• Testing spacetime geometry with images of supermassive compact objects: Current status and the future

    Virtual

    https://youtu.be/ParxdL5gREI General Relativity Seminar Speaker: Prashant Kocherlakota (BHI) Title: Testing spacetime geometry with images of supermassive compact objects: Current status and the future Abstract: Astrophysical black holes (BHs) are expected to be described by the Kerr solution of the Einstein equations. Several frameworks have recently been developed to parametrically deform the Kerr metric in significantly […]

  • Group Invariant States as Many-Body Scars

    Virtual

    Quantum Matter Seminar Title: Group Invariant States as Many-Body Scars Speaker: Igor R. Klebanov (Princeton University) Abstract: Quantum many-body scars have been an active area of research in Condensed Matter Physics for several years. In some many-body systems, the Hilbert space breaks up into a large ergodic sector and a much smaller scar subspace. It […]

  • Swampland program, extra dimensions and supersymmetry breaking

    CMSA Room G10 CMSA, 20 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA, United States

    Swampland Seminar Speaker: Ignatios Antoniadis (LPTHE Paris) Title: Swampland program, extra dimensions and supersymmetry breaking Abstract: I will argue on the possibility that the smallness of some physical parameters signal a universe corresponding to a large distance corner in the string landscape of vacua. Such parameters can be the scales of dark energy and supersymmetry breaking, leading to […]

  • AI and Theorem Proving

    CMSA Room G10 CMSA, 20 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA, United States

    Member Seminar Speaker: Mike Douglas Title: AI and Theorem Proving Abstract: We survey interactive theorem proving and the Lean theorem prover, and the use of AI and large language models to improve this technology. We hope to start a discussion on projects we can do at the CMSA.

  • Near extremal de Sitter black holes and JT gravity

    Virtual

    https://youtu.be/0gWCm0wmgOY General Relativity Seminar Speaker: Chiara Toldo (Harvard) Title: Near extremal de Sitter black holes and JT gravity Abstract: In this talk I will explore the thermodynamic response near extremality of charged black holes in four-dimensional Einstein-Maxwell theory with a positive cosmological constant. The latter exhibit three different extremal limits, dubbed cold, Nariai and ultracold configurations, with […]

  • Neural Optimal Stopping Boundary

    CMSA Room G10 CMSA, 20 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA, United States

    Speaker: Max Reppen (Boston University) Title: Neural Optimal Stopping Boundary Abstract:  A method based on deep artificial neural networks and empirical risk minimization is developed to calculate the boundary separating the stopping and continuation regions in optimal stopping. The algorithm parameterizes the stopping boundary as the graph of a function and introduces relaxed stopping rules based on fuzzy […]

  • Interacting Active Matter

    CMSA Room G10 CMSA, 20 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA, United States

    Active Matter Seminar Speaker: Amin Doostmohammadi, Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen Title: Interacting Active Matter Abstract: I will focus on the interaction between different active matter systems. In particular, I will describe recent experimental and modeling results that reveal how interaction forces between adhesive cells generate activity in the cell layer and lead to a […]

  • Third Annual Yip Lecture

    Harvard Science Center 1 Oxford Street, Cambridge, MA

    Andrew Strominger will give the Third Annual Yip Lecture on February 2, 2023. Time: 7:00-8:00 pm ET Location: Harvard Science Center Hall A   Title: Black Holes: The Most Mysterious Objects in the Universe Abstract: In the last decade black holes have come to center stage in both theoretical and observational science. Theoretically, they were […]

  • Fracton orders in hyperbolic space and its excitations with fractal mobility

    Virtual

    Quantum Matter Seminar Speaker: Han Yan (Rice U) Title: Fracton orders in hyperbolic space and its excitations with fractal mobility Abstract: Unlike ordinary topological quantum phases, fracton orders are intimately dependent on the underlying lattice geometry. In this work, we study a generalization of the X-cube model, on lattices embedded in a stack of hyperbolic […]

  • Motivic Geometry of Two-Loop Feynman Integrals

    CMSA Room G10 CMSA, 20 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA, United States

    Member Seminar Speaker: Chuck Doran Title: Motivic Geometry of Two-Loop Feynman Integrals Abstract: We study the geometry and Hodge theory of the cubic hypersurfaces attached to two-loop Feynman integrals for generic physical parameters. We show that the Hodge structure attached to planar two-loop Feynman graphs decomposes into a mixed Tate piece and a variation of Hodge structure from […]

  • From spin glasses to Boolean circuits lower bounds – Algorithmic barriers from the overlap gap property

    CMSA Room G10 CMSA, 20 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA, United States

    Speaker: David Gamarnik (MIT) Title: From spin glasses to Boolean circuits lower bounds. Algorithmic barriers from the overlap gap property Abstract: Many decision and optimization problems over random structures exhibit an apparent gap between the existentially optimal values and algorithmically achievable values. Examples include the problem of finding a largest independent set in a random graph, the problem […]

  • Bakry-Emery theory and renormalisation

    Hybrid

    Probability Seminar Speaker: Roland Bauerschmidt (Cambridge) Title: Bakry-Emery theory and renormalisation Abstract: I will discuss an approach to log-Sobolev inequalities that combines the Bakry-Emery theory with renormalisation and present several applications. These include log-Sobolev inequalities with polynomial dependence for critical Ising models on Z^d when d>4 and singular SPDEs with uniform dependence of the log-Sobolev […]