Talks

In our four-dimensional world supersymmetry is the only extension of the classical Poincaré invariance which laid the foundation of modern physics in the beginning of the 20th century. Supersymmetry, a new geometric symmetry extending Poincaré, was discovered in 1970 –– it was overlooked for decades because of its quantum nature. In the next 10 years or so supersymmetry 

assumed the role of a universal framework in which new models for natural phenomena and regularities (e.g. the concept of naturalness) have been developed. It gave rise to a powerful stream of theoretical phenomenology.

The fact that LHC at CERN produced no evidence for low-energy supersymmetry (and naturalness as well) was a powerful blow. However, despite its absence in experiments the less known second mission of supersymmetry is highly successful, with remarkable advances occurring on a regular basis. Supersymmetry proved its power and uniqueness for those who address hard questions in strongly coupled field theories, including Yang-Mills. Some supersymmetry-based exact results obtained in four dimensions are the main topics of my talk. In the past one could hardly dream that such results are possible.

Theories beyond the Standard Model of particle physics often predict new, light, feebly interacting particles whose discovery requires novel search strategies. A light particle, the QCD axion, elegantly solves the outstanding strong-CP problem of the Standard Model; cousins of the QCD axion can also appear, and are natural dark matter candidates.  First, I will discuss my experimental proposal based on thin films, in which dark matter can efficiently convert to detectable single photons. A prototype experiment is underway, and current techniques promise to reach significant new dark matter parameter space.

Second, I will show how rotating black holes turn into axionic and gravitational wave beacons, creating nature's laboratories for ultralight bosons. When an axion's Compton wavelength is comparable to a black hole size, energy and angular momentum from the black hole source exponentially-growing bound states of particles, forming `gravitational atoms'.  These `gravitational atoms' emit monochromatic gravitational wave signals, enabling current searches at gravitational wave observatories to discover ultralight axions. If the axions interact with one another, instead of gravitational waves, black holes populate the universe with axion waves.

Stacking two graphene layers twisted by the ‘magic angle’ 1.1º generates flat energy bands, which in turn catalyzes various strongly correlated phenomena depending on filling and sample details. While this system is most famous for the superconducting and insulating states observed at fractional fillings, I argue that charge neutrality presents an interesting interplay of disorder and interactions.

In scanning tunnelling microscopy (STM), the most striking signature of interactions occurs close to charge neutrality, where the splitting between the flat bands increases dramatically. In analogy with quantum Hall ferromagnetism, I show that this effect may be qualitatively understood as the result of an exchange energy gain. A low-energy manifold of gapped, symmetry-breaking states is identified, one of which possesses quantum valley Hall order. Transport measurements yield ostensibly conflicting information at charge neutrality: while some samples reveal semimetallicity (as expected when correlations are weak), yet others exhibit robust insulation. I reconcile these observations and those of STM by arguing that strong interactions supplemented by weak, smooth disorder stabilize a network of locally gapped quantum valley Hall domains with spatially varying Chern numbers determined by the disorder landscape—--even when an entirely different order is favored in the clean limit. I conclude with a discussion of experimental tests of this proposal via local probes and transport.

In this talk, we present a new outlook on canonical quantum gravity and its coupling to matter.

We will show how this fresh perspective combines the critical elements of holography, loop quantum gravity, and relative locality. I will first focus on the consequences of cutting open a portion of space and show that new symmetry charges and new degrees of freedom reveal themselves. 
I will explain the nature of this boundary symmetry algebra in metric gravity and then first-order gravity. We will see that a rich structure appears that explains from the continuum perspective the non-commutativity of geometric flux, the quantization of the area spectra, the nature of the simplicity constraints but also reveals the dual momentum observables and finally allow to reconcile the elements of canonical gravity with Lorentz invariance.
I will discuss the issue of quantization as a challenge of finding a representation of the boundary algebra and will give clues about where we are in this process.