Scientific Program
Workshop on Quantum Aspects of Black Holes and Spacetime
Tuesday-Friday, December 2-5, 2025 - Institute for Advanced Study
Main Menu Speakers and Titles/Abstracts
All talks will take place in Wolfensohn Hall at the IAS.
Talks are 35 minutes plus 10 minutes for questions.
*NOTE: Lunch is available between 1:00 pm - 1:30 pm (Servery closes at 1:30 pm SHARP!)
Tuesday, December 2
7:50, 8:10, 8:30 am Shuttle pickup from Nassau Inn to IAS
8:00 am - 9:00 am Registration - Wolfensohn Hall Lobby
8:50 am - 9:00 am Welcome Remarks - Wolfensohn Hall
9:00 am - 9:45 am Ahmed Almheiri - "Black Hole Disappearance"
9:45 am - 10:30 am Raphael Bousso - "No Bounces, No Cycles: A Robust Singularity Theorem in Exact Semiclassical Gravity"
10:30 am - 11:15 am Coffee Break - Simons Hall
11:15 am - 12:00 pm Beatrix Muehlmann - "Higher Spin Theories in de Sitter Space"
12:00 pm - 12:45 pm Daniel Harlow - "Observers, Alpha Parameters, and the Hartle-Hawking State"
1:00 pm - 2:45 pm Lunch - Simons Hall (servery closes at 1:30 PM!!!)
2:45 pm - 3:30 pm Tom Hartman - "Triangulating Quantum Gravity in AdS$_3$"
3:30 pm - 4:30 pm Tea Time & Discussions - Simons Hall
4:30 pm - 5:15 pm Martin Sasieta - "ER Toward Typical EPR"
5:15 pm - 6:00 pm Daniel Green - "Quantum Walks and RG in de Sitter Space"
6:00 pm - 8:00 pm Pizza Dinner - Simons Hall
7:15, 7:35, 8:00 pm Return shuttle from Simons Hall to Nassau Inn
Wednesday, December 3
8:00, 8:20, 8:40 am Shuttle pickup from Nassau Inn to IAS
9:00 am - 9:45 am Pratik Rath - "A Black Hole Airy Tail: Part 1"
9:45 am - 10:30 am Stefano Antonini - "A Black Hole Airy Tail: Part 2"
10:30 am - 11:15 am Coffee Break - Simons Hall
11:15 am - 12:00 pm Ying Zhao - "Observers, Alpha Parameters, and the Hartle-Hawking State: Part II"
12:00 pm - 12:45 pm Mykhaylo Usatyuk - "Near-Extremal Black Hole Evaporation"
1:00 pm - 2:45 pm Lunch - Simons Hall (servery closes at 1:30 PM!!!)
2:45 pm - 3:30 pm Hong Liu - " "Filtering'' CFTs at large N: Euclidean Wormholes, Closed Universes, and Black Hole Interiors"
3:30 pm - 4:30 pm Tea Time & Discussions - Simons Hall
4:30 pm - 5:15 pm Jonah Kudler-Flam - "Emergent Mixed States for Baby Universes and Black Holes"
5:15 pm - 6:00 pm Luca Iliesiu - "On the Hilbert Space of Quantum Gravity from the Gravitational Path Integral"
6:00 pm - 8:00 pm Dinner - Simons Hall
7:15, 7:35, 8:00 pm Return shuttle from Simons Hall to Nassau Inn
Thursday, December 4
8:00, 8:20, 8:40 am Shuttle pickup from Nassau Inn to IAS
9:00 am - 9:45 am Elliott Gesteau - "Failures of Spacetime Emergence"
9:45 am - 10:30 am Anatoly Dymarsky - "TQFT Gravity and Sum over Topologies"
10:30 am - 11:15 am Coffee Break - Simons Hall
11:15 am - 12:00 pm Anne-Catherine de la Hamette - "Relational Perspectives in Quantum Gravity: The Role of Quantum Reference Frames"
12:00 pm - 12:45 pm Sean Hartnoll - "Quantum Cosmology in the BKL Regime and Dual Primon Gases"
1:00 pm - 2:45 pm Lunch - Simons Hall (servery closes at 1:30 PM!!!)
2:45 pm - 3:30 pm Douglas Stanford - "On the Phase of the de Sitter Density of States"
3:30 pm - 4:30 pm Tea Time & Discussions - Simons Hall
4:30 pm - 5:15 pm Eva Silverstein - "The Yes Boundaries Wavefunctions of the Universe and Late Time Cosmology"
5:15 pm - 6:00 pm Gustavo Joaquin Turiaci - "The Hartle-Hawking Wavefunction and de Sitter Black Holes"
6:00 pm - 8:00 pm Dinner - Simons Hall
7:15, 7:35, 8:00 pm Return shuttle from Simons Hall to Nassau Inn
Friday, December 5
7:50, 8:10, 8:30 am Shuttle pickup from Nassau Inn to IAS
8:00 am – 9:00 am Luggage Storage – Bloomberg Hall Coat Area
9:00 am - 9:45 am Jordan Cotler - "Quantum Mechanics of the No-Boundary State"
9:45 am - 10:30 am Mehrdad Mirbabayi - "An Observer's Measure of De Sitter Entropy"
10:30 am - 11:15 am Coffee Break - Simons Hall
11:15 am - 12:00 pm Zhenbin Yang - "Comments on the de Sitter Double Cone"
12:00 pm - 12:45 pm Matthew Dodelson - "Bouncing off a Stringy Singularity"
1:00 pm - 2:45 pm Lunch - Simons Hall (servery closes at 1:30 PM!!!)
2:45 pm - 3:30 pm Arvin Shahbazi-Moghaddam - "Exact Semiclassical Gravity and Partial Cauchy Slice Holography"
3:30 pm - 4:15 pm Geoff Penington - "Holographic Algebras at Null Infinity"
4:15 pm - 5:00 pm Tea Time & Discussions - Full Hall Common Room
4:15 pm - 6:00 pm Luggage Pickup - Bloomberg Hall Coat Area
6:00 pm End of Workshop