researchers. This is critical to hosting physicists from Brazil and abroad properly, increasing the circulation of ideas and paving the way for collaborations,\u201d comments physicist \u00c1lvaro Ferraz, a UFRN professor and director of the institute.<\/p>\n

IIF was founded in 2010 and operated out of a rented house near the university campus. Its annual activities were defined by its International Governing Board, which included two recipients of the Nobel Prize in Physics, plus other Brazilian and foreign researchers. It held about a dozen workshops and international meetings lasting one or two weeks on topics related to the frontiers of physics, such as string theory, turbulence, cold atoms, quantum information, and high-temperature superconductivity, which took place at the UFRN Department of Theoretical and Experimental Physics or in rented auditoriums in local hotels. Now, with the new facilities, they intend to host more robust meetings. \u201cAt the most recent meeting of the International Governing Board, we decided that we will hold longer meetings, some up to three months long,\u201d says Ferraz. \u201cI have already benefited greatly from the institute\u2019s events, which always bring together the top researchers working on cutting-edge questions,\u201d says Mucio Continentino, a representative of the Brazilian Center for Physics Research (CBPF) who serves on IIF\u2019s International Governing Board. \u201cWe hope to promote greater academic collaboration with longer events,\u201d says the researcher. UFRN\u2019s president, \u00c2ngela Cruz, stresses the impact that the institute has had on the university. \u201cIn just the last few years, IIF has brought about 300 scientists and 900 graduate students to UFRN, and held 32 international scientific events. To these results are added the organization of about 100 research seminars and the growth of publications with international impact,\u201d he notes.<\/p>\n

Sources of inspiration<\/strong>
\nThe idea of founding IIF arose in the late 2000s, at the suggestion of physicist S\u00e9rgio Rezende, who was then the Minister of Science and Technology. He proposed the establishment of an institute that, although connected to a university, would have the status of an autonomous entity linked to the ministry. Because of this autonomy, it would have its own budget and ability to sponsor both events and high-level researchers, often recruited from other countries. The sources of inspiration were theoretical physics centers such as the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics in Santa Barbara (USA), the Yukawa Institute, linked to the University of Kyoto (Japan), or the International Center for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) in Trieste (Italy). These centers also promote events that involve researchers from several countries.<\/p>\n

\"Postdoctoral

Cyro Lucas Souza\/IIF<\/span>Postdoctoral researcher Fabio Novaes conversing with Professor Dmitry MelnikovCyro Lucas Souza\/IIF<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n

The group of permanent IIF researchers is still being formed. In addition to \u00c1lvaro Ferraz, there are another two research area leaders: the Russian Dmitry Melnikov, a specialist in string theory, and the Italian Pasquale Sodano, a statistical physicist. There is also the Russian Mark Minieev-Weinstein, a visiting researcher, and 11 postdoctoral researchers of various nationalities. Seventeen scientists from other countries spend up to three months at the institution each year, participating in events.<\/p>\n

The relationship between the institute and the physics department at UFRN is becoming stronger. \u201cUntil last year, I had advised only one PhD student. This year I began advising two PhD students and one master\u2019s student,\u201d says Dmitry Melnikov, a researcher at IIF since 2010. \u201cThe distance between the old building and the campus was a deterrent.\u201d<\/p>\n

Melnikov organized a major international event on string theory at the institute in 2013 and is preparing to host another. He also coordinated meetings to bring together all researchers and students from universities in the Northeast interested in this research area. The Russian researcher obtained his undergraduate degree from a university in Moscow in 2003 and his PhD from Rutgers University, in the United States. \u201cI heard about IIF for the first time when I was doing postdoctoral research at the University of Tel Aviv, Israel, and was looking for a new place to work. I decided to compete for a visiting researcher position and I was selected in 2010,\u201d says Melnikov.<\/p>\n

Soon, three new professors will join the institute, after passing through a selection process with 99 candidates. Two are Brazilian: Rodrigo Pereira, a researcher in condensed matter theory, from the S\u00e3o Carlos Institute of Physics at the University of S\u00e3o Paulo; and Rafael Chaves, who is in Germany and is a specialist in quantum information. Another researcher who will move to IIF is the Italian Riccardo Sturani, currently at the International Centre for Theoretical Physics\/South American Institute for Fundamental Research (ICTP-SAIFR) at S\u00e3o Paulo State University (Unesp). Sturani has ties to the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO), in the United States, which recently recorded the first passage of gravitational waves through Earth (see Pesquisa FAPESP<\/em> Issue n\u00ba 241<\/a>). \u201cMy contract with ICTP-SAIFR ends in 2017 and I began looking for a new position. The institute in Natal interested me because its international visibility is increasing,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

In order to operate, IIF must overcome obstacles related to funding. The idea is for it to become an autonomous institute with funding guaranteed by the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation and by the Ministry of Education. According to \u00c1lvaro Ferraz, they are thinking of changing the institute\u2019s legal status, turning it into a non-profit, and thus diversifying its sources of funding. \u201cWe hope Brazil\u2019s economic crisis will not last too long,\u201d says Ferraz.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Theoretical Physics Institute has new headquarters","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[166],"tags":[226,235],"coauthors":[98],"class_list":["post-223138","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-policies-st-en","tag-education","tag-physics"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223138","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=223138"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223138\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=223138"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=223138"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=223138"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=223138"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}