Academic Staff

Anne Taormina, PhD University of Mons-Hainaut
Professor, Theoretical Particle Physics in the Department of Mathematical Sciences
Telephone: +44 (0) 191 33 43059
Room number: CM326
Member of the Biophysical Sciences Institute
Professor in the Centre for Particle Theory
Room number: CM202
(email at anne.taormina@durham.ac.uk)
Supervises
Research Groups
- Mathematical & Theoretical Physics
- Mathematical & Theoretical Physics: String Theory, Gravity and Cosmology
Research Interests
- String and Conformal Field Theory
- Group Theory and Applications to Mathematical Biology
Indicators of Esteem
- Committee Duties: Elected member of the Peer Review College EPSRC; Member of the Governing Board, School of Theoretical Physics, Dublin Institute for Advance Studies
- Conference organization: Organiser of an LMS Symposium on `New Moonshine, Mock Modular Forms and String Theory' (Durham, August 2015), of a summer workshop on `Quantum Gravity & New Moonshines' (Aspen, August 2017) and of an ESI workshop on `Moonshine' (Vienna, September 2018)
- Editorial : Editor of an IOP Volume on `New Moonshines' (2016 - 2017)
- Invitation to research centres:
ICTP (Trieste, December 2015), IHES (Bures-sur-Yvette, February 2016 and January 2017)
- National and International Collaboration: Freiburg University; Max Planck Institute Bonn, Lebedev Institute, Moscow; Brussels Free University; University of Tokyo (Bunkyo-Ku); University of York
- Plenary and invited talks:
Chennai, April 2014 (Conference on Mock Modular Forms and Physics); Waterloo, Perimeter Institute, April 2015 (Conference on Mock Modularity, Moonshine and String Theory); Nagoya, November 2016 (Conference on ‘Moonshine and K3 surfaces’); MITP Mainz, February 2017 (Workshop “Women at the Intersection of Mathematics and High Energy Physics”)
Selected Publications
Journal Article
- Taormina, Anne & Wendland, Katrin (2020). SU(2) channels the cancellation of K3 BPS states. Journal of High Energy Physics 2020(04): 184.
- Taormina, Anne & Wendland, Katrin (2020). The Conway Moonshine Module is a Reflected K3 Theory. Advances in Theoretical and Mathematical Physics 24.
- Taormina, Anne & Wendland, Katrin (2018). Not doomed to fail. Journal of High Energy Physics 2018(09): 062.
- Banwell, Eleanor F., Piette, Bernard M. A. G., Taormina, Anne & Heddle, Jonathan G. (2018). Reciprocal Nucleopeptides as the Ancestral Darwinian Self-Replicator. Molecular Biology and Evolution 35(2): 404-416.
- Taormina, A. & Wendland, K. (2015). A twist in the M24 moonshine story. Confluentes Mathematici 7(1): 83-113.
- Gaberdiel, M. Taormina, A., Volpato, R. & Wendland, K. (2014). A K3 sigma model with Z_2^8:M_20 symmetry. Journal of High Energy Physics 2014(2): 22.
- Taormina, A. & Wendland, K. (2013). The overarching finite symmetry group of Kummer surfaces in the Mathieu group M24. Journal of High Energy Physics 2013(8): 125.
- Eguchi, T., Sugawara, Y. & Taormina, A. (2011). Modular forms and elliptic genera for ALE spaces. Advanced Studies in Pure Mathematics 61: 125-159.
- Grayson, N.E., Taormina, A. & Twarock, R. (2009). DNA duplex cage structures with icosahedral symmetry. Theoretical Computer Science 410(15): 1440-1447.
- Peeters, K. & Taormina, A. (2009). Group theory of icosahedral virus capsid vibrations: a top-down approach. Journal of Theoretical Biology 256(4): 607-624.
- Taormina, A. (2009). Liouville Theory and Elliptic Genera. Progress of Theoretical Physics Supplement 177(Supplement 1): 203-217.
- Elsawy, K.M., Taormina, A., Twarock, R. & Vaughan, L. (2008). Dynamical implications of Viral Tiling Theory. Journal of Theoretical Biology 252(2): 357-369.
- Peeters, K. & Taormina, A. (2008). Dynamics of Icosahedral Viruses: What Does Viral Tiling Theory Teach Us?. Computational and Mathematical Methods in Medicine 9(3-4): 211-220.
- Englert, F., Peeters, K. & Taormina, A. (2008). Twenty-four near-instabilities of Caspar-Klug viruses. Physical Review E 78(3): 031908
- Eguchi, T., Sugawara, Y. & Taormina, A. (2007). Liouville Field, Modular Forms and Elliptic Genera. Journal of High Energy Physics 2007(03): 119.
- Keef, T., Taormina, A. & Twarock, R. (2006). Classification of capped tubular viral particles in the family of Papovaviridae. Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter 18(14): 375-387.
- Keef, T., Taormina, A. & Twarock, R. (2005). Assembly models for Papovaviridae based on tiling theory. Physical Biology 2(3): 175-188.
- Semikhatov, Alexei., Taormina, Anne. & Tipunin, Ilya. (2005). Higher-level Appell functions, modular transformations, and characters. Communications in Mathematical Physics 255(2): 469-512.
- Englert, F., Houart, L., Taormina, A. & West, P. (2003). The symmetry of M-theories. Journal of High Energy Physics 2003(09): 020.
- Bowcock P., Feigin B.L., Semikhatov A.M. & Taormina A. (2000). Affine sl(2/1) and affine D(2/1;alpha) as vertex operator extensions of dual affine sl(2) algebras. Communications in Mathematical Physics 214: 495-545.
- Corrigan, Edward & Taormina, A. (2000). Reflection factors and a two-parameter family of boundary bound states in the sinh-Gordon model. Journal of Physics A: Mathematical and Theoretical A33: 8739-8754.
- Taormina, A. & Wilson, S.M.J. (1998). Virasoro character identities and Artin L-functions. Communications in Mathematical Physics 196(1): 77-103.
- Eguchi,T., Ooguri,H., Taormina,A. & Yang,S-K. (1989). Superconformal algebras and string compactification on manifolds with SU(n) holonomy. Nuclear Physics B 315: 193-221.
Chapter in book
- Jonoska, N., Taormina, A. & Twarock, R. (2009). DNA Cages with Icosahedral Symmetry in Bionanotechnology. In Algorithmic Bioprocesses. Condon, A., Harel, D. & Kok, J.N. Berlin: Springer. Natural Computing Series, 4: 141-158.
Conference Paper
- Taormina, A. & Wendland, K. (2015), Symmetry-surfing the moduli space of Kummer K3s, in Donagi, Ron, Katz, Sheldon, Klemm, Albrecht & Morrison, David R. eds, Proceedings of Symposia in Pure Mathematics 90: String-Math 2012. Bonn, Germany, American Mathematical Society, Bonn, 129-154.