Topological Matter in Artificial Gauge Fields

The PhD School entitled "Topological Matter in Articial Gauge Fields
(TOPART18)" took place from February 26th to March 2nd at the MPI-PKS in
Dresden. The school focused on a very timely area of research: articial gauge
elds, which can now be experimentally realized with ultracold atoms and other
physical systems and which thereby allow a new view on this central concept
of modern physics. In particular, these realizations allow studying topologi-
cal states, which also lie at the heart of the quantum Hall eect in solid state
physics.
The school had 65 participants from 17 countries in Europe, Asia and Amer-
ica, most of them PhD students working in related elds. 8 internationally dis-
tinguished researcher introduced the topic in 13 lectures and 3 tutorials: Monika
Aidelsburger, Jan Budich, Andre Eckardt, Fahad Mahmood, Belen Paredes,
Frank Pollmann, Ian Spielman and Alexander Szameit. The program was com-
pleted by a poster session, an excursion and time for discussions. In the poster
session, the participants presented their own research and used this opportunity
to present themselves as a promising new generation of researchers in the eld
of topological physics.
The PhD School was organized by the MPI-PKS in collaboration with the
Research Unit FOR 2414 of the German Research Foundation (DFG). The sci-
entic result of the school is a contribution to the education of young researchers
in the eld of topological quantum matter and an exchange between the dierent
experimental platforms for the realization of articial gauge elds.