641. WE-Heraeus-Seminar: Do Black Holes exist? - The Physics and Philosophy of Black Holes

Overview
The 641th WE-Heraues-Seminar on "Do Black Holes Exists? - The Physics and Philosophy of Black Holes" is kindly funded by the Wilhelm and Else Heraeus Foundation and will be held April 24 - 28, 2017, at the Physikzentrum of the German Physical Society in Bad Honnef, located at the River Rhine near to Bonn and Cologne.

The evidence for the existence of Black Holes received a strong boost with the direct detection of gravitational waves which perfectly fit to the simulation of the merger of two Black Holes with masses of around 30 to 40 Solar masses. Further evidence for their existence is given by the observation of stars around the Sagittarius A*, the center of our galaxy, the observation of radiation from accretion disks around many massive galactic Black Holes, high energetic jets emerging from the near vicinity of Black Holes. We are also waiting for further evidence based on new observations with the Event Horizon Telecope and the Black Hole Cam. However, despite these overwhelming observations there is still the question of the interpretation: How shall we deal with the situation that no Black Hole can be observed directly? This question will be discussed by experts from the observations, from the mathematical and theorerical aspects of Black Holes, as well as from the philosophy of sciences.

In our Seminar we will treat

the current status of observations and future plans
Black Hole solutions of gravitational field equations and their properties
Physical effects in the vicinity of Black Holes
the philosophy of Black Holes
The program consists of invited as well as contributed talks and posters. We particularly encourage female scientist to contribute to the seminar. For young scientists we will award the best poster with a price.

The number of participants is limited to about 70. All local costs (meals and accommodation) of the participants will be covered by the WE-Heraeus foundation. The application deadline is February 26th, 2017.

Invited Speakers

Britzen, Silke (Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy, Bonn):
A new view on M87: from jets to the central machine

Breton, Nora (CINESTAV-IPM, Mexico):
On Rotating Regular Black Holes

Brügmann, Bernd (University of Jena):
The general relativistic two-body problem of black holes

Cardoso, Vitor (Instituto Superior Técnico):
Testing General Relativity with gravitational waves

Champion, David (Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy, Bonn):
Searching for Binary Supermassive Black Holes

Curiel, Erik (LMU Munich):
Black Holes Are True Thermodynamical Objects

Eckart, Andreas (University of Cologne):
The Milky Way's Supermassive Black hole: How good a case is it? - A Challenge for Astrophysics & Philosophy of Science

Ellis, George (University of Cape Town, South Africa):
Classical aspects of Black Holes
Falkenburg, Brigitte (University of Dortmund):tbd

Giulini, Domenico (ZARM, Bremen, and LU Hannover):
Initial value problems in Black Hole space-times

Guerlebeck, Norman (ZARM, University of Bremen):
The Meissner effect for extremal black holes

Hackmann, Eva (ZARM, University of Bremen):
Time in the vicinity of Black Holes

Hartmann, Stephan (LMU Munich):
Dumb Holes and Bayesian Confirmation

Karas, Vladimir (Academy of Sciences, Prague):
Mach, Meissner, and rotating black holes

Kiefer, Claus (University of Cologne):
Black Holes in Quantum Gravity

Kunz, Jutta (University of Oldenburg):
Black Holes in higher dimensions

Lämmerzahl, Claus (ZARM, University of Bremen):
Pulsars as probes of Black Hole physics

Lehmkuhl, Dennis (CalTech):
The interpretation of vacuum solutions to the Einstein field equations

Meinel, Reinhard (University of Jena):
Regular solutions of the Einstein equations with parametric transition to black holes

Musco, Ilja (Observatoire de Paris/Meudon):
Causal nature dynamics of trapping horizon in black hole collapse

Mueller, Olaf (University of Regensburg)

Mueller, Thomas (University of Stuttgart):
How do Black Holes look like?

Perlick, Volker (ZARM, University of Bremen):
Light effects near Black Holes

Renn, Jürgen (Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin):tbd

Rinne, Oliver (Albert Einstein Institute, Golm):
How a black hole forms - the gravitational collapse

Rovelli, Carlo (Université Marseille, France):
Physics and philosophy of Black Holes in Quantum Gravity

Stoeckler, Manfred (University of Bremen):
The Theory/Experiment Interface of the Observation of Black Holes

Straub, Odele (Observatoire de Paris):
How accretion discs shed light on black holes

Sudarsky, Daniel (UNAM, Mexico):
Black hole information loss and the measurement problem in quantum theory

Thater, Sabine (AIP, Potsdam):
The interplay between massive black holes and their host galaxies

Tsupko, Oleg Russian Academy of Science, Moscow):
Influence of a plasma on the black hole shadow and other chromatic effects of gravitational lensing in presence of plasma

Wüthrich, Christian (Université Geneve, Switzerland):
Scrutinizing Hawking’s original argument