Petrov Readings 2023 open discussions about the Universe
Over 100 experts in physics and cosmology are contributing to the annual conference.
Among the plenary session on 29 November participants were Sergey Chervon (Ulyanovsk State Pedagogical University), Bijan Saha (Joint Institute for Nuclear Research), and Sergey Rubin (MEPhI University).
Honorary doctor of Kazan Unviersity, chairman of the Petrov Readings program committee, Academician Aleksey Starobinsky, who is set to share his findings tomorrow, says about this year’s conference, “We have a very interesting program. This year the number of participants has increased a lot. Last year 83 people registered for the seminar-school, and this year there are 109. It is pleasant that every year more and more young researchers participate – from Moscow, Kazan, Tomsk, Ulyanovsk and other cities. Almost all regions of Russia are represented. The growing interest in the Readings is due to the fact that it addresses fundamental questions related to the history of the Universe and its present. We are constantly adjusting our theories in accordance with new observational data, which come, among others, from the Russian space observatory Spektr-RG.”
According to Chair of the Department of Relativity Theory and Gravity Sergey Sushkov, the Readings were conceived by Professor Consultant Asya Aminova, “At one time she held twenty-one summer schools, but they had a slightly different format. The event was held at the Volga youth camp for three weeks. Famous scientists gave overview lectures there. Then, due to lack of funding, the school was not held for many years. In 2012, when I became head of the department, it was decided to revive the school, but now it is more like a conference and takes place more compactly, this year – from November 27 to December 1. Authoritative scientists give lectures at the School, but still the main part of it is the reports on current problems of gravitation, astrophysics, and cosmology. In addition to plenary lectures, we have a lot of sectional reports, which are presented mainly by young participants – students, graduate students, beginning researchers. Foreign scientists are speaking online this year, among them Ilya Shapiro from Brazil and Mikhail Volkov from France.”
Chief Research Associate of the All-Russian State Institute of Metrological Service Kirill Bronnikov presented his take on wormhole in a Friedmann universe, “My report is devoted to very strange exotic objects of the Universe – wormholes, which (if they exist) allow you to quickly reach very distant places. But their existence is conditioned by rather strict conditions. It takes very strange matter to support their existence. We’ve just found some solutions to the gravity equation that produce such wormholes without exotic matter, but they exist for a very short time. How real they are, of course, we need to find out by observations.”
KFU graduate, Senior Research Associate of the Laboratory of High Energy Physics of MIPT Edvard Musaev, will speak on integrability in string theory and M-theory, “I came with two graduate students, we are all studying symmetries of string theory and M-theory and their background solutions. The three of us are going to talk about it. Last year, five people from our institute participated in the school, and this year there are already about fifteen of us. We come here with great pleasure, as the Petrov Readings always have high quality presentations. After the sessions. there is always an opportunity to socialize with colleagues and discuss important scientific topics.”