The dynamic control and manipulation of metastable non-equilibrium states in quantum matter represent a frontier in modern condensed matter physics. It relates to study and control of non-equilibrium quantum processes in general, with wide relevance to cosmology to life sciences as well as technological applications. Transient and metastable states, accessible through techniques like ultrafast laser excitation and electromagnetic field perturbations, provide new opportunities to explore phenomena that are inaccessible in equilibrium. Metastable states also offer potential for discovering new phases of matter, understanding quantum phase transitions, and enabling innovative quantum technologies.
The MetaQuantM (Control and manipulation of new sates of metastable quantum States) summer school aims to equip participants with foundational knowledge, advanced techniques, and interdisciplinary perspectives necessary to engage with this rapidly evolving field. By bringing together experimentalists, theorists, and computational scientists, the program will provide a comprehensive understanding of the principles and tools required to study, control, and utilise non-equilibrium states. Examples of physical systems to be studied are strongly-coupled light-matter systems, for example polariton condensates; the behaviour of materials under strong optical driving, including Floquet dynamics; the manipulation of topological degrees of freedom; the excitation of collective degrees of freedom by optical pulses, such as magnetic polarons in doped semiconductors; the dynamics of glassy and charge-ordered materials, including charge-density waves; dynamical driving of novel superconductors and their collective modes; quantum optics and non-Hermitian dynamics.
The MetaQuantM school builds on the evolution of two extremely successful series of meetings on electronic crystals: ECRYS (1993-2023) and the effect of external impacts on quantum materials: IMPACTÂ (2000-2024). These schools had a large impact on the respective fields, which has now evolved into the present topic on control and manipulation of quantum states in electronic crystals and quantum matter in general.
The motivation of the school comes from the fact that the field is rapidly expanding, a number of recent breakthroughs defining the discussion. At the same time there are significant new challenges that require significant effort as there are many unresolved problems in nonequilibrium quantum physics that need to be addressed both theoretically and experimentally.
