Scientific Seminars and Workshops

Confinement and false vacuum decay are cornerstone non-perturbative phenomena in quantum field theory. Both emerge when an explicit symmetry breaking field lifts the degeneracy of a vacuum. In this framework, confined states act as droplets of the "false" vacuum, while decay occurs through the nucleation of "true" vacuum bubbles via quantum tunneling. Recent breakthroughs in controllable quantum platforms, including trapped ions and Rydberg atom arrays, have moved these concepts from theory to the lab. While confinement has already been observed, real time investigations of false vacuum decay are now on the horizon. I will discuss how these phenomena manifest in quantum spin chains, focusing on real time dynamics following a quantum quench and experimental setups that provide a controlled environment to study quantum tunneling and bubble nucleation.

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In the last few years, many instances of local Hamiltonians with abnormal thermalization properties have been found. These include models with Hilbert space fragmentation and quantum many-body scars. In an ideal scenario, we would like to characterize the conditions under which abnormal thermalization can occur and, if it does, predict its characteristics. In this talk, I will demonstrate how generalized symmetries can lead to an exponential increase in the number of disconnected sectors of the Hilbert space, which has been taken as evidence of ergodicity breaking. I will argue that, in certain instances, this should not be regarded as ergodicity-breaking, namely when it can be fully explained within the framework of generalized symmetries, including non-invertible symmetries, that have been largely unexplored in this context. Notable examples include the PXP model and gauge theories, particularly Quantum Link Models in higher dimensions.

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Quantum computing provides a promising framework for simulating strongly coupled gauge theories relevant to high-energy physics. In this talk, I will discuss quantum simulations of lattice gauge theories, focusing on the Schwinger model implementing on higher than one spatial dimension. I will outline gauge-invariant encodings and circuit implementations suitable for near-term quantum hardware, and comment on prospects for using quantum algorithms to study real-time dynamics and other regimes challenging for classical methods.

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Metastable states are ubiquitous in systems undergoing first-order transitions, where the decay proceeds via the nucleation of critical droplets. This phenomenon has attracted renewed interest driven by experiments with analog quantum simulators, which enable direct access to real-time nucleation dynamics. Many of these platforms, trapped-ion Ising simulators, Rydberg-atom arrays with dipolar or van der Waals tails, exhibit long-range power-law couplings. Understanding how such interactions reshape the nucleation process is an open challenge. To address it, we introduce a numerical method based on solving the fractional-Laplacian saddle-point equation for the nucleating droplet, applicable to both thermal and quantum decay regimes. After benchmarking against the local case, we turn to the weak long-range setting. We find that the critical droplet profile develops distinctive algebraic tails, in stark contrast to the sharp domain walls of short-range models. In the classical regime, we observe a metastability transition as a function of the interaction range: for sufficiently long-range couplings, the metastable state becomes arbitrarily long-lived as the energy splitting between the two phases vanishes, mirroring the equilibrium phase transition of the one-dimensional long-range Ising model. In the quantum (1+1)-dimensional case, the physics is qualitatively different: the interplay between long-range interactions and quantum fluctuations modifies the nucleation process in ways that have no classical analog, with distinct regimes emerging as the interaction range is varied.

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After almost four decades the ideas developed in the late eighties of the last century have an enormous impact on our current understanding of heavy hadron physics. I will try to sketch this amazing development, starting from the early day until today. Aside from the Development of the theoretical description these achievements are also a result of a very fruitful collaboration between experiment and theory.

 

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The Atom Interferometer CERN Experiment (AICE) is a proposed 140-m-long baseline quantum sensing facility to be installed in the PX46 access shaft at CERN's LHC Point 4, a uniquely suitable site whose use is compatible with LHC operation. AICE is conceived as a staged and upgradeable facility rather than a single fixed experiment. Its primary scientific objective is the search for ultralight dark matter using precision measurements of atomic transition frequencies, targeting regions of parameter space that are complementary to existing approaches. In addition, AICE will explore the mid-frequency gravitational-wave band (∼0.01–10 Hz). The project builds on national pathfinder experiments in atom interferometry, including AION Collaboration in the UK, MAGIS-100 in the US, VLBAI in Germany, MIGA in France, and ZAIGA in China, and related efforts worldwide, which are brought together within the emerging TVLBAI collaboration. Following the submission of a Letter of Intent, AICE is now progressing towards the preparation of a Technical Proposal for review by CERN.

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An extended scalar sector model posits that there are more scalars interacting with us than just the Higgs doublet of the Standard Model. These extra scalars can significantly alter the mechanism of electroweak symmetry breaking relative to that of the Standard Model.
Extended scalar sectors are one of the strongholds of viable and motivated electroweak-scale new physics, and one of the key classes of models probed by future precision measurements of the electroweak sector, as well as gravitational wave signals of the electroweak phase transition in the early universe.
These extra scalar states are not "heavy" or "decoupling", and they are arguably the last place that one should use an effective field theory (EFT) of local operators to describe the deviations from Standard Model predictions that the scalars produce. I will describe when effective field theory works, when it doesn't, and some EFT tricks to elucidate the universal behaviours in extended scalar sectors. I will argue that, if additional scalars are significantly altering the mechanism of electroweak symmetry breaking, we are practically guaranteed to see them at the next generation of experiments.

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While black holes can be the remnants of stellar collapse, some may have formed in the early universe - making them primordial black holes (PBHs). These would form a relic from the early universe, preserving a memory of the initial conditions of the universe at early times and on small scales. PBHs do not require the introduction of new fundamental physics, making them a special dark matter candidate. In this talk, I will outline observational constraints on PBHs and potential routes to a detection, explore their connections to gravitational wave signals and early universe cosmology, and discuss how the evaporation of primordial black holes could produce high-energy particles.

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In recent years, sensitivity of experimental tests of CP symmetry in flavor-conserving channels has seen a great deal of improvement. Electric Dipole Moments - or EDMs - become a very powerful tool for probing the multi-TeV scale physics. I review the Standard Model expectations for EDMs, including the theta terms and the CKM phase, and discuss the need for improving theoretical predictions in case of theta. I apply null results for EDM experiments to constrain the CP-odd vertices of the Higgs boson, and discuss implications for supersymmetric models. 

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