29.10.2012 —

ERC (European Research Council) Advanced Grants allow exceptional established research leaders to pursue ground-breaking, high-risk projects that open new directions in their respective fields of research.

With his ambitious proposal "Fundamental Aspects of Strings and Gravity", Prof. Dieter Lüst convinced in exactly these points. Being awarded this fantastic grant, in the next 5 years Dieter Lüst aims at working out new connections between strings as mathematically consistent theories of quantum interactions and gravity.

The image nicely visualizes the main theme of the project: it combines the unity of the microcosm, the early universe, gravity, cosmology and superstrings.

One of the main goals is to go beyond the standard concepts in general relativity to explore the properties of the high energy behavior of strings, to investigate new stringy geometries and their new symmetry structures.

These ideas will be applied to open questions in cosmology (inflation and dark energy) and in particle physics (the physics at the TeV scale, being tested by the LHC). In this way the project aims to answer some of the central questions in physics, namely how matter behaves at very short distances, and what is the origin and the structure of our universe.

As the fundamental relation between string theory and gravity will be addressed from several completely new and so far unexplored points of view, the expectations go high to that the outcome of those investigations might even challenge Einstein’s theory of general relativity.

In order to complement Dieter Lüst’s expertise, another renowned scientist, Prof. Gia Dvali, also a Principle Investigator at the Universe Cluster, committed to work on this project on several aspects of string cosmology, black holes and the relation between strings and gravity.

Prof. Dieter Lüst’s research interests are String Theory, Gauge Theories, Supersymmetry, Quantum Gravity and Mathematical Physics.
D. Lüst is Professor of Physics and Chair of Mathematical Physics at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität (LMU) in Munich, appointed Scientific Member and Director of the Max-Planck Institute for Physics, Spokesman of the Arnold-Sommerfeld Center for theoretical physics at LMU and Founding Member of the Excellence Cluster Universe. He holds several awards, such as the DFG Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Award of the German Research Council and the Humboldt-Gay-Lussac Prize of French Minister of Science.

Prof. Gia Dvali’s research interests are in fundamental physics.  He investigates the structure of space and time and the nature of gravity. Currently he works on defining the quantum foundation of black holes.  

G.Dvali is Chair for Theoretical Particle Physics at LMU-Munich, co-director at the Max-Planck-Institute for Physics in Munich and Principle Investigator of the Excellence Cluster Universe. He holds several awards, such as Packard fellow, Sloan Fellow, New York City Mayor Award for Excellence in Science and Technology, a Humboldt Professorship of the Humboldt Foundation and is Distinguished Research Chair at the Perimeter Institute.