Integrated Calendar

When matter is placed in the confined field of electromagnetic radiation, it can lead to modified and even new properties. This is of great interest from both the fundamental point of view as well as for many radiation engineering applications. For instance, the field confinement can lead to effects such as extraordinary optical transmission, enhanced absorption and emission of light, high-resolution spectroscopy and imaging. Under certain conditions, the light-matter interaction can become so strong that it enters the so-called strong coupling regime where new hybrid light-matter states are formed, offering a vast potential for chemistry and biology that has hardly been explored.
In this talk, an introduction to strong coupling of optically-active substances with confined optical modes will be presented. Strong coupling of molecular vibrational transitions in the infra-red region will be particularly elaborated with new prospects to modify molecular and structural processes. The hybridization of molecular vibrational transitions by the confined electromagnetic field of an optical cavity, leading to the formation of vibro-polariton states, should have direct consequences on the properties of the material. Probing nonlinear properties of the coupled system to understand the character of the hybrid states will be addressed. In addition, new directions for exploiting strong light-matter interactions for (bio) molecular spectroscopy and other practical applications will be discussed.

Abstract:
The pion polarizability is of fundamental interest in the low-energy sector of quantum chromodynamics. It is directly linked to the quark-gluon substructure and dynamics of the pion, the lightest bound system of the strong interaction. For more than a decade, COMPASS has been tackling the measurement of the electromagnetic polarizability of the charged pion, which describes the stiffness of the pion against deformation in electromagnetic fields. Previous experiments date back to the 1980's in Serpheukhov (Russia), where the Primakoff method for realizing interactions of charged pions with quasi-real photons was first employed. Later, other measurements based on photon-nucleon and photon-photon collisions were also carried out at different laboratories.
The COMPASS measurement demonstrates that the charged-pion polarizability is significantly smaller than the previous results, roughly by a factor two, with the smallest uncertainties realized so far.

For tumors to expand, metastasize, and evade immune surveillance, genetically transformed cancer cells must recruit non-malignant cells, including macrophages, fibroblasts and endothelial cells. These cells, collectively termed the tumor microenvironment, are reprogrammed to support the tumor at the expense of its host. Our group aims to elucidate the mechanisms by which tumors reprogram their local environments. Our hypothesis is that cancer cells hijack normal cytoprotective stress responses, and subvert them to enable stromal reprogramming. In my talk, I will discuss the role of Heat-shock Factor 1 (HSF1), master regulator of the heat-shock response, in this process. Across a broad range of human cancers, HSF1 is activated in cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs), where it drives a transcriptional program that supports the malignant potential of adjacent cancer cells. In early stage breast and lung cancer, high stromal HSF1 activation is strongly associated with poor patient outcome. Thus, tumors co-opt the ancient survival functions of HSF1 to orchestrate malignancy, with far-reaching therapeutic implications.