We’re delighted to announce that the large-scale project, Quantitative Spatio-Temporal Model-Building for Correlated Electronic Matter (QUAST), launched on February 1. Research groups from Germany, Austria, and Switzerland will jointly develop computational methods to simulate complex materials, in direct collaboration with experimental teams that investigate them in the laboratory. TU Wien is making an important contribution with the research teams of Sabine Andergassen, Silke Bühler-Paschen, Karsten Held, and Alessandro Toschi.

The research project is funded by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF), the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG), and the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF), and brings together roughly five million euros in funding, with over one million euros for TU Wien.

The focus of the project lies on quantum phase transitions — changes in the state of a material that are not triggered by temperature, but purely by quantum mechanical effects. Such transitions occur at absolute zero temperature and play a decisive role in phenomena such as magnetism or superconductivity. These effects must be explained quantum mechanically at the smallest scale — at the level of electrons. Nevertheless, they determine the macroscopic behavior of materials. A particular challenge in this context is posed by non-local interactions: electrons influence each other not only at their immediate location, but also across larger distances. These effects are theoretically difficult to capture, yet essential for accurately describing complex quantum materials.

QUAST researchers aim to contribute to a better understanding of these relationships through new theoretical models and through close collaboration with experimental work within the research network. QUAST links several key research areas at TU Wien: materials research, quantum research, and computational research. Particularly at the interface of these fields, TU Wien has repeatedly achieved international recognition in recent years. Through its leading role in the new international project, TU Wien is strengthening its profile and contributing to a broader European effort to better understand and describe today’s quantum materials.

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