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The Square Kilometre Array (SKA), set to begin operations in 2027, will be the world’s largest radio telescope marking one of the great scientific and engineering feats of the 21st century. The SKA will advance a wide range of research areas within astronomy, with a major focus on cosmology and radio continuum science at low and mid frequencies. Despite their different objectives, these two fields share a substantial overlap and thus stand to benefit from collaborative efforts in joint observation strategies, data calibration, and innovative analysis techniques.This two week long program aims to bring together national and international experts in radio cosmology and continuum science, fostering collaboration and training the next generation of researchers in these areas. The program will have two main components: a program and a school.The program (7-11 April 2025) will focus on the current state of observation, modelling, and inference tools for radio cosmology and continuum science....

  This 5-day program will explore the intersection of AI and fundamental theoretical physics. The event will feature two components, a symposium and a workshop, centered around two complementary themes: AI for theoretical physics and theoretical physics for AI.

The program will begin on April 7 and 8 with a large symposium with speakers and panel discussions focusing on the promise of AI to accelerate progress in theoretical physics. These talks will address the possibilities and challenges associated with AI ‘doing science.’ The event will bring together physicists, engineers, AI researchers, and entrepreneurs to collect different perspectives on what the future of theoretical physics will look like, the engineering challenges we should expect along the way, what tools and collaborations will be needed to help get us there, and what exciting steps are already underway.

Registration for the symposium is available on the symposium website. 

The symposium will be followed by a workshop on April 9, 10, 11 focusing on developing a theoretical framework for AI enabling the development of reliable, robust, and interpretable AI models for physics. Recent advances in theoretical foundations of AI, inspired by techniques from string theory, quantum field theory (QFT), and statistical physics, have uncovered parallels between AI systems and physical theories, utilizing methods like renormalization group (RG) flows, Feynman path integrals etc. to deepen understanding of deep neural networks (DNNs), generative AI (e.g., LLMs and diffusion models), and scaling laws. Key topics include physics-informed optimization and learning, the role of RG and QFT for DNNs and generative AI, and the application of physics to AI interpretability. Through interdisciplinary dialogue, the event aims to foster collaborations, advance the theoretical foundations of AI, and explore its potential in areas like theoretical physics and mathematics.   Speakers:  

• David Berman (Queen Mary University of London)
• Blake Bordelon (Harvard University)
• Jordan Cotler (Harvard University)
• Hugo Cui (Harvard University)
• Alessandro Favero (EPFL)
• Ro Jefferson (Utrecht University)
• Yonatan Kahn (University of Toronto)
• Dmitry Krotov (IBM)
• Bruno Loureiro (École Normale Supérieure in Paris)
• Luisa Lucie-Smith (The University of Hamburg)
• Cengiz Pehlevan (Harvard University)
• Rob Spekkens (Perimeter Institute)

 

Scientific Organizers:

• Anindita Maiti (Perimeter Institute)
• Matt Johnson (Perimeter Institute)
• Sabrina Pasterski (Perimeter Institute)

 

Advisory Committee:

• Achim Kempf (University of Waterloo)
• Cengiz Pehlevan (Harvard University)
• Hiranya Peiris (University of Cambridge)
• Roger Melko (University of Waterloo)

 

 

  As Perimeter enters its 25th year, we invite you to imagine what theoretical physics research will look like 25 years from now. On April 7 and 8, Perimeter will be hosting a symposium with speakers and panel discussions focusing on the promise of AI to accelerate progress in theoretical physics. These talks will address the possibilities and challenges associated with AI ‘doing science.’ The event will bring together physicists, engineers, AI researchers, and entrepreneurs to collect different perspectives on what the future of theoretical physics will look like, the engineering challenges we should expect along the way, what tools and collaborations will be needed to help get us there, and what exciting steps are already underway.   Confirmed Speakers:

• Frank Cappello (Argonne National Laboratory) 

• Yuri Chervonyi (Deep Mind) 

• Ioana Ciuca (Stanford University) 

• Deyan Ginev (LaTeXML) 
  

• Geoffrey Hinton (University of Toronto)
• Shirley Ho (Polymathic & Simons Foundation)

• Vicky Kalogera (Northwestern University) 

• Jared Kaplan* (Anthropic) 

• Peter Koepke (University of Bonn) 

• Roger Melko (University of Waterloo) 

• Moritz Munchmeyer (University of Wisconsin–Madison) 

• Axton Pitt (Litmaps) 

• Xiaoliang Qi (Stanford University) 

• Oleg Ruchayskiy (Niels Bohr Institute)

• Gaurav Sahu (MILA) 
  

• Steinn Sigurdsson (arXiv) 

• Jesse Thaler (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) 

• Stephen Wolfram* (Wolfram Research) 

• Richard Zanibbi (Rochester Institute of Technology) 

*virtual presentation

Scientific Organizers:

• Matthew Johnson (Perimeter Institute) 

• Anindita Maiti (Perimeter Institute) 

• Sabrina Pasterski (Perimeter Institute)

Advisory Committee:

• Mykola Semenyakin (Perimeter Institute)

 

 

We are living in an exciting era of great discoveries in the field of gravitational physics. The detection of gravitational waves by the LIGO-VIRGO-KAGRA (LVK) collaboration starting from  2016 has already led to an enormous interest in various aspects of the physics of compact objects. The recent observations of the shadows of the galactic centers for M87 and Milky Way, by the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT), have further resulted into diverse research programs on the nature of compact objects. The primary emphasis of these observations is to test the theory of general relativity at the strong-field regime and to understand the nature of the astrophysical compact objects. Several recent developments led to the extensive use of various new mathematical and computational techniques to probe the physics associated with these compact objects. The primary motivation of the school would be to learn from leading researchers about several crucial aspects of the physics of compact objects. The p...

The course will cover the basics of conformal field theories and also some applications, including exact computations of the critical exponents in 2d statistical models. Instructor: Jaume Gomis/Mykola Semenyakin Students who are not part of the PSI MSc program should review enrollment and course format information here: https://perimeterinstitute.ca/graduate-courses

Machine learning has become a very valuable toolbox for scientists including physicists. In this course, we will learn the basics of machine learning with an emphasis on applications for many-body physics. At the end of this course, you will be equipped with the necessary and preliminary tools for starting your own machine learning projects. Instructor: Mohamed Hibat Allah Students who are not part of the PSI MSc program should review enrollment and course format information here: https://perimeterinstitute.ca/graduate-courses

We look to understand the possibilities and limits of quantum information processing, and how an information theory perspective can inform theoretical physics. Topics covered include: entanglement, tools for measuring nearness of quantum states, characterizing the most general possible quantum operations, entropy and measuring information, the stabilizer formalism, quantum error-correcting codes, the theory of computation, quantum algorithms, classical and quantum complexity. Instructor: Alex May/Bindiya Arora Students who are not part of the PSI MSc program should review enrollment and course format information here: https://perimeterinstitute.ca/graduate-courses

This course will introduce some advanced topics in general relativity related to describing gravity in the strong field and dynamical regime. Topics covered include properties of spinning black holes, black hole thermodynamics and energy extraction, how to define horizons in a dynamical setting, formulations of the Einstein equations as constraint and evolution equations, and gravitational waves and how they are sourced. Instructor: William East/Ghazal Geshnizjani Students who are not part of the PSI MSc program should review enrollment and course format information here: https://perimeterinstitute.ca/graduate-courses

We will discuss mathematical aspects of classical and quantum field theory, including topics such as: symplectic manifolds and the phase space, symplectic reduction, geometric quantization, Chern-Simons theory, and others. Instructor: Kevin Costello/Mykola Semenyakin Students who are not part of the PSI MSc program should review enrollment and course format information here: https://perimeterinstitute.ca/graduate-courses

  In the vicinity of neutron stars and black holes, where spacetime is strongly curved, magnetic fields can power many of the violent phenomena that we observe across the entire electromagnetic spectrum, from accretion and jet launching, to magnetar flares and pulsar emission. In the last decades, our theoretical understanding of the role of magnetic fields in these extreme environments has greatly improved through numerical simulations of magnetohydrodynamical fluids and charged kinetic particles; however, many open and important questions remain. Our observational capabilities and computational resources will keep growing dramatically in the next few years, allowing us to explore high-energy astrophysics in unprecedented regimes. Improving our knowledge of how magnetic fields, matter, and gravity interact with each other is a crucial piece in the new era of multimessenger astrophysics.   This workshop will gather experts from a wide range of disciplines within physics and astrophysics to present state-of-the-art advances in theoretical models of magnetic fields and high-energy plasma in different contexts, from neutron star mergers to supermassive black holes, and from micro scales to macro scales.   This workshop is sponsored in part by the Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics (CITA).

 

 

Scientific Organizers: 

Luciano Combi (Perimeter Institute & U of Guelph) 

Sean Ressler (CITA) 

Bart Ripperda (CITA) 

Luis Lehner (Perimeter Institute) 

Will East (Perimeter Institute) 

Gibwa Musoke (CITA) 

Chris Thompson (CITA)  

Cooperation is seen across all biological scales ranging from cells to societies. In organisms like bacteria, the decision-making process is genetically hardwired but higher animals endowed with cognitive abilities have to make choices that can affect not only their own survival but also that of their group.Uncovering the organizing principles that lead to evolution of cooperation is an issue of fundamental importance that transcends disciplinary boundaries. Insights can be obtained from studying biological communities, through mathematical and agent-based modeling, cognitive science, social network dynamics and behavioral economics. Such investigations can also lead to the understanding of other intriguing evolutionary phenomena like opinion dynamics, evolution of fairness and spiteful behaviour. Evolutionary Game Theory  provides a powerful framework for addressing such questions in the context of both biological and cultural evolution. In this program, we will therefore be addressin...

Constructing a theory of quantum gravity, and with it a notion of quantum spacetime is one of the biggest challenges faced by modern theoretical physics. This workshop will bring together researchers from a wide range of viewpoints and give them an opportunity to exchange ideas and gain new insights.

The workshop is supported by the Simons Foundation.

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Workshop Speakers

Marcela Carena (Perimeter Institute)
Astrid Eichhorn (Universität Heidelberg)
Netta Englehardt (MIT)
Johanna Erdmenger (University of Würzburg)
Gulia Gubitosi (University of Naples Federico II)
Renate Loll (Radboud University)
Jessica Muir (Perimeter Institute)
A.W. Peet (University of Toronto)
Alessia Platania (University of Copenhagen)
Jocelyn Read (California State University, Fullerton)
Kasia Rejzner (York University)
Mairi Sakellariadou (King's College London)
Sarah Shandera (Pennsylvania State University)
Sumati Surya (Raman Research Institute)
Karen Yeats (University of Waterloo)

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Scientific Organizers
Bianca Dittrich (Perimeter Institute)
Sabrina Pasterski (Perimeter Institute)
Céline Zwikel (Perimeter Institute)
Sruthi Narayanan (Perimeter Institute)