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STAMP

STAMP is a cross-disciplinary student seminar which launched in August 2022 to bring together PG students working in theoretical and mathematical physics in Edinburgh. It seeks to repair links between the different research groups which were broken during the Covid pandemic, forge new ones, and give PG students a friendly environment to share their research and hear about what their peers are working on.

STAMP is primary aimed at PhD students in EMPG (University of Edinburgh and Heriot-Watt) and the Higgs Centre, but we welcome any students and junior researchers who wish to join us.

The seminars take place at 4pm every Thursday and the locations currently alternates between the Bayes Centre on the central UoE campus and the Higgs Centre, on the 4th floor of the JCMB, on the Kings Buildings campus. As of February 2023, STAMP is hybrid, with Zoom links shared via the mailing list.

The STAMP organisers are grateful for the funding they have received from the Higgs Centre and from the School of Mathematics at University of Edinburgh.

STAMP was previously organised by Andrew Beckett, Linden Disney-Hogg and Conor Elrick (Year 1), Sam Teale and Subrabalan Murugesan (Year 2).

You can sign up to our mailing list by following the instructions here. (You may need to enable pop-ups for this link to work.)

You can also join our Slack workspace where we post the talk schedule and share slides, notes etc.

Contacts

Vatsalya VAIBHAV

STAMP Organiser

Person
Vatsalya VAIBHAV
Email address
s2554420@ed.ac.uk
Vijay NENMELI

STAMP Organiser

Person
Vijay NENMELI
Email address
V.V.Nenmeli@sms.ed.ac.uk

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An introduction to the superspace formalism—Subrabalan MURUGESAN

Supersymmetry is an extension of the Poincaré symmetry - the isometries of flat space, a very geometric object - by some number of odd generators. It is then natural to expect that supersymmetry also has a geometric interpretation. In particular, can supersymmetry arise as the isometries of some manifold? Unsurprisingly, the answer ...
Higgs Centre Seminar Room, JCMB

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Extremal horizons in Einstein-Maxwell theory—Alex COLLING

The Einstein equations for a spacetime containing an extremal black hole impose restrictions on the horizon that can be studied independently of the exterior spacetime. The intrinsic structure of the horizon is described by the near-horizon geometry. I will introduce near-horizon geometries and present intrinsic analogues of Hawking's topology ...
Higgs Centre Seminar Room, JCMB

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Classifying the Unitary Irreducible Representations of the Euclidean 3 Group using Mackey Analysis—Jarah FLUXMAN

The Euclidean groups describe the symmetries of a flat spacetime endowed with a Euclidean, that is, always + metric. Quantum mechanical systems with Euclidean symmetry in d dimensions are Unitary Irreducible Representations (UIRs) of the d-dimensional Euclidean group. Classifying such representations are therefore of interest for understanding Euclidean dynamics. The Euclidean ...
Higgs Centre Seminar Room, JCMB

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The Physics of Curves—Sam BATEMAN

In this talk we consider the simplest model of a particle, a point that traces out a curve in space time. To get physics, we consider an action given by a geometric invariant of the curve. The first invariant is the arc-length which describes a massive particle without spin. Quantisation ...
Higgs Centre Seminar Room, JCMB

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Introduction to Exact Renormalization Group Equation—Vatsalya VAIBHAV

Einstein’s theory of gravity is not renormalizable, that is, we need infinitely many counter terms to cancel the divergences coming from the bare action. One approach to resolve this problem is called Asymptotic Safety where a non-renormalizable theory can still make sense if the coupling constants of the theory ...
Higgs Centre Seminar Room, JCMB

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Aretakis instability for extremal black holes—Virinchi RALLABHANDI

One of the most keenly studied problems in mathematical general relativity is spacetime stability - the question of whether perturbations to known exact solutions grow or decay. In this talk, using a technique developed by Stefanos Aretakis in 2012 based on conserved quantities on horizons, I will demonstrate that all extremal ...
Higgs Centre Seminar Room, JCMB

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A Theorist's View on Hydrodynamics—Mile VBRICA

In this talk, I will, from the point of view of a theoretical physicist, shed light on hydrodynamics as the effective dynamical theory of all things hot. I will describe how universal behaviour stems from the symmetries of the full microscopic theory and discuss several examples. I will comment on ...
Higgs Centre for Theoretical Physics

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Integrability from Chern Simons—Ryan CULLINAN

Integrable models represent a unique domain of exploration where complex systems exhibit a remarkable level of order. This is typically expressed through an infinite number of symmetries, which in turn, allow for the construction of an infinite number of independently conserved charges. The existence of such a large number of ...
Higgs Centre Seminar Room, JCMB

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Algebra from Statistical Mechanics—Benjamin MORRIS

In this talk I will give a pedagogical introduction to lattice models in statistical mechanics with a particular focus on algebraic techniques for computation. The main protagonist in this story is the transfer matrix which provides a computational formalism amenable to a mathematical deconstruction. We will see that the transfer ...
JCMB - Lecture Theatre A

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Flat space from the Fringes: An Introduction to Carrollian Holography—Vijay NENMELI

The AdS/CFT correspondence currently stands unrivalled as our most complete realisation of the holographic principle. Despite its numerous successes, the story is still far from over - intrinsic questions aside, AdS is a very special spacetime, and any holographic implications we could draw may likewise be restricted. The call for ...
Higgs Centre Seminar Room, JCMB

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An introduction to the geometrical formulation of quantum complexity—Satyaki CHOWDHURY

In this talk, I will provide an overview of the idea of quantum complexity, which measures the minimum number of simple operations required to achieve a given task. I will particularly talk about the geometrical formulation of complexity, developed by Nielsen and his collaborators, which provides an elegant way of ...
Higgs Centre Seminar Room, JCMB

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Lagrangian multiforms on coadjoint orbits—Anup Anand SINGH

First introduced in 2009, Lagrangian multiforms provide a variational framework for describing integrable hierarchies using a generalised variational principle applied to an appropriate generalisation of a classical action. In this talk, I will give an overview of this framework and report some recent results based on joint works with V ...
Higgs Centre Seminar Room, JCMB

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The Double Copy from Graph Theory—Sonja KLISCH

The double copy is a powerful tool connecting gauge theoretic and gravitational scattering amplitudes. It was originally derived from string theory, relating the tree level amplitudes of closed string amplitudes to two copies of open string amplitudes. In the field theory limit, this reduces to being able to obtain tree-level ...
Higgs Centre Seminar Room, JCMB

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Superfun with Super-composition algebras and their application to Supersymmetric spacetimes and the Standard Model—Vatsalya VAIBHAV

The purpose of this talk would be to give a pedagogical introduction to composition algebras, superalgebras, and finally super-composition algebras. Hurwitz’s celebrated theorem states that there can be only seven composition algebras over the field of real numbers, namely the real numbers, the complex numbers, the quaternions, the octonions ...

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Justifying Dimensional Regularization—Sam TEALE

In the computation of Feynman integrals divergences are common. To make sense of the divergent integral we employ a regulator so we can manipulate a well defined object. Many regulators are available and have various pros and cons. One of the most common choices is dimensional regularization where we analytically ...
Higgs Centre Seminar Room, JCMB

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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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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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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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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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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 Aristotelian 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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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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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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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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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