unh logo

Particle/Nuclear Theory Seminars 

Schedule for Fall, 2008    

(coordinator:  Jishnu Bhattacharyya)

The Theory Seminars are on Wednesdays from 2:00 pm in Demeritt 352 (Theory Conference Room).


Date

Speaker

Title
October 1
 Bogdan Mihaila, Los Alamos National Laboratory Strongly Correlated Fermionic Matter in the Dilute Limit. (Abstract)
October 8 No Seminar
n/a
October 15 No Seminar n/a
October 22 No Seminar
 n/a
October 29 Thomas Hartman, Harvard
 Holography for real-world Black Holes with the Kerr/CFT Correspondence. (Abstract)
November 5 Alessandro Tomasiello, Harvard
 AdS4 Vacua in String Theory, and their CFT Duals. (Abstract)
November 12 Sean Hartnoll, Harvard
 Holographic Superconductors. (Abstract)
November 19

November 26 No Seminar -- Thanksgiving Week
 n/a
December 3

December 10 Meifeng Lin, MIT
 Nucleon Form Factors on the Lattice. (Abstract)
December 17


Past Seminars:
Spring '08, Fall '07, Spring '07, Fall '06, Spring '06, Fall '05, Spring '05, Fall '04, Spring '04, Fall '03.

===========================================================================================================================================
Abstracts

Speaker: Bogdan Mihaila, Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Title: Strongly Correlated Fermionic Matter in the Dilute Limit.

Abstract: We seek answers to the following question: "What are the ground-state properties of the many-body system composed of spin-1/2 fermions interacting via a zero-range, infinite scattering length contact interaction?"  The above is referred to sometimes as the "George Bertsch problem," and is of particular interest in astrophysics in connection with the equation of state for neutron matter and has been revisited recently with the advent of experimental studies of the BCS to BEC crossover in ultracold fermionic atom gases.  We will show that new insights in the solution to this problem are obtained in the context of a coupled-cluster (exp S) approach to calculating the equation of state for dilute fermionic systems and that presently available "state-of-the-art" Monte Carlo calculations have not yet provided the definitive answer.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           top
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Speaker: Thomas Hartman, Harvard.

Title: Holography for real-world Black Holes with the Kerr/CFT Correspondence.

Abstract: Holography is usually applied to black holes that are supersymmetric, charged, or living  in higher dimensions.  The rotating (Kerr) astrophysical black holes that have been observed in the sky have none of these nice properties, and AdS/CFT does not apply.  Nevertheless, by studying the symmetries of the near horizon region, I will show that highly rotating Kerr black holes are holographically dual to a two-dimensional conformal field theory (CFT).  In particular, the observed black hole GRS 1915+105 is approximately dual to a CFT with central charge 10^79.  The microstate counting of the dual CFT correctly reproduces the Bekenstein-Hawking law for the black hole entropy.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           top
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Speaker: Alessandro Tomasiello, Harvard.

Title: AdS4 Vacua in String Theory, and their CFT Duals. 

Abstract: I will show a new large class of new vacua of string theory with negative cosmological constant Lambda and with unbroken supersymmetry. The new vacua are under better control of many previously existing ones. They could also evade existing no-go theorems constraining promotion of vacua with negative Lambda to positive Lambda. Finally, they can also be studied using AdS/CFT, thanks to very recent breakthrough in the study of three--dimensional conformal field theories.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           top
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Speaker: Sean Hartnoll, Harvard.

Title: Holographic Superconductors.

Abstract: I will discuss recent constructions of a holographic dual, in the sense of the AdS/CFT correpondence, to superconductivity. This is a gravitational description of a strongly coupled field theoretic system that becomes superconducting at low temperatures. I will show how classical general relativity can reproduce the essential physics of a superconductor.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           top
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Speaker: Meifeng Lin, MIT.

Title: Nucleon Form Factors on the Lattice.

Abstract: First-principles calculations of the nucleon form factors and generalized form factors have been made possible by employing the lattice QCD techniques. Together with the experimental efforts, lattice results for the nucleon form factors have deepened our understanding of the internal structure of the nucleon, such as the charge and current distributions, and the spin decomposition of the nucleon. In this talk, I will present some recent results for the nucleon form factors from lattice simulations by the LHP Collaboration. I will also address some challenges faced by modern lattice form factor calculations.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           top
This page is maintained by Per Berglund and Silas Beane.