OLIVIA WHITE, Pappalardo
Fellow in Physics: 2005-08
Research Interests
Olivia White's research interests lie in statistical physics. She
has worked both in spin-glass physics and in neuroscience.
Despite thirty years of study, the nature of the low-temperature
spin-glass phase(s) remains controversial. However, the number and
nature of spin glass equilibrium states determine their non-equilibrium
behavior. White is interested in elucidating this relationship and
its experimental consequences.
The brain holds information in short-term memory for use in prospective
action. It is thought that persistent firing patterns in cortical
networks subserve such working memory but the attendant mechanism(s)
is(are) unknown. White is investigating a recent proposal that recurrent
networks can store arbitrary temporal inputs in their transient
responses. More generally, she is interested in the capacity of
biological systems to encode information about the past in their
instantaneous dynamics.
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Biographical Sketch
White earned her Ph.D. in the fall of 2005 at Harvard University
in Theoretical Condensed Matter Physics under the supervision of
Daniel S. Fisher.
She has worked both on spin glasses and in computational neuroscience
with Haim Sompolinsky
of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. In 1997, she received her
undergraduate degree in Physics and Math from Stanford University.
White was a Rhodes Scholar and was at Oxford University from 1997-2000,
where she took an M.Sc. in Mathematics (Geometry, Mathematical Physics
and Analysis).
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Selected Publications
O. L. White and D. S. Fisher, "Scenario for spin glass phase with
infinitely many states," Phys.
Rev. Lett. 96, 137204 (2006).
O. L. White and H. S. Sompolinsky, "Short-Term Memory in Orthogonal
Neural Networks," Phys. Rev. Lett. 92 148102
(2004).
R. B. Laughlin, D. Giuliano, R. Caracciolo and O. White, "Quantum
Number Fractionalization in Antiferromagnets," in Field Theories
for Low-dimensional Condensed Matter Systems and Strongly Correlated
Electrons, Eds. G. Morandi et.al., (Springer Verlag, Berlin,
2000).
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