Recent successes in string theory have included a microscopic computation of the Bekenstein–Hawking entropy of black holes, and the discovery of holographic dualities between gauge theories and gravity. String theory is, however, still far from fully understood at a fundamental level — even the nature of the underlying degrees of freedom remains elusive. The emphasis of this workshop will be on combining the resources of physicists and mathematicians to better explore and interpret gravitational aspects of string theory.

Specific topics of interest for this focused workshop may include the role of black holes, the stringy resolution of curvature singularities (particularly those of a spacelike and cosmological nature) and of regions of bad chronology, warped compactifications and the route to constructing realistic cosmological models, the cosmological dark energy problem, gravity/gauge dualities, non-commutative and matrix theories, and holography.

Speakers:

• Miguel Costa, Porto University
• Sumit Das, University of Kentucky
• Bernard de Wit, Utrecht University
• Jerome Gauntlett, Imperial College
• Gary Horowitz, University of California, Santa Barbara
• Renata Kallosh, Stanford University
• Alex Maloney, SLAC and Stanford University
• Shiraz Minwalla, Tata Institute and Harvard University
• Simon Ross, University of Durham
• Eva Silverstein, Stanford University
• Antoine Van Proeyen, K.U. Leuven - Belgium
• "The Fellowship of the Ring" (Henriette Elvang, Roberto Emparan, David Mateos, & Harvey Reall)