Leinweber Network Workshop : Quantum Black Holes

10 Oct 2026, 08:00 → 13 Oct 2026, 18:00 US/Eastern

340 West Hall and Forum Hall (Palmer Commons) (University Of Michigan)

Finn Larsen, James Liu, Leopoldo Pando Zayas, Vineeth Krishna Talasila (University of Michigan)

The Leinweber Institute for Theoretical Physics at the University of Michigan will be organizing a 4-day workshop in Ann Arbor on the recent developments in quantum aspects of black holes. The workshop will bring together researchers from all the Leinweber Institutes and select external guests in a meeting with invited talks, open discussions, and collaborative sessions.

Black holes have long been a fertile testing ground for ideas at the intersection of general relativity, quantum field theory, and statistical mechanics. Over the past decade, remarkable progress has refined our understanding of the quantum nature of black holes, including but not
limited to:

• Microscopic understanding of entropy
• Quantum corrections to black holes
• Information paradox and resolution proposals
• Holography and bulk reconstruction
• Non-equilibrium processes

 

The key aims of the workshop are to:

• Stimulate robust discussion about the interplay between gravity, quantum field theory, statistical mechanics, and quantum information theory
• Identify key open questions and promising directions for future research, particularly those likely to benefit from interdisciplinary approaches
• Foster collaborations, especially between researchers from different LITP nodes.

 

Invited Speakers:

Raphael Bousso (LITP, UC Berkeley) 

Jordan Cotler (LITP, Harvard)

Netta Engelhardt (CTP-LI, MIT) 

Jerome Gauntlett (Imperial College London)

Daniel Harlow (CTP-LI, MIT)

Tom Hartman (LITP, Stanford)

Luca Iliesiu (LITP, UC Berkeley)

Daniel Jafferis (LITP, Harvard)

Seok Kim (Seoul National University, Seoul)

Igor Klebanov (LFTP, Princeton University)

Per Kraus (UCLA)

David Kutasov (LITP, University of Chicago)

Henry Lin (LFTP, Princeton University)

Juan Maldacena (LFTQP, IAS)

Emil Martinec (LITP, University of Chicago)

Yasunori Nomura (LITP, UC Berkeley)

Leonard Susskind (LITP, Stanford)

Herman Verlinde (LFTP, Princeton University)

Robert Wald (LITP, University of Chicago)

Edward Witten (LFTQP, IAS) 

Saturday 10 October

09:30 → 09:40 Welcome Address

LITPwelcome.pdf

09:40 → 10:20 Jordan Cotler - The “State” of Quantum Cosmology

10:20 → 11:00 Coffee Break

Coffee and Snacks will be served in the room opposite to the Colloquium Hall.

11:00 → 11:40 Per Kraus - Enhanced Correlations in Hawking Radiation from Near-Extremal Collapse

Michigan 2026.pdf

11:40 → 12:20 Emil Martinec - The black hole S-matrix in gauge/gravity duality

3_Emil_Martinec.pdf

12:20 → 14:00 Lunch Break (Self organized)

See https://indico.global/event/18651/page/6308-nearby-restaurants for a list of nearby restaurant options.

14:00 → 14:40 Jerome Gauntlett - Localizaing the M-theory Path Integral

59694-26_Michigan.pdf

14:40 → 15:20 Claire Zukowski - Wilson Spools and de Sitter Quantum Gravity

Claire Zukowski.pdf

15:20 → 16:00 Coffee Break

Coffee and snacks will be served in the room opposite to the Colloquium Hall.

16:00 → 16:40 Henry Lin - Non-singlets and the phase diagram of Matrix Quantum Mechanics

Henry Lin.pdf

16:40 → 17:20 Juan Maldacena - The single minus graviton amplitudes from the matrix model

Juan Maldacena.pdf

17:20 → 18:00 Gong Show - (Bajaj, Deddo, L Lin, P Lin)

1) Kabir Bajaj - Wilson coefficients from a non-renormalization theorem in 2D SYM
2) Evan Deddo - Chasing M-theory saddles with the 3d superconformal index
3) Loki Lin - A melonic quantum mechanical model without disorder
4) Puxin Lin - Wormhole fragmentation and the axion Weak Gravity Conjecture

Evan.pdf

Kabir.pdf

Loki.pdf

Puxin.pdf

18:00 → 20:00 Reception

Food will be served in buffet style in the room opposite to the Colloquium Hall.

Sunday 11 October

09:00 → 09:40 Tom Hartman - Remarks on the Metric on 4D QFTs

09:40 → 10:20 Seok Kim - Quantum black hole cohomologies

Seok Kim.pdf

10:20 → 11:00 Coffee Break

11:00 → 11:40 Herman Verlinde - Geometry of time-ordered and out-of-time ordered correlators in dS_3

Michigan-talk-2026.pdf

11:40 → 12:20 Ying Zhao - Anti-scrambling and euclidean folds from observer correlators in de Sitter space

12:20 → 14:00 Lunch Break (Self organized)

14:00 → 14:40 Daniel Jafferis - Putting de Sitter spacetime inside a black hole

Daniel Jafferis.pdf

14:40 → 15:20 Chintan Patel - Matrix theory from Holography

Chintan Patel.pdf

15:20 → 16:00 Coffee Break

16:00 → 16:40 Edward Witten - Analytic Continuation of Planar Diagram Theories as a Function of N

Edward Witten.pdf

16:40 → 17:40 DISCUSSION

Monday 12 October

09:00 → 09:40 Igor Klebanov - Landau-Ginzburg Description of Some Minimal Conformal Models

Igor Klebanov.pdf

09:40 → 10:20 Luca Iliesiu - Proving the OSV conjecture to all orders in the string coupling

10:20 → 11:00 Coffee Break

Coffee and snacks will be served in the North Atrium just outside Forum Hall

11:00 → 11:40 Robert Wald - Black Holes Decohere Quantum Superpositions

Robert Wald.pdf

11:40 → 12:20 Daine Danielson - Measuring the Acceleration-Dependent Temperature of the Minkowski Vacuum

12:20 → 14:00 Lunch Break (self organized)

14:00 → 14:40 Raphael Bousso - Lorentzian Quantum Gravity

14:40 → 15:20 Netta Engelhardt - A Quantum Singularity Theorem for the Evaporating Black Hole

15:20 → 16:00 Coffee Break

Coffee and snacks will be served in the Atrium outside Forum hall

16:00 → 16:40 Yasunori Nomura - Quantum Gravity in a Universe Without an Outside

16:40 → 17:30 Gong Show - (Flores, Jayaprakash, Marini, Rozenberg, Srivastava)

1) Sao Leija Flores - Recovering Hawking Temperature and Black-Hole Entropy from Maximally Symmetric Horizon Data
2) Sabarenath Jayaprakash - How universal are giant graviton expansions?
3) Tommaso Marini - 3D near-de Sitter gravity and the soft mode of DSSYK
4) Liza Rozenberg - Measurements in a closed universe
5) Manu Srivastava - Bulk edge modes encode boundary hydro modes

Tuesday 13 October

09:00 → 09:40 Anatoly Dymarsky - A solvable model of 3d quantum gravity

09:40 → 10:20 David Kutasov - Interpolating between single and double trace TT by moving LST into the bulk

10:20 → 11:00 Coffee Break

11:00 → 11:40 Daniel Harlow - A holographic landscape puzzle

11:40 → 12:20 Jeevan Chandra - 3D de Sitter from complex Virasoro TQFT: Observers and knots

12:20 → 14:00 Lunch Break (self organized)

14:00 → 14:40 Leonard Susskind - A Conversation With Edward, Juan and Gemini

14:40 → 15:20 Sunil Sake - Holography with Conformal boundary conditions

15:20 → 16:00 Coffee Break

16:00 → 16:40 Victor Ivo - Renormalization in Liouville Gravity and Stochastic Inflation