Title: Primordial Black Holes in Light of LIGO/Virgo Observations Abstract: Assuming that a fraction of dark matter is in primordial blackholes (PBHs), a population of PBH binaries is formed before matter-radiationequality from large Poisson fluctuations in their spatial distribution…. Read More

Title: Moduli Stabilisation and the Holographic Swampland Abstract: Moduli stabilisation is an important and necessary step in connecting string vacua to observable physics. This generally starts with AdS solutions, which subsequent steps then uplift to de Sitter space…. Read More

Title: Topological Complexity for Quantum Information Abstract: The distinction between “quantum” and “classical” is a main theme in quantum information. Whether a quantum circuit can be classically simulated in polynomial time, and in general, whether the partition function of a lattice model… Read More

Title: Complexity and Quantum Field Theory Abstract: Viewing fundamental interactions as quantum-many body systems has recently led to important breakthroughs in our understanding of quantum gravity and quantum field theory. In the present talk I will discuss a… Read More

Title: Entanglement Entropy from Spacetime Correlations Abstract: Entanglement entropy of quantum fields is a topic of growing importance in several fields such as quantum gravity, condensed matter physics, and quantum information. This entropy of entanglement is conventionally computed, using a number of… Read More

Title: Tropical Geometry, Cluster Algebras and Scattering Amplitudes Abstract: Recently there are hints that there should be an underlying geometricalframework for describing scattering amplitudes in N=4 super Yang-Millstheory. Cluster algebras encode many interesting physical statements aboutthe nature of singularities of these amplitudes and their relation to eachother. We find the notion of tropical geometry allows one to obtain finitesets of singularities even when the cluster algebras become infinite andmoreover leads to a natural definition of algebraic singularities of exactlythe type seen in recent explicit calculations. Talk – Video Talk – Slides

Title: Thermal Conductance of the nu=5/2 Fractional Quantum Hall State Abstract: Recent tour-de-force experiments (Banerjee, Heiblum, et al,Nature 2018) have measured the thermal conductance of the nu=5/2 edge ina GaAs electron gas and found it to be quantized as approximately K=5/2(in appropriate dimensionless units). This result is unexpected, asprior numerical work predicts that the nu=5/2 state should be theAnti-Pfaffian phase of matter, which would give K=3/2, or the possiblythe Moore-Read Pfaffian which would give K=7/2. I will discuss andevaluate several possible explanations of the experimental result. Talk – Video Talk – Slides

Title: From Ramanujan to Rokhlin, via Quantum States Abstract: The goal of the talk, intended for a broader audience, will be tointroduce a class of functions that originate from physics, answer aquestion in topology, can be computed via methods more common in the theoryof dynamical systems, and in the end turn out to enjoy beautiful modularproperties of the type first observed by Ramanujan. Talk – Video Talk – Slides