Announcements

• The current newsletter is available here.
• Bethe-Colloquium by Marc Knecht (Marseille, CPT), October 26th, 2017
• Bethe-Colloquium by Michael Kramer (MPI for Radio Astronomy, Bonn), November 9th, 2017
• Bethe-Colloquium by Luis Ibáñez (IFT, UAM Madrid), January 11th, 2018
• Bethe-Colloquium by Catharina Stroppel (Mathematical Institute, University of Bonn), January 18th, 2018
• Bethe Forum "Scattering amplitudes in gauge theory, gravity and beyond", February 19th - 23rd, 2018
  Convenors: Jan Plefka (HU Berlin), Hans Jockers (Bonn) and Albrecht Klemm (Bonn)
• 21st International Conference
  "Planck 2018 - From the Planck Scale to the Electroweak Scale", May 21st - 25th, 2018
  Local organizing committee: M. Chakraborti, M. Drees (co-chair), H. Dreiner (chair), S. H. Im, M. E. Krauss, V. Martín-Lozano, H. P. Nilles (co-chair), A. Trautner

Further information will be given as soon as it is available.

October's Bethe Colloquium will take place on Thursday, October 26th (4:15 pm) in Hörsaal I:

• Marc Knecht (Marseille, CPT)
• The anomalous magnetic moment of the muon: a precision probe of the standard model
• Hörsaal I, Physikalisches Institut

Abstract: Despite dedicated searches at colliders like the LHC, hints for physics beyond the standard model remain at best indirect. They come either from the cosmic frontier, where, for instance, the nature of dark matter still eludes our understanding, or from the flavour sector. In particular, recent measurements at LHCb of B meson decays into neutral-current channels with a pair of charged leptons have attracted attention by showing some deviation with respect to the predictions of the standard model. Although definite statements can hardly be made at this stage, they point towards some kind of violation of lepton-flavour universality, the channels with an electron-positron pair looking more standard-model-like than the channels with a pair of charged muons. If confirmed, these observations would begin to compose a coherent picture when combined with another persistent discrepancy: for about fifteen years, there is a deviation, at the level of 3.5 standard deviations, between the experimental measurement, at a relative precision of 0.54 ppm, of the anomalous magnetic moment of the muon, and its evaluation within the standard model. The purpose of this talk is to review the theoretical aspects which build up the standard-model prediction for the anomalous magnetic moment of the muon, and to present the prospects to improve upon it, in view of upcoming experiments, at FNAL and at J-PARC, which aim at measuring it at a relative precision of 0.14 ppm in the near future.

November's Bethe Colloquium will take place on Thursday, November 9th (4:15 pm) in Hörsaal I:

• Michael Kramer (Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy)
• Precision fundamental physics with astronomy
• Hörsaal I, Physikalisches Institut

Abstract: The Universe is vast. And even though we live on a tiny planet among billions of stars in a galaxy that is one of very many, we are curious enough to seek to understand its beginning and the fundamental laws that govern it: Curiosity-driven research in its purest form - and of fundamental importance. Einstein himself said that "he had no special talent" but "that he was only passionately curious". This "slight" understatement mocks the fact that his theory of general relativity (GR) represents our best understanding of gravity - by far. But whether it is also our last word, at least on macroscopic scales, remains to be seen. Radio astronomy provides a unique tool for making appropriate experiments to test gravity and to explore fundamental physics with high precision. I will present some of these tests related to radio pulsars and compare them with observations using gravitational wave detectors or experiments to image the black hole in the center of the Milky Way.