November 9 - 11, 2007
Perimeter Institute

Recent years have witnessed a growing popularity, in the quantum gravity community, of approaches which, rather than embarking in the formulation of a full theory of quantum gravity from first principles, try to gain some intuition on the problem studying what possible modifications of our standard theories of particles and fields might emerge approaching the Planck scale.  Such "effective models" might take inspiration from more ambitious quantum gravity frameworks (like e.g. the string-inspired non-commutative field theories) or simply try to relax or modify some fundamental requirements which appear natural in standard theoretical frameworks, are very well tested for energy scales probed by current experiments, but could lose their fundamental role when quantum and gravitational effects become important at Planckian regimes (see e.g. models with "twisted" or "quantum deformed" Poincare' symmetries or with a "locality bound").  Part of the large interest toward some of these models is motivated by the possibility that they might lead to experimentally observed predictions thus providing first examples of quantum gravity frameworks which can be challenged by reality.  Researchers in the community working on different topics seem to rarely have had a chance to compare and discuss their approaches and result.  The workshop intends to provide an opportunity for scientists who have been working on closely related topics but that often come from different backgrounds to meet, interact and have an opportunity to learn about recent advances in the different models.  A limited number of participants, mostly blackboard talks and plenty of time for discussions will encourage an intimate and informal atmosphere.

Scientific Organizers

Michele Arzano, Simone Speziale