Relativity Seminar
of the Institute of Theoretical Physics


Seminar is held on Tuesdays at 13:10 pm in the lecture room of the Institute
on the 10th floor of the department building at Trója, V Holešovičkách 2, Prague 8


March 17, 2026
Classification of D-dimensional Kundt spacetimes of type N in (anti-)de Sitter
Mgr. Jakub Voldřich
Mathematical Institute of the CAS, Department of Algebra, Geometry and Mathematical Physic

I will show a complete classification of D-dimensional Kundt spacetimes of Weyl type N and traceless Ricci type N in (anti-)de Sitter. Using a coordinate system with almost-Killing normalization, I will provide invariant subfamilies (generalzed Siklos, pp-, and Kundt waves) and present their canonical forms.

March 24, 2026
TBA
Prof. Ignacy Wolak-Sawicki
CEICO, Czech Academy of Sciences

TBA

April 14, 2026
New Rotating Black Holes in String Theory
Poula Tadros
ITP, Charles University

In this talk, I will present new rotating black hole solutions of the low-energy effective action of string theory in three and four dimensions. These geometries are asymptotically flat with a linear dilaton vacuum and exhibit unusual thermodynamic properties, including a mass-independent Hawking temperature. I will also discuss charged extensions, which lead to closed time-like curves inside the inner horizon. Finally, I will show that these solutions arise from the large-d limit of singly rotating Myers–Perry black holes.

April 28, 2026
2nd seminar of the day -- starts at 3pm instead of Journal Club
TBA
Dr. Maciej Ossowski

TBA

April 28, 2026
BKL conjecture and quantum gravity
Dr. Marek Liska
Dublin Institute of Advanced Studies
(seminar in Czech language)

A series of works by Belinskii, Khalatnikov and Lifshitz (BKL) conjectured that spacetime near a generic spacelike singularity locally behaves in a chaotic way. Since BKL conjecture concerns very strong gravity regimes, it is natural to ask how quantum gravity influences it. We tackle this question by looking at perturbative quantum corrections to Bianchi I and II metrics approximating the relevant features of BKL conjecture. We argue that even such perturbative effects can completely change the nature of BKL dynamics. While we work in the framework of thermodynamic gravity, our findings also apply to the effective dynamics of loop quantum cosmology.

May 26, 2026
Gauged linear sigma models and Ricci flat metrics
Prof. Rikard von Unge
Masaryk University

I will describe a new construction of Ricci flat metrics using gauged linear sigma models satisfying the Calabi-Yau condition. The approach will be introductory using elementary examples to illustrate the main points and to underline the connection between physical and mathematical concepts.


David Kubizňák                                                                                                  Oldřich Semerák