January 19, 2021 Tuesday 2:00 PM
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Zhenbin Yang
NYU Physics Research Seminar
Replica Wormholes and The Black Hole Interior
A central dogma in the current theoretical study of black hole is that it can be viewed as an ordinary quantum system with large degrees of freedom. In the talk I will argue that replica wormhole gives strong evidences to the central dogma including deriving the Page curve of the Hawking radiations, and an explicit construction of a complete basis of the black hole interior states. We will also comment on its relation with violation of global symmetry in quantum gravity.
Based on arXiv:1911.11977, 2011.09444
January 20, 2021 Wednesday 2:00 PM
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Petr Kravchuk
NYU Physics Research Seminar
Conformal Bootstrap and Light-ray Operators
Conformal field theories play an important role in many areas of theoretical physics, ranging from critical phenomena to quantum gravity.
A CFT can be defined by a spectrum of local operators and by their 3-point couplings. I will discuss to what extent this spectrum can be organized into analytic Regge trajectories, with non-local light-ray operators sitting between the usual local operators.
I will then explain how these light-ray operators control various interesting real-time observables, including asymptotic event shapes such as energy-energy correlators. Finally, I will discuss a number of related open problems, and how some of them can be addressed using recent developments in numerical conformal bootstrap.
January 25, 2021 Monday 2:00 PM
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Shota Komatsu
NYU Physics Research Seminar
Tailor-made Solution to Gauge Theory
Gauge theory is one of the most basic frameworks in modern physics and describes most notably Quantum Chromodynamics, namely the physics of quarks and gluons. Despite its importance, understanding the dynamics of gauge theories is notoriously difficult since it is strongly interacting at low energy. In the 70's, 't Hooft pointed out that, in the limit where the number of colors is infinite, there is an alternative and possibly simpler description of gauge theories which is based on two-dimensional surfaces. Although this led to various interesting discoveries in the past 40 years, the dynamics on the two-dimensional surfaces turned out to be difficult to analyze and remained as an important open problem. In my talk, I will describe the recent progress in solving a certain gauge theory in 3+1 dimensions based on my own research. The key idea is to describe a two-dimensional surface by decomposing it into basic building blocks, which geometrically correspond to hexagonal patches. I will also describe surprising connections to statistical mechanics which allowed us to determine these building blocks.
January 27, 2021 Wednesday 2:00 PM
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https://nyu.zoom.us/s/91857577418
Soft Condensed Matter Seminars
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csmr)
Emanuela Del Gado
Georgetown University
The physics of cement cohesion
Cement is the main binding agent in concrete, literally gluing together rocks and sand into the most-used synthetic material on Earth. However, cement production is responsible for significant amounts of man- made greenhouse gases—in fact if the cement industry were a country, it would be the third largest emitter in the world. Alternatives to the current, environmentally harmful cement production process are not available essentially because the gaps in fundamental understanding hamper the development of smarter and more sustainable solutions. The ultimate challenge is to link the chemical composition of cement grains to the nanoscale physics of the cohesive forces that emerge when mixing cement with water. Cement nanoscale cohesion originates from the electrostatics of ions accumulated in a water-based solution between like-charged surfaces but it is not captured by existing theories because of the nature of the ions involved and the high surface charges. Surprisingly enough, this is also the case for unexplained cohesion in a range of colloidal and biological matter. About one century after the early studies of cement hydration, we have quantitatively solved this notoriously hard problem and discovered how cement cohesion develops during hydration. I will discuss how 3D numerical simulations that feature a simple but molecular description of ions and water, together with an analytical theory that goes beyond the traditional continuum approximations, helped us demonstrate that the optimized interlocking of ion-water structures determine the net cohesive forces and their evolution. These findings open the path to scientifically grounded strategies of material design for cements and have implications for a much wider range of materials and systems where ionic water-based solutions feature both strong Coulombic and confinement effects, ranging from biological membranes to soils. Construction materials are central to our society and to our life as humans on this planet, but usually far removed from fundamental science. We can now start to understand how cement physical-chemistry determines performance, durability and sustainability.
January 29, 2021 Friday 11:00 AM
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Zoom
Physics Colloquia
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colloquia)
William D. Oliver
MIT
Quantum Engineering of Superconducting Qubits
Superconducting qubits are coherent artificial atoms assembled from electrical circuit elements and microwave optical components. Their lithographic scalability, compatibility with microwave control, and operability at nanosecond time scales all converge to make the superconducting qubit a highly attractive candidate for the constituent logical elements of a quantum information processor. Over the past decade, spectacular improvements in the manufacturing and control of these devices have moved the superconducting qubit modality from the realm of scientific curiosity to the threshold of technical reality. In this talk, we present the progress, challenges, and opportunities ahead in the engineering larger scale processors.
February 1, 2021 Monday 5:00 PM
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Yifan Wang
NYU Physics Research Seminar:
The Marvelous Defects and Anomalies in Quantum Field Theories
Defects appear ubiquitously in quantum systems as boundaries and impurities. They participate inextricably in the quantum dynamics and give rise to novel phase transitions and critical phenomena. Quantum field theory provides the natural framework to tackle these problems, where defects define extended operators over sub-manifolds of the spacetime and enrich the usual operator algebra. The full algebra of defects and local operators contains robust physical observables encoded by anomalies. In this talk, I will describe the intricate interplay between defects and anomalies. On the one hand, I will introduce new anomalies that arise in the presence of defect insertions and demonstrate how to determine them in strongly coupled systems. On the other hand, I will discuss how traditional anomalies obstruct the existence of symmetric boundary conditions. Towards the end, I will comment on the physical implications and future extensions.
February 3, 2021 Wednesday 10:00 AM
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https://nyu.zoom.us/s/91857577418
Soft Condensed Matter Seminars
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csmr)
Roberto Di Leonardo
Università di Roma
TBA
February 4, 2021 Thursday 4:00 PM
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Zoom
Physics Colloquia
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colloquia)
Feryal Ozel
ASU
TBA
February 10, 2021 Wednesday 10:00 AM
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https://nyu.zoom.us/s/91857577418
Soft Condensed Matter Seminars
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csmr)
Andela Saric
University College London
TBA
February 11, 2021 Thursday 4:00 PM
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Zoom
Physics Colloquia
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colloquia)
Marcelle Soares-Santos
Michigan
TBA
February 17, 2021 Wednesday 10:00 AM
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https://nyu.zoom.us/s/91857577418
Soft Condensed Matter Seminars
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csmr)
Marco Polin
University of Warwick
TBA
February 19, 2021 Friday 11:00 AM
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Physics Colloquia
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colloquia)
Hiranya Peiris
London
TBA
February 25, 2021 Thursday 4:00 PM
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Physics Colloquia
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colloquia)
Peter Graham
Stanford
TBA
March 3, 2021 Wednesday 2:00 PM
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https://nyu.zoom.us/s/91857577418
Soft Condensed Matter Seminars
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csmr)
Karen Daniels
NC State University
TBA
March 4, 2021 Thursday 4:00 PM
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Zoom
Physics Colloquia
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colloquia)
Leonardo Rastelli
SUNY SB
TBA
March 10, 2021 Wednesday 2:00 PM
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https://nyu.zoom.us/s/91857577418
Soft Condensed Matter Seminars
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csmr)
Heinrich M. Jaeger
University of Chicago
TBA
March 11, 2021 Thursday 4:00 PM
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Zoom
Physics Colloquia
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colloquia)
Andrew Wray
New York University
TBA
March 24, 2021 Wednesday 10:00 AM
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https://nyu.zoom.us/s/91857577418
Soft Condensed Matter Seminars
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csmr)
Hartmut Löwen
Universität Düsseldorf
TBA
March 25, 2021 Thursday 4:00 PM
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Physics Colloquia
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colloquia)
Aizenberg Joanna
Harvard
TBA
April 1, 2021 Thursday 4:00 PM
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Physics Colloquia
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colloquia)
Vijay Balasubramanian
University of Pennsylvania
TBA
April 8, 2021 Thursday 12:16 PM
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Physics Colloquia
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colloquia)
Tanniemola Liverpool
Bristol
TBA
April 15, 2021 Thursday 4:00 PM
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Physics Colloquia
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colloquia)
Chetan Nayak
Microsoft
TBA
April 22, 2021 Thursday 4:00 PM
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Physics Colloquia
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colloquia)
Eva Andrei
Rutgers
TBA
April 29, 2021 Thursday 4:00 PM
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Physics Colloquia
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colloquia)
David Weitz
Harvard
TBA
May 6, 2021 Thursday 4:00 PM
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Physics Colloquia
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colloquia)
Cumrun Vafa
Harvard
TBA
May 13, 2021 Thursday 4:00 PM
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Physics Colloquia
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colloquia)
Vashti Sawtelle
Michigan State
TBA
