Physics

Abstract: Inflation may have occurred at energies up to 10^16 GeV, far beyond any terrestrial collider. The "cosmological collider" program aims to extract the mass spectrum and spin content of particles present during inflation from non-Gaussian...

Abstract: We consider the algebra associated to a (neighborhood of a) cross-section of null infinity in semiclassical quantum gravity in asymptotically flat spacetimes. I will show that this algebra is equivalent to the algebra of observables in a...

Abstract: Quantum self-dual gravity is a one-loop-exact, UV and IR finite, diffeomorphism invariant, non-unitary theory of quantum gravity in 4-dimensions. In lightcone gauge, the theory can be formulated in terms of a simple ghost-free cubic action...

Abstract - The presence of light axions in the infrared is a generic feature of many ultraviolet (UV) scenarios, including string theory, with the number of such axions N naturally O(10-100). Even when these axions interact very weakly with the...

Abstract: We propose a Hamiltonian framework for constructing chiral gauge theories on the lattice based on symmetry disentanglers: constant-depth circuits of local unitaries that transform not-on-site symmetries into on-site ones. When chiral...

Abstract: When is an abstract function of Riemannian manifolds the partition function of an honest quantum field theory? I will sketch a proof that any reflection positive partition function uniquely defines a QFT, whose spaces of states are...

Abstract: When a compact object collapses to form a black hole, quantum field theory predicts the emission of an energy outflux to future null infinity, which later relaxes to Hawking radiation. Within the semiclassical framework, we derive a simple...

Abstract: The extreme-density environments inside neutron stars provide a unique natural testbed for probing nuclear physics. In the first part of this talk, I will explain how gamma-ray burst observations can be used to extract information about...