Thibault Damour
Title: TBA
Abstract: TBA
June 15-19, 2026 · Kyoto
Theoretical Developments in Gravitational Wave Physics
Conference timetable and talk details. Entries marked TBA will be updated once titles and abstracts are confirmed.
Conference Schedule
Monday, June 15
| Time | Speaker / Activity |
|---|---|
| 09:00 - 10:00 | Registration |
| 10:00 - 10:15 | Opening remarks |
| 10:15 - 11:15 | Thibault DamourTitle and abstract: TBA |
| 11:15 - 11:45 | Coffee break |
| 11:45 - 12:45 | Zvi BernTitle and abstract: TBA |
| 12:45 - 14:15 | Lunch |
| 14:15 - 15:15 | Donal O'ConnellSupertranslations are Soft Dressings |
| 15:15 - 15:45 | Coffee break |
| 15:45 - 16:05 | Hyun Jeong (contributed talk)Title and abstract: TBA |
| 16:05 - 16:25 | Kaho Yoshimura (contributed talk)Title and abstract: TBA |
| 16:25 - 16:45 | Hajime Kobayashi (contributed talk)Dynamical Tidal Response of Non-rotating Black Holes: Connecting the MST Formalism and Worldline EFT |
Tuesday, June 16
| Time | Speaker / Activity |
|---|---|
| 10:00 - 11:00 | Vitor CardosoLight by Light |
| 11:00 - 11:30 | Coffee break |
| 11:30 - 12:30 | Yanbei ChenTitle and abstract: TBA |
| 12:30 - 14:00 | Lunch |
| 14:00 - 15:00 | Hui-Yu ZhuDark Matter-Independent Orbital Decay Bounds on Ultralight Bosons from OJ287 |
| 15:00 - 15:30 | Coffee break |
| 15:30 - 15:50 | Jaime Redondo-Yuste (contributed talk)Nonlinear Dynamics in General Relativity |
| 15:50 - 16:10 | Yuto Suichi (contributed talk)Pole Structure of Kerr Black Hole Perturbations |
| 16:10 - 18:00 | Poster session |
Wednesday, June 17
| Time | Speaker / Activity |
|---|---|
| 10:00 - 11:00 | Takahiro TanakaTitle and abstract: TBA |
| 11:00 - 11:30 | Coffee break |
| 11:30 - 12:30 | Maarten van de MeentTitle and abstract: TBA |
| 12:30 - 14:00 | Lunch |
| 14:00 onward | Free discussion session |
| 18:00 | Conference dinner / banquet |
Thursday, June 18
| Time | Speaker / Activity |
|---|---|
| 10:00 - 11:00 | Lucile CangemiTitle and abstract: TBA |
| 11:00 - 11:30 | Coffee break |
| 11:30 - 12:30 | Fei TengTitle and abstract: TBA |
| 12:30 - 14:00 | Lunch |
| 14:00 - 15:00 | Teruaki SuyamaTitle and abstract: TBA |
| 15:00 - 15:30 | Coffee break |
| 15:30 - 16:30 | Toshifumi NoumiOpen EFT for Cosmology & Gravity |
| 16:30 - 16:50 | Panagiotis Marinellis (contributed talk)Spinning binaries in scalar-tensor EFTs and their UV consistency from Scattering Amplitudes |
| 16:50 - 17:10 | Taiga Miyachi (contributed talk)Path to an exact WKB analysis of black hole quasinormal modes |
| 17:10 - 17:30 | Motoki Suzuki (contributed talk)Ringdown Analysis Using Orthonormal Modes |
Friday, June 19
| Time | Speaker / Activity |
|---|---|
| 10:00 - 11:00 | Max IsiTitle and abstract: TBA |
| 11:00 - 11:30 | Coffee break |
| 11:30 - 12:30 | Daniel CarneyQuantum Mechanics of Gravitational Waves |
| 12:30 - 14:00 | Lunch |
| 14:00 - 15:00 | Elisa MaggioTitle and abstract: TBA |
| 15:00 - 15:30 | Coffee break |
| 15:30 - 16:30 | Marios ChristodoulouTitle and abstract: TBA |
| 16:30 | Closing remarks |
Talk Details
Monday, June 15
Zvi Bern
Title: TBA
Abstract: TBA
Donal O'Connell
Title: Supertranslations are Soft Dressings
Abstract: In quantum field theories without a mass gap, the definition of a single-particle state is ambiguous. I will discuss how this ambiguity for a single massive particle, in the regime where the classical approximation is valid, is intimately connected to large gauge transformations of classical theories. In particular, I will describe general BMS supertranslations from this point of view, together with implications for classical observables.
Hyun Jeong (contributed talk)
Title: TBA
Abstract: TBA
Kaho Yoshimura (contributed talk)
Title: TBA
Abstract: TBA
Hajime Kobayashi (contributed talk)
Title: Dynamical Tidal Response of Non-rotating Black Holes: Connecting the MST Formalism and Worldline EFT
Abstract: The response of a black hole (BH) to tidal forces encodes key information about the underlying gravitational theory and affects the waveform of gravitational waves emitted during binary inspiral processes. In this paper, we analyze the dynamical tidal response of static and spherically symmetric BHs in a low-frequency regime within general relativity (GR), based on a matching between the Mano-Suzuki-Takasugi (MST) methods for an analytical approach to BH perturbations and the worldline effective field theory (EFT) for an efficient and unified computation of the binary dynamics within the post-Newtonian regime. We show that the renormalized tidal response function is subject to inevitable ambiguities associated with the choice of renormalization scheme and with the initial condition of the renormalization flow equation. Once these ambiguities are fixed, we obtain scheme-dependent dynamical tidal Love numbers. We also discuss possible extensions of our formalism, including generic non-rotating compact objects (e.g., neutron stars) in GR and BHs in theories beyond GR. This talk is based on arXiv:2511.12580 [gr-qc].
Tuesday, June 16
Vitor Cardoso
Title: Light by Light
Abstract: At very high energies, particle collisions are dominated by gravity, and short-distance physics becomes irrelevant. I will overview some of the main results in gravity-driven collisions and describe ongoing efforts to understand gravitational collapse sourced by electromagnetic radiation.
Yanbei Chen
Title: TBA
Abstract: TBA
Hui-Yu Zhu
Title: Dark Matter-Independent Orbital Decay Bounds on Ultralight Bosons from OJ287
Abstract: Ultralight bosons, predicted in scenarios beyond the Standard Model and viable dark matter (DM) candidates, can form superradiant clouds around spinning black holes influencing their dynamics. Using the century-long monitored OJ287 supermassive black-hole binary, we set the first DM-independent, dynamical constraints on boson masses μ = (8.5-22) × 10⁻²² eV. These constraints, driven by boson-cloud friction, are robust against DM-model uncertainties and offer a novel probe of ultralight bosons. We further show that analogous superradiant dynamics across the cosmic population of supermassive black-hole systems could help resolve the final-parsec stalling problem and imprint a detectable suppression and break in the gravitational-wave background.
Jaime Redondo-Yuste (contributed talk)
Title: Nonlinear Dynamics in General Relativity
Abstract: Black holes and gravitational waves are consequences of the nonlinear character of the Einstein equations. Yet, the remarkable properties of General Relativity point to the existence of other effects. In this talk I discuss the nonlinear interaction of gravitational waves in black hole spacetimes, as well as of scalar fields in near-critical solutions, to demonstrate the existence of higher harmonic generation, spectral broadening, and focusing effects. I conclude by relating these features to the apparent simplicity of merger waveforms at infinity.
Yuto Suichi (contributed talk)
Title: Pole Structure of Kerr Black Hole Perturbations
Abstract: Black hole perturbations can be analyzed using Green’s function methods, and their time-domain response is well known to be described by quasi-normal modes and power-law tails. These features are directly related to the pole and branch cut structure of the Green’s function in the frequency domain. In recent years, within the framework of mode decomposition in non-rotating black holes, it has been pointed out that the prompt response is closely associated with the pole structure in the frequency domain, and significant progress has been made in its analysis. Motivated by these developments, in this work we analyze the pole structure of the Green’s function for Kerr black hole perturbations in the frequency domain.
Wednesday, June 17
Takahiro Tanaka
Title: TBA
Abstract: TBA
Maarten van de Meent
Title: TBA
Abstract: TBA
Thursday, June 18
Lucile Cangemi
Title: TBA
Abstract: TBA
Fei Teng
Title: TBA
Abstract: TBA
Teruaki Suyama
Title: TBA
Abstract: TBA
Toshifumi Noumi
Title: Open EFT for Cosmology & Gravity
Abstract: Many phenomena in cosmology and gravity involve open-system dynamics, where the degrees of freedom of interest interact with an environment and exhibit dissipation and noise. I will review the Schwinger-Keldysh EFT framework for such systems and explain how to incorporate dynamical gravity, with possible applications to cosmic inflation and black-hole physics.
Panagiotis Marinellis (contributed talk)
Title: Spinning binaries in scalar-tensor EFTs and their UV consistency from Scattering Amplitudes
Abstract: The detection of gravitational waves by the LIGO-VIRGO collaboration has marked a transformative era in astronomy, providing groundbreaking insights into the cosmos and creating new pathways for exploration. At the same time, advancements in the classical limit of quantum scattering amplitudes, particularly through the KMOC formalism, have enriched our understanding of compact binary systems. In this talk, we apply these techniques to scalar-tensor EFTs of gravity, where long-range interactions are mediated by a massless scalar in addition to the graviton, including the phenomenologically relevant Einstein-scalar-Gauss-Bonnet and dynamical Chern-Simons theories. We first provide an overview of how amplitude techniques are used to derive predictions for gravitational waves from binary systems of black holes and neutron stars. We then proceed to give a purely on-shell description of arbitrarily spinning bodies with and without scalar hair, an effect that can lead to important modifications in the gravitational wave signal. Using spinor-helicity and on-shell techniques, we show how all required amplitudes are calculated straightforwardly and used to directly compute waveforms for spinning binary systems. In the second part of the talk, we turn to examine UV completions of these scalar-tensor EFTs. We consider weakly coupled UV theories with massive particles of spin 0, 1/2, and 1 minimally coupled to gravity and interacting with the scalar. Integrating them out at one loop generates the leading scalar-curvature operators. Using the same on-shell amplitude methods, we perform the matching between the UV theory and the IR EFT, expressing Wilson coefficients in terms of heavy-state masses and couplings, and discuss how UV symmetries are reflected at low energies. Together, this provides a unified amplitude-based framework connecting UV consistency to gravitational-wave predictions.
Taiga Miyachi (contributed talk)
Title: Path to an exact WKB analysis of black hole quasinormal modes
Abstract: In this talk, we discuss the analysis of black hole quasinormal modes using exact WKB analysis. Exact WKB analysis provides a method to determine the global behavior of solutions to ordinary differential equations without approximation, and is particularly powerful for deriving the quantization conditions that eigenvalues must satisfy. We present our framework for applying exact WKB analysis to black hole quasinormal modes and review recent developments based on this method.
Motoki Suzuki (contributed talk)
Title: Ringdown Analysis Using Orthonormal Modes
Abstract: Gravitational waves (GWs) are ripples in spacetime that propagate at the speed of light. They were first detected by LIGO in 2015, and to date, more than 300 GW events have been observed by the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA (LVK) Collaboration. The vast majority of these events are consistent with compact binary coalescences, such as binary black holes (BHs) or neutron stars. The GW signal from these systems can be divided into three phases: inspiral, merger, and ringdown. The ringdown is the post-peak phase during which the remnant BH settles into a stationary Kerr BH while emitting GWs. The ringdown waveform can be modeled as a superposition of damped sinusoids, known as quasinormal modes (QNMs). By detecting multiple QNMs in the observed data, we can perform clean tests of general relativity using only the ringdown signal, a technique known as black hole spectroscopy. The more QNMs are detected, the more accurately we can test general relativity. This is a main motivation for detecting multiple QNMs. However, ringdown analyses with multiple QNMs face several challenges. First, QNMs are not orthogonal and exhibit similar oscillatory behavior. This leads to strong parameter correlations and reduces parameter estimation accuracy. Second, the increased number of parameters results in higher computational costs. To address these challenges, we developed a semi-analytic method based on orthonormalized QNMs. This method enables analytic marginalization over mode amplitudes and reduces parameter correlations. The details of the method are presented in [1]. In this work, we apply our method to real gravitational-wave data from the LVK collaboration, as well as to simulated waveforms designed to mimic resonant excitation that have recently attracted attention. We validate the effectiveness of our approach in terms of computational efficiency and robustness of parameter estimation. [1] Soichiro Morisaki, Hayato Motohashi, Motoki Suzuki, and Daiki Watarai, Phys. Rev. D 112, 124083 (2025), arXiv:2507.12376 [gr-qc].
Friday, June 19
Max Isi
Title: TBA
Abstract: TBA
Daniel Carney
Title: Quantum Mechanics of Gravitational Waves
Abstract: Is the gravitational field quantized into gravitons? Theoretically, there is no obstacle to this proposal; ultimately, it is an experimental question. I will give an overview of the very active discussion over the past few years on whether gravitational-wave observations can test this hypothesis.
Elisa Maggio
Title: TBA
Abstract: TBA
Marios Christodoulou
Title: TBA
Abstract: TBA