Talks

ABJM theory is a world-volume theory for an arbitrary number of M2-branes. One of the unique features of ABJM theory is its characteristic scaling behaviour, exhibited for example by the free energy and correlation functions of chiral primary operators. In more detail, ABJM theory has a holographic dual where thermodynamics at strong coupling is determined by a system of black M2-branes. The zero-coupling (black-body radiation) free energy disagrees with the strong coupling result. Even the scaling in the 't Hooft coupling is different (strongly suppressed at strong coupling). It is therefore important to check that the weak and strong coupling results converge as loop corrections are taken into account. The leading order computation indeed confirms that the first correction goes in the right direction.

Gamma-ray production by dark matter annihilation is one of the most universal indirect dark matter signals. In order to avoid intensive astrophysical background, one can study the gamma-rays away from the Galactic plane. The problems is that the dark matter annihilation signal at high latitudes is smooth and most probably subdominant to Galactic and extragalactic fluxes. I will discuss the use of spherical harmonics decomposition as a tool to distinguish a large scale small amplitude dark matter signal from astrophysical fluxes. The sensitivity of this method for currently available Fermi data is similar to the signal from thermal WIMP dark matter annihilation into W+W- or b-bbar.

The long awaited discovery of the double radio pulsar system, PSR J0737-3039A/B, surpassed most expectations, both theoretical and observational, as a tool to probe general relativity, stellar evolution and pulsar theories. The Double Pulsar provides a unique and the most complete and clean test of theories of gravity in a regime sensitive to possible strong-gravitational self-field effects. All six post-Keplerian parameters have been measured (including the measurement of the relativistic spin precession), some parameters to a precision of 10^{-4}.

Recently rediscovered results in the theory of partial differential equations show that for free fields, the properties of the field in an arbitrarily small volume of space, traced through eternity, determine completely the field everywhere at all times. Over finite times, the field is determined in the entire region spanned by the intersection of the future null cone of the earliest event and the past null cone of the latest event. Thus this paradigm of classical field theory exhibits a fascinating form of nonlocality. I'll discuss this result and what it tells us about the possibility of constructing a classical, nonlocal theory which accommodates all the phenomena we observe.