Quantum Fields and Strings

This talk will be about entanglement entropy in empty 4-dimensional de Sitter spacetime of a non-conformal QFT [1]. I will first briefly describe the set-up and show how a hydrodynamic plasma dilutes and falls out of equilibrium due to expansion towards empty de Sitter spacetime. Interestingly, in the empty setting we can show that extremal surfaces in the holographic dual of spherical entangling regions on the boundary QFT probe beyond the dual event horizon if and only if the entangling region is larger than the cosmological horizon.

[1] Jorge Casalderrey-Solana, Christian Ecker, David Mateos and WS, Strong-coupling dynamics and entanglement in de Sitter space, 2011.08194

 

I will take a look at the SO(10) grand unified theories from the perspective of the typical phenomenology constraints imposed on their structure. The current status of the minimal potentially realistic models will be briefly commented upon.

I will give an introduction to the geometric aspects of Lie algebroids and show how they give the correct framework to discuss gauge theories. The analysis is solely based on geometry, and thus applies to every gauge theory, independently of their specific features and dynamics. By thoroughly re-formulating the physical content of gauge theories on Atiyah Lie algebroids, we will show that the BRST construction is part of the formalism, indicating a fascinating interplay between classical geometry and quantum physics. Time permitting, we will show how our setup encompasses gravitational theories too, once the frame bundle and solder form are added to the picture.

The fermionic fields of one generation of the Standard Model, including the Lorentz spinor degrees of freedom, can be identified with components of a single real 64-dimensional semi-spinor representation S of the group Spin(11,3). I will describe an octonionic model for Spin(11,3) in which the semi-spinor representation gets identified with S=OxO', where O,O' are the usual and split octonions respectively. It is then well-known that choosing a unit imaginary octonion u in Im(O) equips O with a complex structure J. Similarly, choosing a unit imaginary split octonion u' in Im(O') equips O' with a complex structure J', except that there are now two inequivalent complex structures, one parametrised by a choice of a timelike and the other of a spacelike unit u'. In either case, the identification S=OxO' implies that there are two natural commuting complex structures J, J' on S. Our main new observation is that there is a choice of J,J' so that the subgroup of Spin(11,3) that commutes with both is the direct product SU(3)xU(1)xSU(2)_LxSU(2)_R x Spin(1,3) of the group of the left/right symmetric extension of the SM and Lorentz group. The splitting of S into eigenspaces of J corresponds to splitting into particles and anti-particles. The splitting of S into eigenspaces of J' corresponds to splitting of Lorentz Dirac spinors into two different chiralities.

We show that bulk operators lying between the outermost extremal surface and the asymptotic boundary admit a simple boundary reconstruction in the classical limit. This is the converse of the Python's lunch conjecture, which proposes that operators with support between the minimal and outermost (quantum) extremal surfaces - e.g. the interior Hawking partners - are highly complex. Our procedure for reconstructing this "simple wedge" is based on the HKLL construction, but uses causal bulk propagation of perturbed boundary conditions on Lorentzian timefolds to expand the causal wedge as far as the outermost extremal surface. As a corollary, we establish the Simple Entropy proposal for the holographic dual of the area of a marginally trapped surface as well as a similar holographic dual for the outermost extremal surface. We find that the simple wedge is dual to a particular coarse-grained CFT state, obtained via averaging over all possible Python's lunches. An efficient quantum circuit converts this coarse-grained state into a "simple state" that is indistinguishable in finite time from a state with a local modular Hamiltonian. Under certain circumstances, the simple state modular Hamiltonian generates an exactly local flow; we interpret this result as a holographic dual of black hole uniqueness.

Dubois-Violette and Todorov have shown that the Standard Model gauge group can be constructed using the exceptional Jordan algebra, consisting of 3×3 self-adjoint matrices of octonions. After an introduction to the physics of Jordan algebras, we ponder the meaning of their construction. For example, it implies that the Standard Model gauge group consists of the symmetries of an octonionic qutrit that restrict to symmetries of an octonionic qubit and preserve all the structure arising from a choice of unit imaginary octonion. It also sheds light on why the Standard Model gauge group acts on 10d Euclidean space, or Minkowski spacetime, while preserving a 4+6 splitting.

The quantum gravity path integral involves a sum over topologies. Superficially, this feature is similar to Feynman diagrams of quantum field theory and the genus expansion of worldsheet string theory. There are however some key differences. While the standard construction leads to the non-abelian algebra of quantum fields, the quantum gravity path integral has been argued to define an abelian algebra associated with partition function type observables. We will discuss these issues and argue that one needs to make certain discrete choices to construct a Hilbert space from path integrals that sum over topologies. In particular, the natural choices for quantum gravity differ from those used to construct QFTs as we shall illustrate in the context of one-dimensional models.

 

40 years trying to go beyond the Standard Model hasn't yet led to any clear success. As an alternative, we could try to understand why the Standard Model is the way it is. In this talk we review some lessons from grand unified theories and also from recent work using the octonions. The gauge group of the Standard Model and its representation on one generation of fermions arises naturally from a process that involves splitting 10d Euclidean space into 4+6 dimensions, but also from a process that involves splitting 10d Minkowski spacetime into 4d Minkowski space and 6 spacelike dimensions. We explain both these approaches, and how to reconcile them.

We have already met the octonionic Fierz identity satisfied by spinors in 10-dimensional spacetime. This identity makes super-Yang-Mills "super" and allows the Green-Schwarz string to be kappa symmetric. But it is also the defining equation of a "higher" algebraic structure: an L-infinity algebra extending the supersymmetry algebra. We introduce this L-infinity algebra in octonionic language, and describe its cousins in various dimensions. We then survey various consequences of its existence, such as the brane bouquet of Fiorenza-Sati-Schreiber.

The last decade has seen significant progress in our understanding of scattering in anti-de Sitter (AdS) space. Through the AdS/CFT correspondence, we can reformulate scattering processes in AdS in terms of correlation functions in Conformal Field Theory (CFT), which are sharply defined by the requirements of Conformal Symmetry, Unitarity and a consistent Operator Product expansion. Accordingly, numerous highly effective techniques for the study of scattering in AdS have been developed. This has been driven largely by the Conformal Bootstrap programme, which aims to carve out the space of consistent CFTs (and, in turn, quantum gravities in AdS space) principally through the three basic consistency requirements above. In this talk I will describe some steps towards extending some of these techniques and results to boundary correlators in de Sitter (dS) space. Compared to AdS, we have little grasp of the properties required of consistent correlation functions in Euclidean CFTs dual to physics in dS. The boundaries at infinity in dS are space-like with no standard notion of locality and time, so the basic criteria that underpin the Conformal Bootstrap programme do not directly apply to the corresponding programme in dS, the so-called Cosmological bootstrap. I will show how boundary correlators in AdS and dS can be placed on a similar footing by introducing a Mellin-Barnes representation in momentum space, providing a framework that could facilitate bridging the gap between the Conformal and Cosmological bootstrap programmes. I will then discuss how the Mellin-Barnes representation itself can be a useful tool to study boundary correlators both in AdS and dS.

 

We explore the Z2 graded product C`10 = C`4⊗ˆC`6 (introduced by Furey) as a finite quantum algebra of the Standard Model of particle physics. The gamma matrices generating C`10 are expressed in terms of left multiplication by the imaginary octonion units and the Pauli matrices. The subgroup of Spin(10) that fixes an imaginary unit (and thus allows to write O = C⊗C 3 expressing the quark-lepton splitting) is the Pati-Salam group GP S = Spin(4) × Spin(6)/Z2 ⊂ Spin(10). If we identify the preserved imaginary unit with the C`6 pseudoscalar ω6 = γ1...γ6, ω2 6 = −1 (cf. the talk of Furey and Hughes), then Pex = 1 2 (1 − iω6) will play the role of the projector on the extended particle subspace including the right-handed (sterile) neutrino. We express the generators of C`4 and C`6 in terms of fermionic oscillators aα, a∗ α, α = 1, 2 and bj , b∗ j , j = 1, 2, 3 describing flavour and colour, respectively. The internal space observable algebra (an analog of the algebra of real functions on space-time) is then defined as the Jordan subalgebra of hermitian elements of the complexified Clifford algebra C ⊗ C`10 that commute with the weak hypercharge 1 2 Y = 1 3 P3 j=1 b ∗ j bj − 1 2 P2 α=1 a ∗ αaα. We only distinguish particles from antiparticles if they have different eigenvalues of Y . Thus the sterile neutrino and antineutrino (with Y = 0) are allowed to mix into Majorana neutrinos. Restricting C`10 to the particle subspace which consists of leptons with Y < 0 and quarks with Y > 0 allows a natural definition of the Higgs field Φ, the scalar of Quillen’s superconnection, as an element of C`1 4, the odd part of the first factor in C`10. As an application we express the ratio mH mW of the Higgs and the W-boson masses in terms of the cosine of the theoretical Weinberg angle. The talk is based on the paper arXiv:2010.15621v3 a copy of which including minor corrections is attached.

Can the 32C-dimensional algebra R(x)C(x)H(x)O offer anything new for particle physics? Indeed it can. Here we identify a sequence of complex structures within R(x)C(x)H(x)O which sets in motion a cascade of breaking symmetries: Spin(10) -> Pati-Salam -> Left-Right symmetric -> Standard model + B-L (both pre- and post-Higgs-mechanism). These complex structures derive from the octonions, then from the quaternions, then from the complex numbers. Finally, we describe a left-right symmetric Higgs system which exhibits, we believe for the first time, an explicit demonstration of quaternionic triality.