General Relativity & Quantum Cosmology

The final meeting of It from Qubit: Simons Collaboration on Quantum Fields, Gravity, and Information will be devoted to recent developments at the interface of fundamental physics and quantum information theory, spanning topics such as

• chaos and thermalization in many-body systems and their realization in quantum gravity;
•  information-theoretic constraints on quantum field theories and their RG flows and symmetries;
• gravitational wormholes and their information-theoretic implications;
• calculable lower-dimensional models of quantum gravity; the entanglement structure of semi-classical states in quantum gravity;
•  quantum error-correcting codes in quantum field theory and quantum gravity;
• complexity in field theory and gravity;
• the black-hole information puzzle;
• quantum simulation of quantum field theories and quantum gravity.

Recorded talks: https://pirsa.org/C23021 

Territorial Land Acknowledgement

Perimeter Institute acknowledges that it is situated on the traditional territory of the Anishinaabe, Haudenosaunee, and Neutral peoples.

Perimeter Institute is located on the Haldimand Tract. After the American Revolution, the tract was granted by the British to the Six Nations of the Grand River and the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation as compensation for their role in the war and for the loss of their traditional lands in upstate New York. Of the 950,000 acres granted to the Haudenosaunee, less than 5 percent remains Six Nations land. Only 6,100 acres remain Mississaugas of the Credit land. 

We thank the Anishinaabe, Haudenosaunee, and Neutral peoples for hosting us on their land.

This meeting will bring together researchers from the quantum technology, atomic physics, and fundamental physics communities to discuss how quantum simulation can be used to gain new insight into the physics of black holes and the early Universe. The core program of the workshop is intended to deepen collaboration between the UK-based Quantum Simulators for Fundamental Physics (QSimFP; https://www.qsimfp.org) consortium and researchers at Perimeter Institute and neighbouring institutions. The week-long conference will consist of broadly-accessible talks on work within the consortium and work within the broader community of researchers interested in quantum simulation, as well as a poster session and ample time for discussion and collaboration

pirsa.org/C23019

Territorial Land Acknowledgement

Perimeter Institute acknowledges that it is situated on the traditional territory of the Anishinaabe, Haudenosaunee, and Neutral peoples.

Perimeter Institute is located on the Haldimand Tract. After the American Revolution, the tract was granted by the British to the Six Nations of the Grand River and the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation as compensation for their role in the war and for the loss of their traditional lands in upstate New York. Of the 950,000 acres granted to the Haudenosaunee, less than 5 percent remains Six Nations land. Only 6,100 acres remain Mississaugas of the Credit land. 

We thank the Anishinaabe, Haudenosaunee, and Neutral peoples for hosting us on their land.

On Demand Recording: https://pirsa.org/C23035

The nature of space and time is one of the most foundational mysteries in both Physics and Philosophy. At the heart of this mystery are the two most successful theories of nature: Einstein's theory of relativity, an elegant and precise description of the geometry of our universe on large scales, and Quantum Mechanics, outlining accurate laws of interaction in the subatomic world. But these two great triumphs of 20th century physics remain inherently inconsistent, contradictory in their most basic principles, such as locality and causality. Nonetheless, the experimental domains or natural phenomena where these contradictions become manifest have remained elusive, and it is not clear that a century of theoretical investigation into quantum gravity is anywhere close to being verified in nature.

Arguably, this disconnect is our greatest and most foundational challenge in the history of Physics; despite groundbreaking progress in both theory and observations of quantum spacetimes, these two endeavours are moving farther apart. Successfully responding to this century-old challenge could require rethinking the epistemology of fundamental physics. While physicists are trained to push the frontiers of knowledge, developing a grand vision of the arch of history, and where we are (or should be) heading is a more interdisciplinary endeavor, requiring insights from theory and observations, but also philosophy and history.

We plan a focused, interactive, and highly interdisciplinary workshop, involving the world’s best theorists, observers, experimentalists, and philosophers, within a supportive, inclusive, and diverse environment, in order to kick start a long term initiative that might be our best bet to make significant progress towards uncovering the quantum nature of spacetime.

Sponsorship provided by:

Territorial Land Acknowledgemen

Perimeter Institute acknowledges that it is situated on the traditional territory of the Anishinaabe, Haudenosaunee, and Neutral peoples.

Perimeter Institute is located on the Haldimand Tract. After the American Revolution, the tract was granted by the British to the Six Nations of the Grand River and the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation as compensation for their role in the war and for the loss of their traditional lands in upstate New York. Of the 950,000 acres granted to the Haudenosaunee, less than 5 percent remains Six Nations land. Only 6,100 acres remain Mississaugas of the Credit land. 

We thank the Anishinaabe, Haudenosaunee, and Neutral peoples for hosting us on their land.

This mini-course of four lectures is an introduction, review, and critique of two approaches to deriving the Einstein equation from hypotheses about horizon entropy. 

It will be based on two papers: 

• "Thermodynamics of Spacetime: The Einstein Equation of State" arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/9504004
• "Entanglement Equilibrium and the Einstein Equation" arxiv.org/abs/1505.04753

We may also discuss ideas in "Gravitation and vacuum entanglement entropy" arxiv.org/abs/1204.6349

Zoom Link: https://pitp.zoom.us/j/96212372067?pwd=dWVaUFFFc3c5NTlVTDFHOGhCV2pXdz09 

There has been recent activity in looking for new conserved charges and symmetries in gravity, most notably at infinity but also for finite regions. An important question is whether some of these charges and symmetries have physical implications. These charges are evaluated on codimension-2 surfaces  called corners, which constitute the main focus of this conference. The goal is to bring together leading experts and promote discussions and exchanges among different approaches to (quantum) gravity. 

https://pirsa.org/C22029

Territorial Land Acknowledgement

Perimeter Institute acknowledges that it is situated on the traditional territory of the Anishinaabe, Haudenosaunee, and Neutral peoples.

Perimeter Institute is located on the Haldimand Tract. After the American Revolution, the tract was granted by the British to the Six Nations of the Grand River and the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation as compensation for their role in the war and for the loss of their traditional lands in upstate New York. Of the 950,000 acres granted to the Haudenosaunee, less than 5 percent remains Six Nations land. Only 6,100 acres remain Mississaugas of the Credit land. 

We thank the Anishinaabe, Haudenosaunee, and Neutral peoples for hosting us on their land.

There has been a surge of interest in indefinite causal structure the idea that cause and effect can no longer be sharply distinguished.  Motivated both by experimentation with quantum switches and quantum gravity there can be situations in which there is no matter-of-the-fact as to what the causal structure of spacetime is.  This meeting will bring together workers in Quantum Foundations and Quantum Gravity in both theoretical experimental physics to discuss the state of the art of current research and set new directions for this emerging subdiscipline.

Understanding the small-scale structure of spacetime is one of the biggest challenges faced by  modern theoretical physics. There are many different attempts to solve this problem and they reflect the diversity of approaches to quantum gravity. This workshop will bring together researchers from a wide range of quantum gravity approaches and give them an opportunity to exchange ideas and gain  new insights.

This cross-disciplinary workshop gathers theorists who have been working on novel approaches to understanding the structure of the Standard Model and its link to cosmology and gravity. It follows the previous Simplicity I and II workshops at Princeton University (2014) and Fermilab (2016) and will be a small informal meeting with plenty of room for discussions.