During the semester we have a high energy seminar and a lunch seminar. In addition to these two seminars we participate in a joint theoretical high energy theory seminar in Newe Shalom. The joint seminar takes place on Tuesdays from 10:30 until 13:30 and includes two talks and lunch. This seminar is attended by the high energy groups of all the Israeli institutions and usually attracts a crowd of roughly twenty participants.
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Title: Field theory defects through double scaling limits
Abstract: Defect operators in field theory are very interesting for a number of reasons. Drawing inspiration from techniques which have been very recently applied to uncover interesting properties of sectors of operators with large charge under a global symmetry, we will study defects in the Wilson-Fisher fixed point near d=4,6 dimensions. Combining with localization, we will also use a double-scaling limit for certain Wilson loops in N=2 supersymmetric theories in 4d which allows to make exact statements at finite N.
Title: Line defects in CFTs: from magnets to Wilson lines
Abstract: Line defects describe one-dimensional probes of a quantum field theory. Physically interesting examples can be found in different systems, ranging from condensed matter physics to gauge theories. In this talk, I will briefly review some recent results on the renormalization group approach to line defects in CFTs. I will then discuss some applications. In particular, I will discuss some interesting RG flows for Wilson lines in massless gauge theories, and their relation with an instability to screening by charged fields.
Title: Global symmetry breaking and defect conformal manifolds
Abstract:In the presence of exactly marginal operators, one can deform a conformal field theory to other such theories, forming a space of theories living on what’s known as the conformal manifold. In a theory with conformal defects, one may be able to retain the bulk theory but transform the defect along what I’ll call the “defect conformal manifold”. This requires the existence of exactly marginal defect operators. A simple setting where this happens is in the presence of a global symmetry broken by the defect. The broken symmetry current gives rise to an exactly marginal defect operator and a defect conformal manifold which is the symmetry breaking coset. This simple observation lets us derive an exact identity for integrated 4-point functions of the marginal defect operator which is highly nontrivial. We implement this in several models where the 4-point functions have been previously calculated.
Title: Effective theory of sub-maximal chaos
Abstract: I will present progress on formulating an effective description of the quantum butterfly effect at late times. After discussing maximally chaotic examples, I will turn to a particular limit of the SYK model that displays sub-maximal chaos and discuss its effective description. The final results can be matched in detail to stringy corrections to the gravitational eikonal S-matrix in holographic CFTs, including a stringy Regge trajectory, bulk to boundary propagators, and multi-string effects that are unexplored holographically.
Title: Chaos and Wormholes in the Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev Model
Abstract: The Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev (SYK) model is a solvable many-body theory with a low-energy limit given
by the Schwartzian action found for the boundary dynamics Jackiw-Teitelboim gravity. This model has greatly improved our understanding of many-body quantum chaos and black holes.
In this talk, after an introduction to the SYK model and random matrix theory, we discuss the physics of the spectral form factor as a measure of quantum chaos. We will see that the long time behavior of the spectral factor is closely related to wormhole solutions of two coupled SYK models.
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