Physics

The goal of the workshop is to foster interaction between researchers working on the S-matrices of conventional strings and on ambitwistor strings.  The workshop will exploit synergies between the two frameworks and identify the current key questions in the fields and areas that can benefit from collaboration. The program of the workshop will be tailored to questions and problems raised by the participants in the run-up to the event. The goal is to spend most of the time on collaborative discussions in order to exchange expertise and to attempt to resolve questions during the workshop. A list of such problems can be found below and this will be extended by the participants in the run-up to the meeting. To obtain ambitwistor integrands and Bern-Carrasco-Johansson (BCJ) numerators for multiloop amplitudes and to connect with superstring worldsheet correlators. To develop fully nonlinear approaches by working on curved backgrounds both for application to AdS/CFT and to problems in perturbative gravity and gauge theory on nontrivial backgrounds. To understand the twistor and ambitwistor geometry underpinning both conventional and ambitwistor strings including the geometry of soft limits infrared structure and its links with formulations at null infinity. To explore mathematical structures behind the integrals of conventional and ambitwistor strings (positive geometries and canonical forms twisted (co)-cycle etc.)

Scientific inquiry in the 21st century is beset with inefficiencies: a flood of papers not read theories not tested and experiments not repeated; a narrow research agenda driven by a handful of high-impact journals; a publishing industry that turns public funding into private profit; the exclusion of many scientists particularly in developing countries from cutting-edge research; and countless projects that are not completed for lack of skilled collaborators. These are all symptoms of a major communication bottleneck within the scientific community; the channels we rely on to share our ideas and findings especially peer-reviewed journal articles and conference proceedings are inadequate to the scale and scope of modern science. The practice of open research doing science on a public platform that facilitates collaboration feedback and the spread of ideas addresses these concerns. Open-source science lowers barriers to entry catalyzing new discoveries. It fosters the real-time sharing of ideas across the globe favoring cooperative endeavor and complementarity of thought rather than wasteful competition. It reduces the influence of publishing monopolies enabling a new credit attribution model based on contributions made rather than references accrued. Overall it democratizes science while creating a new standard of prestige: quality of work instead of quantity of output. This workshop will bring together a diverse group of researchers from fields as diverse as physics biology computer science and sociology committed to open-source science. Together we will review the lessons learnt from various pioneering initiatives such as the Polymath project and Data for Democracy. We will discuss the opportunity to build a new tool similar to the software development platform GitHub to enable online collaborative science. We will consider the challenges associated with the adoption of such a tool by our peers and discuss ways to overcome them. Finally we will sketch a roadmap for the actual development of that tool.