Scientific Series

While Quantum Field Theory is the most accurate theory we have for predicting the microscopic world, there are still open problems regarding its mathematical description. In particular, the usual quantum mechanical description of measurements, unitary kicks, and other local operations has the potential to produce pathological causality violations. Not all local operations lead to such violations, but any that do cannot be physically realisable. It is an open question whether a given local operation in the theory respects causality, and hence whether a given local operation is physical. In this talk I will work toward a general condition that distinguishes causal and acausal local operations.

Zoom Link: https://pitp.zoom.us/j/98089863001?pwd=K2RWL2lNWFd4VDZYd013eUN3alNmQT09

The analogue gravity framework uses condensed matter systems to simulate phenomena characteristics of quantum field theory in curved spacetimes (e.g. cosmological particle production or black hole evaporation). In this seminar, I will review the state of this field and explore its extension towards the simulation of the emergent spacetime paradigm. In doing so I will discuss three lessons that we can draw from this framework about long standing puzzles in black hole thermodynamics and cosmology.

Zoom Link: https://pitp.zoom.us/j/98714282554?pwd=QnAxRkk4SVg0TnVneDFySFJYTDJoQT09

The first direct detection of gravitational waves from merging black holes in 2015 has opened up new avenues to studying gravity in the strong-field regime, inferring the mass and spin distributions of astrophysical black holes and probing the nature of ultra-dense nuclear matter in the interior of neutron stars. Seven years on, we count approximately 100 detections of gravitational waves from compact binary mergers.
 
These observations are goldmines for precise measurements of the source properties and the discovery of new physics at the edge of our current understanding. Pioneering innovations in detector technology will soon let us put black holes under a microscope, allowing us to push Einstein's theory of gravity to the limit. To do so will require exquisitely accurate theoretical models for the emitted gravitational-wave signal if we are to unlock the full discovery potential.

In this talk, I will discuss some of the most spectacular discoveries from the third observing run of Advanced LIGO and Virgo and their implications. I will also highlight some of the pitfalls and challenges in interpreting gravitational-wave detections.

Zoom Link: https://pitp.zoom.us/j/96161151229?pwd=NExyMitMaWpMTVBsL0VRTjZNbFBvZz09

We develop a new method for bosonizing the Fermi surface. In this method, a system with a Fermi surface is described as a coadjoint orbit of the group of canonical transformations. The method naturally parametrizes the Fermi surface by a bosonic field that depends on the spacetime coordinates and the position on the Fermi surface. The Wess-Zumino-Witten term in the effective action, governing the adiabatic phase acquired when the Fermi surface changes its shape, is completely fixed by the Kirillov-Kostant-Souriau symplectic form on the coadjoint orbit. We show that the resulting local effective field theory captures both linear and nonlinear effects in Landau’s Fermi liquid theory. Possible extensions of the theory are described.  Reference: arXiv:2203.05004.

Zoom Link: https://pitp.zoom.us/j/95453440138?pwd=b0Fmbi9HTU9nYTA3Y2F6dWlha294UT09

I will describe 4pt conformal blocks for scalar operators in diverse dimensions by using a single unified formalism, and explain a property of the conformal blocks known as stability. This stability implies that when writing conformal blocks as certain multivariate series, the coefficients of this expansion only depend on Young diagrams. In particular, we can bosonise the conformal computation and simply focus on compact groups. In this framework the blocks are polynomials of the BC root system after we apply complementation. I will then explain the connection with mathematics and show how to formulate a superconformal Cauchy identity which yields the CPW of any free theory diagram in any dimension. For discussion, I will finally mention q-deformations results.

Zoom Link: https://pitp.zoom.us/j/96912692269?pwd=TE8vT01mam9lQjhVV3VSYUtWR2d5Zz09

I review the main mechanisms that convert fundamental CP-violating parameters (theta_QCD and Kobayashi-Maskawa phase) to the observable electric dipole moments (EDMs). Given recent progress, the EDMs connected to electron spin (paramagnetic EDMs) are calculated. The limit on QCD theta angle is 3 * 10^(-8) and  somewhat subdominant to neutron EDM, but can be improved. The Kobayashi-Maskawa phase contributes to paramagnetic EDMs at the level of 10^{-35} e cm in units of equivalent electron EDM, which is much larger than what was previously expected.  

Zoom Link: https://pitp.zoom.us/j/96502704646?pwd=ZThQWGU2dEZPWjdPQnp2ZEpPVXRIdz09

 I will discuss a brane construction of rational gl(m|n) spin chains with spins valued in Verma modules and show that string dualities map the spin chain spectra to the vacua of certain 2d N=(2,2) gauge theories, thus realizing the 2d Bethe/Gauge correspondence for superspin chains. The talk is based on arXiv:2110.15112.

Zoom Link: https://pitp.zoom.us/j/98827189404?pwd=blNjdy9oYnc2cGUrQXdwV2xoOVpOdz09

In this talk, we first introduce the basic idea of asymptotic safety and discuss its application to quantum gravity. We compute non-perturbative flow equations for the couplings of quantum gravity in fourth order of a derivative expansion. It is shown that the beta functions admit two possible fixed points: One is the asymptotically safe fixed point, and the other is the asymptotically free one. The corresponding critical exponents to these fixed points are evaluated.

Next, we argue that asymptotically safe gravity could be an effective theory emerging from the spontaneous symmetry breaking in an ultraviolet (UV) theory. We consider a UV theory invariant under SO(4) local Lorentz symmetry and diffeomorphism. In particular, we impose the degenerate limit (zero eigenvalues of vierbein) on the action and then show that only spinor fields can be dynamical. We will discuss prospects whether or not this UV theory could be a fundamental theory underlying asymptotically safe gravity.

Zoom Link: https://pitp.zoom.us/j/94422371986?pwd=a25pS3cyUmJkNWJHL3hic1NhNlozQT09

In this talk, I would like to discuss gravitational waves in gravitational effective field theories. In particular, I will focus on gravitational waves propagating on a black hole background, and will show that the coefficients of the higher-dimension operators in the EFT can be constrained by causality considerations. I will also comment on observability of these higher-dimension operators in gravitational wave detections.

Zoom Link: https://pitp.zoom.us/j/94226476006?pwd=MEdHWG9oQ2dwQ2hXMUd2ZEFFQnRjZz09

In this talk I will review the recent progress in constructing factorisation algebras that represent QFT models on Lorentzian manifolds. I will also discuss their relation to local nets of algebras in AQFT. Renormalization in these models is done using the Epstein-Glaser approach. This is joint work with O. Gwilliam, E Hawkins and B. Visser.

Zoom Link: https://pitp.zoom.us/j/93242972298?pwd=Z0taa3hBSzJ5VWtpQWlaTVRkbTBaUT09

The 1918 Noether theorems were a product of the general search for energy and momentum conservation in Einstein’s newly formulated theory of general relativity. Although widely referred to as the connection between symmetry and conservation laws, the theorems themselves are often not understood properly and hence have not been as widely used as they might be. In the first part of the talk, I outline a brief history of the theorems, explain a bit of the language, translate the first theorem into coordinate invariant language and give a few examples. I will mention briefly their historical importance in physics and integrable systems. In the second part of the talk, I describe why they are still relevant: why George Daskalopoulos and I came to be interested in them for our investigation into the best Lipschitz maps of surfaces of Bill Thurston and the open problems in higher dimensions. I will finish by mentioning two recent papers, one in math and the other in physics, which greatly simplify the derivations of important identities by using the theorems.

Zoom Link: https://pitp.zoom.us/j/96748003059?pwd=aElYTlNXVlY4dEhtcmd0YUcvOHZIdz09

The past decade has seen an explosion of research into resource theories—simple, quantum-information-theoretic models for constrained agents. Resource theories have provided foundational insights about thermodynamics, entanglement, and more. Yet whether resource theories can inform science outside our neighborhood of quantum information theory has been an outstanding question. I will present what is, to my knowledge, the first application of a resource theory to answer a pre-existing question in another field. Molecular switches, or photoisomers, surface across nature and technologies, from our eyes to solar-fuel cells. What probability does a switch have of switching? A general answer defies standard chemistry tools, as photoisomers are small, quantum and far from equilibrium. I will bound the switching probability by modeling a photoisomer within a thermodynamic resource theory. This work has helped pave the path for resource theories to impact science broadly.

References
• NYH and Limmer, Phys. Rev. A 101, 042116 (2020). https://journals.aps.org/pra/
abstract/10.1103/PhysRevA.101.042116
• NYH, in Eddington, Wheeler, and the Limits of Knowledge, Eds. Durham and
Rickles, Springer (2017) arXiv:1509.03873.

Zoom Link: https://pitp.zoom.us/j/99315796008?pwd=dDJBMjR2ckRmdlhtdWJZeHJuNUI1QT09