Condensed Matter Theory Seminar | June 25, 10:00

Geometry and Holography

Claire Zukovski

Abstract: A major goal for theoretical physics is the unification of gravity with quantum mechanics. An important tool for tackling this question is holography, or the duality between a theory of gravity and a conformal field theory in one lower dimension. In this talk I will address the question of how to reconstruct the geometry of a gravitational spacetime with field theoretic tools, relying on observables such as Wilson lines that are amenable to quantization. I will invoke a varied toolkit drawing on techniques from many areas of physics and mathematics, from quantum information to symplectic geometry. Importantly, my focus will be on de Sitter spacetime, which closely resembles our actual universe, and whose quantization could give insight into non-perturbative phenomena in cosmology.


Amsterdam
Zoom
Contact: Alexander Altland