AdS/CFT and novel approaches to hadron and heavy ion physics - Beijing KITPC program 2010 - an advert

While in Beijing for an academic visit in the summer of 2008 I spoke with my old boss and director of the KITPC, Yue-Liang Wu about the possibility of organising a program on an AdS/CFT related subject. I got the support of the director, got together a team of people for an organising committee (Stanley Brodsky, Nick Evans, Hong Liu, Craig Roberts, Dam Son, Xin-Nian Wang, Urs Wiedemann) and over the last year have been going through several stages of proposals before getting confirmation of support and the go ahead to start inviting people. We've been sending out invitation letters over the last couple of weeks and have a few people now confirmed internally (the names are only viewable currently to the organisers) and thought that now would be a good time to advertise via the blog.

The program will last for seven weeks from the 11th of October until the 3rd of December  2010 and we hope to get as many people interested in AdS/CFT applications to hadron and heavy-ion physics and those involved in these subjects from other perspectives to come along, collaborate, speak, and integrate their ideas in order to advance the field through interdisciplinary works. The idea is for people to come for at least two or three weeks in order that there time can be relaxed and there's plenty of opportunity to build up lasting collaborations.

One of the main problems of the field as I see it is that there are many groups trying to essentially deal with very similar questions but with such different languages that collaboration is often difficult. One of the aims of this program will be to give people the platform and time to reduce this difference and for ideas in diverse areas to be exchanged and discussed in a nice environment, with a good cross-section of international researchers.

The abstract of the program can be found here and I would highly recommend anybody interested in this field to apply to the program, to come and chat with a lot of like-minded people and to explore Beijing, a truly incredible city with a diversity of cuisine, history, language, music, art, architecture and nightlife unlike any I've experienced anywhere else in the world. I love this city, and am hugely looking forward to not only working with a lot of people on a fascinating topic in physics, but to sharing the city with many newcomers.

If you have any questions at all about the program then please ask and I will be happy either to answer directly, or to find out anything you need to know from the staff at the KITPC who are organising all the local details.