Opening Ceremony

• Jasper van Wezel

Quantum Gravity, where are we?

• Carlo Rovelli

Recent (and forthcoming) empirical evidence helps us focus quantum gravity research. Loop quantum gravity is a concrete possibility for a theoretical description of quantum spacetime. I discuss its ideas, results and open issues and the perspectives to connect it to observation.

The Universe in a Stream: Challenges and Progress of the ALeRCE Broker

• Francisco Förster

A new generation of large aperture and large field of view telescopes is allowing us to explore large volumes of the Universe in an unprecedented fashion. This has led to the discovery of new populations of astrophysical events or new phases of evolution of known objects. In order to take advantage of these new telescopes a new time domain ecosystem is developing. Among the tools required for this new ecosystem are fast machine learning aided discovery and classification algorithms, interoperable tools that allow for an effective communication between brokers and follow-up telescopes for rapid reaction, and new models and tools to extract the most physical knowledge from these observations. In this talk I will review the challenges and progress of building one of these systems: the Automatic Learning for the Rapid Classification of Events (ALeRCE) astronomical alert broker. ALeRCE (http://alerce.science/) is a new alert annotation and classification system led by an interdisciplinary and interinstitutional group of scientists from Chile and the US. ALeRCE is focused around different scientific cases: stellar explosions, variable stars, supermassive black holes, and asteroids. I will discuss some of the challenges associated with the problem of alert classification, including the ingestion, annotation, database management, training set building, distributed processing, machine learning classification and visualization, or the challenges of working in large interdisciplinary teams. I will show some results based on the real‐time ingestion and classification using the Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) alert stream as input, as well as some of the tools available. In about one year of operations we have ingested more than 120 million alerts, classified about 30 million objects based on their images, classified about one million objects based on their light curves, and reported more than 4000 supernova candidates.

Discussion session: Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics

• Carlo Rovelli
• Jasper van Wezel
• F.A. Muller

In The Messenger Lectures,1964 at MIT, Feymnan said , “ There might have been a time when only one man knew the theory of relativity, because he was the only guy who caught on, before he wrote his paper. But after people read the paper a lot of people understood the theory of relativity in some way or other. On the other hand, I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics. I am going to tell you what nature behaves like. If you will simply admit that maybe she does behave like this, you will find her a delightful, entrancing thing. Do not keep saying to yourself, if you can possibly avoid it, "But how can it be like that?" because you will get 'down the drain', into a blind alley from which nobody has escaped.” Back in 2021, we want to know if it is possible to escape from the blind alley if you do go ‘down the drain’. This is precisely the aim of our panel discussion on “ The Interpretations of Quantum Mechanics”. Masters students, you can finally ask all of your doubts you have had on the nature of the wavefunction to the veteran dragon slayers who have ventured far and deep into these dark dungeons, our panelists for this session.

ITER – The Way to New Energy

• William Gracias

Fusion is the energy that powers the sun and the stars. Imagine we manage to harness this energy down here on earth – for the benefit of mankind? With the ITER project, 35 nations have joined their forces to form the world’s largest International scientific collaboration. It’s goal: to prove that fusion energy is feasible, that we have the knowledge, the technologies and the materials to deliver fusion energy to the grid.

Interaction Time Join us on our online spaceship in Gather Town and let's talk physics!

Ph.D. morning: Gravitation and Astroparticle Physics

• Bouke Jung
• Peter Gaemers
• Uddipta Bhardwaj

Ph.D. afternoon: Advanced Matter and Energy Physics

• Nico Schramma
• Cyrian Leriche
• Jans Henke

Interaction Time Join us on our online spaceship in Gather Town and let's talk physics!

Artificial Intelligence and High-Energy Physics

• Jesse Thaler

Recent advances in artificial intelligence have had an outsized impact on many scientific fields, and high-energy physics is no exception. What is special about high-energy physics, though, is the vast amount of theoretical and experimental knowledge that we already have about many problems in the field. In this talk, I draw on examples from collider phenomenology and quantum chromodynamics to highlight the fascinating interplay between theoretical principles and machine learning strategies.

Conversations on the Leaky Pipeline (Amsterdam only)

• Alessandra Candian
• Evita Verheijden
• Katerina Newell
• Machiel Keestra
• Pieter van der Hoek

In many professional areas, a career pathway can be pictured as a pipeline. In science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), this pipeline is leaking. Minority groups and women are less represented at every higher level of academia. Unfortunately, the FNWI is no exception to this, but the situation is improving! Together with our knowledgeable panel, we will address the topic along the lines of gender diversity in physics. We will talk about: - Why diversity is important - What are the major causes for a lack of gender diversity in physics at increasingly higher levels of academia - What solutions do we have and what is already being done To approach these sensitive topics with a certain degree of confidentiality, this session will be reserved exclusively for Amsterdam students and staff. Every member of the audience will be asked to respect the code of conduct, laid out at the beginning of the session. Moreover, neither recordings nor late entries will be permitted.

Gamma-ray astrophysics in a multi-messenger context

• Teresa Montaruli

I will illustrate the relevance of the science of gamma-ray astrophysics and its connection to other messengers. I will explain the principle of detection and illustrate current large research infrastructures and their scientific reach. I will then connect it to other multi-messenger experiments such as IceCube using neutrinos and gravitational wave observations.

Quantum supreme matter and the strange metals.

• Jan Zaanen

Qauntum supreme matter refers to forms of matter that are densely many-body entangled with the ramification that the quantum supremacy of the quantum computer is required to enumerate the way it works. The evidence is mounting that the AdS/CFT correspondence of the string theorist, augemented by progress with SYK type models, yields a mathematical view on generic properties of such states of matter. Guided by these insights, substantial progress has been made in recognizing various of these traits in experiments on the strange metal states of the high Tc superconductors.

Interaction Time Join us on our online spaceship in Gather Town and let's talk physics!

Ph.D. afternoon: Biophysics & Biophotonics

• Laura van Huizen
• Margherita Vaselli
• Anna Meijering

Ph.D. afternoon: Science for Energy and Sustainability

• Ruben Hamans

Are we living in the matrix?

• David Tong

No. Obviously not. It's a daft question. But, buried beneath this daft question is an extremely interesting one: is it possible to simulate the known laws of physics on a computer? Remarkably, there is a mathematical theorem, due to Nielsen and Ninomiya, that says the answer is no. I'll explain this theorem, the underlying reasons for it, and some recent work attempting to circumvent it.

The Future of Fundamental Physics (Hosted by Delta ITP)

• Robbert Dijkgraaf

The reports of the death of physics are greatly exaggerated. Instead, I would argue, we are living in a golden era and the best is yet to come. Not only did the past decades see some amazing breakthrough discoveries and show us the many unknowns in our current understanding, but more importantly, science in general is moving from studying 'what is’ to 'what could be.’ There will be many more fundamental laws of nature hidden within the endless number of physical systems we could fabricate out of the currently known building blocks. This demands an open mind about the concepts of unity and progress in physics.

Gravitational waves and fundamental physics

• Gideon Koekoek
• Stefan Hild

Interaction Time Join us on our online spaceship in Gather Town and let's talk physics!

Ph.D. afternoon: Theoretical Physics

• Evita Verheijden
• Carlos Duaso Pueyo

Interaction time Join us on our online spaceship in Gather Town and let's talk physics!

Topological valleytronics in bilayer graphene

• Jun Zhu

The valley isospin degrees of freedom in 2D hexagonal lattices offers a pathway to explore many-body ground states and novel paradigms of electronic applications. It is analogous to electron spin however coupling to an electric field offers a powerful control knob that is nimble and compatible with many device architectures. In this talk, I will describe how we create valley-momentum locked topological 1D channels in Bernal stacked bilayer graphene by electrically generating inverted band structures. This all-electric construction gives us the ability to realize reconfigurable ballistic waveguides and device operations that explicitly explore the valley-momentum locking of the 1D channels. I will show the working of a topological valley valve, which does not require valley-polarized current to operate but relies on the control of topology, and a continuously tunable electron beam splitter. Time permitting I will touch upon a few recent development in our lab where new physics emerges from exploring the valley isospin in the fractional quantum Hall effect.

Conversations on a Healthy Work Environment (Amsterdam only)

• Joost van Mameren
• Lizzy Rieth
• Mailis Birsak
• Valerie Bettaque
• Jan Pieter van der Schaar

Despite many students and academics experiencing issues related to mental health at some point during their career, few people dare to open up about their struggles. As a consequence of this stigma, some people hesitate to actively seek the help they might need - even though the FNWI offers an extensive support system. Together with our panel, we will try to lead an open and honest conversation about common mental health issues in academia. Our ultimate goal will be to de-stigmatise the topic of mental health and to foster a healthier work environment among students and staff. In particular, we will talk about: - High Performance Pressure & Work-Life-Balance - Coping with Learning Differences and Difficulties - Effects of the Covid Pandemic on Learning and Mental Health To approach these sensitive topics with a certain degree of confidentiality, this session will be reserved exclusively for Amsterdam students and staff. Every member of the audience will be asked to respect the code of conduct, laid out at the beginning of the session. Moreover, neither recordings nor late entries will be permitted.

Variational Quantum Simulation

• Rick van Bijnen

Key properties of condensed matter systems, such as for instance the occurrence of high-temperature superconductivity, are governed deep down by fundamental quantum effects such as superposition, interference and entanglement. Likewise, molecular structure calculations that could help explain and understand chemical reaction rates (with tremendous industrial impact) also require a full quantum description. However, the complexity of simulating quantum systems notoriously scales exponentially with the number of elementary constituents. A possible solution to this problem is quantum simulation: use one quantum system, to simulate another. A well-controlled quantum system is built in the laboratory that mimics the system under study. The hope is that such devices can open up unexplored territory outside the reach of classical numerical simulations, and provide new insights into quantum matter. In this talk we discuss experimental quantum simulation (and quantum computation) platforms built from ultracold atoms and ions. We will discuss an example of a current research direction of variational quantum simulation, where a computer is hooked up to a quantum experiment and in a feedback loop attempts to variationally create interesting quantum states.

Interaction Time Join us on our online spaceship in Gather Town and let's talk physics!

Ph.D. afternoon: Astronomy and Astrophysics

• Annelotte Derkink
• Devarshi Choudhury
• Rico Visser

Interaction Time Join us on our online spaceship in Gather Town and let's talk physics!

Thermodynamics of the human mind

• Danielle Bassett

Humans learn not only disconnected bits of information, but complex interconnected networks of relational knowledge. The capacity for such learning naturally depends on the architecture of the knowledge network itself. I will describe recent work assessing network constraints on the learnability of relational knowledge, and a free energy model (drawing on principles of thermodynamics) that offers an explanation for such constraints. I will then broaden the discussion to the generic manner in which humans communicate using systems of interconnected stimuli or concepts, from language and music, to literature and science.

Discussion Session: The Future of Energy

• Jan van Marseveen
• Raoul Frese
• Sebastian Hendrik Sterl

The climate emergency is, without a doubt, THE challenge of our generation. The only way to overcome this issue is through a revolution: a shift in the collective mindset. For this revolution to happen, we need to exchange new ideas and excite young minds to stand up to the challenge. This is exactly the aim of our panel discussion on “The future of energy”, where we will discuss the current status on sustainability and we will address several crucial topics ranging from the physics of new energy sources to the role of education in a sustainable society.

Entanglement, Complexity, and Spacetime

• Leonard Susskind

The two things that make quantum physics so different from classical physics are the phenomenon of entanglement and a vastly larger capacity for complexity. Both of these play a profound role in understanding how smooth large-scale spacetime emerges from the principles of quantum mechanics. I'll explain what these connections mean and how they were discovered.