DOCSLIB.ORG

Inside the Perimeter Is Published by Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Inside the Perimeter Is Published by Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics the Perimeter spring/summer 2018 Remembering Stephen Hawking The riddle of the quantum Sphinx AI solves quantum challenges Taming the Langlands program Editor Natasha Waxman [email protected] Managing Editor Tenille Bonoguore Contributing Authors Tenille Bonoguore Erin Bow Mike Brown Dan Falk Colin Hunter Stephanie Keating Robert Spekkens Neil Turok Copy Editors Tenille Bonoguore Mike Brown Colin Hunter Stephanie Keating Sonya Walton Natasha Waxman Graphic Design Gabriela Secara Cover Illustration Center for Astrophysics / M. Weiss Photo Credits Adobe Stock Mitch Altman Michael Bennett Mike Brown Stephanie Keating Jens Langen John Matlock NASA Jennifer Roberts Photography Gabriela Secara UCSB/Sonia Fernandez Inside the Perimeter is published by Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics. www.perimeterinstitute.ca To subscribe, email us at [email protected]. 31 Caroline Street North, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada p: 519.569.7600 I f: 519.569.7611 02 IN THIS ISSUE 04/ Goodbye, dear Stephen, Neil Turok 06/ Remembering Stephen Hawking 08/ Three new appointments bolster mathematics and cosmology, Tenille Bonoguore 10/ Emmy Noether Fellowships expand, Tenille Bonoguore 12/ California connections, Stephanie Keating 13/ The riddle of the quantum Sphinx, Robert Spekkens 16/ Artificial intelligence teaches itself to solve gnarly quantum challenges, Tenille Bonoguore 18/ Taming the Langlands program, Dan Falk 21/ Slice of PI: My favourite equation 25/ People of PI: Ghanaian trailblazer Prince Osei, Mike Brown 27/ G7 Sherpas hold planning sessions at Perimeter, Colin Hunter 28/ Thanks to our supporters 30/ Remodelling science, Tenille Bonoguore and Stephanie Keating 33/ WGSI: How to build a better future 33/ Upcoming conferences 34/ “Aim high, work hard, and bring your swagger,” Tenille Bonoguore 36/ What’s physics good for? The incredible MRI, Erin Bow 39/ Particles 42/ PI kids are asking: Rainbows, Stephanie Keating 03 NEIL'S NOTES GOODBYE, DEAR STEPHEN I was an undergraduate physicist in technicalities. Even more wonderful, He declared himself wrong in 2002, Cambridge when I was fortunate to we became close friends. and gave John an encyclopedia on attend Stephen Hawking’s inaugural baseball but encouraged him to burn lecture as the Lucasian Chair, the There is so much to say about him, it, saying that would be as useful as position Isaac Newton once held. The it’s hard to know where to begin. It the information which survived an lecture was provocatively titled: “Is the goes without saying that he was a evaporating black hole. He bet me that end of theoretical physics in sight?” brilliant scientist of the very first rank. cosmic inflation would be confirmed by Through a series of light-hearted The concepts he formulated and future measurements – unfortunately, vignettes, Stephen explained some of the questions he started to address, we never did settle that one. physics’ greatest advances. He kept many decades ago, are so deep and the audience on tenterhooks to the farsighted that they continue to inspire Stephen loved the idea of Perimeter end, as we awaited his oracular answer the whole field. How can space and Institute. It was younger and much more to the question. When it came, it was time be quantum? What happens of a gamble when I was approached as surprising as it was unambiguous. inside black holes? What principles to become its second Director. Taking Yes, he said, the newly constructed govern the universe? I feel today we the position would mean leaving theory of supergravity, developed by are approaching the answers, guided Cambridge and Stephen behind, so I other theorists, was the answer. All in large part by observations that went rather gingerly to his office to tell that remained was to work out a few were largely lacking when Stephen him and ask for his advice. But when details. I left the lecture wondering if pioneered the field. Even if the details I described Perimeter’s mission – to physics was really over and whether I of some of Stephen’s favourite theories unify quantum theory and spacetime should switch to another field. – like inflation and supergravity – – his eyes literally shone. Although he don’t survive, I believe that his basic said he would be sorry to see me go, I Eighteen years later, I joined Stephen as intuition – that quantum mechanics could tell he shared my excitement and a Professor at Cambridge. Supergravity will connect beautifully with gravity, would lend his fullest support. Which had not worked out as the ultimate and the combination will answer deep he did, time and time again. theory (but interest in it continues questions – will turn out to be right. to this day). I knew something of First, he lent his name to our new Stephen’s elegant and influential work Despite Stephen’s stature, he never building, the Stephen Hawking Centre. combining quantum theory with gravity became stuck in his ideas. He was And then he visited, twice, despite in the context of black holes and open to questioning everything, to the massive effort and risk involved, cosmology, and I was keen to interact rigorous argument, and to finding because he wanted to see for himself with him and, if possible, to learn new connections. It made working with what this “grand experiment,” as he from him. So I presented a seminar him enormous fun; it was as if all the called it, was like. He loved being on a topic I hoped might pique his physical constraints on his body were here, having scientific discussions in interest – the birth of an inflationary mirrored by a total freedom and power the Bistro, and inviting many of us over universe. I showed how quantum of thought. You always got the sense, to barbecues at his house. He met effects in inflation, like a cosmic when discussing science with him, with everyone – the PSI students, the magician, allowed you to conjure an that in the next 30 seconds, we might scientists, and countless visitors who infinite universe out of a finite one. To change everything. wanted to be introduced to him. my delight, after the lecture, Stephen said he found the ideas interesting He loved speed and risks and jokes. In many ways, Perimeter epitomizes and he wanted to discuss more. Thus And bets! In 1975, he bet Kip Thorne Stephen’s aspirations and his vision. He began our work together, spending that black holes did not exist – a believed, as I do, that the astonishing many wonderful afternoons scribbling bet he lost. He bet John Preskill that simplicity and unity in the universe cries on the blackboard and teasing out the black holes destroyed information. out for simple, principled explanations. 04 The popular theories like inflation and playground, a little boy started yelling, Stephen very graciously (and typically) supersymmetry – which Stephen, like “That’s Stephen Hawking!” We agreed to meet the boy and thumbprint most others, went along with – remain thought no more about it, but the next the books. The photo of the two of them unconvincing and lack compelling day I received an email from the kid’s together is one of my favourites. The evidence in their favour. Physics now dad saying, “Was that really Stephen thing I love about it most is that they’re has, I believe, to return to the basic Hawking in the park?” both wearing the same shirt! Two little challenges and questions that Stephen kids at heart, driven by curiosity and posed in the earliest and most fruitful It turned out that the kid, although only a desire to have fun making sense of phase of his career. There isn’t a better six, had already read five of Stephen’s the world. place in the world for doing so than books. When he told his mom it was Perimeter. In many ways, we have Stephen, she said “it can’t be!” But – Neil Turok taken on his scientific mission at a time he desperately wanted to bring the when other places are either unable books in and have them autographed. or have lost the confidence to do so. Stephen strongly supported the Centre for the Universe we have recently created here, kindly endorsing the Stephen Hawking Fellowship to which we hope to attract an extraordinary young cosmologist. On Stephen’s very first night in Waterloo, I invited him and his team out to a local restaurant. We shared a lovely, memorable meal together. When I went to pay, I was told that a regular patron (who insisted on remaining anonymous) had settled our bill, as a welcome gift to Stephen. Stephen was delighted, telling me that, on all his travels, such a thing had never happened to him before. One fine afternoon, during Stephen’s second visit to Perimeter, he and I decided to take a walk in the park behind the Institute. As we walked around Silver Lake by the public 05 Ray Laflamme was a graduate student under Stephen Hawking at Cambridge when he was tasked with proving a theory of Hawking’s. The problem was, the theory turned out to be wrong. Stephen, although being well known and having an incredible reputation, with many people looking up to him, was a scientist. And science is very democratic. You discuss ideas, and ideas can be right or wrong. The math in theoretical physics tells you what is right and what is wrong. So I slowly, painstakingly, went through the math and showed that the original idea could not work. Fortunately, there was a colleague, Don Page, who had a very similar result to mine. We slowly convinced Stephen, and when he learned that he had made a mistake, he turned around and said, “You guys are right.” He was incredibly gracious.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • A New Sletter from the Ins T Itute F OR Qu Antum C O Mput Ing , U N Ive R S
    dition E pecial S | Bit Issue 20 Issue New A NEWSLETTER FROM THE INSTITUTE FOR QUANTUM COMPUTING, UNIVERSITY OF WATERLOO, WaTERLOO, ONTARIO, CANADA | C I S | NE CANADA NSTITUTE FOR QUANTUM QUANTUM FOR NSTITUTE PECIAL OMPUTING | NE NEWBIT ThisE is a state-of-the-art “ DITION | | research facility where I SSUE 20 SSUE scientistsW and students from many disciplinesBIT | will work Photos by Jonathan Bielaski W together toward the next BIT | I NSTITUTE FOR QUANTUM QUANTUM FOR NSTITUTE big breakthroughsI in science SSUE 20 | SSUE | and technology. SPECIAL EDITION I ” uantum Valley SSUE 20 | SSUE FERIDUN HAMDULLAHPUR, C OMPUTING, President, University of Waterloo Takes the Stage S S The science of the incredibly small has taken a giant leap at the Just asPECIAL the discoveries and PECIAL “ University of Waterloo. On Friday, Sept. 21 the MIKE & OPHELIA innovations at the Bell Labs LAZARIDIS QUANTUM-NANO CENTRE officially opened with a U led to the companies that ceremony attended by more than 1,200 guests and dignitaries, | NIVERSITY OF WATERLOO, ONTARIO, CANADA | NE CANADA ONTARIO, NIVERSITY OF WATERLOO, created SiliconI Valley, so will, including Prof. STEPHEN HAWKING. NSTITUTE F NSTITUTE E E I predict,DITION | the discoveries and DITION | innovationsC of the Quantum- OMPUTING, Nano Centre lead to the creation of companies that will lead to Distinguished I NSTITUTE FOR QUANTUM QUANTUM FOR NSTITUTE guests at the I Waterloo Region becoming NSTITUTE FOR QUANTUM QUANTUM FOR NSTITUTE O ribbon cutting of known as R QUANTUM the Quantum Valley. ” the Quantum-Nano Centre included Prof. U MIKE LAZARIDIS, STEPHEN HAWKING, NIVERSITY OF WATERLOO, ONTARIO, CANADA | NE CANADA ONTARIO, NIVERSITY OF WATERLOO, MPP JOHN MILLOY, Entrepreneur and philanthropist and MP PETER BRAID (behind).
    [Show full text]
  • Chairman of the Opening Session
    The Universe had (probably) an origin: on singularity theorems & quantum fluctuations Emilio Elizalde ICE/CSIC & IEEC Campus UAB, Barcelona Cosmology and the Quantum Vacuum III, Benasque, Sep 4-10, 2016 Some facts (a few rather surprising...) • Adam Riess, NP 2011, at Starmus (Tenerife), about Hubble: • “Hubble obtained the distances and redshifts of distant nebulae…” • “Hubble discovered that the Universe was expanding…” • No mention to Vesto Slipher, an extraordinary astronomer • Brian Schmidt, NP 2011, at Starmus (Tenerife) & Lisa Randall, Harvard U, in Barcelona, about Einstein: SHOES- • “Einstein was the first to think about the possibility of a ‘dark energy’…” Supernovae • No mention to Fritz Zwicky, another extraordinary astronomer • Fritz Zwicky discovered dark matter in the early 1930s while studying how galaxies move within the Coma Cluster • He was also the first to postulate and use nebulae as gravitational lenses (1937) • How easily* brilliant astronomers get dismissed • How easily* scientific myths arise *in few decades How did the “Big Bang” get its name ? http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/space/universe/scientists/fred_hoyle • Sir Fred Hoyle (1915–2001) English astronomer noted primarily for the theory of stellar nucleosynthesis (1946,54 groundbreaking papers) • Work on Britain's radar project with Hermann Bondi and Thomas Gold • William Fowler NP’83: “The concept of nucleosynthesis in stars was first established by Hoyle in 1946” • He found the idea universe had a beginning to be pseudoscience, also arguments for a creator, “…for it's an irrational process, and can't be described in scientific terms”; “…belief in the first page of Genesis” • Hoyle-Gold-Bondi 1948 steady state theory, “creation or C-field” • BBC radio's Third Programme broadcast on 28 Mar 1949: “… for this to happen you would need such a Big Bang!” Thus: Big Bang = Impossible blow!! But now: Big Bang ≈ Inflation ! • Same underlying physics as in steady state theory, “creation or C-field” • Richard C.
    [Show full text]
  • The Second-Order Correction to the Energy and Momentum in Plane Symmetric Gravitational Waves Like Spacetimes
    S S symmetry Article The Second-Order Correction to the Energy and Momentum in Plane Symmetric Gravitational Waves Like Spacetimes Mutahir Ali *, Farhad Ali , Abdus Saboor, M. Saad Ghafar and Amir Sultan Khan Department of Mathematics, Kohat University of Science and Technology, Kohat 26000, Pakistan; [email protected] (F.A.); [email protected] (A.S.); [email protected] (M.S.G.); [email protected] (A.S.K.) * Correspondence: [email protected] Received: 5 December 2018; Accepted: 22 January 2019; Published: 13 February 2019 Abstract: This research provides second-order approximate Noether symmetries of geodetic Lagrangian of time-conformal plane symmetric spacetime. A time-conformal factor is of the form ee f (t) which perturbs the plane symmetric static spacetime, where e is small a positive parameter that produces perturbation in the spacetime. By considering the perturbation up to second-order in e in plane symmetric spacetime, we find the second order approximate Noether symmetries for the corresponding Lagrangian. Using Noether theorem, the corresponding second order approximate conservation laws are investigated for plane symmetric gravitational waves like spacetimes. This technique tells about the energy content of the gravitational waves. Keywords: Einstein field equations; time conformal spacetime; approximate conservation of energy 1. Introduction Gravitational waves are ripples in the fabric of space-time produced by some of the most violent and energetic processes like colliding black holes or closely orbiting black holes and neutron stars (binary pulsars). These waves travel with the speed of light and depend on their sources [1–5]. The study of these waves provide us useful information about their sources (black holes and neutron stars).
    [Show full text]
  • What Is the Universe Made Of? How Old Is the Universe?
    What is the Universe made of? How old is it? Charles H. Lineweaver University of New South Wales ABSTRACT For the past 15 years most astronomers have assumed that 95% of the Universe was in some mysterious form of cold dark matter. They also assumed that the cosmo- logical constant, ΩΛ, was Einstein’s biggest blunder and could be ignored. However, recent measurements of the cosmic microwave background combined with other cos- mological observations strongly suggest that 75% of the Universe is made of cosmo- logical constant (vacuum energy), while only 20% is made of non-baryonic cold dark matter. Normal baryonic matter, the stuff most physicists study, makes up about 5% of the Universe. If these results are correct, an unknown 75% of the Universe has been identified. Estimates of the age of the Universe depend upon what it is made of. Thus, our new inventory gives us a new age for the Universe: 13.4 ± 1.6 Gyr. “The history of cosmology shows us that in every age devout people believe that they have at last discovered the true nature of the Universe.” (E. Harrison in Cosmology: The Science of the Universe 1981) 1 Progress A few decades ago cosmology was laughed at for being the only science with no data. Cosmology was theory-rich but data-poor. It attracted armchair enthusiasts spouting speculations without data to test them. It was the only science where the errors could be kept in the exponents – where you could set the speed of light c =1, not for dimensionless convenience, but because the observations were so poor that it didn’t matter.
    [Show full text]
  • Annual Report to Industry Canada Covering The
    Annual Report to Industry Canada Covering the Objectives, Activities and Finances for the period August 1, 2008 to July 31, 2009 and Statement of Objectives for Next Year and the Future Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics 31 Caroline Street North Waterloo, Ontario N2L 2Y5 Table of Contents Pages Period A. August 1, 2008 to July 31, 2009 Objectives, Activities and Finances 2-52 Statement of Objectives, Introduction Objectives 1-12 with Related Activities and Achievements Financial Statements, Expenditures, Criteria and Investment Strategy Period B. August 1, 2009 and Beyond Statement of Objectives for Next Year and Future 53-54 1 Statement of Objectives Introduction In 2008-9, the Institute achieved many important objectives of its mandate, which is to advance pure research in specific areas of theoretical physics, and to provide high quality outreach programs that educate and inspire the Canadian public, particularly young people, about the importance of basic research, discovery and innovation. Full details are provided in the body of the report below, but it is worth highlighting several major milestones. These include: In October 2008, Prof. Neil Turok officially became Director of Perimeter Institute. Dr. Turok brings outstanding credentials both as a scientist and as a visionary leader, with the ability and ambition to position PI among the best theoretical physics research institutes in the world. Throughout the last year, Perimeter Institute‘s growing reputation and targeted recruitment activities led to an increased number of scientific visitors, and rapid growth of its research community. Chart 1. Growth of PI scientific staff and associated researchers since inception, 2001-2009.
    [Show full text]
  • Science & ROGER PENROSE
    Science & ROGER PENROSE Live Webinar - hosted by the Center for Consciousness Studies August 3 – 6, 2021 9:00 am – 12:30 pm (MST-Arizona) each day 4 Online Live Sessions DAY 1 Tuesday August 3, 2021 9:00 am to 12:30 pm MST-Arizona Overview / Black Holes SIR ROGER PENROSE (Nobel Laureate) Oxford University, UK Tuesday August 3, 2021 9:00 am – 10:30 am MST-Arizona Roger Penrose was born, August 8, 1931 in Colchester Essex UK. He earned a 1st class mathematics degree at University College London; a PhD at Cambridge UK, and became assistant lecturer, Bedford College London, Research Fellow St John’s College, Cambridge (now Honorary Fellow), a post-doc at King’s College London, NATO Fellow at Princeton, Syracuse, and Cornell Universities, USA. He also served a 1-year appointment at University of Texas, became a Reader then full Professor at Birkbeck College, London, and Rouse Ball Professor of Mathematics, Oxford University (during which he served several 1/2-year periods as Mathematics Professor at Rice University, Houston, Texas). He is now Emeritus Rouse Ball Professor, Fellow, Wadham College, Oxford (now Emeritus Fellow). He has received many awards and honorary degrees, including knighthood, Fellow of the Royal Society and of the US National Academy of Sciences, the De Morgan Medal of London Mathematical Society, the Copley Medal of the Royal Society, the Wolf Prize in mathematics (shared with Stephen Hawking), the Pomeranchuk Prize (Moscow), and one half of the 2020 Nobel Prize in Physics, the other half shared by Reinhard Genzel and Andrea Ghez.
    [Show full text]
  • Decoherence and the Transition from Quantum to Classical—Revisited
    Decoherence and the Transition from Quantum to Classical—Revisited Wojciech H. Zurek This paper has a somewhat unusual origin and, as a consequence, an unusual structure. It is built on the principle embraced by families who outgrow their dwellings and decide to add a few rooms to their existing structures instead of start- ing from scratch. These additions usually “show,” but the whole can still be quite pleasing to the eye, combining the old and the new in a functional way. What follows is such a “remodeling” of the paper I wrote a dozen years ago for Physics Today (1991). The old text (with some modifications) is interwoven with the new text, but the additions are set off in boxes throughout this article and serve as a commentary on new developments as they relate to the original. The references appear together at the end. In 1991, the study of decoherence was still a rather new subject, but already at that time, I had developed a feeling that most implications about the system’s “immersion” in the environment had been discovered in the preceding 10 years, so a review was in order. While writing it, I had, however, come to suspect that the small gaps in the landscape of the border territory between the quantum and the classical were actually not that small after all and that they presented excellent opportunities for further advances. Indeed, I am surprised and gratified by how much the field has evolved over the last decade. The role of decoherence was recognized by a wide spectrum of practic- 86 Los Alamos Science Number 27 2002 ing physicists as well as, beyond physics proper, by material scientists and philosophers.
    [Show full text]
  • Rainer Weiss, Professor of Physics Emeritus and 2017 Nobel Laureate
    Giving to the Department of Physics by Erin McGrath RAINER WEISS ’55, PHD ’62 Bryce Vickmark Rai Weiss has established a fellowship in the Physics Department because he is eternally grateful to his advisor, the late Jerrold Zacharias, for all that he did for Rai, so he knows firsthand the importance of supporting graduate students. Rainer Weiss, Professor of Physics Emeritus and 2017 Nobel Laureate. Rainer “Rai” Weiss was born in Berlin, Germany in 1932. His father was a physician and his mother was an actress. His family was forced out of Germany by the Nazis since his father was Jewish and a Communist. Rai, his mother and father fled to Prague, Czecho- slovakia. In 1937 a sister was born in Prague. In 1938, after Chamberlain appeased Hitler by effectively giving him Czechoslovakia, the family was able to obtain visas to enter the United States through the Stix Family in St. Louis, who were giving bond to professional Jewish emigrants. When Rai was 21 years-old, he visited Mrs. Stix and thanked her for what she had done for his family. The family immigrated to New York City. Rai’s father had a hard time passing the medi- cal boards because of his inability to answer multiple choice exams. His mother, who Rai says “held the family together,” worked in a number of retail stores. Through the services of an immigrant relief organization Rai received a scholarship to attend the prestigious Columbia Grammar School. At the end of 1945, when Rai was 13 years old, he became fascinated with electronics and music.
    [Show full text]
  • Tinkering with Time the NEW TIME TRAVELERS: a JOURNEY to the on Our FRONTIERS of PHYSICS by DAVID TOOMEY Bookshelf W
    BOOKS & ARTS Tinkering with time THE NEW TIME TRAVELERS: A JOURNEY TO THE On our FRONTIERS OF PHYSICS BY DAVID TOOMEY bookshelf W. W. Norton & Co.: 2007. 320 pp. $25.95 Years ago, David Toomey picked up H. G. Wells’ moving clocks tick slowly, making time travel The Time Machine and couldn’t put it down. to the future possible. We now know a number The Mathematics of He was most interested in the drawing-room of solutions to Einstein’s equations of general Egypt, Mesopotamia, discussion between the time traveller and his relativity (1915) that are sufficiently twisted to China, India, and Islam: friends in which time as a fourth dimension was allow time travel to the past: Kurt Gödel’s 1949 A Sourcebook discussed, but wanted to know more about just rotating universe; the Morris–Thorne–Yurtsever edited by Victor J. Katz how that time machine might work. Toomey was wormhole (1988); the Tipler–van Stockum infinite therefore delighted to learn that that drawing- rotating cylinder, moving cosmic strings (myself), Princeton Univ. Press: room conversation continues today — this time the rotating black-hole interior (Brandon Carter), 2007. 685 pp. $75 among physicists. a Roman ring of wormholes (Matt Visser), the We’re aware that Toomey captures well the personalities Everett–Alcubierre warp drive, my and Li–Xin Li’s the ancient cultures of the ‘new time travelers’ — those physicists self-creating universe; Amos Ori’s torus; and were mathematically interested in whether time travel to the past is others. The book discusses all of these. advanced. Now possible — from Stephen Hawking’s sense of But can a time machine really be constructed? translations of early texts humour to Kip Thorne’s penchant for placing Hawking, like one of the time traveller’s sceptical from five key regions are scientific bets.
    [Show full text]
  • ACCRETION INTO and EMISSION from BLACK HOLES Thesis By
    ACCRETION INTO AND EMISSION FROM BLACK HOLES Thesis by Don Nelson Page In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy California Institute of Technology Pasadena, California 1976 (Submitted May 20, 1976) -ii- ACKNOHLEDG:-IENTS For everything involved during my pursuit of a Ph. D. , I praise and thank my Lord Jesus Christ, in whom "all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities--all things have been created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together" (Colossians 1: 16-17) . But He is not only the Creator and Sustainer of the universe, including the physi­ cal laws which rule and their dominion the spacetime manifold and its matter fields ; He is also my personal Savior, who was "wounded for our transgressions , ... bruised for our iniquities, .. and the Lord has lald on Him the iniquity of us all" (Isaiah 53:5-6). As the Apostle Paul expressed it shortly after Isaiah ' s prophecy had come true at least five hundred years after being written, "God demonstrates His own love tmvard us , in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 5 : 8) . Christ Himself said, " I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full" (John 10:10) . Indeed Christ has given me life to the full while I have been at Caltech, and I wish to acknowledge some of the main blessings He has granted: First I thank my advisors , KipS.
    [Show full text]
  • SUSY, Landscape and the Higgs
    SUSY, Landscape and the Higgs Michael Dine Department of Physics University of California, Santa Cruz Workshop: Nature Guiding Theory, Fermilab 2014 Michael Dine SUSY, Landscape and the Higgs A tension between naturalness and simplicity There have been lots of good arguments to expect that some dramatic new phenomena should appear at the TeV scale to account for electroweak symmetry breaking. But given the exquisite successes of the Model, the simplest possibility has always been the appearance of a single Higgs particle, with a mass not much above the LEP exclusions. In Quantum Field Theory, simple has a precise meaning: a single Higgs doublet is the minimal set of additional (previously unobserved) degrees of freedom which can account for the elementary particle masses. Michael Dine SUSY, Landscape and the Higgs Higgs Discovery; LHC Exclusions So far, simplicity appears to be winning. Single light higgs, with couplings which seem consistent with the minimal Standard Model. Exclusion of a variety of new phenomena; supersymmetry ruled out into the TeV range over much of the parameter space. Tunings at the part in 100 1000 level. − Most other ideas (technicolor, composite Higgs,...) in comparable or more severe trouble. At least an elementary Higgs is an expectation of supersymmetry. But in MSSM, requires a large mass for stops. Michael Dine SUSY, Landscape and the Higgs Top quark/squark loop corrections to observed physical Higgs mass (A 0; tan β > 20) ≈ In MSSM, without additional degrees of freedom: 126 L 124 GeV H h m 122 120 4000 6000 8000 10 000 12 000 14 000 HMSUSYGeVL Michael Dine SUSY, Landscape and the Higgs 6y 2 δm2 = t m~ 2 log(Λ2=m2 ) H −16π2 t susy So if 8 TeV, correction to Higgs mass-squred parameter in effective action easily 1000 times the observed Higgs mass-squared.
    [Show full text]
  • MATTERS of GRAVITY, a Newsletter for the Gravity Community, Number 4
    MATTERS OF GRAVITY Number 4 Fall 1994 Table of Contents Editorial ................................................... ................... 2 Correspondents ................................................... ............ 2 Gravity news: Report on the APS Topical Group in Gravitation, Beverly Berger ............. 3 Research briefs: Gravitational Microlensing and the Search for Dark Matter: A Personal View, Bohdan Paczynski .......................................... 5 Laboratory Gravity: The G Mystery and Intrinsic Spin Experiments, Riley Newman ............................... 11 LIGO Project update, Stan Whitcomb ....................................... 15 Conference Reports: PASCOS ’94, Peter Saulson .................................................. 16 The Vienna meeting, P. Aichelburg, R. Beig .................................. 19 The Pitt Binary Black Hole Grand Challenge Meeting, Jeff Winicour ......... 20 International Symposium on Experimental Gravitation, Nathiagali, Pakistan, Munawar Karim ....................................... 22 arXiv:gr-qc/9409004v1 2 Sep 1994 10th Pacific Coast Gravity Meeting , Jim Isenberg ........................... 23 Editor: Jorge Pullin Center for Gravitational Physics and Geometry The Pennsylvania State University University Park, PA 16802-6300 Fax: (814)863-9608 Phone (814)863-9597 Internet: [email protected] 1 Editorial The newsletter strides on. I had to perform some pushing around and arm-twisting to get articles for this number. I wish to remind everyone that suggestions and ideas for contributions are especially welcome. The newsletter is growing rather weak on the theoretical side. Keep those suggestions coming! I put together this newsletter mostly on a palmtop computer while travelling, with some contributions arriving the very day of publication (on which, to complicate matters, I was giving a talk at a conference, my email reader crashed and our network went down). One of the contributions is a bit longer than the usual format. Again it is my fault for failing to warn the author in due time.
    [Show full text]