Mathematical Physics

One of the most deeply rooted concepts in science is causality: the idea that events in the present are caused by events in the past and, in turn, act as causes for what happens in the future. If an event A is a cause of an effect B, then B cannot be a cause of A. Recently we proposed a framework that assumes that operations in local laboratories are described by quantum mechanics, but where no reference is made to any global causal relations between these operations. The central notion of the formalism is “process” which is a generalization of the causal notion of “quantum state”. The framework allows for processes in which two operations are neither causally ordered nor in a probabilistic mixture of definite causal orders, i.e. one cannot say that A is before or after B. However a physical interpretation of such correlations was lacking. I will show that the “superposition of quantum circuits” – in which the gate ordering is not fixed but controlled by a quantum system – is an example of a process with indefinite causal order. This process provides a reduction in query complexity of certain computational problems and can be realized by placing the laboratories in the gravitational field of a massive object in a spatial superposition.

It has become a platitute to say that black holes are fascinating objects—but they really are, in part because they challenge our understanding of the fundamental reversibility of physical processes.

In the first part of the talk, I will review some of the classical ways black holes behave as dissipative systems, such as the "hair loss” phenomenon and the monotonic growth of horizon area. In the second part, I will explain how quantum mechanics (more precisely, the coupling of black holes to the quantum vacuum) affects the classical picture at late times, notably through particle creation and evaporation. I will argue that techniques from two-dimensional field theory can help bring clarity to the associated “information loss”

problem, and perhaps also point to new, unexpected predictions. My approach will be as model-independent as possible; that is, rather than investigating a particular scenario for black hole evaporation, I will aim to derive generic consequences from basic assumptions regarding the reversibility of black hole evaporation.

One of the main challenges that we face both as individual persons and as a species concerns the distribution and use of resources, such as water, time, capital, computing power or negatively valued
resources like nuclear waste. Also within theoretical physics, one frequently deals with resources like free energy or quantum entanglement. I will describe a mathematical theory of resources which makes quantitative predictions about how many resources are required for producing a certain commodity and outline some applications to information theory.
Joint work with Bob Coecke and Rob Spekkens.