Colloquium

In this lecture I will describe in simple terms the basic ideas of gauge symmetry in phase space, its consequences in the form of a deeper redefinition of space and time, and some observable manifestations of an extra space and extra time dimensions.

Entropy plays a fundamental role in quantum information theory through applications ranging from communication theory to condensed matter physics.  These applications include finding the best possible communication rates over noisy channels and characterizing ground state entanglement in strongly-correlated quantum systems.  In the latter, localized entanglement is often characterized by an area law for entropy.  Long-range entanglement, on the other hand, can give rise to topologically ordered materials whose collective excitations are robust against local noise.  In this talk, I will present a property of quantum entropy for multipartite quantum systems that resolves several open questions in quantum information theory about entanglement measures, provides new algorithmic opportunities and makes nontrivial statements about the structure of states with vanishing - but nonzero - topological entropy.  I will also comment how extensions of this work could help our understanding of quantum communication over certain very noisy channels.

Black holes lead a double life, simultaneously the dark, enigmatic, hairless consequence of general relativity and the powerful engines lurking at the hearts of galaxies with cosmological consequences.

Quantum gravity is about finding out what is the more fundamental nature of spacetime, as a physical system. Several approaches to quantum gravity, suggest that the very description of spacetime as a continuum fails at shorter distances and higher energies, and should be replaced by one in terms of discrete, pre-geometric degrees of freedom, possibly of combinatorial and algebraic nature.

Paul Dirac has been called ‘the first truly modern theoretical physicist’. In the latter part of his life, he was obsessed by the idea that the fundamental laws of nature must have mathematical beauty. This was ‘almost a religion to him’, he said. In this talk, I shall trace the origins of his fascination with this idea (going back to his school education) and question the account he gave of his contribution to quantum mechanics and field theory, which he often said emerged from his aesthetic perspective. I shall also give some insights into the extraordinary character of this man, whom Niels Bohr called ‘the strangest man’ who ever visited his Institute in Copenhagen.

It's usually assumed that youtube is just for kittens, babies, and music videos. However, youtube is also the highest-traffic site on the internet and it turns out it's actually a darn good place to teach people about physics! We'll start with the story and analysis of how my video series Minutephysics grew from a fun project to a youtube channel with 120,000 subscribers and 9 million views in just a few months, then discuss how media & technology (especially videos) can facilitate good (and bad) communication, and finally talk about how you can harness the power of the internet in your own physics outreach. And of course we'll watch a few cool videos along the way. As a primer, feel free to check out www.youtube.com/minutephysics

Cold atomic gases in optical lattices are emerging as excellent laboratories for testing models of strongly interacting particles in condensed matter physics. It is possible to tune the interactions, dimensionality, spin, statistics and a host of other variables in a completely disorder free environment. This has opened up unique possibilities of mapping out phase diagrams of quantum models and observing quantum phase transitions for the very first time. I will discuss some of the challenges in this field.

Besides their experimental relevance in condensed matter and quantum information science, quantum spin systems are an interesting playground to study decoherence and quantum entanglement. Random matrices are used since the 50' to model quantum chaotic dynamics and complex quantum systems. I introduce new random matrix models which lead to explicit solutions for some simple open or closed quantum spin systems. They allow to probe the various dynamical regimes of decoherence and the emergence of the classical phase space for the spin, in particular in the non-Markovian regimes where no master equations are available.

Ideas about information are pervasive, yet the fundamental nature and structure of information - if indeed it has one! - remains elusive. Work done from many different perspectives, including those of physics, biology, logic, computer science, statistics, and game and decision theory, has yielded insights into various aspects of information. Could there be a comprehensive, unified theory? We shall chart a particular path, focusing on the idea of *information flow*, and show how common mathematical structures arise in the description of information flow in computer science, logic and quantum information.