Talks

We discuss information loss from black hole physics in AdS3, focusing on two sharp signatures infecting CFT2 correlators at large central charge c: `forbidden singularities' arising from Euclidean-time periodicity due to the effective Hawking temperature, and late-time exponential decay in the Lorentzian region. We show that these signatures can be derived from the behavior of the Virasoro conformal blocks at large central charge.  At finite c, we compute non-perturbative effects that resolve the unitarity-violation from forbidden singularities.  Finally, we elaborate on the non-perturbative behavior of Virasoro blocks by classifying all `saddles’ that can contribute for arbitrary values of external and internal operator dimensions in the semiclassical large central charge limit, and discuss their potential to resolve the problem of late-time decay in the Lorentzian regime.  

In this talk, I will present a framework in which Weinberg's anthropic explanation of the cosmological constant problem also solves the hierarchy problem. The weak scale is selected by chiral dynamics that controls the stabilization of an extra dimension. When the Higgs vacuum expectation value is close to a fermion mass scale, the radius of an extra dimension becomes large, and develops an enhanced number of vacua available to scan the cosmological constant down to its observed value. The fermion sector that controls the size of the extra dimension consists of a pair of electroweak doublets and several singlets. These leptons satisfy approximate mass relations related to the weak scale and are accessible to the LHC and future colliders. At low energies, the radion necessarily appears as an unnaturally light scalar, in a range of masses and couplings accessible to fifth-force searches as well as scalar dark matter searches with atomic clocks and gravitational-wave detectors.

Despite tremendous recent progress, gaps remain in our knowledge of our cosmic history. For example, we have yet to make observations of Cosmic Dawn or the subsequent Epoch of Reionization. Together, these represent the important period when the first stars and galaxies were formed, dramatically altering their surroundings in the process. Radio telescopes targeting the 21cm line will open up these crucial epochs to direct observations in the next few years, filling in a missing chapter in our cosmic story. I will review our recent results from the Precision Array to Probe the Epoch of Reionization (PAPER) experiment. These results have begun to shed light on heating processes during reionization. I will also motivate unconventional ideas in experiment design that have been proposed and implemented to deal with the unique technical challenges of 21cm cosmology. Cognizant of "lessons learned" from the current generation of instruments, I will describe our recently commenced Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array (HERA), including its forecasted promise to provide exquisite constraints on reionization astrophysics as well as on fundamental parameters such as the neutrino mass.

Constraint free initial data can be given for vacuum general relativity on a pair of intersecting null hypersurfaces. Moreover, the Poisson algebra of a set of such free null initial data has been found,but it has an unfamiliar structure, making its quantization difficult. We note that this algebra is essentially a sum of an infinite number of copies of the Poisson algebras of cylindrically symmetric gravity. Using the fact that cylindrically symmetric gravity is integrable we find new free data with an algebra more amenable to quantization.

I will report on progress understanding the 576-fold periodicity in TMF in terms of conformal field theoretic constructions.  Sporadic finite groups and their cohomology will play a role.