News ISLQG
ISLQG News, May 2025
First General Assembly
The first general assembly meeting of ISLQG will take place:
Tuesday July 1, 14:00 CEST (7:00 CDT, 8:00 EDT, 20:00 CST)
via Zoom. The general assembly meeting is a yearly meeting mandated by the constitution of ISLQG. It allows the steering board to share and discuss past actions and future planning with the members. In particular, the accounting and financial planning of ISLQG must be presented. It also is a possibility for members to discuss issues or ideas, and for groups or initiatives within ISLQG to present themselves. More details on this year's general assembly meeting will follow in due course.
Blaumann Prize 2025
Blaumann Prize 2025: The Blaumann Foundation announces the Blaumann Prize 2025 to recognize a scientific or philosophical work of a young researcher, relevant for the advance of our conceptual understanding of how Nature works at the most fundamental level we can currently reach. The Prize is in the amount of 20.000 Euro. The Jury can choose to split this total amount among up to three ranked winners. Details and online nominations at the webpage:
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Call for nominations or self nominations Deadline: 2025-June-15
Eugenio Bianchi
Reports on Selected Past Events
The Quantum Information Structure of Spacetime (QISS) II Conference took place from April 14–17 2025 at the University of Vienna’s Faculty of Physics. As the summary conference of the QISS II consortium, the event brought together over 150 researchers from around the world to discuss new developments and insights at the intersection of quantum gravity and quantum information.
Organized by a team of researchers from IQOQI-Vienna, the conference adopted a highly interactive, discussion-focused format. Rather than a long sequence of seminars, the program featured concise presentations by young researchers—followed by ample time for questions, dialogue, and collaboration. The discussion sessions were described by many attendees as very inspiring, lively, and intellectually fruitful, fostering new ideas and potential collaborations.
The conference was structured around six sessions, each highlighting a key research area within the QISS initiative. Each session was chaired by a leading expert in the field and featured presentations from emerging researchers:
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Entanglement in Spacetime
Chair: Eugenio Bianchi | Speakers: Pietro Dona, Lucas Hackl -
Quantum Gravity Phenomenology
Chair: Francesca Vidotto | Speakers: Wolfgang Wieland, Marios Christodoulou -
Philosophical Insights into Quantum Gravity
Chair: Jeremy Butterfield | Speakers: Henrique Gomes, Aristotelis Panagiotopoulos -
Quantum Reference Frames for Quantum Spacetimes
Chair: Renato Renner | Speakers: Viktoria Kabel, Joshua Kirklin -
Quantum Causal Structure in Quantum Spacetimes
Chair: Bob Coecke | Speakers: Augustin Vanrietvelde, V. Vilasini -
Table-top Quantum Experiments for Gravity
Chair: Sougato Bose | Speakers: Flaminia Giacomini, Richard Howl
In addition to these sessions, a special talk on the history of quantum gravity was delivered by Bernadette Lessel, offering valuable context and reflection on the field's development.
In celebration of World Quantum Day on April 14, the organizers hosted a special welcome event featuring a unique quantum music performance by Bob Coecke, joined by Kazakh composer and pianist Rakhat-Bi Abdyssagin. In a creative fusion of science and art, Bob demonstrated “what a qubit sounds like” to the audiences. The evening culminated in a lively and spontaneous jam session by the conference participants.
The QISS II Vienna Conference was appreciated by the participants for its dynamic format, collaborative spirit, discussion focus and the depth of scientific exchange it fostered. The event concluded with a warm expression of appreciation, as the community came together to acknowledge consortium leader Carlo Rovelli, co-leader Marios Christodoulou for their visionary leadership, and the organizing committee for their dedication over six remarkable years of the consortium.
Marios Christodoulou and Lin-Qing Chen on behalf of the QISS-Vienna Conference Organising Committee.
ISLQG News, April 2025
ISLQG Internal Blog
The newly launched internal blog of the ISLQG is designed to foster communication and engagement among members of the Society. It serves as a dedicated platform where members can share updates, spark discussions, and stay informed about developments within our community.
All members will receive an invitation to access the blog. Once logged in, they are welcome to post announcements about upcoming events, job opportunities, recent publications, and other topics relevant to the interests and activities of the Society.
We encourage everyone to actively participate and help us make this blog a vibrant and valuable resource for the ISLQG community.
Reports on Selected Past Events
Report on the APS meeting
The annual meeting of the American Physical Society took place in Anaheim, California, from March 16th to March 21st 2025. The event celebrated the International Year of Quantum Science and Technology. Loop Quantum Gravity was prominently represented.
There was an invited session on quantum gravity composed of three talks, by Abhay Ashtekar, Bianca Dittrich, and Ivan Agullo. The session was titled "A Beginner's Guide to Quantum Gravity" and was aimed at non-experts, providing an opportunity to promote Loop Quantum Gravity to the broader scientific community in North America.
The titles of the talks were:
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"Perspectives on the Evolution of Quantum Gravity" by A. Ashtekar,
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"Status of Quantum Gravity" by B. Dittrich,
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"A Beginner’s Guide to Black Hole Information" by I. Agullo.
The session was extraordinarily well-attended — the room was completely packed, with dozens of people standing at the back due to the unavailability of chairs.The parallel sessions “Quantum Gravity I” and “Quantum Gravity II” featured additional talks on Loop Quantum Gravity. In particular, Anzhong Wang presented on loop quantum cosmology, and Seth Major discussed black holes in LQG.
Ivan Agullo
Report on the DPG Spring meeting
The DPG Spring Meeting of the German Physical Society (DPG) took place from 31 March to 4 April 2025 in Göttingen. The German Physical Society is divided into several sections, and the conference in Göttingen was the one that covered the Matter and Cosmos section, which includes particle physics, gravitation and relativity, and mathematical physics, among other things.
As part of the celebrations marking the 100th anniversary of quantum mechanics, the speakers from GR and Mathematical Physics sections, Luciano Rezzolla and Johanna Erdmenger, organised a joint symposium on the current status of quantum mechanics and gravity. The symposium was dedicated to presenting the current state of research on quantum gravity. It brought together the perspectives of four speakers, Nils Obers, Kristina Giesel, Renate Loll and Alessia Platania, working on different approaches to quantum gravity, namely string theory, loop quantum gravity, dynamic triangulations and asymptotic safety. Denmark – the home of quantum physicist Nils Bohr – was the guest country at the DPG Spring Meeting in Göttingen and the organisers were particularly pleased to have two speakers from Denmark in the symposium
The session was well-attended and there were lively discussions after the talks. There were several parallel sessions in particle physics, GR and Mathematical Physics, covering various topics in these fields. They usually began with a longer invited talk, followed by shorter talks, with many younger researchers presenting their work in the latter.
Kristina Giesel
ISLQG News, March 2025
Report on Selected Past Events
Bad Honnef Physics School on Searching Quantum Gravity in the Sky
In the 3rd week of February of 2025, the German Physical Society (DPG) Bad Honnef Physics school on Searching quantum gravity in the sky. was organized at the Physikzentrum in Bad Honnef under the BridgeQG COST action. The 5-day long school, that was attended by roughly 70 masters and PhD students from all over the world, included experimental as well as theoretical lectures on quantum gravity phenomenology, with the central subject being Lorentz invariance violation (LIV) and its experimental observations in high-energy astrophysics.
The school was kickstarted by an introductory talk by Christian Pfeiffer (ZARM Bremen), one of the main organisersof the school together with Giulia Gubitosi (U Napoli), Tomislav Terzić (U Rijeka) and Jose Manuel Carmona (U Zaragoza). The theoretical lecture was given by Giacomo Rosati wherein he touched upon two phenomenological approaches that aim at modifying special relativity, viz., LIV and doubly special relativity (DSR). The experimental lectures covered the different aspects and complexities involved in observing potential LIV through astrophysical sources. These were given by Jelena Striškovič, Rafael Alves Batista and CaterinaTrimarelli wherein the hunt for LIV observations via time-delays in high-energy gamma-ray photons and via interaction threshold reactions, as well as the experimental challenges in the detection of cosmic messengers, were discussed in detail.
Apart from these main topics of the school, there were two additional talks covering potential deviations between theory and observations. The first of these was given by Jackson Levi Said wherein the current tensions in cosmological observations were discussed. The second of the these, which concluded the school was given by Flaminia Giacomini wherein she discussed theoretical notions in low-energy quantum gravity and introduced some thought-experiments aiming at identifying quantum gravity effects.
During the school, all attendees had the opportunity to visit the Effelsberg 100-m Radio Telescope, gaining hands-on experience with one of the world's largest fully steerable radio telescopes. Participants learned about its working principles and operational procedures, adding a practical dimension to their understanding of observational techniques relevant to quantum gravity phenomenology.
The Bad Honnef Physics Center, with its castle-like architecture, comfortable accommodations, and excellent dining facilities, provided an ideal setting for immersive learning. The residential format encouraged continuous scientific exchange among students and lecturers, strengthening the sense of community in the field. There were also numerous social activities, including shared meals, a poster session, and a karaoke night, which further fostered interactions among participants. The school was co-funded by the BridgeQG COST action, which aims to bridge the gap between low- and high-energy quantum gravity research initiatives and foster further interaction. In alignment with this objective, the next edition of the school is planned for 2026 , with a focus on low-energy quantum gravity.
Paul Hartung, Roman Kemper, Jonas Neuser, Niklas Rodenbücher and Ashay Sathe (Institute for Quantum Gravity, FAU ErlangenNürnberg)
ISLQG News, February 2025
Report on Selected Past Events
12th Tux Winter Workshop on Quantum Gravity
Around 40 researchers from the field of quantum gravity from Europe, Asia and North America met for five days in Tux in the Austrian Alps, at the 12th Tux winter workshop on Quantum Gravity Feb 10 to 14, 2025. The goal of this workshop series is to report and discuss new results and ideas at the conference venue, but also during hikes, on the ski slopes, or over dinner in the restaurants of the little mountain resort.
In October 2024, Jerzy Lewandowski, founder and co-organizer of the workshop series had passed away and so this year's edition was held in his memory and had a special focus on his work and research interests. In both, invited and contributed talks, many references to Jerzy Lewandowski were made to his kind and generous personality and his fine humor as well as to his towering scientific achievements.
The invited speakers Abhay Ashtekar, Fernando Barbero, Bianca Dittrich, Kristina Giesel, Wojciech Kaminski, YonggeMa, Guillermo Mena Marugán, José Mourão, Daniele Oriti, Jorge Pullin, and Thomas Thiemann reflected on Lewandowski's work and his personal and scientific influence on them. They also presented their own recent work, some of which was directly related to earlier results by Jerzy Lewandowski.
Invited and contributed talks reported on progress in understanding a wide range of topcis, from classical and quantum black holes, apparent horizons, quantum cosmology, precanonical quantization, effective actions, entanglement in quantum field theory, asymptotic charges and covariant phase space, to higher gauge theory, among others. A public talk by Jorge Pullin on gravitational waves recounted, in a highly entertaining way, the circuitous history of the subject, from Newton's first ideas to their eventual detection and the 2017 Nobel prize in physics.
Over a workshop dinner, participants had had the chance of catching up and hatching plans for the future. For those participants that did not have to leave quickly after the end of the official program, the workshop ended with a dinner at mountain hut and a nightly snowy sled ride down to the village under the starry sky.
The next edition of the workshop series will take place Feb 9 to 13, 2026. More Information will follow in due time.
Mehdi Assanioussi, Christian Fleischhack, llkka Mäkinen, Hanno Sahlmann and Wolfgang Wieland
ISLQG News, January 2025
Welcome New Faculty
We warmly congratulate Marios Christodoulou, who has been hired as an Assistant Professor (tenure track) at The Cyprus Institute, Nicosia, Cyprus https://www.cyi.ac.cy. The research interests of Marios' new group include topics such as loop quantum gravity, quantum information, table top quantum gravity protocols, theory in quantum computing and applications of quantum computing in lattice gauge theory and quantum gravity.
A call for applications for two postdoctoral positions to be filled as soon as possible will be announced as early as next week through the usual avenues. The positions will be funded under the ERA Chair project Quest. For inquiries please write to m.christodoulou@cyi.ac.cy
We warmly congratulate Hongwei Tan, who has accepted a permanent position in the School of Science at Hunan Institute of Technology, located in Hengyang city, Hunan Province, China in October 2024. Further information can be found on the School of Science's website. He welcomes enquiries from those interested in visiting and collaborating with him.
So far we have only reported on new permanent positions in the newsletter, but we thought it would be nice to also congratulate those who have received their PhD or taken up a new postdoctoral position. So if this applies to you and you would like us to mention this in the newsletter, please send an email to secretary@islqg.org.
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Spring Schedule ILQG Seminars
We thank Florian Girelli, Hal Haggard, Guillermo Mena, Francesca Vidotto and Jorge Pullin for organising the spring schedule of the International Loop Quantum Gravity Seminar. The first talk will take place on 21st of January 2025.
·Jan. 21st "A Planck Luminosity Bound in Quantum Gravity", Wolfgang Wieland, FAU Erlangen.
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Feb. 4th "Non-singular Black Hole symposium" Michał Bobula, Francesco Fazzini, Jonas Neuser, chair: Kristina Giesel, Various.
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Feb. 18th TBA Philipp Hoehn, OIST Japan.
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Mar. 4th "TQFT and spin foams" Matteo Bruno, Sapienza University of Rome.
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Mar. 18th "Possible Measurements on Quantum Fields", Robert OeckI, UNAM Morelia.
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Apr. 1st "Entanglement in De Sitter space" Patricia Ribes Metidieri, LSU.
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Apr. 15th "Poisson Lie Symmetries and Noether's Theorem", Aldo Riello, Perimeter Institute.
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Apr. 29th "Permutation invariance and the quantum geometry exclusion principle" Andrea Di Biagio, IQOQI Vienna.
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May 13th TBA Beatriz Elizaga, University of Castilla-La Mancha Spain
The schedule for the spring and any updates can be found under the following link: https://relativity,phys./su.edu/ilggs/schedulesp
ISLQG News, December 2024
Reports on Selected Past Events
JUGAR II workshop
on quantum gravity, qft in curved backgrounds, gravitational waves and cosmology
The JUGAR II Workshop was held in Madrid from December 3 to 5, 2024. JUGAR means “to play” in Spanish, and 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.
Guillermo A. Mena Marugán
Welcome New faculty
We warmly congratulate Beatriz Elizaga Navascués, who is currently a postdoc at Louisiana State University, on her recently accepted tenure-track professorship at the University of Castilla - La Mancha in Spain. More information on the University of Castilla can be found here: https://www.uclm.es/?sc_lang=en. Bea will start her position in January 2025. The university started a new degree in physics two years ago and Bea is the first person they hire with a gravity background.
We warmly congratulate Hongguang Liu, who is currently a postdoc at FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg, on his recently accepted tenure-track professorship at Westlake University in Hangzhou, China. More information about Westlake University can be found here: https://en.westlake.edu.cn. Hongguang will take up his position in February and will be able to advertise PhD student and postdoc positions as soon as he starts his new position. Details for the postdoc position will be announced shortly. Interested PhD students can already apply and can find more information here: https://en.westlake.edu.cn/admissions/graduate/.
We warmly congratulate Cong Zhang, who is currently a postdoc at FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg, on his recently accepted tenure-track professorship at Beijing Normal University, China. More information about the Center for Relativity and Gravitation at Beijing Normal University can be found here: https://gravityen.bnu.edu.cn/. Cong will take up his position in March and warmly welcomes inquiries from those interested in visiting or collaborating.