Proceedings of the Helmholtz International Summer School 2016 (HQ 2016) : Quantum Field Theory at the Limits : from Strong Fields to Heavy Quarks

The Helmholtz International Summer School (HISS) entitled “Quantum Field Theory at the Limits:from Strong Fields to Heavy Quarks (SF→ HQ)”, was held in the period July 18-30, 2016 at the Bogoliubov Laboratory of Theoretical Physics (BLTP) of the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (JINR)in Dubna, Russia, as part of the activities of the Dubna International Advanced School of Theoretical Physics (DIAS-TH). The HISS series of schools has played an important role in bringing together an international faculty and young physicists (Ph.D. and postdocs), mostly from Russia and Germany, but increasingly also from other countries, including those affiliated to JINR Dubna. They participate in two-week long intense scientific discourse, mainly dedicated lectures on selected topics covering the foundation and the frontiers of high energy physics and cosmology. The novelty of this year’s school was its bifocal interest, which brought together two different physical science communities - particle and laser physicists. There were two broad areas of research covered at this school: heavy quark physics and physics of high field intensities. The focus of the former was on the latest results on heavy quark physics from all four large experimental collaborations at the LHC (ALICE, ATLAS, CMS, LHCb), at the B-factory experiments(BaBar and Belle), and from BESIII. This was accompanied with lectures on the theoretical aspectsof heavy quark physics, Quarkonia and Quarkonia-like multiquarks states (tetra- and pentaquarks), including various state-of-the-art calculational techniques, such as perturbative QCD, lattice-QCD, and effective field theories. The focus on the later topic was on the high intensity frontier and extreme statesof matter as probed by current and upcoming high power laser and high-Z ion facilities all around theworld. An afternoon tour at the heavy ion collider facility NICA, the superconducting accelerator complex under construction at the Veksler-Baldin Laboratory for High-Energy Physics, was also organized