By Wendy Greenberg
The establishment of the Max Planck IAS-NTU Center (MPC) for Particle Physics, Cosmology, and Geometry will broaden and enhance the capability for collaborative research among the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) in Princeton and its partner institutions.
The Center, which will allow for better understanding of the theories of the universe, is a collaborative research initiative between the Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science (MPG) in Germany; the IAS; and National Taiwan University (NTU) in Taipei, Taiwan.
“Since its founding in 1930, IAS has worked to convene global talent to enable foundational discovery,” said Lee Sandberg, a spokesperson for the Institute. “This new Center, comprised of three world-leading institutions — Max Planck, IAS, and NTU — establishes a robust collaborative network that will bring the brightest minds to bear on the most fundamental questions of the universe.”
Over the years, the three institutions have enjoyed various opportunities for intellectual exchange, and IAS has welcomed researchers from both institutions to conduct research, as members of IAS, and to take part in seminars and conferences, Sandberg noted.
The Center begins operations this month, with five years of initial funding. An opening symposium at NTU will take place from September 1-3, and a kick-off conference at IAS is planned for March 16-20, 2026.
The three co-directors of the Center are Johannes Henn, now based at the Max Planck Institute for Physics in Germany, Nima Arkani-Hamed at IAS, and Daniel Baumann of NTU.
“By uniting the expertise and scientific potential of its three founding partners under a single umbrella, the Center forms a global hub for excellence and knowledge transfer in theoretical physics,” stated Henn, who is the Marvin L. Goldberger Member (2011–15) in the School of Natural Sciences, now based at MPP. “It enables collaborative research across institutional and disciplinary boundaries, fostering synergies that span from novel mathematical frameworks relevant to quantum field theory to interactions of elementary particles and to the physics of the early universe.”
Particle physics seeks to understand the fundamental building blocks of matter at scales smaller than the proton or neutron, while cosmology considers the structure and evolution of the universe on the largest scales. recently, surprising new connections have emerged between particle physics, cosmology, and geometry, hinting at radical new ways of conceptualizing the physics of particle scattering and the initial conditions of the Big Bang, according to an IAS press release on the Center.
By uniting these three disciplines, researchers hope to gain new insights into the universe that would otherwise be inaccessible from the perspective of each field alone. In this way, the Center will act as a cosmic Rosetta Stone, aimed at deciphering the deep mysteries of the universe.
“One of the most remarkable discoveries of modern cosmology is that the hot Big Bang was not the beginning of time. A fascinating question is what happened before the hot Big Bang and how it created the initial conditions for the structures we see in the late universe,” said Baumann, William D. Loughlin Member (2009–11) in the School of Natural Sciences, now Chee-Chun Leung Professor of Cosmology at NTU. “By joining together experts in the fields of particle physics, cosmology, and geometry, we hope that this Center will produce new insights into these profound questions about the early universe and the physical laws that governed it.”
“A decade ago, it would have seemed absurd to particle physicists and cosmologists that the description of colliding elementary particles at accelerators or the generation of density perturbations during inflation would have anything whatsoever to do with aspects of combinatorics, algebra, and geometry. This connection would have seemed equally absurd to the mathematicians,” remarked Arkani-Hamed, Gopal Prasad Professor in the School of Natural Sciences. “That these developments have come to pass has been an extremely stimulating shock to all three communities. I expect this Center to allow us to take major strides in understanding what this surprise is all about.”
Funding from IAS for this initiative was made possible by the Jonathan M. Nelson Center for Collaborative Research, which is dedicated to advancing foundational knowledge and facilitating the conditions for discovery. The MPC is among the first approved projects of the Nelson Center, which is supporting collaborations between scholars and across disciplines and institutions to reimagine the future of research.
Two of the directors were themselves former Members of IAS, said Sandberg.
Max Planck Centers (MPCs) are collaborative research initiatives between the Max Planck Society in Germany and leading research institutions abroad. These centers serve as hubs of excellence, bringing together top scientists from different countries to work on cutting-edge scientific questions across various disciplines. Each center is formed through a partnership between one or more Max Planck Institutes and international institutions. The centers concentrate on specific research themes, enabling deep and sustained collaboration in well-defined scientific areas, and promote scientific exchange, especially for junior scientists, via joint workshops, shared projects, and cross-institutional training. Max Planck Centers are initially established for five years, with the possibility of an extension of five years after successful evaluation. They symbolize a long-term commitment to collaborative science at the highest level.
The IAS is a leading center for theoretical research and discovery dedicated to advancing the frontiers of knowledge across the sciences and humanities. Each year, 250 of the world’s most promising post-doctoral researchers and scholars are welcomed as members to a campus dedicated to collaboration, excellence, and independent inquiry. They are mentored by a permanent faculty, all of whom are preeminent leaders in their fields.