News and Events
(August 2019) New ITP director, scientific program at Simons Center
As of August 1, 2019, Thomas Becher is Mikko Laine's successor as the ITP director. Good luck with the task! On the scientific side, towards the end of the month Susanne Reffert is co-organizing a program on Quantum-mechanical systems at large quantum number at the revered Simons Center in Stony Brook.(July 2019) Promotion
The rector has nominated Urs Wenger to an "assoziierter Professor" as of July 1, 2019. Congratulations!(June 2019) Einstein medal ceremony
The Albert Einstein medal, awarded by the Albert Einstein Society, goes this year to Prof. Clifford M. Will from the University of Florida. The ceremony takes place on June 6, at 5pm, in the lecture hall ExWi 099, and involves a public talk, whose details can be found here.(May 2019) Graduate course, Graduate student seminar, SwissMAP/GeNeZiSS meeting
As usual, the spring semester ends with a busy month. Starting on May 2, Gabriele Tartaglino Mazzucchelli offers a graduate course on Lie Algebras and their Extensions. On May 15, we have the regular AEC Graduate student seminar. Finally, on May 24, the SwissMAP/GeNeZiss String Theory Meeting returns once again to Bern.(April 2019) AEC/ITP postdoc obtains permanent position in the UK
David Schaich, who had been a postdoc in Bern since 2016, recently obtained a faculty position at Liverpool University, among the strongest institutes in theoretical high-energy physics in the UK. He started his tenure there in mid-March. We thank David for his active presence in Bern and wish him good luck with the new challenges.(March 2019) SNF professorship and promotion
Susanne Reffert's SNF professorship has been extended for another two years, until February 2021. From March 2021 she takes up a regular professorship (aoP) at AEC/ITP. Congratulations!
(February 2019) Conference, Graduate course
On February 18 - 20, Susanne Reffert co-organizes the next edition of the conference "Women at the intersection of Mathematics and High Energy Physics", in Geneva; more information can be found here. The first graduate course of the sping semester, by Thomas Rauh, starts on February 19, and presents an introduction to Feynman integrals and multiloop techniques.
(January 2019) New Year, New Team
The year starts with a reshuffling at the AEC: Gilberto Colangelo (ITP) takes over as the new director, with Michele Weber (LHEP) serving as the vice director. Florian Piegsa (LHEP) is the new president of the Board, with Thomas Becher (ITP) acting as the vice president. 2019 is the last year of the current funding period, so the new team is tasked with carrying out a self-evaluation of recent accomplishments, and coming up with new ideas for the next period. We wish the team good luck with these challenges!(December 2018) Towards the end of the year
ITP hosted the traditional Xmas Fondue on Tuesday December 18, welcoming about 55 guests. This year's speciality was a slightly anticipated birthday celebration for Uwe-Jens Wiese, who received a bottle of 1958 Bordeaux as a present. In addition to congratulating Uwe-Jens for reaching a milestone, we wish relaxing holidays and a Happy 2019 to all our friends and colleagues!(November 2018) Einstein lectures, graduate course, SwissMAP/GeNeZiSS meeting
November brings along a busy program of activities at the ITP. On November 12-14, the Nobel laureate Barry Barish visits Bern, in order to deliver this year's Einstein lectures; more information can be found here. Starting on November 27, Jay Armas offers a graduate course on the modern understanding of the dynamics of surfaces. On November 30, we host yet another SwissMAP/GeNeZiSS meeting, specifially the "New Postdocs Day 2018".(October 2018) Happy 80th
On October 12, Heiri Leutwyler, a member of the ITP since the 1960s and one of the founding fathers of Quantum Chromodynamics and Chiral Perturbation Theory, turned 80. Best wishes for the birthday!(October 2018) Several new postdocs at AEC/ITP
Several new postdocs have started at the ITP this fall: Andrew Gasbarro, Hongliang Jiang, Thomas Rauh, Gabriele Tartaglino-Mazzucchelli, and Tuomas Tenkanen. Hopefully everyone has a good time in Bern!(October 2018) Conference at the ECT* in Trento
On Oct 1-5, David Schaich co-organizes the workshop "Interdisciplinary approach to QCD-like composite dark matter" at the ECT* in Trento. More information can be found here.(September 2018) Fall semester starts
The fall semester kicks off on September 17. Once again two graduate courses will be offered. The first one, by Massimo Passera on Precision Electroweak Physics, starts at 10am on Tuesday September 25, in lecture hall B1. Some more information about the contents of these lectures can be found here.
(August 2018) Work well done
At the end of July, Gilberto Colangelo finished his 4-year tenure as the Dean of the Faculty of Science. He now takes a well-earned sabbatical, including extended stays in Paris and Kyoto. Many thanks to Gilberto for an efficient and fair handling of this challenging task.(July 2018) AEC/ITP postdoc obtains permanent position
Germano Nardini, who has been a postdoc in Bern since 2015, leaves us at the end of July, in order to take up a permanent professorship in the growing cosmology group at Stavanger University, in Norway. We thank Germano for his contributions, and wish him good luck with the upcoming challenges.(June 2018) Upcoming conference
Final preparations are under way for a 3-day conference on "Supersymmetric theories, dualities and deformations", to take place at AEC premises on July 16-18, 2018. An illustrious list of speakers is expected to participate in this event, organized by Susanne Reffert, Antonio Amariti, and Domenico Orlando. The program and more details can be found here.(May 2018) Several important events
On Tuesday May 15, starting at 5pm in the lecture hall 099, Juan Maldacena is awarded the Einstein Medal for 2018. On this occasion he delivers a public lecture on "Quantum mechanics and the geometry of spacetime". On Wednesday May 23, a "Women in HEP day" takes place at the Kuppelraum of the University main building. More information, including the program, can be found here. On May 21-24, David Schaich co-organizes a workshop on "Numerical approaches to holography, quantum gravity and cosmology", at the Higgs Centre for Theoretical Physics in Edinburgh, Scotland. More information on this event, sponsored by the AEC, can be found here.(April 2018) Graduate course, highlighted article
This semester's second graduate course, by Gilberto Colangelo on Low energy effective theories of QCD, kicks off on Tuesday Apr 17 at 2:15pm in lecture hall 119. On the side of research, a recent paper co-authored by one of the ITP postdocs, Florian Hebenstreit, was selected as one of the highlights of 2017 by the New Journal of Physics. A link can be found here , under Atomic, molecular and optical physics.(April 2018) SwissMAP/GeNeZiss meeting in Bern
The meeting of the Swiss String Theory community returns to Bern on April 27. Talks take place in the seminar room 119 of the ExWi building. Some more details can be found here.(March 2018) Visitors at AEC/ITP
Since a couple of years the AEC maintains a formalized visitor program, which brings dozens of scientists for short or longer research stays to Bern. In addition to the AEC visitor program, there are also guests funded by various Swiss or European grants. As an example, this March we have the pleasure to host Debasish Banerjee, Karim Benakli, Martin Beneke, Chrysoula Markou, Subodh Patil, Mariano Quiros and Peter Stoffer for visits of a duration from a few days up to two months.
(March 2018) Remembering Hawking
(February 2018) Spring semester starts
usual we offer two Graduate Courses suitable for a broad audience, from the
advanced Master level to PhD students and postdocs. The first course, by Urs
Wenger on Phase Transitions and Critical Phenomena, takes off on Tuesday Feb
27 at 2:15pm in lecture hall 119.
(January 2018) Physik am Freitag
The yearly outreach series "Physik am Freitag" of the Department of Physics and Astronomy kicks off on Friday January 19 (at 16:30 in lecture hall 099), with a presentation by Urs Wenger on the mass of the proton, on the weight of Universe, and other related matters. The remaining presentations are by our experimental colleagues. There are in total 5 talks this year, on a level suitable for high school students and the general public.
(December 2017) Xmas Fondue
ITP celebrated the traditional Xmas Fondue on Thursday December 14, in the presence of more than 50 guests. In addition to the usual culinary joys and happy reunions with our alumni, the dinner should remain in memory because of a unique Ukrainian music performance as well as spectacular lightning over the city of Bern. We thank once again Thomas Becher and Christoph Greub for the organization, and wish all the participants, as well as other friends of the ITP, a relaxing holiday season and best wishes for a productive New Year 2018!
(November 2017) Several new postdocs at ITP
In the recent months, several new postdoctoral fellows have started their
tenures at the ITP: Franziska Hagelstein, Adrian Lewandowski, Keita Nii,
Debajyoti Sarkar, Christoph Wiegand. Two further ones, Ahmad Zein Assi and
João Barros, start in January. The interests of the postdocs vary
from low-energy hadronic interactions and collider physics all the way to
supersymmetry and string theory. Hopefully everyone has a productive and
pleasent stay in Bern!
(October 2017) Good success in the latest SNSF round
which were released a few weeks ago, all AEC/ITP applicants got their grants
fully or partly funded (Ignatios Antoniadis, Gilberto Colangelo, Christoph
Greub, Urs Wenger). The grants will support several postdoctoral and PhD
student positions within the next 3-4 years.
(September 2017) AEC/ITP contribution to "Nacht der Forschung"
organizes its main outreach event. Both parts of the AEC are present,
with a contribution called the "Dance of the particles", consisting of
demonstrations in a tent in front of the university main building and
of oral presentations in the lecture hall 201 of the main building.
Tabletop experiments, numerical simulations, theoretical wisdom,
and dance performances, are equally on offer.
(August 2017) New Ambizione Grantee at ITP
a prestigious 4-year Ambizione grant of the Swiss National Science Foundation.
The topic of his project is "Dispersive techniques for light meson
interactions and spectroscopy". The work is scheduled to start
in coming November.
(July 2017) Part of ITP moves to new premises
the old SBB headquarters by the University of Bern, a part of the ITP
recently relocated to new offices at Gesellschaftsstrasse 2, just
above the university Mensa. This helps to concentrate our offices
into two areas instead of the previous four. A discussion area and
a seminar room close to our premises hopefully encourage active
interactions.
(June 2017) LISA experiment approved by ESA
the LISA trio of satellites to detect gravitational waves from space
as a large-class mission in its Science program. In the wake of the
LIGO gravitational wave discovery and the successful LISA Pathfinder
mission, gravitational wave astronomy is enjoying considerable
tailwind at the moment. The LISA launch is expected to take place
in 2028-2034. The ITP is represented in the LISA scientific
collaboration by a postdoctoral fellow, Dr. Germano Nardini, who
acts as one of the coordinators of the LISA cosmology working group.
(May 2017) AEC plenary meeting
in the Kuppelraum of the University main building. A full day of talks,
by PhD students, postdocs, and professors alike, complemented by an
invited presentation by Simone Bifani (U. Birmingham, UK)
on potential B physics anomalies recently observed at the LHCb,
was concluded with a lively apero in late afternoon.
(January 2017) Three AEC postdocs obtain permanent positions in Italy
obtained prestigious INFN positions in Italy in the very competitive
last round. Towards the end of 2017, Dr. Amariti will join an INFN
section in Milano and Dr. Orlando the INFN section at U. Torino. From
our neighbouring LHEP, Alberto Cervelli obtained a similar position on
the experimental side, and will join the INFN section in Bologna.