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Events – Upcoming
AI-Accelerated Quantum Materials: From Method Development to Novel Materials (AAQM)
8:00am|407 Jadwin Hall, 4th Floor, PCTS Seminar Room
Organizers: Andrei Bernevig and
Leslie Schoop, Shuo Liu, Yi Jiang (Princeton University) JiabinYu,
Benjamin Geisler, Richard Hennig, and Peter Hirschfeld (University
of Florida)
Registration is open. https://forms.gle/KYXWRfP3c9nPpekbA
Description: ...
Some Topological Aspects of Quantum Field Theory in the Continuum and on the Lattice
11:00am|Bloomberg Lecture Hall (IAS)
Abstract: We will review the continuum c=1 conformal field
theory and its lattice description in terms of a modified Villain
model. Then, we will discuss its c=2 version. In
addition to its standard zero-form internal symmetries, the model
also...
12:00pm|Zoom and Green Hall 1-N-5, Princeton University
Events - Previous
Locally Correctable Codes and Cycles in Edge-Colored Graphs
10:30am|Bloomberg Lecture Hall
A locally correctable code (LCC) is an error-correcting code
where one can recover any symbol of the original codeword by
querying only a small number of randomly chosen symbols from the
received corrupted codeword. In recent years, there has been...
A Nearly Quadratic Lower Bound for Linear Optimization over Convex Bodies in the Membership Oracle Model
Santosh Vempala
11:00am|West Lecture Hall and Remote Access
We prove nearly quadratic (in the dimension) lower bounds for
randomized algorithms for two basic problems: linear optimization
and uniform sampling over convex bodies in the membership oracle
model (a convex body K is specified by a point in K, the...
Sharp Bounds for the “Graph” Cholwa Cosine Problem
Julian Sahasrabudhe
11:00am|Simonyi 101 and Remote Access
Last year there were two sensational and independent
breakthroughs on the Chowla cosine problem, each giving polynomial
bounds for the first time. One by Bedert who used a very clever,
but more “direct” Fourier argument. On the other hand, the
other...
Upcoming Talk
Speaker:
Bailey Flanigan, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
When:
Monday, November 16, 2026 | 11:00 AM EST
Where: Simonyi Hall 101 and Remote Access
Abstract
Many societal decisions on which we want collective input — from allocating a public budget to deciding how an automated decision rule should behave — have enormous combinatorial spaces of possible outcomes. The standard approach to eliciting public input in such contexts is to elicit element-level judgments (e.g., which decision rule output a person prefers at a single input) and assume they suffice to reconstruct what people want. In this talk, I will present recent work (Flanigan & Si, EC 2026) showing that such elicitation methods fundamentally cannot identify preference structures that deal with global properties of the outcome, such as ensuring that a budget be balanced over impact categories, or that a decision rule treats like people alike. The preference model underlying this result, which generalizes standard choice models to represent priorities over the entire outcome space, also suggests a way forward: eliciting preferences at the level of global priorities rather than local judgements may recover richer preferences efficiently. I will illustrate this with ongoing work on participatory budgeting and discuss the questions it raises for the foundations of preference elicitation over complex decision spaces.
Upcoming Schedule
Tuesday, Nov 17, 2026 | 10:30am
Benny Applebaum, Tel Aviv University
Bitwise-Optimal Cryptography: From One-Wayness to Pseudorandomness and Target Collision Resistance
Abstract
We study bitwise-optimal cryptographic primitives: functions in NC⁰ (where each output bit depends on only a constant number of input bits) that achieve exponential security, together with linear stretch for pseudorandom generators (PRGs) and linear compression for universal one-way hash functions (UOWHFs).
We show that any exponentially secure one-way function in NC⁰ implies bitwise-optimal PRGs and UOWHFs, establishing an equivalence between these three primitives in this highly efficient regime. Interestingly, such an equivalence is not known for general, unrestricted cryptographic primitives in the exponential-security regime without additional regularity assumptions.
Our proof relies on new structural results on locally computable functions that allow us to remove the regularity assumption required by previous constructions. Along the way, we also establish a projection-based compression theorem for locally samplable sources.
Tuesday, Nov 17, 2026 | 11:30am
Prahladh Harsha, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research
Reed–Solomon Codes at Capacity: Algorithmic List-Decoding and Proximity Gaps
Abstract
Understanding the limits of list-decodability of Reed–Solomon (RS) codes has been one of the most important open problems in algebraic coding theory. In the RS list-decoding problem, we are given $n$ distinct points $a_1, \ldots, a_n$ in a finite field $\mathbb{F}$ and a received word $(y_1, \ldots, y_n) \in \mathbb{F}^n$. The goal is to find all polynomials $P \in \mathbb{F}[X]$ of degree at most $k$ that agree with the received word on at least $A$ points, i.e., $P(a_i) = y_i$ for at least $A$ indices $i$. The central question is how small the agreement $A$ can be while the list of such polynomials stays polynomially small and can be found efficiently. RS codes are said to be list-decodable up to capacity if this is possible for $A = (1+\epsilon)k$, for every $\epsilon > 0$.
Recently, in a remarkable breakthrough, Brakensiek, Chen, Putterman, Zhang, and Zheng showed that RS codes over fields of large characteristic are algorithmically list-decodable all the way up to capacity. Building on this result, Jeronimo subsequently extended these techniques to resolve the proximity-gaps question for RS codes.
In this talk, I’ll give a transparent exposition of these results, with an emphasis on explaining why the approach works. I’ll compare these results with previous approaches and give a complete proof of the algorithmic list-decodability result. Time permitting, I’ll also discuss the extension to the proximity-gaps problem.
Based on joint work with Mrinal Kumar and Ramprasad Saptharishi.
Monday, Nov 23, 2026 | 11:00am
Henry Yuen, Columbia University
Quantum Cryptography for the AI Age
Abstract
Quantum computers will pose a major threat to the cryptography we use today. But quantum physics also lets us do things that are impossible classically. With quantum key distribution, for example, two people can share a secret key without a computational hardness assumption. We can even have digital tokens that can’t be copied, such as quantum money and one-shot signatures.
In this talk I’ll highlight two examples of “quantum-powered cryptography” and speculate about what they might have to do with AI safety and alignment. First, there’s a whole world of quantum cryptographic primitives that rely on fewer mathematical assumptions than we need classically. Given the recent spate of AI cryptanalysis results, there's urgency in finding cryptosystems that rely on as few assumptions as possible.
Second, I will talk about interactive proofs of physical location. Trustworthy proofs of location are not possible in a classical world, but are possible in a quantum world via *quantum position verification* protocols. I will discuss how such protocols may be helpful for problems in AI alignment (e.g., holding AI agents liable for their actions).
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