DOCSLIB.ORG

MATTERS of GRAVITY Contents

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
MATTERS of GRAVITY Contents MATTERS OF GRAVITY The newsletter of the Topical Group on Gravitation of the American Physical Society Number 36 Fall 2010 Contents GGR News: we hear that . , by David Garfinkle ..................... 4 Network of Gravitational-wave Detectors, by Stan Whitcomb ........ 5 Research briefs: New tests of General Relativity, by Quentin Bailey ............. 7 Conference reports: Theory Meets Data Analysis, by Steve Detweiler .............. 11 Ascona Conference, by Simon Ross ..................... 14 Condensed Matter at AdS/CFT/Strings 2010, by Christopher Herzog . 17 1 Editor David Garfinkle Department of Physics Oakland University Rochester, MI 48309 Phone: (248) 370-3411 Internet: garfinkl-at-oakland.edu WWW: http://www.oakland.edu/?id=10223&sid=249#garfinkle Associate Editor Greg Comer Department of Physics and Center for Fluids at All Scales, St. Louis University, St. Louis, MO 63103 Phone: (314) 977-8432 Internet: comergl-at-slu.edu WWW: http://www.slu.edu/colleges/AS/physics/profs/comer.html ISSN: 1527-3431 DISCLAIMER: The opinions expressed in the articles of this newsletter represent the views of the authors and are not necessarily the views of APS. The articles in this newsletter are not peer reviewed. 2 Editorial The next newsletter is due February 1st. This and all subsequent issues will be available on the web at https://files.oakland.edu/users/garfinkl/web/mog/ All issues before number 28 are available at http://www.phys.lsu.edu/mog Any ideas for topics that should be covered by the newsletter, should be emailed to me, or Greg Comer, or the relevant correspondent. Any comments/questions/complaints about the newsletter should be emailed to me. A hardcopy of the newsletter is distributed free of charge to the members of the APS Topical Group on Gravitation upon request (the default distribution form is via the web) to the secretary of the Topical Group. It is considered a lack of etiquette to ask me to mail you hard copies of the newsletter unless you have exhausted all your resources to get your copy otherwise. David Garfinkle Correspondents of Matters of Gravity John Friedman and Kip Thorne: Relativistic Astrophysics, • Bei-Lok Hu: Quantum Cosmology and Related Topics • Veronika Hubeny: String Theory • Beverly Berger: News from NSF • Luis Lehner: Numerical Relativity • Jim Isenberg: Mathematical Relativity • Lee Smolin: Quantum Gravity • Cliff Will: Confrontation of Theory with Experiment • Peter Bender: Space Experiments • Jens Gundlach: Laboratory Experiments • Warren Johnson: Resonant Mass Gravitational Wave Detectors • David Shoemaker: LIGO Project • Stan Whitcomb: Gravitational Wave detection • Peter Saulson and Jorge Pullin: former editors, correspondents at large. • Topical Group in Gravitation (GGR) Authorities Chair: Steve Detweiler; Chair-Elect: Patrick Brady; Vice-Chair: Manuella Campanelli. Secretary-Treasurer: Gabriela Gonzalez; Past Chair: Stan Whitcomb; Members-at-large: Frans Pretorius, Larry Ford, Scott Hughes, Bernard Whiting, Laura Cadonati, Luis Lehner. 3 we hear that ... David Garfinkle, Oakland University garfinkl-at-oakland.edu Gary Horowitz has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences Alessandra Buonanno, Alejandro Corichi, Gabriela Gonzalez, James Hough, Donald Marolf, Roger Penrose, Frans Pretorius, Carlo Rovelli, Madhavan Varadarajan, and David Wands have been elected Fellows of the International Society for General Relativity and Gravitation. Hearty Congratulations! 4 New Links in the International Network of Gravitational-wave Detectors Stan Whitcomb, Executive Secretary, Gravitational Wave International Committee stan-at-ligo.caltech.edu One of the goals of the Gravitational Wave International Committee (GWIC) is to help foster international collaboration among different parts of the gravitational wave community and to promote the development of gravitational-wave detection as an astronomical tool. To help identify and support priorities for the international community, GWIC prepared a Roadmap for the field (https://gwic.ligo.org/roadmap). For ground-based detectors, the GWIC Roadmap identified as its highest priority: The construction, commissioning and operation of the second generation global ground-based net- work comprised of instruments under construction or planned in the US, Europe, Japan and Australia. The motivation is simple: a gravitational wave detector network’s ability to locate sources depends directly on the separation of its elements. The figure below shows the area on the sky into which sources of bursts of gravitational waves can be located with the network of LIGO and Virgo detectors (L1H1V1H2) compared with networks with a detector in Japan (J1), Australia (A2), or both (A2J1). The advantage of the global network advocated by GWIC is obvious. Figure 1: Histogram showing the fraction of the sky producing an angular area error box of a given size for simulated events with SNR 30, observed with different gravitational wave networks. Graph is taken from Weiss, et al. (https://dcc.ligo.org/cgi-bin/DocDB/ShowDocument?docid=14936). In the past year, there have been two exciting developments that significantly improve the prospects to realize this goal. The currently operating interferometric detectors, LIGO, Virgo and GEO600, have committed to work together to form the core of the international network envisioned in the GWIC Roadmap. All three projects are engaged in major detector upgrades (Advanced LIGO, Advanced Virgo and GEO HF) designed to propel them into the second generation. However, these detectors, located solely in North America and Europe, leave much of the desired global network unfinished. 5 The first exciting new development comes from Japan. For the past several years, the Japanese gravitational wave groups have been performing the research and working the de- sign for the Large-scale Cryogenic Gravitational-wave Telescope (LCGT). In June this year, they learned the good news that LCGT has been funded for phase 1 construction. LCGT incorporates several innovative features, including an underground location in the Kamioka mine, and cryogenic operation to reduce thermal noise (in phase 2). When it becomes oper- ational, LCGT will be a crucial link in the international network. The second new development is LIGO-Australia. The LIGO Laboratory and the Aus- tralian Consortium for Interferometric Gravitational Astronomy (ACIGA) have developed a proposal in which LIGO would deploy one of its Advanced LIGO detectors (currently planned as a second detector for its Hanford Washington site) to a new facility to be built by Australia. Such a detector would provide the crucial southern hemisphere node needed by the interna- tional network. This proposal passed a major milestone at the end of the summer when the NSF formally accepted the concept, subject to satisfactory management conditions. A formal proposal to the Australian government for the construction of the facilities is in preparation. A crucial decision point will come in late 2011, when the LIGO Laboratory will have to decide whether to install the second detector at Hanford, or set it aside for LIGO-Australia. Unless a commitment to fund the Australian facility can be made by that decision point, LIGO Laboratory will have to install the detector in Hanford. Despite the obvious challenge of meeting this short deadline, this proposal offers the best opportunity for a second generation interferometric detector in the Southern Hemisphere to date. 6 New tests of General Relativity Quentin Bailey, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University baileyq-at-erau.edu The last decade has seen a rapid increase in the number of precision tests of relativity. This research has been motivated by the intriguing possibility that tiny deviations from rela- tivity might arise in the underlying theory that is widely believed to successfully mesh General Relativity (GR) with quantum physics [1, 2]. Many of these tests have been analyzed within an effective field theory framework which generically describes possible deviations from exact relativity [3] and contains some traditional test frameworks as limiting cases [4]. One part of the activity has been a resurgence of interest in tests of relativity in the Minkowski-spacetime context, where Lorentz symmetry is the key ingredient. Numerous experimental and ob- servational constraints have been obtained on many different types of relativity deviations involving matter [1]. Another part, which has developed more recently, has seen the effec- tive field theory framework extended to include the curved spacetime regime [5], and recent theoretical work within this framework has shown that there are many unexplored ways in which the foundations of GR can be tested [6, 7]. Qualitatively new signals for deviations from local Lorentz symmetry involving lunar laser ranging observations [8] and atom interfer- ometry experiments [9] have already been analyzed within this framework, and many exciting new possibilities exist for future work including proposed Weak Equivalence Principle (WEP) tests. In the context of effective field theory in curved spacetime, relativity violations of these types can be described by an action that contains the usual Einstein-Hilbert term, a matter action, plus a series of terms describing Lorentz violation for gravity and matter. One useful limiting case of this construction has an action of the form 1 4 1 4 µν ′ Sg = d x√ g R + d x√ g sµνRT + S . (1) 16πGN Z − 16πGN Z − In this expression the first term is the conventional Einstein-Hilbert action for GR, while the second term is
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Math, Physics, and Calabi–Yau Manifolds
    Math, Physics, and Calabi–Yau Manifolds Shing-Tung Yau Harvard University October 2011 Introduction I’d like to talk about how mathematics and physics can come together to the benefit of both fields, particularly in the case of Calabi-Yau spaces and string theory. This happens to be the subject of the new book I coauthored, THE SHAPE OF INNER SPACE It also tells some of my own story and a bit of the history of geometry as well. 2 In that spirit, I’m going to back up and talk about my personal introduction to geometry and how I ended up spending much of my career working at the interface between math and physics. Along the way, I hope to give people a sense of how mathematicians think and approach the world. I also want people to realize that mathematics does not have to be a wholly abstract discipline, disconnected from everyday phenomena, but is instead crucial to our understanding of the physical world. 3 There are several major contributions of mathematicians to fundamental physics in 20th century: 1. Poincar´eand Minkowski contribution to special relativity. (The book of Pais on the biography of Einstein explained this clearly.) 2. Contributions of Grossmann and Hilbert to general relativity: Marcel Grossmann (1878-1936) was a classmate with Einstein from 1898 to 1900. he was professor of geometry at ETH, Switzerland at 1907. In 1912, Einstein came to ETH to be professor where they started to work together. Grossmann suggested tensor calculus, as was proposed by Elwin Bruno Christoffel in 1868 (Crelle journal) and developed by Gregorio Ricci-Curbastro and Tullio Levi-Civita (1901).
    [Show full text]
  • Round Table Talk: Conversation with Nathan Seiberg
    Round Table Talk: Conversation with Nathan Seiberg Nathan Seiberg Professor, the School of Natural Sciences, The Institute for Advanced Study Hirosi Ooguri Kavli IPMU Principal Investigator Yuji Tachikawa Kavli IPMU Professor Ooguri: Over the past few decades, there have been remarkable developments in quantum eld theory and string theory, and you have made signicant contributions to them. There are many ideas and techniques that have been named Hirosi Ooguri Nathan Seiberg Yuji Tachikawa after you, such as the Seiberg duality in 4d N=1 theories, the two of you, the Director, the rest of about supersymmetry. You started Seiberg-Witten solutions to 4d N=2 the faculty and postdocs, and the to work on supersymmetry almost theories, the Seiberg-Witten map administrative staff have gone out immediately or maybe a year after of noncommutative gauge theories, of their way to help me and to make you went to the Institute, is that right? the Seiberg bound in the Liouville the visit successful and productive – Seiberg: Almost immediately. I theory, the Moore-Seiberg equations it is quite amazing. I don’t remember remember studying supersymmetry in conformal eld theory, the Afeck- being treated like this, so I’m very during the 1982/83 Christmas break. Dine-Seiberg superpotential, the thankful and embarrassed. Ooguri: So, you changed the direction Intriligator-Seiberg-Shih metastable Ooguri: Thank you for your kind of your research completely after supersymmetry breaking, and many words. arriving the Institute. I understand more. Each one of them has marked You received your Ph.D. at the that, at the Weizmann, you were important steps in our progress.
    [Show full text]
  • UC Santa Barbara UC Santa Barbara Electronic Theses and Dissertations
    UC Santa Barbara UC Santa Barbara Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Aspects of Emergent Geometry, Strings, and Branes in Gauge / Gravity Duality Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/8qh706tk Author Dzienkowski, Eric Michael Publication Date 2015 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California University of California Santa Barbara Aspects of Emergent Geometry, Strings, and Branes in Gauge / Gravity Duality A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Physics by Eric Michael Dzienkowski Committee in charge: Professor David Berenstein, Chair Professor Joe Polchinski Professor David Stuart September 2015 The Dissertation of Eric Michael Dzienkowski is approved. Professor Joe Polchinski Professor David Stuart Professor David Berenstein, Committee Chair July 2015 Aspects of Emergent Geometry, Strings, and Branes in Gauge / Gravity Duality Copyright c 2015 by Eric Michael Dzienkowski iii To my family, who endured my absense for the better part of nine long years while I attempted to understand the universe. iv Acknowledgements There are many people and entities deserving thanks for helping me complete my dissertation. To my advisor, David Berenstein, for the guidance, advice, and support over the years. With any luck, I have absorbed some of your unique insight and intuition to solving problems, some which I hope to apply to my future as a physicist or otherwise. A special thanks to my collaborators Curtis Asplund and Robin Lashof-Regas. Curtis, it has been and will continue to be a pleasure working with you. Ad- ditional thanks for various comments and discussions along the way to Yuhma Asano, Thomas Banks, Frederik Denef, Jim Hartle, Sean Hartnoll, Matthew Hastings, Gary Horowitz, Christian Maes, Juan Maldacena, John Mangual, Don Marolf, Greg Moore, Niels Obers, Joe Polchisnki, Jorge Santos, Edward Shuryak, Christoph Sieg, Eva Silverstein, Mark Srednicki, and Matthias Staudacher.
    [Show full text]
  • The Future of Theoretical Physics and Cosmology Celebrating Stephen Hawking's 60Th Birthday
    The Future of Theoretical Physics and Cosmology Celebrating Stephen Hawking's 60th Birthday Edited by G. W. GIBBONS E. P. S. SHELLARD S. J. RANKIN CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS Contents List of contributors xvii Preface xxv 1 Introduction Gary Gibbons and Paul Shellard 1 1.1 Popular symposium 2 1.2 Spacetime singularities 3 1.3 Black holes 4 1.4 Hawking radiation 5 1.5 Quantum gravity 6 1.6 M theory and beyond 7 1.7 De Sitter space 8 1.8 Quantum cosmology 9 1.9 Cosmology 9 1.10 Postscript 10 Part 1 Popular symposium 15 2 Our complex cosmos and its future Martin Rees '• • •. V 17 2.1 Introduction . ...... 17 2.2 The universe observed . 17 2.3 Cosmic microwave background radiation 22 2.4 The origin of large-scale structure 24 2.5 The fate of the universe 26 2.6 The very early universe 30 vi Contents 2.7 Multiverse? 35 2.8 The future of cosmology • 36 3 Theories of everything and Hawking's wave function of the universe James Hartle 38 3.1 Introduction 38 3.2 Different things fall with the same acceleration in a gravitational field 38 3.3 The fundamental laws of physics 40 3.4 Quantum mechanics 45 3.5 A theory of everything is not a theory of everything 46 3.6 Reduction 48 3.7 The main points again 49 References 49 4 The problem of spacetime singularities: implications for quantum gravity? Roger Penrose 51 4.1 Introduction 51 4.2 Why quantum gravity? 51 4.3 The importance of singularities 54 4.4 Entropy 58 4.5 Hawking radiation and information loss 61 4.6 The measurement paradox 63 4.7 Testing quantum gravity? 70 Useful references for further
    [Show full text]
  • String Theory and Geometry of the Universe's Hidden Dimensions
    String Theory and Geometry of the Universe’s Hidden Dimensions Shing-Tung Yau Harvard University Fields Institute January 20, 2011 Introduction This is the second part of my talk, which relates to THE SHAPE OF INNER SPACE, a new book I’ve written with the science writer Steve Nadis. At the heart of this book is a mathematical conjecture, raised by the geometer Eugenio Calabi, which ties topology to geometry in ways that many mathematicians considered hard to believe. I was among them. My colleagues and I believed the conjecture was “too good to be true,” and, for several years, I tried very hard to prove it was wrong. In my abject failure to do so, I realized that Calabi must have been right after all. I then spent another several years amassing the tools I would need to prove the conjecture, just as he stated it. 2 VI. A Proof at Long Last I felt I was close to that point in May 1976. I had all the ducks lined up, as they say. Perhaps my confidence in this problem had something to do with the fact that my girlfriend and I got engaged at that time, while I was visiting her in Princeton. In June, I drove cross-country with my fiance and her parents from Princeton to Los Angeles. It was a very enjoyable trip. But for me, it wasn’t strictly for pleasure. Along the way, I was working behind the scenes. 3 As I drove and sightseed, I was thinking long and hard about solving both the Poincare conjecture and the Calabi conjecture-two of the biggest problems of the day.
    [Show full text]
  • The Shape of Inner Space Provides a Vibrant Tour Through the Strange and Wondrous Possibility SPACE INNER
    SCIENCE/MATHEMATICS SHING-TUNG $30.00 US / $36.00 CAN Praise for YAU & and the STEVE NADIS STRING THEORY THE SHAPE OF tring theory—meant to reconcile the INNER SPACE incompatibility of our two most successful GEOMETRY of the UNIVERSE’S theories of physics, general relativity and “The Shape of Inner Space provides a vibrant tour through the strange and wondrous possibility INNER SPACE THE quantum mechanics—holds that the particles that the three spatial dimensions we see may not be the only ones that exist. Told by one of the Sand forces of nature are the result of the vibrations of tiny masters of the subject, the book gives an in-depth account of one of the most exciting HIDDEN DIMENSIONS “strings,” and that we live in a universe of ten dimensions, and controversial developments in modern theoretical physics.” —BRIAN GREENE, Professor of © Susan Towne Gilbert © Susan Towne four of which we can experience, and six that are curled up Mathematics & Physics, Columbia University, SHAPE in elaborate, twisted shapes called Calabi-Yau manifolds. Shing-Tung Yau author of The Fabric of the Cosmos and The Elegant Universe has been a professor of mathematics at Harvard since These spaces are so minuscule we’ll probably never see 1987 and is the current department chair. Yau is the winner “Einstein’s vision of physical laws emerging from the shape of space has been expanded by the higher them directly; nevertheless, the geometry of this secret dimensions of string theory. This vision has transformed not only modern physics, but also modern of the Fields Medal, the National Medal of Science, the realm may hold the key to the most important physical mathematics.
    [Show full text]
  • Arxiv:1709.08937V2 [Math.SG] 30 Oct 2020 Batyrev and Borisov Succeeded in Generalizing Their Constructions to Include These Generalized Calabi– Yau Varieties
    Homological mirror symmetry for generalized Greene–Plesser mirrors NICK SHERIDAN AND IVAN SMITH ABSTRACT: We prove Kontsevich’s homological mirror symmetry conjecture for certain mirror pairs arising from Batyrev–Borisov’s ‘dual reflexive Gorenstein cones’ construction. In particular we prove HMS for all Greene–Plesser mirror pairs (i.e., Calabi–Yau hypersurfaces in quotients of weighted projective spaces). We also prove it for certain mirror Calabi–Yau complete intersections arising from Borisov’s construction via dual nef partitions, and also for certain Calabi–Yau complete intersections which do not have a Calabi–Yau mirror, but instead are mirror to a Calabi–Yau subcategory of the derived category of a higher-dimensional Fano variety. The latter case encompasses Kuznetsov’s ‘K3 category of a cubic fourfold’, which is mirror to an honest K3 surface; and also the analogous category for a quotient of a cubic sevenfold by an order-3 symmetry, which is mirror to a rigid Calabi–Yau threefold. 1 Introduction 1.1 Toric mirror constructions One of the first constructions of mirror pairs of Calabi–Yau varieties was due to Greene and Plesser [GP90]. They considered Calabi–Yau hypersurfaces in quotients of weighted projective spaces. They were interested in the three-dimensional case, but their construction works just as well in any dimension. Batyrev generalized this to a construction of mirror pairs of Calabi–Yau hypersurfaces in toric varieties [Bat94]. In Batyrev’s construction one considers dual reflexive lattice polytopes ∆ and ∆ˇ , correspond- ing to toric varieties Y and Yˇ . Batyrev conjectured that Calabi–Yau hypersurfaces in Y and Yˇ ought to be mirror.
    [Show full text]
  • Albion Lawrence CV
    Curriculum Vitae – Albion Lawrence Brandeis University, Dept. of Physics, MS057, POB 549110, Waltham, MA 02454, USA Phone: (781)-736-2865, FAX: (781)-736-2915, email: [email protected] http://www.brandeis.edu/~albion/ Born March 29, 1969 in Berkeley, CA Citizenship U.S.A. Degrees granted The University of Chicago Ph.D. in Physics, 1996. Thesis: “On the target space geometry of N = (2, 1) string theory”. Advisor: Prof. Emil Martinec. University of California, Berkeley A.B. in Physics with highest honors and highest dis- tinction in general scholarship, 1991. Thesis: “Neu- trino optics and coherent flavor oscillations”. Advi- sor: Prof. Mahiko Suzuki. Academic appointments July 2009-present Associate Professor, Brandeis University. 2002-2009 Assistant Professor, Brandeis University. 1999-2002 Postdoctoral Research Associate, Stanford Linear Accelerator Center and Physics Department, Stan- ford University. 1996-1999 Postdoctoral Fellow, Harvard University. 1994-1996 Research Assistant to Prof. Emil Martinec, The Uni- versity of Chicago. 1991-1994 NSF Graduate Fellow, The University of Chicago. 1989-1991 Undergraduate Research Assistant to Prof. Paul Richards, UC Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley Na- tional Laboratory. Summer 1988 Undergraduate Research Assistant to Prof. William Molzon, University of California, Irvine. Teaching experience August 2002-present Brandeis University. Instructor, graduate and under- graduate quantum mechanics, quantum field theory, cosmology. Winter 1995 Teaching assistant to Prof. Reindardt Oehme, grad- uate quantum mechanics. Awards and Honors Fall 2006 Kavli Frontier Fellow 2004-present DOE Outstanding Junior Investigator award. 1991-1994 NSF Graduate Fellowship. Spring 1990 Inducted into Phi Beta Kappa. 1987-1991 Regent’s Scholar, UC Berkeley. Grants 2007-present Supported by DOE grant DE-FG02-92ER40706.
    [Show full text]
  • Conceptual Analysis of Black Hole Entropy in String Theory
    Conceptual Analysis of Black Hole Entropy in String Theory Sebastian De Haro,1;2;3;5 Jeroen van Dongen,4;5 Manus Visser,4 and Jeremy Butterfield1 1Trinity College, Cambridge 2Department of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Cambridge 3Black Hole Initiative, Harvard University 4Institute for Theoretical Physics, University of Amsterdam 5Vossius Center for the History of Humanities and Sciences, University of Amsterdam March 7, 2020 Abstract The microscopic state counting of the extremal Reissner-Nordstr¨om black hole performed by Andrew Strominger and Cumrun Vafa in 1996 has proven to be a central result in string theory. Here, with a philosophical readership in mind, the argument is presented in its con- temporary context and its rather complex conceptual structure is analysed. In particular, we will identify the various inter-theoretic relations, such as duality and linkage relations, on which it depends. We further aim to make clear why the argument was immediately recognised as a successful accounting for the entropy of this black hole and how it engen- dered subsequent work that intended to strengthen the string theoretic analysis of black holes. Its relation to the formulation of the AdS/CFT conjecture will be briefly discussed, and the familiar reinterpretation of the entropy calculation in the context of the AdS/CFT correspondence is given. Finally, we discuss the heuristic role that Strominger and Vafa's microscopic account of black hole entropy played for the black hole information paradox. A companion paper analyses the ontology of the Strominger-Vafa black hole states, the question of emergence of the black hole from a collection of D-branes, and the role of the correspondence principle in the context of string theory black holes.
    [Show full text]
  • Durham Research Online
    Durham Research Online Deposited in DRO: 08 May 2014 Version of attached le: Other Peer-review status of attached le: Peer-reviewed Citation for published item: Hubeny, Veronika E. and Rangamani, Mukund and Ross, Simon F. (2005) 'Causal structures and holography.', Journal of high energy physics., 2005 (07). 037. Further information on publisher's website: http://dx.doi.org/10.1088/1126-6708/2005/07/037 Publisher's copyright statement: c SISSA 2005. Published by IOP Publishing for SISSA. This is an author-created, un-copyedited version of an article accepted for publication in Journal of High Energy Physics. IOP Publishing Ltd is not responsible for any errors or omissions in this version of the manuscript or any version derived from it. The Version of Record is available online at http://dx.doi.org/10.1088/1126-6708/2005/07/037. Additional information: Use policy The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that: • a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in DRO • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders. Please consult the full DRO policy for further details. Durham University Library, Stockton Road, Durham DH1 3LY, United Kingdom Tel : +44 (0)191 334 3042 | Fax : +44 (0)191 334 2971 https://dro.dur.ac.uk hep-th/0504034 DCPT-05/15 UCB-PTH-05/07 LBNL-57390 Causal structures and holography a,b a,b a Veronika E.
    [Show full text]
  • Black Holes and Holography: Insights and Applications
    University of California Santa Barbara Black Holes and Holography: Insights and Applications A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Physics by Jason Wien Committee in charge: Professor Donald Marolf, Chair Professor Gary Horowitz Professor David Stuart December 2017 The Dissertation of Jason Wien is approved. Professor Gary Horowitz Professor David Stuart Professor Donald Marolf, Committee Chair November 2017 Black Holes and Holography: Insights and Applications Copyright c 2017 by Jason Wien iii Acknowledgements I am fortunate to have been supported by a network of friends, family, peers, collab- orators, and mentors throughout my time in graduate school. This dissertation could not have been completed without the support of this strong community, for which I am incredibly thankful. First, I would like to thank my advisor, Don Marolf, for his tireless mentorship and guidance. He taught me the art of careful research guided by experience and intuition, and he patiently pointed me in the right direction any of the numerous times I found myself off course. The skills he helped me develop will help me through both my career and life in general. Thank you to the numerous professors who have be invaluable in my education. Thank you to Gary Horowitz, David Stuart, David Berenstein, Dave Morrison, Steve Giddings, Joe Polchinski, Nathaniel Craig, Mark Srednicki, and Andreas Ludwig for imparting physics wisdom both through numerous class lectures as well as informal dis- cussions. I had the pleasure of collaborating with Max Rota, Will Donnelly and Ben Michel for parts of this dissertation.
    [Show full text]
  • Calabi-Yau Manifolds at the Interface of Math and Physics by Shiu-Yuen Cheng*, Lizhen Ji†, Liping Wang‡, and Hao Xu§
    Calabi-Yau Manifolds at the Interface of Math and Physics by Shiu-Yuen Cheng*, Lizhen Ji†, Liping Wang‡, and Hao Xu§ There were once a young man and an older man. could be built with them? Maybe there was not Their mathematics paths crossed and their names be- enough structure. How about adding complex struc- came merged into the long-lasting notion of Calabi- tures? Would they admit canonical metrics? Or per- Yau manifolds. haps there was still not enough structure. How about How did this happen? Why did Calabi make his Kähler manifolds—structures between complex ge- famous conjecture? How did Yau prove it? Why are ometry and algebraic geometry? This was what Calabi Calabi-Yau manifolds so important? And how are asked 60 years ago, and what Yau answered 24 years they used? All these and other questions take time to later. He cracked a geometric problem by unraveling answer and real experts to explain. They can probably hard nonlinear differential equations. be best understood through the interactions between The Calabi-Yau metric has been an invaluable tool math and physics, and that’s where their true value in differential and algebraic geometry. Here is an in- lies. Although these questions have a long history, complete list of long-standing conjectures and prob- the future will undoubtedly bring more questions and lems solved by using the Calabi-Yau metric and Yau’s surprises regarding Calabi-Yau manifolds. technique of the a priori estimate. Indeed, one must go back to more than 150 years 1. The Severi conjecture, that every complex sur- ago, when Riemann introduced the concepts of Rie- face that is homotopic to the complex projective mann surfaces and Riemannian metrics.
    [Show full text]