Summer Program
Structure and Symmetry in Quantum Lattice Matter
June 20–July 11, 2027
Organizers:
Lukasz Fidkowski, University of Washington
Jeongwan Haah, Stanford University
Daniel Ranard, California Institute of Technology
Quantum many-body systems on a lattice can exhibit remarkably rich forms of order, entanglement, and symmetry. While many of these phenomena have traditionally been understood through continuum quantum field theory, recent progress has shown that an intrinsically lattice-based perspective can reveal new structures. These developments include quantum cellular automata as a framework for generalized symmetries and their anomalies, fracton phases that lie beyond traditional descriptions of topological order, and the “entanglement bootstrap,” which seeks to characterize phases of matter directly from universal properties of quantum entanglement. This workshop will bring together researchers in condensed matter physics, quantum information, quantum field theory, and mathematical physics to develop connections among these rapidly evolving directions. A central goal will be to understand how new notions of symmetry, locality, and entanglement can provide a unified framework for classifying quantum phases and dynamics directly on the lattice.
Summer Workshops
The summer program, running for 16 weeks from late-May to mid-September, emphasizes exciting open problems at the cutting edge. Two or three concurrent workshops, each with a specific focus selected for timeliness and the potential for breakthroughs and of two to five weeks in length, establish the main themes of each week, with twelve or thirteen different workshops each summer, balanced across fields including particle physics, string theory, astrophysics and hard and soft condensed matter physics, as well as emerging areas including biological physics, ultra-cold atom physics, quantum information, and physical mathematics. Additional researchers participate in small working groups or as individual researchers. This framework is designed to maximize informal interactions and free discussion within each area and to promote cross-fertilization between different areas via the common language of theoretical physics. Participation in the summer program of the Aspen Center for Physics is by application and subsequent invitation only. View past workshops.
