Recent advances in the area of cold atoms, as well as in manipulating nuclear spin systems and in cavity QED setups, have made it possible to study the coherent dynamics of isolated interacting many-body systems. Experimental progress in this area resulted in a rapidly expanding multidisciplinary theoretical activity devoted to the understanding of issues ranging from the universality of quantum dynamics, to thermalization in integrable and nonintegrable systems, intrinsic decoherence and non-equilibrium thermodynamics. The experiments and potential quantum information implications largely motivated an intense theoretical research in the area of quantum dynamics, stimulating considerable excitement and offering new insights in our understanding of fundamental questions about the time evolution of quantum systems.

This program will focus on a wide range of topics dealing with dynamics of thermally isolated systems, i.e. systems not coupled to external bath. The specific areas which will be targeted include: universal aspects of quantum dynamics, quantum quenches, quantum and classical dynamics in integrable and non-integrable systems, thermalization in isolated systems, nearly adiabatic dynamics, many-body localization, work fluctuation theorems and their implications for quantum and classical dynamics, quantum dynamics in cold atom systems and nuclear spins, quantum annealing and adiabatic quantum computation.

In association with this program, there will be a conference Dynamics and Thermodynamics in Isolated Quantum Systems held during the week of August 20--24, 2012.