VIII MEXICAN SCHOOL, DGFM-SMF

VIII Mexican School on Gravitation and Mathematical Physics
"SPEAKABLE AND UNSPEAKABLE IN GRAVITATIONAL PHYSICS: Testing gravity from submillimeter to cosmic scale "

Playa del Carmen, Quintana Roo, Mexico,
December 6-12, 2009

The Gravitation and Mathematical Physics Division (DGFM) of the Mexican Physical Society (SMF) is organizing its Seventh School.

Since 1994 we have organized the "Mexican School on Gravitation and Mathematical Physics" every two years. The main goal of our schools is to discuss and exchange current ideas in gravitational physics in a pedagogical manner. Each school is devoted to a particular subject. On this occasion, the subject of the School will be "relativistic astrophysics and numerical relativity": Black holes, neutron stars, gravitational waves, dark matter, etc. The aim of this School is to present the basic ideas and techniques behind the use of General Relativity as a tool in our understanding of astrophysical phenomena.

As in the previous two occasions, the VII Mexican School on Gravitation and Mathematical Physics will take place at the colorful town of Playa del Carmen in the Mexican Caribbean (the "Riviera Maya"), in the State of Quintana Roo, about 50 km south of Cancun international airport. The conference venue will be the Iberostar Tucan/Quetzal resort in the beach of "Playacar". All conference talks and activities will be held here.

The scientific program will include several courses and plenary talks:

Lecture Courses:

1. The confrontation between General Relativity and Experiment
*Slava Turyshev (JPL/Caltec)
2. Gravity at Shortest and Largest Distances
* S. Giddings (UCSB) /N. Arkani-Hamed (IAS-Princeton)
3. Physics and Astrophysics of Gravitational Waves
B.S. Sathyaprakash (Cardiff)
4. Physical Cosmology and Gravity Theories
Roy Maartens (Portsmouth)

Plenary talks:

1. Current and planned gravity waves experiment
*B.F. Schutz (AEI)
2. Observational Cosmology
*M. Tegmark (Berkeley)
3. Precision Tests for gravity principles
C. Laemmerzahl (Bremen)
4. Submillimeter Gravity Experiments
*E.G. Adelberger (Seattle)
5. Loop Quantum Cosmology Phenomenology
M. Bojowald (Penn State)
* To be confirmed

There will also be time for 36 parallel talks of 20 minutes each, and space for poster presentations.

The registration fees will be 200 US dollars for professors, and 100 US dollars for students. Details of the registration procedure, together with more detailed information on the scientific program and venue, can be found at the School's web page:

http://www.smf.mx/~dgfm-smf/EscuelaVII/index.html

Looking forward to seeing you in Playa del Carmen. The organizing committee:

Miguel Alcubierre (ICN-UNAM) malcubi@nuclecu.unam.mx
Luis Ureña (IFUG) lurena@fisica.ugto.mx
Hugo Garcia Compean (CINVESTAV) compean@fis.cinvestav.mx