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What factors drive the growth and decay of a pandemic? Can a study of community differences (in demographics, settlement, mobility, weather, and epidemic history) allow these factors to be identified? Has “herd immunity” to COVID-19 been reached anywhere? What are the best steps to manage/avoid future outbreaks in each community?  We analyzed the entire set of local COVID-19 epidemics in the United States; a broad selection of demographic, population density, climate factors, and local mobility data, in order to address these questions. What we found will surprise you! (based on arXiv:2007.00159)

On Monday July 20th, we announced the final results from extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (eBOSS), the last large-scale structure galaxy survey to be undertaken within the umbrella of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). This marks the culmination of 20 years of galaxy surveys undertaken using the Sloan Foundation Telescope. In this seminar I will summarise the measurements presented in the 23 scientific papers that were released last Monday, and present the impact of the measurements from eBOSS and previous SDSS galaxy surveys on the development of the standard cosmological model.

The sign problem is a widespread numerical hurdle preventing us from simulating the equilibrium behaviour of many interesting models, most notably the Hubbard model. Research aimed at solving the sign problem, via various clever manipulations, has been thriving for a long time with various recent exciting results. The complementary question, of whether some phases of matter forbid the existence of any sign-free microscopic model, has received attention only recently. In this talk, I’ll review recent progress and discuss a novel and quite general criteria we obtained for when a topological quantum field theory has no sign-free microscopic model. I’ll also point out relations to sign problems in frustrated magnets and to the notion of quantum supremacy.