Talks

We expect certain universal results in classical gravity to come unaltered from a quantum theory of gravity. In this talk, I will firstly discuss new ideas on this topic, and the latest understanding we have on this, in an accessible way. After that, I will focus on local symmetries in gravity, and obtain the most general off-shell algebra of diffeomorphisms that acts non-trivially at corners, where gauge charges are supported. Noether charges in Einstein gravity are then shown to generate a faithful representation of this algebra. After pausing and reviewing the covariant phase space formulation, explaining the questions and issues our community faced in successfully applying it to gravity, I will show how a careful treatment of embeddings allows us to establish a field space where Noether charges act canonically via Poisson bracket. This solves a longstanding puzzle in this field, opening doors to new promising investigations. I will conclude by mentioning them and commenting on how new proposals might shed light on old unanswered questions in quantum gravity.

Zoom Link: https://pitp.zoom.us/j/96552295909?pwd=cFZwcGxLdWlaWWhRS21RMExUd1RjQT09

In this talk I will give an overview of recent and ongoing work regarding rotating black holes in dynamical Chern-Simons (dCS) gravity. dCS gravity is a well motivated modified theory of gravity which has been extensively studied in gravitational and cosmological contexts. I will first discuss unique geometric structures, `the Chern-Simons caps,' which slowly rotating black holes in dCS gravity were recently found to possess. Motivated by the dCS caps, I will then discuss superradiance in the context of slowly rotating dCS black holes and show that there are corrections to the usual solution for a Kerr black hole. Lastly, I will comment on the observable implications for these corrections and point towards avenues for future work.

Zoom Link: https://pitp.zoom.us/j/95228483630?pwd=dWk1c3p5dUU3RXJrNEhIT2M3Tk1Kdz09

I will review the history of anyons, particles that are neither bosons nor fermions, starting with their theoretical proposal all the way to their definitive experimental observation over 40 years later.  I will further discuss why the more general idea of non-abelian anyons is of intense interest for quantum computation.  If time permits I will give a status report on some of the current non-abelian anyon experiments.

Zoom Link: https://pitp.zoom.us/j/98698779123?pwd=SWIyak9OZ0dud2ZGcWdoazdkVURHQT09

The coupled wire construction is a powerful method for studying exotic quantum phases of matter. In this talk I will discuss some recent work in which this technique was used to realize new types of 3D compressible quantum phases. These phases possess a U(1) charge conservation symmetry that is weakly broken by rigid string or membrane-like order parameters. No local order parameter is present and the emergent quasiparticles have restricted mobility. I will discuss the unusual symmetry breaking mechanism and its connection to the compressibility. For a particular class of models I will also describe an effective low energy theory given by coupled layers Maxwell-Chern-Simons theories.

Zoom Link: https://pitp.zoom.us/j/95372524441?pwd=UTlVTTZlSmFRK0FmVE5pTHhDRThwdz09

The quantization of a non-linear sigma model in 1+1 dimensional space-time, whose target space is equipped with a non positive definite metric is an interesting open problem having potential applications to string theory and Condensed Matter Physics. Perhaps the simplest example where it can be studied is the 2D Lorentzian black hole sigma model that was introduced by Witten in '91. The purpose of this talk is to discuss the results of  the paper arXiv:2010.10613. There it was found that the scaling limit of a certain spin chain, that lies within the integrability class of an inhomogeneous six-vertex model, is closely related to the Lorentzian black hole sigma model and its Euclidean version.

Zoom Link: https://pitp.zoom.us/j/91519988720?pwd=RTdrT1NWc3V0SXZVTGxETVBlTm5YUT09

The talk will present the status and plans of the search for low mass dark matter using electron counting semiconductor detectors. In this talk I will describe the skipper-CCD technology and the results of the SENSEI experiment using this technology for direct dark matter search. Finally, I will present the ongoing efforts to develop the next generation of experiments using this technology (Oscura).

Zoom Link: https://pitp.zoom.us/j/91739887327?pwd=V2ZiajlENjlrY1pyNWN2OFBaTUduZz09

Patterns and complex textures are ubiquitous in astronomical data but challenging to quantify. I will present a new powerful statistic called the “scattering transform”. It borrows ideas from convolutional neural nets (CNNs) while retaining the advantages of traditional statistics. As an example, I will show its application to weak lensing cosmology, where it outperforms classic statistics and is on a par with CNNs. I will also show interesting visual interpretations of the scattering statistics and possible extensions of this “mathematical neural network” idea. I argue that the scattering transform provides a powerful new approach in cosmology and beyond.

Related papers:

https://arxiv.org/abs/2112.01288

https://arxiv.org/abs/2103.09247

https://arxiv.org/abs/2006.08561

Zoom Link: https://pitp.zoom.us/j/91612161747?pwd=bnQrVmo4ZjBjaUdQMDBNZGhFS2NPQT09