meet@WIS

Quantum Chaos and Holography 24

May 20 – 24, 2024

This five-day workshop will facilitate an intensive exchange of ideas between string theorists, condensed matter physicists, mathematical physicists and researchers with other areas of expertise actively working on theory and applications of quantum chaos. 

Organizers: 

 

  • Micha Berkooz, Weizmann Institute of Science
  • Johanna Erdmenger, Julius-Maximilians-University Würzburg
  • Moshe Rozali, UBC
  • Anatoli Polkovnikov, Boston U.

SN 2023ixf, The Decadal Supernova in M101

June 4 – 7, 2024

Discovered by the amateur astronomer Koichi Itakagi in May 2023, SN2023ixf is the closest supernova in the past decade.

Its proximity and the current dedication of the astronomy community to observing transients, allowed for an unprecedented set of multi wavelength and high signal to noise ratio observations.

Since the tragic event of the 7th of October in Israel, and given the current evolution of the war, we decided to move the workshop dedicated to SN2023ixf to ESO in Garching, Germany, from the 4th until the 7th of June 2024.

 

 

Organizers: 
  • Rachel Bruch 
  • Avishay Gal-Yam
  • Luc Dessart

Perspectives on Non-Equilibrium Processers

February 9 – 21, 2025

The workshop aims at exploring several areas of the broad field of nonequilibrium statistical mechanics, where intimate connections are presently emerging. The main themes that will be covered include active matter, stochastic thermodynamics, large deviations, extreme value statistics, stochastic resetting and anomalous transport, particularly in low dimensional systems. Bringing together scientists and students active in theoretical and experimental research in these areas would lead to strengthening the interaction among the different communities and facilitate exploring new avenues of research. The progress made recently in these subfields of the broad discipline of nonequilibrium statistical physics makes the workshop timely and highly promising.

Organizers: 
  • Yariv Kafri, Technion
  • David Mukamel, Weizmann Institute
  • Satya Majumdar, Universite Paris Sud
  • Oren Raz, Weizmann Institute
  • Gianluca Teza, Weizmann Institute

Workshops

New Frontiers in Quantum Matter

March 24 – 26, 2024

This short meeting will bring together experts from Israel and abroad to discuss topics at the forefront of condensed matter physics, including novel quantum materials, exotic phases of matter, superconductivity, transport beyond the Boltzmann paradigm, and advances in experimental and theoretical techniques.

Organizers: 
  • Erez Berg
  • Andrey Chubukov
  • Alex Kamenev

LUXE physics and SFQED

September 4 – 12, 2023

The workshop will focus on the LUXE experiment design, physics as well as on related topics in Strong-Field Quantum Electrodynamics (SF-QED) and Beyond the SM (BSM) opportunities. The workshop will bring together physicists from several disciplines, namely laser physicist, particle experimentalists, SF-QED theorists and BSM phenomenologists. This will serve as a ground for discussions related to the experimental design from the underlying theory governing the interactions (both within the standard model and beyond it), through the laser instrumentation and diagnostics, and on to the detectors and reconstruction.

The LUXE experiment (Eur. Phys. J. Spec. Top. 230, 2445–2560 (2021)) at the Eu.XFEL is designed to test the validity of QED in the extreme field regime with an unprecedented precision. LUXE will collide high-intensity laser pulses with a high-energy and high-charge electron beam from the Eu.XFEL. Two processes arise in such collisions: nonlinear Compton scattering (NCS) and nonlinear Breit-Wheeler pair production (NBW). The rate of these processes is characterized by the Schwinger critical field of ~1.3e18 V/m. The SLAC E144 experiment operated in the 1990s was able to measure these processes in laser RMS fields of up to about a quarter of the Schwinger field strength in the electron’s rest frame. The LUXE experiment aims to reach and go beyond that point. Besides the SF-QED precision measurements, the experiment offers opportunities to search for BSM physics and several such directions have been proposed, e.g. in Phys. Rev. D 106, 115034 (2022). With the recent critical-decision-1 (CD1) approval by the DESY directorate, the experiment expects to install and start taking data in 2026.

The workshop will have two parts: LUXE-only closed session (Sep 4-7) followed by an open session (Sep 7-12), which will also include an overnight excursion to the desert.

Accommodation and catering (except for the days with free evenings) are fully covered for all participants in both sessions. Flights support is provided to invited speakers only (in the open session).

Organizers: 
  • Victor Malka,
    Weizmann Institute of Science
  • Gilad Perez, 
    Weizmann Institute of Science
  • Noam Tal Hod,
    Weizmann Institute of Science

 

 

Solitons, Collapses and Turbulence

June 12 – 16, 2023

The conference aims to bring together experts in nonlinear physics, nonlinear waves and applied mathematics to address and cross fertilize three main branches of nonlinear science: Solitons, Collapses and Turbulence. Solitons are studied by combining the inverse scattering transform and recent approaches to exact integrable and near integrable models. Strongly nonlinear wave phenomena often result in finite time singularity formation by wave collapse. Both solitons and collapses provide a pathway to turbulence and chaos. A wide range of applications of nonlinear science will be included such as nonlinear optics, plasma physics, Bose-Einstein condensate, hydrodynamics, astrophysics and condensed matter.

Organizers: 

Local organizer:

Gregory Falkovich,
Weizmann Institute of Science

Scientific committee:

Pavel Lushnikov (conference chair),
University of New Mexico, USA

Alexander Mikhailov,
university of Leeds, UK

Sergey Turitsyn,
Aston University, UK

 

A Quantum Many-Body Handshake: Theory and Simulation meet Experiment

December 11 – 22, 2022

Recent breakthroughs in quantum material design, such as the discovery of two-dimensional systems with an unprecedented level of control, along with developments in quantum science technology and new insights into quantum many-body theory, open up new opportunities in the field. The long-promised possibility to perform large-scale quantum simulations (either analogue or digital) is coming into fruition. The aim of the proposed workshop is to bring together a group of leading theorists and experimentalists in quantum condensed matter physics to discuss topics at the interface between theory, simulation and experiments. Among the topics that will be covered are: two-dimensional quantum materials, such as transition metal chalcogenides and multi-layer graphene, as platforms for quantum simulation and realization of exotic phases; simulations using artificial platforms; developments in computational many-body physics and quantum many-body theory; novel quantum phase transitions in and out of equilibrium; and spin liquid phases in quantum materials and artificial systems.

 

Organizers:
Erez Berg, Weizmann Institute of Science
Snir Gazit, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Anna Keselman, Technion, Israel Institute of Technology
Cenke Xu, University of California, Santa Barbara

 

LUXE physics & Strong-field QED

October 24 – November 3, 2022

The workshop will focus on the LUXE experiment (design, physics and opportunities) as well as on related topics in Strong-field QED. The format of the workshop will inherit from the LUXE yearly workshops (2 held so far and one will be held in Apr 2020). Besides the discussions about the experiment design, the discussions will be expanded in any one of the major subjects: underlying QED theory, beyond the standard model opportunities and detector and laser challenges. The format will be a few talks per day.

Organizers: 

Noam Tal Hod, Weizmann Institute of Science
Victor Malka, Weizmann Institute of Science
Gilad Perez, Weizmann Institute of Science

LUXE PIC

Hammers & Nails 2022

August 2 – 12, 2022

Following the success of the 2017 and 2019 Hammers & Nails workshops, we are happy to announce a followup 2022 workshop.
The purpose of the workshop is to bring together particle physicists and machine learning researchers to discuss the unique challenges posed by high-energy physics data analysis problems. While some of these problems are simply waiting to be matched with well-established techniques (the pairing of hammers and nails), many require or inspire the development of novel methods.

Organizers: 

Eilam Gross, Weizmann Institute of Science
Kyle Cranmer, New York University

GW-EM Workshop

June 19 – July 1, 2022

The detection of gravitational waves (GWs) and light from a neutron star merger launched a new era in multi-messenger astronomy. Even though much was learned from the event, several open questions remain. This workshop, set to take place a few months after the conclusion of the third advanced GW-detector observing run, aims to discuss the results of that run, plan the observations and modeling required for the era of design-sensitivity operations, and prepare for what promises to be an exciting future in astronomy and physics.

 

Organizers: 

Iair Arcavi, Tel Aviv University
Avishay Gal-Yam, Weizmann Institute of Science
Doron Kushnir, Weizmann Institute of Science
Eran Ofek, Weizmann Institute of Science
Eli Waxman, Weizmann Institute of Science

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Gauge Theories and Black Holes

December 29, 2019 – January 9, 2020

Quantum mechanics, field theories and gravity are intimately related via the AdS/CFT correspondence (among other things). It is clear, however, that we have not yet fully harnessed the power of any of them. The interface of gauge theories and black holes poses a particular set of puzzles, and in recent years a new set of concepts and tools was developed to study this interface.

These new concepts and tools extend our abilities to compute traditional basic observables in field theories and gravitational systems, such as partition functions and correlation functions (or S-matrix elements in the case of gravity). Some of them, such as entanglement and quantum chaos, break away from these traditional paradigms.

In particular, new methods were developed for computing correlation functions via the bootstrap method, with implications for quantum physics in the bulk via the AdS/CFT correspondence, and significant progress was made in understanding new classes of supersymmetric gauge theories and their dualities (including relations to dualities in CM physics).

Among the new approaches there are methods in field theory which rely on quantum information and quantum computation concepts (with interfaces to CM and Stat. Phys.), new methods in analyzing time dependence in hard quantum systems such as the SYK model, and quantum chaos, which is intimately related to the understanding of black holes (with interfaces to CM and hard statistical physics, via systems with randomness, spin glasses, classical and quantum chaos and others).

The workshop aims to bring together experts on some of these aspects for an interchange of ideas.

The topics of the workshop are general, with some focus on SYK-related physics, on entanglement and on analytic bootstrap methods. In particular there will be some emphasis on the first two topics in the first week, and an emphasis on the 3rd topic in the second week, though the division is not strict.

 

Organizers: 
  • Ofer Aharony, Weizmann Institute of Science
  • Micha Berkooz, Weizmann Institute of Science
  • Simon Ross, Durham University
  • Shimon Yankielowicz, TAU

Frontiers of Quantum Matter

December 9 – 19, 2019

The workshop will bring together experts and young researchers in theoretical and experimental quantum condensed matter and cold atoms to discuss novel ideas and emerging directions in the field of topological matter. Among the topics that would be covered: novel topological phases of matter, both in engineered systems and in new materials; flouqet systems in and out of equilibrium, Networks of Majoranas Zero modes; etc…

Organizers: 

Netanel Lindner, Technion
Yuval Oreg, Weizmann Institute of Science
Gil Refael, Caltech
Ady Stern, Weizmann Institute of Science

Promoting gender equality in physics: Barriers and opportunities

October 26 – November 1, 2019

The workshop will enable a common learning space to physicists, sociologists and gender experts, and practitioners promoting gender diversity in physics in universities and research institutes around the world. The format will consist of a small number of open-ended presentations per day that develop into free discussions.

Organizers: 

Nirit Dudovich, Weizmann Institute of Science
Meytal Eran-Jona, Weizmann Institute of Science
Avishay Gal-Yam,Weizmann Institute of Science
Yossi Nir, Weizmann Institute of Science
Marika Taylor, University of Southampton

 

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Hammers and Nails 2 - Machine Learning & HEP

July 30 – August 8, 2019

Following the success of the 2017 Hammers & Nails workshop, we are happy to announce a followup 2019 workshop.
The purpose of the workshop is to bring together particle physicists and machine learning researchers to discuss the unique challenges posed by high-energy physics data analysis problems. While some of these problems are simply waiting to be matched with well-established techniques (the pairing of hammers and nails), many require or inspire the development of novel methods.

Organizers: 

Eilam Gross
Weizmann Institute of Science

 

Hammers and Nails 2

Fluid flows, from graphene to planet atmospheres

December 17, 2018 – January 4, 2019

The workshop is aimed at bringing together leading researchers active in the broad field of theoretical and experimental fluid mechanics, fostering open discussions and exploring new directions of research in this rapidly evolving field. Topics that will be covered include turbulence onset and turbulence-flow interaction, complex fluids, viscous electronics, etc. The goal is to encourage cross-field interaction.

Organizers: 

Gregory Falkovich, Weizmann Institute of Science
Leonid Levitov, MIT

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The origin of Fast Radio Bursts

December 3 – 13, 2018

The workshop will focus on the nature of Fast Radio Bursts (FRB), theory and observations.
FRBs are dispersed millisecond-duration pulses observed at the GHz frequencies.
First reported in 2007 by Lorimer et al., FRBs are still poorly understood.
Recent progress in observations start to shed light on the nature of FRBs. It is expected that new observations, as well as new instrumentation, will keep fueling the FRB revolution.

Organizers: 

Avishay Gal-yam, Weizmann Institute of Science
Assaf Horesh, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Vicky Kaspi, McGill University
Eran Ofek, Weizmann Institute of Science
Eli Waxman, Weizmann Institute of Science

Radio Telescope

Physicists working on Cancer

July 1 – 12, 2018

During the past decade quite a few theoretical physicists became interested in cancer research. As is the case when physicist “invade” a field, the pursued research goals cover a very wide spectrum of topics and approaches. These include applying physics - based techniques and mathematical methods to physics problems that have possible relevance for cancer biology; modeling various processes that take part in the initiation, progression and metastasis of tumors; effects of chemotherapy and immunotherapy and the response to it; developing methods for analysis of high-throughput data and their application to cancer.

The aim of the workshop is to bring together 20 - 25 senior Physicists who are working on cancer and about 10 students or postdocs, to share their views, sharpen research questions relevant to this community, and to learn from each other as well as from guest biologists. The main topics are:

Tumor initiation and primary tumor growth

Metastasis: Cell Motility, ECM interactions, initiation of new growth

Chemotherapy, targeted therapy and immunotherapy - efficacy versus resistance

Omic studies of high throughput data

We plan to have 2 lectures per day, allowing a lot of time for informal discussions. During the workshop we also plan to have 4 - 5 minicourses of 2 – 3 lectures, and a two day conference, to be held early, that will allow participants to present their work and to be exposed to lectures by leading Israeli cancer biologists.

Organizers: 

Eytan Domany, Weizmann Institute, Israel
Herbert Levine, Rice University, USA
Caterina La Porta and Stefano Zapperi, University of Milan, Italy

Einstein with stethoscope

Radiation Transfer and Explosive Thermonuclear Burning in Supernovae

June 17 – 28, 2018

The workshop is dedicated to detailed modeling of supernovae, focused on radiation transfer and explosive thermonuclear burning. In this workshop we propose to bring together theoretical researchers from the different groups working on these problems to create dialogue and establish a better framework for comparing different approximations. We plan to achieve this by discussing acceptable benchmark problems and standards for exchange of calculations results, as well as sharing new advancements in physical understanding, data bases and algorithms.

Organizers: 

Boaz Katz, Weizmann Institute of Science
Doron Kushnir, Weizmann Institute of Science
Stephane Blondin,LAM 
Markus Kromer, Heidelberg university
Frank Timmes, Arizona State University

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Correlations, Fluctuations and anomalous transport in systems far from equilibrium

December 31, 2017 – January 12, 2018

While considerable progress in the understanding the statistical and dynamical properties of systems far from thermal equilibrium has been made during the last few decades, a general

framework for the characterization of such systems is still lacking. The workshop is aimed at bringing together leading researchers, young scientists and PhD students active in the broad field of nonequilibrium statistical physics fostering open discussions and exploring new directions of research in this rapidly evolving field. Topics that will be covered in the workshop include the emergence of long-range correlations in driven systems; large deviations; anomalous transport whereby transport coefficients (such as heat conductivity) become divergent with the system's size in momentum conserving systems; rare events and extreme value statistics; the emergence of macroscopic structures in self-propelled systems: and related topics.

This is the 7th workshop organized under the auspices of the recently established Schwartz-Reisman Institute for Theoretical Physics (SRitp) at the Weizmann Institute. The SRitp supports small extended workshops focused on timely topics in theoretical physics. The main goal of the workshop program is to encourage international scientific collaboration on topics in the frontier of physics, with an emphasis on promoting scientists at early stages of their careers.

Organizers: 
  • Yariv Kafri, Technion

  • Satya Majumdar, Universite Paris Sud

  • David Mukamel , Weizmann institute of Science

BSM in direct, indirect and tabletop experiments

November 5 – 16, 2017

In this workshop we attempt to expand our searches and deepen our understanding of dark matter particles as well as other light force mediators. We plan to do so both theoretically and via experimental effort. Direct dark matter searches are expected to progress with the expected results from the upcoming XENON1T, LZ and super CDMS experiments and the future Darwin experiment. Further insight is to be achieved at the precision frontier of atomic physics. Special focus will be given to non-traditional experimental approaches and techniques.

Organizers: 
  • Ranny Budnik, Weizmann Institute of Science
  • Claudia Frugiuele, Weizmann Institute of Science 
  • Elina Fuchs, Weizmann institute of Science 
  • Yonit Hochberg, Cornell/Hebrew University
  • Gilad Perez, Weizmann Institute of Science
  • Roee Ozeri, Weizmann Institute of Science
  • Tome Volansky, Tel Aviv University

Hammers & Nails - Machine Learning & HEP

July 19 – 28, 2017

The purpose of this workshop is to bring together particle physicists and machine learning researchers to discuss the unique challenges posed by high-energy physics data analysis problems. While some of these problems are simply waiting to be matched with well-established techniques (the pairing of hammers and nails), many require or inspire the development of novel methods.

Topics include:

Generative models, high-dimensional density estimation, and likelihood-free inference

Sublinear-time pattern recognition and online learning

Domain adaptation and systematic uncertainty

Anomaly detection

Optimal experiment design and black box optimization

And new ideas we don’t yet know we need!

 

We plan an informal atmosphere, with typically 2-3 open-ended lectures each day turning into free discussion, and plenty of time for both independent work and collaboration.

Participation is by invitation only.

We offer  travel support; for organizational purposes, it is crucial that you provide us with the Visiting Scientist and reimbursement details that can be found in the "forms" page on this website, and in the email that you should have received from our admin. Please do not hesitate to contact us for questions.

Organizers: 
  • Eilam Gross, Weizmann Institute of Science
Hammers and Nails

POST-STRINGS WORKSHOP 2017

July 2 – 11, 2017

The workshop is planned for a few dozen people and it will focus on specific topics. The workshop topics will be topics of particular interest and immediacy to the community in 2017, which are also of interest to the members of the WIS group. Currently the planned topics include exact results in quantum field theories, the AdS/CFT correspondence between gauge theories and gravitational theories, and the relation between black holes and quantum chaos. The detailed set of topics, and of participants, will be decided at the beginning of 2017. In any case, we plan to focus on no more than 2-­‐3 (interrelated) topics. 

Organizers: 
  • Ofer Aharony, Weizmann Institute of Science
  • Micha Berkooz, Weizmann Institute of Science
  • Zohar Komargodski, Weizmann Institute of Science
post strings

HIGH ENERGY NEUTRINO AND COSMIC-RAY ASTROPHYSICS: THE WAY FORWARD

January 2 – 15, 2017

The field of high energy cosmic-ray, gamma-ray and neutrino astrophysics has seen major experimental developments over the past decade. These include IceCube’s detection of extra-terrestrial high energy neutrinos, new measurements of ultra-high energy as well as lower energy cosmic-rays, and new space and ground based high-energy gamma-ray measurements. Furthermore, a wide array of large neutrino, cosmic-ray, and gamma-ray experiments are under construction and/or planning. In light of these developments, a discussion of the theoretical open questions, that are most important to address, and of the directions of the experimental efforts, that will be most efficient in addressing these questions, is highly timely. The goal of the workshop is to contribute to focusing the theoretical and experimental efforts.

Organizers: 
  • Kfir Blum, Weizmann Institute of Science
  • Ran Budnik, Weizmann Institute of Science
  • Albrecht Karle, University of Wisconsin–Madison
  • Yosef Nir, Weizmann Institute of Science
  • Eli Waxman, Weizmann Institute of Science
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Strongly correlated matter: present and future

December 11 – 22, 2016

The workshop will bring together young group leaders in theoretical and experimental quantum condensed matter physics to discuss new ideas and emerging directions in the field.

Organizers: 

Erez Berg, Weizmann Institute of Science
Yuval Oreg, Weizmann Institute of Science
Ady Stern, Weizmann Institute of Science

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Workshop: Strongly correlated matter: present and future

Cosmological probes of fundamental physics

May 29 – June 10, 2016

The purpose of the workshop is to bring together particle physicists, cosmologists, and astrophysicists, to discuss observational progress and new theoretical ideas aimed to utilize cosmological and astrophysical data as a probe for physics beyond the Standard Model.

Organizers: 

Dr. Kfir Blum, Weizmann Institute of Science
Dr. Raphael Flauger, Texas University
Aielet Efrati, Weizmann Institute of Science