Summer Program in Astrophysics to be Held at Institute for Advanced Study

The Institute for Advanced Study will host Prospects in Theoretical Physics (PiTP) from July 13 to 24. This year's intensive two-week summer program for graduate students and postdoctoral scholars will focus on Computational Astrophysics.

One of the goals of the program is to help the physics community train the next generation of physicists. A special effort is made to involve women and minorities, as well as to graduate students in small universities who typically do not have the same opportunities and access to leaders in the field as graduate students in large research institutions.

This year's program, with 114 participants from some 15 countries, is designed for young researchers to hone the numerical methods they employ in their own research and to learn about the techniques used in other areas of computational astrophysics. The lectures will cover numerical methods used in cosmology, general relativity, hydrodynamics and magnetohydrodynamics, long-term orbit integrations, N-body dynamics and radiation hydrodynamics as well as computing with graphics processing units (GPUs). These techniques are used to study the formation of galaxies, collisions of black holes, the stability and evolution of the star clusters and planetary systems, the structure of stars, the behavior of ionized gases spiraling into black holes and a wide range of other astrophysical objects and phenomena.

"I welcome the opportunity to work with these young scientists who will be making the groundbreaking discoveries of tomorrow," said Scott Tremaine, Richard Black Professor in the School of Natural Sciences at the Institute, one of the program organizers.

First held at the Institute in 2002, Prospects in Theoretical Physics has, in past years, covered topics ranging from physics at the Large Hadron Collider to strings and phenomenology. The program builds upon the strong relationship between the research groups at the Institute and Princeton University. Representatives from both institutions are among the program's organizers and lecturers.

Organizers of PiTP 2009 are Jim Stone (Princeton University); Peter Teuben (University of Maryland); and Scott Tremaine. Lecturers include William Dorland (University of Maryland); Brian Kernighan (Princeton University); Michael Norman (University of California at San Diego); Frans Pretorius (Princeton University); Derek Richardson (University of Maryland); Anatoly Spitkovsky (Princeton University); and Volker Springel (Max-Planck-Institute for Astrophysics).

Prospects in Theoretical Physics 2009 is hosted by the Institute's School of Natural Sciences. Additional information on the program may be found at www.ias.edu/pitp.