Talks

Ground-based cosmic microwave background (CMB) experiments are now pushing into discovery space where new insights on inflation, dark matter, dark energy and neutrino physics will be obtained by unraveling signatures buried beneath the primordial fluctuations. I will present new results from the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) that exemplify the power of high-resolution measurements of the microwave sky, including high-fidelity maps of dark matter through gravitational lensing. These maps set the stage for a robust measurement of the neutrino mass scale and hierarchy with upcoming ACT and Simons Observatory data. I will also discuss a new proposal for dramatically improving the sensitivity to primordial non-Gaussianity using measurements of the cosmic velocity field, and sketch a path towards using this technique to detect or rule out multi-field inflation using a combination of upcoming CMB data from the Simons Observatory and optical galaxy data from the Vera Rubin Observatory.

Recently, a new class of kagomé metals, with chemical formula AV3Sb5, where A = K, Rb, or Cs, have emerged as an exciting realization of quasi-2D correlated metals with hexagonal symmetry. These materials have been shown to display several electronic orders setting in through thermodynamic phase transitions: multi-component (“3Q”) hexagonal charge density wave (CDW) order below a Tc≈90K, andsuperconductivity with critical temperature of 2.5K or smaller, and some indications of nematicity and one-dimensional charge order in the normal and superconducting states. Other experiments show a strong anomalous Hall effect, suggesting possible topological physics.  I will discuss a theory of these phenomena based in part on strong interactions between electrons at saddle points, as well as ideas related to different competing density wave orders.

We are experimentally investigating possible departures from the standard quantum mechanics’  predictions at the Gran Sasso underground laboratory in Italy. In particular, with radiation detectors we are searching signals predicted by the collapse models (spontaneous emission of radiation) which were proposed to solve the “measurement problem” in quantum physics and signals coming from a possible violation of the Pauli Exclusion Principle. 

I shall discuss our recent results published in Nature Physics under the title “Underground test of gravity-related wave function collapse”, where we ruled out the natural parameter-free version of the gravity-related collapse model.  I shall then present more generic results on testing CSL (Continuous Spontaneous Localization) collapse models and discuss future perspectives.

Finally, I shall briefly present the VIP experiment with which we look for possible violations of the Pauli Exclusion Principle by searching for “impossible” atomic transitions and comment the impact of this research in relation to Quantum Gravity models.

 

Core-Collapse Supernovae are a fantastic laboratory to study fundamental physics.  The messengers from the core, neutrino and gravitational waves, carry a wealth of information about the dynamics, thermodynamics, underlying physics, and structure of massive stars at the end of their lives.  In this talk, I will discuss some of the ways we can use supernovae to probe this physics.  From quark-hadron phase transitions emitting unique gravitational wave and neutrino signals, to neutrinos telling us precise information about the distance to and progenitor mass (!) of galactic supernovae, even before the optical signal is emitted.  I will also talk about current efforts to model the population of core-collapse supernovae using parameterized 1D models.

 

Quantum computers need to manipulate quantum states, and the only ways we know of doing this are inherently noisy. Thus, if we are ever to be able to do long computations on quantum computers, we need to make them fault tolerant. The way we know how to do this currently is to use quantum error correcting codes. We will introduce error correcting codes and explain how they can be used to provide fault tolerance for quantum computers.
 

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.

It is known that constraints imposed by causality and unitarity of four-particle scattering amplitudes lead to non-trivial requirements on the low energy effective field theory coefficients. We introduce families of linear and nonlinear inequalities resulting from a systematic study of positive geometry structure hidden in those constraints.

I will present a new  mechanism for superconductivity from strong electron-electron repulsion in multi-band systems. When the kinetic energy is small, the dynamics of nearby electrons on the lattice is strongly correlated. I will introduce a controlled expansion in the kinetic term to demonstrate pairing induced by correlated tunneling process involving a third electron in the occupied band. This mechanism can also be viewed as the real space picture of exciton-mediated pairing. Possible realization of this idea leading to strong-coupling, spin-triplet superconductivity in WTe2 and magic-angle graphene will be discussed.

Based on works with Valentine Crepel and Kevin Slagle:
[1] V. Crepel and L. Fu, arXiv:2012.08528
[2] V. Crepel and L. Fu, arXiv:2103.12060
[3] K. Slagle and L. Fu, Phys. Rev. B 102, 235423 (2020)

Experimental metaphysics is the study of how empirical results can reveal indisputable facts about the fundamental nature of the world, independent of any theory. It is a field born from Bell’s 1964 theorem, and the experiments it inspired, proving the world cannot be both local and deterministic. However, there is an implicit assumption in Bell’s theorem, that the observed result of any measurement is absolute (it has some value which is not ‘relative to its observer’). This assumption may be called into question when the observer becomes a quantum system (the “Wigner’s Friend” scenario), which has recently been the subject of renewed interest. Here, building on work by Brukner, we derive a theorem, in experimental metaphysics, for this scenario [1]. It is similar to Bell’s 1964 theorem but dispenses with the assumption of determinism. The remaining assumptions, which we collectively call "local friendliness", yield a strictly larger polytope of bipartite correlations than those in Bell's theorem (local determinism), but quantum mechanics still allows correlations outside the local friendliness polytope.  We illustrate this in an experiment in which the friend system is a single photonic qubit [1]. I argue that a truly convincing experiment could be realised if that system were a sufficiently advanced artificial intelligence software running on a very large quantum computer, so that it could be regarded genuinely as a friend. I will briefly discuss the implications of this far-future scenario for various interpretations and modifications of quantum theory.

[1] Kok-Wei Bong, Aníbal Utreras-Alarcón, Farzad Ghafari, Yeong-Cherng Liang, Nora Tischler, Eric G. Cavalcanti, Geoff J. Pryde and Howard M. Wiseman, “A strong no-go theorem on the Wigner’s friend paradox", Nature Physics (2020).