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September 1, 2021 – August 31, 2024 · DOE · Award 578218

Complex Systems and the Quantum Universe

Complex Systems and the Quantum Universe

We are part of a multi-institution consortium that brings together researchers with expertise in high energy physics and quantum information, funded through the DOE Quantum Information Enabled Discovery (QuantISED) program. At Penn State, our focus is on understanding open quantum systems and quantum thermodynamics from the perspective of cosmology and particle physics.

For more information about the broader goals and group, see the consortium website: https://www.qiqg.org/.

Amount: $130,000

About our wordmark
Monica Rincon Ramirez

The IGC wordmark was created by Monica Rincon Ramirez while she was a graduate student at the Institute. Monica enjoys drawing new connections between fundamental theory and observations. Her graduate work included general relativity, loop quantum gravity, and quantum fields in cosmological backgrounds; her thesis focused on effective quantum corrections to gravitational phenomena from spinfoams and applications to cosmology. She received her PhD in 2024.

The wordmark symbolizes the scope of research at the IGC. The base represents quantum gravity, evoking the quantum geometrical picture from spinfoams and loop quantum gravity — approaches studied at the Center for Fundamental Theory. The middle shows galaxies embedded in a smooth surface characteristic of spacetime in general relativity and the larger physical scales studied at the Center for Theoretical and Observational Cosmology. The top curves to an extreme representing a supermassive black hole accompanied by an energetic jet, with a binary black hole pair nearby — the high-energy phenomena studied at the Center for Multimessenger Astrophysics.