Travel Funding for Quantum Theory and Symmetries 6 (Nuclear): An International Symposium on Cross-Disciplinary Trends in Theoretical Physics

This proposal requests financial support for the Sixth International Symposium on Quantum Theory and Symmetries (QTS6). QTS6 will be the sixth in a biennial series of meetings devoted to the application of symmetry principles in a wide range of areas of theoretical and mathematical physics. The intellectual merit of the proposed conference will be to encourage cross-disciplinary interactions and initiate collaborations between physicists from diverse disciplines. These interactions will be encouraged by emphasizing common mathematical tools and physical themes such as entanglement, singularities, and holography. Such interdisciplinary conferences are rather rare in the U.S.; this conference will afford a unique opporthnity to U.S. physicists and students to share ideas and form collaborations with leading researchers in other areas of physics. The broader impacts resulting from the proposed activity will be to bring an established international conference in frontier physics to a state with one of the lowest scientific literacy rates in the U.S. A panel discussion with leading theoretical physicists will be open to the public and will discuss interdisciplinary trends at the frontiers of physics. This will be only the second time that the meeting has been held in the United States (the first time was in Cincinnati in 2003), and it will be the first time that the any university in Kentucky has hosted a physics conference of this size and international prominence. The six-day meeting will be held on the University of Kentucky campus, July 20-25, 2009. The local organizing committee includes Sumit Das (co-chair), Susan Gardner, Peter Hislop, Keh-Fei Liu, Ganpathy Murthy, Alfred Shapere (co-chair), all of the University of Kentucky, and Philip Argyres and Rohana Wijewardhana of the University of Cincinnati. The $6,600 in requested funds will be used to cover the travel and local expenses of four invited plenary speakers in the field of theoretical nuclear physics. Subject classification: Theoretical nuclear physics.