Search Talks

It has been known for a long time that quadratic gravity, which generalizes Einstein gravity with quadratic curvature terms, is renormalizable and asymptotically free in the UV.  However the theory is afflicted with a ghost problem if the perturbative spectrum is taken seriously. We explore the possibility that the dimensional scale of Einstein-Hilbert term is far smaller than the scale where the dimensionless gravitational couplings become strong. The propagation of the gravitational degrees of freedom can change character at this strong interaction scale. Lattice QCD studies show a particular suppression of gluon propagator in the IR, which removes the perturbative gluon from the physical spectrum. We propose that the same fate can apply to the spin-2 ghost. The Planck mass is associated with the strong dynamics scale below which the normal Einstein description can emerge. In this picture both the UV and IR limits have weakly coupled descriptions, similar to perturbative QCD and the chiral Lagrangian. Some implications of a small mass ratio in the theory are considered.

Quantum superpositions of matter are unusually sensitive to decoherence by tiny momentum transfers, in a way that can be made precise with a new diffusion standard quantum limit.  Upcoming matter interferometers will produce unprecedented spatial superpositions of over a million nucleons. What sorts of dark matter scattering events could be seen in these experiments as anomalous decoherence?  We show that it is extremely weak but medium range interaction between matter and dark matter that would be most visible, such as scattering through a Yukawa potential. We construct toy models for these interactions, discuss existing constraints, and delineate the expected sensitivity of forthcoming experiments.  In particular, the OTIMA interferometer developing at the University of Vienna will directly probe many orders of magnitude of parameter space, and the proposed MAQRO satellite experiment would be vastly more sensitive yet.  This is a multidisciplinary talk that will be accessible to a non-specialized audience.

Quantum field theory on curved space has long been studied for its interesting phenomenology, and more recently also as a means to obtain non-perturbative results in supersymmetric theories. In this talk I will describe the holographic dual for N=4 SYM coupled to massive N=2 flavors on spaces of constant curvature. With that in hand, I will discuss a topology-changing phase transition on S^4 and confront holographic computations with exact field theory results obtained using supersymmetric localization.

We consider quantum quench from a gapped to a gapless system in 1+1 dimensions. We 

provide a rigorous proof of the thermalization of the reduced density matrix, hence that of

an arbitrary string of local operators in an interval. In case the system is integrable, the "thermalization" leads to a generalized Gibbs ensemble (GGE). We model the critical quench in terms of an initial state in terms of a conformal boundary state deformed by exponential cutoffs involving hamiltonian and other charges. We justify this choice of the initial state by explicitly

deriving it in free boson and free fermion systems with time-dependent mass. A surprising result we find is that for generic quenches and observables the higher charges remain 

important even if the initial gap is arbitrarily high, contrary to standard RG expectations.

( based on hep-th/1501.04580  and a couple of upcoming papers)

I will revisit the A-twisted gauged linear sigma model (GLSM) in the case of (2,2) supersymmetry in two dimensions, and its Omega-background deformation. Exact results for correlation functions on the sphere can be obtained in terms of Jeffrey-Kirwan residues on the Coulomb branch, which has a number of interesting applications. I will also explain an interesting generalization to (0,2) supersymmetric GLSMs of a special type.

I will describe entanglement entropy of a cap-like region for a generic quantum field theory residing in the Bunch-Davies vacuum on de Sitter space. Entanglement entropy in this setup is identical with the thermal entropy in the static patch of de Sitter, and it is possible to derive a simple relation between the vacuum expectation value of the energy-momentum tensor trace and the RG flow of entanglement entropy. In particular, renormalization of the cosmological constant and logarithmic divergence of the entanglement entropy are interrelated in this setup. These findings are confirmed by recovering known universal contributions for a free field theory deformed by a mass operator as well as correct universal behaviour at the fixed points. In three dimensions the renormalized entanglement entropy is stationary at the fixed points but not monotonic. Computational evidence that the universal `area law' for a conformally coupled scalar is different from the known result in the literature will be given, and I will argue that this difference survives in the limit of flat space.

The search for physics beyond the Standard Model at the LHC is largely oriented towards new particles associated with solutions to the electroweak hierarchy problem. While the precise character of these partner states may vary from model to model, they typically possess large QCD production rates favorable for detection at hadron colliders. Null results in searches for partner particles during Run 1 of the LHC have placed the idea of electroweak naturalness under increasing strain. In this talk I'll discuss a broad class of natural theories where the new degrees of freedom relevant for naturalness lie in hidden sectors and are largely unconstrained by LHC data. Rather than rendering electroweak naturalness untestable, they give rise to entirely new signs of naturalness at the LHC, including displaced decays and other exotic signatures. They also furnish a variety of viable dark matter candidates testable at current and future experiments.

In this talk I will discuss the most singular point and T^2 compactifications of a 6d N=(1,0) supersymmetric conformal field theory (SCFT) which arises as the worldvolume theory on coincident N of M5 branes probing the singular locus of the ALE orbifold. When N=1, the compactified theory can be describe by a class S theory of three punctured sphere. Generalization to multiple M5s case results in a pair of 4d N=2 SCFTs which are connected by a IR free gauge multiplet. Along the line, we see that the “dynamical version" of class S simple puncture plays a role. Closing one of two flavor groups, we can isolate one of them with manifest SL(2,Z) invariance of T^2 and a non-abelian flavor group, including presumably new N=2 SCFTs.

 I  will first analytically show a simple, yet subtle "invariance" of two-body decay kinematics for the case of a massless  daughter and a mother particle which is unpolarized and has a *generic* boost distribution in the laboratory frame. Namely, the laboratory frame energy distribution of the massless decay product has a peak, whose location is identical to the  (fixed) energy of that particle in the rest frame of the corresponding mother particle. In turn, this value of the energy is a simple function of the other masses involved in the decay.
As a proof of principle of the usefulness of this observation, I will then apply it for measuring  the mass of the top quark at the LHC, using simulated data (including experimental  effects). In fact, CMS collaboration (in CMS-PAS-TOP-15-002) has recently implemented our method for measuring the top quark mass! Finally, I will show how it can be used to measure all the superpartner masses in a cascade decay chain of the gluino.

We derive the constitutive relations of first order charged hydrodynamics for theories with Lifshitz scaling and broken parity in 2+1 and 3+1 spacetime dimensions. In addition to the anomalous (in 3+1) or Hall (in 2+1) transport of relativistic hydrodynamics, there is an additional non-dissipative transport allowed by the absence of boost invariance. We analyze the non-relativistic limit and use a phenomenological model of a strange metal

to argue that these effects can be measured in principle by using electromagnetic fields with non-zero gradients.

I will discuss the Higgs-branch CFT2 dual to string theory on AdS3 x S3 x T4. States localised near the small instanton singularity can be described in terms of vector multiplet variables.  This theory has a planar, weak-coupling limit, in which anomalous dimensions of single-trace composite operators can be calculated. At one loop, the calculation reduces to finding the spectrum of a spin chain with nearest-neighbour interactions. This CFT2 spin chain matches precisely the one that was previously found as the weak-coupling limit of the integrable system describing the AdS3 side of the duality.  In particual I will show that the one-loop dilatation operator in a non-trivial compact subsector corresponds to an integrable spin-chain Hamiltonian. This provides the first direct evidence of integrability on the CFT2 side of the correspondence.

 

Twin Higgs theories attempt to solve the little hierarchy problem - why has the LHC not yet observed new states stabilising the EW scale? - by introducing a SM-neutral twin sector, related to the SM by an approximate Z_2 symmetry. The physical Higgs is then a PNGB mixture from both sectors, and acts as a portal between them. In this talk, I will discuss the cosmology of minimal (“fraternal”) Twin Higgs models. Higgs portal interactions establish thermal equilibrium between the SM and twin sector at high temperatures, giving a thermal history with possibilities for both symmetric dark matter (through a “twin WIMP miracle”), and asymmetric dark matter (from twin QCD states which naturally have GeV-scale masses). More generally, relic abundances of cosmologically stable states place constraints on the parameters of the theory, and twin sector phase transitions need to be considered.