Colloquia Archive 2025

Light scalar particles are thought to play a role in cosmology, either as dark matter or dark energy candidates. If they couple to photons they could be emitted by stars, including our sun. I will first Introduce particular theoretical models of such light scalar fields and then discuss whether or ...

A significant fraction of scattering events at colliders are diffractive, with large angular gaps devoid of particles. Unlike the primary hard scattering processes studied at hadron colliders, so far a first principle theoretical description of these diffractive events has been lacking. These diffractive processes are believed to be important for ...

This colloquium examines three examples of emergent patterns in physics. First, we investigate the statistical regularities found in the distribution of mathematical operators within the equations of physics, which point towards an underlying structure governing physical laws. Next, we explore how advanced computational techniques, such as neural networks and genetic ...

Precision physics has played a crucial role in the history of particle physics, often providing indirect evidence for particles that have been later on discovered. Current experiments at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) are stress testing the Standard Model and probing new physics with great precision through a multitude of ...

On the basis of general relativity and quantum mechanics in curved spacetimes, Bekenstein and Hawking proposed that black holes behave as thermodynamic objects carrying an entropy S = A / 4 G, where A is the area of the event horizon and G is Newton's constant. This remarkable formula is universal ...

Insights from JWST observations are shedding new light on the chronology and nature of AGN in the context of early galaxy evolution. I argue that AGN feedback evolved from a short-lived, high redshift phase when relatively dense momentum-conserving central outflows in dusty ultracompact galaxy hosts stimulated vigorous early star formation ...

The contrast between the simplicity of the QCD Lagrangian, and its emergent subtle non-perturbative dynamics, is illustrated for the cross-section for a simple process, the scattering of a polarized virtual photon off a polarized proton. This process is sensitive to the net helicity of quarks in the proton and, as ...