Replica Symmetry Breaking

Since its formulation, replica symmetry breaking (RSB) has grown from an abstract construction to a source of deep physical and mathematical insights. Due to its complex structure, it took some time for its early developers to fully understand its physical meaning, but the community is now flourishing and its ideas are embraced in fields ranging from chemistry to computer science. In particular, it is now well understood that RSB encodes the rich structure of the (free) energy landscape, which is very rough and full of hierarchically organized minima. This complex structure has profound consequences on the dynamics of systems ranging from glasses to neural networks to ecological communities.

On the 40th anniversary of its first application, this workshop brings together researchers who develop, refine and apply RSB from a broad cross-section of the theoretical community.

Because disordered materials have played a singular role in sharpening the formulation of RSB, a special session celebrating the 30th anniversary of the random first-order transition (RFOT) description will also be embedded in the program.