2026 Simons Collaboration on Extreme Wave Phenomena Based on Symmetries Annual Meeting

Thursday, October 22, 2026

Friday, October 23, 2026

Nader Engheta
University of Pennsylvania

Light-Based Computing with Symmetry-Inspired Metastructures

Can we design material so that, as light propagates through it, computation
naturally takes place in the physical domain? This question has motivated
Nader Engheta’s exploration of metamaterials and metastructures as
physical platforms for analog computing. By tailoring the spatial structure
and electromagnetic response of materials, mathematical operations can be
mapped onto the interaction between waves and matter, allowing the output
field to represent the result of a desired computation. Over the past decades,
Engheta has explored this paradigm from computational metamaterials
performing differentiation, integration, and convolution to inverse-designed
structures that solve equations, invert matrices, and execute multiple
computations in parallel. Engheta has extended these concepts to ultrathin
optical metasurfaces and integrated silicon-photonic platforms and, more
recently, to reconfigurable machines capable of implementing iterative
algorithms, root finding, and inverse design. These developments point
toward a broader vision of “computing with waves,” in which carefully
structured matter becomes part of the algorithm and computation occurs as
the wave propagates — potentially enabling compact, parallel, low-power,
and ultrafast processors that complement conventional digital computing
architectures. However, there are still challenges, including scalability and
programmability. In this talk, after a brief review of previous work, Engheta
will give a progress report on ongoing efforts to address some of these
challenges.

Shanhui Fan
Stanford University

Computation for Classical and Quantum Light Using Optical Structures

The energy band theory describes the relationship between the energy and
the wavevectors. Historically, band theory was first developed for Hermitian
systems where the energy and the wavevectors are taken to be real. For
non-Hermitian systems, the energy and the wavevectors are necessarily
complex in general. The band structure, which is a mapping between the
complex wavevectors and the complex energy, is then best described by a
Riemann surface. In this talk, Shanhui Fan discusses the understanding of
various aspects of non-Hermitian band topology from the perspective of
Riemann surface and provides the first experimental measurement of the full
Riemann surface using the platform of synthetic frequency dimension.

Douglas Stone
Yale University

A Minimally Parameterized Approach to Inverse Design: Peeking Inside the Black Box

Complex spectra have been explored extensively in the past decade and within the Simons Collaboration on Extreme Wave Phenomena, however not until very recently have they been seen as a tool for controlling scattering generally in spatially complex geometries with multiple scattering of waves. In the current work, Douglas Stone shows that a general class of complex spectra, termed critically constrained scattering modes (CCONs), provide the building blocks for solving complicated higher dimensional (in parameter space) optimization problems required for functionalizing waves for information processing and power handling functions. In particular, coincidences of complex eigenvalues can provide full control of any steady-state scattering process described by a linear S-matrix. This approach provides a predictive framework for estimating the minimum number of tunable parameters required to find a solution for given optimization target expressible in terms of the S-matrix, bringing a new tool to bear on realistic inverse design problems of interest in modern photonics. This approach is based on the conjecture that the minimum parameter set is determined by the codimension of the sub-manifold corresponding to the imposed constraints on the S-matrix and is validated in statistical studies of optimization across the most relevant ensembles (reciprocal/non-reciprocal, lossless/lossy). The robustness of the approach is due to the analytic properties of S-matrices; it applies to all the linear wave equations of physics, classical and quantum.

Tsampikos Kottos
Wesleyan University

Symmetry-Driven In-Situ Physical Adjoint Optimization Protocols

 Controlling waves in complex media is a grand challenge with implications for wireless communications, sensing, imaging, energy delivery, and wave-based computing. Yet the most promising platforms — multiple-scattering, nonlinear, and wave-chaotic systems — are also among the hardest to model and optimize. Tsampikos Kottos will present a symmetry-based, unified framework for in-situ adjoint optimization in which, depending on the system’s symmetry class, the physical system itself performs much of the computation required for its own optimal design. By combining forward and adjoint wave excitations, the method identifies local perturbations that steer transport toward desired functionalities with high time and energy efficiency. In strongly reverberant environments, repeated wave–perturbation interactions amplify the effect of small local changes. Kottos will discuss microwave and RF experiments demonstrating targeted channel emission, coherent perfect absorption, wave camouflage, and spatiotemporal wave control, and outline opportunities in wireless control, adaptive imaging, power-electronic networks, and optical and RF neural computing.

Eitan Bachmat
Ben Gurion University

Hyperbolic Wave Propagation at the Crossroad of Enumerative Combinatorics and Cosmology

 In this talk, Eitan Bachmat will consider a certain type of implementation of a 2-D hyperbolic metamaterial which has emerged in the last decade. The 3-D printed implementation consists of a flat base (continuous component) with many rectangular pins/spikes (a discrete component). The number, shapes, locations, and orientations of the pins are all controllable, leading to a huge and flexible design space. In addition, we can decide where to start a disturbance and at what frequency and follow the resulting mechanical wave propagation.

Bachmat will sketch some components of a program to study wave propagations in this setting, claiming that this is a math/physics/engineering sweet spot, where many different research areas converge, including enumerative combinatorics (e.g., Stanley’s chain and order polytopes, linear extensions, poset entropy), (integrable) probability and statistical mechanics (e.g., KPZ universality, last passage percolation, longest (and heaviest) increasing subsequences), cosmology, spacetime geometry, causal set theory and low regularity/synthetic geometry (e.g., curvature, conjugate points, time functions, optimal transport), project management (e.g., Gantt charts, CPM, PERT), and (obviously) optics and wave propagation (e.g., Fermat’s principle, ray tracing, wave fronts, phase accumulation, the Maxwell–Garnett theory of composites).

Three ingredients that Bachmat hopes to emphasize will be:

• Inherent dualities and a group action which generalizes them
• A point of view which considers (moduli) spaces of all possible wave propagations
• Building of analogies and dictionaries between many of the concepts considered above

This is based on work done as a fellow of the Simons Collaboration on Extreme Wave Phenomenon with Andrea Alù, Simon Yves, Enrico Maria Renzi, Diana Strickland, and Sveinung Erland. AI has not been involved in this research so far.

Alexander Khanikaev
University of Central Florida

Symmetry-Engineered Multidimensional Quantum Entanglement for Information Processing

Topological defects and topological boundaries of different dimensions have driven a paradigm shift in photonics, where topological photonic crystals and metamaterials can be engineered to create one-way flow of energy robust to defects or to control such flows with synthetic degrees of freedom along topological domain walls. More recently, topological point singularities encoded into photonic structures have been shown to enable confinement of optical modes with the topologically nontrivial nature of the cavity imprinted into the vorticity of optical far fields. In the first part of Alexander Khanikaev’s talk, he will demonstrate that the two latter concepts — domain wall and point singularities — can be unified into an even more powerful tool to enable arbitrarily shaped resonant cavities of any dimension supporting spectrally stable “zero-energy” modes. Such modes, whose existence is guaranteed by topological principles and can be experimentally confirmed, allow an unprecedented degree of control over the optical field, which appears to have no phase modulation across space, can have any desirable radiation pattern, and enables spectral stability regardless of shape or length. In the second part of his talk, Khanikaev will introduce a fundamentally new route to quantum entanglement of light that relies on symmetry-engineered optical modes for quantum-state generation. This concept is realized in mass-modulated chiral lattices which hosts multiple co-localized bound states endowed with a symmetry-protected pseudospin (chirality) generated by the sublattice symmetry, which is also referred to as chiral symmetry. Importantly, the underlying chiral symmetry imposes selection rules that enable the efficient generation of photon pairs entangled in their chirality degree of freedom. This establishes a previously unexplored platform for multidimensional chirality entanglement and opens a path toward hyperdimensional quantum states involving multiple modes and multiple degrees of freedom simultaneously.

Mário Silveirinha
University of Lisbon

Active Wave Processing with Broken Symmetries

In this talk, Mário Silveirinha will discuss how broken spatial, temporal, and material symmetries can be used to create active and unconventional wave responses. Silveirinha will focus first on spacetime-modulated systems, where synthetic motion and temporal modulation can enable frequency conversion, nonreciprocity, amplification, and effective responses that are not available in static media. Recent approaches based on low-symmetry conductors will be highlighted, including regimes in which material nonlinearities can generate effective temporal modulation and active behavior. Silveirinha will then discuss systems with gain, where broken symmetries can lead to unusual fluctuation and transport phenomena, including directional flows of energy and momentum and connections with non-Hermitian physics. Taken together, these results illustrate how symmetry breaking can provide new ways to control amplification, nonreciprocity, frequency conversion, and transport in electromagnetic systems.

Andrea Alù
City University of New York

Symmetry-Driven Wave-Based Computing

In this talk, Andrea Alù discusses recent progress within the Simons Collaboration on Extreme Wave Phenomena Driven by Symmetry focused on wave-based computing using metasurfaces. In particular, Alù will focus on the role of symmetries in space and time to tailor, process, and compute with light and radio-waves, with the goal of establishing a zero-latency and low-energy platform to process signals and compute in the analog domain. Photonic engineering is leveraged to control and process the spectrum, both temporal and spatial, of the incoming signals with a high spatial density of computational degrees of freedom. The resulting metasurfaces support a plethora of responses ideally suited for a range of photonic and communication technologies, from image and signal processing to computing, involving both space and time domains. With a series of experimental demonstrations, Alù will discuss the basic principles and the opportunities for analog image processing, augmented reality, and secure communications, spanning a plethora of wave and frequency domains.

Participation in the meeting falls into the following four categories. An individual’s participation category is communicated via their letter of invitation.

The Simons Foundation will never ask for credit card information or require payment for registration to our events.

Group A – Speakers & Organizers

Individuals in Group A receive travel and hotel coordination within the following parameters:

Travel
Economy Class: For flights that are three hours or less to your destination, the maximum allowable class of service is Economy class.
Premium Economy Class: For flights where the total air travel time (excluding connection time) is more than three hours and less than seven hours per segment to your destination, the maximum allowable class of service is premium economy.
Business Class: When traveling internationally (or to Hawaii/Alaska) travelers are permitted to travel in Business Class on those segments that are seven hours or more. If the routing is over budget, a premium economy or mixed-class ticket will be booked.

Hotel
Up to 3 nights at the conference hotel, arriving on Wednesday, October 21, 2026 and departing on Saturday, October 24, 2026.

Group B – Funded Participants

Individuals in Group B receive travel and hotel coordination within the following parameters:

Travel
Economy class travel will be booked regardless of flight length.

Hotel
Up to 3 nights at the conference hotel, arriving on Wednesday, October 21, 2026 and departing on Saturday, October 24, 2026.

Group C – Unfunded Participants

Individuals in Group C will not receive financial support but are encouraged to enjoy all conference-hosted meals.

Group D – Remote Participants

Individuals in Group D will participate in the meeting remotely.

Air and Rail

For funded individuals, the foundation will arrange and pay for round-trip travel from their home city to the conference city. All travel and hotel arrangements must be booked through the Simons Foundation’s preferred travel agency.

Travel Deviations

The following travel specifications are considered deviations and will only be accommodated if the cost is less than or equal to the amount the Simons Foundation would pay for a standard round-trip ticket from your home city to the conference city:

• Preferred airline
• Preferred travel class
• Specific flights/flight times
• Travel dates outside those associated with the conference
• Arriving or departing from an airport other than your home city or conference city airports, i.e. multi-segment or triangle trips.

All deviations must be reviewed and approved by the Simons Foundation and, if the cost is more than what would normally be paid, a reimbursement quote must be obtained through the foundation’s travel agency before proceeding to booking and paying for travel out of pocket. All reimbursements for travel booked directly will be paid after the conclusion of the meeting.

Changes After Ticketing

All costs related to changes made to ticketed travel are to be paid for by the participant and are not reimbursable. Please contact the foundation’s travel agency for further assistance.

Personal & Rental Cars

Personal car and rental trips over 250 miles each way require prior approval from the Simons Foundation via email.

Rental cars must be pre-approved by the Simons Foundation.

The Hotel Seville NoMad offers valet parking. Please note there are no in-and-out privileges when using the hotel’s garage, therefore it is encouraged that participants walk or take public transportation to the Simons Foundation.

Hotel

Funded individuals who require hotel accommodations are hosted by the foundation for a maximum of 3 nights at the conference hotel, arriving on Wednesday, October 21, 2026 and departing on Saturday, October 24, 2026.

Any additional nights are at the attendee’s own expense. To arrange accommodations, please register at the link included in your invitation.

Hotel Seville NoMad
22 E 29th St
New York, NY 10016
(between 28th and 29th Streets)
Hotel Seville NoMad Website

For driving directions to the Hotel Seville NoMad, please click here.

Overview

In-person participants will be reimbursed for meals and local expenses including ground transportation. Expenses should be submitted through the foundation’s online expense reimbursement platform after the meeting’s conclusion.

Expenses accrued because of meetings not directly related to the Simons Foundation-hosted meeting (a satellite meeting or meeting held at another institution, for example) will not be reimbursed by the Simons Foundation and should be paid by other sources.

Below are key reimbursement takeaways; a full policy will be provided with the final logistics email circulated approximately 2 weeks prior to the meeting’s start.

Meals

The daily meal limit is $125; itemized receipts are required for expenses over $24 USD. The foundation DOES NOT provide a meal per diem and only reimburses actual meal expenses up the following amounts.

• Breakfast $20
• Lunch $30
• Dinner $75

Allowable Meal Expenses

• Meals taken on travel days (when you traveled by air or train).
• Meals not provided on a meeting day, dinner on Friday for example.
• Group dinners consisting of fellow meeting participants paid by a single person will be reimbursed up to $75 per person and the amount will count towards the $125 daily meal limit.

Unallowable Meal Expenses

• Meals taken outside those provided by the foundation (breakfast, lunch, breaks and/or dinner).
• Meals taken on days not associated with Simons Foundation-coordinated events.
• Minibar expenses.
• Meal expenses for a non-foundation guest.

• Ubers, Lyfts, taxis, etc., taken to and from restaurants in Manhattan.

  • Accommodations will be made for those with mobility restrictions.

Ground Transportation

Expenses for ground transportation will be reimbursed for travel days (i.e. traveling to/from the airport or train station) as well as subway and bus fares while in Manhattan are reimbursable.

Transportation to/from satellite meetings are not reimbursable.

Attendance

In-person participants and speakers are expected to attend all meeting days. Participants receiving hotel and travel support wishing to arrive on meeting days which conclude at 2:00 PM will be asked to attend remotely.

Entry & Building Access

Upon arrival, guests will be required to show their photo ID to enter the Simons Foundation and Flatiron Institute buildings. After checking-in at the meeting reception desk, guests will be able to show their meeting name badge to re-enter the building. If you forget your name badge, you will need to provide your photo ID.

The Simons Foundation and Flatiron Institute buildings are not considered “open campuses” and meeting participants will only have access to the spaces in which the meeting will take place. All other areas are off limits without prior approval.

If you require a private space to conduct a phone call or remote meeting, please contact your meeting manager at least 48-hours ahead of time so that they may book a space for you within the foundation’s room reservation system.

Guests & Children

Meeting participants are required to give 24-hour advance notice of any guests meeting them at the Simons Foundation either before or after the meeting. Outside guests are discouraged from joining meeting activities, including meals.

With the exception of Simons Foundation and Flatiron Institute staff, ad hoc meeting participants who did not receive a meeting invitation directly from the Simons Foundation are not permitted.

Children under the age of 18 are not permitted to attend meetings at the Simons Foundation. Furthermore, the Simons Foundation does not provide childcare facilities or support of any kind. Special accommodations will be made for nursing parents.

Meeting & Policy Questions

Christina Darras
Events Manager
[email protected]

Travel & Hotel Support

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