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1. Conferences
1.1. Probing Effective Theories of Gravity in Strong Fields and Cosmology, Santa Barbara, USA
1.2. 9th International Conference on Gravitation and Cosmology (ICGC), Mohali, India
1.3. 30th Texas Symposium on Relativistic Astrophysics (2nd announcement), Portsmouth, UK
1.4. The New Faces of Black Holes, Annapolis, Maryland, USA
1.5. SIGRAV International School 2020, Vietri sul Mare, Italy
1.6. 10th Australasian Conference on General Relativity and Gravitation (ACGRG10), Wellington, New Zealand
2. Jobs
2.1. Visiting Assistant Professor position in Physics/Astronomy at Montclair State University, NJ, USA
2.2. Tenure-track faculty position in Astroparticle Physics at SISSA, Trieste, Italy
2.3. STFC Ernest Rutherford Fellowships, University of Sheffield, UK
2.4. Postdoctoral positions in Numerical Relativity at the RIT, Rochester, NY, USA
3. News
3.1. Special Issue "Quantum Group Symmetry and Quantum Geometry"
3.2. Living Reviews in Relativity: "Testing the nature of dark compact objects: a status report"
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1. Conferences
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1.1. Probing Effective Theories of Gravity in Strong Fields and Cosmology, Santa Barbara, USA
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Announcement on Hyperspace@GU:
https://hyperspace.uni-frankfurt.de/?p=15931
Starting: 2020-08-10 to 2020-09-18
Location: Santa Barbara, CA, USA
Additional Information: https://www.kitp.ucsb.edu/activities/greft20
Contact: thomas.sotiriou[AT]nottingham.ac.uk
Probing Effective Theories of Gravity in Strong Fields and Cosmology
KITP, UC Santa Barbara
Coordinators: Cora Dvorkin, Ira Rothstein, and Thomas Sotiriou
Scientific Advisors: Alessandra Buonanno, Pedro Ferreira, and Steve Giddings
There is strong evidence that General Relativity (GR) is only an effective field theory (EFT). While it is often assumed that the energy scale where the EFT breaks down is near the Planck scale and experimentally inaccessible, tantalizing arguments suggest that GR is not a canonical effective theory.
In particular, the apparent hints of non-locality in black hole evaporation and the small scale associated with the vacuum energy motivate reconsidering EFT ideas in gravity. Given the wealth of data in current and future high precision cosmological surveys, it is necessary to develop a tool kit of theoretically consistent EFTs for analyzing potential deviations from the predictions of GR. The birth of gravitational wave astronomy opens up other avenues for testing gravity in previously unimaginable ways, enabling the study of higher curvature backgrounds as well as black hole horizon physics.
This program is geared towards finding ways to push the boundaries of our knowledge of the EFT of GR by bringing together members of three distinct communities: strong gravity/relativistic astrophysics, cosmology, and EFT.
Primary Application Deadline: August 11th 2019. After that date application will continue to be considered in a rolling basis until the program is filled.
Please apply through the KITP website (link).
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1.2. 9th International Conference on Gravitation and Cosmology (ICGC), Mohali, India
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Announcement on Hyperspace@GU:
https://hyperspace.uni-frankfurt.de/?p=15944
Starting: 2019-12-10 to 2019-12-13
Location: Mohali, India
Additional Information: http://14.139.227.202/web/icgc2019/index.html
Contact: ICGC2019[AT]iisermohali.ac.in
International Conference on Gravitation and Cosmology (ICGC)
IISER Mohali
December 10-13, 2019
The 9th International Conference on Gravitation and Cosmology (ICGC) will be hosted by the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Mohali (IISERM), during December 10 - 13, 2019. ICGC meetings are held once in four years and are organized by the Indian Association for General Relativity and Gravitation. This meeting aims at bringing together active scientists to take stock of present status in Gravitation and Cosmology and exchange ideas, as well as offer young researchers from Indian an opportunity for interaction with experts.
The program will have a series of plenary lectures, with parallel workshops and poster sessions. The year 2019 also marks the centenary of Eddington's famous solar eclipse test of General Relativity and the conference will have special lectures to mark this milestone.
Please refer to the web-page for information and updates.
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1.3. 30th Texas Symposium on Relativistic Astrophysics (2nd announcement), Portsmouth, UK
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Announcement on Hyperspace@GU:
https://hyperspace.uni-frankfurt.de/2019/07/15/30th-texas-symposium-on-rela…
Starting: 2019-12-15 to 2019-12-20
Location: Portsmouth, UK
Additional Information: http://texas2019.org/
Contact: texas2019[AT]port.ac.uk
30th Texas Symposium on Relativistic Astrophysics
Sunday 15 to Friday 20 December 2019
Portsmouth, UK
Registration and Call for Abstracts is now open.
Abstract submission deadline is 27th September 2019. Early-bird registration fee payment deadline is 25th October. Registration closes 22nd of November.
The Texas meetings have covered topics such as black holes, gravitational waves, neutron stars, cosmic rays, dark matter and the early Universe since the first symposium, held in Dallas in 1963. Following the tradition of previous meetings, the 2019 Symposium will cover a broad range of subjects in relativistic astrophysics, including:
Gravity: Test of Gravity, Modified Gravity, Quantum Gravity, Numerical Relativity
Cosmology: CMB, Reionisation, Early Universe, LSS, Lensing, Supernovae, Dark Energy, Simulations
Gravitational Waves: Modelling, Sources, Experiments, Pulsar timing
Messengers: Cosmic Rays, Gamma Rays, X-Rays, Neutrinos
Relativity At Work: Black holes, AGN, Quasars, Neutron stars, Discs, Jets & Magnetic Fields
Invited Speakers
Antony Lewis (University of Sussex, UK)
Astrid Eichorn (University of Southern Denmark & Heidelberg University, Germany)
Chris Reynolds (University of Cambridge, UK)
Claudia De Rham (Imperial College London, UK)
Dany Page (National Autonomous University, Mexico)
Elena Gallo (University of Michigan, USA)
Elena Rossi (Leiden University, Netherlands)
Elisa Resconi (Technical University Munich, Germany)
Elisabeth Krause (University of Arizona, USA)
Giovanni Losurdo (INFN Pisa, Italy)
Juan Garcia-Bellido (University of Madrid, Spain)
Luciano Rezzolla (University of Frankfurt, Germany)
Martin Lemoine (IAP, France)
Rennan Barkana (Tel Aviv University, Israel)
Takahiro Tanaka (Kyoto University, Japan)
Tanja Hinderer (University of Amsterdam, Netherlands)
Tom Giblin (Kenyon College Ohio, USA)
Ulisses Barres de Almeida (CBPF, Brazil)
We look forward to seeing you in Portsmouth this December!
Marco Bruni and David Wands
on behalf of the Scientific and Local Organising Committees
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1.4. The New Faces of Black Holes, Annapolis, Maryland, USA
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Announcement on Hyperspace@GU:
https://hyperspace.uni-frankfurt.de/2019/07/18/the-new-faces-of-black-holes/
Starting: 2019-11-11 to 2019-11-13
Location: Annapolis, Maryland, USA
Additional Information: https://jsi.astro.umd.edu/conferences/2019-jsi-workshop
Contact: suvi[AT]astro.umd.edu
The Joint Space-Science Institute is pleased to announce the 2019 JSI Workshop: "The New Faces of Black Holes". The workshop will be held on November 11-13, 2019 in historic Annapolis, Maryland.
Workshop topics will include:
GRAVITATIONAL WAVES FROM BLACK HOLES
* Ground-based; LIGO/Virgo/KAGRA O3 and beyond
* Space-based; LISA
* Pulsar timing arrays
TIME DOMAIN ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS
* Tidal Disruption Events
* Reverberation Mapping
* LISA EM Counterparts, evidence for binary SMBHs
* AGN Variability (changing-look quasars, QPOs, etc.)
EVENT HORIZON TELESCOPE AND HIGH-RESOLUTION IMAGING
* What have we learned from current EHT analysis?
* What will we learn from EHT in the future?
* Gravity VLT results on SgrA* and 3C273
* Dynamical Black Hole Mass Measurements
INVITED SPEAKERS:
Aaron Barth (UC Irvine), Misty Bentz (Georgia State), Emanuele Berti (JHU), Laura Blecha (Florida), Jason Dexter (CU Boulder), Frank Eisenhauer (MPE), Mike Eracleous (Penn State), Ben Farr (Oregon), Vincent Fish (MIT/Haystack), Evan Hall (MIT), Michael Johnson (CfA), Chelsea MacLeod (CfA), Maura McLaughlin (WVU), Lia Medeiros (Princeton), Krista Smith (Stanford), Nick Stone (Hebrew U.), Sjoert van Velzen (NYU/UMD)
The program will also feature contributed talks and posters. More information will be posted at the workshop web site, https://jsi.astro.umd.edu/conferences/2019-jsi-workshop, and registration will open soon.
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1.5. SIGRAV International School 2020, Vietri sul Mare, Italy
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Announcement on Hyperspace@GU:
https://hyperspace.uni-frankfurt.de/?p=15974
Starting: 2020-02-03 to 2020-02-07
Location: Vietri sul Mare, Italy
Additional Information: https://agenda.infn.it/e/sigravschool2020
Contact: fulvio.ricci[AT]roma1.infn.it
The school, organised by the Italian Society of General Relativity and Gravitation (SIGRAV), aims at providing robust and deep knowledge of General Relativity and its possible modifications, with particular attention to phenomenological consequences in astrophysics and in cosmology.
The School is intended for PhD students and young post-docs and it is based on four courses:
a) General Relativity and its Modifications - Lecturer: Lavinia Heisenberg (ETH, Zurich)
b)Testing Gravity - Lecturer: Paolo Pani (Sapienza University of Rome)
c) Cosmology beyond General Relativity - Lecturer: Tessa Baker (Oxford University)
d) Cosmological Perturbation Theory and Structure Formation - Lecturer: Sabino Matarrese (University of Padova)
Students are requested to attend all lectures and seminars.
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1.6. 10th Australasian Conference on General Relativity and Gravitation (ACGRG10), Wellington, New Zealand
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Announcement on Hyperspace@GU:
https://hyperspace.uni-frankfurt.de/?p=16002
Starting: 2019-12-09 to 2019-12-13
Location: Wellington, New Zealand
Additional Information: http://www.asgrg.org/acgrg10/
Contact: asgrg[AT]hotmail.com
The next meeting in the biennial series of conferences organised by the��Australasian Society for General Relativity and Gravitation (ASGRG) will be hosted by Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand in the second week of December. There will be a welcome reception on the evening of Monday 9th December, and the scientific program will run from Tuesday 10th to Friday 13th December inclusive.
The main campus of Victoria University of Wellington is situated on a hill with a prime view of central Wellington, New Zealand's administrative capital and a city with a population of just over 400,000 on the north coast of the Cook Strait. Popular tourist attractions include the Museum, Zoo, Art Gallery, the Zealandia ecosanctuary, the iconic Cable Car that runs close to the University, and the historic Carter Observatory in the Botanic Garden.
The deadline for registration for ACGRG10 is Monday 2 September 2019.
The deadline for submission of abstracts is Tuesday 1 October 2019.
Further details regarding registration, accommodation, plenary speakers, submission of papers etc, will be available shortly.
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2. Jobs
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2.1. Visiting Assistant Professor position in Physics/Astronomy at Montclair State University, NJ, USA
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Announcement on Hyperspace@GU:
https://hyperspace.uni-frankfurt.de/2019/07/11/visiting-assistant-professor…
Deadline: 2019-08-01
Location: Montclair, NJ, USA
Additional Information: https://www.montclair.edu/physics-astronomy/2019/07/11/opening-for-visiting…
Contact: marc.favata[AT]montclair.edu
The Department of Physics and Astronomy at Montclair State University has an opening for a 1-year Visiting Assistant Professor. The position is primarily instructional and must begin on September 1, 2019. We expect to conduct a tenure-track search in the fall, and we hope to attract a candidate who will also be competitive in that search. (In the past, we have made hires from our visiting faculty.)
If interested, please submit your application by August 1, 2019 for full consideration.
Full details can be found at the URL above.
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2.2. Tenure-track faculty position in Astroparticle Physics at SISSA, Trieste, Italy
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Announcement on Hyperspace@GU:
https://hyperspace.uni-frankfurt.de/2019/07/15/tenure-track-faculty-positio…
Deadline: 2019-09-02
Location: Trieste, Italy
Additional Information: https://academicjobsonline.org/ajo/jobs/14036
Contact: ullio[AT]sissa.it
The Astroparticle Physics group at the Scuola Internazionale Superiore di Studi Avanzati (SISSA) in Trieste, Italy, invites expressions of interest for a faculty position from outstanding candidates with a strong astroparticle theoretical research record on cosmological implications of beyond standard model physics, including research on baryogenesis/leptogenesis scenarios, phase transitions, axion physics, early universe tests of fundamental interactions.
The appointment procedure will be activated at the assistant professor, tenure-track, level.
The successful candidate is expected to work as an independent principal investigator, promoting and leading research activities to complement the current expertise of the SISSA groups in Particle Astrophysics, Gravitation Theory and Cosmology, as well as to attract external funds, take an active part in the SISSA PhD teaching programme and supervise graduate students.
The deadline for receipt of the expressions of interest, in English and only via Academic Jobs Online, is September 2, 2019.
They should include:
- Curriculum Vitae with a complete publication list and the names of at least three referees.
- Description of current research interests.
- List of ten publications of greatest interest for the selection.
The International School for Advanced Studies (SISSA) is a leading research and training institution (PhD School) based on the beautiful sea coast of Trieste in Italy. It offers first rate facilities (also for High Performance Computing) and has close relations with the other scientific institutions in the area. In particular, together with the National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF), the International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP), the National Institute for Nuclear Physics (INFN), SISSA is a founding member and supports the Institute for Fundamental Physics of the Universe (IFPU), Trieste, a newly born institute aiming at hosting and promoting a vigorous and innovative multi-disciplinary research program focused on investigating the fundamental laws of Nature under a Cosmological and Astrophysical perspective.
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2.3. STFC Ernest Rutherford Fellowships, University of Sheffield, UK
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Announcement on Hyperspace@GU:
https://hyperspace.uni-frankfurt.de/?p=15977
Deadline: 2019-08-12
Location: Sheffield, United Kingdom
Additional Information: https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/maths/about/jobs
Contact: E.Winstanley[AT]sheffield.ac.uk
The School of Mathematics and Statistics at the University of Sheffield is intending to support two applications for the Ernest Rutherford Fellowship in 2019/20. These are five-year fellowships awarded by the Science and Technology Facilities Council. It is the current policy of the Faculty of Science at the University of Sheffield that all successful applicants will be offered an open-ended academic position at the end of their Fellowship.
Details about the Ernest Rutherford Fellowships, and the Faculty of Science's policy on long-term Research Fellows can be found on the following websites:
https://stfc.ukri.org/funding/fellowships/ernest-rutherford-fellowship/https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/faculty/science/research/independent-research-f…
Applications in the areas of Gravitation and Cosmology, and Solar and Solar-Terrestial Physics will be particularly welcomed.
Expressions of interest should be sent before midday on Monday 12th August to Professor Tom Bridgeland at the address t.bridgeland[AT]sheffield.ac.uk. These should include a full CV (a research proposal is not necessary at this stage).
The internal selection process will be completed by Monday 19 August, and the Fellowship application must be received by the STFC before Thursday 26 September.
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2.4. Postdoctoral positions in Numerical Relativity at the RIT, Rochester, NY, USA
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Announcement on Hyperspace@GU:
https://hyperspace.uni-frankfurt.de/?p=15991
Deadline: 2020-01-31
Location: Rochester, NY, USA
Additional Information: https://ccrg.rit.edu/career/postdoc
Contact: manuela[AT]astro.rit.edu
Postdoctoral positions in Numerical Relativity at the Rochester Institute of Technology
The Center for Computational Relativity and Gravitation (CCRG) at the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) anticipates filling several postdoctoral positions in the coming year. We are looking for postdoctoral candidates interested in working in the areas of modeling and simulation of gravitational waves sources and their electromagnetic counterparts, including binary black holes and neutron stars, and their astrophysical interpretation in the context of the LIGO-Virgo observations. We are also interested in candidates working in relativistic magneto-hydrodynamics simulations of accretion disks around supermassive black hole mergers, and their jet dynamics.
The successful postdoctoral candidates will have the opportunity to collaborate on a broad range of research topics in gravitational physics. Our group is involved in several large collaborations, including the LIGO Scientific Collaboration (LSC), The Einstein Toolkit Consortium (http://einsteintoolkit.org), and a Petascale computing project with NCSA.
There are many senior researchers working in a broad range of areas of gravitational physics and astrophysics at the CCRG. This includes Manuela Campanelli (Director), Sukanya Chakrabarti, Joshua Faber, Carlos Lousto, Richard O'Shaughnessy, Jason Nordhaus, Yosef Zlochower, John Whelan, and Hans-Peter Bischof, several postdoctoral fellows and Ph.D. students (see http://ccrg.rit.edu/people for an overview on who is or has been at CCRG). The group also collaborates with many faculty, postdocs and graduate students in the larger astrophysics group (http://www.rit.edu/cos/astrophysics/), the school of Mathematical Sciences (http://www.rit.edu/cos/sms/) and the School of Physics and Astronomy (http://www.rit.edu/cos/physics/).
The positions are for two or three years and renewable depending on satisfactory performance and the availability of funds. CCRG researchers have access to several computing cluster facilities at national computing centers such as XSEDE and BlueWaters as well as two dedicated 1300 and 1600-core clusters hosted at the Center.
More information about the CCRG is available at http://ccrg.rit.edu/ And about Rochester at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rochester,_New_York
Applications should consist of a cover letter, a brief statement of research interests, a curriculum vitae including publication list, and at least three letters of recommendation. All materials should be sent electronically as soon as possible to: ccrg-postdoc[AT]ccrgweb.rit.edu For an overview of all job openings at CCRG please go to: https://ccrg.rit.edu/career
Enquiries can be addressed to the center's Director:
Manuela Campanelli, manuela[AT]astro[dot]rit[dot]edu Center for Computational Relativity and Gravitation, School of Mathematical Sciences, and School of Physics and Astronomy, Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) 85 Lomb Memorial Drive Rochester, New York 14623 USA
Review of completed applications will begin as soon as available and will continue until a suitable candidate is found. Deadline for applications is January 31st, 2020. Starting date can be as early as September, 2020. RIT is committed to equal employment opportunity and affirmativeaction.
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3. News
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3.1. Special Issue "Quantum Group Symmetry and Quantum Geometry"
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Announcement on Hyperspace@GU:
https://hyperspace.uni-frankfurt.de/2019/07/11/special-issue-quantum-group-…
Additional Information: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/symmetry/special_issues/Quantum_Group_Symmetry…
Dear Colleagues,
Quantum groups appeared during the eighties as the underlying algebraic symmetries of several two-dimensional integrable models. They are noncommutative generalizations of Lie groups endowed with a Hopf algebra structure, and the possibility of defining noncommutative spaces that are covariant under quantum group (co)actions soon provided a fruitful link with noncommutative geometry. At the same time, when quantum group analogues of the Lie groups of spacetime symmetries (Galilei, Poincare' and (anti-) de Sitter) were constructed, they attracted the attention of quantum gravity researchers. In fact, they provided a possible mathematical framework to model the "quantum" geometry of space-time and the quantum deformations of its kinematical symmetries at the Planck scale, where nontrivial features are expected to arise because of the interplay between gravity and quantum theory.
This Special Issue is open to contributions dealing with any of the many facets of quantum group symmetry and their generalizations. On the more formal side, possible topics include the theory of Poisson-Lie groups and Poisson homogeneous spaces as the associated semiclassical objects; Hopf algebras; the classification of quantum groups and spaces, their representation theory and its connections with q-special functions; the construction of noncommutative differential calculi; and the theory of quantum bundles. On application side, possible topics are: classical and quantum integrable models with quantum group invariance; the applications of quantum groups in different (2+1) quantum gravity contexts (like combinatorial quantisation, state sum models or spin foams); and quantum kinematical groups and their noncommutative spacetimes in connection with deformed special relativity and quantum gravity phenomenology.
Prof. Angel Ballesteros
Dr. Giulia Gubitosi
Prof. Francisco J. Herranz
Guest Editors
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3.2. Living Reviews in Relativity: "Testing the nature of dark compact objects: a status report"
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Announcement on Hyperspace@GU:
https://hyperspace.uni-frankfurt.de/2019/07/25/living-reviews-in-relativity…
Additional Information: https://www.springer.com/gp/livingreviews/relativity
The open-access journal Living Reviews in Relativity has published a new review article on 8 July 2019:
Vitor Cardoso and Paolo Pani,
"Testing the nature of dark compact objects: a status report",
Living Rev Relativ (2019) 22:4
https://doi.org/10.1007/s41114-019-0020-4
Abstract:
Very compact objects probe extreme gravitational fields and may be the key to understand outstanding puzzles in fundamental physics. These include the nature of dark matter, the fate of spacetime singularities, or the loss of unitarity in Hawking evaporation. The standard astrophysical description of collapsing objects tells us that massive, dark and compact objects are black holes. Any observation suggesting otherwise would be an indication of beyond-the-standard-model physics. Null results strengthen and quantify the Kerr black hole paradigm. The advent of gravitational-wave astronomy and precise measurements with very long baseline interferometry allow one to finally probe into such foundational issues. We overview the physics of exotic dark compact objects and their observational status, including the observational evidence for black holes with current and future experiments.
Please, visit frequently our relativity channel (https://www.springer.com/gp/livingreviews/relativity) at http://livingreviews.org for other news.
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