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I will describe progress in deriving 3d gravity directly from 2d conformal field theory at large central charge 'c'. In a large class of CFTs, using general arguments like modular invariance, crossing symmetry, and the OPE expansion, the spectrum, the entanglement entropy, and certain partition functions can be computed to leading order in a 1/c expansion. The results agree with universal features of 3d gravity required by black hole thermodynamics and the Ryu-Takayanagi formula; furthermore, the relevant 3d geometries appear automatically from CFT calculations in this regime.

NIF is the world's most energetic laser system capable of producing over 1.8 MJ and 500 TW of ultraviolet light, about 100 times more than any other operating laser of its kind. This talk describes the unprecedented experimental capabilities of NIF, its role in fundamental science, the pathway to achieving fusion ignition and energy security missions, and the status of progress in these areas.

The National Ignition Facility (NIF), at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, California, is the world’s most energetic laser system. NIF is capable of producing over 1.8 MJ and 500 TW of ultraviolet light, 100 times more than any other operating laser. By concentrating intense laser energy into targets only millimeters in length, NIF can, for the first time, produce conditions emulating those found in planetary interiors and stellar environments and creating fusion energy to power our future. The extreme conditions of energy density, pressure, and temperature will enable scientists to pursue fundamental science experiments designed to address a range of scientific questions, from observing new states of matter to exploring the origin of ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays. This talk will describe the unprecedented experimental capabilities of the NIF, its role in strategic security and fundamental science, and the pathway to achieving fusion ignition to create a clean and secure energy future.

The equation of state of matter at and above nuclear densities remains a major theoretically uncertain prediction of QCD. Observations of the mass-radius relationship of neutron stars constrain, and can directly measure, the dense matter equation of state. I will discuss how measurements of neutron star radii have already constrained the dEOS, and how future work will directly measure the dEOS, providing an important constraint on models of the strong force.