Contours 2026: Effective Field Theories Meet the Schwinger–Keldysh Formalism is a five-day international conference that will take place at DAMTP, University of Cambridge, from 29 June to 3 July 2026. Effective field theories in particle physics are usually designed for experiments where the initial state is clean and isolated. Many systems of interest, from condensed matter to cosmology, instead evolve in noisy and dissipative environments. The Schwinger–Keldysh formalism provides a framework to model dissipation and noise, with major applications to quark–gluon plasma dynamics, dissipative hydrodynamics, non-equilibrium holography, and primordial cosmology. Despite these advances, the relevant communities rarely have the opportunity to interact. This conference aims to bridge that gap, bringing together researchers across these fields through plenary lectures by world-leading experts, selected contributed talks, and panel discussions. 

University of Cambridge Students and Staff
If your department will cover the participation cost, please liaise with your finance team to arrange an internal cross-charge via PO - £40 to DAMPT. Send a PDF copy of the Purchase Order to Thomas Colas at tc683@cam.ac.uk and you will then receive an access passcode to complete registration under 2. UoC Student/Staff Registration: Internal Cross-Charge £40. You’ll need to provide the PO number or Grant Code and access passcode during the booking process.

If you are self-funding UoC Member and will not submit an expense claim afterwards, please register under the 1. External/Self-funded UoC Member Registration attendee category from the list below.