Educational outreach plays an increasing role in the careers of working physicists: many are already involved in outreach, all are being encouraged by the federal granting agencies to share the excitement of their research fields with a broader audience. This workshop will facilitate collaborations among established outreach practitioners in different fields of physics and also give more physicists the encouragement and tools they need to become involved. The central discussion questions will be: What works? What resources are already out there? What does it take to put on effective programs? How can we work together? We are organizing the workshop as a pair of one-week sessions: a) communicating with the public or non-scientists and b) K-12 education. We will design our program so that physicists who are at the Center for a physics workshop will have opportunities to join in our education and outreach sessions.We also plan to invite physicists and educators who will not be regular visitors at the Center; these will be mainly people with experience in education and outreach. The workshop will include time for our experts to interact among themselves, but most of the time will be available for the experts to interact with the Center general population. Some topics may lend themselves to seminars, but most of the time will be spent in smaller working sessions where people share experiences and materials, develop new ideas, and form partnerships.
The phenomenon of dissipation in quantum systems arises in a broad class of physical systems. Yet, the commonality of the underlying structure is not understood and work is done independently within various subdisciplines. One of the aims of this workshop is to develop this commonality and to address the topics listed below. 1. Mathematical physics of dissipative systems. 2. Role of dissipation on quantum critical points. 3. Dissipation at low temperature measurements: Quantum Hall, Superconductor-Insulator, and Superconductor-Metal transitions. 4. Macroscopic quantum coherence in superconducting devices and nanoscale magnets. 5. Spins at atomic and mesoscopic scales. 6. Computational physics of systems coupled to a heat bath. 7. Beyond the paradigm of the linear environment. 8. General relation between measurement, back-action, and dissipation in mesoscopic systems.