NITheCS Focus Area Workshop: “Decoding the Universe: Quantum Gravity and Quantum Fields”

Session

Day 1

16 Jul 2025, 10:00

6. Welcome and opening of Workshop

Francesco Petruccione (NITheCS)

16/07/2025, 10:00

1. Complexity measures in holography

Jaco van Zyl

16/07/2025, 10:20

Complexity measures such as Nielsen and Krylov complexity have received much attention in recent years especially in the context of many-body quantum systems. One of the main reasons for its rise in popularity, however, is in the context of the holographic description of black holes. By using collective field theory, which provides a constructive way to map quantum theories to their...

2. Quantum applications in material design and discovery

David Tshwane

16/07/2025, 10:40

Quantum computing is an emerging technology that has the potential to speed various computer operations required in material science and characterization. The application of quantum computing in computational chemistry and material science allows us to solve issues that are unsolvable with classical computers.The session will provide insight into how quantum-centric supercomputing might assist...

3. Quantum phases beyond classical shadows: A new framework for gravitational wave effects

Partha Nandi

16/07/2025, 11:30

This talk presents a theoretical paradigm exploring how low-frequency gravitational waves can induce uniquely quantum geometric phases—without classical counterparts—in mesoscopic optomechanical systems. Moving beyond usual Berry-type geometric phase analyses, we introduce a framework where an Aharonov–Bohm–like
phase arises from cyclic evolution in the quantum Hamiltonian’s parameter space....

4. Integrable structures (and beyond) in supersymmetric gauge theory

Costas Zoubos (University of Pretoria)

16/07/2025, 11:50

The link between the planar spectrum of 4d conformal field theories and integrable systems (both classical and quantum) has had far-reaching implications for the understanding of gauge theory more generally. However, much of this intuition has come from the study of the most supersymmetric case, which is therefore highly unrealistic. I will argue that there is a lot to be learnt by looking at...

5. The future of mathematical discovery

Vishnu Jejjala

16/07/2025, 12:10

I speculate on how we will be doing mathematics and formal theory in the next 10–20 years and discuss what we should do in the near term to prepare