SOME PATHWAYS IN THEORETICAL PHYSICS

Programme

14:50 A. Sagnotti (Scuola Normale Superiore)Welcome

15:00 G. Dall’agata (Università di Padova)Superstring Phenomenology? I will argue that string phenomenology is not an oximoron, but a necessary framework to understand the physics of the fundamental interactions.

15:50 Discussion

16:00 A. Nicolis (Columbia University)Effective field theories for phases of matter and CosmologyI will review some modern applications of effective field theories, outside their traditional particle physics domain. In particular, I will focus on spontaneous symmetry breaking for spacetime symmetries.The effective theories for the associated Goldstone excitations capture the low-energy/long-distance dynamics of a number of physical systems, from ordinary macroscopic media (solids, fluids, superfluids, supersolids) to more exotic cosmological ones.

16:50 Discussion

17:00 F. Sannino (University of Southern Denmark)Charting Fundamental InteractionsI will overview of the state-of-the-art in Particle Physics, before introducing the novel nonsupersymmetric Wilsonian theories of fundamental interactions of safe rather than free nature. Within the supersymmetric framework, I will present recent exact results for safe superconformal theories and show their impact when searching for grand unification in Particle Physics. Finally, I will elaborate on time-honored paradigms and novel avenues for (Astro) Particle Physics and Cosmology.

17:50 Discussion

18:00 Conclusion