Conference/School

Understanding the small-scale structure of spacetime is one of the biggest challenges faced by  modern theoretical physics. There are many different attempts to solve this problem and they reflect the diversity of approaches to quantum gravity. This workshop will bring together researchers from a wide range of quantum gravity approaches and give them an opportunity to exchange ideas and gain  new insights.

One of the biggest mysteries in cosmology and fundamental physics is the nature of dark energy that is responsible for the current acceleration of cosmic expansion. While a cosmological constant provides the simplest model of dark energy recent observational tensions amongst supernovae Ia gravitational lensing time delays and cosmic microwave background suggest the need for a more complex dynamical dark energy. One of the oldest proposals for a dynamical dark energy is Everpresent Lambda proposed by Sorkin which is inspired by the causal set model of quantum gravity. It was recently shown that this model can potentially resolve the  tensions in cosmological observations. The meeting aims to bring together a small number of experts in quantum gravity causal sets and cosmology to carefully examine the models theoretical predictions and its observational tests and pave the way for what might be an(other) exciting insight from cosmology into the fundamental nature of spacetime.

This cross-disciplinary workshop gathers theorists who have been working on novel approaches to understanding the structure of the Standard Model and its link to cosmology and gravity. It follows the previous Simplicity I and II workshops at Princeton University (2014) and Fermilab (2016) and will be a small informal meeting with plenty of room for discussions.

The workshops focuses on novel frontiers in observational cosmology and astrophysics and how they shed light fundamental questions in understanding the universe. Registration for this workshop is now open.

Boundaries and defects play central roles in quantum field theory (QFT) both as means to make contact with nature and as tools to constrain and understand QFT itself. Boundaries in QFT can be used to model impurities and also the finite extent of sample sizes while interfaces allow for different phases of matter to interact in a controllable way. More formally these structures shed light on the structure of QFT by providing new examples of dualities and renormalization group flows.  Broadly speaking this meeting will focus on three areas: 1) formal and applied aspects of boundary and defect conformal field theory from anomalies and c-theorems to topological insulators 2) supersymmetry and duality from exact computations of new observables to the construction of new theories and 3) QFT in curved space and gravity from holographic computations of entanglement entropy to ideas in quantum information theory. Registration for this event is now open.

Quantum field theory (QFT) is a universal language for theoretical physics describing the Standard Model gravity early universe inflation and condensed matter phenomena such as phase transitions superconductors and quantum Hall fluids. A triumph of 20th century physics was to understand weakly coupled QFTs: theories whose interactions can be treated as small perturbations of otherwise freely moving particles. However weakly coupled QFTs represent a tiny island in an ocean of possibilities. They cannot capture many of the most interesting and important physical phenomena from the strong nuclear force to high temperature superconductivity.The critical challenge for the 21st century is to understand and solve strongly coupled QFTs. Meeting this challenge will require new physical insight new mathematics and new computational tools. Our collaboration combines deep knowledge of novel non-perturbative techniques with a concrete plan for attacking the problem of strong coupling. The starting point is the astonishing discovery that in numerous physical systems there is a unique quantum field theory consistent with general principles of symmetry and quantum mechanics. By analyzing the full implications of these general principles one can make sharp predictions for physical observables without resorting to approximations.This strategy is called the Bootstrap the topic of this three week program.

Machine learning techniques are rapidly being adopted into the field of quantum many-body physics including condensed matter theory experiment and quantum information science.  The steady increase in data being produced by highly-controlled quantum experiments brings the potential of machine learning algorithms to the forefront of scientific advancement.  Particularly exciting is the prospect of using machine learning for the discovery and design of quantum materials devices and computers.  In order to make progress the field must address a number of fundamental questions related to the challenges of studying many-body quantum mechanics using classical computing algorithms and hardware. The goal of this conference is to bring together experts in computational physics machine learning and quantum information to make headway on a number of related topics including: Data-drive quantum state reconstruction Machine learning strategies for quantum error correction Neural-network based wavefunctions Near-term prospects for data from quantum devices Machine learning for quantum algorithm discovery Registration for this event is now closed

On Thursday June 13 the Institute for Quantum Computing (IQC) and Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics (PI) will participate in the one-day Many-Body States and Dynamics Workshop II. The goal of the workshop is to describe ongoing efforts to experimentally realize quantum many-body states and dynamics and discuss interesting classes of states and dynamics that could be targeted. Experimentalists working on several platforms (such as photons atom and ion traps superconducting qubits exciton-polaritons or NMR) and theoreticians specialized in many-body theory (entanglement topological order gauge theories criticality chaos error correction holography) and numerical simulations (exact diagonalization Monte Carlo DMRG tensor networks) will meet for a morning workshop to identify and discuss common interests.

This third workshop of the Perimeter Institute series Emergence and Entanglement will center around four major frontiers in quantum matter research:  (i) topological matter including recently discovered phases in three dimensions and new routes toward experimental realization (ii) critical states of matter especially interacting CFTs in 2+1 dimensions and dualities (iii) state-of-the-art numerical approaches to tackle such many-body problems (e.g. DMRG MERA Monte Carlo) and (iv) quantum dynamics and thermalization.

This is an ongoing series of meetings held two or three times per year between researchers at Perimeter Institute and CITA. The goal of these meetings is to share new ideas and encourage interaction in PI and CITA's common fields of interest through a series of informal talks followed by discussions.