Quantum Transport with ultracold atoms

Workshop Report

The Workshop was a great success, also thanks to the extremely efficient organisation and support
by the visiting program of the MIPKS, in particular we mention Mandy Lochar, Michael
Genkin and Ronny Börner. It hosted 56 onsite participants from all continents, speakers from
17 countries, and over 60 virtual participants. Our onsite participants included 10 women with
9 active contributions in form of talks or posters. Even the strike of a main air carrier on Friday
was handled very flexibly by reshaping only slightly the program on Thursday afternoon that
allowed some participants to leave early. We thank all participants for their collaboration and
the high presence even on the last day with more than 30 persons onsite.
From all the feedback that has reached us so far, our Workshop seems to have been very attractive
from the scientific point of view but also for connecting people. We thank all the participants for
their active contributions, also during the extended discussion periods. Most of the participants
enjoyed being together in a real-life meeting for the first time after the pandemic outbreak in
2020.

We highlight a selection of considerations that contributed to the success of the Workshop:


• Only four out of 36 talks were given virtually, in each case due to personal reasons impeding
travelling. Our insistence on onsite participation turned out to be vital for guaranteeing
such a high number of people actually present.
• Talks were divided into a three different formats, nine keynote talks of 50+10 minutes dedicated
to the presentation of different experimental platforms, 15 invited talks of 35+10
minutes (theory and experiment mixed), and 12 contributed talks of 20+5 minutes. Additionally,
we had two evening sessions for the 23 poster contributions. This led to an intense
but diverse program with many occasions for discussions in the lecture hall and during the
breaks. From the keynote talks we just mention representatively the MPIPKS colloquium
by Giacomo Roati (Florence), and the talks by David Guery-Odelin (Toulouse), H.C. N¨agerl
(Innsbruck), and David Weld (Stanford) that brought to us the highlights from the labs
worldwide. Young researchers at the postdoc level were included in all categories, while
(PhD) students were mainly represented during the poster sessions. Due to the rather generous
time slots for the talks, there was always enough time for discussions without delaying
the workshop schedule.
• Much positive feedback has been received on the equal mixture of experimental and theoretical
contributions, both during the talks and the poster sessions. This was originally
planned as such and proved crucial to the conference’s success.
• The hiking tour on Wednesday afternoon gave to ca. 45 participants the chance to discuss
informally about physics and beyond. We found that this event created many new links
between the participants showing up in lively discussions the next two days.
We are sure that our Workshop has created not just more understanding between the various
aspects of quantum transport with cold atoms but also a momentum for future collaborations
between the participants. This success and the perfect organisation by MIPKS make as plan a
follow-up event, possibly on the topic of localisation and delocalisation in quantum systems, as a
natural new focus after our transport conference. Consequently, the Workshop has created new
impetus towards new developments in the field of nonequilibrium transport with ultracold atoms
and beyond.