Search Talks

In recent years, gravitational wave observations of compact objects have provided new opportunities to test our understanding of gravity in the strong-field, highly dynamical regime. To perform model-dependent tests of General Relativity with these observations, one needs accurate inspiral-merger-ringdown waveforms in alternative theories of gravity. In this talk, we will discuss the nonlinear dynamics of compact object mergers in a class of modified theories of gravity, as well as the challenges in numerically obtaining those solutions. The theory we focus on is Einstein-scalar-Gauss-Bonnet gravity, which is a representative example of a Horndeski gravity theory and is interesting because it admits scalar hairy black hole solutions.

Black holes in Horndeski theories of gravity are a perfect playground for exploring possible deviations from General Relativity in a theory-specific manner and studying their astrophysical manifestation. I will review the recent advances in constructing stationary hairy black hole models in Gauss-Bonnet theories. Special attention will be paid to their nonlinear dynamics when isolated or put in a binary, and the resulting astrophysical implications. The potential loss of hyperbolicity will also be discussed.

Scalar-tensor theories with a screening mechanism can serve as a viable model of cosmic acceleration, while still passing existing local tests of gravity. The validity of different screening mechanisms, such as kinetic screening (or k-mouflage) has been studied extensively in static and weak field regimes. However, only recently have works started to focus on determining whether these would work as expected near extremely compact objects. In this talk I will discuss some recent efforts to characterise kinetic screening mechanisms in these highly dynamical and non-linear regimes using numerical relativity in the case of a single oscillating neutron star, as well as how this picture may change for a binary neutron star configuration in a quasi-equilibrium state.

Simulating non-linear scales of structure formation is essential to make use of frontier data from Stage IV galaxy surveys. Performing these simulations in modified gravity theories introduces additional challenges, and further forces us to make choices about which theories we deem ‘worth’ the computational investment. Horndeski Gravity is very helpful in this regard, as it encompasses a large swathe of models of major interest. I’ll introduce Hi-COLA, a software suite which simulates large-scale structure formation in the class of luminal Horndeski theories. Hi-COLA was designed to be: i) flexible — it avoids hard-coded models and instead receives a user-specified Lagrangian; ii) consistent — the background expansion history, linear growth and nonlinear screening are solved consistently with one another; iii) efficient — using the COLA method, large sets of simulations can be generated at low cost. I’ll explain how Hi-COLA can be used to make robust predictions for scalar-tensor theories on nonlinear scales. If time permits, we’ll also dip a toe into constraining the Horndeski framework with gravitational waves.

We will discuss black hole solutions in Horndeski and beyond Horndeski theories. Starting from the no hair paradigm in GR we will elaborate on one of the first black hole solutions with secondary hair. We will then start by introducing stealth solutions, in other words GR metrics endowed with a non trivial scalar field, their regularity properties, shortcomings etc. We will then go on to construct black holes with primary scalar hair which can be regular black holes and modify usual GR static metrics. We will discuss their properties and the status of explicit stationary metrics to conclude.

Given a semisimple group G and a smooth projective curve X over an algebraically closed field of arbitrary characteristic, let Bun_G(X) denote the moduli space of principal G-bundles over X. For a bundle P without infinitesimal symmetries, we describe the n^th order divided-power infinitesimal jet spaces of Bun_G(X) at P for each n. The description is in terms of differential forms on X^n with logarithmic singularities along the diagonals. Furthermore, we show the pullback of these differential forms to the Fulton-Macpherson compactification space is an isomorphism, thus illustrating a connection between infinitesimal jet spaces of Bun_G(X) and the Lie operad.

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A 2-group is a categorical generalization of a group: it's a category with a multiplication operation which satisfies the usual group axioms only up to coherent isomorphisms. The isomorphism classes of its objects form an ordinary group, G. Given a 2-group G with underlying group G, we can similarly define a categorical generalization of the notion of principal bundles over a manifold (or stack) X, and obtain a bicategory Bun_G(X), living over the category Bun_G(X) of ordinary G-bundles on X. For G finite and X a Riemann surface, we prove that this gives a categorification of the Freed--Quinn line bundle, a mapping-class group equivariant line bundle on Bun_G(X) which plays an important role in Dijkgraaf--Witten theory (i.e. Chern--Simons theory for the finite group G). This talk is based on joint work with Daniel Berwick-Evans, Laura Murray, Apurva Nakade, and Emma Phillips.

I will not assume previous knowledge of 2-groups: I will provide a quick overview in the main talk, as well as a more detailed discussion during a pre-talk on Tuesday. 

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We will discuss work, joint with Victor Ginzburg, on the quantization (non-commutative deformation) of the Ngô morphism, a morphism of group schemes which plays a key role in Ngô’s proof of the fundamental lemma in the Langlands program. We will also discuss how the tools used to construct this morphism can be used to prove conjectures of Ben-Zvi—Gunningham, which predict that this morphism gives “spectral decomposition” of DG categories with an action of a reductive group over the coarse quotient of a maximal Cartan subalgebra by the affine Weyl group.

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