Workshops

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.