U.S.-India Advanced Studies Institute on Thermalization: From Glasses to Black Holes, Bangalore, Summer 2013.

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1243369Bulbul Chakraborty This award supports the U.S.-India Advanced Studies Institute on Thermalization: From Glasses to Black Holes to be held at the Indian Institute of Sciences, Bangalore, Summer 2013. The Advanced Studies Institute (ASI) is an endeavor developed jointly by Brandeis University and the International Centre for Theoretical Sciences (ICTS) under the leadership of USPI Bulbul Chakraborty and Indian counterpart Spenta Wadia, renowned string theorist and Director of the ICTS, a new interdisciplinary institution of India's premier Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai. Our understanding of the macroscopic world is based mostly on analyses of equilibrium states. These, however, are distinctive in that they retain no memory of the initial state, and are stationary in time. Despite the centrality of the concept of thermal equilibrium to modern physics, basic questions regarding the fundamental process of thermalization and how it emerges from reversible microscopic dynamics are still unanswered. Nonetheless, in recent decades significant progress has been made due to new experimental techniques and the contributions of theorists from statistical mechanics, string theory, and quantum information theory. The proposed school will promote an intensive discussion of thermalization ranging from its conceptual foundations to modern-day applications in complex condensed matter systems, quantum information theory, and string theory. The scientific goal of the ASI is to provide a cross-disciplinary view of the problem of thermalization and create a forum for the cross-fertilization of ideas that have emerged in the different fields. The summer institute will engage a cadre of junior scientists in the discussion of both the fundamentals of classical and quantum thermalization and the current state of understanding of these questions. Experts across subfields have been chosen to lecture at the school and provide students with core knowledge needed to appreciate the challenges in the field. The organizers from Brandeis and ICTS have a proven record in leading collaborative research and organizing international summer schools. Their role at the ASI is to build bridges between the subfields through tutorials and small group discussions, which will tie together topics covered in lectures. Participants will be competitively selected from theoretical physics and include advanced graduate students, postdocs and junior faculty. Thermalization is timely and an area of high importance among theoretical physicists. Broader impacts include fostering international collaborations among the scientific communities of senior and junior scientists from the U.S. and India. The ASI will introduce a new generation of talented young scientists to a fundamental question in theoretical physics and to some world leaders in the field. The dissemination plan includes the professional production of videos that will be made available online. The partner institution in India, ICTS is providing administrative, intellectual, and generous financial support that will ensure the success of the summer institute. The ASI's impact will be further enhanced by the recent launching in Bangalore of GLORIAD that provides dedicated high-band-width fiber-optic connectivity for research and education.