The conference series "New Frontiers in Physics" aims to promote interdisciplinarity and cross-fertilization of ideas between different disciplines addressing fundamental physics. While different fields each face a distinct set of field-specific challenges in the coming decade, a significant set of commonalities has emerged in the technical nature of some of these challenges, or are underlying the fundamental concepts involved. A Grand Unified Theory should in principle reveal this underlying relationship.
For instance, techniques from string theory have become relevant in recent years for improving perturbative techniques in high-energy physics or identifying material properties of non-abelian plasmas that share essential features with the systems studied in heavy-ion collisions. Fluctuation analyses of the cosmic microwave background involve techniques and concepts that are becoming increasingly relevant for the study of the quickly expanding little bangs in heavy-ion collisions. Cosmological models are developed in close interplay with searches for new physics at the LHC. There is a multitude of examples illustrating that crosstalk between neighbouring fields is relevant or even crucial for progress in either field.
The conference series "New Frontiers in Physics" aims at identifying interdisciplinary topics on which crosstalk between different disciplines of fundamental physics can contribute to further progress. The conference series aims at bringing together key scientists of different fields to discuss the state of the art and the nature of open questions in a language suitable for a physics-educated interdisciplinary audience and to discuss avenues for further progress.
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Main topics
While the main body of the conference builds mainly on the below-mentioned topics, presentations on yet different disciplines are invited and vary every year. Such topics can be for example nuclear structure, atomic physics, plasma physics, physics applications (biophysics, medical science), biology, mathematics, computing science, etc.
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High Energy Particle Physics
ASearches for new particles and new phenomena (Higgs boson, SUSY, top quarks, extra dimensions, flavour physics, precision electroweak measurements and others), hadron physics, and neutrino physics.
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Heavy Ion Collisions and Critical Phenomena
BThe properties of QCD matter under extreme conditions and the QCD phase diagram. Branching out to neighbouring disciplines: Superconductivity, Neutron Stars, Quark Stars, Exotics.
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Quantum Physics, Quantum Optics and Quantum Information
CQuantum Optics, Quantum Information, Foundations of Quantum Mechanics, Quantum information; Entanglement and the Universe: Black Holes and Cosmology, Quantum Non-Locality, Cold Atoms.
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Cosmology, Astrophysics, Gravity, Mathematical Physics
DCosmic Microwave Background, Dark Energy, Gravitational waves, Dark Matter, Astroparticle Physics, Quantum Gravity, String Theory, Non-Commutative Geometry, Holography.
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Workshops & Special Sessions
Workshops, mini-workshops and special sessions will be also organized during the conference. The full list of scientific topics will be published soon.
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Workshop on Laser Fusion, a spin-off from heavy-ion collisions
Convener: Prof. Laszlo Pal Csernai, University of Bergen, Norway (laszlo@csernai.no)
Dates: 24-28 August 2026If you are interested in participating in the workshop, please choose this topic in the abstract submission form. In case of questions, please contact the convenor.
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Workshop on Dark matter from micro to macro
Convener: Prof. Alexander Dolgov, Prof. Elena Arbuzova
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Special Session on Quantum Information and Quantum Optics
Convener: Prof. Avishy Carmi, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel.
Dates of the workshop: 20-21 August 2026.A second part of the workshop might be placed within 24-28 August 2026 if needed (To Be Confirmed).
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Workshop on Instruments and Methods
Dates: 20-28 August 2026.
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Workshop on QCD
Convener: Prof. Willibald Plessas, University of Graz, Austria.
Dates: 20-21 and 24 August 2026. -
Workshop on Astro-Cosmo-Gravity
Conveners: TBA
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Machine Learning schools: from perceptrons to spiking neurons
Convener: Pietro Vischia, Ramón y Cajal senior researcher at the Universidad de Oviedo and ICTEA, and Adjunct Professor at IITM, Spain.
Dates: (To Be Defined later). -
Special session on Machine Learning
Convener: Pietro Vischia, Ramón y Cajal senior researcher at the Universidad de Oviedo and ICTEA, and Adjunct Professor at IITM, Spain.
Dates: (To Be Defined later). -
Special session on neutrino physics
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Special Session on Hadron Resonances and Multiquark States
Convener:: Prof. Willibald Plessas, Universitaet Graz, Austria.
Dates: 20-21, and 24-28 August 2026. -
Special session on Strangeness in Heavy Ion Collisions and related topics (40th anniversary)
Convenors:
Prof. Johann Rafelski, University of Arizona in Tucson, USA.
Prof. Sonia Kabana, Universidad de Tarapaca, Arica, Chile.
Dates: 20-21 August 2026This special session invites contributions on strangeness and related topics. Exactly 40 years after the publication of the seminal manuscript on: Strangeness in relativistic heavy ion collisions, Phys. Rep. 142, No. 4, (1986) 167-262, by P. Koch, B. Mueller, J. Rafelski, we review the progress and celebrate with (some of) the authors the anniversary of this interesting and unique signature of QGP formation in the laboratory.
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Session on other topics and interdisciplinary topics
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Special Session dedicated in memory of Prof. Dr. Hans Specht
Convenors: Dr. Sanja Damjanovich, GSI Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research, Darmstadt, Germany.
Dates: It will be placed within the period of 19 to 21 August 2026.This special session is dedicated to the scientific legacy of Prof. Dr. Hans Joachim Specht (1936–2024), a visionary physicist and scientific leader who shaped both the experimental agenda and the institutional landscape of modern nuclear and heavy-ion physics. Anyone wishing to make a contribution should contact the session organizer. For further details, please see the full session description.
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Outreach
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Extended session
December 2026