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X-ORIGINAL-URL:https://www.ift.uam-csic.es
X-WR-CALDESC:Events for Instituto de Física Teórica
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TZID:Europe/Madrid
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Madrid:20251120T173000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/Madrid:20251120T183000
DTSTAMP:20260405T210626
CREATED:20251119T125326Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20251218T085316Z
UID:23764-1763659800-1763663400@www.ift.uam-csic.es
SUMMARY:Old Journal Club en la Facultad: "Rotura de simetría y mecanismo de Higgs"
DESCRIPTION:Speaker: Marta F. Zamoro (IFT) \nVenue & Time: Aula M15-201. Facultad de Ciencias\, UAM / 17:30
URL:https://www.ift.uam-csic.es/event/old-journal-club-en-la-facultad-rotura-de-simetria-y-mecanismo-de-higgs/
LOCATION:Madrid
CATEGORIES:Journal clubs,Scientific activities
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Madrid:20251124T100000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/Madrid:20251124T130000
DTSTAMP:20260405T210626
CREATED:20251119T133048Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20251218T085246Z
UID:23771-1763978400-1763989200@www.ift.uam-csic.es
SUMMARY:2 Minutes Meeting
DESCRIPTION:The Institute for Theoretical Physics (IFT) and the Department of Theoretical Physics (DFT) would like to invite you to the “2 Minutes Meeting”\, which will take place on Monday\, November 24 at 10:00 AM in the Aula Polivalente (UAM).\n\n\nThis event is open to all DFT and IFT members and aims to help us get to know each other better in a relaxed and informal setting. Each participant will have about 2 minutes to introduce themselves and share some of their personal or recreational interests.\n\n\nIf you’d like to use one slide during your brief presentation\, you may send one only slide to comunicacion@ift.csic.es before Friday\, November 21.\n\n\nWe’ll finish with a coffee at 13:00 PM in the Sala de Profesores – Ramiro Cafeteria.\n\n\nWe hope you’ll take part — it’s a perfect moment to meet and connect with all your colleagues.\n\n\nJoin us!
URL:https://www.ift.uam-csic.es/event/2-minutes-meeting/
LOCATION:Madrid
CATEGORIES:Colloquia,Scientific activities
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.ift.uam-csic.es/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/WhatsApp-Image-2025-11-24-at-15.22.16.jpeg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Madrid:20251124T150000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/Madrid:20251124T160000
DTSTAMP:20260405T210626
CREATED:20251029T112558Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20251125T081536Z
UID:23516-1763996400-1764000000@www.ift.uam-csic.es
SUMMARY:Seminar: 'Gravitational Lensing of Waves: a new window into cosmology and fundamental physics'
DESCRIPTION:Speaker: Miguel Zumalacárregui from Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics (Albert Einstein Institute). \nVenue&Time: Red Room / 3:00 PM \nAbstract: Gravitational lensing\, the bending of light by gravity\, is essential for interpreting astronomical observations and provides key insight into astrophysics\, cosmology\, and fundamental physics. A new frontier in gravitational lensing intersects with another key prediction of Einstein’s theory: gravitational waves\, fluctuations of space-time produced by the collision of black holes and neutron stars. Like light\, gravitational waves are deflected and magnified by the intervening matter distribution\, but their unique properties (low frequency\, lack of absorption and ab-initio emission models) enable novel signatures and applications. I will present the phenomenology of lensed gravitational waves and the science they will deliver to identify high-redshift sources and probe dark-matter and new gravitational fields. As guiding example I will focus on GW231123: the first compelling lensed black hole merger candidate\, its interpretation and consequences.
URL:https://www.ift.uam-csic.es/event/seminar-by-miguel-zumalacarregui/
LOCATION:Madrid
CATEGORIES:Scientific activities,Seminars
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Madrid:20251125T140000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/Madrid:20251125T150000
DTSTAMP:20260405T210626
CREATED:20251119T133354Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20251218T085316Z
UID:23777-1764079200-1764082800@www.ift.uam-csic.es
SUMMARY:Cosmology Journal Club
DESCRIPTION:Every Tuesday at 2:00 PM in the discussion room on the 5th floor. \nJoin the IFT cosmology/gravity journal club at benty-fields.com to vote for papers and volunteer to present them.
URL:https://www.ift.uam-csic.es/event/cosmology-journal-club-8/
LOCATION:Madrid
CATEGORIES:Journal clubs,Scientific activities
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Madrid:20251125T150000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/Madrid:20251125T160000
DTSTAMP:20260405T210626
CREATED:20251121T122546Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20251218T085316Z
UID:23871-1764082800-1764086400@www.ift.uam-csic.es
SUMMARY:Pheno Journal Club: 'Is the Strong CP Problem Really a Problem?'
DESCRIPTION:Speaker: Giulio Barni (IFT) \nVenue & Time: 14:30 – 15:30 \nAbstract: The vanishingly small value of the QCD θ-angle inferred from neutron EDM bounds is usually taken as evidence for the Strong CP Problem\, prompting a wide range of proposed solutions. In this talk\, I will first review what the Strong CP Problem is: why a generic θ term in QCD leads to large CP violation\, and how current experiments force θ ≲ 10e-10. I will then summarize the main solution strategies\, including the Peccei–Quinn axion\, parity- or CP-based models\, and other less conventional ideas. The second part of the talk will focus on a more conceptual question raised in recent years: does the Strong CP Problem actually exist\, or could θ be unphysical once confinement and the full structure of QCD are properly taken into account? Building on the recent analysis of Benabou\, Hook\, Manzari\, Murayama and Safdi (arXiv:2510.18951)\, I will discuss this debate\, highlighting what lattice QCD teaches us about θ-dependence\, topological sectors\, and the neutron EDM.
URL:https://www.ift.uam-csic.es/event/pheno-journal-club-3/
LOCATION:Gray Room 3\, Instituto de Física Teórica (IFT) -C. Nicolás Cabrera\, 13-15\, Fuencarral-El Pardo\, Madrid\, 28049\,\, Spain
CATEGORIES:Journal clubs,Scientific activities
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Madrid:20251125T153000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/Madrid:20251125T170000
DTSTAMP:20260405T210626
CREATED:20251111T155545Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20251125T082113Z
UID:23716-1764084600-1764090000@www.ift.uam-csic.es
SUMMARY:EDI Trainings: 'Intersectionality. Reflection on identity\, privilege and positioning in academia'
DESCRIPTION:Speaker: Shannah Khan. Director of Intersect Madrid \nVenue & Time: Blue Room / 3:30 PM \nAbstract: This workshop offers a space for reflection and dialogue to explore how our personal identities\, experiences\, and social positions influence the way we participate in academic contexts. Through participatory activities\, it seeks to foster a deeper understanding of intersectionality and the role that privilege and position play in our interactions and perspectives within academia.
URL:https://www.ift.uam-csic.es/event/intersectionality-reflection-on-identity-privilege-and-positioning-in-academia/
LOCATION:Blue Room\, Instituto de Física Teórica (IFT) - C. Nicolás Cabrera\, 13-15\, Fuencarral-El Pardo\, Madrid\, 28049\,\, Spain
CATEGORIES:Scientific activities,Seminars
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Madrid:20251127T120000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/Madrid:20251127T130000
DTSTAMP:20260405T210626
CREATED:20251121T123840Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20251218T085316Z
UID:23879-1764244800-1764248400@www.ift.uam-csic.es
SUMMARY:String\, Pheno and the Swampland Journal Club: 'Anomaly-induced vanishing of brane partition functions'
DESCRIPTION:Speaker: Michelangelo Tartaglia (IFT) \nVenue & Time: Red Room / 12:00 \nAbstract: In the presence of ‘t Hooft anomalies\, backgrounds for the symmetries of a quantum field theory can lead to non-conservation of Noether currents\, or more generally\, to the presence of charged insertions in the path integral. When there is a net background charge\, the partition function evaluated on closed manifolds will vanish. For anomalous symmetries\, this statement can also be understood as the anomaly theory giving rise to a non-trivial anomalous phase for the partition function even for “rigid” transformations which leave all background fields unchanged. We use the generalisation of this second viewpoint to the setting of anomalous higher-form symmetries in order to show vanishing of the partition function for a number of examples\, both with and without a Lagrangian description. In particular\, we show how to derive from these considerations the analogue of the Freed-Witten anomaly cancellation condition for the M5-brane\, and also that for the D3-brane in S-fold backgrounds.
URL:https://www.ift.uam-csic.es/event/string-pheno-and-the-swampland-journal-club/
LOCATION:IFT Seminar Room/Red Room\, Instituto de Física Teórica (IFT) -C. Nicolás Cabrera\, 13-15\, Fuencarral-El Pardo\, Madrid\, 28049\,\, Spain
CATEGORIES:Journal clubs,Scientific activities
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Madrid:20251127T150000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/Madrid:20251127T160000
DTSTAMP:20260405T210626
CREATED:20251029T123222Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20251125T081857Z
UID:23518-1764255600-1764259200@www.ift.uam-csic.es
SUMMARY:Seminar: Constraining Muon decay parameters from CEvNS measurements at Spallation Sources
DESCRIPTION:Speaker: Suraj Prakash\, IFIC (Valencia)\n \nVenue&Time: Red Room / 3:00 PM \nAbstract: The talk will present a study of the sensitivity of COHERENT-like experiments to non-standard neutrino interactions within the vWEFT framework\, i.e. low-energy EFT with additional right-handed Dirac neutrinos. Our analysis incorporates\, for the first time\, flavor-general New Physics effects in both neutrino production (from pion and muon decays) and neutrino detection\, through Coherent Elastic Neutrino-Nucleus Scattering (CEvNS). As a special case\, we will highlight how CEvNS data provide an alternative probe for muon decay parameters\, for neutrino experiments where muon decay is a source of neutrinos. We will further illustrate how the results can be conveniently formulated in compact form and the ease with which they can be implemented in existing or future analyses using effective nuclear charges. Finally\, We will discuss numerical results based on current COHERENT data\, and also present estimates for the sensitivity of future measurements.
URL:https://www.ift.uam-csic.es/event/seminar-constraining-muon-decay-parameters-from-cevns-measurements-at-spallation-sources/
LOCATION:Madrid
CATEGORIES:Scientific activities,Seminars
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Madrid:20251201T150000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/Madrid:20251201T160000
DTSTAMP:20260405T210626
CREATED:20251027T105029Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20251218T085419Z
UID:23469-1764601200-1764604800@www.ift.uam-csic.es
SUMMARY:Seminar: Quantum simulation of lattice gauge theories with Rydberg atom arrays
DESCRIPTION:Speaker: Daniel González Cuadra (IFT) \nVenue&Time: Red Room / 15:00 \nAbstract: Lattice gauge theories (LGTs) describe a broad range of phenomena in condensed matter and particle physics. A prominent example is confinement\, responsible for bounding quarks inside hadrons such as protons or neutrons. When quark-antiquark pairs are separated\, the energy stored in the string of gluon fields connecting them grows linearly with their distance\, until there is enough energy to create new pairs from the vacuum and break the string. While such phenomena are ubiquitous in LGTs\, simulating the resulting dynamics is a challenging task. In this talk\, I will report the observation of string breaking in synthetic quantum matter using a programmable quantum simulator based on neutral atom arrays [Nature 642\, 321–326 (2025)]. I will first show how a (2+1)D LGT with dynamical matter can be efficiently implemented when the atoms are placed on a Kagome geometry\, with a local U(1) symmetry emerging from the Rydberg blockade\, while long-range Rydberg interactions naturally give rise to a linear confining potential between pairs of charges. In the experiment\, we probe string breaking in equilibrium by adiabatically preparing the ground state of the atom array in the presence of defects\, distinguishing regions within the confined phase dominated by fluctuating strings or by broken string configurations. Finally\, by harnessing local control over the atomic detuning\, we quench string states and observe string breaking dynamics exhibiting a many-body resonance phenomenon. As an outlook\, I will present a roadmap to further explore phenomena in high-energy physics using programmable quantum simulators.
URL:https://www.ift.uam-csic.es/event/seminar-quantum-simulation-of-lattice-gauge-theories-with-rydberg-atom-arrays-2/
LOCATION:IFT Seminar Room/Red Room\, Instituto de Física Teórica (IFT) -C. Nicolás Cabrera\, 13-15\, Fuencarral-El Pardo\, Madrid\, 28049\,\, Spain
CATEGORIES:Scientific activities,Seminars
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Madrid:20251202T113000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/Madrid:20251202T130000
DTSTAMP:20260405T210626
CREATED:20251107T120803Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20251125T081101Z
UID:23693-1764675000-1764680400@www.ift.uam-csic.es
SUMMARY:Holo Club: 'Complexity equals anything for multi-horizon black holes'
DESCRIPTION:Speaker: Hong-Yue Jiang (Lanzhou University) \nVenue&Time: 11:30 / Gray Room 3 \nAbstract: We investigate the “complexity equals anything” proposal with codimension-one and codimension-zero gravitational observables for multi-horizon black holes\, using the Bardeen-AdS class black hole as an example. In particular\, we compare the results with the “complexity equals volume” (CV) proposal and find that the generalized volume complexitiy enables the probing of a more complete black hole interior\, that is\, all spacetime regions where the blackening factor $f(r)<0$. This is the advantage brought by the flexibility of this holographic complexity conjecture. In addition\, we compute the codimension-zero gravitational observables derived from various geometric quantities and show that these constructions can effectively differentiate the distinct interior regions of the black hole.
URL:https://www.ift.uam-csic.es/event/holo-club-complexity-equals-anything-for-multi-horizon-black-holes/
LOCATION:Gray Room 3\, Instituto de Física Teórica (IFT) -C. Nicolás Cabrera\, 13-15\, Fuencarral-El Pardo\, Madrid\, 28049\,\, Spain
CATEGORIES:Journal clubs,Scientific activities
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Madrid:20251202T140000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/Madrid:20251202T150000
DTSTAMP:20260405T210626
CREATED:20251128T160842Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20251128T160842Z
UID:23991-1764684000-1764687600@www.ift.uam-csic.es
SUMMARY:Cosmology Journal Club
DESCRIPTION:Every Tuesday at 2:00 PM in the discussion room on the 5th floor. \nJoin the IFT cosmology/gravity journal club at benty-fields.com to vote for papers and volunteer to present them.
URL:https://www.ift.uam-csic.es/event/cosmology-journal-club-9/
LOCATION:Discussion room 5th floor\, C. Nicolás Cabrera\, 13-15\, Fuencarral-El Pardo\, Madrid\, Madrid\, 28049\, Spain
CATEGORIES:Journal clubs
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Madrid:20251202T150000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/Madrid:20251202T160000
DTSTAMP:20260405T210626
CREATED:20251114T160431Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20251218T085418Z
UID:23744-1764687600-1764691200@www.ift.uam-csic.es
SUMMARY:GRASS Seminar: 'Electric-magnetic duality of dyonic Kerr-Newman-NUT-AdS spacetimes'
DESCRIPTION:GRASS (GRAvity\, Supergravity & Superstrings) Seminar \nSpeaker: Cristóbal Andrés Corral (Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez\, Chle) \nVenue & Time: Red Room / 15:00 \nAbstract: We discuss the (anti-)self-duality conditions under which the electric and magnetic parts of the conserved charges of the dyonic Kerr-Newman-NUT-AdS solution become equivalent. Within a holographic framework\, the stress tensor and the boundary Cotton tensor are computed from the electric/magnetic content of the Weyl tensor. The holographic stress tensor/Cotton tensor duality is recovered along the (anti-)self-dual curve in parameter space. We show that the latter not only implies a duality relation for the mass but also for the angular momentum.  The partition function is computed to first order in the saddle-point approximation and a BPS bound is obtained. The ground state of the theory is enlarged to all the (anti-)self-dual configurations when the SO(4) and U(1) Pontryagin densities are introduced. We demonstrate this at the level of the action and variations thereof.
URL:https://www.ift.uam-csic.es/event/grass-seminar-electric-magnetic-duality-of-dyonic-kerr-newman-nut-ads-spacetimes/
LOCATION:Madrid
CATEGORIES:Scientific activities,Seminars
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Madrid:20251202T150000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/Madrid:20251202T160000
DTSTAMP:20260405T210626
CREATED:20251128T160718Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20251128T160718Z
UID:23989-1764687600-1764691200@www.ift.uam-csic.es
SUMMARY:Pheno Journal Club
DESCRIPTION:Every Tuesday at 15:00 in Grey Room 3.
URL:https://www.ift.uam-csic.es/event/pheno-journal-club-4/
LOCATION:Gray Room 3\, Instituto de Física Teórica (IFT) -C. Nicolás Cabrera\, 13-15\, Fuencarral-El Pardo\, Madrid\, 28049\,\, Spain
CATEGORIES:Journal clubs
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Madrid:20251203T113000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/Madrid:20251203T123000
DTSTAMP:20260405T210626
CREATED:20251128T170554Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20251218T085316Z
UID:23993-1764761400-1764765000@www.ift.uam-csic.es
SUMMARY:Quantum Information Journal Club: 'Programming quantum matter made with light and atoms'
DESCRIPTION:Speaker: Cristian Tabares \n\nVenue & Time: 11:30 / Gray Room 3 \n\nAbstract: Current experimental quantum devices do not yet meet the requirements for building fault-tolerant quantum computers\, but they can still be used to address many-body problems as analogue quantum simulators. Furthermore\, recent experimental advances [1-4] are enabling these simulators to operate in a programmable manner [5]\, where their dynamics can be used as resources to generate a set of (non-universal) quantum gates. These controllable systems are able to generate highly entangled states\, but a natural question is how to use these resources for quantum simulation purposes.\n\n\nIn this seminar we will discuss two different approaches. The first one will be based on state preparation\, demonstrating how a classical device can be used to assist the analogue quantum simulator in the task of many-body state preparation [6\,7] with variational algorithms. We will focus on fermionic atoms in optical lattices [8]\, constructing for ground-state preparation of local and extended Fermi-Hubbard models that show considerable improvements with respect to equivalent adiabatic methods. Then\, in the second part of the talk\, we will introduce an algorithm specifically tailored for analog quantum simulators to accurately recover their ground state properties [9]. Using only global time evolution under a target Hamiltonian\, our algorithm avoids the need for local control that is typically required in conventional quantum phase estimation.\n\n\nThese results provide programmable quantum simulators with a new set of tools that further leverage their current capabilities. Overall\, our work opens new avenues for analog simulators to make a wider and more efficient exploration of their relevant many-body Hilbert space.\n\n\n\n[1] X. Zhang et al.\, Science 379\, 278-283 (2023). \n[2] C. Kokail et al.\, Nature 569\, 355–360 (2019). \n[3] S. Ebadi et al.\, Nature 595\, 227–232 (2021). \n[4] D. Bourgund et al.\, Nature 637\, 57–62 (2025). \n[5] A. J. Daley et al.\, Nature 607\, 667–676 (2022). \n[6] C. Tabares\, A. Muñoz de las Heras\, L. Tagliacozzo\, D. Porras\, and A. González-Tudela\, Phys. Rev. Lett. 131\, 073602 (2023). \n[7] A. Muñoz de las Heras\, C. Tabares\, J. Schneider\, L. Tagliacozzo\, D. Porras\, and A. González-Tudela.\, Phys. Rev. Research 6\, 013299 (2024). \n[8] C. Tabares\, C. Kokail\, P. Zoller\, D. González-Cuadra and A. González-Tudela\, PRX Quantum 6\, 030356 (2025). \n[9] C. Tabares\, D. S. Wild\, J. I. Cirac\, P. Zoller\, A. Gonzalez-Tudela\, and D. González-Cuadra\, arXiv:2511.04434 (2025).
URL:https://www.ift.uam-csic.es/event/quantum-information-journal-club-programming-quantum-matter-made-with-light-and-atoms/
LOCATION:Gray Room 3\, Instituto de Física Teórica (IFT) -C. Nicolás Cabrera\, 13-15\, Fuencarral-El Pardo\, Madrid\, 28049\,\, Spain
CATEGORIES:Journal clubs,Scientific activities
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Madrid:20251204T120000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/Madrid:20251204T130000
DTSTAMP:20260405T210626
CREATED:20251128T160428Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20251128T160523Z
UID:23984-1764849600-1764853200@www.ift.uam-csic.es
SUMMARY:SPS Journal Club: 'On the K-point in moduli space'
DESCRIPTION:Speaker: Alessandra Grieco (IFT)\n\nVenue & Time: Red Room / 12:00\n\nAbstract: We study a class of infinite-distance loci\, referred to as K-points\, in one-parameter complex-structure moduli spaces of type IIB string theory compactified on Calabi-Yau manifolds. We show that around K-points the effective four-dimensional supergravity exhibits certain unusual properties. The two most prominent being that the leading order dependence of the prepotential on the gauge couplings is non-perturbative and that the leading gauge kinetic terms in the action vanish when evaluated on an anti self-dual graviphoton background. These properties are shared with the conifold locus in moduli space\, rather than the large complex-structure locus. The conifold locus is well-known to arise from integrating out a charged BPS state\, and so the similarities suggest that the K-point also arises from integrating out a BPS state. We develop such an interpretation\, finding that it corresponds to a BPS state which is extremely light\, whose mass in Planck units is doubly-exponentially small in the distance to the K-point. The state behaves as if it had complex charges\, or as if it couples to the self-dual and anti self-dual parts of the graviphoton differently. Assuming such an integrating-out scenario is indeed the correct physics for the K-point\, we discuss the implications for our understanding of infinite distances in moduli space and for the Swampland Distance Conjecture.
URL:https://www.ift.uam-csic.es/event/sps-journal-club-on-the-k-point-in-moduli-space/
LOCATION:IFT Seminar Room/Red Room\, Instituto de Física Teórica (IFT) -C. Nicolás Cabrera\, 13-15\, Fuencarral-El Pardo\, Madrid\, 28049\,\, Spain
CATEGORIES:Journal clubs
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Madrid:20251204T150000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/Madrid:20251204T160000
DTSTAMP:20260405T210626
CREATED:20251029T111355Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20251201T091010Z
UID:23512-1764860400-1764864000@www.ift.uam-csic.es
SUMMARY:Seminar: 'The Tolerable Inhomogeneity of the Baryon Asymmetry'
DESCRIPTION:Speaker: Stefan Stelzl from EPFL\, Lausanne\n\n\nVenue & Time: Red Room / 15:00\n\n\n\nAbstract: \n\nIn this talk I present the implications of precision measurements of light element abundances in concordance with the Cosmic Microwave Background for scenarios of physics beyond the Standard Model that generate large inhomogeneities in the baryon-to-photon ratio. We show that precision Big Bang Nucleosynthesis (BBN) imposes strong constraints on any mechanism that produces large scale inhomogeneities at temperatures of the order or below a TeV. In particular\, we find that inhomogeneities of the order of at comoving length scales larger than the comoving horizon at the temperature of are in conflict with the measured light element abundances. I then briefly highlight the phenomenological consequences thereof.
URL:https://www.ift.uam-csic.es/event/seminar-by-stefan-stelzl-epfl-lausanne/
LOCATION:IFT Seminar Room/Red Room\, Instituto de Física Teórica (IFT) -C. Nicolás Cabrera\, 13-15\, Fuencarral-El Pardo\, Madrid\, 28049\,\, Spain
CATEGORIES:Seminars
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Madrid:20251204T170000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/Madrid:20251204T180000
DTSTAMP:20260405T210626
CREATED:20251128T155727Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20251128T160503Z
UID:23979-1764867600-1764871200@www.ift.uam-csic.es
SUMMARY:Old Journal Club: 'Field Theories with Superconductor Solutions'
DESCRIPTION:Lorenzo Paoloni (IFT) will present :“Field Theories with Superconductor Solutions”\, Nuovo Cim. 19 (1961) 154–164 de J. Goldstone. \nVenue & Time: Blue Room / 17:00 \n \nAbstract: The conditions for the existence of non-perturbative type « superconductor » solutions of field theories are examined. A non-covariant canonical transformation method is used to find such solutions for a theory of a fermion interacting with a pseudoscalar boson. A covariant renormalisable method using Feynman integrals is then given. A « superconductor » solution is found whenever in the normal perturbative-type solution the boson mass squared is negative and the coupling constants satisfy certain inequalities. The symmetry properties of such solutions are examined with the aid of a simple model of self-interacting boson fields. The solutions have lower symmetry than the Lagrangian\, and contain mass zero bosons. \nMore info: https://inspirehep.net/literature/12289
URL:https://www.ift.uam-csic.es/event/old-journal-club-field-theories-with-superconductor-solutions/
LOCATION:Blue Room\, Instituto de Física Teórica (IFT) - C. Nicolás Cabrera\, 13-15\, Fuencarral-El Pardo\, Madrid\, 28049\,\, Spain
CATEGORIES:Journal clubs
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Madrid:20251209T093000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/Madrid:20251211T180000
DTSTAMP:20260405T210626
CREATED:20251027T114955Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20251217T111635Z
UID:23481-1765272600-1765476000@www.ift.uam-csic.es
SUMMARY:31st Xmas Workshop
DESCRIPTION:From December 9th to December 11th 2025 we will celebrate the XXXI edition of our annual Christmas Workshop at the Instituto de Física Teórica (IFT) UAM-CSIC. \nLeading experts will meet at the IFT to discuss recent developments in (astro) particle physics\, phenomenology\, cosmology\, string theory\, and quantum information. \nMore info. \nOrganizers: \n\n\nAlejandro Bermudez\nDavid Cerdeño\nGregorio Herdoíza\nMiguel Montero\nPilar Coloma\nSven Heinemeyer\nYashar Akrami\n\n\n\n\nConfirmed speakers: \n\nMassimo Bianchi (Rome)\nDiego Blas (IFAE)\nRebecca Gozzini (IFIC)\nAram Harrow (MIT)\nYolanda Lozano (U Oviedo)\nGonzalo Palma (Chile U.)\nRyan Plestid (CERN)\nCarsten Urbach (U. Bonn)\nAlexander Westphal DESY)\nGiulia Zanderighi (MPI Munich)\n\n\n\n\n\nposterIFTXmas25.pdf
URL:https://www.ift.uam-csic.es/event/31st-xmas-workshop/
LOCATION:Blue Room\, Instituto de Física Teórica (IFT) - C. Nicolás Cabrera\, 13-15\, Fuencarral-El Pardo\, Madrid\, 28049\,\, Spain
CATEGORIES:Workshops
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Madrid:20251212T093000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/Madrid:20251212T140000
DTSTAMP:20260405T210626
CREATED:20251027T115407Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20251211T132747Z
UID:23485-1765531800-1765548000@www.ift.uam-csic.es
SUMMARY:Joint Colloquium IFT + ICMAT: 'Geometry of gauge theories in two dimensions'
DESCRIPTION:Joint ICMAT-IFT Colloquium \nAfter the colloquium\, the traditional “Farewell to the Year” party will take place in the CFTMAT cafeteria. \nSpeaker:  Oscar García-Prada (ICMAT-CSIC)\nDate:  Friday\, 12 December 2025 – 12:00\nPlace:  Blue Room \nAbstract: \nI will describe several geometric aspects of different gauge theories on Riemann surfaces that originate in four-dimensional Yang–Mills theories. A common theme is the appearance of various types of Higgs fields. I will provide some basic mathematical and historical background.
URL:https://www.ift.uam-csic.es/event/joint-colloquium-ift-icmat-2/
LOCATION:Blue Room\, Instituto de Física Teórica (IFT) - C. Nicolás Cabrera\, 13-15\, Fuencarral-El Pardo\, Madrid\, 28049\,\, Spain
CATEGORIES:Colloquia
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Madrid:20251215T150000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/Madrid:20251215T160000
DTSTAMP:20260405T210626
CREATED:20251128T152441Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20251218T085637Z
UID:23961-1765810800-1765814400@www.ift.uam-csic.es
SUMMARY:Seminar: 'Active Galactic Nuclei as Laboratories for Fundamental Physics'
DESCRIPTION:Speaker: Gonzalo Herrera (MIT & Harvard) \nVenue & Time: Red Room / 15:00\n\nAbstract: The vicinity of supermassive black holes at the center of Galaxies represents one of the most extreme environments in the Universe. In Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN)\, intense gravitational fields\, relativistic particle acceleration\, strong magnetic fields\, and dense ambient gas and radiation coexist in conditions unmatched by other astrophysical sources or Earth-based laboratories. Recent high-energy neutrino observations from the IceCube collaboration and their electromagnetic counterparts from AGN have revolutionized the field of multi-messenger astronomy\, providing the first direct window into the hadronic and leptonic processes operating at these cosmic accelerators\, and opening new opportunities to test fundamental physics at energies and densities beyond terrestrial reach. \nHere I will discuss how these environments can be exploited as laboratories for fundamental physics. I will first focus on dark matter–Standard Model interactions\, showing how dark matter scattering with cosmic rays\, neutrinos and gamma-rays can can lead to observable signatures on Earth. Second\, I will consider other exotic phenomena that may occur independently on the dark matter background in these environments\, such as photon-axion-like particle oscillations and microscopic black hole production from cosmic-ray collisions. Finally\, I will conclude by showing how AGN can boost the cosmic neutrino background to higher energies via Standard Model processes\, giving us a viable and promising pathway to detect the oldest particles in the Universe.
URL:https://www.ift.uam-csic.es/event/seminar-by-gonzalo-herrera-mit-harvard/
LOCATION:IFT Seminar Room/Red Room\, Instituto de Física Teórica (IFT) -C. Nicolás Cabrera\, 13-15\, Fuencarral-El Pardo\, Madrid\, 28049\,\, Spain
CATEGORIES:Scientific activities,Seminars
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Madrid:20251216T150000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/Madrid:20251216T160000
DTSTAMP:20260405T210626
CREATED:20251212T150514Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20251218T085316Z
UID:24132-1765897200-1765900800@www.ift.uam-csic.es
SUMMARY:Pheno Journal Club: 'How large can lepton mixing be?'
DESCRIPTION:Speaker: Sergio Rodríguez Benítez (IFT) \nVenue & Time: Grey Room 3 / 15:00 \nAbstract: We show that\, contrary to common expectations\, the observed charged leptons can have a substantial mixing with new heavier fermions\, at the level of 20%. This can happen\, in the language of effective theories\, when the effect of mixing with heavier fermions vanishes at tree level in operators of mass-dimension 6 (or it is suppressed by the small charged lepton masses)\, a cancellation that can be naturally ensured by symmetries. Using a model that realizes this scenario we consider all current direct and indirect constraints and show that experimental constraints on the mixing are so mild that\, given the current direct limit on the mass of the heavy fermions\, theoretical considerations become the leading current constraints on the mixing. We also estimate the sensitivity to the mixing at future experiments\, including the high-luminosity phase of the LHC and\, most notably\, the FCCee\, and FCC-hh. We find a pattern in which the reach of direct searches in hadron machines makes theoretical considerations lead the limits while the precision of lepton machines can beat these theoretical considerations. We find that the FCC can finally reach per milleprecision in the mixing squared of the charged leptons. \n 
URL:https://www.ift.uam-csic.es/event/pheno-journal-club-how-large-can-lepton-mixing-be/
LOCATION:Gray Room 3\, Instituto de Física Teórica (IFT) -C. Nicolás Cabrera\, 13-15\, Fuencarral-El Pardo\, Madrid\, 28049\,\, Spain
CATEGORIES:Journal clubs,Scientific activities
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Madrid:20260114T150000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/Madrid:20260114T170000
DTSTAMP:20260405T210626
CREATED:20260108T231658Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260108T234236Z
UID:24163-1768402800-1768410000@www.ift.uam-csic.es
SUMMARY:GRASS Seminar: 'Axions\, Three-Forms\, and M-Theory'
DESCRIPTION:Gravity\, Supergravity and Superstrings (GRASS) Seminar \nSpeaker: Ziqi Yan (Niels Bohr Institute\, Denmark) \nVenue & Time: Red Room / 15:00 \nAbstract: Scalar fields with masses protected by global shift symmetries\, commonly referred to as axions\, are abundantly used in effective field theories in cosmology and particle physics. I will discuss a (4+1) dimensional braneworld construction for axion-like particles\, where a 3-brane is coupled to a flux in the fifth dimension orthogonal to the brane\, and its uplift to M-theory. From the (3+1)-dimensional perspective\, this construction generates a mass for the axion and matches previously known proposals based on the coupling between the axion and a three-form gauge field.
URL:https://www.ift.uam-csic.es/event/grass-seminar-by-ziqi-yan-niels-bohr-institute-denmark/
LOCATION:IFT Seminar Room/Red Room\, Instituto de Física Teórica (IFT) -C. Nicolás Cabrera\, 13-15\, Fuencarral-El Pardo\, Madrid\, 28049\,\, Spain
CATEGORIES:Scientific activities,Seminars
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Madrid:20260115T120000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/Madrid:20260115T130000
DTSTAMP:20260405T210626
CREATED:20260108T233656Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260109T064725Z
UID:24167-1768478400-1768482000@www.ift.uam-csic.es
SUMMARY:SPS Journal Club: 'Exotic Branes and Symmetries of String Theory'
DESCRIPTION:Speaker: Andriana Makridou (IFT) \nVenue & Time: Red Room / 12:00 \nAbstract: Are duality transformations symmetries of string theory? For AdS space-time the answer is\nno for generic asymptotic values of the moduli\, since the duality symmetry is broken explicitly\nin the dual conformal field theory. In contrast\, in string theory in flat space-time\, monodromy\naround codimension two exotic branes show that duality transformations are spontaneously\nbroken discrete gauge symmetries with observable consequences\, provided macroscopic loops\nof these branes are not hidden behind an event horizon. We discuss how this can be achieved\nand how the situation in flat space-time differs from that in AdS space-time. We also discuss\nobservability of codimension two non-BPS branes and codimension one BPS and non-BPS\nbranes. Based on [2512.19068].
URL:https://www.ift.uam-csic.es/event/sps-journal-club-exotic-branes-and-symmetries-of-string-theory/
LOCATION:IFT Seminar Room/Red Room\, Instituto de Física Teórica (IFT) -C. Nicolás Cabrera\, 13-15\, Fuencarral-El Pardo\, Madrid\, 28049\,\, Spain
CATEGORIES:Journal clubs,Scientific activities
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Madrid:20260115T120000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/Madrid:20260115T130000
DTSTAMP:20260405T210626
CREATED:20260108T235522Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260112T110919Z
UID:24173-1768478400-1768482000@www.ift.uam-csic.es
SUMMARY:Pheno Journal Club: 'Bubble velocities in local equilibrium from a pseudopotential'
DESCRIPTION:Speaker: Eric Madge\, IFT \nVenue&Time: 12:00 / Grey room 3 \nAbstract: We present a new method to estimate terminal bubble velocities during first-order phase transitions in a plasma in local equilibrium. The method relies on calculating the extrema of a modified potential function for the scalar field undergoing the transition. The shape of this function\, which we refer to as the “pseudopotential”\, changes with the wall velocity\, and if the dependence of the fluid temperature on scalar gradients is weak—which is confirmed to hold with high accuracy in concrete examples—the difference in pseudopotential between two appropriate extrema gives the net outward pressure acting on the bubble wall. It then follows that the correct terminal bubble velocities are those that lead to degenerate minima in the pseudopotential. This allows to compute bubble velocities without having to solve the equation of motion of the scalar field\, and in contrast to other methods this can be done without relying on simplified equations of state for the plasma or without choosing a specific ansatz for the scalar field profile. We illustrate the method in a singlet extension of the Standard Model\, computing the net outward pressure as a function of the wall velocity. We confirm the dip in outward pressure found in the literature for hybrid bubbles\, which implies that stationary deflagrations are stable\, while their detonation counterparts are unstable
URL:https://www.ift.uam-csic.es/event/pheno-journal-club-bubble-velocities-in-local-equilibrium-from-a-pseudopotential/
LOCATION:Gray Room 3\, Instituto de Física Teórica (IFT) -C. Nicolás Cabrera\, 13-15\, Fuencarral-El Pardo\, Madrid\, 28049\,\, Spain
CATEGORIES:Journal clubs,Scientific activities
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Madrid:20260115T150000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/Madrid:20260115T160000
DTSTAMP:20260405T210626
CREATED:20251105T135455Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260112T102251Z
UID:23689-1768489200-1768492800@www.ift.uam-csic.es
SUMMARY:Seminar: 'Dark Sector Karaoke: A 3D EFT for a Pitch-Perfect Phase Transition'
DESCRIPTION:Speaker: Cristina Puchades Ibáñez (University of Mainz) \nVenue & Time: Red Room / 15:00 \nAbstract: We explore the dynamics of cosmological phase transitions in a dark sector model featuring a dark photon associated with a U(1)D gauge symmetry and radiative symmetry breaking. Our analysis focuses on different approaches to construct the effective potential: the high-temperature approximation\, a full numerical evaluation of the thermal integrals\, and a dimensionally reduced 3D effective theory built with DRalgo\, at both leading and next-to-leading order. We as well explore the effect of including the running of the parameters in order to respect the hiercarchy scales. We investigate how these methods impact the characterization of the phase transition\, particularly in the supercooled regime. Our results show the importance of method choice when predicting observable signatures\, and establish a benchmark for future studies of first-order phase transitions in models with weakly coupled dark sectors.
URL:https://www.ift.uam-csic.es/event/seminar-by-cristina-puchades-ibanez-university-of-mainz/
LOCATION:IFT Seminar Room/Red Room\, Instituto de Física Teórica (IFT) -C. Nicolás Cabrera\, 13-15\, Fuencarral-El Pardo\, Madrid\, 28049\,\, Spain
CATEGORIES:Scientific activities,Seminars
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Madrid:20260120T140000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/Madrid:20260120T150000
DTSTAMP:20260405T210626
CREATED:20260116T125647Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260116T125647Z
UID:24212-1768917600-1768921200@www.ift.uam-csic.es
SUMMARY:Cosmology Journal Club
DESCRIPTION:Every Tuesday at 2:00 PM in the discussion room on the 5th floor. \nJoin the IFT cosmology/gravity journal club at benty-fields.com to vote for papers and volunteer to present them.
URL:https://www.ift.uam-csic.es/event/cosmology-journal-club-10/
LOCATION:Discussion room 5th floor\, C. Nicolás Cabrera\, 13-15\, Fuencarral-El Pardo\, Madrid\, Madrid\, 28049\, Spain
CATEGORIES:Journal clubs
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Madrid:20260122T120000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/Madrid:20260122T130000
DTSTAMP:20260405T210626
CREATED:20260116T122902Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260116T123748Z
UID:24200-1769083200-1769086800@www.ift.uam-csic.es
SUMMARY:SPS Journal Club: 'K-Points and Type IIB/Heterotic Duality with NS5-Branes'
DESCRIPTION:Speaker: Lorenzo Paoloni (IFT) \nVenue & Time: Red Room / 12:00 \nAbstract: We revisit type II_0 limits in the vector multiplet moduli space of compactifications of Type IIB string theory on Calabi-Yau threefolds. These limits are special because they cannot be described using mirror symmetry. While we showed in previous work that the gravitational duality frame emerging in such limits corresponds to a weakly coupled heterotic string compactified on K3 times a string-sized torus\, our focus here is on the additional field theory sectors that decouple from gravity in these asymptotic regimes. Concretely\, we argue that\, in the dual heterotic description\, these field theory sectors correspond to spacetime-filling NS5-branes wrapping the heterotic torus. The existence of such non-perturbative field theory sectors manifests itself in an exponential dependence of the prepotential on the heterotic dilaton at leading order. Applied to K-point limits in one-parameter moduli spaces\, our results imply that these limits are in perfect agreement with the Distance and Emergent String Conjectures. More precisely\, the light tower of states predicted by the Distance Conjecture arises from excitations of a weakly coupled heterotic string compactified to four dimensions on a background containing spacetime-filling NS5-branes.
URL:https://www.ift.uam-csic.es/event/sps-journal-club-k-points-and-type-iib-heterotic-duality-with-ns5-branes/
LOCATION:IFT Seminar Room/Red Room\, Instituto de Física Teórica (IFT) -C. Nicolás Cabrera\, 13-15\, Fuencarral-El Pardo\, Madrid\, 28049\,\, Spain
CATEGORIES:Journal clubs
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Madrid:20260122T120000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/Madrid:20260122T130000
DTSTAMP:20260405T210626
CREATED:20260116T123236Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260116T123708Z
UID:24198-1769083200-1769086800@www.ift.uam-csic.es
SUMMARY:Pheno Journal Club
DESCRIPTION:Every Thursday at 12:00 in Grey Room 3.
URL:https://www.ift.uam-csic.es/event/pheno-journal-club-5/
LOCATION:Madrid
CATEGORIES:Journal clubs
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Madrid:20260122T150000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/Madrid:20260122T160000
DTSTAMP:20260405T210626
CREATED:20251107T112645Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260116T124034Z
UID:23691-1769094000-1769097600@www.ift.uam-csic.es
SUMMARY:Seminar: 'Reviving PBHs: primordial black holes from supercooled phase transitions revisited'
DESCRIPTION:Speaker: Piotr Toczek (Warsaw University) \nVenue & Time: 15:00 / Red Room \nAbstract: Primordial black holes\, hypothetical objects that may have formed in the early Universe through the interplay between high-energy physics and gravity\, are very appealing candidates for dark matter. In this seminar\, I will discuss their formation as a result of the collapse of energy density fluctuations originating from supercooled first-order phase transitions. I will present the formalism that we use to track the evolution of such fluctuations in a fully covariant manner\, explicitly incorporating the spacetime metric perturbations. I will show which aspects of the phase transition drive the growth of density fluctuations and their gravitational collapse\, and identify the transitions for which the produced population of primordial black holes may constitute a significant fraction of the total dark matter abundance.
URL:https://www.ift.uam-csic.es/event/seminar-by-piotr-toczek-warsaw-university/
LOCATION:Madrid
CATEGORIES:Scientific activities,Seminars
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Madrid:20260122T170000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/Madrid:20260122T180000
DTSTAMP:20260405T210626
CREATED:20260116T123614Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260116T123646Z
UID:24199-1769101200-1769104800@www.ift.uam-csic.es
SUMMARY:Old Journal Club: 'Particle Spectrum in Quantum Field Theory'
DESCRIPTION:Alejandro Puga (IFT) will present “Particle Spectrum in Quantum Field Theory”  de Alexander M. Polyakov (JETP Lett. 20 (1974) 194-195)\n\nAbstract: We investigate the nonperturbative structure of quantum field theories and its consequences for the physical spectrum of excitations. Emphasis is placed on the role of instantons—topologically nontrivial field configurations—which contribute essentially to tunneling processes and mass generation beyond perturbation theory. The analysis demonstrates how instanton effects modify correlation functions and lead to qualitatively new features in the particle spectrum\, highlighting the deep connection between topology\, symmetry\, and dynamics in quantum field theory.\n\nVenue & Time: Blue Room / 17:00
URL:https://www.ift.uam-csic.es/event/old-journal-club-particle-spectrum-in-quantum-field-theory/
LOCATION:Blue Room\, Instituto de Física Teórica (IFT) - C. Nicolás Cabrera\, 13-15\, Fuencarral-El Pardo\, Madrid\, 28049\,\, Spain
CATEGORIES:Journal clubs
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR