Please note, the 2020 Summer School has been cancelled

Spontaneous Coherence & Collective Phenomena In Quantum Systems

13-24 January 2020

CANCELLED

Unfortunately the summer school has been cancelled due to the unpredictability of the situation generated by the bush fire crisis in the coming two weeks.

Almost two decades ago, the 2001 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded for observation of a new state of matter – Bose-Einstein condensate of ultracold atomic gases. A Bose-Einstein condensate is an ultimate manifestation of spontaneously formed macroscopic quantum coherence and quantum degeneracy, when millions of particles coalesce into a single quantum state and behave in a collective manner. Since then, quantum degenerate states have been realised using molecules, excitations in a solid state, photons, and fermionic atoms, thus allowing us to probe quantum systems of different origin at a macroscopic scale. This Summer School will explore spontaneous coherence and emergent collective behaviour in quantum systems, as well as related topics. Starting from the foundations of many-body physics, our lecturers will discuss the big questions of contemporary physics, e.g., how does a quantum system reaches an equilibrium, and what happens if it doesn’t.

The target audience of this summer school is Postgraduate students from across Australia and New Zealand; senior undergraduate students and early career researchers are also welcome. The school will cover the following current research topics explaining both fundamental theoretical concepts and prospective applications: