Topological Matter in Artificial Gauge Fields

Workshop Report

The PhD School entitled "Topological Matter in Arti cial Gauge Fields
(TOPART18)" took place from February 26th to March 2nd at the MPI-PKS in
Dresden. The school focused on a very timely area of research: arti cial gauge
elds, which can now be experimentally realized with ultracold atoms and other
physical systems and which thereby allow a new view on this central concept
of modern physics. In particular, these realizations allow studying topologi-
cal states, which also lie at the heart of the quantum Hall e ect in solid state
physics.
The school had 65 participants from 17 countries in Europe, Asia and Amer-
ica, most of them PhD students working in related elds. 8 internationally dis-
tinguished researcher introduced the topic in 13 lectures and 3 tutorials: Monika
Aidelsburger, Jan Budich, Andre Eckardt, Fahad Mahmood, Belen Paredes,
Frank Pollmann, Ian Spielman and Alexander Szameit. The program was com-
pleted by a poster session, an excursion and time for discussions. In the poster
session, the participants presented their own research and used this opportunity
to present themselves as a promising new generation of researchers in the eld
of topological physics.
The PhD School was organized by the MPI-PKS in collaboration with the
Research Unit FOR 2414 of the German Research Foundation (DFG). The sci-
enti c result of the school is a contribution to the education of young researchers
in the eld of topological quantum matter and an exchange between the di erent
experimental platforms for the realization of arti cial gauge elds.