Talks

I describe an analytic, timescale-based model for the formation of the first stars in the center of collapsing primordial gas clouds. Despite its simplicity, the model reproduces the stellar mass scale and its parameter dependences observed in state-of-the-art cosmological zoom-in simulations, while clarifying the essential underlying physics. The model provides an inexpensive tool for studying the influence of exotic dark matter on early star formation.

Recent work on the formation of the first dark matter halos suggests they may have had systematically different density profiles, with stronger cusps and higher densities than those predicted at low redshift. I will review recent work on the first generation(s) of dark matter halos, and discuss the implications for dark matter annihilation and structure formation in general.

Holographic conformal field theories exhibit dramatic changes in the structure of their operator algebras in the limit where the number of local degrees of freedom (N) becomes infinite. An important example of such phenomena is the violation of the additivity property for algebras associated to local subregions. We investigate the consequences of this "additivity anomaly" in the context of holographic duality. We propose that the difference in volumes of bulk dual subregions can be used as a holographic measure for this additivity anomaly of large N boundary algebras. We demonstrate how the additivity anomaly underlies the success of quantum error correcting code models of holography. Finally, we argue that the connected wedge theorems (CWTs) of May, Penington, Sorce, and Yoshida can be re-phrased in terms of the additivity anomaly, allowing for the definition of a generalized scattering region for which a generalization of the CWTs can be formulated such that both the theorem and its converse should hold.

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Zoom link TBA

The 21-cm signal provides a novel avenue to measure the thermal state of the universe during cosmic dawn and reionization, and thus a probe of exotic energy injection such as those from decaying or annihilating dark matter (DM). These DM processes are inherently inhomogeneous: both decay and annihilation are density dependent, and furthermore the fraction of injected energy that is deposited at each point depends on the gas ionization and density, leading to further inhomogeneities in absorption and propagation. In this talk, I will present a new framework for modeling the impact of spatially inhomogeneous energy injection and deposition, accounting for ionization and baryon density dependence, as well as the attenuation of propagating photons. Our simulation code, DM21cm, is the first complete inhomogeneous treatment of the effects on the 21-cm power spectrum under exotic energy injection. With our pipeline, I will present the sensitivity forecast of the upcoming HERA 21-cm power spectrum measurements to DM decays to photons and electron/positron pairs.

We will present our study of the interaction of dark matter (DM) annihilation with primordial gas during cosmic dawn, emphasizing its impact on the thermal environment of nearby dark matter halos. Utilizing a semi-analytic model, we analyze DM annihilation across redshifts $z=20 to 40$, uncovering its role in altering baryon history and impeding gas collapse and cooling in mini-halos, which affects PopIII star formation. Our study also integrates streaming velocity effects to simulate the 21-cm hydrogen line signal using the 21cmvFAST code. This approach offers a detailed view of astrophysical processes in the early universe. We will present findings demonstrating DM annihilation's significant influence on early star formation and the observable characteristics of the neutral hydrogen line. Our presentation aims to enhance our understanding of baryon physics in the cosmic dawn and provide insights into dark matter models and early galactic and stellar formation.

Causal discovery aims at learning causal relations among variables from data. It is an emerging field at the interface of machine learning and statistics that found ample application in several disciplines. From a physicist's point of view it can be seen as an operational definition of the concept of causal relation between variables, especially in an observational context where experimental manipulation is precluded. Interestingly, causal discovery has not yet been applied to Astronomy, despite it being the observational science par excellence. Here I will present the first application of causal discovery to Astronomy with the goal of addressing a debated issue in galaxy formation: the origin of the observed scaling relations between supermassive black hole (SMBH) and host galaxy properties. I apply three causal discovery algorithms to a state-of-the-art dataset of SMBH host galaxies with dynamical mass measurements, with the goal of learning a causal structure in terms of a directed acyclic graph. The results are consistent between methods and are amenable to physical interpretation, showing that across the multiplicity of possible causal structures, in elliptical galaxies SMBH mass is predominantly an effect of galaxy properties while in spiral galaxies the reverse holds. I offer an explanation of this finding in terms of the physics of galaxy merging, and address the limitations and the theoretical implications of this new method for galaxy formation in some detail.

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Zoom link TBA

Weak measurements can be viewed as a soft projection that interpolates between an identity operator and a projection operator, and can induce an effective central charge distinct from the unmeasured CFT. In the first part, I will discuss the effect of measurement and postselection on the critical ground state of a Luttinger liquid theory. Depending on the Luttinger parameter K, the effect of measurement is irrelevant, marginal, or relevant, respectively. When the measurement is marginal, and we find a critical state whose entanglement entropy exhibits a logarithmic behavior with a continuous effective central charge as a function of measurement strength. Inspired by this result, in the second part, I will discuss a holographic description of the weak measurement. The weak measurement is modeled by an interface brane, separating different geometries dual to the post-measurement state and the unmeasured CFT. In an infinite system, the weak measurement is related to ICFT via a spacetime rotation. We find that the holographic entanglement entropy with twist operators located on the defect is consistent in both calculations for ICFT and weak measurements. In a finite system, the weak measurement can lead to a rich phase diagram, in which the post-measurement geometry can realize a Python’s lunch.

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Zoom link TBA

The first stars are expected to form through molecular-hydrogen (H2) cooling, a channel that is especially sensitive to the thermal and ionization state of gas, and can thus act as a probe of exotic energy injection from decaying or annihilating dark matter (DM). I will discuss using a toy halo model to study the impact of DM-sourced energy injection on the H2 content of the first galaxies, and thus estimate the threshold mass required for a halo to form stars at high redshifts. I will show that currently allowed DM models can significantly change this threshold, producing both positive and negative feedback and estimate how this can impact the timing of 21cm signals at cosmic dawn.

We present a simple dark matter model where resonant annihilation can dissociate molecular hydrogen and induce direct collapse black holes in proto-galaxies. In these models, O(10 MeV) dark matter annihilates into electron-positron pairs which, in turn, inverse Compton scatter CMB light to produce a flux of Lyman-Werner radiation. This mechanism could help explain observed supermassive black holes at high redshift.