Event
Prange Prize Lecture
Tuesday, November 18, 2025
3:30 p.m.
1410 Toll Physics Building
Anne Suplee
301 405 5944
asuplee@umd.edu
https://science.umd.edu/events/prange-2025.html
Vedika Khemani
Stanford University
on
"New frontiers for many-body physics"
Tuesday, November 18, 2025
Light refreshments at 3 p.m.
3:30 p.m. Lecture
John S. Toll Physics Building, Room 1410
Paid parking is available on the roof of Regents Drive Garage. Please visit a pay station before you leave the garage roof. Additionally, the free #104 ShuttleUM bus runs between the College Park Metro Station and Regents Drive at about 15-minute intervals.
Questions? Contact physchair-rsvp@umd.edu or 301-405-5944.
About the Talk
The study of many-body physics is a defining success of quantum mechanics in the last century. From solids to superconductors to exotic topological phases, we have learned how complex collective behavior emerges from simple microscopic laws. Yet nearly all of this progress has focused on equilibrium systems defined on regular, Euclidean lattices.
A new generation of synthetic quantum devices now motivates us to move beyond these constraints. These programmable systems, where geometry and dynamics can both be engineered, offer highly controlled experimental access to nonequilibrium active quantum matter. Indeed, even the execution of a quantum algorithm is an inherently nonequilibrium process. Moreover, programmable interactions in these devices can realize non-Euclidean geometries, such as those underlying novel families of quantum error-correcting codes defined on expander graphs.
The next frontier lies in understanding how complex organization can arise and persist in these settings, where neither equilibrium nor geometry is prescribed, linking the physics of many-body organization to broader principles of information, computation, and even life. I will describe highlights of an active research program to advance many-body theory into these uncharted regimes, including examples such as time crystals, measurement-induced phase transitions, and topological quantum spin glasses. A unifying theme across these settings is that the thermodynamic and dynamical notions of order and robustness can diverge.
About the Lecture
Hosted by the University of Maryland Department of Physics and the Condensed Matter Theory Center, the Richard E. Prange Prize and Lectureship in Condensed Matter Theory and Related Areas honors Professor Prange, whose distinguished career at Maryland spanned four decades. The prize, which carries a $10,000, honorarium, was made possible by the generosity of Prange's wife, Dr. Madeleine Joullié of the University of Pennsylvania.
Prange accepted a position at the University of Maryland in 1961. Until his retirement in 2000, he played a vital role in the life of the Department of Physics. He led a substantial reform of its undergraduate major program and served energetic and innovative terms as chair of crucial departmental entities, including the Salary, Priorities, and Appointment, Promotion and Tenure committees. His was an important and highly-respected voice in all departmental deliberations.
Prange was the editor of a well-known book on the Quantum Hall Effect, but his interests reached well beyond condensed matter, into every substantive aspect of theoretical physics, including some pioneering work on quantum chaos. He was at complete ease discussing subjects as disparate as ferromagnetism and the cosmological constant. His interests also included history and travel.
