Guillermo A. Mena Marugán
December 2024
Workshop on Quantum Gravity, QFT in Curved Backgrounds, Gravitational Waves, and Cosmology
The JUGAR II Workshop was held in Madrid from 3 to 5 December 2024. Jugar means “to play” in Spanish, and the acronym stands for “Journey through the Universe. Gravitation and Advanced Relativity”. The name of the workshop reflects its broad scope, ranging from inflation to gravitational wave detectors, and covering different aspects of quantum field theory in curved backgrounds, semiclassical gravity, and quantum gravity.
The workshop served as the closing event of the joint grant The Quantum Gravitational Universe, in which four Spanish nodes from different institutions in Madrid and Granada participated. A year and a half ago, the first JUGAR Workshop was held to exchange ideas and results generated during the implementation of the grant. On this second occasion, the main organizers were Gianluca Calcagni and I, both from IEM-CSIC in Madrid. As I mentioned above, the event aimed to bring together leading experts in Advanced General Relativity, including quantum-related topics. In the workshop, applications to symmetry-reduced models, cosmology, black holes, gravitational radiation and related areas were discussed. Loop quantum gravity played a prominent role, with talks by Kristina Giesel, Thiago Guedes, Mercedes Martín-Benito, Javier Olmedo, Daniele Oriti, Thomas Thiemann, Francesca Vidotto, and myself. Most importantly, there were also a good number of oral contributions from students of the Spanish groups, showing the wonderful activity that the new generations are developing in the field. In total, we had more than 40 registered participants. The scientific environment was very enriching and relaxed, with a dynamic and interactive touch that helped us meet the tight schedule. The good weather in Madrid and the beautiful CSIC campus in the heart of the city undoubtedly contributed to completing a magnificent setting for the workshop. Let’s hope that, if we want to play again with important questions in gravitational physics, there can be more workshops in the JUGAR series to continue enjoying our research.