Events During the Week of March 8th through March 15th, 2026
Monday, March 9th, 2026
- No events scheduled
Tuesday, March 10th, 2026
- Physics Education Innovation Forum
- What You Need to Know about AI in the Classroom
- Time: 1:00 pm - 2:00 pm
- Place: Sterling Hall room B343 and on Zoom (Meeting ID 780 027 7255)
- Speaker: John Martin and Janet Staker Woerner, UW-Madison Center for Teaching, Learning and Mentoring
- Abstract: This month the PEI Forum is hosting two speakers from the Center for Teaching, Learning, and Mentoring to give the Department an overview of how AI is being used in classrooms at UW. They will lead a discussion of: setting expectations for students, best practices for classroom use, emerging norms, and resources and tools available to support instructors at UW Madison: Google Gemini, Microsoft Copilot, and NotebookLM. We anticipate this will be the first of many discussions on using AI for teaching.
- Host: Josh Weber
- Council Meeting
- Time: 3:00 pm - 4:00 pm
- Place: 2314 Chamberlin
- Speaker: Kevin Black
- Host: Kevin Black
Wednesday, March 11th, 2026
- Department Meeting
- Council of Full Professors
- Council of Full Professors
- Time: 12:15 pm - 1:15 pm
- Place: B343 Sterling and video link to be sent later.
- Speaker: Kevin Black, UW - Madison, Department of Physics
- Closed meeting to discuss faculty personnel matters—pursuant to Section 19.85(1)(c) of the Wisconsin Open Meetings Law
- Host: Kevin Black
Thursday, March 12th, 2026
- R. G. Herb Condensed Matter Seminar
- Only the ambidextrous can flock: chirality destroys order in polar active matter
- Time: 10:00 am - 11:00 am
- Place: 5310 Chamberlin Hall
- Speaker: John Toner, University of Oregon
- Abstract: I'll show that flocks of chiral living creatures (i.e., organisms that are right or left handed) moving on a surface, composed of critters can not form a long range ordered flocking state (i.e., a state in which the spatially averaged velocity vector
- Host: Alex Levchenko
- Astronomy Colloquium
- TBD
- Time: 3:30 pm - 4:30 pm
- Place: 4421 Sterling Hall
- Speaker: Dr. Jason Hinkle, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
- Abstract: TBD
Friday, March 13th, 2026
- Graduate Program Event
- Prospective Visit Days
- Time: 8:00 am
- Place: 5280 CH
- Speaker: Sharon Kahn
- Condensed Matter Theory Group Seminar
- The whole is greater than the sum of its parts – a multimethod, multimessenger perspective on the quantum many-body problem
- Time: 11:00 am - 12:00 pm
- Place: 5310 Chamberlin Hall
- Speaker: Thomas Schaefer, University of Trieste
- Abstract: Quantum materials in which electrons strongly interact with each other exhibit fascinating examples of contemporary condensed matter physics. Thrilling instances include the celebrated cuprates, organic charge-transfer salts, heavy fermion compounds, moiré transition metal dichalcogenides, and ultracold atomic gases. Their phase diagrams are extremely rich, hosting intriguing phenomena like unconventional superconductivity, quantum criticality, and quantum magnetism. Furthermore, from a more practical point of view, they carry the potential for many functional applications like ultrafast switching and spintronics. At the same time, due to their strongly interacting constituents, they pose a huge challenge to current quantum many-body theory. In my talk I will argue that a certain perspective on strongly correlated systems, which we coined multimethod, multimessenger approach, can be a very powerful and versatile tool for the description and understanding of these systems. I will first illustrate the power of the approach with two studies of the most fundamental model for electronic correlations, the Hubbard model, on the square [1] and triangular [2] lattice. Second, I will demonstrate how these model studies paved the way for advancing our understanding of magnetism in infinite-layer nickelates [3] and moiré transition metal dichalcogenides [4], as well as the unconventional superconducting properties in organic charge-transfer salts [5]. Given their broadness in applications, these examples may serve as blueprints for future studies of strongly correlated systems. [1] T. Schäfer, et al., Phys. Rev. X 11, 011058 (2021). [2] A. Wietek, R. Rossi, F. Šimkovic IV, M. Klett, P. Hansmann, M. Ferrero, E. M. Stoudenmire, T. Schäfer, and A. Georges, Phys. Rev. X 11, 041013 (2021). [3] R. A. Ortiz, P. Puphal, M. Klett, F. Hotz, R. K. Kremer, H. Trepka, M. Hemmida, H.-A. Krug von Nidda, M. Isobe, R. Khasanov, H. Luetkens, P. Hansmann, B. Keimer, T. Schäfer, M. Hepting, Phys. Rev. Research 4, 023093 (2022). [4] P. Tscheppe, J. Zang, M. Klett, S. Karakuzu, A. Celarier, Z. Cheng, T. A. Maier, M. Ferrero, A. J. Millis, and T. Schäfer, PNAS 121, 3 (2024). [5] H. Menke, M. Klett, K. Kanoda, A. Georges, M. Ferrero, and T. Schäfer, Phys. Rev. Lett. 133, 136501 (2024).
- Host: Elio König
- Physics Department Colloquium
- Birth, Death, and Flocking: The Hydrodynamics of Dry Active matter
- Time: 3:30 pm - 6:00 pm
- Place: 2241 Chamberlin Hall
- Speaker: John Toner, U Oregon
- Abstract: In creatures ranging from birds to fish to wildebeest, we observe the collective and coherent motion of large numbers of organisms, known as ‘flocking’. In this talk, I'll use the hydrodynamic theory of flocking to explain why a crowd of people can all walk, but not point, in the same direction. Along the way I'll illustrate how one goes about formulating a hydrodynamic theory for heretofore unconsidered states and system, using powerful techniques from theoretical condensed matter physics such as hydrodynamic theories, the gradient expansion, and the renormalization group, and using concepts from fluid mechanics.
- Host: Alex Levchenko