Scope

"Sessions in Physics: Advancing Research and Knowledge" (SPARK) is a new program of scientific reunions and workshops in San Sebastian, set to start in September 2026. Every year, one or several events will each bring together around 30 scientists for a self-organized four-weeks program at DIPC (San Sebastian, Basque Country, Spain) — to explore a select research topic through small-group collaborations, informal seminars, tutorials, and lectures.

The program's inaugural workshop is titled “Exotic quantum matter: New Strategies for Measurement and Control”:

EQM-MC program: September 7-October 3, 2026

Satellite workshop: September 30- October 2, 2026 

Quantum many-body effects underlie exotic properties of quantum matter, such as unconventional superconductivity, topological order, quantum magnetism. Recent advances in measurement and control techniques give microscopic access to these effects, and allow for unprecedented tools to study quantum correlations and fluctuations across a broad range of systems, via the quantum-gas microscope, STM-ESR, the quantum twisting microscope, or reconfigurable lattices. These tools can be used to test theoretical concepts to characterize correlated matter, such as entanglement witnesses, entropies, non-local order parameters, or spatial and temporal correlation functions.

The 2026 pilot edition of the San Sebastian Session in Physics will bring together experts working with different quantum platforms —including ultracold atoms, Rydberg arrays, van der Waals heterostructures, and atoms/spins on surfaces - as well as theorists developing methods to describe quantum many-body effects. This will set the stage for potentially fruitful exchange between the researchers of different backgrounds and perspectives, but with a shared interest in microscopic mechanisms behind exotic phases of matter. This exchange will explore the potential of state-of-the-art methods to create, probe, and manipulate quantum correlations beyond mean-field approaches.