General Information

The Cracow School of Theoretical Physics is organized yearly since 1961 in Zakopane, winter and summer resort town located in the High Tatra Mountains approximately 100 km south of a historical city of Krakow, a former capital of Poland. Typically the program consists of 10-15 plenary lectures, each two-three hours long and shorter one-hour contributions by invited speakers, and a number of 20 min. talks by young scientists. Lecture sessions are arranged in the mornings and in the evenings. Afternoons are left free for discussions. One day during the School is free and one can use this time for hiking in the High Tatra Mountains or for hanging around in the town of Zakopane. Participants are expected to be at the level of last year MSc, PhD and/or young post-docs working in the fields covered by the School. The School typically accommodates up to 70 participants.

The 64th Cracow School will be devoted to the latest developments in broadly understood gravitational physics, cosmology and mathematical aspects of general relativity. This is timely since the past few years have witnessed the dawn of gravitational wave astronomy with observations from ground-based interferometers and pulsar timing arrays. This has opened a new window on the early universe as well as on the physics of compact objects and their environments, thus allowing to test the standard cosmological paradigm in new ways, but also providing a direct probe of GR in the strong field regime. On the other hand, recent theoretical advances in quantum gravity research have allowed to better understand the underlying structure of the theory and make progress on fundamental problems such as the black hole information paradox. In this context the aim of this advanced school is to provide a panorama of the state of the art in gravity research by focusing on select topics that are showing particular promise. Examples include canonical and semi-classical quantum gravity, holography and AdS/CFT, black hole physics and astrophysics, future gravitational wave observational prospects, cosmology in the era of gravitational wave astronomy, and modified gravity.