Quantum mechanics as an operationally time symmetric probabilistic theory
Ognyan Oreshkov Université Libre de Bruxelles
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On Scale and Conformal Invariance in Four Dimensions
Anatoly Dymarsky Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology
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A universal Hamiltonian simulator: the full characterization
Gemma De Las Cuevas Universität Innsbruck
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Dynamical Emergence of Universal Horizons during the formation of Black Holes
Mehdi Saravani Goldman Sachs (United States)
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Fractional statistics in two-dimensions: Anyon there?
Smitha Vishveshwara University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
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Z2 spin liquid in kagome Heisenberg antiferromagnet
Yuan Wan Chinese Academy of Sciences
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Quantum mechanics as an operationally time symmetric probabilistic theory
Ognyan Oreshkov Université Libre de Bruxelles
The standard formulation of quantum mechanics is operationally asymmetric with respect to time reversal---in the language of compositions of tests, tests in the past can influence the outcomes of test in the future but not the other way around. The question of whether this represents a fundamental asymmetry or it is an artifact of the formulation is not a new one, but even though various arguments in favor of an inherent symmetry have been made, no complete time-symmetric formulation expressed in rigorous operational terms has been proposed. Here, we discuss such a possible formulation based on a generalization of the usual notion of test. We propose to regard as a test any set of events between an input and an output system which can be obtained by an autonomously defined laboratory procedure. This includes standard tests, as well as proper subsets of the complete set of outcomes of standard tests, whose realization may require post-selection in addition to pre-selection. In this approach, tests are not expected to be operations that are up to the choices of agents---the theory simply says what circuits of tests may occur and what the probabilities for their outcomes would be, given that they occur. By virtue of the definition of test, the probabilities for the outcomes of past tests can depend on tests that take place in the future. Such theories have been previously called non-causal, but here we revisit that notion of causality. Using the Choi-Jamiolkowski isomorphism, every test in that formulation, commonly regarded as inducing transformations from an input to an output system, becomes equivalent to a passive detection measurement applied jointly on two input systems---one from the past and one from the future. This is closely related to the two-state vector formalism, but it comes with a conceptual revision: every measurement is a joint measurement on two separate systems and not on one system described by states in the usual Hilbert space and its dual. We thus obtain a static picture of quantum mechanics in space-time or more general structures, in which every experiment is a local measurement on a global quantum state that generalizes the recently proposed quantum process matrix. The existence of two types of systems in the proposed formalism allows us to define causation in terms of correlations without invoking the idea of intervention, offering a possible answer to the problem of the meaning of causation. The framework is naturally compatible with closed time-like curves and other exotic causal structures. -
On Scale and Conformal Invariance in Four Dimensions
Anatoly Dymarsky Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology
I will be discussing relation between scale and conformal symmetry in unitary Lorentz invariant QFTs in four dimensions. -
Baryogenesis from WIMPs
We propose a robust, unified framework, in which the similar baryon and dark matter cosmic abundances both arise from the physics of weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs), with the rough quantitative success of the so-called “WIMP miracle”. In particular the baryon asymmetry arises from the decay of a meta-stable WIMP after its thermal freezeout at or below the weak scale. A minimal model and its embedding in R-parity violating (RPV) natural SUSY are studied as examples. The new mechanism saves RPV SUSY from the potential crisis of washing out primordial baryon asymmetry. We also consider the embedding of this idea in RPV split SUSY, where the mechanism works within the minimal model, and independently motivates the mini-split scale. Phenomenological implications for the LHC and precision tests are discussed. -
Is there evidence for additional neutrino species from cosmology?
It has been suggested that recent cosmological and flavor-oscillation data favor the existence of additional neutrino species beyond the three standard flavors. We apply Bayesian model selection to determine whether there is any evidence from current cosmological datasets for the standard cosmological model to be extended to include additional neutrino flavors. The datasets employed include cosmic microwave background temperature, polarization and lensing data, and measurements of the baryon acoustic oscillation scale and the Hubble constant. We also consider other additional neutrino physics, such as massive neutrinos, and possible degeneracies with other cosmological parameters. -
A universal Hamiltonian simulator: the full characterization
Gemma De Las Cuevas Universität Innsbruck
We show that if the ground state energy problem of a classical spin model is NP-hard, then there exists a choice parameters of the model such that its low energy spectrum coincides with the spectrum of \emph{any} other model, and, furthermore, the corresponding eigenstates match on a subset of its spins. This implies that all spin physics, for example all possible universality classes, arise in a single model. The latter property was recently introduced and called ``Hamiltonian completeness'', and it was shown that several different models had this property. We thus show that Hamiltonian completeness is essentially equivalent to the more familiar complexity-theoretic notion of NP-completeness. Additionally, we also show that Hamiltonian completeness implies that the partition functions are the same. These results allow us to prove that the 2D Ising model with fields is Hamiltonian complete, which is substantially simpler than the previous examples of complete Hamiltonians. Joint work with Toby Cubitt. -
New Constraints on the Amplitude of Cosmic Density Fluctuations and Intracluster Gas from the Thermal SZ Signal Measured by Planck and ACT
Galaxy clusters form from the rarest peaks in the initial matter distribution, and hence are a sensitive probe of the amplitude of density fluctuations (sigma_8), the amount of matter in the universe, and the growth rate of structure. Galaxy clusters have the potential to constrain dark energy and neutrino masses. However, cluster cosmology is currently limited by systematic uncertainties due to poorly understood intracluster gas physics. I will present new statistical approaches to understand clusters and improve their cosmological constraining power through the thermal Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (tSZ) effect. First, I will describe a forthcoming first detection of the cross-correlation of the tSZ signal reconstructed from Planck data with the large-scale matter distribution traced by the Planck CMB lensing potential. This statistic measures the amount of hot gas found in moderately massive groups and clusters (M ~ 10^13-10^14.5 M_sun), a mass scale below that probed by direct cluster detections. Second, I will describe the first measurement of the PDF of the tSZ field using ACT 148 GHz maps. This measurement contains information from all (zero-lag) moments of the tSZ field, beyond simply the 2- or 3-point functions. It is a very sensitive probe of sigma_8 and may also provide a method with which to break the degeneracy between sigma_8 and uncertainties in the physics of the intracluster gas. -
Matter matters in asymptotically safe quantum gravity
The Functional Renormalisation Group technique has received great attention in recent times proving itself as a powerful tool to describe the high energy behaviour of gravitational interactions.
Its key ingredient is a nontrivial fixed point of the theory renormalization group flow which controls the behavior of the coupling constants in the ultraviolet regime and ensures that physical quantities are safe from divergences. I will briefly review the main ingredients of the gravitational asymptotic safety framework before focusing on the effect of massless minimally coupled scalars, fermions and vector fields on the gravitational fixed point. I will then set bounds on the type and number of such fields requiring the existence of a UV attractive fixed point. I will also discuss the dynamically generated quantum-gravity scale in asymptotic safety, which is the transition scale to the fixed-point regime, and its variation as a function of matter degrees of freedom. To conclude I will also consider the case of higher dimensional models. -
Dynamical Emergence of Universal Horizons during the formation of Black Holes
Mehdi Saravani Goldman Sachs (United States)
In many theories with fundamental preferred frame, such as Einstein-Aether or Gravitational Aether theories, K-essence, Cuscuton theory, Shape Dynamics, or (non-projectable) Horava-Lifshitz gravity, the low energy theory contains a fluid with superluminal or incompressible excitations. In this talk, I study the formation of black holes in the presence of such a fluid. In particular, I focus on the incompressible limit of the fluid (or Constant Mean Curvature foliation) in the space-time of a spherically collapsing shell within an asymptotically cosmological space-time. In this case, I show that an observer inside 3/4 of the Schwarzschild radius cannot send a signal outside, after a stage in collapse, even using signals that propagate infinitely fast in the preferred frame. This confirms the dynamical emergence of universal horizons that have been previously found in static solutions [arXiv:1110.2195, arXiv:1104.2889, arXiv:1212.1334]. -
Fractional statistics in two-dimensions: Anyon there?
Smitha Vishveshwara University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
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. -
A note on emergent classical behavior and approximations to decoherence functionals
Henrique Gomes University of Oxford
Although it can only be argued to have become consequential in the study of quantum cosmology, the question ``Why do we observe a classical world? " has been one of the biggest preoccupations of quantum foundations. In the consistent histories formalism, the question is shifted to an analysis of the telltale sign of quantum mechanics: superposition of states. In the consistent histories formalism, histories of the system which ``decohere", i.e. fall out of superposition or have negligible interference can be subjected to a notion of classical probability. In this paper we use an extension of Kirchoff's diffraction formula for wave functions on configuration spaces to give a different analysis and an approximation of decoherence. The Kirchoff diffraction formula lies conveniently at the midway between path integrals, wave equations, and classical behavior. By using it, we formulate an approximate dampening of the amplitude of superposition of histories. The dampening acts on each middle element of the fine-grained history {c_\alpha}, and is a function of the angle formed between {c_{n-1},c_n} and {c_n,c_{n+1}}, as classical trajectories in configuration space. As an example we apply the formalism to a modified gravity theory in the ADM gravitational conformal superspace. -
Z2 spin liquid in kagome Heisenberg antiferromagnet
Yuan Wan Chinese Academy of Sciences
A quantum spin liquid is a hypothesized ground state of a magnet without long-range magnetic order. Similar to a liquid, which is spatially uniform and strongly correlated, a quantum spin liquid preserves all the symmetries and exhibits strong correlations between spins. First proposed by P. W. Anderson in 1973, it has remained a conjecture until recently. In the past couple of years, numerical studies have provided strong evidences for quantum spin liquid in a simple model, the kagome Heisenberg antiferromagnet. In this talk, I will describe a low-energy effective theory for this magnet in terms of a lattice gauge theory with the simplest possible mathematical structure (a group of two elements, namely Z2). I will show that the theory reproduces many characteristic features observed numerically, thereby providing a bridge between the numeircs and the analytics. Furthermore, I will present theoretical predictions which could be tested in future numerical studies. -
From the symmetric group to giant gravitons in super Yang-Mills theory
In this talk we will discuss how giant gravitons and their open string interactions emerge from super Yang-Mills Theory. This is accomplished by diagonalizing the one loop dilatation operator on a class of operators with bare dimension of order N. From the result of this diagonalization, the Gauss Law governing the allowed open string excitations of giant gravitons is clearly visible. In addition, we show that this sector of the theory is integrable.