Summer Program
Quantum Gravity, Chaos, and Observers for Black Holes and Cosmology
July 26–August 16, 2026
Organizers:
Daniel Harlow, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Geoff Penington, University of California Berkeley
Julian Sonner, University of Geneva
This workshop will focus on recent conceptual and technical developments in quantum gravity, in particular the proper formulation of observables in dynamical settings such as cosmology and the black hole interior. For example it has recently been understood that certain questions are more tractable when an observer is explictly included as part of the system, and it has also been realized that the algebra of observables available to this observer is a powerful organizing principle. We also intend to explore connections of this perspective to chaos and scrambling, for example in the context of dS horizons and the black hole interior.
Summer Workshops
The summer program, running for 16 weeks from late-May to mid-September, emphasizes exciting open problems at the cutting edge. Two or three concurrent workshops, each with a specific focus selected for timeliness and the potential for breakthroughs and of two to five weeks in length, establish the main themes of each week, with twelve or thirteen different workshops each summer, balanced across fields including particle physics, string theory, astrophysics and hard and soft condensed matter physics, as well as emerging areas including biological physics, ultra-cold atom physics, quantum information, and physical mathematics. Additional researchers participate in small working groups or as individual researchers. This framework is designed to maximize informal interactions and free discussion within each area and to promote cross-fertilization between different areas via the common language of theoretical physics. Participation in the summer program of the Aspen Center for Physics is by application and subsequent invitation only. View past workshops.
