We are pleased to announce the winners of the Best Oral Presentation Awards, sponsored by Entropy (ISSN 1099-4300), at the 2026 Relativistic Thermodynamics Workshop. This event was held from 15 to 17 June 2026 at Newcastle University, UK. Congratulations to Ilaria Dimina and Maciej T. Jarema!

“The Analogue Unruh Effect in Thin-Film Superfluid Helium-4” by Ilaria Dimina
The Unruh effect predicts that uniformly accelerating observers perceive the Minkowski vacuum as a thermal bath, in contrast to inertial observers, yet it remains experimentally unverified. Analogue gravity systems, which exploit the mathematical similarity between surface waves dynamics and field excitations in curved spacetimes, offer the possibility to test for this phenomenon in controlled laboratory settings, with direct implications to quantum field theory in curved spacetime and relativistic thermodynamics. We are currently developing an experiment to test for this effect using thin films of superfluid helium, which act as effective (2+1)-dimensional spacetimes. Their surface height fluctuations, also known as third sound, obey a Klein–Gordon equation with propagation speed analogous to the speed of light. Using a combination of heterodyne interferometry and off-axis digital holography, we are able to observe thin-film surfaces in inertial and non-inertial frames. Our aim is to measure a thermal-like spectrum, analogous to that predicted by Unruh, by introducing a laser beam in circular motion through the film to act as a localised, accelerating detector.

“Measuring and manipulating information in QFT simulators” by Maciej T. Jarema
The encoding of information-theoretic measures, such as entropy and mutual information, across space and time, characterises the structure, history, and complexity of correlations in a system. Accessing information distributions would provide a powerful lens for investigating area laws, thermalization, and non-linear, far-from-equilibrium dynamics—each a topic of interest in quantum many-body systems and quantum field theory.
Analogue QFT simulating experiments can provide the necessary observables to assess to these phenomena by emulating field degrees of freedom with high precision and dynamical control. However, a significant hurdle remains: while analogue simulators offer the platform, extracting information requires access to their full, quantum state. This experimental feat remains largely out of reach beyond small systems and/or simple states.
In this talk, I introduced thin-film superfluid helium experiments (available within the gravity laboratory at the University of Nottingham), summarised their theoretical modelling as a (2+1)-dimensional QFT simulator, and presented a tomography scheme for assessing the Gaussian information contents. I also presented experimental measurements of information area laws in thermal states of strongly interacting ultracold gases that simulate the sine-Gordon scalar field. Finally, I outlined our progress towards monitoring information flow and its active manipulation.