High Energy Physics

String theory provides us with 8d supersymmetric gauge theories with gauge algebras su(N), so(2N), sp(N), e_6, e_7 and e_8, but no construction for so(2N+1), f_4 and g_2 is known. If string theory is universal in 8 dimensions, this pattern requires explanation. I will show that the theories for f_4 and so(2N+1) have a global gauge anomaly in flat space, while g_2 does not have it. Surprisingly, we also find that the sp(N) theories, arising from example from O7^+ planes in string theory, have a subtler gauge anomaly. This subtler anomaly, in contrast to the one in flat space, could in principle be canceled by a topological analogue of the Green-Schwarz mechanism. I will discuss one simple example of such a generalized anomaly cancellation mechanism in three dimensions, and then explain why the generalized Green-Schwarz term required in 8 dimensions to make the O7^+ consistent is necessarily a more subtle generalization of a Chern-Simons coupling

Microwave Kinetic Inductance Detectors, or MKIDs, are superconducting detector arrays that can measure the energy and arrival time of individual optical through near-IR photons without read noise or dark counts.  I will discuss our recent work and results from the first two MKID Integral Field Spectrographs (IFSs) for high contrast imaging, DARKNESS/SDC at the Palomar 200" and MEC/SCExAO on Subaru. I will then look at the future of MKIDs and their potential on 30-m class telescopes like the TMT, and explore a fascinating new application in the detection of light scalar dark matter. 

I show that dark matter abundance can be set by the decoupling of inelastic scatterings instead of annihilations. Coscattering points to dark matter that is exponentially lighter than the weak scale and has a suppressed annihilation rate, avoiding constraints from indirect detection. The late decays of the states into which dark matter upscatters, can lead to observable distortions to the blackbody spectrum of the cosmic microwave background. 

We study the spectrum of local operators living on a defect in a generic conformal field theory, and their coupling to the local bulk operators.  We establish the existence of universal accumulation points in the spectrum at large s, s being the charge of the operators under rotations in the space transverse to the defect. Our tools include a formula that inverts the bulk to defect OPE and is analytic in s, analogous to the Caron-Huot formula for the four-point function. Some important assumptions are made in deriving this result: we comment on them.

In the last decades, advances in the level of precision in controlling atomic and optical systems opened up the low-energy precision frontier to fundamental physics tests. Exploitation of quantum entanglement in such systems to further improve the sensitivity of certain existing approaches is currently an active field of research. Drawing from the experiments in our lab, in this talk I will focus on the properties, generation and usage of a particular set of entangled states called spin squeezed states.

In the first part of the seminar I will give a short review of the frame-independent formulation of Newtonian gravity, called Newton-Cartan Gravity, and explain why there is a renewed interest into non-relativistic gravity in general.  In the second part I will discuss, as a particular application,  a recent proposal for an Effective Field Theory describing a massive spin-2 mode (the so-called GMP mode) in the Fractional Quantum Hall Effect.

The space-based gravitational wave detector LISA may be able to detect gravitational waves from a first order phase transition at the electroweak scale. Acoustic waves produced during the transition are largely responsible for the resulting signal. I will present results from a large campaign of simulations studying such phase transitions, determining the spectral shape of the gravitational wave power spectrum with unparalleled accuracy. Measuring a cosmological stochastic background could place constraints on the phase transition parameters, such as the nucleation rate and temperature, and therefore provide important information about physics beyond the Standard Model. However, better understanding of the source, as well as the underlying theories of physics beyond the Standard Model, is required before the launch of LISA. I will outline how this understanding can be developed.

Topological defect operators are extended operators in a quantum field theory (QFT) whose correlation functions are independent of continuous changes of the ambient space. They satisfy nontrivial fusion relations and put nontrivial constraints on the QFT itself and its deformations (such as renormalization group (RG) flows). Canonical examples of topological defect operators include generators of (higher-form) global symmetries whose constraints on the QFT have been well-studied. However they constitute just a tip of a much richer framework which we explore in detail in two spacetime dimensions. 

More specifically, we study the crossing relations of general topological defect lines (TDL) in two dimensions, discuss their relation to the usual 't Hooft anomalies associated to global symmetries, and use them to constrain RG flows to either conformal fixed points or topological quantum field theories (TQFTs). We show that if certain non-invertible TDLs are preserved along a RG flow, then the vacuum cannot be a non-degenerate gapped state. For various massive flows, we determine the infrared TQFTs completely from the consideration of TDLs together with modular invariance.