Recently, the layered honeycomb material α-RuCl3 exhibits several anomalous features that are consistent with expectations of the Kitaev quantum spin liquid (KQSL) under in-plane magnetic field. Most remarkably, finite planar thermal Hall conductivity has been observed, whose magnitude is close to the half-integer quantization value expected for the chiral edge currents of Majorana fermions[1]. However, it has been reported that the thermal Hall conductivity shows strong sample dependence. Also, there are attempts to offer a different explanation by the bosonic edge excitations due to topological magnons or phonon. A key to distinguishing between fermionic and bosonic origins of unusual features in the high-field state of α-RuCl3 is the difference in the field angle dependence of the excitation gap.

Therefore, we distinguish these origins from combined low-temperature measurements of high-resolution specific heat and thermal Hall conductivity with rotating magnetic fields within the honeycomb plane. A distinct closure of the low-energy bulk gap is observed for the fields in the Ru-Ru bond direction, and the gap opens rapidly when the field is tilted. Notably, this change occurs concomitantly with the sign reversal of the Hall effect. General discussions of topological bands show that this is the hallmark of an angle rotation–induced topological transition of fermions, providing conclusive evidence for the Majorana-fermion origin of the thermal Hall effect in α-RuCl3[2].

Furthermore, to understand the nature of the high-field state, it is crucial to elucidate the effects of disorder, which inevitably exists in real materials. We artificially introduce point defects by electron irradiation and compare the low-energy excitations in the pristine and irradiated sample by high-resolution specific heat measurements. We observed an additional in-gap T-linear term in C/T, whose coefficient shows distinct field-sensitive behaviors suggestive of Majorana physics in the KSL. This can be interpreted by the weak localization of Majorana fermions, which is induced by the disorder[3]. Moreover, recently, we succeed in synthesizing very high-quality crystals of α-RuCl3[4].

Symmetries such as translations and rotations are crucial in physics and machine learning. The global symmetry of translations leads to convolutional neural networks (CNNs), while the much larger space of local gauge symmetry has driven us to develop lattice gauge equivariant convolutional neural networks (L-CNNs). This talk will discuss how the challenges of simulating the earliest stage of heavy ion collisions led us to use machine learning and how these innovations could improve lattice simulations in the future.

Andreas Ipp is a Senior Scientist at the Institute for Theoretical Physics at TU Wien. He received his PhD in 2003 and held postdoctoral positions at ECT* in Trento and the Max-Planck-Institute in Heidelberg before returning to TU Wien in 2009. He completed his habilitation on "Yoctosecond dynamics of the quark-gluon plasma" in 2014. His current research focuses on symmetries in machine learning for applications in lattice gauge theory and heavy ion collisions.

Humans and other organisms develop collective behaviors through interactions with diverse environments and various species. These behaviors are significant topics across multiple research fields, including evolutionary biology, behavioral ecology, and animal sociology. Unraveling the decision-making mechanisms of individuals in groups within cooperative and competitive contexts has captured the attention of many researchers but remains a complex challenge. This seminar will present research cases that employ multi-agent reinforcement learning, a machine learning technique, to investigate the decision-making processes underlying collective behavior. Through this approach, we aim to provide deeper insights into the dynamics and mechanisms that drive group behaviors in various biological systems.

Nonlocality is a fundamental property of string theory, where point-like particles are replaced by extended strings. This feature is especially evident in string field theories, where field components interact through form factors containing spacetime derivatives of infinite order. The usual approach to canonical quantization is no longer applicable, and thus a non-perturbative treatment of nonlocal effects at the quantum level remains unclear. In this seminar, I will discuss a recent attempt to construct an operator formalism for stringy nonlocal field theories, and explore the potential implications for black hole radiation and primordial fluctuations in the early universe.

In mathematics, contact geometry is a type of geometry describing a variety of dynamical systems. They are the phase spaces of systems arising in geometric optics, semi-classical quantum systems, classical dynamics, and control theory. On the mathematical side, contact geometry relates to a variety of other geometric structures, such as Kahler geometry, smooth topology, and foliation theory. It can be especially interesting to look at contact geometry in 3-dimensional space, because we can explicitly visualize the spaces. Additionally, by connecting contact geometry with our understanding of 3-D topology, mathematicians have the ability to understand the large-scale structure of these spaces like never before.
The talk will introduce the basics of contact geometry and its applications. We'll particularly focus on the 3-dimensional case, while also mentioning some of the unique properties of higher-dimensional spaces which are recently being explored.

Registration required: Register before Wednesday, July 24, 15:00.

In this talk I will discuss recent work together with Ines Aniceto (Southampton) on algebraic examples of parametric resurgence. We discuss a simple example to elucidate the so-called higher order Stokes phenomena and discuss how a Borel inner-outer matching procedure allows us to view parametric resurgence as a series of non-parametric resurgence problems.

This year is the 60th anniversary of WD Hamilton’s seminal paper in which he outlined his theory of inclusive fitness and showed how it could be used to understand altruism in the social insects. In this talk, I will describe efforts made to use his theory to understand social behavior in bacteria. And I’ll go on to explore the potential of using these insights to tackle problems of antibiotic resistance in infections.

This international workshop will bring together researchers worldwide to discuss and collaborate on the latest developments in quantum technologies and quantum computing. Other focus areas will be algorithms, hybrid classical - quantum computing, error mitigation, and applications in physics and chemistry. With an emphasis to galvanize the participants into future collaborations, in addition to presentations on recent trends, the workshop will dedicate time in the afternoons for facilitated brainstorming and planning sessions.