General Relativity & Quantum Cosmology

Understanding the small-scale structure of spacetime is one of the biggest challenges faced by  modern theoretical physics. There are many different attempts to solve this problem and they reflect the diversity of approaches to quantum gravity. This workshop will bring together researchers from a wide range of quantum gravity approaches and give them an opportunity to exchange ideas and gain  new insights.

This cross-disciplinary workshop gathers theorists who have been working on novel approaches to understanding the structure of the Standard Model and its link to cosmology and gravity. It follows the previous Simplicity I and II workshops at Princeton University (2014) and Fermilab (2016) and will be a small informal meeting with plenty of room for discussions.

We are entering an exponentially growing phase of gravitational-wave (GW) astronomy excitingly represented by the Nobel Prize in Physics last year - only two years after the first detection. The successful multi-messenger detection of binary neutron star merger in last August has triggered increasing interests to probe the neutron star post-merger gravitational radiations as they will give more decisive and informative description of the post-merger object itself and the GW/electromagnetic emission mechanism. As the post-merger GWs mainly lie in the 1kHz-4kHz band it becomes necessary and important to think about possible third-generation GW detectors that are primarily sensitive to the high frequency band.  In this workshop we shall focus on possible science case and detector configuration for kHz high-frequency detectors. We will have several invited talks while leaving more time for free discussions. We hope this workshop can serve as a seed for much broader discussions in the GW astronomy community and help promote high frequency detectors as one of the development directions of third-generation GW detectors.

Black hole superradiance is a fascinating process in general relativity and a unique window on ultralight particles beyond the standard model. Bosons -- such as axions and dark photons -- with Compton wavelengths comparable to size of astrophysical black holes grow exponentially to form large clouds spinning down the black hole in the process and produce monochromatic continuous gravitational wave radiation. In the era of gravitational wave astronomy and increasingly sensitive observations of astrophysical black holes and their properties superradiance of new light particles is a promising avenue to search for new physics in regimes inaccessible to terrestrial experiments. This workshop will bring together theorists data analysts and observers in particle physics gravitational wave astronomy strong gravity and high energy astrophysics to explore the signatures of black hole superradiance and to study the current and future possibilities of searching for new particles with black holes.

Over the past three decades, the idea of a path integral over geometries, describing gravity in various dimensions, has become increasingly central to many areas of theoretical physics, including string and M-theory, holography and quantum aspects of black holes and cosmology.

In each of these areas, the path integral is frequently invoked as a formal device although, as practitioners will admit, except in very special cases the basic formula remains undefined. Typically, classical saddle points are discussed, whether real or complex, but the required integrals are left unperformed.

This state of affairs is untenable because it leaves the theory on a shaky footing and hence does not permit a sound comparison of theoretical predictions with observations. The time has come to critically reassess the foundational ideas of the path integral for gravity, including its definition, evaluation and interpretation; to identify problems with
existing uses and claims based on it, and to seek improvements. The workshop will focus on the continuum theory and its semiclassical limit, with applications to cosmology, black holes and holography. In particular, the notion of a “Euclidean path integral” for a “wavefunction of the universe” will be addressed.

To this effect we intend to revisit discussion of “quantum geometrodynamics” from the path integral viewpoint and to pursue various applications. The developments in this direction that took place in the late 1970's and early 1980's were not incorporated in subsequent efforts, where the emphasis shifted to using a classical background with quantum fluctuations superimposed on it, a split which although useful in particular approximations can hardly be imagined to lie at the  foundation of the theory. The revival of the discussion of the foundation of the path integral for gravity is made timely, we believe, by the introduction of new global methods such as Picard-Lefschetz theory.

The format of the workshop will be unusual. For the first three days, the mornings will begin with a longer, introductory lecture by each of the three organisers, setting out some of the foundational issues. This will be followed by shorter lectures by the participants, tackling the same foundational questions. The morning lectures, held in the Bob room, will be open to all Perimeter residents and visitors. They will be recorded and made available for viewing on PIRSA. Afternoons will be devoted to friendly and informal discussions, with participants invited to offer short contributions which follow up or develop points raised in the mornings, within a relaxed and highly conducive environment. Participation in these afternoon discussion sessions, as well as social events associated with the workshop, will be limited to registered workshop participants. The last two days of the workshop will be an opportunity for participants to continue discussions on topics which emerge as of greatest general interest, as well as to follow up in smaller groups on technical points or new ideas.