Quantum annealing leverages the properties of interacting quantum spin systems to solve computational problems, typically optimisation problems. Current hardware now has capabilities that can be used to solve condensed matter physics problems, too. In this topical review, we provide an overview of quantum annealing aimed at condensed matter physicists, to show the mutual benefits of working together to understand and improve how quantum annealers work, and to use them to advance condensed matter physics.

We present recommendations to improve reproducibility and replicability in condensed matter physics. This area of physics has consistently produced both fundamental insights into the workings of matter and transformative inventions. Our recommendations result from a collaboration that includes researchers from academia and government laboratories, scientific journalists, legal professionals, representatives of publishers, professional societies, and other experts. The group met in person in May 2024 at a conference at the University of Pittsburgh to discuss the growing challenges related to research reproducibility and replicability in condensed matter physics. In this report, we discuss best practices and policies at all stages of the scientific process to safeguard the value of condensed matter. We hope this report will lay the groundwork for a broader conversation to develop subfield-specific recommendations.

Soft condensed matter physics is the study of materials, such as fluids, liquid crystals, polymers, colloids, and emulsions, that are ``soft" to the touch. This article will review some properties, such as the dominance of entropy, that are unique to soft materials and some properties such as the interplay between broken-symmetry, dynamic mode structure, and topological defects that are common to all condensed matter systems but which are most easily studied in soft systems.

There are deep similarities between non-linear QFT studied in high-energy and non-equilibrium physics in condensed matter. Ideas such as the Schwinger mechanism and the Volkov state are deeply related to non-linear transport and photovoltaic Hall effect in condensed matter. Here, we give a review on these relations.

The American Physical Society (APS) March Meeting of condensed matter physics has grown to nearly 10,000 participants, comprises 23 individual APS groups, and even warrants its own hashtag (#apsmarch). Here we analyze the text and data from March Meeting abstracts of the past nine years and discuss trends in condensed matter physics over this time period. We find that in comparison to atomic, molecular, and optical physics, condensed matter changes rapidly, and that condensed matter appears to be moving increasingly toward subject matter that is traditionally in materials science and engineering.

The field of condensed matter physics had its genesis this century and it has had a remarkable evolution. A closer look at its growth reveals a hidden aim in the collective consciousness of the field - a part of the development this century is a kind of warm up exercise to understand the nature of living condensed matter, namely the field of biology, by a growing new breed of scientists in the coming century. Through some examples the vitality of this interaction will be pointed out.

Expanding on our former hypothesis that, in the current information age, teaching physics should become more intuition-based and aiming at pattern recognition skills, we present multiple examples of qualitative methods in condensed matter physics. They include the subjects of phonons, thermal and electronic properties of matter, electron-phonon interactions and some properties of semiconductors.

We present heuristic arguments that hint to a possible connection of Lorentz violation with observed phenomenon in condensed matter physics. Various references from condensed matter literature are cited where operators in the Standard Model Extension appear to be enhanced. Furthermore, we consider the Levy-Leblond equation, which is the analogue of Dirac equation in non-relativistic quantum mechanics. We show that we can obtain the Levy-Leblond equation by adding enhanced Lorentz violating operators to the Dirac equation. Based on these observations, we propose that Lorentz violation exhibits itself in non-relativistic quantum mechanics.

Symmetry distills the simplicity of natural laws from the complexity of physical phenomena. The symmetry principle is of vital importance in various aspects of modern physics, including analyzing atomic spectra, determining fundamental interactions in the Standard Model, and unifying physics at different energy scales. In this chapter, novel applications of this principle are reviewed in condensed matter physics and cold atom physics for exploring new states of matter.

This paper argues that the physics of condensed matter cannot be fully reduced to the supposedly fundamental quantum mechanical theory for all the atoms of which the system consists. In fact, there are many reasons to reject the idea that the world of physics is causally closed with everything being determined bottom-up by fundamental microscopic laws. This is illustrated by considering how condensed-matter theory is done in practice. It is never done by starting with a microscopic theory for the interaction of all the atoms of the system. Instead, approximations, plausible assumptions, intuitive models, and phenomenological theories are used to mathematically describe and explain the properties of systems that consist of a macroscopic number of particles. I argue that this is not merely a matter of convenience, but that there are fundamental and qualitative differences or even contradictions between the microscopic theory and the theory that is used in practice. The paper includes a list of arguments in favor of strong emergence and top-down causation within the realm of physics, and a response to several widespread objections against this view.