Talks

The long awaited discovery of the double radio pulsar system, PSR J0737-3039A/B, surpassed most expectations, both theoretical and observational, as a tool to probe general relativity, stellar evolution and pulsar theories. The Double Pulsar provides a unique and the most complete and clean test of theories of gravity in a regime sensitive to possible strong-gravitational self-field effects. All six post-Keplerian parameters have been measured (including the measurement of the relativistic spin precession), some parameters to a precision of 10^{-4}.

The resonant tunneling phenomenon is well understood in quantum mechanics. I argue why a similar phenomenon must be present in quantum field theory. Using the functional Schr\"odinger method I show how resonant tunneling through multiple barriers takes place in quantum field theory with a single scalar field. I also show how this phenomenon in scalar quantum field theory can lead to an exponential enhancement of the single-barrier tunneling rate. My analysis is carried out in the thin-wall approximation. I discuss a possible explanation of the fast nucleation of the B phase of superfluid Helium-3 as an application.

While understanding the evolution of galaxies is one of the major themes of contemporary astronomy, most empirical studies focus only on the evolution of distribution functions (e.g., the luminosity function), effectively treating galaxies in isolation. The new generation of large imaging and spectroscopic surveys make it possible to measure the clustering of galaxies with different physical properties as a function of redshift, providing complementary information to traditional distribution function studies. This approach is especially powerful, because most theoretical models of galaxy evolution are based on the underlying distribution of dark matter halos and they make strong predictions for clustering evolution. To link galaxies to dark matter halos from the observed galaxy clustering, I will introduce the halo occupation distribution (HOD), which characterizes the relation between galaxies and dark matter halos by the probability distribution that a halo of virial mass M contains N galaxies of a given type, together with the spatial and velocity distributions of galaxies within halos. I will present HOD modeling results for galaxy clustering measured in several surveys, including the SDSS (z~0), the DEEP2 (z~1), and the NOAO Deep Wide-Field Surveys (0<z<1). I will demonstrate that, by linking galaxies to dark matter halos, HOD modeling of galaxy clustering opens a new direction in studying galaxy evolution (and cosmology).

Quantum Mechanics has been shown to provide a rigorous foundation for Statistical Mechanics. Concentration of measure, or typicality, is the main tool to construct a purely quantum derivation for the methods of Statistical Mechanics. From this point of view statistical ensembles are effective description for isolated quantum systems, since typically a random pure state of the system will have properties similar to those of the ensemble. Nevertheless, it is often argued that most of the states of the Hilbert space are not relevant for realistic systems. This talk will address this issue, presenting recent results on the emergence of typicality in the context of matrix product states, a set of physically and computationally relevant states associated to many-body Hamiltonians.

Cosmic strings, generic in brane inflationary models, may be detected by the current generation of gravitational wave detectors. An important source of gravitational wave emission is from isolated events on the string called cusps and kinks. I first review cosmic strings, discussing their effective action and motion, and showing how cusps and kinks arise dynamically. I then show how allowing for the motion of the strings in extra dimensions gives a potentially significant reduction in signal strength, and comment on current LIGO bounds.