The sub-forum on Particle Physics and Origin of Matters was Held Successfully

The International Year of Basic Sciences for Sustainable Development (IYBSSD) is a key moment of mobilization to convince every citizen of the importance of taking into account and mastering basic sciences to ensure a balanced, sustainable and inclusive development of the planet.The sub-forum of the Forum on Frontiers of Quanta to Cosmos Physics has been successfully held in Hunan University in the city of Changsha, Hunan Province on April 16th, 2023. This forum is hosted by the International Center for Theoretical Physics-Asia Pacific (ICTP-AP) of UCAS, the Institute of Theoretical Physics (ITP) of CAS, Hangzhou Institute for Advanced Study of UCAS, and organized by Hunan University. This sub forum focused on the theme of "Particle Physics and Origin of Matter" and there are five scientists who brought us excellent repots on the theme, attracting over 320,000 audience watching online and offline.Speakers from left to the right: Geng Chaoqiang, Yu Hongwei, Wang Qing, Li Haibo, Tang YongYueliang Wu, the vice president of academic affairs from UCAS and the director of ICTP-AP stated that breakthroughs in the field of physics have inspired a series of major technology revolutions. For example, the introduction of Newtonian mechanics promoted the leap from the age of handicrafts industry to the age of steam and breakthroughs in basic science in the 19th century, such as the laws of electromagnetic induction promoted the second industrial revolution marked by the invention of electric power technology and the internal combustion engine, marking that mankind has entered the age of electricity. In the mid-20th century, the revolution in the field of physics with quantum mechanics and relativity as its core promoted major breakthroughs in atomic energy, computer science, bioengineering and space technology, marking that human society has entered the age of information. And Professor Wu pointed out that in the 21st century, we are faced with a new round of science and technological wave, students present at the forum are “in the flower of their age, and their spirit bright was as its height”. At last, he expressed his wish that the young talents could make their own contribution for the breakthroughs in the filed of basic science in the future and bring our society up to a higher ladder of development. Wu Yueliang Liu Wen, president of the office of Scientific R&D, extended warm welcome to all the teachers and students at the forum. He said that as a new round of technological revolution and industrial transformation is vigorously emerging, scientific exploration, innovation and cross disciplinary development are all in acceleration. Hunan University, as a university of thousand years of history, has earnestly implemented the innovation-driven development strategy, aiming towards the cutting-edge technology in the world to enhance its basic research and promote original creativity. He hoped that this forum could provide an opportunity for audience from online and offline to learn about the mysterious nature of quanta to cosmos physics and significance of exploring the basic laws of nature science. Liu WenWhat’s worth mentioning is that there are also over 60 high school students taking part in this forum actively and during the Q&A session, they raised many questions about science, asking about how to choose their major when they go to college as well as career development. Professors were very glad to share their own experience with the students and encouraged them to devote themselves into scientific research and pursue their science dreams in the vast land of our nation with the aim of solving major scientific problems.

IYBSSD - Forum on Frontiers of Quanta to Cosmos Physics

The First Sub-forum of Forum on Frontiers of Quanta to Cosmos Physics is Successfully Held

The sub-forum of the Forum on Frontiers of Quanta to Cosmos Physics has been successfully held in Shandong University (Qingdao Campus) from March 4th to March 5th in 2023. This forum is hosted by the International Center for Theoretical Physics-Asia Pacific (ICTP-AP) of UCAS, the Institute of Theoretical Physics (ITP) of CAS, Hangzhou Institute for Advanced Study of UCAS, and organized by Shandong University. This sub forum focused on the theme of "Gravitational Wave and Precision Measurement Physics" and "Dark Universe and Black Hole Physics", and it has been broadcasted live on several online platforms, with over 400,000 audience watching online.Han Jianxin, the executive vice president of Shangdong University stated that quanta to cosmos physics is of great significance in promoting the development of physics and he hopes that this forum will provide an opportunity for experts and scholars to exchange academic views and seek cooperation with each other.Yueliang Wu, the vice president of academic affairs from UCAS said that currently, China has attached great importance to the development of basic science and CAS is the sole organization that acts as the Advisory Committee and Steering Committee for the International Year of Basic Sciences (IYBSS) in China, and therefore CAS values it a lot and has given strong support to it. Theoretical physics can be considered as the basic of basic sciences and its development has driven a series of scientific revolutions and promoted the progress of our society.The first lecturer Yueliang Wu has talked about the Taiji Program in Space, a space gravitational wave detection plan of our nation, and discussed the major scientific breakthroughs that could be brought by relative research.Reviewing the history and exploring unknowns, the 12 invited scientists has brought us a feast of cutting-edge physics from quanta to cosmos and jointly discussed about the important role of basic sciences for sustainable development.In the era of rapid development of physics, we are looking forward to more young talents joining the scientific research of cutting-edge physics in the future, exploring uninhabited areas, exploring unknown theories, solving science and technology difficulties, and contributing their wisdom and strength to the  development of science.

New Method to Reveal the Cosmological First-order Phase Transition

Various observations from particle physics, astrophysics, and cosmology have suggested that the standard model of particle physics for describing the microscopic structure of matter is not complete. It is then one of the vital scientific problems of current particle physics and cosmological observations to search for the signals of new physics beyond the standard model of particle physics. Many new physics models beyond the standard model of particle physics predict the cosmological first-order phase transitions during the evolution of our Universe. With the temperature decreasing due to the expansion of the Universe, symmetries at high energy scales would be broken simultaneously, and the associated quantum field would decay into the true vacuum from the false vacuum by quantum tunneling via the nucleation and expansion of true-vacuum bubbles, resulting in the energy transfer into the kinetic energy of bubble walls and background fluid, similar to the violent process of frozen ice from supercooling water. The following collisions among expanding bubbles would induce large fluctuations in the energy density. Therefore, as a violent process in the early Universe, the cosmological first-order phase transitions could produce various observational effects, including the stochastic gravitational wave background, primordial magnetic field, and baryon asymmetry, making it feasible to probe or constrain the new physics from astrophysical and cosmological observations. The gravitational-wave observation from cosmological first-order phase transition is also one of the main scientific targets of many gravitational-wave observational projects.Recently, the postdoc Dr. Jing Liu from the International Centre for Theoretical Physics Asia-Pacific of the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, the associate researcher Prof. Ligong Bian from Chongqing University, the researchers Prof. Rong-Gen Cai, Prof. Zong-Kuan Guo, and the postdoc Dr. Shao-Jiang Wang from the Institute of Theoretical Physics of Chinese Academy of Sciences have proposed a new mechanism for the productions of primordial black holes, and given rise to rigorous constraints on the properties of cosmological first-order phase transitions from the astrophysical observational data. Due to the randomness of quantum tunneling, the progress of vacuum decay varies in different regions. Note that the false vacuum energy density barely changes with the cosmological expansion, while the energy densities of other matter components like radiations and cold dark matter are rapidly diluted with the expansion of the Universe. Therefore, the regions of vacuum decay that fall behind the others would admit higher energy densities after the phase transition. This is to say that the cosmological first-order phase transition would induce fluctuations in energy density. These high-energy-density regions would eventually produce primordial black holes via gravitational collapse, and these primordial black holes are almost monochromatic in their mass spectrum. The relevant paper has been published as a Letter in Phys. Rev.D 105 (2022) L021303. The primordial black holes produced with this mechanism and the associated gravitational waves could explain the merger rate of black hole binaries observed in LIGO-Virgo collaborations as well as the signal from the NANOGrav observation.They also discovered that the first-order phase transition could induce superhorizon curvature perturbations, and in turn probe and constrain the phase-transition properties from the observations of the curvature perturbations at small cosmological scales. The nucleation rate of true vacuum bubbles per unit time and per unit volume could be obtained from the quantum tunneling. After the phase transition, the regions with a scale larger than the product of phase-transition duration and light speed share no causal connection, and the causality requires the energy density spectrum of curvature perturbations to be proportional to the cube of wavenumber. Hence, if the superhorizon scale is considered, the induced curvature perturbations from phase transitions could largely surpass the primordial perturbations from the early-universe inflation so that it can be probed by various astrophysical observations, including the temperature anisotropies and spectrum distortion in the cosmic microwave background radiations and the number density in ultra-compact minihalos. In turn, we could also constrain the phase-transition properties via the upper bounds on the curvature perturbations from these astrophysical observations.Figure 1: Constraints on the parameter space of phase transition from different observations on the curvature perturbations, where alpha denotes the phase-transition strength, beta/H_* denotes the phase-transition rate,  and T_* is the phase-transition temperature. The gray solid curves and gray dotted curves in the left and middle panels are constraints from the gravitational-wave background and big bang nucleosynthesis, respectively.They have obtained the power spectrum of the curvature perturbations induced from the first-order phase transitions, and for the first time given rise to rigorous constraints on the phase-transition parameters from the upper bounds on the curvature perturbations from astrophysical observations. The relevant paper has been published in Phys. Rev. Lett 130 (2023) 051001. As shown in Figure 1, all constraints on the cosmological first-order phase transitions below the electroweak scale are obtained from the upper bounds on the curvature perturbations from the big bang nucleosynthesis (blue curves), the temperature anisotropies and spectrum distortion in the cosmic microwave background radiations (green curves), and the number density in ultra-compact minihalos (orange solid curves from pulsar timing array and orange dashed curves from Gamma-ray detections). This study largely enhances the previous constraints from the stochastic gravitational-wave background (gray solid curves) and big bang nucleosynthesis (gray dotted curves) on the QCD first-order phase transition, low-energy dark-sector first-order phase transition, and some of the electroweak first-order phase transition, in particular the low-energy transitions and slow first-order phase transitions.This study is supported by relevant projects from the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the Ministry of Science and Technology of China, and the Chinese Academy of Sciences.Link: https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.130.051001Contact:Jing Liu: liujing@ucas.ac.cnInternational Centre for Theoretical Physics Asia-Pacific 

2022年优秀大学生夏令营及暑期学校圆满结束

  由联合国教科文组织国际理论物理中心（亚太地区）和引力波宇宙太极实验室联合主办的中国科学院大学国际理论物理中心（亚太地区）2022年优秀大学生夏令营及引力波暑期学校于2022年7月4-8日成功举办。在过去一周的时间里，共有11位专家老师围绕引力、黑洞与量子宇宙、引力波探测与精密测量技术展开二十场讲座，与来自全国三十余家高校及科研院所的同学相聚“云端”，共话基础物理的奥秘，体悟科学的乐趣。暑期学校部分师生“云合影”  本次引力波暑期学校共有15位学员经专家考核脱颖而出，授予中国科学院大学国际理论物理中心（亚太地区）2022年优秀大学生夏令营“优秀学员”称号，名单公布如下（按姓氏排序）：  此次活动为年轻学子提供了一个接触国际学科前沿的平台，将吸引更多的有志青年投身到引力波探测相关研究中。期待他们未来能够成为空间引力波探测“太极计划”的一员，为中国空间引力波探测做出卓越贡献。

ICTP-AP Summer School 2022 Draws to a Close

The five-day long summer school jointly held by International Centre for Theoretical Physics Asia-Pacific (ICTP-AP) and Taiji Laboratory for Gravitational Wave Universe was successfully concluded on 8th July, 2022. During the week, students from over 30 universities and science institutes gathered virtually to explore the myth of basic physics and enjoy the beauty of science, with 20 lectures centered on gravity, black hole and quanta to cosmos, gravitational wave detection and accurate measurement given by eleven experts and professors.  Group photo of the students and staffThis virtual summer school has provided an important platform for the young talents to reach the frontiers of international disciplines so as to attract more youth to devote themselves to the research field of gravitational wave detection, become a member of the Taiji Program in Space and make their own contribution to Chinese space gravitational wave detection mission in the future.

IYBSSD 2022 Officially Launched in China

On 30 June 2022, the launching ceremony of the “Forum on Frontiers of Quanta to Cosmos Physics” was held successfully. The International Centre for Theoretical Physics Asia-Pacific (UNESCO Category 2 Centre), Institute of Theoretical Physics, CAS, and Hangzhou Institute for Advanced Study, UCAS jointly organized this forum, marking the official launch of the "2022 International Year of Basic Sciences for Sustainable Development" in China. Five online platforms broadcasted this event and attracted more than 50，000 participations.At the beginning of the forum, six leaders from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, National Natural Science Foundation of China, and research institutions actively expressed their support for IYBSSD 2022 and the “Forum on Frontiers of Quanta to Cosmos Physics". Then, six academicians delivered academic reports on the development history, current situation, and frontier prospects of theoretical physics.  As one of the IYBSSD 2022 events in China, the Forum on Frontiers of Quanta to Cosmos Physics mainly focuses on the significance of basic science to original innovation, scientific and technological development, and sustainable development. From 30 June to 31 December 2022, the forum will hold separate forums corresponding to different topics including: Particle Physics and Origin of Matter, Unified Field Theory and Origin of Universe, Dark Universe and Black Hole Physics, Nuclear and Plasma Physics, Gravitational Waves and Precision Measurement Physics, and Fundamental Physics and Quantum Century.The sub-forum will invite scientists working on the front line of scientific research to share their experiences and insights of basic sciences research, to enhance the public's understanding of basic science and stimulate young people's interest in participating in basic science research.The Forum on Frontiers of Quanta to Cosmos Physics is supported by the Chinese Academy of Sciences and National Natural Science Foundation of China.

Hyperunified Field Theory Opens Up A New Way to Reveal the Essence of Spacetime and Gravity and the Origin of Matter and Universe

At present, human beings know that there are four fundamental interactions in nature: gravitation, electromagnetism, strong and weak interactions. Gravitation is described by Einstein’s general theory of relativity, electromagnetic interactions are described by Maxwell equations, strong interactions are described by quantum chromodynamics (the binding of protons and neutrons into nuclei exhibits strong interactions), and weak interactions are described by electroweak model (some radioactive decays of unstable elements are caused by weak interactions, such as ß-decay). One of the ultimate goals of theoretical physics is to find a theoretical framework that can describe the four fundamental interactions in a unified way, i.e., the unified theory.Why should we unify different theories? In the development history of theoretical physics, unified theories describing different physical phenomena appeared more than once, and each unification made human beings have a deeper understanding of nature. For example, it is intuitively believed that electricity and magnetism are different natural phenomena, but Maxwell advanced a set of equations, which can describe electricity and magnetism in a unified way, indicating that electricity and magnetism are essentially the same, that is, electricity can generate magnetism, and magnetism can generate electricity, which laid a foundation for the development of motors, generators and radio communication. Current research in theoretical physics shows that the electroweak and strong interactions can be described by the Standard Model of particle physics, but they are still relatively independent and have not formed a unified model. In addition, gravitational interaction is essentially different from other interactions. The general theory of relativity describing gravitation is still a classical theory described by spacetime geometric dynamics, not a quantum theory. Therefore, it has always been the goal of theoretical physicists to find the quantum theory of gravitation and unify the electroweak interaction, strong interaction and gravitational interaction. In the search for a unified theory, Einstein made many attempts in the rest of his life, but failed. In recent decades, theoretical physicists put forward and developed the superstring theory, which is considered as a possible candidate for the unified theory. However, there is no final conclusion on this issue. One hundred years after Einstein put forward the Unified Field Theory, Yueliang Wu, academician of Chinese Academy of Sciences (Director of ICTP-AP, Director of Taiji Laboratory for Gravitational Wave Universe of UCAS, and Director of Academic Committee of the Institute of Theoretical Physics, CAS) has completed the systematic research work of The Foundation of the Hyperunified Field Theory. It opens up a new way to reveal the basic composition, symmetry and basic interactions of nature, the essence of spacetime and gravitation, and the origin of matter and the universe. It is a new attempt to the unified theory. The exploration and research of The Foundation of the Hyperunified Field Theory breaks the usual thinking formed since Einstein’s theory of relativity. Instead of starting directly from the existing concepts of symmetry, spacetime and its geometry, it takes the concepts of matter and motion as the basic starting point, that is, nature is composed of fundamental building blocks, which have intrinsic structures and are in motion constantly, and their motion is simple and regular. In order to realize such concepts of matter and motion reasonably and consistently in physics, The Foundation of the Hyperunified Field Theory takes the action principle of path integral formulation, which has been successfully applied to quantum field theory and classical physics, as its theoretical form system, the maximum coherence motion principle and locally entangled-qubits motion principle, together with the principle of scaling and gauge invariance are proposed and served as the foundation of hyperunified field theory. Starting from the basic matter field and motion concept and based on the existing physical phenomena and experiments, The Foundation of the Hyperunified Field Theory puts forward the basic guiding principles for establishing hyperunified field theory. Through detailed physical analysis and systematic theoretical deduction and induction, it can solve a series of long-standing basic problems in fundamental theoretical physics. For example, why are the fundamental building blocks of nature presented as spinor fields? What is the fundamental symmetry of nature and how it came into being? What is the basic attribute of spacetime and how it is embodied? How to determine the spacetime dimension of nature? Why time is different from space, and time is one-dimensional? Why there are more than one generation of leptons and quarks in nature? Why is the material world observed a four-dimensional spacetime universe? Whether the four basic interactions known in nature can be dominated by unified fundamental symmetry? What is the essence of gravitation and how it is characterized by hyperunified fundamental symmetry? What is the essence and structure of spacetime? How to understand the origin and evolution of the universe and how the early inflation of the universe occurred? What are the properties of dark matter and whether its existence implies new interactions in nature? What is the essence of dark energy and whether its presentation comes from new interactions in nature? Why today’s universe presents parity breaking and asymmetry between matter and antimatter? Whether the unified description of the fundamental laws of physics is uniquely determined by the concepts of matter and motion, and what kind of energy concepts, spacetime concepts, geometric concepts and cosmic concepts it will lead to? Academician Yueliang Wu’s related research results have been written into two articles, The foundation of the Hyperunified Field Theory I-Fundamental Building Block and Symmetry and The foundation of the Hyperunified Field Theory II-Fundamental Interaction and Evolving Universe, which were published in the International Journal of Modern Physics A (IJMPA Vol.36, No.28) with the special issue The foundation of the Hyperunified Field Theory (301 pages in total):“Special Issue on the Foundation of the Hyperunified Field Theory”  https://www.worldscientific.com/toc/ijmpa/36/28 “The Foundation of the Hyperunified Field Theory I —Fundamental   Building Block and Symmetry”( IJMPA Vol.36, No.28, 2143001 (2021); arXiv:2104.05404 )  https://www.worldscientific.com/doi/abs/10.1142/S0217751X21430016 “The Foundation of the Hyperunified Field Theory II —Fundamental Interaction and Evolving Universe” ”( IJMPA Vol.36, No.28, 2143002 (2021); arXiv:2104.05404 )    https://www.worldscientific.com/doi/abs/10.1142/S0217751X21430028 He was invited to give talks on related work at the 2020/2021 Autumn Conference of Chinese Physical Society and the 28th International Conference on Supersymmetry and Unification of Fundamental Interactions (SUSY2021):The Foundation of Hyperunified Field Theory & Opportunity of New Scientific Revolution https://www.koushare.com/video/videodetail/16871  The Foundation of Unified Theory & Space Gravitational Wave Detection https://indico.cern.ch/event/875077/contributions/4488999/ The research above is supported by national funds, including the national key research and development plan of the Ministry of Science and Technology “Gravitational Wave Detection” key project, major projects of “Research on Physical Problems Related to Gravitational Waves” of National Natural Science Foundation of China, key projects related to dark matter attributes, “Special Fund for Theoretical Physics”. “Multi-Band Gravitational Wave Universe Research-Taiji Plan Pre-Study” and “Taiji Program for Space Gravitational Wave Detection” of  Strategic Priority Research Program of CAS.

The 28th Pre-SUSY Summer School Held successfully

The Pre-SUSY Summer School, jointly organized by the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Institute of Theoretical Physics and ICTP-AP ended successfully on August 20, 2021. The two weeks summer school adopted the form of Chinese Week and English Week. Nearly 40 well-known experts and scholars at home and abroad were invited to bring wonderful lectures.Since its establishment in 1993, the annual SUSY Conference is one of the largest academic conferences in high-energy physics in the world. The conference has been held for 27 times around the world, and each was hosted by famous universities or research institutions from all over the world, dedicated to exploring cutting-edge ideas in the field of elementary particle physics. The 28th SUSY conference was supposed to be held in Beijing in 2020, but it had to be postponed until 2021 due to the impact of Covid-19 pandemic.Before each SUSY Conference, Pre-SUSY schools will be held for senior graduate students and postdocs from all over the world. Providing opportunities for young scholars to expand their knowledge and explore the forefront of world science. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the school took online teaching, and more than 1,000 people from home and abroad gathered in the cloud to conduct academic discussions on topics such as standard model, supersymmetry theory, grand unified theory, superstring model, Higgs physics, dark matter and so on.In addition to expert lectures, the summer school also provided a stage for students. Through voluntary registration, students could give academic reports based on their own research and communicate with the audience.Pre-SUSY Summer School has come to a successful conclusion. The International Academic Conference on Supersymmetry Physics will be held online from August 23 to 28. The academic feast will continue. Welcome to join us! (SUSY Conference website: https://indico.cern.ch/event/8750777/)For schedule and courseware of Pre-SUSY Summer School 2021, please refer to: https://ictp-ap.org/event/12 

Taiji-1 Satellite Released the Scientific Achievements of the First Stage

On July 20, the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) held a press conference on the scientific achievements of “Strategic Priority Research Program” in Beijing. WU Yue-Liang, vice president of University of Chinese Academy of Sciences (UCAS) and chief scientist of the Taiji program, on behalf of the scientific collaboration team, released the scientific achievements of Taiji-1 satellite in the first stage.Taiji-1 satellite was officially delivered to UCAS in orbit in January 2020. The results of the first-stage in-orbit test and data analysis show that the Taiji-1 has achieved the highest precision of space laser interferometry in China. The accuracy of displacement measurement of the laser interferometer on Taiji-1 reached 100pm/Hz1/2, 25 pm/Hz1/2 in some frequency bands. The accuracy of the gravitational reference sensor on the satellite reached 10-10ms-2/Hz1/2, and the sensing accuracy and range ratio reaches the best level of 2×10-6/Hz1/2 in China. For the first time in the world, the on-orbit verification of the micro-thruster radio-frequency(RF) ion and dual-mode Hall electric propulsion technology has been realized. The micro-propulsion system achieves 0.15μN/Hz1/2 noise level, and the thrust measurement accuracy is better than 0.02μN/Hz1/2. The first on-orbit experiment of drag-free control of satellite was carried out in China, and the residual acceleration is better than 10-8ms-2/Hz1/2. The temperature control of the satellite platform reaches ± 2.6mk.The results of these in-orbit tests have been published in Communications Physics, one of the Nature-branded journals (read more). The realization of these important indicators verified the feasibility of the key technology of space gravitational wave detection, and took the first step of China's space gravitational wave detection, laying a foundation for China to make a breakthrough in the field of space gravitational wave detection.Meanwhile, International Journal of Modern Physics A of the World Scientific Press has published more detailed experimental results of Taiji-1 in the form of an album, including 26 papers, from more than 180 researchers, more than 30 cooperative units (read more). This album covers the interferometer system, gravity reference sensor, micro-thruster system, drag-free control, ultra-stable and ultra-static satellite technology, and introduces the data processing process of Taiji-1 in detail.In addition, the Taiji team has made great progress in the research of the scientific target of gravitational wave detection in space. For the first time in the world, the Taiji team proposed to use "Taiji-LISA" for networked observation, published in Nature Astronomy, which is expected to improve the accuracy of The Hubble constant to five parts per thousand (read more). The networked observations will allow faster and more accurate positioning of gravitational wave sources and are expected to improve accuracy by up to four orders of magnitude.Taiji-1 was launched from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center on 31 August 2019, and it was China’s first satellite to conduct in-orbit experiments on the key technologies related to space-borne Gravitational Wave (GW) detection. It’s also the first step of Taiji program, which is a Chinese space-borne GW detection mission leading by Chinese Academy of Sciences. Taiji-1 has successfully completed all the preset on-orbit experiment tasks, and will further explore the performance limit of the payload on orbit, long life, and optimization of the drag-free control strategy and other expanded experiments.UCAS is the user and scientific application undertaking unit of Taiji-1. The National Space Science Center is responsible for the overall project and the ground support system. The satellite system was developed by the Micro Satellite Innovation Institute of the CAS. The cooperative units participating in the payload development also includes, Institute of Mechanics, CAS, Changchun Institute of Optics, Fine Mechanics and Physics, CAS, Shanghai Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics, CAS, Innovation Academy for Precision Measurement Science and Technology, CAS, Lanzhou Institute of Physics, CAST, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore etc.