================================================================== For the GR News: ================================================================== Dear Colleague, We announce a time shift of one week for MG12 to July 12-18, 2009 (Sunday thru Saturday, opening Monday morning). This change was necessary to make it possible to retain conference fees at the same level as MG11 in Berlin. The MG Meetings were initiated with the help of Abdus Salam at the ICTP in Trieste with the intent of bringing together a diverse set of scientists not only from the theoretical to the experimental and observational rhelm, but also from the economically privileged and less privileged nations. To keep the conference fees lower to help achieve this goal, at the request of the chair of the International Organizing Committee, Remo Ruffini, the Director General of UNESCO, Dr. Kushiro Matsura, has generously made available the UNESCO Headquarters for the plenary talks and 5 of the daily afternoon parallel sessions, with the remaining parallel sessions to meet within a short Metro ride from that location. By good fortune the new dates contain the national celebration Bastille Day (Tuesday), which is a unique opportunity for conference participants to enjoy a spectacular day in Paris. We are now deliberating over having the Tuesday plenary session in the afternoon so that participants are free to view the famous Bastille Day parade down the Champs-Elysees, possibly from special seating arranged through President Sarkozi, or having a morning session and leave the participants free to enjoy Paris the rest of the day, full of festivities culminating with the fireworks show in the evening. This change has enabled the conference fees to remain at the 350 Euro level of the previous MG Meeting in Berlin, including the three volume proceedings and the conference banquet, as well as the daily refreshments of course. The morning plenary lectures will be held in the main UNESCO building at the Place de Fontenoy, while some of the parallel sessions will take place at the nearly adjacent rue Miollis building. The remaining sessions will be held in the prestigious university and research center facilities in the renowned Latin Quarter. The conference banquet will also be held at the UNESCO site, on Wednesday night. The new local organizing committee is chaired by Prof. Pierre Coullet, the first Vice President of the University of Nice Sophia Antipolis, which is an official collaborating instition of ICRANet in Nice where ICRANet has opened a center at Villa Ratti. Prof. Jean Pierre Bourguignon, Director of the Institut des Hautes Etudes Scientifiques, has also joined the local organizing committee, which will be more representative of the principal international and French institutions which are actually contributing both scientifically and economically to the success of the meeting. The first action of the new committee has been to announce a first draft of the parallel session program including some chairpersons who have already volunteered, with others to be added later. The preliminary parallel session program being put together in these days is given below. We look forward to an exciting meeting next summer. Bob Jantzen, chair of the MG12 International Coordinating Committee Paris location links (tentative): http://www34.homepage.villanova.edu/robert.jantzen/mg/mg12/mg12locations.htm ----------------------------------- Parallel Program in Progress: a. String Theory and Quantum Gravity SQG1: Strings/Brane Motivated Cosmology (Dimitri Galtsov) SQG2: Brane Worlds (Massimo Bianchi) SQG3: Anti de Sitter/Conformal Field Theory (AdS/CFT) SQG4: Cosmic Strings and Topological Defects SQG5: Quantum Fields (Volodia Belinski) SQG6: Quantum Gravity Phenomenology (Giovanni Amelino-Camelia) SQG7: Loop Quantum Gravity, Quantum Geometry, Spin Foams (Jerzy Lewandowski) b. Black Holes: Theory BHT1: Strong Fields in Astrophysics (Walter Greiner) BHT2: Black Holes in Higher Dimensions (Black Rings and Black Strings) (Jutta Kunz) BHT3: Analog Models of and for General Relativity (TBD) BHT4: Black Hole Thermodynamics (Iosef Khrisplovich) c. Astrophysics of Neutron Stars and Black Holes APT1: Observations of Astrophysical Black Holes APT2: Extreme Properties of Neutron Stars: Observations and Theory (Mariano Mendez, Nanda Rea) APT3: Observations from High Energy Astrophysics Satellites (Elena Pian, Norbert Schulz) APT4: Modelling accretion and ejection d. Theoretical Cosmology COT1: Topology of the Universe (Marek Demianski) COT2: Inhomogeneous and Chaotic Cosmology COT3: Nonsingular Cosmology - Inflation (Mario Novello) COT4: Quantum Cosmology and Quantum Effects in the Early Universe (Paulo Moniz) e. Gamma Ray Bursts: Theory and Observation GRB1: GRB Observations of High Energy GRB2: GRB Counterparts GRB3: Short Duration GRBs GRB4: Models for Long Duration GRBs GRB5: GRBs: a Tool for Cosmology? f. Mathematical and General Theories, Alternative Theories MGAT1: Classes of Exact Solutions and Associated Mathematical Structures (Georgy Alekseev) MGAT2: Cosmological Singularities and Asymptotics (Spiros Cotsakis) MGAT3: Theoretical Issues in GR (Dieter Brill) MGAT4: Exact Solutions (Physical Aspects) (Susan Scott) MGAT5: Higher Dimensional Theories (Alan Coley) MGAT6: Higher Derivative theories (Salvatore Capozziello) MGAT7: Alternative Theories (A) (Hans-Jrgen Schmidt) MGAT8: Alternative Theories (B) (Jan-Willem van Holten) MGAT9: Gravitational Fields with Sources (Electromagnetic and Other) (Jose P. S. Lemos) g. Experimental Gravitation EG1: Tests of Local Lorentz Invariance EG2: Equivalence Principle Tests EG3: Variation of Fundamental Constants EG4: Space Tests EG5: Astrometric Tests EG6: Short Range Gravity Tests EG7: Compact Binaries and Strong-Field Tests of Gravity h. History of Relativity HR1: Recent Advances in the History of General Relativity HR2: Epistemological Aspects of Special and General Relativity i. Analytic and Numerical Methods ANM1: Post-Newtonian Approximation and the Interface with Numerical Relativity (Luc Blanchet and Gerhard Schaefer) ANM2: Binary Black Holes Simulations: Spins and Gravitational Recoil. Comparisons with Post-Newtonian Results (Pablo Laguna) ANM3: Matching Analytical and Numerical Methods ANM4: Numerical Methods in General Relativity and Algebraic Computation (Christian Klein) ANM5: Numerical Waveforms from Black Hole Binaries ANM6: Supernova Explosions and Neutron Star Oscillations l. Cosmological Models COM1: Primordial Cosmology, Quintessence, Trans-Planckian Cosmology (Jerome Martin) COM2: Dark Energy and Universe Acceleration COM3: Cosmological Sources for Gravitational Waves COM4: The Origins of Massive Black Holes and Quasars at High Redshifts (George Djorgovski) COM5: Numerical Simulations of Large Scale Structure m. Observational Cosmology OC1: Primordial Gravitational Waves and the CMB (Leonid Grishchuk) OC2: CMB Experiments (Silvia Masi) OC3: Forthcoming CMB Polarization Experiments OC4: Observational Gravitational Lensing [Microlensing] (Philippe Jetzer) OC5: Dark Matter and Large-Scale Structure n. Astroparticle Physics AP1: Search for Dark Matter AP2: Neutrino Physics, Astrophysics and Cosmology AP3: Cosmic Rays AP4: Strong Gravity and Colliders o. Gravitational Waves GW1: Sources of Gravitational Waves GW2: Operating GW Detectors (Adalberto Giazotto, Massimo Bassan) GW3: Space and Third Generation GW Detectors (James Hough, Sheila Rowan) GW4: GW Data Analysis (Fulvio Ricci, Valentin Rudenko) GW5: Advanced GW Detectors (David Blair, K. Tsubono)