CERN THEORY INSTITUTE

Blackholes have challenged accepted fundamental physical properties
as unitarity and locality for some time. Some of their properties are encoded
in elegent mathematics and some four-dimensional properties like the no-hair
theorem seem to get substantial higher dimensional corrections.

Blackholes thermodynamics has provided a fertile arena to understand deep
issues of quantum gravity and quantum field theory. The Bekenstein-Hawking
entropy formula is still far from being fully understood.

String theory has provided new insights in many of these problems.
The entropy of some blackholes was calculated microscopically.
Using the AdS/CFT correspondence relations were found between blackholes
and gauge theories. There seems to be a useful exchange between the holographic
principle and the physics of heavy ion collisions and the deconfinement transition
in QCD. The role of gravity in gauge theories is still largely unexplored.

The aim of the workshop is to bring together experts in the many active areas
of Blackhole physics, to lead to the exchange of point of views and foster further
progress.

The TH Institute will take place from Aug 25th until October 5th, 2008. Participants are encouraged to stay as long as possible, with a minimum visit of 2 weeks.

The format will be very informal. Apart from daily discussions in the TH common room, we propose to have two 1/2 hour talks back-to-back daily plus a few review talks. Perhaps a workshop dedicated to specific topics. The schedule is still open to suggestions and will evolve according to the input of participants. Ideally we would like to structure the weeks during the institute according to the following topics:

1st week: "Deep Issues", general BH problems, holography, quantum coherence

2nd week: a bit more of deep issues, and questions about hydrodynamics, high
energy scattering of strings and possible BH production at the LHC

3rd week:   BHs, QCD, AdS/QCD and related subjects

4th week:   BH/string relations, thermodynamics, phases of gravity...

5th, 6th weeks: Pure gravity, numerics, attractor mechanism, BPS states
and BH counting, higher dimensional BHs, Gregory-Laflamme transitions,
caged BHs etc.

The whole program is expected to cover a period of six weeks starting just after the String 2008 Conference. Taking into account the large number of different topics related with black hole physics we consider convenient to give to the program a minimum of thematic structure dividing the whole period into well defined subjects.
This is a wish list that will evolve depending on participants.

See here or the link up to the left.

Application is through the regular CERN-TH visitor form.

IMPORTANT: do not forget to specify that the purpose of your visit is
"Participation in the TH Institute on black holes".

In addition, please send an e-mail to one of the organisers to inform them about your application.

Applications received by 1 March 2008 will be given priority.

We have been able to block book a number of single rooms in the CERN Hostel for the duration of the Black Hole Institute. If you are interested, please mail to us immediately. Since the Institute is organized in weeks, it would be preferable to have people occupying the room for full week periods. Once the block booked room are no longer available, you can directly try to book a room in the hostel yourself, however they do not accept reservations more than two months in advance.

There are a number of hotels in the CERN area where you may be interested in booking a room yourself; a list of commonly used hotels is maintained here. The hotels in neighboring France are typically somewhat cheaper; however be aware that the connection to CERN via French public transport is very limited, and a car might be convenient if not necessary. Also, keep in mind that you may need a separate visa to enter France.