Scientific Series

Have you always wanted to know: What the symmetries of nature are? How black holes process quantum information? What the ultimate UV description of our universe is? Then join me as I continue to develop a new framework to describe scattering:  Celestial Holography.

The Celestial Holography framework applies the holographic principle to spacetimes with vanishing cosmological constant by mapping 4D S-matrix elements to correlators in a 2D conformal field theory. This map possesses a number of surprising features. For example, it emphasizes infinite dimensional symmetry enhancements, which are typically hidden in IR factorization theorems for amplitudes; reorganizes collinear limits as CFT operator product expansions; and mixes UV and IR behavior in a manner that may allow us to make general claims about scattering not obvious from perturbation theory.

Can we show that the UV behavior of amplitudes must be stringy? Can we bootstrap celestial CFTs? Can we unify tools from Loop Quantum Gravity and String Theory?

Maybe, with your help!

I will discuss the conditions satisfied by the 2 → 2 scattering amplitude in unitarity and causal theories, presenting a simple formulation in term of moments of a positive measure. I will identify complete subsets of two-sided constraints, suitable to bound Effective Field Theories (EFTs) at any finite order in the energy expansion. I will also discuss  the importance of IR loop effects on these bounds. A consequence of this study is that EFTs in which the scattering amplitude in some regime grows in energy faster than E6 (e.g. higher spin particles with masses smaller than their inverse size) cannot be UV-completed.

Modeling galaxy-dark matter connection is essential in deriving unbiased cosmological constraints from galaxy clustering observations. We show that a more physically motivated galaxy-dark matter incorporating secondary (assembly) biases results in more accurate predictions of galaxy clustering, yields novel insights into effects such as baryonic feedback, and significantly reduces the tension in galaxy lensing. We further present progress and opportunities in building a multi-tracer galaxy-dark matter connection framework that is rich in features and highly efficient, enabling more robust cosmological analyses with upcoming DESI data.

Stellar streams are a powerful tool for mapping of the Galactic matter distribution. Thanks to Gaia we now have full 6D (complete phase-space) view of a quickly growing subset of the Milky Way streams. These stars are precious as they can shed light not only on the broad-brush structure of the Galaxy, but also reveal small time-evolving perturbations of the Galactic potential. I will use the Sagittarius and the Orphan streams to present the most recent measurements of the dark matter halo of the Milky Way and one of its sub-halos.

When the twist angle of a bilayer graphene is near the ``magic'' value, there are four narrow bands near the neutrality point, each two-fold spin degenerate. These bands are separated from the rest of the bands by energy gaps. In the first part of the talk, the topology of the narrow bands will be discussed, as well as the associated obstructions --or lack there of -- to construction of a complete localized basis [1,3].

In the second part of the talk, I will present a two stage renormalization group treatment [4] which connects the continuum Hamiltonian at length scales shorter than the moire superlattice period to the Hamiltonian for the active narrow bands only, which is valid at distances much longer than the moire period. Via a progressive numerical elimination of remote bands the relative strength of the one-particle-like dispersion and the interactions within the active narrow band Hamiltonian will be determined, thus quantifying the residual correlations and justifying the strong coupling approach in the final step.

In the last part of the talk, the states favored by electron-electron Coulomb interactions within the narrow bands will be discussed. Analytical and DMRG results based on 2D localized Wannier states [2,5], 1D localized hybrid Wannier states [3] and Bloch states [3,4] will be compared. Topological and symmetry constraints on the spectra of charged and neutral excitation[4] for various ground states, as well as non-Abelian braiding of Dirac nodes[3] , will also be presented.

[1] Jian Kang and Oskar Vafek, Phys. Rev. X 8, 031088 (2018).

[2] Jian Kang and Oskar Vafek, Phys. Rev. Lett. 122, 246401 (2019)

[3] Jian Kang and Oskar Vafek, Phys. Rev. B 102, 035161 (2020)

[4] Oskar Vafek and Jian Kang Phys. Rev. Lett. 125, 257602 (2020)

[5] Bin-Bin Chen, Yuan Da Liao, Ziyu Chen, Oskar Vafek, Jian Kang, Wei Li, Zi Yang Meng arXiv:2011.07602

The gravitational coupling of nearby massive bodies to test masses in a gravitational wave (GW) detector cannot be shielded, and gives rise to 'gravity gradient noise’ (GGN) in the detector. In this talk, I will discuss how any GW detector using local test masses in the Inner Solar System is subject to GGN from the motion of the field of 10^5 Inner Solar System asteroids, which presents an irreducible noise floor for the detection of GW that rises exponentially at low frequencies. This severely limits prospects for GW detection using local test masses for frequencies below (few) x 10^{-7} Hz. At higher frequencies, I’ll show that the asteroid GGN falls rapidly enough that detection may be possible; however, the incompleteness of existing asteroid catalogs with regard to small bodies makes this an open question around microHz frequencies, and I’ll outline why further study is warranted here. Additionally, I’ll mention some prospects for GW detection in the ~10 nHz-microHz band that could evade this noise source.

The Principle of Equivalence, stating that all laws of physics take their special-relativistic form in any local inertial frame, lies at the core of General Relativity. Because of its fundamental status, this principle could be a very powerful guide in formulating physical laws at regimes where both gravitational and quantum effects are relevant. However, its formulation implicitly presupposes that reference frames are abstracted from classical systems (rods and clocks) and that the spacetime background is well defined. Here, we we generalise the Einstein Equivalence Principle to quantum reference frames (QRFs) and to superpositions of spacetimes. We build a unitary transformation to the QRF of a quantum system in curved spacetime, and in a superposition thereof. In both cases, a QRF can be found such that the metric looks locally flat. Hence, one cannot distinguish, with a local measurement, if the spacetime is flat or curved, or in a superposition of such spacetimes. This transformation identifies a Quantum Local Inertial Frame. These results extend the Principle of Equivalence to QRFs in a superposition of gravitational fields. Verifying this principle may pave a fruitful path to establishing solid conceptual grounds for a future theory of quantum gravity.

The defining feature of a classical black hole horizon is that it is a "perfect absorber". Any evidence showing otherwise

would indicate a departure from the standard black-hole picture. Due to the presence of the horizon, black holes in binaries exchange

energy with their orbit, which backreacts on the orbit. This is called tidal heating. Tidal heating can be used to test the presence of a horizon.

I will discuss the prospect of tidal heating as a discriminator between black holes and horizonless compact objects, especially supermassive ones, in LISA.

I will also discuss a similar prospect for distinguishing between neutron stars and black holes in the LIGO band.

No. Obviously not. It's a daft question. But, buried underneath
this daft question is an extremely interesting one: is it possible to
simulate the known laws of physics on a computer? Remarkably, there is a
mathematical theorem, due to Nielsen and Ninomiya, that says the answer is
no. I'll explain this theorem, the underlying reasons for it, and some
recent work attempting to circumvent it.

I will review recent progress in application of separation of variables method.

In particular I will review the construction for the integrable spin chains with gl(N) symmetry. 

By finding, for the first time, the matrix elements of the SoV measure explicitly I will show how to compute various correlation functions and wave function overlaps in a simple determinant form. 

General philosophy of application of these methods to the problems related to AdS/CFT, N=4 SYM etc. will be discussed too. 

With much of the cosmological information in the primary CMB having already been mined, the next decade of CMB observations will revolve around the secondary CMB lensing effect, which will touch nearly all aspects of observation in some way. At the same time, the increasingly low noise levels of these future observations will render existing "quadratic estimator" methods for analyzing CMB lensing obsolete. This leaves us in an exciting place where new methods need to be developed to fully take advantage of the upcoming generation of CMB data just on our doorstep. I will describe my work developing such new lensing analysis tool, made possible by Bayesian methods, modern statistical techniques, and borrowing ideas from machine learning. I will present the recent first-ever application of such methods to data (from the South Pole Telescope; https://arxiv.org/abs/2012.01709) and discuss prospects for this analysis in the future with regards to not just lensing but also primordial B modes, reionization, and extragalactic foreground fields.

In this talk I will present a general framework to distinguish different classes of charge insulators based on whether or not they insulate or conduct higher multipole moments (dipole, quadrupole, etc.). This formalism applies to generic many-body systems that support multipolar conservation laws. Applications of this work provide a key link between recently discovered higher order topological phases and fracton phases of matter.