Conference — Bootstrapping Nature: Non-perturbative Approaches to Critical Phenomena

Critical phase transitions are ubiquitous in nature, as they describe both classical statistical systems such as the water/vapor transition, as well as quantum systems such as superfluid transitions. These phase transitions are difficult to study, because the quantum field theories that describe them are generically strongly coupled, and traditional methods like Feynman diagrams do not suffice. Recently, new non-perturbative tools such as the conformal bootstrap and duality have been used to study strongly coupled phase transitions, which complements non-perturbative methods such as lattice Monte Carlo. This workshop will bring together scientists from the neighboring communities of condensed matter and high energy theory to identify new continuous phase transitions that appear in nature, especially those with emergent gauge fields, and develop strategies to solve these systems and guide ongoing experiments.

Topics: Critical phase transitions * Numerical conformal bootstrap * Lattice methods * Dualities * Gauge theories in 2+1 dimensions