YIC 2026: schedule and abstracts
The conference will take place on September, 14th in Room Ourisson on the 1st floor of the Institut Le Bel (4 rue Blaise Pascal, Strasbourg) on the Esplanade Campus.
Detailed schedule and abstracts will be issued in September.
Schedule
14h00
Opening of the conference
14h05
Presentation of QMat student-led initiatives
14h10
Simon BEAUDOIN Probing the Early Universe with Cosmic Strings.
The Universe we observe today is very well described by the Standard and ΛCDM model, yet several questions remain open, from the nature of dark matter to the exact physics of the Early Universe. Its symmetries may have been very different from those we observe today, and some may have left relics in the form of cosmic strings. In this talk, I will explore how such objects can provide a window into the Early Universe, how they form after symmetry breaking, and how their evolution can produce observable signatures. In particular, I will discuss how cosmic string networks can generate gravitational waves, and how their decay can provide a natural dark matter candidate.
14h50
Theo VUILLEMARD Study of Nuclear Shape and Collectivity.
How are protons and neutrons organized inside an atomic nucleus, and what determines its shape and behavior? This presentation introduces the nuclear shell model before focusing on Chromium 48 as a case study to understand nuclear deformation and shape. We will see how to characterize nuclear deformation through the collective Bohr–Mottelson picture and the model-independent Kumar invariants.
15h10
Camilo HENAO UV Sensitivity of Extremal Black Holes: An Analysis from Asymptotically Safe Quantum Gravity.
Recent work has revealed that extremal Kerr black holes may exhibit a sensitivity to higherderivative corrections to Einstein’s equations, displaying singularities in the tidal forces at the horizon. However, in a purely gravitational context, this “ultraviolet sensitivity” translates into a strong dependence on the Wilson coefficients in the low-energy effective field theory. These, in turn, are fixed by the underlying theory of quantum gravity in the ultraviolet. We find a prediction for these coefficients within the framework of asymptotically safe quantum gravity, and show that, if the quantum gravity scale is trans-Planckian, this horizon-scale ultraviolet sensitivity is avoided.
15h30
Coffee break (Room Vivien)
16h00
Maëlys CHAMARY Cosmic background in fusion reactions for nuclear astrophysics.
In astrophysics, the evolution and final fate of stars strongly depend on their initial mass. One of the key nuclear reactions involved in the evolution of massive stars in the carbon 12 + carbon 12 fusion reaction. The STELLA experiment aims to study this reaction at the low energies relevant to stellar environments. A new underground experimental setup has been built to reduce the background and improve the sensitivity of the measurements. In this work, we investigate the experimental background and compare measurements performed underground and above ground. This comparison allows us to evaluate the impact of the underground environment on the background level and, consequently, on the quality and sensitivity of the experimental data.
16h20
Elias HASSNAOUI Orthogonally-constrained Self-Consistent Field.
The description of excited states of electronic structures is a major challenge in quantum dynamics. In quantum chemistry, a well-known method, the Hartree-Fock method, gives a good first approximation of the ground state for systems of N electrons. During my internship with three fellow classmates, we tried to develop both theoretically and numerically a mean-field method based on an augmented Hartree-Fock Hamiltonian to obtain molecular orbitals optimized for the description of excited states. This presentation aims to explain the idea behind this method and focuses on my contribution to the work.
16h40
Ending ceremony