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Events Archive 2023

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Combinatorial quantization of (Super) Chern-Simons gravity—Juan Carlos MORALES PARRA

In the Chern-Simons formulation of (Super)gravity in 3 dimensions, the phase space corresponds to the moduli space of (Super)flat G-connections, where G is (Super)Lie group which depends on the signature of space-time and the cosmological constant. In the talk we will see how the canonical Poisson structure ...
Higgs Centre Seminar Room, JCMB

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Fox and Hedgehog Seminar Series - 'Borel resummation in supersymmetric QFT'—Lotte HOLLANDS

QFT is a beautiful yet mysterious framework, in which it is unfortunately rather hard to obtain exact results. In talks by Anton and Matthew we have seen some of the exciting new tools to make new numerical predictions in strongly-interacting regimes. In particular, Anton introduced resummation techniques for divergent perturbation ...
Higgs Centre Seminar Room, JCMB

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Inaugural Elizabeth Gardner Lecture - Emergent collective behaviour and complexity—Giorgio PARISI

Giorgio Parisi (Nobel Prize in Physics 2021) will give the Inaugural Elizabeth Gardner Lecture and will describe one of the underlying mechanisms in the complex cooperative behaviour observed in many natural systems, such as neural networks, biological evolution, glassy materials and protein folding. "I will discuss the general problem of ...
Higgs Centre Seminar Room, JCMB

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Non-relativistic strings from WZW theories—Girish VISHWA

String theory, in its most elementary formulation, is a set of maps from a worldsheet to some target space. In the quest for a theory of quantum gravity, our models almost always have Lorentzian target spaces (or backgrounds). However, what happens if we consider non-Lorentzian target spaces? In particular, what ...
Higgs Centre Seminar Room, JCMB

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Fox and Hedgehog Seminar Series - 'Quantum groups and cohomological Hall algebras'—Ben DAVISON

Quantum groups are deformations of universal enveloping algebras of Lie algebras. But where do these deformations come from? I'll discuss a compelling addition to the possible ways to answer this question, coming from adding equivariant parameters to cohomological Hall algebras. I won't assume that you know what these ...
Higgs Centre Seminar Room, JCMB

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An introduction to Seiberg-Witten theory—Subrabalan MURUGESAN

In their seminal work, Seiberg-Witten showed that the low energy coupling matrix of 4d N=2 supersymmetric theories can be identified with the period matrix of a holomorphic family of Riemann surfaces (most of these words will be defined in the talk). This lead to a series of developments in ...
Higgs Centre Seminar Room, JCMB

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Electromagnetic weight loss of dark matter stars in numerical relativity—Liina CHUNG-JUKKO

The origin of dark matter (DM), the most common type of matter in our universe, is still one of the critical questions of modern cosmology. Understanding the astrophysical structures that DM forms is hence key to testing theories. In my talk, I will explore one type of spherical DM distribution ...
Higgs Centre Seminar Room, JCMB

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Electromagnetic weight loss of dark matter stars in numerical relativity—Liina CHUNG-JUKKO

The origin of dark matter (DM), the most common type of matter in our universe, is still one of the critical questions of modern cosmology. Understanding the astrophysical structures that DM forms is hence key to testing theories. In my talk, I will explore one type of spherical DM distribution ...
Higgs Centre Seminar Room, JCMB

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Fox and Hedgehog Seminar Series - 'Understanding scattering using periodic boundary conditions'—Maxwell HANSEN

Scattering amplitudes are an important observable in quantum field theory. However, in certain quantum field theories (such as quantum chromodynamics or QCD) it can be very challenging to reliably predict scattering amplitudes of low-energy bound states. In this talk, I will explain how progress has been made by deriving mathematical ...
Higgs Centre Seminar Room, JCMB

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Higgs Festival

The Higgs Centre is celebrating 10 years since Peter Higgs was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics (in 2013), alongside François Englert, for the theory of how particles acquire mass. Peter Higgs is an Edinburgh local and conducted his research at the University of Edinburgh. From 14:00, continuing the ...
Alder Lecture Theatre, The Nucleus

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Fox and Hedgehog Seminar Series - Where do low-energy states live in QFT?—Matthew WALTERS

Quantum field theory (QFT) forms the backbone of our conceptual understanding of most physical systems, yet our ability to use this framework to make quantitative predictions is largely limited to systems which are weakly-interacting or have large amounts of symmetry, leaving a significant gap in our understanding of the physical ...
Room 5323, JCMB

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Don’t be scared of ghosts—Sam BATEMAN

Theories with higher derivatives result in quantum theories with negative norm states, called ghosts. Physically, ghosts imply negative probabilities which has led many to disregard higher derivative theories as unphysical. However, theories with ghosts are regularly used in physics under the name of gauge theories. In this talk we will ...
Higgs Centre Seminar Room, JCMB

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Semiclassical Methods for Nonlinear Field Theories—Michael UDEMBA

Many modifications to the standard models of particle physics and cosmology lead to new forces. The effects of these so-called “fifth-forces” can be long range if the exchange particles that mediate them are light. Naturally, any viable fifth-force theory must account for its non-observation. One class of theories achieves this ...
Higgs Centre Seminar Room, JCMB

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Towards Point-Free Spacetimes—Nesta VAN DER SCHAAF

In this work-in-progress talk we highlight some recent developments in our study of spacetimes through the lens of point-free topology. The first half of the talk will gently introduce the notion of an "ordered locale," a type of point-free space equipped with a causal ordering. Throughout, we draw intuition from ...
Higgs Centre Seminar Room, JCMB

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The Fox and the Hedgehog Series - “The breakdown of perturbation theory: physics in strong fields”—Anton ILDERTON

Perturbation theory (expanding interesting quantities in a power series of some small parameter) is a physicist’s go-to tool for solving pretty much anything. It’s enormously useful. Mathematically, there is a huge body of literature on the summation, convergence, and resummation of possibly divergent series. In this talk I ...
Higgs Centre Seminar Room, JCMB

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Witten's proof of the positive energy theorem—Virinchi RALLABHANDI

Unlike Newtonian gravity, where systems can have arbitrarily negative energies due the gravitational potential's negativity, a remarkable property of general relativity is the positivity of the total energy. Over time, this fact has been proven via a number of methods, with varying generality. The simplest strategy by far was ...
Higgs Centre Seminar Room, JCMB

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Supersymmetry and Spencer cohomology—Andrew BECKETT

Bosonic backgrounds in supergravity theories are classical solutions in which all fermionic fields vanish. Such a solution is said to be supersymmetric if it is preserved by a supersymmetry transformation of the theory. Apart from their intrinsic interest as the simplest solutions in supergravity theories, supersymmetric backgrounds arise in a ...
Higgs Centre Seminar Room, JCMB

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Classification of Aristotelian Lie algebras and Spacetimes—Jarah FLUXMAN

Homogeneous spaces provide a formalism for understanding symmetries and dynamics. Arguably the simplest dynamical homogeneous spaces are those of the Aristotelean type. We show there are precisely five Aristotelean Lie algebras up to isomorphism and investigate the spaces generated by quotienting these algebras by a rotational subalgebra.
Higgs Centre Seminar Room, JCMB

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Carer/Parent/Physicist—Yanchuan CAIMiriam CLINCYJudy HARDYLotte HOLLANDSAnna TOTH

Join us for a Summer discussion devoted to the recognition and celebration of the careers and experiences of physicists with caring responsibilities. After the panel, there will be an opportunity for informal discussions with a buffet lunch*. Our panellists are Dr Yanchuan Cai, Reader and Royal Society University Research Fellow ...
Higgs Centre Seminar Room, JCMB

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The How and Why of the Dynamical Renormalization Group illustrated via the KPZ equation -Part 2—John TONER

The Renormalization Group (RG) is not only one of the most powerful tools of Theoretical Condensed Matter Physics, but it arguably provides the answer to Einstein's famous puzzle: "The eternal mystery of the world is its comprehensibility ... The fact that it is comprehensible is a miracle." . In this series ...
Higgs Centre Seminar Room, JCMB

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To reset, or not to reset!—Somrita RAY

Stochastic resetting [1] can either accelerate or delay a dynamical process that takes a random time to complete (i.e., a first-passage process). Tuning the physical governing parameters can invert such effect of resetting on the mean completion time of the process, leading to a resetting transition. In this talk ...
Higgs Centre Seminar Room, JCMB

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The How and Why of the Dynamical Renormalization Group illustrated via the KPZ equation - Part 1—John TONER

The Renormalization Group (RG) is not only one of the most powerful tools of Theoretical Condensed Matter Physics, but it arguably provides the answer to Einstein's famous puzzle: "The eternal mystery of the world is its comprehensibility ... The fact that it is comprehensible is a miracle." . In this series ...
Higgs Centre Seminar Room, JCMB

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The classical equations of motion of quantised gauge theories—Tom MELIA

The Einstein and Maxwell equations are the jewels in the crown of classical physics. But classical physics is only an approximation to nature, arising as a limit of the underlying quantum mechanical description. And in the case of both general relativity and electromagnetism, owing to their gauge theory nature, the ...
Higgs Centre Seminar Room, JCMB

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Diffusion boundary layer theory—Freya BULL

When we consider the flow of fluid over a surface, our boundary condition at the surface (no slip - surface velocity is zero) results in the formation of a thin layer of fluid in which the velocity increases rapidly from zero at the surface to a value comparable to the bulk ...
Higgs Centre Seminar Room, JCMB

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Lessons from the Black Hole Information Problem—Benjamin STRITTMATTER

Hawking's information puzzle offers a unique perspective on how the effects of quantum gravity are imprinted on the low energy limit of the theory. Crucially, unitarity of black hole evaporation demands that the entropy of Hawking radiation follows a Page curve. In this talk, I aim to give a ...
Bayes Centre 5.45

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Life in a tight spot: How bacteria spread through complex environments—Sujit DATTA

Abstract: Bacterial spreading through motility and growth plays a central role in agriculture, biotechnology, the environment, and medicine. These processes are typically studied in the lab in liquid cultures or on flat surfaces; however, many bacterial habitats—e.g., soils, sediments, and biological gels/tissues—are more complex and crowded ...
Higgs Centre Seminar Room, JCMB

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From Landau-Ginzburg to Matrix factorisations and TQFT—Benjamin HAAKE

Landau-Ginzburg models have been used in various areas of mathematical physics. For example, there is a close link between them and sigma models with Calabi-Yau targets, thus making them interesting for String theory. Without going into details on these motivations, I will present Landau-Ginzburg models as an interesting example of ...
Bayes Centre 5.45

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Semi-Infinite Cohomology and Potential Applications to Non-Lorentzian Physics—Girish VISHWA

Semi-infinite cohomology, first introduced by Boris Feigin in 1984, was shown to be an invaluable tool in the computation of string theory spectra, since it provides the mathematical setting for BRST cohomology. In this talk, I will provide an elementary introduction to the semi-infinite cohomology of graded Lie algebras, with ...
Higgs Centre Seminar Room, JCMB

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3d gravity as a source of integrable systems and hierarchies—Juan Carlos MORALES PARRA

In 1988 Witten showed the theory of (pure) General Relativity in 3 dimensions is exactly solvable, using an “equivalent” Chern-Simons formulation. In this talk we will describe the theory using the Newman- Penrose formalism and explicitly show how the equations of motion reduce to an AKNS system, proving in this ...
Bayes Centre 5.45

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Algebraic structures in higher-spin gravity—Simon PEKAR

UNUSUAL LOCATION (due to clash with MSc presentations): JCMB 1501 Higher-spin gravity refers to an extension of general relativity involving fields with spin higher than two. The problem of finding a consistent interacting theory of higher-spin gravity can be reformulated into algebraic terms, whose solution is surprisingly simple and rigid ...

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Compositeness and QFT - or are chairs made of atoms?—Toby PETERKEN

In this talk, I explore the concept of compositeness in relation to QFT and argue that there is no satisfactory, exact definition of compositeness. Therefore, we are forced to conclude that all bound states, from pions to people, have the same fundamentality and that the sentence "chairs are made of ...
Higgs Centre Seminar Room, JCMB

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An Introduction to QCD Sum Rules—Matthew ROWE

QCD sum rules provide an elegant way of accessing non- perturbative physics using the tools of perturbation theory. In this talk I will attempt a relatively self-contained introduction to QCD sum rules using the classic example of pseudoscalar correlators to calculate meson decay constants. I will then discuss some practical ...
Bayes Centre 5.45

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A look at some "Axioms for the category of Hilbert spaces (and linear contractions)"—Nesta VAN DER SCHAAF

We'll have a look at a new result that characterises Hilbert spaces (and linear contractions) in terms of categorical axioms that do not refer to probabilities, complex numbers, inner products, continuity, convexity, or dimension. To avoid going into too many technical details, I will try to motivate the axioms ...
Higgs Centre Seminar Room, JCMB

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Chasing Motes: A Physicist's introduction to Hopf Algebras—Sam TEALE

Hopf Algebras are examples of bialgebras, being both an algebra and coalgebra and are additionally equipped with an endomorphism known as an antipode which is analogous to the map of groups that takes elements to their inverse. These structures have been studied since 1941 first in the field of algebraic ...
Bayes Centre 5.45

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The Bethe ansatz in practice: an application to a minimal model in nonequilibrium statistical physics—Ivan LOBASKIN

Integrable systems are, loosely speaking, models that can be solved exactly using certain standard methods. For quantum and stochastic 1D lattice models, this method is the Bethe ansatz. Despite this, in physics, integrability techniques have a reputation of being excessively formal and opaque. Indeed, even when a formal exact solution ...
Higgs Centre Seminar Room, JCMB

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Pedagogical Introduction to Higher Principal Bundles—Dominik RIST

From the Standard Model of particle physics to condensed matter systems, gauge theories form a powerful framework to understand Nature. Mathematically, gauge fields correspond to connections on principal bundles, which are described by Lie algebra valued 1-forms. String theory considerations motivate the lift of this picture to a categorified setting ...
Bayes Centre 5.45

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A new theory of the universe—Neil TUROK

Observations of the universe on very small and large scales have revealed a surprising economy in its basic laws and structure. In this light, we have attempted to find new, more minimal solutions to cosmology’s central puzzles. Instead of postulating a pre-hot big bang period, such as inflation, we ...
Higgs Centre Seminar Room, JCMB

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Skyrmions in the gauged Sigma model of chiral magnets—Peter GERLAGH

We characterise skyrmions in Bogomolny models of chiral magnets without axisymetry. We show a duality between these Bogomolny models and the specific Bogomolny model wherein the so-called DMI tensor is rank one. The potential in these models have two separate minimums and corresponding stationary vacuums. Exact solutions with skyrmions are ...
Bayes Centre 5.45

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Higgs-Maxwell Meeting: Higgs Physics

Higgs-Maxwell workshops are a series of annual one-day meetings to discuss the current topics in theoretical and experimental particle physics and the prospects for future discoveries. The meeting is organised by the Universities of Durham, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Lancaster, and is held at the Royal Society of Edinburgh in Edinburgh ...
Royal Society of Edinburgh, 22-26 George St, Edinburgh EH2 2PQ

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Fundamental physics from galaxy shapes—Alex HALL

The Lambda Cold Dark Matter model continues to provide a good fit to a wide range of cosmological data, and extensions to the model are almost all disfavoured observationally. This is troubling since neither CDM nor Lambda, together constituting 95% of the cosmic energy budget, are understood. These dark components ...
Higgs Centre Seminar Room, JCMB

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Active Solids—Anton SOUSLAV

Active solids consume energy to allow for actuation and shape change not possible in equilibrium. In this talk, I will focus on the elasticity of systems as wide-ranging as far-from-equilibrium hydrogels, nanoparticles, and mechanical structures composed of active robotic components. First, I will introduce our recent work on hydrogel spheres ...
Higgs Centre Seminar Room, JCMB

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Two Ways to Learn about the Universe—James PEEBLESRoger PENROSE

In this public talk, geared towards a general audience, two recent Nobel Prize recipients, Peebles and Penrose, will offer autobiographical retrospectives on their journey towards solving some of the most profound questions in cosmology. Whereas Peebles adopted an empirical approach, learning about the universe by modelling the data, Penrose focused ...
50 George Square, Edinburgh