Scientific Series

Motivated by the observation that 2 + 2 = 4, we consider 4d N=2 SCFTs on S^2 x Sigma. On the one hand, reduction of a 4d theory T on a Riemann surface Sigma leads to a family F[T;Sigma] of 2d (2,2) unitary SCFTs, a 2d analog of the 4d theories of class S. On the other hand, reduction on S^2 yields a…

Galaxy clusters assemble hierarchically, and their present-day dynamical state encodes information about cluster formation timescales and mass distribution. The diffuse intracluster light (ICL), a fossil record of tidal stripping and accretion, offers a complementary probe that is sensitive to a…

Neural quantum states (NQS) provide flexible and compact wavefunction parameterizations for numerical studies of quantum many-body physics. In particular, NQS aim to circumvent the exponential scaling of the Hilbert space by compressing quantum many-body wavefunctions with a tractable amount of…

Causal interventions have emerged as an effective tool for certifying nonclassicality, offering improved detection efficiency and robustness to noise compared to purely observational approaches. However, standard node interventions (Pearl interventions) become uninformative in space-like separated…

The search for algebraic foundations of colour-kinematics duality and the double-copy construction has brought into focus a generalization of Batalin--Vilkovisky algebras, referred to here as coexact BV-algebras and as $\textrm{BV}^\square$-algebras in other sources. While these structures capture…

Irrational CFTs in 1+1d with a discrete spectrum and no conserved currents other than the stress-tensor are expected to be generic, unsolvable by standard methods, and hard to construct explicitly. In this talk, I will discuss a lattice model that realizes a candidate for such a CFT as a conformal…

We showcase cosmology's ability to constrain long-range forces between dark matter particles. Specifically, we consider a fermionic dark matter interacting via a Yukawa-coupled light scalar, focusing on regimes where the dark forces are stronger than gravitational and yet unconstrained. We show that…

We study thermodynamics of spherically-symmetric spacetime with the aim of exploring spacetime entropy as an adiabatic invariant. We first describe the geometry and dynamics in terms of a local frame adapted to spherical foliations and find a geometro-hydrodynamic interpretation: the spacetime can…

In general relativity, sufficiently small bodies are idealized as test particles moving along geodesics of the background spacetime. This picture becomes inadequate, however, once the object’s own gravitational field is taken into account. The self-force program resolves this by showing that compact…

The Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) is the largest galaxy redshift survey to date, aiming to catalog ~63 million galaxies over 17000 deg^2 of the sky by the end of 8 years of observation. The DR1 analyses were completed in 2024 with exciting new constraints on cosmological parameters…

The connected wedge theorem states that in order to have a scattering process in the bulk, it is necessary to have O(1/G_N) mutual information between certain “decision” regions in the boundary theory. While this large mutual information is not generally sufficient to imply scattering, previous…