Inaugural conference of the FoQuS Laboratory
Politecnico di Milano, 02/02/2026
A Worskhop featuring experts from mathematical physics, quantum probability, mathematical analysis and philosophy of physics, working on cutting-edge research on quantum theory, in the spirit of our newly created Laboratory FoQuS.
Speakers
- Jussi Behrndt (TU Graz)
- Elena Castellani (Università di Firenze)
- Serena Cenatiempo (GSSI)
- Jürg Fröhlich (ETH Zurich)
- Simone Montangero (Università di Padova)
Venue
Sala Consiglio, VII Piano / 7th floor, Ed. 14 (Nave)
Department of Mathematics, Politecnico di Milano
via Bonardi 9 20133 Milano – Italy
Organizing committee
Fabrizio Colombo, Michele Correggi, Franco Fagnola, Angelo Lucia, Giovanni Valente
Program
| 09:00 – 09:40 | Reception and Coffee |
| 09:40 – 10:00 | Welcome and Institutional greetings: Irene Maria Sabadini, Director of the Department of Mathematics |
| 10:00 – 11:00 | Jürg Fröhlich. “Events, States and Evolution in Quantum Mechanics” |
| 11:00 – 12:00 | Elena Castellani. “Symmetry and unification in the quantum world” |
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| 12:00 – 14:00 | Lunch Break |
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| 14:00 – 15:00 | Simone Montangero. “Tensor network algorithms for quantum simulations and optimizations“ |
| 15:00 – 16:00 | Serena Cenatiempo. “The Gross–Pitaevskii Equation from Many-Body Quantum Mechanics“ |
| 16:00 – 16:40 | Coffee break |
| 16:40 – 17:40 | Jussi Behrndt. “Spectral theory for differential operators with singular potentials” |
| 17:40 – 18:00 | Closing |
Abstracts
Jürg Fröhlich. “Events, States and Evolution in Quantum Mechanics”
In this talk I present a critical analysis of the notions of Events, States and Evolution in Quantum Mechanics. With the purpose of unravelling the quantum-mechanical time-evolution of isolated open systems I identify a fundamental mechanism of dissipation at work in systems of matter coupled to the quantized electromagnetic field (in a limit where the velocity of light tends to ∞). This mechanism is dubbed “Principle of Declining Potentialities.” When combined with a “State-Selection Postulate” it yields a precise law for the stochastic time-evolution of states of individual isolated open systems superseding Schrödinger evolution. This law furnishes a precise description of many phenomena, such as fluorescence, and yields a solution of the infamous “Measurement Problem” in Quantum Mechanics.
Elena Castellani. “Symmetry and unification in the quantum world”
As is well known, symmetry principles lie at the heart of contemporary fundamental physics. Among their many functions, I will focus here on their unificatory role. While symmetry has long been linked to the idea of unity, it was only with the group-theoretical formulation of physical symmetries—and especially with the application of group-theoretical methods to quantum physics—that symmetry acquired its full unificatory power. In particular, it came to provide both the technical means and the conceptual framework for the search for a unified theory of elementary particles and their interactions. In this talk, I will review some of the key stages in these developments.
Simone Montangero. “Tensor network algorithms for quantum simulations and optimizations“
We review recent advances in the development of efficient tree tensor network algorithms and their applications to quantum simulation, benchmarking, and theoretical interpretation. In particular, we present results on two- and three-dimensional systems, both in and out of equilibrium, including scattering processes and induced false vacuum decay in the two-dimensional quantum Ising model. We further highlight the use of tree tensor network methods beyond traditional quantum simulation, such as addressing hard classical combinatorial problems through mappings to many-body quantum Hamiltonians, optimizing quantum compilation tasks, integer factorization and enabling quantum equational reasoning.
Serena Cenatiempo. “The Gross–Pitaevskii Equation from Many-Body Quantum Mechanics“
The Gross–Pitaevskii equation is a dispersive partial differential equation describing the dynamics of a large number of cold atoms in the Bose–Einstein condensate phase. This is a fascinating quantum phase of matter, predicted by Einstein in 1925, whose first experimental realization was recognized by the 2001 Nobel Prize in Physics. Although heuristic derivations of the Gross–Pitaevskii equation date back to the 1960s, obtaining a rigorous derivation from the underlying many-body Schrödinger dynamics has required overcoming major mathematical challenges. In this talk, I will review these advances and discuss recent methods for characterizing fluctuations around the effective Gross–Pitaevskii dynamics. These methods provide a rigorous implementation of Bogoliubov’s heuristic theory (1957) in regimes where Bogoliubov’s original approximations are no longer valid.
Jussi Behrndt. “Spectral theory for differential operators with singular potentials”
In this talk, we discuss qualitative spectral properties of self-adjoint Schrödinger and Dirac operators. We first briefly review some of the standard results for regular potentials from the literature and turn to more recent developments afterwards. Our main objective in this lecture is to discuss differential operators with singular potentials supported on curves or hyperplanes, where in the case of Dirac operators it is necessary to distinguish the so-called non-critical and critical cases for the strength of the singular perturbation. In particular, it turns out that Dirac operators with singular potentials in the critical case have some unexpected spectral properties.
This talk is based on joint some recent works with P. Exner, M. Holzmann, V. Lotoreichik, T. Ourmieres-Bonafos, and K. Pankrashkin.