Scientific Series

The gravitational coupling of nearby massive bodies to test masses in a gravitational wave (GW) detector cannot be shielded, and gives rise to 'gravity gradient noise’ (GGN) in the detector. In this talk, I will discuss how any GW detector using local test masses in the Inner Solar System is subject to GGN from the motion of the field of 10^5 Inner Solar System asteroids, which presents an irreducible noise floor for the detection of GW that rises exponentially at low frequencies. This severely limits prospects for GW detection using local test masses for frequencies below (few) x 10^{-7} Hz. At higher frequencies, I’ll show that the asteroid GGN falls rapidly enough that detection may be possible; however, the incompleteness of existing asteroid catalogs with regard to small bodies makes this an open question around microHz frequencies, and I’ll outline why further study is warranted here. Additionally, I’ll mention some prospects for GW detection in the ~10 nHz-microHz band that could evade this noise source.

The Principle of Equivalence, stating that all laws of physics take their special-relativistic form in any local inertial frame, lies at the core of General Relativity. Because of its fundamental status, this principle could be a very powerful guide in formulating physical laws at regimes where both gravitational and quantum effects are relevant. However, its formulation implicitly presupposes that reference frames are abstracted from classical systems (rods and clocks) and that the spacetime background is well defined. Here, we we generalise the Einstein Equivalence Principle to quantum reference frames (QRFs) and to superpositions of spacetimes. We build a unitary transformation to the QRF of a quantum system in curved spacetime, and in a superposition thereof. In both cases, a QRF can be found such that the metric looks locally flat. Hence, one cannot distinguish, with a local measurement, if the spacetime is flat or curved, or in a superposition of such spacetimes. This transformation identifies a Quantum Local Inertial Frame. These results extend the Principle of Equivalence to QRFs in a superposition of gravitational fields. Verifying this principle may pave a fruitful path to establishing solid conceptual grounds for a future theory of quantum gravity.

The defining feature of a classical black hole horizon is that it is a "perfect absorber". Any evidence showing otherwise

would indicate a departure from the standard black-hole picture. Due to the presence of the horizon, black holes in binaries exchange

energy with their orbit, which backreacts on the orbit. This is called tidal heating. Tidal heating can be used to test the presence of a horizon.

I will discuss the prospect of tidal heating as a discriminator between black holes and horizonless compact objects, especially supermassive ones, in LISA.

I will also discuss a similar prospect for distinguishing between neutron stars and black holes in the LIGO band.

No. Obviously not. It's a daft question. But, buried underneath
this daft question is an extremely interesting one: is it possible to
simulate the known laws of physics on a computer? Remarkably, there is a
mathematical theorem, due to Nielsen and Ninomiya, that says the answer is
no. I'll explain this theorem, the underlying reasons for it, and some
recent work attempting to circumvent it.

I will review recent progress in application of separation of variables method.

In particular I will review the construction for the integrable spin chains with gl(N) symmetry. 

By finding, for the first time, the matrix elements of the SoV measure explicitly I will show how to compute various correlation functions and wave function overlaps in a simple determinant form. 

General philosophy of application of these methods to the problems related to AdS/CFT, N=4 SYM etc. will be discussed too. 

With much of the cosmological information in the primary CMB having already been mined, the next decade of CMB observations will revolve around the secondary CMB lensing effect, which will touch nearly all aspects of observation in some way. At the same time, the increasingly low noise levels of these future observations will render existing "quadratic estimator" methods for analyzing CMB lensing obsolete. This leaves us in an exciting place where new methods need to be developed to fully take advantage of the upcoming generation of CMB data just on our doorstep. I will describe my work developing such new lensing analysis tool, made possible by Bayesian methods, modern statistical techniques, and borrowing ideas from machine learning. I will present the recent first-ever application of such methods to data (from the South Pole Telescope; https://arxiv.org/abs/2012.01709) and discuss prospects for this analysis in the future with regards to not just lensing but also primordial B modes, reionization, and extragalactic foreground fields.

In this talk I will present a general framework to distinguish different classes of charge insulators based on whether or not they insulate or conduct higher multipole moments (dipole, quadrupole, etc.). This formalism applies to generic many-body systems that support multipolar conservation laws. Applications of this work provide a key link between recently discovered higher order topological phases and fracton phases of matter.

A series of recent works has shown that placing communication channels in a coherent superposition of alternative configurations can boost their ability to transmit information. Instances of this phenomenon are the advantages arising from the use of communication devices in a superposition of alternative causal orders, and those arising from the transmission of information along a superposition of alternative trajectories. The relation among these advantages has been the subject of recent debate, with some authors claiming that the advantages of the superposition of orders could be reproduced, and even surpassed, by other forms of superpositions. To shed light on this debate, we develop a general framework of resource theories of communication. In this framework, the resources are communication devices, and the allowed operations are (a) the placement of communication devices between the communicating parties, and (b) the connection of communication devices with local devices in the parties' laboratories. The allowed operations are required to satisfy the minimal condition that they do not enable communication independently of the devices representing the initial resources. The resource-theoretic analysis reveals that the aforementioned criticisms on the superposition of causal orders were based on an uneven comparison between different types of quantum superpositions, exhibiting different operational features.

Ref. https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1367-2630/ab8ef7

A central challenge in quantum many-body physics is a characterization of properties of `natural' quantum states, such as the ground states and Gibbs states of a local hamiltonian. The area-law conjecture, which postulates a remarkably simple structure of entanglement in gapped ground states, has resisted a resolution based on information-theoretic methods. We discuss how the right set of insights may come, quite unexpectedly, from polynomial approximations to boolean functions. Towards this, we describe a 2D sub-volume law for frustration-free locally-gapped ground states and highlight a pathway that could lead to an area law. Similar polynomial approximations have consequences for entanglement in Gibbs states and lead to the first provably linear time algorithm to simulate Gibbs states in 1D. Next, we consider the task of learning a Hamiltonian from a Gibbs state, where many-body entanglement obstructs rigorous algorithms. Here, we find that the effects of entanglement can again be controlled using tools from computer science, namely, strong convexity and sufficient statistics. 

Euclidean quantum gravity approaches have a long history but suffer from a number of severe issues.  This gives a strong motivation to develop Lorentzian approaches. Spin foams constitute an important such approach, which incorporate a rigorously derived discrete area spectrum.  I will explain how this discrete area spectrum is connected to the appearance of an anomaly, which explains the significance of the Barbero-Immirzi parameter and forces an extension of the quantum configuration space, to also include torsion degrees of freedom. This can be understood as a defining characteristic of the spin foam approach, and provides a pathway to an (experimental) falsification.

All these features are captured in the recently constructive effective spin foam model, which is much more amenable to numerical calculations than previous models.  I will present numerical results that a) show that spin foams do impose the correct equations of motion b) highlight the influence of the anomaly and c) underline the difference to Euclidean quantum gravity.  I will close with an outlook on the features that can be studied with a truly Lorentzian model, e.g. topology change.

Models for black hole formation from stellar evolution predict the existence of a pair-instability supernova mass gap in the range ~50 to ~120 solar masses. The binary black holes of LIGO-Virgo's first two observing runs supported this prediction, showing evidence for a dearth of component black hole masses above 45 solar masses. Meanwhile, among the 30+ new observations from the third observing run, there are several black holes that appear to sit above the 45 solar mass limit. I will discuss how these unexpectedly massive black holes fit into our understanding of the binary black hole population. The data are consistent with several scenarios, including a mass distribution that evolves with redshift and the possibility that the most massive binary black hole, GW190521, straddles the mass gap, containing an intermediate-mass black hole heavier than 120 solar masses.

In this talk, I will review the recent advances in the understanding of intriguing infinite-dimensional symmetries that emerge at the boundary of asymptotically flat spacetime and in the vicinity of black hole horizons. These symmetries play an important role in the description of many phenomena such as gravitational memory effects and scattering amplitudes, and have paved the way to a holographic description of gravity in asymptotically flat spacetimes in terms of correlators on the celestial sphere.