GATIS Training Event London

The first GATIS event of this year took place at King's College London from February 10th to 14th, 2014. The first two days were devoted to the workshop "Strongly Coupled Gauge Theories". Its aim was to stimulate discussions about recent advances in GATIS-related subjects, with most of the participants being young researchers. Twenty-two speakers -- PhD students and early-stage postdocs -- presented their latest research results.

The atmosphere was quite informal, leading to extensive conversations and sometimes even debates after the talks. Many speakers focussed on various aspects of integrability in AdS/CFT, such as the computation of correlation functions where remarkable simplifications and structures appear at weak and at strong coupling, while another source of results is provided by methods related to the bootstrap and OPE/Regge limits. The underlying all-order description however is still mysterious. The spectral problem is much better understood, and several talks reported applications of some new promising techniques. Several speakers presented latest news on integrability in deformed versions of AdS/CFT or lower dimensional examples (AdS3/CFT2), the latter especially prompting much discussion. We also heard how the techniques developed for amplitudes (e.g. BCFW recursion) are starting to be used for form factors or string scattering, while some QCD-related observables are also receiving much attention. A variety of other nonperturbative results was discussed, including holography for RG flows, the AGT relation, BPS states and supercosets, localization, and integrability for 1-point functions in 2d theories.

In total there were about 50 participants coming from research institutes unified by the GATIS network and invited speakers from Canada, Italy and UK who came to share their expertise. The workshop provided a very important opportunity for young researchers to present their work and take part in active discussions. It marks the first in a series of many events planned for this year in the GATIS network, with preparations already under way for the next conference which will be held in June at CEA Saclay (France).

Following the workshop, the first GATIS soft skill training event took place, organised in partnership with SISSA Medialab. Over a period of three days, the young researchers were trained in several scientific communication techniques. These involved presentations and more general outreach activities, and targeted various audiences, ranging from school kids to policy makers. This part of the workshop was highly interactive, and brought the scientists to work in groups and to critically discuss different communication approaches. The last day of the works saw the participation of the GATIS partner Milde Marketing and Mann beisst Hund, who together with the scientists set up a number of outreach projects, in particular related to new and social media.

Photos are copyright of Simona Cerato.