Les Houches School of PhysicsSince 1951

Our current understanding of the Earth system is challenged by the complexity of the processes we seek to unravel. Over the past two decades, advances in instrumentation have greatly improved our ability to observe natural phenomena with unprecedented precision. At the same time, the growing volume of data has led to the development of curated repositories that now serve the entire scientific community. Yet, our ability to fully interpret and model these high-resolution observations remains limited by the lack of a comprehensive formalism capable of capturing the multi-scale and multi-physics couplings revealed by these data.Since the 1990s, IPGP played a pioneering role in the development of inversion methods. It has also been a major driver in the creation of database infrastructures that provide access to a wide range of Earth system data (Gaia Data and Form@Terre projects).

The school will cover various topics of physics with trapped charged particles. Lectures cover basic trap physics and recent developments in Penning traps, Paul traps etc., collective behavior and (non-neutral) plasmas, as well as applications for fundamental physics, precision spectroscopy, quantum information, frequency standards, antimatter. Lectures will be systematically complemented by a series of tutorials/exercice sessions. Two poster sessions where participants present their work, and a half-day visit to CERN will also be organised.

This Winter School will explore the rapidly emerging field of therapeutic ultrasound. Topics will range from an introduction to the physics and biophysics necessary for understanding these techniques through to their clinical application. This is a broad and complex topic in which the synergy of a multidisciplinary approach is particularly valuable.

The mass loss of ice stored in glaciers and on the Greenland and Antarctic Ice Sheet is one of the most pressing challenges facing humanity today, as it drives more than half of the observed sea-level change today and is expected to increasingly contribute as the climate warms. Large scale climate models are currently not capable of simulating these mass losses, partially due to gaps in our understanding of the underlying processes. This discrepancy calls for a concerted effort to refine our models through interdisciplinary research that combines controlled laboratory experiments, direct numerical simulations, climate modeling, and large-scale observational studies. This workshop aims to bring together experts from various disciplines, including fluid dynamics, climatology, oceanography, glaciology, and climate modeling.

New Challenges in Turbulence Research (NCTR) is an international thematic school devoted to the physics of fluid turbulence. This 8th edition, "Moving through Turbulence", will focus on the interaction between turbulent flows and objects of various nature.The program will cover four major themes at the forefront of current research: odd-shaped particles, surfaces and interfaces, flexible and mobile structures, living organisms.

Ultrafast photochemical reactions in complex molecular systems - such as e.g. energy or charge transfer in photosynthetic pigment-protein complexes or synthetic materials for optoelectronics – are nonequilibrium phenomena guided by the interplay of quantum dynamics and environmental effects. Their investigation requires a mutidisciplinary research effort boosted by impressive developments in ultrafast spectroscopies and in the theoretical modeling of high-dimensional molecular systems undergoing photoexcitation.

Low-dimensional quantum fluids exhibit a wealth of non-equilibrium phenomena arising from enhanced correlations and constraints on dynamics. This workshop will focus on recent experimental and theoretical advances in out-of-equilibrium dynamics of one- and two-dimensional quantum fluids, including atomic and photonic platforms. Tutorials will provide foundational tools, while invited seminars will highlight breakthroughs in non-linear hydrodynamics, thermalisation, driven dynamics and quantum mixtures.

The school on Photonics & AI will explore the bi-directional connections between photonics and artificial intelligence or machine learning, with state of the art lectures from the best experts covering photonic accelerators, neuromorphic photonics and AI-assisted design of integrated photonic devices. It aims at training future experts in these fields, promoting an integral view and nurturing potential new ideas in these fast expanding areas.

This doctoral school targets young researchers in classical and quantum gravity. It covers advanced topics in general relativity -covariant phase space, boundary symmetries, edge modes- and the recent developments they led to in quantum gravity, including algebra of observables, celestial holography and the exciting interface with quantum reference frames. Leading professors at the forefront of quantum gravity and quantum information, will teach the fundamentals and discuss current research.

The aim of the workshop is to put together experimentalists, theorists and engineers working in both academia and the private sector to discuss the various aspects of the theory of fault-tolerant quantum computing and to provide a complete view of the current state of the art in building a large-scale quantum computer.

Following on from the summer schools in Mathematical Statistical Physics organized in Les Houches in 1984 and 2005, we are offering a new edition that will present the advances made over the last twenty years. Among the topics covered: random geometry, disordered systems, graph theory, all fields recently crowned by several Fields Medals and Nobel Prizes.

Numerical Astrophysical Fluid Dynamics at the Exascale Era is a two-week doctoral training school at Les Houches preparing young researchers for next-generation supercomputers. With GPU-accelerated Exascale machines launching in Europe in 2026–2027, participants will learn to harness cutting-edge simulation codes (AMR, SPH, PIC, spectral) through hands-on tutorials and projects, while also addressing energy efficiency in scientific computing.

The goal of the Quantum-NEST School (Quantum Network for Education and Scientific Training) is to provide an overview of the most recent and exciting evolutions in the field of quantum science and technology, and on its most exciting developments. The school offers lectures of high-profile academic scholars and industrial entrepreneurs: this will provide the students with a clear vision of the main topics and challenges in the field. It is primarily aimed at Master and PhD students.

The school will cover the emerging field of gravitational wave detection and of its scientific exploitation. Following their discovery in 2015, many other gravitational wave detections are expected with existing and future detectors. This will open up a new window of exploration, sometimes unique and sometimes complementary to what other messengers such as electromagnetic radiation and neutrinos can reveal of the physics at work in our Universe. The objective of the school is to provide the students with a solid introduction to most aspects of this interdisciplinary field.

Can we protect a quantum system from decoherence? The answer is yes if the entropy invading the system due to noise is evacuated more rapidly than it is created. The school will cover the current theoretical and experimental developments that realize this condition using measurement-based feedback or autonomous feedback. It will introduce students to all the relevant physical platforms, where protection against decoherence can be realized.

The ability to track the motion of animals, cells, and tiny tracers has exposed the absence of a unifying theory for search in heterogeneous environments. Long-standing assumptions about trajectories and first-passage statistics fail dramatically when memory and heterogeneities come into play. Our workshop focuses on these frontier themes, with novel data, tools and techniques pushing into unexplored directions.

This school on correlated quantum matter is addressed to graduate students/early-carrier researchers. It will gather an international audience with a strong participation from Japan. Introductory lectures will cover materials, experiments, and theory. Current issues will be focused on multipoles, topological magnetism, unconventional and topological superconductivity, and cross correlations in metals and insulators. These cross correlations (a quite new field) emerge when both spatial and time reversal symmetries are broken, and orbital degrees of freedom are present in the system.

Cold atoms are well controlled systems offering exceptional detection possibilities, which makes them a prime platform for quantum simulation. This school will gather early graduate students to provide training on ultracold atomic and molecular gases. After a series of lectures on general aspects of the field (laser cooling, quantum degenerate gases...), the school will focus on interacting gases and the simulation of quantum many-body problems related to condensed matter, high energy and quantum information.

This workshop focuses on laboratory astrophysics methods to study the origin and evolution of complex matter observed in space, from dense molecular clouds to the formation of new stars, planetary bodies, and comets. The aim is to present the most advanced complementary experimental and theoretical methods for studying, analysing or simulating complex matter under relevant conditions, in light of a wealth of new information from observations and extraterrestrial sample returns.