Mathematical physics

One of the most deeply rooted concepts in science is causality: the idea that events in the present are caused by events in the past and, in turn, act as causes for what happens in the future. If an event A is a cause of an effect B, then B cannot be a cause of A. Recently we proposed a framework that assumes that operations in local laboratories are described by quantum mechanics, but where no reference is made to any global causal relations between these operations. The central notion of the formalism is “process” which is a generalization of the causal notion of “quantum state”. The framework allows for processes in which two operations are neither causally ordered nor in a probabilistic mixture of definite causal orders, i.e. one cannot say that A is before or after B. However a physical interpretation of such correlations was lacking. I will show that the “superposition of quantum circuits” – in which the gate ordering is not fixed but controlled by a quantum system – is an example of a process with indefinite causal order. This process provides a reduction in query complexity of certain computational problems and can be realized by placing the laboratories in the gravitational field of a massive object in a spatial superposition.

It has become a platitute to say that black holes are fascinating objects—but they really are, in part because they challenge our understanding of the fundamental reversibility of physical processes.

In the first part of the talk, I will review some of the classical ways black holes behave as dissipative systems, such as the "hair loss” phenomenon and the monotonic growth of horizon area. In the second part, I will explain how quantum mechanics (more precisely, the coupling of black holes to the quantum vacuum) affects the classical picture at late times, notably through particle creation and evaporation. I will argue that techniques from two-dimensional field theory can help bring clarity to the associated “information loss”

problem, and perhaps also point to new, unexpected predictions. My approach will be as model-independent as possible; that is, rather than investigating a particular scenario for black hole evaporation, I will aim to derive generic consequences from basic assumptions regarding the reversibility of black hole evaporation.

Rideout and Sorkin proposed a classical dynamics for causal sets based upon a sequential growth model. Comparing it with models for sequential growth in other systems, and with the dual goals of generating manifold-like causal sets and finding a quantum dynamics for them, we propose some modifications to their model. The resulting, admittedly speculative, proposal is a type of quantum random walk. We explore its properties in some simple cases.

After the seminal work of Connes and Tretkoff on the Gauss-Bonnet theorem for the noncommutative 2-torus and its extension by Fathizadeh and myself, there have been significant developments in understanding the local differential geometry of these noncommutative spaces equipped with curved metrics. In this talk, I will review a series of joint works with Farzad Fathizadeh in which we compute the scalar curvature for curved noncommutative tori and prove the analogue of Weyl's law and Connes' trace theorem. Our final formula for the curvature matches precisely with the one computed independently by A. Connes and H. Moscovici. I will then report on our recent work on the computation of scalar curvature for noncommutative 4-tori (which involves intricacies due to violation of the Kähler condition). We show that metrics with constant curvature are extrema of the analogue of the Einstein–Hilbert action. A purely noncommutative feature in these works is the appearance of the modular automorphism from Tomita–Takesaki theory of KMS states in the final formulas for the curvature.

Mathematics has proven to be "unreasonably effective" in understanding nature. The fundamental laws of physics can be captured in beautiful formulae. In this lecture I want to argue for the reverse effect: Nature is an important source of inspiration for mathematics, even of the purest kind. In recent years ideas from quantum field theory, elementary particles physics and string theory have completely transformed mathematics, leading to solutions of deep problems, suggesting new invariants in geometry and topology, and, perhaps most importantly, putting modern mathematical ideas in a `natural’ context.

I will talk about two types of random processes -- the classical Sherrington-Kirkpatrick (SK) model of spin glasses and its diluted version. One of the main motivations in these models is to find a formula for the maximum of the process, or the free energy, in the limit when the size of the system is getting large. The answer depends on understanding the structure of the Gibbs measure in a certain sense, and this structure is expected to be described by the so called Parisi solution in the SK model and Mézard-Parisi solution in the diluted SK model. I will explain what these are and mention some results in this direction.

In this talk I will review the evidence for a mysterious and deep relationship between gravitational dynamics and thermodynamics. I will show how we can extend this connection to non equilibrium thermodynamics. Using the fact that the gravitational equations are fundamentally holographic, we express them in a way that shows a deep connection between gravity and the dynamics of viscous bubbles. We will explore some aspects of this surprising correspondence.

A fascinating aspect of the two dimensional world is the possible existence of anyons, particles which obey 'fractional' statistics different from fermionic and bosonic statistics. In this colloquium, following an introduction to fractional particles in the context of quantum Hall systems, some of the tantalizing experiments for detecting the fractional charge of these particles will be described. Probes of fractional statistics in these systems will be discussed, drawing from analogies with the bosonic behavior of light studied by Hanbury Brown and Twiss in the 1950's as well as in the more recent beam-splitter settings in quantum optics. Finally, the exciting prospect of detecting fractional statistics in the context of superconductors will be explored.

Superfluidity and superconductivity are two remarkable phenomena in which, at low temperatures, materials abruptly gain the ability to flow without friction. Microscopic quantum theories of these phases of matter were constructed in blockbuster papers of Lev Landau (1940) and John Bardeen, Leon Cooper, and J. Robert Schrieffer (1957). The actual explanation of the flow, however, is rooted in a Einstein paper of 1924 that introduces a condensate, a quantum configuration describing a finite fraction of the particles in the system. Superfluidity can then be understood in terms of the wave function for this configuration, which necessarily extends over a finite fraction of the system. Neither blockbuster paper mentions Einstein or the crucial idea of a condensate wave function. The reasons for this omission are mooted.

The last few years have seen a spate of operational or information-theoretic
derivations (or \reconstructions") of  nite-dimensional quantum mechanics [1].  These rest of some strong assumptions. In particular, most assume the state of a composite system is entirely determined by the joint probabilities it assigns to the outcomes of measurements on the component systems. This condition, often called local tomography, is satis ed by neither real nor quaternionic quantum theory. If we are interested in the possibilities for theories more general than orthodox quantum mechanics, we might wish to relax this constraint.
In this talk I will discuss a weaker system of assumptions, involving correla-
tions between a probabilistic system and an isomorphic conjugate system, that leads to a representation of such systems in terms of euclidean Jordan algebras [2]. These have a well-known classi cation as direct sums of real, complex or quaternionic quantum systems, possibly the exceptional Jordan algebra, and spin factors. The last are a form of \bit", characterized by a family of two-valued observables, parametrized by antipodal vectors in a sphere of arbitrary dimension. Orthodox quantum mechanics can be singled out by imposing local tomography, plus the existence of a qubit as additional axioms [3]. However, there is a natural way to form non-signaling, but generally non-locally tomo-graphic, composites of systems based on special euclidean Jordan algebras (that is, excluding the exceptional one). This yields a probabilistic theory strictly, but not wildly, more general than orthodox  nite-dimensional QM; one that elegantly uni es real, complex and quaternionic quantum theory, has a simple operational basis, and allows for a spectrum of bits more general than permitted in orthodox quantum theory. Parts of this talk reflect ongoing joint work with Howard Barnum, Matthew Graydon and Cozmin Ududec.
References:
[1] G. Chiribella, M. D'Ariano and P. Perinotti, Phys. Rev. A 84, (2011), 012311-
012350; B. Dakic and  C. Brukner, in H. Halvorson (ed.), Deep Beauty, Cambridge,
2011; P. Goyal, Phys. Rev. A 78 (2008), 052120-052146; L. Hardy, arXiv:quant-
ph/0101012 (2001); L. Masanes and M. Mueller, New J. Phys. 13 (2011) ; J. Rau,
Annals of Physics 324 (2009) 2622{2637;
[2] A. Wilce, Conjugates, correlation and quantum mechanics, arXiv:1206.2897 (2012)
[3] H. Barnum and A. Wilce, Local tomography and the Jordan structure of quantum
theory, arXiv:1202.4513, (2012)