The purpose of this TH Institute is to bring together experts in theory and observations interested in testing fundamental physics with CMB spectral distortions. It will provide an opportunity to discuss new theoretical ideas with the leaders of this emerging young field, providing a stimulating environment and the starting point for new studies. The program will include review talks on the state-of-the art of spectral distortion science, as well as contributions on more specific topics. A lot of free time will be left for discussions.

Talks will be by invitation only.

Key topics to be addressed by the Institute are:

1)     Overviews of the observational state of the art, including discussions of radio foregrounds and the possibility of ground-based measurements in the Rayleigh-Jeans part of the spectrum.

2)     The theory of spectral distortions including an overview talk and the theory of energy release and photon injection scenarios.

3)     Probes of inflation including running of the primordial power spectrum at small scales in addition to constraining possible localized features, probes of local non-Gaussianity from µT and µE correlations.

4)     Probes of high energy and beyond the standard model scenarios including constraints on axion scenarios, late time decaying particles, dark matter scenarios, cosmic strings, and primordial black holes.  

5)     Late time CMB distortions and what we can learn about physics around the era of recombination, reionization and primordial magnetic fields.

Registration: Attendance will be limited to around 50 participants. There is no registration fee. 

Invited key participants:

Max Abitbol, Yacine Ali-Haimoud, Guido D’Amico, Nicola Bartolo, Paolo de Bernardis, Jacques Delabrouille, Juan Garcia-Bellido, Colin Hill, Marc Kamionkowski, Rishi Khatri, Alan Kogut, Eiichiro Komatsu, Kerstin Kunze, Michele Liguori, Silvia Masi, Atsuhisa Ota, Enrico Pajer, Mayuri Rao, Subir Sarkar, Pasquale Serpico, Joe Silk, Glenn Starkman, Ravi Subrahmanyan, Rashid Sunyaev, Matias Zaldarriaga

Organisers: Diego Blas, Kfir Blum, Jens Chluba, Emanuela Dimastrogiovanni, Subodh Patil, Sergey Sibiryakov