Search Talks

I will discuss magnetic properties of superconductors, first in a model independent way and then by using holographic models. This approach has the advantage of highlighting the generic features of superconducting materials and, at the same time, the predictions of specific models. I will start with the Meissner effect and the vortices. Given the importance of the magnetic field dynamics in these phenomena, I will describe how to introduce a dynamical gauge field in holography. Then I will show that the holographic superconductor, like all known high-temperature superconductors, is Type II. Finally, I will discuss the case of hollow cylindrical superconductors threaded by an axial magnetic field. The physics of these systems is periodic with respect to the magnetic flux, with a period that depends on weather non-local quantum effects are suppressed or not. In the holographic model these effects are not suppressed when the radius of the cylinder is below the critical value at which the Hawking-Page phase transition takes place.

After the first landmark gravitational-wave (GW) detection, GW astronomy will turn to the study of detector data to identify the physical properties of GW sources. The science payoff of GW observations must therefore depend critically on the accurate knowledge of the shapes of waveforms as functions of the source parameters. Effective-field-theory techniques have advanced and continue to advance the state of the art for the modeling of inspiraling-binary dynamics. But how far do we have to push our calculations to satisfy the needs of observations? I review current attempts to answer this question for different detectors and sources, and for the delicate problem of matching post-Newtonian and numerical-relativity waveforms.

I will describe our recent work on a new topological phase of matter: topological Weyl semimetal. This phase arises in three-dimensional (3D) materials, which are close to a critical point between an ordinary and a topological insulator. Breaking time-reversal symmetry in such materials, for example by doping with sufficient amount of magnetic impurities, leads to the formation of a Weyl semimetal phase, with two (or more) 3D Dirac nodes, separated in momentum space. Such a topological Weyl semimetal possesses chiral edge states and a finite Hall conductivity, proportional to the momentum-space separation of the Dirac nodes, in the absence of any external magnetic field. Weyl semimetal demonstrates a qualitatively different type of topological protection: the protection is provided not by the bulk band gap, as in topological insulators, but by the separation of gapless 3D Dirac nodes in momentum space. I will describe a simple way to engineer such materials using superlattice heterostructures, made of thin films of topological insulators. References: arXiv:1110.1089; Phys. Rev. Lett. 107, 127205 (2011); Phys. Rev. B 83, 245428 (2011)."

In this talk I will give an overview of localization and some of its applications for QFTs in three dimensions. I will start by reviewing the localization procedure for N=2 supersymmetric gauge theories in three dimensions on S^3. I will then describe some of the applications to field theory dualities and to holography, and the possibility of extracting information about RG fixed points from the localized partition function.