Prof. Giacomo Gradenigo - From statistical ensembles to quantum field theory

by Prof. Giacomo Gradenigo (DFA)

Tuesday 10 Feb 2026, 14:30 → 15:30 Europe/Rome

1/1-1 - Aula "A. Rostagni" (Dipartimento di Fisica e Astronomia - Edificio Marzolo)

In this talk I will overview some recent results and directions of my research. 

While in most cases statistical ensembles furnish an equivalent description

of the different phases and phase transitions usually found in classical statistical mechanics and condensed matter, there are nevertheless noticeable exceptions. They are represented, for instance, by the localization transition in the Discrete Non-Linear Schroedinger Equation and Bose-Einsten condensation for free bosons, for which I will sketch some recente results showing that the lack of equivalence between statistical ensembles manifests in an interesting and profound way. Inspired by these results I recently proposed a functional approach to quantum field theory and quantum mechanics named symplectic quantization.

I will present some numerical results showing  that symplectic quantization, 

by means of an appropriate generalized microcanonical ensemble,

seems so far able to circumvent the typical sign problem encountered in

trying a real-time numerical approach to both quantum field theory and quantum mechanics.