Physics

Physics Group Meeting

January 23, 2013 | 1:30pm - 3:00pm
We consider several aspects of unitary higher-dimensional conformal field theories (CFTs). We first study massive deformations that trigger a flow to a gapped phase. Deep inelastic scattering in the gapped phase leads to a convexity property of...

High Energy Theory Seminar

January 11, 2013 | 1:30pm - 3:00pm
I'll explain a new way of looking at 4d supergravity --- as a theory of holomorphic maps into Penrose's twistor space. Allowing twistor space to have N fermionic directions, the theory is anomaly free when N=8. Via the Penrose transform, the vertex...

High Energy Theory Seminar

December 17, 2012 | 2:30pm - 4:00pm
I will discuss an old argument suggesting that thermodynamics of vacuum fluctuations implies that spacetime causal structure is dynamical and governed by Einstein's equation. Various probes of the consistency of this reasoning and implications for...

High Energy Theory Seminar

December 10, 2012 | 2:30pm - 4:00pm
I argue that the following three widely believed statements cannot all be true: (i) Hawking radiation is in a pure state, (ii) the information carried by the radiation is emitted from the region near the horizon, with low energy effective field...