High Energy Physics

In this talk I will provide evidence supporting the Dolan/Nirschl/Osborn conjecture for the precise form of the amplitude of four-point functions of 1/2-BPS operators in N=4 SYM theory at strong coupling and in the large N limit. I will also discuss the methods that allowed the evaluation of amplitudes involving operators of arbitrary conformal dimension.

The fluid/gravity correspondence relates hydrodynamic flows in D spacetime dimensions to black hole dynamics in D+1 dimensions. It is an extension of black hole thermodynamics, where charges are upgraded into local currents, and the Bekenstein-Hawking entropy - into a local entropy current. I will propose a definition for a generalized local current of Wald entropy relevant to higher-curvature gravity. As an example, I will consider 5d gravity with a U(1) gauge field and a gravitational Chern-Simons term. This corresponds to a charged fluid in 4d spacetime, whose charge current has a gravitational anomaly. I will discuss the effects of this anomaly on the generalized entropy curent and the flow equations.