The Mainz Institute for Theoretical Physics will host a 2019 summer school for Ph.D. students in theoretical physics, the fourth of a series initiated in 2016. Attendance is limited to 50 students, who will be staying at the Erbacher Hof in downtown Mainz. The main theme of the school is the interplay occurring in early-universe cosmology between topics of beyond-the-Standard-Model physics and computational techniques of (near-)thermal quantum field theory and general relativity. The lecture programme also reflects the fact that advances in thermal field theory techniques, including lattice QCD, weak-coupling, and gauge/gravity duality methods, have often been stimulated by the study of the QCD phase diagram, which is probed experimentally in heavy-ion collisions.
The aim of the school is thus to provide an exposition of the most important theory tools to enable original work pertaining to the nature of dark matter, the matter-antimatter asymmetry in the universe and gravitational waves. The lecture schedule will be complemented by discussion sessions, tutorials, and social activities to encourage networking and a vivid exchange of ideas. Applicants should be in the later stages of their Ph.D. career and are expected to commit to the full three week program.
Lectures:
Laura Covi (Göttingen University) - Introduction Cosmology
Igor Klebanov (Princeton University) - Large-N Theories
Thomas Konstandin (DESY) - Gravitational Waves
Graham Kribs (Oregon University) - Beyond the Standard Model
Martin Lüscher (CERN) - Unconventional Ways to Probe the Strong Interactions
Marina Marinkovic (Trinity College, Dublin) - Introduction to Lattice QCD
Guy Moore (TU Darmstadt) - Finite-Temperature Field Theory
Claudia Ratti (University of Houston) - QCD Phase Diagram
Mikhail Shaposhnikov (EPFL Lausanne) - Baryogenesis/Leptogenesis
Andrei Starinets (University of Oxford) - Holography, Finite-Temperature QFT and Hydrodynamics
Mikhail Stephanov (University of Illinois at Chicago) - Phase Transitions and Heavy-ion Collisions
