Tomorrow, Tuesday 20 March: In memoriam Joe Polchinski in BLH at 15:45

[Spring School on Superstring Theory and Related Topics (14 - 22 March 2018)]

Dear Colleagues,

Tomorrow, Tuesday 20 March at 15:45, ICTP's Spring School on Superstring Theory 
and Related Topics will hold a memorial session in honour of the prominent 
theoretical physicist Joe Polchinski, who passed away in February 2018.

All are invited to attend. The 45-minute session will take place in the Budinich 
Lecture Hall, and will feature a brief overview of his ouvre and tributes from 
his colleagues including Atish Dabholkar (ICTP), Ken Intriligator (UC San Diego) 
Igor Klebanov (Princeton), and Fernando Quevedo (ICTP).

Polchinski was a professor at the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics at the 
University of California, Santa Barbara. He made wide ranging contributions to 
string theory and quantum field theory. His most influential work was his 
discovery of D-branes as a class of membranes in string theory which are crucial 
for establishing the existence of duality symmetries of string theory. D-branes 
have since led to deep and far-reaching insights about the structure of gauge 
theories, string theory and  black holes, and have contributed to very fruitful 
interactions between physics and mathematics.

In 2008, he shared ICTP's Dirac Medal with Juan Maldacena and Cumrun Vafa 
<https://www.ictp.it/about-ictp/prizes-awards/the-dirac-medal/the-medallists/dirac-medallists-2008.aspx> 
for their fundamental contributions to superstring theory.  According to their 
award citation, the three scientists' profound achievements have helped to 
address outstanding questions like confinement of quarks and QCD mass spectrum 
from a new perspective and have found applications in practical calculations.

Regards,

Nadia  van Buuren
School Secretariat (smr3193)
Spring School on Superstring Theory and Related Topics
The Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics
Strada Costiera 11, I-34151 Trieste, Italy
Ph.: +39 040 2240 363 Fax: +39 040 2240 7363
E-mail: smr3193 at ictp.it
http://indico.ictp.it/event/8302/

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