Program

Review Talks

Scott Melville

(Cambridge U., DAMTP)

Cosmology and Field Theory

The language of field theory is not limited to particle physics. Recent advances in cosmology have allowed us to build accurate field theory descriptions of virtually every stage of our Universe's evolution: describing inflation in the early Universe, the subsequent growth of large scale structures, and the late-time domination of dark energy. Not only does this allow forecasting for a number of current and upcoming experiments and a wealth of new data, but it has also taught us important lessons about how to construct field theories under diverse conditions. From dealing with non-renormalizablity and non-local operators, to spontaneously breaking spacetime symmetries like translations and boosts, cosmology is a playground in which to test some of the most advanced field theory techniques around.

Miguel Montero

(KU Leuven)

Black holes and quantum gravity

One of the most distinguishing features of gravity is its property of "UV/IR mixing" -- high energies means big lengthscales, and not small as usual in QFT. The most prominent avatar of this are black holes. In this talk I will introduce the concept of UV/IR mixing and move on to review the basic, universal aspects of black hole physics, their entropy and evaporation process, leading to the simplest version of the information "paradox". Along the way I will illustrate how each of these points are understood in String Theory / holography. Due to UV/IR mixing, black hole evaporation gedankenexperiments lead to universal properties any Einsteinian quantum theory of gravity, a research direction widely described as the "Swampland". I will describe two simple examples of these (absence of global symmetries in quantum gravity, and the Weak Gravity Conjecture) and give a rough overview of this developing subject.

Natalia Pinzani-Fokeeva

(KU Leuven)

Holography and its applications

The AdS/CFT correspondence, or more simply holography, is a conjectured duality between two very different theories. One is a theory of gravity with a negative cosmological constant and the other is a (conformal) quantum field theory in one dimension less, where gravitational forces are absent. Knowing the dictionary between the two, allows us to translate difficult, intractable problems of one side to simple computations in the other and potentially try to address some of the longstanding questions such as what is inside a black hole and how is the information loss paradox resolved. I will give a pedagogical review of the correspondence, highlighting some of the key results which brought it to be a very prominent field of research in the past 20 years and overviewing some of the resent research progress.

Talks

Timetable

Posters

  • William Barker (University of Cambridge): "Cosmologies from quadratic gauge theories of gravity"
  • Alexander Baur (Technische Universität, München): "How to Derive the Flavor Symmetry from an Orbifold'
  • Eugenia Boffo (Jacobs University Bremen): "Poisson brackets for gravity and in generalized geometry"
  • Igor Bogush (Lomonosov Moscow State University ): "p-Branes with singular horizons"
  • Joren Brunekreef (Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen): "Curvature in CDT Quantum Gravity"
  • Krai Cheamsawat (Imperial College London) "Free energy dependence on geometry for 3d QFTs and 4th order hydrodynamics"
  • Sayantan Choudhury (Max-Planck-Institut für Gravitationsphysik, Potsdam): "Open Quantum Cosmology from multi entangled atoimc Lamb shift spectroscopy"
  • Adrien Fiorucci (Université Libre de Bruxelles): "Superrotations and gravitational memories"
  • Sotirios Karamitsos (Lancaster University): "Beyond the Poles in Attractor Models of Inflation"
  • Juho Lankinen (University of Turku): "Decay of a massive scalar in the early Universe"
  • Yun-Cherng Lin (University of Cambridge): "Ghost and tachyon free Poincaré gauge theories: A systematic approach"
  • Alexander Mitchell (Southhampton University): "Quantum gravity and the dilaton portal"
  • Antoine Pasternak (Université Libre de Bruxelles): "Symmetry breaking in Lifshitz theories"
  • Davide Rindori (University of Florence): "Extensivity, entropy current and Unruh effect"

Reception

We are happy to invite all participants of the conference to a reception in the foyer of the MPP on Monday, April 1st, 18:00. The reception is made possibly by a sponsorship from the general consulate of the Kingdom of The Netherlands in Munich. The reception will be opened in the MPP lecture hall with a welcome speech by consul-general Paul IJmkers.

Conference Dinner

The conference dinner will take place on Tuesday, April 2nd, 19:00 at Aumeister, located within walking distance from the conference venue in the English garden. If you did not indicate your participation in the dinner during the registration process but still wish to participate please contact the organisers, as space is limited.