Dynamical Probes for Exotic States of Matter

The MPI-PKS workshop “Dynamical probes for exotic states of matter” was held from 27 - 30 March 2017. The aim of the workshop was to bring together leading scientists working on dynamical and non-equilibrium properties of quantum many body systems. Dynamical properties have shown to provide characteristic fingerprints of exotic phases of matter such as topologically ordered and fractionalized phases. Furthermore, quantum matter out of equilibrium can exhibit novel phases that cannot occur in equilibrium settings. The talks and poster contributions mainly followed the main themes:

         •        Dynamical properties of quantum spin liquids

         •        Floquet engineering of novel orders and their dynamics

         •        Dynamics of the many-body localization transition

         •        Many-body localization beyond one-dimension

         •        Efficient algorithms for the simulation of quantum many-body dynamics

         •        Decoherence in open systems and stability of quantum orders

         •        Diagnostics of topological phases and transitions

         •        Dynamics of fractionalised particles

The organizers attempted to have a wide representation of invited talks from different field, including established as well as junior scientists: Dynamical properties of quantum spin liquids (Claudio Castelnovo, Sasha Chernyshev, Radu Coldea, Matthias Gohlke,Matthias Punk, Ioannis Rousochatzakis, and Yuan Wan). Many-body localization (Jens Bardarson, Immanuel Bloch, John Chalker, Johannes Knolle, David Luitz, Maksym Serbyn, Mari Carmen Bañuls, and David Pekker). Floquet engineering of novel orders and their dynamics (Arnab Das, André Eckardt, Netanel Lindner, Gil Refael). Non-equilibrium properties quantum many-body systems (Fabian Heidrich-Meisner, Michael Messer, Leonid Pryadko).

The talks were well attended and discussions to these topics were very lively. The longer lunch and coffee breaks were useful as they led to many stimulating discussions between the participants. 

The poster sessions, which gave in particularly young researchers the chance to present their results, were well attended and discussion in front of the posters lasted until late in the night.

Stephen Nagler (Oak Ridge, USA) accepted our invitation as the distinct speaker of the institutes  colloquium in which he gave a overview talk on “Magnons, spinons, Majorana fermions and quantum spin liquids”. His very inspiring talk highlighted many of the recent theoretical advances in the understanding of quantum magnets.