Scientific Series

Despite years of research into dark matter, little has been done to explore models which are heavier than most WIMPs and lighter than most primordial black hole models, "blobs".  This parameter space is particularly difficult to probe, due to low number densities and low masses.  This talk will present a new model-independent mechanism that can be used to probe this difficult to reach region of dark matter parameter space.  Blobs form binaries which spin down and merge at high rates in the present and recent past.  The abundance of mergers can produce observable gravitational wave and electromagnetic signals.  I describe some of these unique signals and show how they already constrain parts of blob parameter space.

Zoom Link: https://pitp.zoom.us/j/98024869740?pwd=eDlPSTB3UzhIcEVYVGNQakRHVUtFQT09

We investigate interactions between branes of various dimensions, both charged and uncharged, in some non-supersymmetric string models. These include the USp(32) and U(32) orientifolds of the type IIB and type 0B strings, as well as the SO(16) x SO(16) projection of the exceptional heterotic string. The resulting ten-dimensional spectra are free of tachyons and the combinations of branes that they contain give rise to rich and varied dynamics. We focus on potentials that describe their mutual interactions, both in the probe regime and in the string-amplitude regime, finding qualitative agreement despite the absence of supersymmetry and confirming the Weak Gravity Conjecture for charged branes.

Spectroscopic surveys are a powerful cosmological probe, encoding information about structure formation and the geometry of the universe in the 3D distribution of galaxies. Upcoming surveys like DESI, which will increase the number of measured galaxy redshifts by an order of magnitude, will test our ability to use this information while providing opportunities to test fundamental physics in unprecedented ways. In this talk I will discuss our recent work on a new method to combine the two main prongs of these surveys--redshift-space distortions and BAO--within the framework of Lagrangian perturbation theory. As an illustrative example, I will discuss the application of this method to data from the BOSS survey, obtaining cosmological constraints that are competitive but consistent with primary CMB and lensing measurements. I will also discuss future prospects for perturbation theory analyses of large-scale structure, for example by jointly analyzing spectroscopic and lensing surveys.

Traditionally, magnetism in solids deals with ordering patterns of the electron magnetic dipole moment, as probed, for instance, via neutron diffraction. However, f-electron heavy fermion systems are well-known candidates for more complex forms of symmetry breaking, involving higher-order magnetic or electric multipoles. In this talk, I will discuss our recent theoretical proposal for Ising octupolar order in d-orbital systems, which appears to explain a wide range of experiments in certain 5d transition metal oxides with spin-orbit coupling. The proposed Ising ferro-octupolar order is shown to be linked to a type of orbital loop-current order. Deviations from cubic symmetry, via strain or surfaces, induces a transverse field on the octupolar order which can lead to surface quantum phase transitions, or transitions in thin films or in strained 3D crystals. We propose further experimental tests of our proposal.
 

We introduce a flexible and graphically intuitive framework that constructs complex quantum error correction codes from simple codes or states, generalizing code concatenation. More specifically, we represent the complex code constructions as tensor networks built from the tensors of simple codes or states in a modular fashion. Using a set of local moves known as operator pushing, one can derive properties of the more complex codes, such as transversal non-Clifford gates, by tracing the flow of operators in the network. The framework endows a network geometry to any code it builds and is valid for constructing stabilizer codes as well as non-stabilizer codes over qubits and qudits. For a contractible tensor network, the sequence of contractions also constructs a decoding/encoding circuit. To highlight the framework's range of capabilities and to provide a tutorial, we lay out some examples where we glue together simple stabilizer codes to construct non-trivial codes. These examples include the toric code and its variants, a holographic code with transversal non-Clifford operators, a 3d stabilizer code, and other stabilizer codes with interesting properties. Surprisingly, we find that the surface code is equivalent to the 2d Bacon-Shor code after "dualizing" its tensor network encoding map.
 

Tensor network algorithms are numerical tools widely used in physical research. But traditionally they are only applied to lattice systems with specific structure. In this talk, tensor network algorithms to deal with physical systems with arbitrary topology will be discussed. Theoretical framework will firstly be constructed to analyze the difficulty of contracting an arbitrary tensor network. Then both approximate and exact contraction approaches will be involved according to computational tasks of interest. Finally two applications, one in graphical models and the other in quantum circuit simulations, will be introduced to demonstrate the performance and potential of arbitrary tensor network algorithms.

While complex numbers are essential in mathematics, they are not needed to describe physical experiments, expressed in terms of probabilities, hence real numbers. Physics however aims to explain, rather than describe, experiments through theories. While most theories of physics are based on real numbers, quantum theory was the first to be formulated in terms of operators acting on complex Hilbert spaces. This has puzzled countless physicists, including the fathers of the theory, for whom a real version of quantum theory, in terms of real operators, seemed much more natural. Are complex numbers really needed in the quantum formalism? Here, we show this to be case by proving that real and complex quantum theory, understood in terms of operators in Hilbert spaces and tensor products to represent independent systems, make different predictions in network scenarios comprising independent states and measurements.  This allows us to devise a Bell-like experiment whose successful realization would disprove real quantum theory, in the same way as standard Bell experiments disproved local physics.

Type IIB string theory has a duality symmetry given by the pin+ cover of GL(2, Z). In joint work with Markus Dierigl, Jonathan J. Heckman, and Miguel Montero, we show that this symmetry is anomalous, and describe how to cancel the anomaly, up to a few calculations we were unable to determine, by adding a Chern-Simons term. I will talk about the setup of the problem in terms of computing the partition function of an invertible topological field theory; a sketch of how the computation goes in terms of bordism and the Adams spectral sequence; and how we cancel the anomaly.

Quantum groups are the proper tool to describe quantum gravity in three dimensions. Several arguments suggest that 2-groups should be used to formulate four dimensional quantum gravity. I will review these motivations and will discuss in particular how 2-groups can be used to extend the definition of a phase space associated to a triangulation or to modify the notion of group field theory to generate topological models. I will also highlight how the kappa Poincaré deformation arises in the 2-group context.

Mergers of compact objects are among the most violent events in the Universe. At close separations, compact binaries emit gravitational waves, releasing enormous amounts of energy until they merge. When matter is present in the system, the event might be accompanied by electromagnetic emission, which can span the entire electromagnetic spectrum. Multi-messenger observations by gravitational-wave detectors and electromagnetic telescopes have opened a new avenue to understand the nature of spacetime and its interaction with matter. In this talk, I will discuss recent efforts to connect first-principle calculations with the electromagnetic radiation emitted in compact binary mergers through general-relativistic magnetohydrodynamic simulations. In particular, I will focus on the relativistic outflows produced in binary neutron star systems and on electromagnetic signatures of supermassive binary black-hole mergers.

I will discuss ongoing work on the robustness of symmetry protected topological (SPT) phases in open systems. By studying the evolution of non-local string order parameters, we find that one-dimensional SPT order is destabilized by couplings to the environment satisfying a weak symmetry condition that directly generalizes from closed systems. We introduce a stronger symmetry condition on channels that ensures SPT order is preserved. SPT phases of mixed states and their transformation under noisy channels is also discussed.

This talk concerns the "Markov gap," a tripartite-entanglement measure with a simple geometric dual in holographic quantum gravity. I will prove a new inequality constraining the Markov gap of classical states in quantum gravity, and interpret this inequality as a lesson about multipartite entanglement in holography. I will also speculate about signatures of the inequality in non-holographic field theories, and conjecture a new universal entanglement feature of two-dimensional CFTs.

Zoom Link: https://pitp.zoom.us/j/98327637522?pwd=TUJOQ0d1aU5Gc0RLTlJLd3B3Ty9LUT09