Update about PAGE

departmental news

We haven’t made a blog post in a while and a lot has happened, so it’s worth catching up!

In the past 2 years PAGE was forced to adapt and go online due to the global pandemic. We made a Facebook and Discord to service the students and give them a virtual location to study, hang out and get/provide support to fellow students. We also had virtual events such as movie and games nights!

In addition to the online services, we hosted the PAGE conference online as well, which had 40+ attendees ranging from Undergraduate, Graduate students, and Professors. The talks were rapid fire and being online allowed people to come in and out of the meeting seamlessly. Although the online conference was a success in displaying the research in the department, we can’t wait to go back to the in-person format so we can have small talk and eat together again!

Looking forward, in this upcoming year, the goal of PAGE is to support the department initiative of rebuilding our social network in the department in a post covid context, where students work in person and remotely.  We are having social events and parties, the PAGE conference, and weekly study sessions (with snacks!)

We hope to see you around and wish you have a wonderful semester!

Conference Keynote Speaker: Latham Boyle

conference

We are very pleased to welcome Dr. Latham Boyle to York as this year’s keynote speaker. Please join us for his talk during the conference on Wed May 15 at 11:00am in LSB 105. Lunch will follow for all attendees at 12:00 in LSB 106.

Dr. Boyle is a faculty member at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics and will be sharing some fascinating ideas coming out of his current research.

CPT-Symmetric Universe

Abstract: I will introduce our recent proposal that the state of the universe does *not* spontaneously violate CPT. Instead, the universe after the big bang is the CPT image of the universe before it, both classically and quantum mechanically. The pre- and post-bang epochs comprise a universe/anti-universe pair, emerging from nothing directly into a hot, radiation-dominated era. CPT symmetry selects the QFT vacuum state on such a spacetime, providing a new interpretation of the cosmological baryon asymmetry, as well as an economical explanation for the cosmological dark matter. Requiring only the standard three-generation model of particle physics (with right-handed neutrinos), a Z_2 symmetry suffices to render one of the right-handed neutrinos stable. One can calculate its abundance from first principles: matching the observed dark matter density requires its mass to be 4.8 x 10^{8} GeV. Several other testable predictions follow: (i) the three light neutrinos are Majorana and allow neutrinoless double beta decay; (ii) the lightest neutrino is massless; and (iii) there are no primordial long-wavelength gravitational waves. The proposal also has interesting things to say about the strong CP problem and the observed electrodynamic arrow of time.

(Based on arXiv:1803.08928 and arXiv:1803.08930 with Kieran Finn and Neil Turok, and forthcoming work.)

Next PAGE Conference on May 15, 2019

conference

The annual PAGE conference is an opportunity for students in the department to:

  • share their research with the York Physics community
  • practice presenting in a familiar, low-stakes environment
  • hear about the research being done by their peers
  • hear an awesome talk from a keynote speaker (to be announced)

All are welcome to attend and lunch is provided for all. You can find out more about the conference here. Also, prizes are awarded to the best speakers.

The next Conference is schedule for Wednesday, May 15, 2019.

See the schedule from last year’s conference HERE.

If you are interested in participating, please send an email to page@yorku.ca.

Hope to see you there!

Science Unplugged

departmental news

A cool event is coming up this week, planned by the Faculty of Science,  “Science Unplugged”. It is intended to be a faculty-wide internal event to bring together faculty members, postdocs and graduate students. The primary goals are to build a stronger sense of community and foster cross-disciplinary interactions. It’s meant to incorporate both intellectual and social aspects. The idea evolved, in part, from the faculty’s strategic planning consultations. This event will feature three short TED-style talks to generate excitement, one of them given by yours truly! There will be free food and refreshments too.

Thursday March 10
3:30 pm
Underground Restaurant

Registration is encouraged for this event, so please do so at the following link:
http://science.apps01.yorku.ca/machform/view.php?id=59344

Hope to see you there!

scienceunplugged