ISCAP - Institute for Strings, Cosmology, and Astroparticle Physics

In September of 2000, the Institute for Strings, Cosmology, and Astroparticle Physics (ISCAP) was formed at Columbia University under the joint directorship of Brian Greene (Department of Physics) and Arlin Crotts (Department of Astronomy). The goal of ISCAP is to bring together theoretical physicists, astrophysicists, and observational astronomers to address key problems in particle physics and cosmology that require a broad confluence of expertise and perspective. Although there are a number of particle astrophysics groups around the country, ISCAP has two unique features. Firstly, ISCAP is the only group with a primary focus on the ultra-high energy scales between the grand unified/inflation scale (1015 GeV) and the Planck scale (1019 GeV), where the microscopic dynamics of spacetime itself come into play. Now is the time to probe this exotic realm, which holds the answers to some of the greatest scientific mysteries, and ISCAP proposes to undertake to develop methods -- both theoretical and observational -- to do so. Secondly, ISCAP is one of the few cosmology groups with the necessary breadth of interest and experience to pursue these enquiries, having expertise in traditional particle physics, string theory/quantum gravity, particle-astrophysics, inflationary cosmology, in numerical methods and observational cosmology.