Program and Agenda

The 27th Texas Symposium will feature a variety of plenary talks covering the topics listed below, hundreds of contributed talks in parallel sessions, as well as a poster session.

A banquet is planned for the middle of the Symposium, with tickets available for purchase through the registration page. You can purchase banquet tickets during or after your registration. We will also host an opening reception on the evening of Sunday, December 8th.


Detailed Program

A detailed Symposium program can be downloaded here.
A complete list of available abstracts for plenary and contributed talks and posters can also be downloaded here.

Check back frequently as minor changes and updates continue to be applied to the program.


Outline of Program


Sunday, December 8th

All day Arrivals
3:00pm-8:00pm Registration
6:00pm-8:00pm Welcome Reception
 
 
 
Monday, December 9th

7:00am-5:00pm Registration
8:30am-9:00am Welcome Remarks
9:00am-9:45am Plenary Session 1:
Chair: R. Penrose
Gravitational Waves, Neutron Stars, and Binary Pulsars
Joseph Taylor
Princeton University
9:45am-10:30am Plenary Session 2:
Chair: R. Penrose
The Very Early Universe
Paul Steinhardt
Princeton University
10:30am-11:00am Coffee break
11:00am-12:30pm Parallel Session 1:Early Universe I
Chair: A. Ashtekar
Testing Gravity I
Chair: J. Dossett
High Energy Astrophysics - Galactic
Chair: L. Macri
Supermassive Black Holes
Chair: A. Wang
Nuclear EOS for Compact Objects I
Chair: G. Verde
Pulsars
Chair: A. McIntosh
Submillimeter Cosmology
Chair: D. Clements

12:30pm-2:00pm Lunch break
2:00pm-2:40pm Plenary Session 3:
Chair: R. Wagoner
The Higgs Boson and Cosmology
Steven Weinberg
University of Texas at Austin
2:40pm-3:20pm Plenary Session 4:
Chair: R. Wagoner
Looking Backward, Forward, And Sideways From Dallas, 1963
Virginia Trimble
University of California - Irvine and LCOGT
3:20pm-4:00pm Plenary Session 5:
Chair: R. Wagoner
Review on Nuclear Equation of State for Compact Objects
Charles J. Horowitz
Indiana University
4:00pm-4:30pm Coffee break
4:30pm-6:00pm Parallel Session 2:Higgs Boson: A Roadmap for Astrophysicists
Chair: F. Olness
Magnetars
Chair: M. Baring
Gravitational Waves
Chair: N. Cornish
Galaxies & Clusters
Chair: L. King
Shock Acceleration
Chair: D. Ellison
Modified Gravity I
Chair: M. Ishak
Dark Matter I
Chair: S. Majumdar

 
 
 
Tuesday, December 10th

8:00am-5:00pm Registration
9:00am-9:45am Plenary Session 6:
Chair: C. Hogan
Cosmology After Planck
David Spergel
Princeton University
9:45am-10:30am Plenary Session 7:
Chair: C. Hogan
Loop Quantum Gravity and the Very Early Universe
Abhay Ashtekar
Pennsylvania State University
10:30am-11:00am Coffee break
11:00am-12:30pm Parallel Session 4:Early Universe II
Chair: X. Chen
Modified Gravity II
Chair: L. Pogosian
Pulsar Timing Arrays
Chair: X. Siemens
Magnetohydrodynamics
Chair: E. Baron
Nuclear EOS for Compact Objects II
Chair: B. Li
Relativity I
Chair: R. Kantowski
History of Relativity I
Chair: J. Renn

12:30pm-2:00pm Lunch break
2:00pm-2:45pm Plenary Session 8:
Chair: V. Kaspi
Cosmological Tests of General Relativity
Edmund Bertschinger
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
2:45pm-3:30pm Plenary Session 9:
Chair: V. Kaspi
Active Galactic Nuclei
Roger Blandford
Stanford University
3:30pm-4:00pm Coffee break
4:00pm-5:30pm Parallel Session 4:Inhomogeneous Cosmologies, Backreaction, & Averaging
Chair: C. Hellaby
Tidal Disruption Events
Chair: M. Kesden
High Energy Astrophysics - Extragalactic
Chair: B. Dingus
Large-Scale Structure
Chair: P. Shapiro
Nuclear Astrophysics I
Chair: T. Aumann
Gamma Ray Bursts I
Chair: W. Burgett
Cosmology I
Chair: L. Boyle

7:00pm-9:00pm BanquetAfter-Dinner Speaker:
M. Turner
 
 
 
Wednesday, December 11th

8:00am-1:30pm Registration
9:00am-9:45am Plenary Session 10:
Chair: W. Freedman
Supernovae, Neutron Stars and Black Holes in the GRBs Era
Remo Ruffini
International Centre for Relativistic Astrophysics
9:45am-10:30am Plenary Session 11:
Chair: W. Freedman
Recent Results From Planck
Krzysztof Gorski
JPL, California Institute of Technology
10:30am-11:00am Coffee break
11:00am-12:30pm Parallel Session 5:Cosmic Microwave Background
Chair: D. Scott
Nuclear EOS for Compact Objects III
Chair: C. Horowitz
Dark Matter II
Chair: K. Freese
Binary Black Holes
Chair: Z. Haiman
X-Ray I
Chair: H. Marshall
Relativity II
Chair: V. Trimble
History of Relativistic Astrophysics II
Chair: C. Misner

12:30pm-2:00pm Lunch break
1:45pm Buses depart to The University of Texas at Dallas
3:15pm-5:00am Plenary Session 12:
Moderator: Jurgen Renn
Roundtable Discussion: Recollections of the Relativistic Astrophysics Revolution
5:30pm-7:00pm Dinner
7:30pm-9:00am Public Talk:Mysteries of the Dark Universe
Edward 'Rocky' Kolb
University of Chicago
9:00pm-9:30pm Public Outreach Event
9:30pm Buses return to the Fairmont Dallas Hotel
 
 
 
Thursday, December 12th

8:00am-5:00pm Registration
9:00am-9:45am Plenary Session 13:
Chair: K. Lake
Inhomogeneous Cosmologies
George Ellis
University of Cape Town
9:45am-10:30am Plenary Session 14:
Chair: K. Lake
The Accelerating Universe
Robert Kirshner
Harvard/Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
10:30am-11:00am Coffee break
11:00am-12:30pm Parallel Session 6:Dark Matter III
Chair: J. Cooley
Nuclear EOS for Compact Objects IV & Nuclear Astrophysics
Chair: S. Reddy
Testing Gravity II
Chair: P. Zhang
Compact Objects
Chair: A. Upadhye
Electromagnetic Signatures of Binary Mergers
Chair: Z. Musielak
X-Rays II
Chair: X. Dai
Cosmic Microwave Background
Chair: A. Hajian

12:30pm-2:00pm Lunch break
2:00pm-2:45pm Plenary Session 15:
Chair: TBC
Gravitational lensing and Applications to Cosmology
Nick Kaiser
IFA, University of Hawaii
2:45pm-3:30pm Plenary Session 16:
Chair: TBC
First Results From The Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) High-Energy X-ray Mission
Fiona Harrison
California Institute of Technology
3:30pm-4:00pm Coffee break
4:00pm-5:30pm Parallel Session 7:Cosmic Acceleration / Dark Energy
Chair: D. Huterer
Lensing
Chair: T. Brainerd
Active Galactic Nuclei
Chair: R. Walter
Gamma Ray Bursts II
Chair: M. Lyutikov
Relativity III
Chair: L. Ammann
High Energy Astrophysics-Exp.
Chair: F. Rieger
Nuclear Astrophysics II
Chair: C. Bertulani

7:00pm-8:00pm Poster Session
 
 
 
Friday, December 13th

8:00am-1:30pm Registration
9:00am-9:45am Plenary Session 17:
Chair: M. Diaz
Numerical Relativity
Manuella Campanelli
Rochester Institute of Technology
9:45am-10:30am Plenary Session 18:
Chair: M. Diaz
Gravitational Wave Astronomy in the Next Decade
Bernard Schutz
Max Planck Institute Potsdam-Golm
10:30am-11:00am Coffee break
11:00am-11:45am Plenary Session 18:
Chair: Cecile DeWitt
Nuclear Astrophysics
Sanjay Reddy
University of Washington
11:45am-12:30pm Closing Remarks:
Chair: Cecile DeWitt
Cosmology After Fifty Years of Texas Meetings
Katherine Freese
University of Michigan
12:30pm Symposium Closes