Constrained Many-body Dynamics

Scientific Coordination

• Markus Heyl (Max-Planck-Institut für Physik komplexer Systeme, Dresden)
• Roderich Moessner (Max-Planck-Institut für Physik komplexer Systeme, Dresden)
• Frank Pollmann (Technische Universität München, Munich)

Organization

• Heike Walther (Max-Planck-Institut für Physik komplexer Systeme, Dresden)

The MPI-PKS workshop "Constrained Many-body Dynamics"took place from March 26 - 30, 2019. Constraints form a constitutive element of many theories of matter, such as in gauge theories in high energy and correlated electron physics, frustrated systems in condensed matter physics, or a range of archetypal models in statistical physics. At present, the dynamics in many-body systems with constraints is seeing a rapid progress, driven by developments both in theory and experiment. This workshop aimed to provide a platform for discussing and advancing these developments.

The invited speakers have been chosen to cover a wide range of topics across different fields from both junior as well as established scientists. The talks mostly followed the main themes of the workshop including gauge theory and confinement dynamics (Michael Knap, Jürgen Berges, Alexey Gorshkov), quantum scars and fractons (Vedika Khemani, Maksym Serbyn, Michael Pretko, Olexei Motrunich), kinetically constrained systems (Stephen Powell, Mari Carmen Bañuls, Juan Garrahan), many-body localization (Maximilian Schulz, Evert van Nieuwenburg, Fabian Alet), dynamics in spin liquids, spin ice, and quantum magnets (Thomas Bilitewski, Yuan Wan, Elsa Lhotel, Christian Pfleiderer, John Chalker, Satoru Nakatsuji, Martin Mourigal, Shu Zhang, Nic Shannon, Attila Szabo), and nonequilibrium dynamics of quantum many-body systems (Pasquale Calabrese, Asmi Haldar, Anatoli Polkovnikov).

The main topic of the workshop represents an emerging field of research, as it was reflected also in the age structure of the participants with many PhD students as well as young postdocs. The talks were well attended and discussions among the participants have been very lively, which has also been stimulated by the extended discussion times and coffee breaks offered in the schedule. The two poster sessions, which have in particular given the young researchers the chance to present their results, were also well attended even though they were scheduled at a later time in the evenings. The discussions in front of the posters lasted until late in the night.