Statistical Mechanics and Combinatorics of Discrete Planar Structures

This thematic program will bring together experts for the study of discrete planar structures. Such structures play a prominent role in separate recent developments in combinatorics and probability (especially statistical mechanics) and within this program experts from both communities share their perspectives and aim to initiate new approaches to some of the most important problems at the intersection of these areas.

The program will last 7 weeks and feature an Introductory School and two one-week topical workshops, as well as several weeks with a light program to enable collaborations, reading groups and discussions among the participants.

Schedule:

Week 1, Sep 14-18: Introductory School
Week 2, Sep 21-25: Workshop 1: Statistical Mechanics: planar & beyond (co-organised by Nathanael Berestycki, Marcin Lis and Fabio Toninelli --- NB: fully booked
Week 3, Sept 30: Budapest-Vienna Probability Seminar at TU Wien
Week 4: Oct 9-10: Symposium Discrete Mathematics (Day I at ESI, Day II at SkyLounge, OMP1)
Week 5, Oct 12-16:
Week 6, Oct 19-23: Workshop 2: Combinatorics & Asymptotics of discrete planar structures (co-organised by Michael Drmota, Ilse Fischer, Benedikt Stufler) --- NB: fully booked
Week 7, Oct 26-30:

Partial support is acknowledged from the SFB F 1002  "Discrete random structures: enumeration and scaling limits" by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF).

Sept. 14, 2026
09:00 — 09:30
INTRODUCTORY SCHOOL: Welcome & Registration
09:30 — 10:50

Minicourse Class I

10:50 — 11:10
Coffee break
11:10 — 12:30
Rick Kenyon (Yale U, New Haven)

Dimers and Webs
Minicourse Class I

12:30 — 15:00
Lunch break
15:00 — 15:45
Ilse Fischer (U of Vienna)

Exercise Class I

15:45 — 16:00
Coffee break
16:00 — 16:45
Rick Kenyon (Yale U, New Haven)

Exercise Class 1

Sept. 15, 2026
09:00 — 10:30
Ilse Fischer (U of Vienna)

Alternating Sign Matrices and Plane Partitions
Minicourse Class II

10:30 — 11:00
Coffee break
11:00 — 12:30
Rick Kenyon (Yale U, New Haven)

Dimers and Webs
Minicourse Class II

12:30 — 14:30
Lunch break
14:30 — 15:15
Ilse Fischer (U of Vienna)

Exercise Class II

15:15 — 15:45
Coffee break
15:45 — 16:45
Discussion
Sept. 16, 2026
09:00 — 10:30
Rick Kenyon (Yale U, New Haven)

Dimers and Webs
Minicourse Class III

10:30 — 11:00
Coffee break
11:00 — 12:30
Ioan Manolescu (U of Fribourg)

GFF Convergence for the Height Function of the Six-vertex Model
Minicourse Class I

12:30 — 14:30
Lunch break & free afternoon
Sept. 17, 2026
09:00 — 10:30
Ioan Manolescu (U of Fribourg)

GFF Convergence for the Height Function of the Six-vertex Model
Minicourse Class II

10:30 — 11:00
Coffee break
11:00 — 12:30
Ilse Fischer (U of Vienna)

Alternating Sign Matrices and Plane Partitions
Minicourse Class III

12:30 — 14:30
Lunch break
14:30 — 15:15
Rick Kenyon (Yale U, New Haven)

Exercise Class II

15:15 — 15:45
Coffee break
15:45 — 16:30
Ioan Manolescu (U of Fribourg)

Exercise Class I

Sept. 18, 2026
09:30 — 11:00
Ioan Manolescu (U of Fribourg)

GFF Convergence for the Height Function of the Six-vertex Model
Minicourse Class III

11:00 — 11:30
Coffee break
11:30 — 12:15
Ioan Manolescu (U of Fribourg)

Exercise Class II

Sept. 21, 2026
09:30 — 10:00
Workshop I “Statistical Mechanics: planar & beyond": Welcome & Registration
10:00 — 10:50
Beatrice De Tiliere Beatrice de Tiliere (U Paris-Dauphine)
Classification of (non)-frustrated 2D Ising models in genus 1
11:00 — 11:30
Coffee break
11:30 — 12:20
12:20 — 14:15
Lunch
14:15 — 15:05
15:15 — 15:45
Coffee break
Sept. 22, 2026
09:00 — 09:50
Cristina Toninelli (CEREMADE, Paris)
Mixing time and cutoff for a lifted lazy TASEP
10:00 — 10:30
Coffee break
10:30 — 11:20
Cedric Boutillier (SU, Paris)
Dimers on Speyer crosses-and-wrenches graphs
11:30 — 12:20
12:20 — 14:15
Lunch
14:15 — 15:05
Marianna Russkikh (Notre Dame du Lac)
From Dimers to Maximal Surfaces in Minkowski Space R^{2,2}
15:15 — 15:45
Coffee break
Sept. 23, 2026
09:00 — 09:50
10:00 — 10:30
Coffee break
10:30 — 11:20
Franco Severo
11:30 — 12:20
12:20 — 14:15
Lunch & free afternoon
18:30 — 22:00
Social Dinner
Sept. 24, 2026
10:00 — 10:30
Coffee break
10:30 — 11:20
Leonie Papon
11:30 — 12:20
Alexander Glazman
12:20 — 14:15
Lunch
14:15 — 15:05
Zijie Zhuang
15:15 — 15:45
Coffee break
15:45 — 16:35
Jesper Jacobsen
Sept. 25, 2026
09:30 — 10:20
Harry Giles
10:30 — 11:00
Coffee break
11:00 — 11:50
Lorca Heeney-Brockett
11:50 — 12:50
Eveliina Peltola
Sept. 30, 2026
Budapest-Vienna Probability Seminar

Please see the event page: https://sites.google.com/view/budapest-vienna-proba-semi/home

Oct. 9, 2026
DAY I: Symposium Discrete Mathematics
Oct. 10, 2026
DAY II: Symposium Discrete Mathematics
Oct. 19, 2026
DAY I: Workshop II
Oct. 20, 2026
DAY II: Workshop II
Oct. 21, 2026
DAY III: Workshop III
Oct. 22, 2026
DAY IV: Workshop II
Oct. 23, 2026
DAY V: Workshop II
This event has no subevents associated to it.

Organizers

Name Affiliation
Nathanael Berestycki University of Vienna
Michael Drmota Vienna University of Technology
Ilse Fischer University of Vienna
Mihyun Kang Technical University of Graz
Astrid Kollros University of Vienna
Christian Krattenthaler University of Vienna
Marcin Lis Vienna University of Technology
Benedikt Stufler Vienna University of Technology
Fabio Toninelli Vienna University of Technology

Attendees

Name Affiliation
Niklas Affolter Vienna University of Technology
Akshat Agarwal Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Melda Akyazi Universität Wien
Marie Albenque CNRS Paris
Tomas Alcalde Lopez TU Wien
Daniel Amankwah University of Iceland
Morris Ang University of California, San Diego
Arvind Ayyer Indian Institute of Science
Fabien Baeriswyl TU Wien
Mikhail Basok University of Helsinki
David Beck-Tiefenbach Universität Innsbruck
Tomas Berggren University of South Florida
Vladimir Boskovic IPhT Saclay
Mireille Bousquet-Mélou Université de Bordeaux
Cedric Boutillier Sorbonne Université, Paris
Timothy Budd Radboud University
Fabian Burghart Technische Universität Graz
Amelia Carpenter University of Cambridge
Guillaume Chapuy Université Paris Cité
Sunil Chhita Durham University
Mihai Ciucu Indiana University
Orphee Collin TU Wien
Filippo Colomo Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare
Nicolas Curien University Paris Saclay
Lorenzo Vito Dal Zovo Politecnico di Torino
Beatrice de Tiliere Université Paris-Dauphine
Philippe Di Francesco University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Yuyang Feng University of Chicago
Thorbjorn Frommelt École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne
Eric Fusy Université Gustave Eiffel
Moritz Gangl Universität Wien
Christophe Garban Université Lyon 1
Simon Garger University of Cambridge
Anna Geisler Technische Universität Graz
Henry Giles TU Wien
Alexander Glazman Universität Innsbruck
Mie Kano Glückstad University of Oxford
Vadim Gorin University of California, Berkeley
Max Gutkin Technische Universität Graz
Xiao Han École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne
Ulrik Hansen Universität Innsbruck
Levi Haunschmid-Sibitz KTH Stockholm
Lorca Heeney TU Wien
Tyler Helmuth Durham University
Benjamin Holland Young University of Bath
Hans Höngesberg Universität Wien
Daoji Huang University of Massachusetts Amherst
Jesper Jacobsen École Normale Supérieure
Richard Kenyon Yale University
Borislav Kirilov Universität Wien
Matjaz Konvalinka University of Ljubljana
Jonas Köppl University of Münster
Michael Krivelevich Tel Aviv University
Nishu Kumari Universität Wien
Hubert Lacoin Institudo Nacional de Matemática Pura e Aplicada
Wai Yeung Lam University of Luxembourg
Jean-François Le Gall University Paris Saclay
Yueheng Li Sorbonne Université, Paris
Lyuben Lichev TU Wien
Haoyu Liu Peking University
Mike Liu Technische Universität Graz
Titus Lupu Sorbonne Université, Paris
Victor J. Maciá Universidad de la Laguna
Mirmukhsin Makhmudov University of Oulu
Cyril Marzouk CNRS & Ecole Polytechnique, Palaiseau
Gregory Miermont Ecole Normale Superieure de Lyon
Yago Moreno Alonso TU Delft
Quentin Moulard TU Wien
Sigurður Örn Stefánsson University of Iceland
Konstantinos Panagiotou LMU München
Yihao Pang Université Paris Cité
Romain Panis Université Lyon 1
Greta Panova University of Southern California
Léonie Papon Vienna University of Technology
Eveliina Peltola Aalto University
Leonid Petrov University of Virginia
Mateusz Piorkowski KTH Royal Institute of Technology
Fabio Plaga TU Wien
Istvan Prause Åbo Akademi University
Sanjay Ramassamy IPhT Saclay
Markus Reibnegger Universität Wien
Marianna Russkikh University of Notre Dame du Lac
Kieran Ryan TU Wien
Zéphyr Salvy TU Wien
Koka Sathwik École Normale Supérieure
Michael Schlosser University of Vienna
Marcus Schönfelder Universität Wien
Jeanne Scott University of Minnesota
Franco Severo Sorbonne Université, Paris
Rebecca Steiner Johannes-Gutenberg Universität Mainz
Jessica Striker North Dakota State University
Xin Sun Peking University
Yi Tian University of Cambridge
Cristina Toninelli CEREMADE University Paris Dauphine
Diederik Van Engelenburg TU Wien
Ronen Wdowinski Technische Universität Graz
Atsuro Yoshida Universität Wien
Benjamin Young University Of Oregon
Yizheng Yuan Universität Wien
Konstantinos Zampetakis Technische Universität Dortmund
César Zarco Romero Weierstrass Institute Berlin
Zijie Zhuang University of Pennsylvania
At a glance
Type:
Thematic Programme
When:
Sept. 14, 2026 — Oct. 30, 2026
Where:
ESI Boltzmann Lecture Hall
Organizer(s):
Nathanael Berestycki (U of Vienna)
Michael Drmota (TU Wien)
Ilse Fischer (U of Vienna)
Mihyun Kang (TU Graz)
Astrid Kollros (U of Vienna)
Christian Krattenthaler (U of Vienna)
Marcin Lis (TU Wien)
Benedikt Stufler (TU Wien)
Fabio Toninelli (TU Wien)