Physics  X  Network

The physics of networks, or the network of physics?

This rhetorical question captures the interdisciplinary essence of our research group's mission — to explore the rich interplay between network science and both statistical and quantum physics.

Led by Professor Xiangyi "X" Meng, the group's research spans several areas:

  • Quantum networks, communications, and computing; quantum complex systems.
  • Physical/biological networks (and their connections to string theory).
  • Statistical physics of complex networks, network metrics.
  • Open quantum systems, open quantum field theories.

News

  • [Dec, 2025] I am thrilled to share that our proposal (The Geometry of Thought: How Physical Network Morphology Shapes Neural Dynamics) has been selected for the Strength in Computational Biology Fund — an Early Career Individual Investigator Award established by a generous gift from James C. ’80 and Justine M. Mullen at RPI.

  • [Dec, 2025] Our paper "Quantum Communication Networks Enhanced by Distributed Quantum Memories" is now published in Quantum (doi.org/10.22331/q-2025-12-15-1948).

  • [Nov, 2025] I am thrilled to share that our RPI team has secured a five-year grant through the DOE-funded Co-design Center for Quantum Advantage (C2QA), led by Brookhaven National Laboratory. Looking forward to the work ahead!

  • [Nov, 2025] I am now affilated with the National Institute for Theory and Mathematics and Biology (NITMB), an NSF-Simons co-funded center led by Northwestern University and the University of Chicago (nitmb.org).

  • [Nov, 2025] It was a true honor to be invited to present at the C.N. Yang Institute for Theoretical Physics (YITP) seminar at Stony Brook University. Yang's magnificent contributions to statistical physics will always be remembered. R.I.P.

  • ...

Prof. Xiangyi "X" Meng is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Physics, Applied Physics, and Astronomy at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI). He earned his B.S. in microelectronics from Peking University and completed his Ph.D. in physics at Boston University (advised by Prof. Eugene Stanley). Prior to his role at RPI, he worked with Prof. Albert-László Barabási as a Postdoc at Northeastern University's Center for Complex Network Research, and with Prof. István Kovács as a Research Associate at Northwestern University.

Prof. Meng's research spans several areas of physics and network science, including quantum networks and quantum information, open quantum field theories, science of science, computational social science, physical and biological networks, scale-free network theories, information diffusion, tensor networks, and recurrent neural networks. He also applies interdisciplinary network science approaches to explore brains and econophysics.

Prof. Meng has published 30+ publications in prestigious journals such as Nature, Physical Review Letters, PNAS, PNAS Nexus, Science Advances, Nature Human Behaviour, Nature Communications, Communications Physics, Chaos Solitons & Fractals, Physical Review D, Physical Review Research, among others. He has reviewed 60+ papers from the above journals and Europhysics Letters, New Journal of Physics, Magnetic Resonance in Medicine, Journal of Business Research, etc. His work has been highlighted in Physics World, Phys.org, among other media outlets.