Strings 2014, the major annual international meeting on string theory, will be held at Princeton University and the Institute for Advanced Study on June 23-27, 2014. Funds are requested from the National Science Foundation for local support for graduate students and postdocs attending Strings 2014, and also for partial support of speakers.

Since the 1980's, meetings in the Strings series have been focal points of the field, with experts from around the world presenting new work and reviewing recent developments. These meetings have a very broad focus, including string theory, its relations to quantum field theory and other areas of physics, the associated mathematics and mathematical physics, and potential applications to particle physics and cosmology. Strings 2014 will follow in this tradition, aiming for a unified presentation of the many strands of modern string theory.

In addition to plenary talks, this year the program will include parallel sessions, a poster session, a gong show, and vision talks. The Strings 2014 meeting will also be tied in to a summer school, Prospects in Theoretical Physics (PiTP) that will be held the previous week at the Institute for Advanced Study. The PiTP meeting will help prepare graduate students for the Strings 2014 meeting and it is expected that many students will come for both events.

The conference website: http://physics.princeton.edu/strings2014/Home.shtml

Project Report

meeting was held at Princeton University in June 2014, co-sponsored by Princeton University and the Institute for Advanced Study. Funds from The National Science Foundation were used primarily for local support for students and also for local support for speakers. Other speakers were supported by the Clay Mathematics Institute and with funds provided by Princeton University and the Institute for Advanced Study. The Strings 2014 conference was planned by a Local Organizing Committee that consisted of 15 professors at Princeton University and the Institute for Advanced Study, with the advice of an International Organizing Committee that included 60 prominent scientists around the world, and a Local Advisory Committee consisting of an additional 15 distinguished scientists from neighboring institutions. The conference was held on June 23-7 at Princeton University and the Institute for Advanced Study, with a total of 616 registered participants. This is an exceptionally large number, even compared to previous meetings in the same series. There were 272 participants from the United States and 344 from 32 institutions outside of the U.S. We believe that we were successful at providing a stimulating and up-to-date overview of research in string theory and its relations to other areas of physics and mathematics, ranging from geometry to quantum field theory, condensed matter physics, and more. There were a total of 45 plenary speakers and 27 speakers at parallel sessions. Overall the speakers did an excellent job of presenting their topics and some presented surprising and novel results. One important facet of Strings 2014 and one of the reasons it was so well attended was that it had a strong educational component. The week before the meeting, there was a summer school, Prospects in Theoretical Physics (PiTP) held at the Institute for Advanced Study on the subject of string theory. 260 graduate students attended both PiTP and Strings 2014. Of these 260 students, 129 were from the United States and 131 came from institutions in 25 countries outside of the U.S. The Institute for Advanced Study substantially subsidized the summer school for students. Over two dozen students had the chance to give short (six minute) talks at the "gong shows" that were held at PiTP and Strings 2014. For many of these students, the gong show talk was the first opportunity to present their work to an international audience. Nearly 60 students and postdocs made poster presentations at Strings 2014. Listed below are speakers for Strings 2014. Speakers at Strings 2014 Lara Anderson (Virginia Tech, Blacksburg); Benjamin Basso (Ecole Normale Superieure, Paris); Daniel Baumann (Cambridge University); Piotr Bizon (Albert Einstein Institute, Potsdam); Jan de Boer (University of Amsterdam); Raphael Bousso (UC Berkeley); Freddy Cachazo (Perimeter Institute, Waterloo); Horacio Casini (Instituto Balseiro, Bariloche); Miranda Cheng (University of Amsterdam); Paul Chesler (Harvard University, Cambridge); Joseph Conlon (Oxford University); Clay Cordova (Harvard University, Cambridge); Sera Cremonini (Cambridge University, Texas A&M); Atish Dabholkar (LPTHE, Paris); Louise Dolan (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill); Johanna Erdmenger (MPI, Munich); Mboyo Esole (Harvard University, Cambridge); Daniel Freedman (MIT, Cambridge, Stanford); Davide Gaiotto (Perimeter Institute, Waterloo); Jerome Gauntlett (Imperial College, London); Jaume Gomis (Perimeter Institute, Waterloo); Rajesh Gopakumar (Harish-Chandra Research Institute, Allahabad); Peter Graham (Stanford University); Michael Green (University of Cambridge); Nikolay Gromov (King's College, London); David Gross (KITP, UCSB); Monica Guica (University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia); Masanori Hanada (Kyoto University, Stanford University); Simeon Hellerman (IPMU, Kashiwa); Veronika Hubeny (Durham University); Shamit Kachru (Stanford University); Denis Klevers (University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia); Zohar Komargodski (Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot); John Kovac (Harvard University, Cambridge); David Kutasov (University of Chicago); Sangmin Lee (Seoul National University); Sungjay Lee (University of Chicago); Rob Leigh (University of Illinois, Champaign); Hong Liu (MIT, Cambridge); Carlos Mafra (University of Cambridge); Juan Maldacena (IAS, Princeton); Fernando Marchesano (IFT, Madrid); Marcos Marino (University of Geneva); Joseph Minahan (Uppsala University); Gregory Moore (Rutgers University, Piscataway); Jeff Murugan (University of Cape Town); Andrew Neitzke (University of Texas, Austin); Nikita Nekrasov (SCGP, Stony Brook); Kyriakos Papadodimas (CERN, Geneva); Joseph Polchinski (KITP, UCSB); Mark van Raamsdonk (UBC, Vancouver); Suvrat Raju (ICTS, TIFR, Mumbai); Leonardo Rastelli (YITP, Stony Brook); Ashoke Sen (Harish-Chandra Research Institute, Allahabad); Eva Silverstein (Stanford University); David Simmons-Duffin (IAS, Princeton); Matthias Staudacher (Humboldt University, Berlin); Paul Steinhardt (Princeton University); Stephan Stieberger (MPI, Munich); Andrew Strominger (Harvard University, Cambridge); Raman Sundrum (University of Maryland, College Park); Yuji Tachikawa (U. Tokyo, IPMU, Kashiwa); Tadashi Takayanagi (YITP, Kyoto University); Alessandro Tomasiello (INFN, University of Milan Bicocca); Erik Tonni (SISSA, Trieste); Jaroslav Trnka (Caltech, Pasadena); Arkady Tseytlin (Imperial College, London); Cumrun Vafa (Harvard University, Cambridge); Mikhail Vasiliev (Lebedev Institute, Moscow); Nicholas Warner (USC, Los Angeles); Edward Witten (IAS, Princeton); Timo Weigand (Heidelberg University); Matias Zaldarriaga (IAS, Princeton).

Agency
National Science Foundation (NSF)
Institute
Division of Mathematical Sciences (DMS)
Type
Standard Grant (Standard)
Application #
1415191
Program Officer
Tie Luo
Project Start
Project End
Budget Start
2014-05-01
Budget End
2015-04-30
Support Year
Fiscal Year
2014
Total Cost
$30,000
Indirect Cost
Name
Institute for Advanced Study
Department
Type
DUNS #
City
Princeton
State
NJ
Country
United States
Zip Code
08540