A number of probabilistic systems which can be analyzed in great detail due to certain algebraic structures behind them. These systems include certain directed polymer models, random growth process, interacting particle systems and stochastic PDEs; their analysis yields information on certain universality classes, such as the Kardar-Parisi-Zhang; and these structures include Macdonald processes and quantum integrable systems. We will provide background on this growing area of research and delve into a few of the recent developments.

Kardar-Parisi-Zhang - interacting particle systems - random growth processes - directed polymers - Markov duality - quantum integrable systems - Bethe ansatz - asymmetric simple exclusion process - stochastic partial differential equations[-]

In these lectures I will present the recent construction of the KPZ fixed point, which is the scaling invariant Markov process conjectured to arise as the universal scaling limit of all models in the KPZ universality class, and which contains all the fluctuation behavior seen in the class.
In the first part of the minicourse I will describe this process and how it arises from a particular microscopic model, the totally asymmetric exclusion process (TASEP). Then I will present a Fredholm determinant formula for its distribution (at a fixed time) and show how all the main properties of the fixed point (including the Markov property, space and time regularity, symmetries and scaling invariance, and variational formulas) can be derived from the formula and the construction, and also how the formula reproduces known self-similar solutions such as the $Airy_1andAiry_2$ processes.
The second part of the course will be devoted to explaining how the KPZ fixed point can be computed starting from TASEP. The method is based on solving, for any initial condition, the biorthogonal ensemble representation for TASEP found by Sasamoto '05 and Borodin-Ferrari-Prähofer-Sasamoto '07. The resulting kernel involves transition probabilities of a random walk forced to hit a curve defined by the initial data, and in the KPZ 1:2:3 scaling limit the formula leads in a transparent way to a Fredholm determinant formula given in terms of analogous kernels based on Brownian motion.
Based on joint work with K. Matetski and J. Quastel.[-]

In these three lectures steady states and dynamical properties of nonequilibrium systems will be discussed.
Systems driven out of thermal equilibrium often reach a steady state which under generic conditions exhibits long-range correlations. This is very different from systems in thermal equilibrium where long-range correlations develop only at phase transition points. In some cases these correlations even lead to long-range order in d=1 dimension, of the type occurring in traffic jams. Simple examples of such correlations induced in the steady state of driven systems will be presented and discussed. Close correspondence of these nonequilibrium steady states to electrostatic potentials induces by charge distribution will be pointed out.
Another class which will be discussed is that of systems with boundary drive, such as in heat conduction problems, where anomalous heat conduction takes place in low dimensions. In addition some similarities between driven systems and equilibrium systems with long-range interactions will be elucidated.[-]