Southern California Strings Seminar

20th-21st May 2005

Location: University of Southern California

Join us as we (members of several of the local groups with interest in string theory and related topics) sit together to discuss new ideas and developments (both general and technical) in the field. The presentations will be accompanied by plenty of discussion and in the first part of each talk the speaker will take special care to set the scene and context of the work in a pedagogical manner so as to encourage participation by younger members of the field.

Please send an email to johnson1 at usc.edu with the subject line: Southern California Strings Seminar if you're coming. This will help us make sure that there's enough room in the lecture hall, and enough coffee!

Schedule:

Friday 20th

Time	Event/Speaker/Topic	Location
9:00am	Introductory Remarks	SLH 102
9:15am	Shamit Kachru (Stanford): "A Classical Type IIA Discretuum"	SLH 102
10:15am:	Discussion	SLH 102
10:45am:	Break	SLH 102
11:15am	Jason Kumar (Michigan): "Surveying Flux Vacua"	SLH 102
12:15pm	Discussion	SLH 102
12:45pm	Lunch	SLH 102
2:15pm	Savdeep Sethi (Chicago): "A Matrix Big-Bang"	SLH 102
3:15pm	Discussion	SLH 102
3:30pm	Iosef Bena (UCLA): "Geometric Transitions, Black Rings, and the Black Hole Information Paradox"	SLH 102
4:30pm	Discussion	SLH 102
4:45pm	Break	SLH 102
5:00pm	Ken Intriligator (UCSD): "The Superconformal R-symmetry and AdS/CFT"	SLH 102
6:00pm	Discussion	SLH 102
6:30pm	End of Day: Explore/talk/seek food/etc	LA

Time	Event/Speaker/Topic	Location
9:15am	Arvind Rajaraman (UCI): "High Energy Scattering in AdS/CFT"	SLH 102
10:15am:	Discussion	SLH 102
10:45am:	Break	SLH 102
11:15am	Michael Gutperle (UCLA): "Two Loop Superstrings and S-duality"	SLH 102
12:15pm	Discussion	SLH 102
12:45pm	End of Day: Explore/talk/seek food/etc	LA

Travel Information:

All events will be at USC. There is online travel (to USC) information at this link. Note that (despite popular opinion) there are very good public transport links between some points. Have a look at this link. For example, there are regular buses and shuttles to USC from downtown and other transit centres such as the Wilshire/Vermont junction. So travelling (say by train) to Union Station from outside the city is an option worth exploring. Let me (cvj) know if you want to try this and I'll happily advise.

Parking: A day pass is $6 at the gate. Speakers: If driving to campus, please let me (cvj) know as soon as possible (definitely by Thursday) if you want us to arrange for a parking permit to be waiting for you at one of the gates.

"SLH" in the schedule refers to the Stauffer Lecture Hall, which can be found on the online map (see link here (pdf map) ). SLH is in grid reference 6C, near the intersection of Bloom Walk and Watt Way. SSC (Physics HEP offices' location) is in 6B, but we won't be doing anything there. The entrance to the lecture theatres of SLH is on the North side of the building.

We may have lunch at various places on or near campus on Friday and Saturday, (I'm still working on that issue) and we'll try to go somewhere fun for dinner on Friday night. Sorry, but only speakers can be reimbursed for lunch and dinner. Bugdet constraints.