Name: VAST 2026: From Vacuum Stability to Gravitational Waves
Start: 2026-10-21T09:00:00+02:00
End: 2026-10-23T22:30:00+02:00
Location: Real Jardín Botánico, CSIC.

VAST 2026: From Vacuum Stability to Gravitational Waves

from Wednesday, October 21, 2026 (9:00 AM) to Friday, October 23, 2026 (10:30 PM)

Monday, October 19, 2026
Tuesday, October 20, 2026
Wednesday, October 21, 2026

9:00 AM Registration
Registration
9:00 AM - 9:30 AM
9:30 AM Plenary: Plenary 1
Plenary 1
9:30 AM - 11:00 AM
Contributions

9:30 AM Higgs vacuum stability and a gravity-induced UV completion of the Standard Model - Aaron Held (École Normale Supérieure)

10:15 AM Bubble Nucleation Rates from the Functional Renormalisation Group - Manuel Reichert (University of Sussex)
11:00 AM Coffee Break
Coffee Break
11:00 AM - 11:40 AM
11:40 AM Plenary: Plenary 2
Plenary 2
11:40 AM - 1:00 PM
Contributions

11:40 AM Black Holes from a Higgs-like Field in the Radiation Era - David Mulryne (Queen Mary University of London)

12:25 PM Discussion & announcements
1:00 PM Lunch Break
Lunch Break
1:00 PM - 3:00 PM
3:00 PM Phenomenology Of Phase Transitions
3:00 PM - 4:00 PM
Contributions

3:00 PM Non-conformal obstructions to bubble expansion - Pedro Tarancón-Álvarez (Institute of Cosmos Sciences - University of Barcelona (ICCUB))

3:20 PM Can the universe be matter-dominated after a supercooled first-order phase transition? - Henda Mansour (KIT)

3:40 PM Standard Model Effective Field Theory and Oscillons - Andrzej Wereszczyński (Jagiellonian University, Kraków, Poland)
4:00 PM Group Photo

4:00 PM - 4:20 PM

4:20 PM Coffee Break
Coffee Break
4:20 PM - 5:00 PM
5:00 PM Electroweak Vacuum Stability
5:00 PM - 6:00 PM
Contributions

5:00 PM Linking Neutrino Masses, Dark Matter, and Higgs Criticality via Gauged $U ( 1 )_{B − L}$ - Eduardo Peinado (Instituto de Física de la Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México)

5:20 PM Constraining the real singlet extension of the SM - Moritz Bosse (TU Dortmund)

5:40 PM Higgs Vacuum Stability, Reheating, and Gravitational Waves - Giorgio Laverda (JGU Mainz)
Thursday, October 22, 2026
9:30 AM Plenary: Plenary 3
Plenary 3
9:30 AM - 11:00 AM
Contributions

9:30 AM Surprises in Vacuum Decay: an Update - José R. Espinosa (IFT, Madrid)

10:15 AM From real-time tunneling to vacuum decay with conserved charges - Giulio Barni (IFT-UAM/CSIC Madrid)
11:00 AM Coffee Break
Coffee Break
11:00 AM - 11:40 AM
11:40 AM Formal Aspects Of Phase Transitions
11:40 AM - 1:00 PM
Contributions

11:40 AM Dynamical evolution of the pressure on the bubble wall - Miguel Etienne A Vanvlasselaer (ICCUB)

12:00 PM Convergence of bubble nucleation rates - Anna Kormu (University of Helsinki)

12:20 PM Toward a real-time theory of vacuum decay - Alex Jenkins (University of Cambridge)

12:40 PM An ode to instantons - Oliver Janssen (EPFL)
1:00 PM Lunch Break
Lunch Break
1:00 PM - 3:00 PM
3:00 PM Phenomenology Of Phase Transitions
3:00 PM - 4:20 PM
Contributions

3:00 PM Filtered dark matter from strong first order phase transitions - Satumaaria Sukuvaara (University of Helsinki)

3:20 PM PBH Dark Matter and GWs from Axion Inflation - Nadir Ijaz (University of Padova, Italy)

3:40 PM When the HL-LHC is blind, LISA is deaf (but not vice versa): 2HDM collider-cosmology synergies - Carlo Tasillo (IFIC, Valencia University)

4:00 PM Gravitational Waves from Critical Dynamics - Oliver Gould (University of Nottingham)
4:20 PM Coffee Break
Coffee Break
4:20 PM - 5:00 PM
5:00 PM Formal Aspects Of Phase Transitions
5:00 PM - 6:00 PM
Contributions

5:00 PM On the validity of finite-temperature EFTs - Fabio Bernardo (Université de Genève)

5:20 PM A consistent EFT expansion of the bubble nucleation rate - Javier López Miras (Universidad de Granada)

5:40 PM Hot news on the phase structure of the SMEFT - Luis Gil (Universidad de Granada)
9:00 PM Conference Dinner

9:00 PM - 11:00 PM
Friday, October 23, 2026
9:30 AM Plenary: Plenary 4
Plenary 4
9:30 AM - 11:00 AM
Contributions

9:30 AM Bubble trouble - marieke postma (Nikhef)

10:15 AM Exploring gravitational waves from strong phase transitions - David Weir (University of Helsinki)
11:00 AM Coffee break
Coffee break
11:00 AM - 11:40 AM
11:40 AM Plenary: Plenary 5
Plenary 5
11:40 AM - 12:25 PM
Contributions

11:40 AM Baryogenesis from Exploding Primordial Black Holes - David Kaiser (MIT)
12:25 PM Phenomenology Of Phase Transitions
12:25 PM - 1:05 PM
Contributions

12:25 PM Beyond Nambu-Goto: Towards an EFT of Cosmic Strings and Their Massive Excitations - Alberto García Martín-Caro (Universidades de Vigo)

12:45 PM The Slingshot Effect: A Solution to the Magnetic Monopole Problem - Maximilian Bachmaier (University of the Basque Country)
1:05 PM End of conference
End of conference
1:05 PM - 1:15 PM