GIFA
Grupo de Física das Interações Fundamentais & Aplicações
Instituto de Física - Universidade Federal Fluminense
OVERVIEW
GIFA is a research group in the Physics Institute at the Fluminense Federal University (IF-UFF). Initially named Theoretical Physics Group, it started its activities in 1978. It is currently formed by 11 professors, 3 postdoctoral researchers, and 13 postgraduate students. The group activities include research on quantum field theory, gravitation & cosmology, and quantum gravity.
GRAVBR & TQCBR
The online seminars, GravBR and TQCBR, were created at the initiative of Profs. Antônio Duarte and Rodrigo Sobreiro, and the researcher Dr. Igor Justo, members of GIFA. Aiming to integrate the national community, these seminars promote discussions on the recent developments of cutting-edge research in gravitation & cosmology and quantum field theory.
RESEARCH AREAS
The lines of interest at GIFA are organised into three broad fields of research. Two of them, "Quantum Field Theory" and "Gravitation & Cosmology", are aimed at studying open problems with focus on the fundamental laws of Physics. The third one focuses on research at the interface between QFT and different branches of Physics.
Quantum Field Theory
This is a broad research area that provides advanced methods to understand the physical laws, as it consistently combines special relativity and quantum mechanics. All the physics involving the known particles and the electromagnetic, weak, and strong interactions is accommodated by this type of theory. However, a first-principles understanding of the strong force confining properties is still lacking. This type of nonperturbative phenomena is among our main interests.
US gov, CDF Top Event, marked as public domain: When created in a high energy collision, quarks and gluons give rise to jets of colorless particles.
Gravitation & Cosmology
The gravitational interaction, described by the theory of General Relativity, is currently focus of intense research, motivated by the increasing precision experiments in astrophysics and cosmology. This is an area that involves important open problems in fundamental physics, such as the nature of dark energy and dark matter, quantum gravity, gravitational waves, and modified gravity, among others.
QFT in the Interface with Other Areas
From the very beginning, QFT techniques have been useful not only in high energy physics but also in condensed matter and statistical physics. These fruitful interactions culminated in concepts such as spontaneous symmetry breaking, the renormalization group and conformal symmetry. This hand in hand development continued in recent years with the injection of the modern concepts of quantum information. QFT tools have also been central in the study of light/matter interactions photonics, and quantum fluctuation phenomena.
CONTACT US
Instituto de Física - UFF
24210-346 - Niterói - RJ - Brasil