Quantum field theory

Email: 
sergiu@psc.edu
Phone: 
412-268-6638
Office: 
300 South Craig St.
Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center
Ph.D in Physics from McGill University
Summary:

Research Interests

Quantum field theory, atmospheric physics, complex systems, social systems, computer systems, software systems, visualization.

 Current Projects

  1. Nystrom (PI), J. R. Scott (co-PI), R. Roskies (co-PI), M. Levine (co-PI), R. Scibek (PM), P. Buitrago, J. Marsteller, D. Moses, S. Sanielevici, J. Sommerfield, J. Urbanic: Bridges: From Communities and Data to Workflows and Insight. Intellectual merit: Bridges is a uniquely capable, data- and memory-intensive high-performance computing (HPC) system designed to integrate HPC with Big Data, deliver “HPC-as-a-Service”, and help researchers work more intuitively. Broader impact: Bridges currently supports 1,096 projects and 4,650 users nationwide representing 303 institutions, representing 103 NSF fields of science. Publications: and (as of May 1, 2017) 437 user publications cited in proposals for allocations on Bridges. Research products: Bridges architecture and software, over 10 Science Gateways (ongoing).
  2. Towns (PI), K. Gaither (co-PI), N. Wilkins-Diehr (co-PI), Sanielevici, Buitrago, Marsteller, Urbanic:  XSEDE 2.0: Integrating, Enabling and Enhancing National Cyberinfrastructure with Expanding Community Involvement. Intellectual Merit: XSEDE 2 provides an adaptive framework that enables researchers to use emerging CI capabilities to advance their fields. Broader Impact: XSEDE 2 engages a new generation of diverse computational researchers and campus communities in education, training, and outreach activities. Publications: In the first quarter of 2017, 217 user projects identified 907 publications and other products. Research products: Since the start of XSEDE 2, the Extended Collaborative Support Service (ECSS) has completed 73 projects with the user community (ongoing).

 Recently Completed Project

Scott, Sanielevici, Nystrom, Marsteller, Urbanic: XSEDE: eXtreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment. Intellectual Merit: Developed a comprehensive advanced digital services cyberinfrastructure to enable transformative open science and engineering research. Broader Impact: In 2016, XSEDE supported 8,000 researchers and students in all 50 states, associated with approximately $2.5 billion dollars of funded research. Publications: Over 17,000 user publications, cited twice as often as non-XSEDE supported publications in the same journals. Research products: A single authentication interface to access all XSEDE allocated resources. A database of application software and tools to inform the user what is available on each allocated resource. More than 300 projects conducted with the user community by ECSS.

Most Cited Publications

"Partition-function zeros and the SU (3) deconfining phase transition," Nelson A. Alves, Bernd A. Berg, and Sergiu Sanielevici.  Phys. Rev. Lett. 64, 3107 (1990)

 

Recent Publications

Wilkins-Diehr, N., Sanielevici, S., Alameda, J., Cazes, J., Crosby, L., Pierce, M., & Roskies, R. (2015, March). An overview of the XSEDE extended collaborative support program. In International Conference on Supercomputing in Mexico (pp. 3-13). Springer, Cham.

Towards a Realist View of Quantum Field Theory

Fall 2017
Quantum field theory
Speaker(s): 
James Fraser, Center Postdoc Fellow
Dates: 
Friday, October 6, 2017 - 12:00pm

Can a scientific realist epistemology be maintained in the context of quantum field theory? I have suggested, following similar proposals by David Wallace and Porter Williams, that the best hope for the realist is to be found in the effective field theory approach. After explaining the key motivations for this view I focus here on two anti-realist replies: the first suggesting that it falls foul of familiar pessimistic induction style arguments and the second that it fails to clearly distinguish itself from constructive empiricism. While I don’t think these objections are fatal they do...

New Formulations of Perturbative Quantum Field Theory

Fall 2016
Seminar
Quantum field theory
Speaker(s): 
Tim Adamo
Dates: 
Wednesday, November 30, 2016 - 4:30pm to 6:30pm

The S-matrix is among the most basic -- and most physically relevant -- observables in any quantum field theory. At tree-level, it is well-defined even for theories that are not UV finite, such as general relativity, and captures the full non-linear complexity of the equations of motion. The traditional Feynman approach to computing S-matrix elements (scattering amplitudes) relies on a space-time Lagrangian description of the QFT we are interested in. However, remarkably compact expressions have been discovered for the full tree-level S-matrix of a wide array of massless...