We cordially invite you to participate in the ninth "Vienna Central European Seminar on Particle Physics and Quantum Field Theory", which will take place at the Faculty of Physics of the University of Vienna, Boltzmanngasse 5, A-1090 Vienna, from Friday November 30 to Sunday December 02, 2012. This year "Dark Matter, Dark Energy, Black Holes and Quantum Aspects of the Universe" has been chosen as subject.

The list of Plenary Speakers is as follows (all speakers are confirmed):

We are delighted to announce that Sir Roger Penrose will give a Public Lecture on "Dark Energy, Dark Matter, and Black Holes, as Essential Ingredients of a New Cyclic Theory of the Universe" on the evening of November 30.

We regret to inform you that, unfortunately, Erik Verlinde on short notice had to cancel his participation.

We are very grateful to Andrea Campoleoni to accept - just three days before the beginning of the seminar - our invitation to hold an introductory lecture on "Higher-spin gravity".

The members of this year's scientific advisory board are

We kindly ask all participants and speakers to fill in the online application form before 25 November. All participants applying afterwards are asked to do so at the registration. These persons will, however, not be included in the list of participants, which will be distributed at the meeting.

The seminar series "Vienna Central European Seminar on Particle Physics and Quantum Field Theory" was created 2004 and is intended to provide stimulating interactions between leading researchers and promising junior physicists. A considerable number of junior scientists participate in these meetings, and we receive special grants for them covering the hotel and part of the local expenses.

Our financial resources make it necessary to limit the number of supported participants who will be selected among the applicants. Applications for fellowships should be submitted before 15 Sept 2012, please arrange also for one letter of recommendation to arrive by email vienna.theor-physik@univie.ac.at before 15 Sept 2012. Information about the acceptance of scholarships will be given by the beginning of October.

We invite applications for a limited number of talks from researchers working in areas related to the focus of the seminar. Junior participants, including advanced graduate students, post-doctoral fellows, and junior faculty, will be given priority. Please apply before 15 Sept 2012.

Before the Public Lecture of Sir Roger Penrose on Friday evening there will be the possibility to join the Lise Meitner Lecture given by Renate Loll (Utrecht) on "Mysterious Quantum Spacetime: Why 3 + 1 sometimes equals 2".

In addition to the talks there will be a poster session on Saturday afternoon and a Conference Reception on Saturday evening.

The detailed program of the seminar is now available for download.

Registration will begin on Friday 30 November at 08:30 outside the lecture hall

At registration you will be asked to pay the registration fee of € 50. Payment must be by cash; we cannot accept credit cards. There will be no registration fee for students, nor for members of the supporting institutions.

We will not be providing pens, paper or conference bags. Copies of the schedule, abstracts of all talks and the posters as well as the list of participants will be available, however.

Please mind the deadlines for all applications:

The "Vienna Central European Seminar on Particle Physics and Quantum Field Theory" serves as a forum for coordinating conferences, schools and graduate courses in the Central European region. Please see the webpage http://cepgc.phy.hr/ for information on the "Central European Joint Program of Doctoral Studies in Theoretical Physics". Nine Central European universities and institutions have joined in a collaboration to strengthen and develop their Ph.D. programmes.

With my very best regards from Vienna, 

Helmuth Hüffel, organizer