Spanish Relativity Meeting (ERE 2010): Gravity as a Crossroad in Physics

Abstract

The 2010 edition of the Spanish Relativity Meeting (ERE2010) took place in Granada from 6–10 September 2010, and was hosted by the Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía (IAA - CSIC). This event represented the 34th edition of Encuentros Relativistas Españoles (ERE), an international conference devoted to relativity and gravitation and organized every year by one of the Spanish groups working in this area. The particular scientific flavour of the 2010 edition was captured by the subtitle of the conference, 'Gravity as a Crossroad in Physics'.Our underlying rationale was to present gravitational physics as a scientific 'locus' for the interaction between (separate) communities in physics. It is a remarkable property of gravity that its specific problems provide a framework that calls for the interchange of ideas, concepts and methodologies from very different communities. In this edition we aimed to reflect this interdisciplinary perspective in the scientific programme. Each day during the week was devoted to a particular 'dialogue' between two communities who share some of their ultimate goals, but differ in their conceptual background, methodology or technical approach. These 'dialogues' were envisaged as opportunities to compare alternative viewpoints, maintaining a focus on their complementary nature. This led to the organization of the week as follows:Day 1: Fundamental vs Effective Approaches in Theoretical Gravity This day compared approaches to gravity that differ conceptually in their understanding of the nature of the basic physical degrees of freedom of the theory, namely confronting viewpoints supporting the fundamental status of such degrees of freedom with other research programs favouring some emergence mechanism. Gravitational analogues were also discussed on this day.Day 2: Geometric vs Quantum Field/String Theory Approaches to Quantum Gravity This day was focused on quantum gravity. A particular emphasis was placed on the comparison between geometric approaches to the quantization of general relativity (e.g. loop quantum gravity in the context of the canonical program) and approaches leaning on or evolving from a (quantum) field theory treatment of gravity (e.g. string/M-theory).Day 3: Theoretical Cosmology vs Physical Cosmology This day addressed the current challenges in cosmology from a double perspective. On the one hand, offering an analysis of the large scale picture of the universe emerging from the accumulated body of observational data and, on the other hand, assessing the theoretical attempts to explain such a picture putting a special emphasis on the role of gravity.Day 4: Relativity vs Astrophysics This day was focused on astrophysical problems where general relativity plays a fundamental role. Challenges and difficulties encountered by relativists modelling specific astrophysical scenarios were disucssed as well as the problems found by astrophysicists needing general relativity as a key conceptual ingredient. Particular emphasis was placed on gravitational waves and compact objects.Day 5: Mathematical Relativity vs Numerical Relativity This day discussed fundamental problems in general relativity, and more generally in gravity physics, where a close collaboration between relativists in the geometry/analysis community on the one hand, and relativists in the numerical community on the other hand, can prove to be particularly successful and insightful.The contributions in this volume have been organized in two blocks, corresponding to plenary and parallel sessions during the conference. In both cases we have kept the chronological order of the presented talks. The only exception to this rule is the parallel session dedicated to the memory of the late S Brian Edgar, labeled as IV.A during the conference, which we have placed immediately after the plenary session contributions.The result of the 'dialogue experience' at the conference was extremely satisfactory and gratifying. Scientific sessions were thrilled by tantalizing and inspiring discussions, often continued in long walks around the Cármenes of the old city. In this spirit, we wish to thank all of the participants of the ERE meeting for their enthusiasm and especially the contributors to these proceedings for their synthesis effort.Granada, 25 July 2011Víctor Aldaya, Carlos Barceló and José Luis Jaramillo Corrigendum added 2 June 2015: We acknowledge the funding provided by the MICINN (Ref: FIS2009-08009), Consejería de Economía, Innovación, Ciencia y Empleo, Junta de Andalucía (Ref: IAC10-I-7369) and CSIC for the organization of this meeting.