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Winter 2012

 Date Speaker  Title Abstract
 Jan 6 Tom Schwarz
(Fermilab) 
 Searching for Low Mass Dark Matter  
 Jan 13 Ben Grinstein
(UCSD) 
 Scale without Conformal Invariance in relativistic Quantum Field Theory

 

In 2-dim it is known that a unitary, well defined quantum field theory, if scale  invariant must also be invariant under conformal transformations. Whether this is  also true in dimensions higher than two has been an open question for decades.  We have discovered renomalization group flows in 4-epsilon dimensions  corresponding to scale but not conformal invariant theories. The flows  correspond to limit cycles or ergodic behavior, neither of which had been  reported in relativistic quantum field theories either. There seems to be a deep  connection between scale but not conformal invariance and this type of  renormalization group behavior. We will present these results and list some of  open questions, including the possibility of such behavior in integral dimensions.

 

 Jan 20 Sumit Das
(Kentucky) 
 Holographic Quantum Quench The holographic correspondence between non-gravitational field theories and gravitational theories in one higher dimension can be used to study non-equilibrium behavior of strongly coupled quantum field theories. One such phenomenon is that of quantum quench, where a coupling of the field theory is time dependent and typically asymptotes to constants at early and late times. In the gravity dual this can describe, under suitable circumstances, either black hole formation, or passage through a spacelike region of high curvature similar to a cosmological singularity. In particular in recent work holography has been used to study situations where quantum quench happens across a critical point, and has revealed interesting scaling properties.
 Jan 27 Brian Wecht
(Harvard) 
 New SCFTs from F-Theory  
 Feb 3 Can Kilic     
 Feb 10 Natalia Toro     
 Feb 17 Rob Myers     
 Feb 24 Derek Teany     
 March 2 No Seminar- Winter Recess    
 March 9 Diana Vaman     
 March 16 Mark Van Raamsdonk
(UBC) 
   
 March 23 Liantao Wang
(Chicago) 
   
 March 30 Michele Papucci
(Berkeley) 
   
 April 6      
 April 16 Claudia de Rham     
 April 20 Jorge Russo
(Barcelona and Perimeter)