Talks

I will discuss the coupling of non-relativistic field theories to curved spacetime, and develop a framework for analyzing the possible structure of non-relativistic (Lifshitz) scale anomalies using a cohomological formulation of the Wess-Zumino consistency condition. I will compare between cases with or without Galilean boost symmetry, and between cases with or without an equal time foliation of spacetime. In 2+1 dimensions with a dynamical critical exponent of z=2, the absence of a foliation structure allows for an A-type anomaly in the Galilean case, but also introduces the possibility of an infinite set of B-type anomalies.

I will also derive Ward identities for flat space correlation functions in Lifshitz field theories, and develop a method for calculating Lifshitz anomaly coefficients from these correlation functions using split dimensional regularization.

Two-dimensional materials such as graphene sheets can serve as excellent detectors for dark matter (DM) with couplings to electrons. The ionization energy of graphene is O(eV), making it sensitive to DM as light as an MeV, and the ejected electron may be detected without rescattering in the target, preserving directional information. I will describe the first experimental proposal for directional detection of MeV-GeV scale DM, which can be implemented in the PTOLEMY relic neutrino experiment and has comparable sensitivity to proposals using semiconductor targets. I will also describe some potential avenues for using gapless systems like Weyl semimetals to detect DM down to the keV limit for warm DM.

The frequency-dependent longitudinal and Hall conductivities — σ_xx and σ_xy — are dimensionless functions of ω/T in 2+1 dimensional CFTs at nonzero temperature. These functions characterize the spectrum of charged excitations of the theory and are basic experimental observables. We compute these conductivities for large N Chern-Simons theory with fermion matter. The computation is exact in the ’t Hooft coupling λ at N = ∞. We describe various physical features of the conductivity, including an explicit relation between the weight of the delta function at ω = 0 in σ_xx and the existence of infinitely many higher spin conserved currents in the theory. We also compute the conductivities perturbatively in Chern-Simons theory with scalar matter and show that the resulting functions of ω/T agree with the strong coupling fermionic result. This provides a new test of the conjectured 3d bosonization duality. In matching the Hall conductivities we resolve an outstanding puzzle by carefully treating an extra anomaly that arises in the regularization scheme used.  

In this talk we present the study of canonical gravity in finite regions for which we introduce a generalisation of the Gibbons-Hawking boundary term including the Immirzi parameter. We study the canonical formulation on a spacelike hypersuface with a boundary sphere and show how the presence of this term leads to a new type of degrees of freedom coming from the restoration of the gauge and diffeomorphism symmetry at the boundary. In the presence of a loop quantum gravity state, these boundary degrees of freedom localize along a set of punctures on the boundary sphere. We demonstrate that these degrees of freedom are effectively described by auxiliary strings with a 3-dimensional internal target space attached to each puncture. We show that the string currents represent the local frame field, that the string angular momenta represent the area flux and that the string stress tensor represents the two dimensional metric on the boundary of the region of interest. Finally, we show that the commutators of these broken diffeomorphisms charges of quantum geometry satisfy at each puncture a Virasoro algebra with central charge c = 3. This leads to a description of the boundary degrees of freedom in terms of a CFT structure with central charge proportional to the number of loop punctures. The boundary SU(2) gauge symmetry is recovered via the action of the U(1) 3 Kac-Moody generators (associated with the string current) in a way that is the exact analog of an infinite dimensional generalization of the Schwinger spin-representation.

(Based on the joint work with Laurent Freidel and Alejandro Perez arXiv:1611.03668)

Massive objects orbiting a near-extreme Kerr black hole plunge into the horizon after passing the innermost stable circular orbit, producing a potentially observable signal of gravitational radiation. The near horizon dynamics of such rapidly rotating black holes is governed by a conformal symmetry. In the talk I will show how this symmetry can be exploited to analytically compute the gravitational waves produced by a variety of orbits. I will also discuss an application to gravitational self-force and comment on the holographic interpretation of the process.