一、学术报告
【报告题目】A plurality of optical singularities: intensity, phase, polarisation
【报告人】Michael Berry 教授，英国布里斯托大学
【报告地点】20幢 一楼学院报告厅
【报告时间】2025年9月26日, 9:40
【报告摘要】
In modern optics, we understand fields of light through their geometrical singularities. These are different at different levels of description. The coarsest level is geometrical optics, where the singularities are caustics: focal lines and surfaces: the envelopes of ray families. These singularities of bright light are classified by the mathematics of catastrophe theory. Wave optics smooths these singularities and decorates them with rich and ubiquitous interference patterns. Wave optics also introduces phase, which has its own singularities. These are optical vortices, a.k.a nodes or wavefront dislocations. Geometrically, these singularities of dark light are lines in space, or points in the plane. They occur in all types of quantum or classical waves. Incorporating the vector nature of light leads to polarisation singularities, also geometrical, describing lines where the polarisation is purely circular or linear. As well as representing physics at each level, these optical and wave geometries illustrate the idea of asymptotically emergent phenomena. With hindsight, it is clear that singular optics started in the 1830s. The levels form a hierarchy, leading to predictions of phenomena at the quantum level.
【报告人简介】：Michael Berry brief biography
Sir Michael Berry is a theoretical physicist at the University of Bristol, where he has been for more than twice as long as he has not. His research centres on the relations between physical theories at different levels of description (classical and quantum physics, ray optics and wave optics…). In addition to these deeply mathematical, often geometric, studies, he also delights in finding familiar phenomena illustrating deep concepts – the arcane in the mundane: rainbows, the sparkling of the sun on the sea, twinkling starlight, polarised light in the sky, tidal bores...(for more, see https://michaelberryphysics.wordpress.com)
迈克尔·贝里爵士是当今最负盛名的理论物理学家之一。他以提出贝里相位（几何相位）闻名，该理论揭示了量子系统绝热循环过程中的拓扑性质，解决了斯托克斯150年的光学难题 。现为英国布里斯托大学荣誉教授，他在几何相位、奇点光学、量子混沌和渐进分析等领域做出了开创性的贡献。贝里爵士在每个方向的洞见均迅速渗透到物理学甚至是纯数学的多个分支，并催生了全新的概念和独特的研究视角。曾获沃尔夫奖、狄拉克奖、洛伦兹奖、复旦—中植科学奖。为美国国家科学院外籍院士，荷兰皇家艺术与科学学院院士，英国皇家学会院士，瑞典乌普萨拉皇家科学院外籍院士，印度科学院院士，爱丁堡皇家学会院士。
二、交流活动
贝里爵士师生座谈会
地点：21幢 三楼会议室
时间：2025年9月26日, 11:00
