This Brainstorm workshop supported by the Institute for Advanced Studies (IAS) at the University of Luxembourg is aimed to bring together experts in various research fields of quantum theory (including quantum chemistry, quantum electrodynamics, quantum field theory, quantum information, and quantum computing). The limited number of high-level participants should ensure intensive and fruitful discussions between all participants with a good opportunity to reinforce existing and establish new collaborations.

Quantum chemistry and quantum field theory correspond to two disparate research fields, which for a long time have been showing no practical intersections. Quantum chemistry studies atomic and molecular systems, as well as materials, from the standard quantum-mechanical point of view, based on the consideration of matter as consisting of different particles (like electrons, protons, and neutrons). In contrast to such a particle-based description, quantum field theory deals with different quantum fields and describes particles as excited states of their underlying quantum fields, which are assumed to be more fundamental than the particles. Such a more general and unified consideration of nature delivers a complete description of all phenomena related to physical processes within material objects and quantum (vacuum) fields as well as all interactions between material objects and quantum fields. For a long time, this complete description of nature within the research field of quantum chemistry remained just a theoretical concept without real applications, due to its very demanding practical aspects. However, the state of the art in the biotech and pharma industries requires researchers to develop robust methods for efficient description of structural and dynamical properties of molecular systems, consisting of millions of atoms, with a high accuracy. Similar to crystals, for large (bio)molecules, the methods of quantum field theory (like the second-quantization formalism for collective excitations) become more attractive for practical applications than the conventional particle-based description commonly used in quantum chemistry. Thus, for further progress in this research field, quantum chemists inevitably need to employ quantum field theory.

The aim of the planned workshop is to bring together scientists from the two research fields and initiate their world-wide collaborative work on the solution of the aforementioned problems by developing robust methods for description of large (bio)molecules consisting of millions of atoms. As a result, a new strong and large interdisciplinary scientific community should be eventually established, aimed to significantly facilitate the progress in several areas of industrial applications, including hot topics such as nanotechnologies, biotechnologies, and pharmaceuticals.