Organizers: Yasuhito Narita[1], Bruce Tsurutani[2], George Morales[3], Gurbax Lakhina[4], and Masahiro Hoshino[5]
Local organization by Y. Narita[1], U. Motschmann[1], M. Iizawa[1], and C. Vocks[6]
[1] Technical University of Braunschweig, Germany: y.narita[at]tu-braunschweig.de
[2] Pasadena, California: bruce.tsurutani[at]gmail.com
[3] University of California at Los Angeles, California: morales[at]physics.ucla.edu
[4] Navi Mumbai, India: gslakhina[at]gmail.com
[5] The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan: mhoshino[at]g.ecc.u-tokyo.ac.jp
[6] Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam, Germany
Location: Maxx Hotel Sanssouci Potsdam, Germany
6 through 12 September, 2026 (an icebreaker will be held in the early evening of Sunday 6 September and an excursion on Saturday 12 September)
Welcome! The 11th international Nonlinear Wave, Chaos and AI Workshop (NWCAI Workshop 2026) will be held at the Maxx Hotel Sanssouci Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany, 6 to 11 September 2026 (Sunday night through Friday). Previous NWC Workshops were held in Kyoto Japan (1994), Cologne Germany (1997), Carlsbad Calif. (1999), Tromso Norway (2001), Mumbai India (2003), Fukuoka Japan (2006), Beaulieu-sur-Mer France (2008), and La Jolla Calif (2010, 2013, 2017). The 2026 NWCAI Workshop will be sponsored by the Institute of Theoretical Physics, Technical University of Braunschweig, Germany.
All speakers will be allowed an equal amount of time for their talks. All talks can be interrupted by questions from the audience. Such interactions are encouraged since this event will have a workshop format (unless the discussions are too extensive). There will be an upper limit of 30 attendees so that the workshop format will be effective. The workshop is aimed to be a highly interactive, friendly, informal get-together of scientists from different fields of expertise discussing common topics. Past attendees of NWCWs have included experts in plasma physics (space and astrophysical plasmas, laboratory plasmas, and fusion plasmas), geophysics (atmospheric, ionospheric, and oceanic turbulence), fluid dynamics, nonlinear physics, and mathematics. The NWCAI workshop aims for a mix of observationalists, theoreticians, and PhD students. The topics will, as earlier, be all aspects of nonlinear processes in science. We will have talks on AI to discuss the potential and future of AI in nonlinear physics.
Workshop attendance is by invitation only. All invitees are expected to be expert in one of the topics and give an extensive presentation on it. Graduate students and postdocs may opt for shorter (half the regular time) talks. The length of the talks will depend slightly on the final number of attendees. But a reasonable time to aim for is about 45 minutes per talk including the discussion
Springer monograph - Publication of the workshop talk materials We have arranged for a Springer book (Astronomy and Space Science Proceeding) for all of the talks to be published after the meeting. Please be thinking of both your talk and a publication. We kindly ask the authors to keep a page limit of 20 book pages (equivalent to 7 or 8 journal pages, or 7000 to 8000 words). The book will be editted by Y. Narita, B.T. Tsurutani, and G.S. Lakhina. The contributed chapters will be peer-reviewed within the workshop participants and the external referees to ensure scientific rigor. Manuscript submission is due 31 January, 2027. The submission page will be announced before the workshop.
Arrangements and accommodation The Maxx Hotel Sanssouci Potsdam is located near the renowned Parc Sanssouci in the center of Potsdam. The address is Allee nach Sansssouci 1, 14471 Potsdam, Germany. Individual accepted attendees should make their own room reservations directly online at
Front Office, Phone +49 331 9091 921, email: reservations.potsdam[at]maxxhotel.com
Please mention the code "NWCAI" to get the special room rate. The single room rate is 142.98 Euro per night (superior category). Local tax of 7.5 % will be added to the room rate. Breakfast (11 Euro) is not included in the room price. The special room rate is valid until 13 July 2026.
Registration (early-bird before 31 May, 2026) The amount of the workshop registration is 450 Euro (early-bird registration before 31 May, 2026) and 550 Euro for a late registration. The registration fee will cover the cost of the conference facility, coffee and tea service, and social events (icebreaker, conference dinner, and excursions).
https://itubs.de/registration-nwcai-2026/?lang=en
Both bank transfer and credit card payment are accepted. Registration is managed by conference by the company iTUBS. If invitees have not registered by the 31 July 2026, the invitation will be rescinded, so that people on the waiting list can be invited.
Registration for accompanying people will be 150 Euro for each companion. This will cover the ice breaker (Monday), conference small lunch (Wednesday), conference dinner (Friday), and excursion (Saturday).
Abstract (due 31 May 2026) Please send an abstract for your talk to y.narita[at]tu-braunschweig.de. We will look over the abstracts with the thought of looking for missing topics and will invite people to cover them.
Midweek free time on 9 September 2026 (Wednesday) There will be a half day midweek break on 9 September (Wednesday afternoon). We will visit the historical research facilities in Potsdam. Highlights are the Michelson interferometer experiment in 1881 (Shankland, 1982, Haubold, 2024), the Great Refractor with 80-cm and 50-cm lenses in 1899 for astrophotographic and visual works (Leibnitz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam, Förderverein Großer Refraktor Potsdam e.V.), and the Einstein Tower (Denker et al., 2016, Denker, 2018). Please use this opportunity to talk with your fellow workshop attendees about science in an informal setting.
Conference Dinner on 11 September 2026 (Friday) 7pm The conference dinner will be held on Friday after the formal workshop has finished. It will be held at a nearby Potsdam restaurant "Zum Fliegenden Holländer", Benkertstr. 5, 14467 Potsdam, Phone +49 331 60 12 77 50. The restaurant is located at a walking distance of 1.2 km east from the conference hotel. This will be a chance to talk to your fellow attendees but with a glass of wine or beer in your hand. The food, the first round of drinks (beer, wine, soft drink, tea), and the bottles of water are included in the registration. Food preference (e.g., vegetarian) or dietary conditions (e.g., allergies) can be notified in the registration form.
Excursion on 12 September (Saturday) 9:15am There will be a special allday celebration and excursion for the workshop guests. We will have a bus-and-boat trip in the city center of Berlin. The excursion is organized by the tourist company "visit Berlin".
09:15 Meeting at the hotel entrance.
09:30 The bus departs the Maxx hotel in Potsdam.
10:30 Arrival in Berlin Kudamm. English-guided tour in Berlin "memory of wars" by bus.
12:30 Arrival in Berlin Friedrichstrasse. Lunch time.
14:45 Boat tour on the Spree river with coffee and cake.
16:00 End of boat tour. Return journey by bus
17:00 Arrival at the Maxx hotel in Potsdam.
20:00 Small celebration at the hotel lounge with beer (or soft drink) and snacks
Reference
Shankland, R. S. (1982), Michelson in Potsdam, Astron. Nachrichten, 303, 3-5. articles.adsabs.harvard.edu/pdf/1982AN....303....3S
Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam. www.aip.de/en/institute/locations/great-refractor/
Förderverein Großer Refraktor Potsdam e.V. refraktor.aip.de/the-great-refractor/
Denker, C., Heibel, C., Rendtel, J., Arlt, K., Balthasar, H., Diercke, A., Gonzalez Manrique, S. J., Hofmann, A., Kuckein, C., Önel, H., Senthamizh Pavai, V., Staude, J., and Verma, M. (2016), Solar physics at the Einstein Tower, Astron. Nachr., 337, 1105-1113. doi.org/10.1002/asna.21612442
Denker, C. (2018), The Einstein Tower in Potsdam, Final Report 2018, Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam. www.getty.edu/foundation/pdfs/kim/leibniz_institut_fur_astrophysik.pdf