Scientific Series

We  examine 1D spin-chains evolving under random local unitary circuits and prove a number of exact results on the behavior of out-of-time-ordered commutators (OTOCs), and entanglement growth. These results follow from the observation that the spreading of operators in random circuits is described by a ``hydrodynamical'' equation of motion. In this hydrodynamic picture quantum information travels in a front with a `butterfly velocity' $v_{\text{B}}$ that is smaller than the light cone velocity of the system, while the front itself broadens diffusively in time. The OTOC increases sharply after the arrival of the light cone, but we do \emph{not} observe a prolonged exponential regime of the form $\sim e^{\lambda_\text{L}(t-x/v)}$ for a fixed Lyapunov exponent $\lambda_\text{L}$, in disagreement with the existing QFT literature on OTOCs. We find that the diffusive broadening of the front has important consequences for entanglement growth, leading to an entanglement velocity that can be significantly smaller than the butterfly velocity. We conjecture that the hydrodynamical description applies to more generic ergodic systems and support this with numerical simulations. When the circuits are constrained so as to conserve a U$(1)$ charge, we show that the OTOC acquires a diffusively decaying component. 

Low-energy states of quantum spin liquids are thought to involve partons living in a gauge-field background. We study the spectrum of Majorana fermions of the Kitaev honeycomb model on spherical clusters. The gauge field endows the partons with half-integer orbital angular momenta. As a consequence, the multiplicities do not reflect the point-group symmetries of the cluster, but rather its projective symmetries, operations combining physical and gauge transformations. The projective symmetry group of the ground state is the double cover of the point group.

States of a CFT's subregions are consistent with a given global state. For a holographic CFT, this amounts to different entanglement wedges being patches of the same geometry. What relations between them make this possible?

I will propose a Berry experiment to study this question. Berry introduced a connection to describe transformations induced by adiabatically varying Hamiltonians. I will introduce a connection to study how the zero modes of a modular Hamiltonian are affected by varying the CFT subregion that supplies it. I will explain the geometric meaning of modular Berry phases in the bulk and describe an experiment to measure them which involves observers moving with adiabatically varying accelerations. 

In classical General Relativity (GR), an observer falling into an astrophysical black hole (BH) is not expected to experience anything dramatic as she crosses the event horizon. However, tentative resolutions to problems in quantum gravity, such as the cosmological constant problem or the black hole information paradox, invoke significant departures from classicality in the vicinity of the horizon. I outline theoretical and phenomenological arguments for these departures. I will then discuss the tentative observational evidence for Planck-scale structure near BH horizons, seen as "echoes" in LIGO gravitational wave observations,  which has now been found by three independent groups. Finally, I present preliminary analysis which strongly suggest formation of a highly spinning black hole within 0.5 second of GW170817 binary neutron star merger, based on prominent echoes in the LIGO strain data. 

Let be a complex semisimple algebraic group of adjoint type and the wonderful compacti
cation. We show that the closure in \overline{G} of the centralizer of a regular nilpotent is isomorphic to the Peterson variety. We generalize this result to show that for any regular , the closure of the centralizer in is isomorphic to the closure of a general -orbit in the flag variety. We consider the family of all such centralizer closures, which is a partial compactication of the universal centralizer. We show that it has a natural log-symplectic Poisson structure that extends the usual symplectic structure on the universal centralizer.

In this talk, I'd like to explain how quantum integrability and (q-deformed) W-algebraic structure arise from the moduli space of quiver gauge theory. It'll be also shown that our construction gives rise to a new family of W-algebras. 

We are fortunate to live in an era of great discoveries in particle physics and cosmology, and most of the theoretical understanding that made this possibile is based on effective field theories. In this talk, I will show how these powerful techniques can be applied across the spectrum of theoretical physics, and allow us to draw unexpected connections among very different systems. To illustrate this, I will discuss two interesting but very different phenomena, and show how they can both be described using a point-like particle effective theory. The first phenomenon I will consider is superradiance---a dissipative phenomenon by which a spinning object can amplify the intensity of scattered radiation, or be unstable by creation of particles in a bound state. This phenomenon is particularly interesting when applied to spinning black holes, and in this context it has recently received significant attention as a possible probe of ultra-light particle beyond the Standard Model. The second phenomenon I will discuss is the existence of roton excitations in superfluid He4. By treating rotons as point-like particles--albeit of a very special kind--I will write down an effective theory that describes the motion of rotons in the medium at equilibrium as well as their couplings to sound waves and generic fluid flows. This approach allows us to correct classic results by Landau and Khalatnikov on roton-phonon scattering, and to pose and answer the intriguing question: do rotons sink or float? 

Two seemingly different quantum field theories may secretly describe the same underlying physics — a phenomenon known as “duality”. Duality has been proved powerful in condensed matter physics, since many difficult questions can be drastically simplified in certain “dual” pictures. This is especially valuable for strongly interacting many-body problems, for which traditional tools (such as perturbation theory) are often not applicable. 

Recent developments on dualities have also revealed deep connections between several previously unrelated topics in modern condensed matter physics, including topological insulators, fractional quantum Hall effects and quantum phase transitions. Connections were also made between dualities in condensed matter physics and in high energy physics. I will give a brief review of some of these developments.

The study of black holes has revealed a deep connection between quantum information and spacetime geometry. Its origin must lie in a quantum theory of gravity, so it offers a valuable hint in our search for a unified theory. Precise formulations of this relation recently led to new insights in Quantum Field Theory, some of which have been rigorously proven. An important example is our discovery of the first universal lower bound on the local energy density. The energy near a point can be negative, but it is bounded below by a quantity related to the information flowing past the point.

Quiver varieties, as introduced by Nakaijma, play a key role in representation theory. They give a very large class of symplectic singularities and, in many cases, their symplectic resolutions too. However, there seems to be no general criterion in the literature for when a quiver variety admits a symplectic resolution. In this talk, I will give necessary and sufficient conditions for a quiver variety to admit a symplectic resolution. This result builds upon work of Crawley–Boevey and of Kaledin, Lehn and Sorger. The talk is based on joint work with T. Schedler.

I derive a universal upper bound on the capacity of any communication channel between two distant systems. The Holevo quantity, and hence the mutual information, is at most of order EΔt/ℏ, where E the average energy of the signal, and Δt is the amount of time for which detectors operate. The bound does not depend on the size or mass of the emitting and receiving systems, nor on the nature of the signal. No restrictions on preparing and processing the signal are imposed. 
As an example, I consider the encoding of information in the transverse or angular position of a signal emitted and received by systems of arbitrarily large cross-section. In the limit of a large message space, quantum effects become important even if individual signals are classical, and the bound is upheld.

The methodology employed in reconstructing quantum theory involves defining a general mathematical framework that frames a landscape of possible theories and then positing principles that uniquely pick out quantum theory. In contrast, many traditional interpretations of quantum theory consider only quantum theory, not a larger space of possible theories. I will defend the modal methodology used in reconstruction by tracing the historical roots of Einstein’s distinction between principle and constructive theories. Einstein’s principle theories (exemplified by thermodynamics and special relativity) are often cited as inspiration for reconstructing quantum theory. The concept of a “physics of principles” emerged at the end of the nineteenth century in the context of the application of Lagrangian mechanics to electromagnetism. This case is an intriguing historical precedent for reconstructing quantum theory. I will also offer some reflections on how the application of a similar modal methodology in axiomatic QFT plays out.