Peter BOUWKNEGT
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Director Mathematical Sciences Institute Professor of Theoretical Physics and Mathematics Australian National University Adjunct Professor of Mathematics University of Adelaide |
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Prof PG Bouwknegt, FAIP, FAustMS Department of Theoretical Physics Research School of Physics and Engineering Australian National University Canberra, ACT 0200, AUSTRALIA |
Department of Mathematics Mathematical Sciences Institute Australian National University Canberra, ACT 0200, AUSTRALIA |
| Office | Le Couteur (Bldg #59), Rm L.3.15 | John Dedman (Bldg #27), Rm 1173 |
| +61 2 6125 2957 (secr) |
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| +61 2 6125 4984 | |
| peter.bouwknegt@anu.edu.au | |
Prospective Students
Students interested in studying for an Honours, MPhil or PhD degree under my supervision, please familiarize yourself with the following information before contacting me:
- Information on the Honours program in Physics and Mathematics.
- Information on Honours scholarships in Physics and Mathematics.
- Information on the MPhil/PhD program in Physics and Mathematics.
- Information on MPhil/PhD scholarships in Physics and Mathematics.
For Summer Research Scholarships, please refer to these pages [Physics, Maths, ANU]. Summer Vacation Scholarships/Projects (Summer Internships) are currently only offered to Australian/New Zealand residents. Due to the large volume of requests I will no longer reply to inquiries from other countries!
Potential Exchange Students, please familiarize yourself with the possibilities (see here), and follow the instructions on this webpage, before contacting me. You can apply to be an exchange student if your institute is either an ANU Exchange Partner, College Exchange Partner, or IARU partner. Otherwise you can come to the ANU as a fee paying Study Abroad Student.
For a list of projects that I am offering please look here.
Biography
Professor Peter Bouwknegt studied Theoretical Physics and Mathematics at the University of Utrecht, Netherlands, under supervision of Prof G 't Hooft (Nobel Prize for Physics 1999), and at the University of Amsterdam under Prof FA Bais. He obtained his PhD in 1988. He then spent several years as a postdoctoral fellow at MIT, CERN and the University of Southern California before settling in Australia in 1995. He spent almost 10 years at the University of Adelaide, first as an ARC QEII Fellow and subsequently as an ARC Senior Research Fellow, before being appointed Professor of Theoretical Physics and Mathematics at the Australian National University in 2005. He is a recipient of the 2001 medal of the Australian Mathematical Society, and an expert on the mathematical foundations of String Theory and Conformal Field Theory. He served on the Australian Research Council's College of Experts from 2009-2011. Currently he is the director of the ANU's Mathematical Sciences Institute.
Research Interests
Mathematical physics. Current research interests include the investigation of mathematical aspects of physical theories, in particular quantum field theories. Main expertise is the structure of two-dimensional conformal field theory and their applications in diverse areas such as condensed matter physics, integrable models of statistical mechanics and string theory. Also the mathematical structures underlying string theory and D-branes, using advanced mathematical techniques such as K-theory and gerbes. More mathematical expertise and research interests are in the areas of (infinite dimensional) Lie algebras, representation theory, quantum groups, differential geometry, homological algebra, algebraic geometry and algebraic topology. Recently I've become interested in the Geometric Langlands Program.
News
- Click here for info on the 2nd Asia-Pacific Summer School in Mathematical Physics / 22nd Canberra International Physics Summer School on "CFT, AdS/CFT and Integrability" (ANU, 12-16 Dec 2011).
- I was appointed to the steering committee of the Eduard Čech Center for Algebra, Geometry and Mathematical Physics (from 2012).
- Two new postdocs have commenced a position in our group, Dr John Huerta (from 8/8/11), and Dr Pei-Wen (Peggy) Kao (from 1/11/11).
- Dr David Baraglia was successful in obtaining an ARC Australian Postdoctoral Fellowship. He will commence his APD in January 2011.
- Dr David Ridout joined the Mathematical Physics group (both in Theor. Phys., RSPE as well as the MSI) on Sept 13th as an ARC Australian Research Fellow (ARF).
- In 2010-2011 I will serve on the ARC College of Experts' "Physics, Chemistry and Earth Sciences" (PCE) Panel.
- I was appointed to the ARC College of Experts' "Mathematics, Information and Communication Sciences" (MIC) Panel in 2009.
- 2007 was a Special Year on Mathematical Physics at the Mathematical Sciences Institute at the ANU.
- Launch of the "Mathematical Physics Educational Research Initiative" [ On Campus Article, Poster, Photos]
Teaching 2012 (1st semester)
- MATH3351: Topics in Mathematical Physics Honours
(Introduction to String Theory and Conformal Field Theory, 18 lectures)
Recent Papers
P. Bouwknegt and B. Jurčo,
P. Bouwknegt and R. Ratnam,
P. Bouwknegt, A. Carey and R. Ratnam,
P. Bouwknegt, A. Carey and R. Ratnam,
P. Bouwknegt, V. Mathai and S. Wu
Research Group (2012)
Postdocs
- John Huerta
- Pei-Wen (Peggy) Kao
ARC Australian Research Fellow (ARF)
- David Ridout
ARC Australian Postdoctoral Fellow (APD)
- David Baraglia
Current Students
- PhD:
- Josh Garretson
- Andrew Kels (jointly with Vladimir Bazhanov)
- Kowshik Bettadapura (jointly with Bryan Wang)
- Honours:
- Daniel Jacobs
- Zeying Chen
- Summer Research Scholars:
- Yichen (Lily) Shi
Past Students
- PhD:
- Peter Dawson
Thesis: Effective actions and charges of D-branes in curved space-time - David Ridout
Thesis: D-Brane Charge Groups and Fusion Rings in Wess-Zumino-Witten Models - Peggy Kao
Thesis: T-duality and Poisson-Lie T-duality in Generalized Geometry - Rishni Ratnam (jointly with Alan Carey)
Thesis: A Dimensionally Reduced Gysin Sequence for the Equivariant Brauer Group
- Peter Dawson
- MPhil:
- David Botman
Thesis: Spin Foam Quantization of 2D Supergravity - Madeleine Smith
Thesis: Tachyon condensation in open string field theory and the βγ conformal field theory (submitted)
- David Botman
- Honours:
- Nick Halmagyi
Thesis: Polynomial realizations of finite dimensional Lie algebras: with applications to quasiparticles in 2D quantum conformal field theory - Kristian Kennaway
Thesis: BPS states in String Theory - David Tellis
Thesis: Integrable structures in Statistical Mechanics and Field Theory - Peggy Kao
Thesis: Black Hole Thermodynamics and String Theory - David Roberts
Thesis: T-duality in String Theory - Man Chung Fung
Thesis: Generalized complex geometry and geometric quantization - Kimberley Heenan
Thesis: Topological Quantum Computation and Conformal Field Theory - Matthew Magill
Thesis: Courant Algebroids - Kowshik Bettadapura
Thesis: Twisted supersymmetric field theories and de Rham cohomology
- Nick Halmagyi
- Exchange students
- Sophie Maire, University of Neuchatel
Thesis: Higher loop beta functions and Buscher rules for bosonic string theory - Yves Barmaz, ETH Zurich
Thesis: Global aspects of T-duality - Philipp Gruber, ETH-Zurich
Thesis: Beyond Generalized Geometry
- Sophie Maire, University of Neuchatel
Visitors 2012
- Subir Ghosh, Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata (Jun-Jul)
