Physics

Physics Group Meeting

June 05, 2019 | 1:45pm - 3:00pm
We consider supersymmetric $AdS_3\times Y_7$ solutions of type IIB supergravity dual to N=(0,2) SCFTs in d=2, as well as $AdS_2\times Y_9$ solutions of D=11 supergravity dual to N=2 supersymmetric quantum mechanics, some of which arise as the near...

Physics Group Meeting

May 15, 2019 | 1:45pm - 3:00pm
Our Universe is filled with Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) radiation having an almost perfect black body spectrum with a temperature of To=2.7K. The number density of photons in our Universe exceeds the number density of electrons by a factor of...

High Energy Theory Seminar

May 06, 2019 | 2:30pm - 3:30pm
Critical points of classical second-order phase transitions are thermodynamic phenomena of particular interest, driven by thermal fluctuations and characterized by emergent scale invariance and universal power-law correlations. At zero temperature...

High Energy Theory Seminar

April 29, 2019 | 2:30pm - 4:00pm
We present recent advances in constructions of globally consistent
F-theory compactifications with the exact chiral spectrum of the minimal
supersymmetric Standard Model. We highlight the first such example and
then turn to a subsequent systematic...

High Energy Theory Seminar

April 26, 2019 | 1:45pm - 3:00pm
Anomalies are invariants under renormalization group flow which lead to powerful constraints on the phases of quantum field theories. I will explain how these ideas can be generalized to families of theories labelled by coupling constants like the...

Physics Group Meeting

April 24, 2019 | 1:45pm - 3:00pm
The LIGO/VIRGO collaboration has just started their observing run 3. I will first give an introduction to gravitational wave searches and the events that have been found so far and describe some of the interesting astrophysics problems that might be...

High Energy Theory Seminar

April 22, 2019 | 2:30pm - 3:30pm
I will discuss new universal bounds on the spectra of two-dimensional unitary, compact conformal field theories coming from the modular bootstrap. In the presence of a twist gap amongst the Virasoro primary operators (where twist is defined as the...

High Energy Theory Seminar

April 19, 2019 | 1:45pm - 3:00pm
My talk will aim to be a friendly introduction for condensed matter friends, mathematicians, and QFT theorists alike --- I shall quickly review and warm up the use of higher symmetries and anomalies of gauge theories and condensed matter systems...

High Energy Theory Seminar

April 15, 2019 | 2:30pm - 4:00pm
In many-body chaotic systems, the size of an operator generically grows in Heisenberg evolution, and is measured by out-of-time-ordered four-point functions. However, these only provide a coarse probe of the full underlying operator growth structure...

High Energy Theory Seminar

April 08, 2019 | 2:30pm - 3:30pm
I will start by reviewing the three inequivalent topological twists of N = 4 SYM on arbitrary four-manifolds and briefly discuss the resulting topological QFTs. I will emphasise the role played by global anomalies of N = 4 in our story and the...