Research on String Theory and Gauge Theory

这笔赠款资助了肯塔基大学Sumit Das教授的研究活动。在过去的150年里，我们对已经处于平衡状态的物理系统有了相当好的了解，但对不平衡的过程的了解相当有限。这个项目旨在了解非平衡系统的某些方面。值得注意的是，事实证明，弦理论中发展起来的概念和技术可以用来解决这个基本问题。该项目将使用这些新工具来了解这一过程的普遍特征，即广泛类别的系统所共有的特征。因此，这一领域的研究通过促进科学最基本的方向之一--对普遍物理现象的理解--来促进国家利益。该项目产生的更广泛的影响将是提高本科生和研究生物理教育的质量，并支持肯塔基州地区的前沿物理研究。在更高的技术层面上，DAS将使用规范-引力二象性研究强耦合量子场理论中的非平衡现象。此外，规范-重力二元性将被用来理解另一个非平衡系统的含义：膨胀的宇宙。更具体地说，全息技术将被用来理解宇宙奇点的性质和可能的分辨率。

This grant funds the research activities of Professor Sumit Das at the University of Kentucky.Over the past 150 years we have attained a fairly good understanding of physical systems which are already in equilibrium, but we have rather limited understanding of processes out of equilibrium. This project aims at understanding some aspects of non-equilibrium systems. Remarkably, it turns out that concepts and techniques developed in String Theory can be used to attack this fundamental problem. This project will use these new tools to understand universal features of this process, i.e., features which are common to a wide class of systems. As such, research in this area advances the national interest by promoting the progress of science in one of its most fundamental directions: the understanding of universal physical phenomena. The broader impacts resulting from this project will be to enhance the quality of undergraduate and graduate physics education, and to support frontier physics research in the Kentucky region. At a more technical level, Das will study non-equilibrium phenomena in strongly coupled quantum field theories using gauge-gravity duality. In addition, gauge-gravity duality will be used to understand the meaning of yet another non-equilibrium system: the expanding universe. More specifically, holographic techniques will be used to understand the nature and possible resolutions of cosmological singularities.