Frontiers and Quantum Mesoscopic Thermodynamics (FQMT) Conferences

Summary of important FQMT’17 conference data and events

The conference Frontiers of Quantum and Mesoscopic Thermodynamics (FQMT’17) was held in Prague, Czech Republic at the Pyramida Hotel from July 9 to July 15, 2017.

FQMT’17 was a follow-up to the five previous, successful Prague conferences “Frontiers of Quantum and Mesoscopic Thermodynamics 2004” (FQMT’04), FQMT’08, FQMT’11, FQMT’13, and FQMT’15. As in all previous FQMT conferences, the aim of FQMT’17 was to create a bridge between the fields of modern condensed matter physics, quantum optics, statistical physics and the quickly developing field of foundations of quantum physics.

Scope

The conference addressed non-equilibrium statistical physics, quantum many body physics, foundations of quantum physics and quantum thermodynamics. The systems considered were mainly on the order of mesoscopic (nanoscale) size, and included those of both natural and artificial origin. The conference contributed to a better understanding of the behavior of mesoscopic systems and provided insight into the problems of the foundations, relying on the theoretical and experimental methods of condensed matter physics and quantum optics. Special attention was given to non-equilibrium quantum systems, physics of quantum information and manifestation of quantum effects in biological systems, in terms of both theory and experiment. Subjects from astrophysics, gravitation or cosmology related to the above scope were also included.

Topics The organizers created a program which covered homogeneously the following topics: The Scientific Program

The FQMT’17 conference was attended by 229 participants, approximately the same number of participants as the previous FQMT conference. he scientific program included 157 invited talks given by leading experts.
The poster session, held on Thursday, consisted of 74 contributions (22 invited and 58 regular) and had, according to many participants, an excellent quality.
A round table, for the FQMT conference a new forum for scientific discussion, was organized on Monday late afternoon. The topic of the round table “Quantum thermodynamics, measurement and systems out of equilibrium“ was covered by six main panelists, namely, Alexia Auffèves, Jens Eisert, Daniel Esteve, Peter Hänggi, Christopher Jarzynski, and Ronnie Kosloff. Many other conference participants took part in the lively discussion.
The FQMT’17 scientific program covered all conference topics. The talks, discussions after them, as well as the discussion during the round table and the poster session were found to be exceptionally inspiring for the conference participants:

Amnon Aharony, Eric Akkermans, Yoram Alhassid, Roland Allen, Dragos-Victor Anghel, Joachim Ankerhold, Mauro Antezza, Anne Anthore, Liliana Arrachea, Alexia Auffeves, Rémi Avriller, Carlos Baladrón, Haim Beidenkopf, Wolfgang Belzig, Ofer Biham, Yaroslav Blanter, Denys Bondar, Dirk Bouwmeester, Warwick Bowen, Christoph Bruder, Amir Caldeira, Jianshu Cao, Howard Carmichael, Ana María Cetto, Bryan Dalton, Pawel Danielewicz, Luis de la Peña, Alessandro De Martino, Marcos de Oliveira, Sebastian Deffner, Konstantin Dorfman, Jens Eisert, Klaus Ensslin, Ora EntinWohlman, Tilman Esslinger, Daniel Esteve, Jean Etesse, Ferdinand Evers, Giuseppe Falci, Radim Filip, Boris Fine, Thomas Fogarty, Emmanuel Fort, James Freericks, Florian Fröwis, Edward Fry, Michael Galperin, Thomas Gasenzer, Yuval Gefen, Steven Girvin, Christian Glattli, Sébastien Gleyzes, Michele Governale, Hermann Grabert, Marco Gramegna, Philippe Grangier, Michael Guidry, Emanuel Gull, Shmuel Gurvitz, Ricardo Gutiérrez-Jáuregui, Johannes Handsteiner, Peter Hänggi, Patrick Haughian, Philip Hemmer, Ortwin Hess, Rudolf Hilfer, Marc Cheneau, Frédéric Chevy, Christopher Jarzynski, David Jennings, Thibaut Jonckheere, Eytan Katzav, Peter Keefe, Andrei Khrennikov, Nikolai Kiesel, Stefan Klumpp, Kensuke Kobayashi, Ronnie Kosloff, Mario Krenn, Pavel Kroupa, Gershon Kurizki, Martin Leijnse, Suzy Lidström, Reinhard Lipowsky, Marcelo Lozada-Cassou, Austin Lund, Eric Lutz, Jiří Mareš, Yigal Meir, Gilles Montambaux, Mikko Möttönen, Sylvain Nascimbene, Nir Navon, Ahsan Nazir, Izaak Neri, Y. Jack Ng, Theo Nieuwenhuizen, Branislav Nikolic, Stefan Nimmrichter, Abraham Nitzan, Andreas Nunnenkamp, Miguel Ortuno, Masanao Ozawa, Elisabetta Paladino, Hyunggyu Park, Alexander Pechen, Marti Perarnau-Llobet, Uri Peskin, Francesco Petruccione, Arkady Plotnitsky, Michael Pollak, Haitao Quan, Saar Rahav, Gianluca Rastelli, Linda Reichl, Nicolas Roch, Édgar Roldán, Miguel Rubi, Janne Ruostekoski, Christophe Salomon, David Sanchez, Rafael Sánchez, Lea Santos, Schinichi Sasa, Francesco Scazza, Marlan Scully, Tamar Seideman, Llorenç Serra, Roberto Serra, Efrat Shimshoni, Alexander Shnirman, Peter Schmitteckert, Hans Schuessler, Ralf Schuetzhold, Lawrence Schulman, Pascal Simon, Kyrylo Snizhko, Fernando Sols, Jakub Spiechowicz, Jürgen Stockburger, Václav Špička, Fabio Taddei, Oren Tal, Michael Thorwart, Michael Thoss, Yasuhiro Utsumi, Joan Vaccaro, Sense Jan van der Molen, Jan van Ruitenbeek, Claudio Verdozzi, Thomas Vojta, Andreas Wacker, Howard Wiseman, William Wootters, Andrei Zaikin, Gergely Zarand, and Wei-Min Zhang

Welcome Party

On Monday, the first day of the conference, talks in the Pyramida Hotel were followed by the Welcome Party in the Wallenstein Palace, the seat of the Senate of the Parliament of the Czech Republic. At the beginning of the Welcome Party the participants were welcomed by Eva Zažímalová, President of the Czech Academy of Sciences and Zdeněk Papoušek, chairman of the Committee on Education, Science, Culture, Human Rights and Petition of the Senate.

Public Lectures and Awards

Keeping the tradition of the FQMT conferences, apart from the regular talks, two exceptional public lectures (of Anton Zeilinger on Tuesday evening and John Pendry on Wednesday evening) were presented in the National House of Vinohrady, and in Dvořák’s Hall of Rudolfinum, which were each accompanied by concerts of classical music. These events were highly attended (not only by conference participants) and they were very much appreciated by the audience. On Tuesday evening, the participants were welcomed by Eva Zažímalová, President of the Czech Academy of Sciences. There were also award ceremonies before the public lectures: the President of the Senate of the Czech Republic, Milan Štěch personally awarded the special medal of the Senate to Anton Zeilinger for his contribution to the progress of science; John Pendry received the same award from Zdeněk Papoušek, Chairman of the Committee on Education, Science, Culture, Human Rights and Petition of the Senate.

Concerts

Following the tradition of the FQMT conferences, we had altogether four regular concerts of classical music during the conference week. And keeping to tradition, these were held at very exceptional places: in the National House of Vinohrady (Neo-Renaissance building with magnificently decorated halls), Dvořák’s Hall of Rudolfinum (the seat of the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra), the Saint Vitus Cathedral of the Prague Castle (where, before the concert, the participants of the conference listen to the welcome address of Archbishop of Prague, Cardinal Dominik Duka, delivered by Dean of the Metropolitan Chapter, Ondřej Pávek in the Cardinal’s absence), and in the beautiful Baroque Church of St. Margaret of the Břevnov Monastery. The concerts were played by exceptional Czech musicians, e.g., trumpeter Miroslav Kejmar, saxophonist Jiří Hlaváč and organists Josef Kšica and Přemysl Kšica. Several music pieces were directly composed for the conference concerts: “Fanfares of Light” composed by Josef Kšica for FQMT’15 has become, step by step, an anthem of the FQMT conferences. The compositions “Homage to Vienna” and “Homage to London” by Jiří Hlaváč paid tribute to the hometowns of the public speakers. “Aria Pragensis per fortepiano solo” by Josef Kšica was dedicated to John Pendry – and its music score was given to him by the author after the concert.

Conference Dinner

The conference dinner was on Friday in the rooms of the ancient Benedictine Břevnov Monastery. Vice-Abbot, Brother Aleš, of the Monastery delivered a charming welcome address before the guided tours through the Monastery and the dinner. The conference dinner was combined with the concert in the St. Margaret Church of the Břevnov Monastery.

Summary

The participants experienced a conference at a very high scientific level, all the while in a very warm atmosphere enhanced by the many artistic riches of Prague. It was broadly supported, on the one hand, by Czech institutions and, on the other hand, by the participants, who graciously used their means for this aim. The event proved to be very valuable for the scientific climate in the Czech Republic, and the organizers express their gratitude for the support extended by leading Czech institutions, which certainly contributed to the high level and good atmosphere of the conference.

Peter D. Keefe , Theo M. Nieuwenhuizen, and Václav Špička