Talks

The Hartle-Hawking (HH) no-boundary proposal provides a Euclidean path integral prescription for a measure on the space of all possible initial conditions. Apart from  saddle point  and  minisuper-space calculations, it is hard to obtain results using the unregulated path integral. A promising choice of spacetime  regularisation comes from the causal set (CST) approach to quantum gravity.  Using analytic results as well as Markov Chain Monte Carlo and numerical integration methods we obtain  the HH wave function in a theory of non-perturbative 2d CST. We find that the  wave function is sharply peaked with the peak geometry changing discretely with "temperature". In the low temperature regime the peak corresponds to causal sets which have no continuum counterpart but exhibit physically interesting behaviour. They show a rapid spatial expansion with respect to the discrete proper time as well as  a high degree of spatial homogeneity due to extensive overlap of the causal past. While our results are limited to 2 dimensions they provide a concrete example of how quantum gravity could explain the initial conditions for our observable universe.

I'll discuss the two topological twists of 3d N=4 theories, and explain how to understand them in the AKSZ/BV formalism, and how they relate to twists of 4d N =2 theories.  Symplectic duality then takes the form of an equivalence between 3d N=4 theories which interchanges the two topological twists.  I'll also introduce monopole operators and explain the role they play in symplectic duality.

In this talk I will describe numerical constructions of gravitational
duals of theories deformed by localized Dirac delta sources for scalar
operators. We perform two different constructions, one at zero and
the other at nonzero temperature. Surprisingly we find that imposing the preservation of scale
invariance at zero temperature requires the bulk scalar self-interaction potential to be
the one found in a certain Kaluza-Klein compactification of 11D supergravity.
The gravitational setup seems a-priori to be quite unusual and challenging
from the numerical relativity perspective.

Topological aspects of physical systems, including the called topological states of matter, have become hot topics in the frontiers of physics in recent years. Here I would like to present a mathematically "popular" talk for professional physicists for a highlight or overview of how one can systematize knowledge of topological aspects of quantum field theories. Our starting points are Descent Equations and Gauge Structure in Configuration Space in Field Theory. (The audience needs only to know the meaning of "differential forms".)

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 first briefly report the current status on the stability problem of global AdS space under gravitational self-interaction. I will then present evidence that the possibility of a blackhole-forming instability is strongly connected to phase-locked cascade, which is different from the usual energy cascade in turbulent flow.