Joint Belgian hep-th seminars
A longstanding Belgian tradition has been the organisation of weekly seminars in high-energy theoretical physics that aim to bring together research groups from various institutes in the country. Originally held by ULB and VUB in Brussels together with KU Leuven, with Mons and Ghent joining, respectively, in 2009 and 2023, the current set of participating institutions is given by
- Brout Englert Lemaître Center
- Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, High Energy Physics and Relativistic Field Theory group
- International Solvay Institutes
- Université de Mons, Service de Physique de l’Univers, Champs et Gravitation
- Université Libre de Bruxelles, Service de Physique Théorique et Mathématique
- Universiteit Gent, Theoretical High Energy Physics group
- Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Theoretical High Energy Physics group
The seminars take place on most Wednesdays of the academic year, with the location varying among the aforementioned institutions, while speakers are invited from both inland and abroad.
Schedule
10:30 – 11:30 first talk
11:30 – 12:00 coffee break
12:00 – 13:00 second talk
13:00 – 14:00 lunch
Useful information for speakers
Each seminar lasts about one hour, which should approximately consist in 50 minutes of talk, followed by 10 minutes of questions and discussion. The audience comprises the participating institutions’ professors, postdocs and students, who work on a wide range of topics in high-energy theory, from (super)gravity and cosmology to string theory and higher spins. A pedagogical introduction is, therefore, very much encouraged.
- Céline Zwikel (Collège de France, Paris) | A covariant formulation of logarithmic supertranslations at spatial infinity
- Simone Speziale (CPT, Marseille) | The importance of covariance for gravitational charges
- Biswajit Sahoo (King’s College, London) | Emergent Higher-Spin Symmetry on the Celestial Sphere from Loop-Corrected Soft Photon Theorems
- Dionysios Anninos (King’s College, London) | Features of the Partition Function of a Λ > 0 Universe
- Konstantinos Siampos (AUTH, Thessaloniki) | The geometric origin of the energy–momentum tensor improvement terms
- Paolo Vallarino (VUB) | N=2 Universality for integrated correlators at strong coupling
- Dario Francia (U. Roma Tre) | Double-copy supertranslations
- Anastasios C. Petkou (AUTH, Thessaloniki) | On the correspondence between thermal one-point functions and conformal Feynman graphs
- Yannick Herfray (U. Tours) | BMS particles
- Antoine Rignon-Bret (Marseille U.) | Dynamical observables on null hypersurfaces in general relativity
- Andrew Svesko (King’s College, London) | Quantum inequalities for quantum black holes
- Stefan Prohazka (U. Vienna) | Quantizing carrollian field theories
Previous joint seminars held in Mons are listed here.
- Céline Zwikel (Collège de France, Paris), 11 March 2026
- Simone Speziale (CPT, Marseille), 11 March 2026
- Damian Galante (King’s College, London), 11 February 2026
- Dionysios Anninos (King’s College, London), 5 November 2025
- Konstantinos Siampos (AUTH, Thessaloniki), 5 November 2025
- Jani Kastikainen (Wurzburg U.), 8 October 2025
Speakers invited by UMONS in previous years are listed here.
Organiser on behalf of UMONS:
Felipe Figueroa (Felipe.FIGUEROAVILARDELVALLE@umons.ac.be); Vasileios Letsios (Vasileios.LETSIOS@umons.ac.be); Matthieu Vilatte (Matthieu.VILATTE@umons.ac.be).