Invited Speakers:Hartmut Abele (TUWien)Eric Adelberger (U. Wash)Bruce Allen (MPI & LIGO)Masha Baryakhtar (Perimeter)Philippe Brax (Saclay)Cliff Burgess (McMaster/Perimeter)Clare Burrage (Nottingham)Pedro Ferreira (Oxford)Lam Hui (Columbia)Bhuvnesh Jain (UPenn)Austin Joyce (Columbia)Justin Khoury (UPenn)Roy Maartens (Cape Town)Scott Menary (York)Holger Mueller (UC Berkeley)Will Percival (ICG, Portsmouth)Maxim Pospelov (Victoria/Perimeter)Frans Pretorius (Princeton)Claudia de Rham (Imperial College)Misao Sasaki (YITP)Ingrid Stairs (UBC)Mark Trodden (UPenn)Registered Participants:current registered participant list

Topics on Agenda:gravitational wavesastrophysical tests, pulsars, black holesterrestrial tests, gravity on short distancescosmological probes: CMB, 21 cm, redshift surveys, weak lensingparticle cosmology, dark mattermodified gravity theoriesquantum gravity and emergent gravityConference Program:download full conference programdownload directions and local infoConference Organizers:Andrei Frolov (SFU)Makoto Fujiwara (TRIUMF)José Tomas Gálvez Ghersi (SFU)Levon Pogosian (SFU)Maxim Pospelov (Victoria/Perimeter)Dimitrios Psaltis (Arizona)Douglas Scott (UBC)subscribe to conference newscontact organizing committee

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Testing Gravity 2017 is the 2nd Testing Gravity conference hosted by SFU bringing together leading experts on various ways of testing laws of Gravity. The 1st Testing Gravity conference held in January 2015 was attended by over 100 scientists from 13 countries. Testing Gravity remains a topical theme because of the unexplained nature of dark matter and dark energy, and the long-standing failure to reconcile gravity with quantum physics. It is particularly relevant given the recent first detection of gravity waves by LIGO. The conference will provide an opportunity for theorists, experimentalist and observers to discuss new ways of testing GR and some of the alternative gravity theories, taking advantage of improving technologies and new observational windows. Topics will include gravitational waves, pulsars, black holes; terrestrial tests, gravity on short distances; particle cosmology, dark matter; cosmological probes - CMB, 21 cm, redshift surveys, weak lensing; modified gravity theories; quantum gravity and emergent gravity. The school on Wed Jan 25 will feature four lectures providing background into main topics covered by the conference. The conference on Jan 26-28 will feature invited and short contributed talks, and a poster session.

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Testing Gravity 2017 25-28 January 2017, SFU Harbour Center, Vancouver, BC, Canada

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Fees increase November 30th, 2016

The registration fee is $250 for regular and $150 for student participants if paid prior to November 30th, 2016. The late fees are $300 and $200, respectively. The additional fee for attendance of the pre-conference school is $50, and banquet tickets are $75 per person. Registration closes January 24th, 2017. Cancellations are subject to 10% penalty, with no refunds after January 13th, 2017. Payment of registration fees is processed online by SFU Meeting, Event and Conference Services. All credit card transactions will be processed in Canadian dollars and are subject to current exchange rates.

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Wed Jan 25 - The School 08:30 Registration Desk OpensThu Jan 26 - Workshop Day 1 08:30 Registration Desk OpensFri Jan 27 - Workshop Day 2 08:30 Registration Desk OpensSat Jan 28 - Workshop Day 3 09:00 Registration Desk Opens 09:00-10:30 Jeremy Heyl Review of General Relativity and ways in which it has been tested 08:55 Workshop Starts Welcome from organizers 09:00-09:30 Pedro Ferreira A complete framework for testing gravity on cosmological scales 09:30-10:00 Mark Trodden Multi-messenger time delays from lensed gravitational waves 10:00-10:30 Eric Adelberger Exotic spin-dependent interactions plus progress in lunar laser ranging 09:00-09:30 Cliff Burgess Effective field theories and modifying gravity: The view from below 09:30-10:00 Austin Joyce Long wavelength aspects of gravity 10:00-10:30 Hartmut Abele qBOUNCE with neutrons: Airy functions & gravity resonance spectroscopy 09:30-10:00 Bhuvnesh Jain Tests of gravity and dark matter interactions with halos and voids 10:00-10:20 Richard Shaw Probing Dark Energy with CHIME 10:20-10:30 Mustapha Ishak Cosmological consistency tests of gravity theory and cosmic acceleration 11:00-12:30 Dimitrios Psaltis Gravitational Waves Review Article: The basics of gravitational wave theory 11:00-11:30 Bruce Allen Direct observation of gravitational waves from the merger and inspiral of two black holes 11:30-12:00 Frans Pretorius Testing GR and constraining alternative theories with LIGO observations 12:00-12:15 Kent Yagi What do GW150914 and GW151226 tell us about extreme gravity? 12:15-12:30 Leo Stein Black hole mergers: beyond general relativity 11:00-11:30 Maxim Pospelov State of dark matter 11:30-12:00 Justin Khoury Cosmic acceleration without dark energy 12:00-12:15 Alexander Vikman Canonical exorcism for cosmological ghosts 12:15-12:30 David Langlois Degenerate higher order scalar tensor theories beyond Horndeski 11:00-11:20 Scott Menary The ALPHA-G experiment 11:20-11:40 Masha Baryakhtar Searching for ultralight particles with black holes and gravitational wave 11:40-11:55 Philippe Brax Gravitational birefringence 11:55-12:10 Shinji Tsujikawa Cosmology in generalized Proca theories 12:10-12:20 Joel Bergé MICROSCOPE on its way to the tightest test of the Weak Equivalence Principle 12:20-12:30 Matteo Fasiello LSS probes for dark energy & modified gravity? Lunch Break 12:30-13:30 (various locations)Lunch Break 12:30-14:00 (various locations)Lunch Break 12:30-14:00 (various locations)Lunch Break 12:30-14:00 (various locations) 13:30-15:00 Lam Hui Review of cosmology and the cosmological and astrophysical tests of gravity 14:00 Joy Johnson Welcome from VPR 14:05-14:35 Holger Mueller Using matter waves to look for the dark sector 14:35-15:05 Clare Burrage Experimental searches for screened dark energy 15:05-15:20 Tim Kovachy Testing the equivalence principle with macroscopic atom interferometers 15:20-15:35 Jay Tasson Testing local Lorentz invariance with gravitational waves 14:00-14:30 Ingrid Stairs Strong-field gravity with pulsars 14:30-15:00 Claudia de Rham How light is gravity? 15:00-15:15 Niayesh Afshordi Echoes from the abyss 15:15-15:30 Tanmay Vachaspati Quantum radiation during gravitational collapse 14:00-14:10 Maresuke Shiraishi Testing cosmic parity violation with CMB 2, 3, 4 point-correlators 14:10-14:20 Yin-Zhe Ma Constraining gravity and primordial non-Gaussianity with cosmological observations 14:20-14:30 Danielle Leonard Testing gravity with EG: Mapping theory onto observation 14:30-14:40 Sheila Dwyer Prospects for gravitational wave observations: update from LIGO 14:40-14:50 Daniel D’Orazio Tools for characterizing a massive black hole binary population 14:50-15:30 Lam Hui Light boson dark matter + conference summary 15:30-17:00 Justin Khoury Alternative gravity theories 16:00-16:10 Aaron Zimmerman The horizon modes of black holes 16:10-16:20 Alex Nielsen Testing black hole ringdowns with gravitational waves 16:20-16:30 Hiromi Saida GR effect and mass of the massive BH at the center of our galaxy 16:30-16:40 David Rapetti Modeling and constraining the cluster mass function to test gravity at large scales 16:40-18:00 Very Short Talks 16:00-16:30 Misao Sasaki Signatures from inflationary massive gravity 16:30-17:00 Will Percival Final cosmological measurements from BOSS 17:00-17:30 Roy Maartens Testing standard cosmology with the SKA (and other galaxy surveys) Workshop Ends Registration Open Until 19:00Poster Session and Reception 18:00-20:00 (snacks & cash bar)Conference Dinner 19:00 (Dockside on Granville Island) download all talk and poster abstracts as a single PDF file

For your travel plans reference, the pre-workshop school will start at 9 am on Wednesday, January 25th. The workshop will start at 9 am on Thursday, January 26th and end at 4 pm on Saturday, January 28th. Conference dinner is scheduled for evening of Friday, January 27th. Arriving the evening before the meeting starts is probably the best way to schedule your travel, and you can stay a few extra days for a weekend in the city or on ski slopes. Further informaton about local attractions will be posted on local info page.

Getting to Vancouver:Vancouver International Airport (YVR) is well connected to major airports in Asia and Europe and cities throughout Canada and USA. Excellent deals, particularly from Europe, can often be found on holiday airlines, such as Air Transat and Thomas Cook. The best option for getting from YVR to the city is via Sky Train.Alternative Airports:Vancouver Harbour Flight Centre (CXH) is a seaplane terminal located within a 10 min walk from SFU Harbour Centre. An exciting option for people arriving from the University of Victoria, assuming the weather collaborates.Bellingham International Airport (BLI), across the US border, is about 85 km (53 miles) away from downtown Vancouver. Flying to BLI can be an inexpensive option if travelling from cities on the west coast of the US.Seattle-Tacoma International Airport (SEA) is 250 km (153 miles) away from downtown Vancouver. Flying to SEA can be a more economical option, even after taking the cost of the rental car into account.By Car:If you are coming from US by car, border crossing times depend on the time of the day. 10-20 mins wait is normal during non-peak times, but can easily be an hour if you happen to venture at the wrong time. You can get an idea about the crossing time statistics on various websites.By Ferry:BC Ferries runs several regular ferry lines connecting Vancouver Island to the Mainland. The closest terminal to downtown Vancouver is Tsawwassen. Although Horseshoe Bay terminal is not much further away, it is located on the North Shore. Connection over Lions Gate Bridge could be problematic during rush hour.

Workshop Venue:The meeting will take place in the SFU Harbour Centre, located near the waterfront in the downtown Vancouver core.

Accommodations:Delta Vancouver Suites:550 West Hastings Street (<3 mins walk, $145.00/night + 17.5% tax) Special rates are apply to dates from January 22 to January 30, 2017. Last day to book: December 26, 2016.Sandman Hotel Vancouver:180 West Georgia Street (10 mins walk, $89.00/night + 17.5% tax) Special rates apply to dates from January 24 to January 29, 2017. Quote Group Number 912299 when you call.The Sylvia Hotel:1154 Gilford Street (30 mins walk, $80.00/night + 17.5% tax) Email or call 1(604)681-9321 or toll free 1(877)681-9321 to book. Quote the booking code "Testing Gravity 2017”.

Registered Participants: Hartmut Abele (TU Wien)Eric Adelberger (Washington)Niayesh Afshordi (Perimeter)Bruce Allen (MPI & LIGO)Jonathan Bagger (TRIUMF)Kamal Barghout (PMU)Masha Baryakhtar (Perimeter)Joel Bergé (ONERA)Supranta Boruah (Waterloo)Pasquale Bosso (Lethbridge)Philippe Brax (Paris Saclay)Cliff Burgess (McMaster/Perimeter)Clare Burrage (Nottingham)Ilaria Caiazzo (UBC)Mark Casali (ESO)Dagoberto Contreras (UBC)Daniel D'Orazio (Harvard)Adam Day (IOP Publishing)Cédric Deffayet (CNRS)Michael Desrochers (UBC)David Dobre (SFU)Guillem Domenech (YITP)Sheila Dwyer (LIGO Hanford, Caltech)Matteo Fasiello (Stanford)Pedro Ferreira (Oxford)Matthew Frick (SFU)Andrei Frolov (SFU)Makoto Fujiwara (TRIUMF)Jose Galvez (SFU)Jerome Gleyzes (JPL/Caltech)Vitali Halenka (Michigan)Jeremy Heyl (UBC)Kouichirou Horiguchi (Nagoya)Lam Hui (Columbia)Henri Inchauspé (ONERA)Mustapha Ishak (UT Dallas)Félix-Louis Julié (APC, Paris)Bhuvnesh Jain (UPenn)Austin Joyce (Columbia)Justin Khoury (UPenn)Tim Kovachy (Stanford)Gabor Kunstatter (Winnipeg)David Langlois (APC)Andrei Lebed (Arizona)Jounghun Lee (Seoul National)Catherine Leonard (Carnegie Mellon)Yin-Zhe Ma (KwaZulu-Natal)Roy Maartens (Western Cape)Don McLeod (NVMC)Alexander Mead (UBC)Alzbeta Medvedova (SFU)Scott Menary (York)Holger Mueller (UC Berkeley)Ryo Namba (McGill)Alex Nielsen (MPI AEI)Junpei Ooba (Nagoya)Adrian Ottewill (UCD)Manu Paranjape (Montréal)Will Percival (ICG, Portsmouth)T. Pinsonneault-Marotte (UBC)Mario Pitschmann (TU Wien)Levon Pogosian (SFU)Pedro Pompeia (ITA)Maxim Pospelov (Victoria/Perimeter)Frans Pretorius (Princeton)Dimitrios Psaltis (Arizona)David Rapetti (Boulder/NASA Ames)Graham Reid (UBC)Janina Renk (Stockholm)Claudia de Rham (Imperial College)Tarun Sachdeva (Thapar)Hiromi Saida (Daido)Yuki Sakakihara (Kyoto)Misao Sasaki (YITP)Douglas Scott (UBC)John Shaw (UBC)Maresuke Shiraishi (Kavli IPMU)Hajime Sotani (NAOJ)Ingrid Stairs (UBC)Danièle Steer (APC, Paris)Leo Stein (Caltech)Norihiro Tanahashi (Osaka)Jay Tasson (Carleton College)Kate Taylor (Victoria)David Wenjie Tian (ICN-UNAM)Mark Trodden (UPenn)Tilman Troester (UBC)Shinji Tsujikawa (TUS)Tanmay Vachaspati (Arizona State)Alexander Vikman (Prague)Martin White (UC Berkeley)Matthew Wilde (Washington)Kent Yagi (Princeton)Yasuho Yamashita (YITP)Zeeshan Yousaf (Punjab)Aaron Zimmerman (CITA)Alex Zucca (SFU)

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Places to Eat:SteamworksBonchazLa TaqueriaNubaEbisu on RobsonAkira SushiBanana LeafShizen YaCafe CrepeZefferelli'sThe NaamHealthy Noodle HouseVij'sPear TreeThings to Do:Harbour Centre TowerThe SeawallStanley ParkGranville IslandVancouver AquariumUBC Museum of AnthropologyFly Over CanadaCapilano Suspension BridgeGrouse Mountain GondolaVisit WhistlerGetting Around:Transit App for mobile devicesTransLink Vancouver websiteDownhill Skiing:Cypress MountainGrouse MountainMount SeymourWhistler BlackcombMt Baker Ski AreaX-Country Skiing:Cypress MountainCallaghan CountryBackcountry Skiing:check current avalanche conditions!

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