• Pseudospectrum and black hole quasinormal mode instability: An ultraviolet universality conjecture

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

    https://youtu.be/teqIIXRJXd4 General Relativity Seminar Speaker: Jose Luis Jaramillo (Bourgogne U.) Title: Pseudospectrum and black hole quasinormal mode instability: an ultraviolet universality conjecture Abstract: Can we measure the ‘effective regularity’ of spacetime from the perturbation of quasi-normal mode (QNM) overtones? Black hole (BH) QNMs encode the resonant response of black holes under linear perturbations, their associated […]

  • On the free energy of spin glasses with multiple types

    Virtual

    Probability Seminar Speaker: Jean-Christophe Mourrat (ENS Lyon) Title: On the free energy of spin glasses with multiple types Abstract: In the simplest spin-glass model, due to Sherrington and Kirkpatrick, the energy function involves interaction terms between all pairs of spins. A bipartite version of this model can be obtained by splitting the spins into two […]

  • Quantum entropy thermalization

    Virtual

    Quantum Matter Seminar Speaker: Yichen Huang (Harvard) Title: Quantum entropy thermalization Abstract: In an isolated quantum many-body system undergoing unitary evolution, the entropy of a subsystem (smaller than half the system size) thermalizes if at long times, it is to leading order equal to the thermodynamic entropy of the subsystem at the same energy. We […]

  • String theory scalar potentials and their critical points

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

    Swampland Seminar Speaker: David Andriot (Annecy, LAPTH) Title: String theory scalar potentials and their critical points Abstract: Positive scalar potentials in string effective theories could provide an origin to Dark Energy, responsible for the accelerated expansion of our universe today or during inflation. It is thus crucial to characterize these scalar potentials, namely their slope, […]

  • Randomized algorithms in combinatorics

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

    Member Seminar Speaker: Michael Simkin Title: Randomized algorithms in combinatorics Abstract: Randomized algorithms have been a computational workhorse for almost as long as there have been computers. Surprisingly, such algorithms can also be used to attack problems that are neither algorithmic nor probabilistic. Time permitting I will discuss the following combintorial examples: Enumerative combinatorics and the […]

  • Active chemical reactions in phase-separating systems

    Virtual

    Active Matter Seminar   Speaker:  Jonathan Bauermann, Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems Title: Active chemical reactions in phase-separating systems Abstract: Motivated by the existence of membrane-less compartments in the chemically active environment of living cells, I will discuss the dynamics of droplets in the presence of active chemical reactions. Therefore, I […]

  • Tensorial TQFT and disentangling modular Walker-Wang models

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

    Quantum Matter Seminar Speaker: Andreas Bauer  (Freie Universität Berlin) Title: Tensorial TQFT and disentangling modular Walker-Wang models Abstract: I will introduce simple "tensorial" definitions for many algebraic and categorical structures appearing in the classification of topological phases of matter. Such "tensorial TQFTs" will be defined as maps that associate tensors to geometric/topological objects of some […]

  • Quantum Gravity constraints beyond asymptotic regimes

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

    Member Seminar Speaker: Max Wiesner Title: Quantum Gravity constraints beyond asymptotic regimes Abstract: Not every effective field theory that is consistent in the absence of gravity can be completed to a consistent theory of quantum gravity. The goal of the Swampland program is to find general criteria that distinguish effective field theories, that can be obtained […]

  • 2023 Ding Shum Lecture

    Harvard Science Center 1 Oxford Street, Cambridge, MA

    On March 21, 2023, the CMSA hosted the fourth annual Ding Shum Lecture, given by Cynthia Dwork (Harvard SEAS and Microsoft Research). Time: 5:00-6:00 pm ET Location: Harvard University Science Center Hall D This event was be held in person and via Zoom webinar.   Title: Measuring Our Chances: Risk Prediction in This World and its […]

  • Synchronization in a Kuramoto Mean Field Game

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

    Speaker: Mete Soner (Princeton University) Title: Synchronization in a Kuramoto Mean Field Game Abstract:  Originally motivated by systems of chemical and biological oscillators, the classical Kuramoto model has found an amazing range of applications from neuroscience to Josephson junctions in superconductors, and has become a  key mathematical model to describe self organization in complex systems. These autonomous oscillators are […]

  • Some rigorous results on the Lévy spin glass model

    Virtual

    Probability Seminar Speaker: Wei-Kuo Chen (Minnesota) Title: Some rigorous results on the Lévy spin glass model Abstract: The Lévy spin glass model, proposed by Cizeau-Bouchaud, is a mean-field model defined on a fully connected graph, where the spin interactions are formulated through a power-law distribution. This model is well-motivated from the study of the experimental metallic spin […]

  • New Phases of N=4 SYM

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

    https://youtu.be/Kt7n_0t6sgo General Relativity Seminar Speaker: Prahar Mitra (University of Cambridge) Title: New Phases of N=4 SYM Abstract: We construct new static solutions to gauged supergravity that, via the AdS/CFT correspondence, are dual to thermal phases in N=4 SYM at finite chemical potential. These solutions dominate the micro-canonical ensemble and are required to ultimately reproduce the microscopic entropy of AdS […]