Interactions of Particles, Fields, and Strings

该奖项资助哈佛大学Cumrun Vafa教授的研究活动。世界是如何在最深层运作的，为什么它会以这样的方式运作？这是一些自古以来就让人类着迷的问题，我们对答案的探索对数学、物理和技术的发展做出了巨大贡献。瓦法教授的研究受到诸如引力的性质和强度以及最近发现的希格斯玻色子的性质等深奥难题的激励，将继续发展物理学和数学之间的界限。这项工作还将开发新的分析工具，这些工具可能会发现远远超出理论粒子物理和弦理论的应用。因此，本研究通过促进基础科学的进步来促进国家利益。作为该项目的一部分，瓦法教授还将继续激励有才华的年轻人追随艰难但至关重要的科学学科。从技术上讲，Vafa教授将扩展他之前的结果，考虑在不同维度的各种流形上紧化六维理论，并打开合适的背景场，目标是发展低维CFT的分类。瓦法教授还将重新审视并扩展他的一个老猜想。大约10年前，瓦法提出，大多数看似一致的量子引力理论实际上是不一致的，并且不是在一致的弦紧化中产生的。从那时起，这一观点积累了大量证据。一个值得注意的例子是由Vafa和合作者提出的“弱引力猜想”（WGC），该猜想指出，在任何一致的量子引力理论中，引力必须始终是最弱的力。近年来，WGC的证据越来越多，最近Ooguri和Vafa提出了一个尖锐版本的WGC，这意味着超对称是AdS/CFT对偶的关键因素。如果这是真的，这将对在凝聚态系统和重离子碰撞中所追求的全息模型产生戏剧性的影响，因为这些系统通常不表现出超对称性。作为他的研究更广泛影响的一部分，瓦法教授希望继续发展他的大一研讨会课程，“物理，数学和谜题”。这门课程旨在通过简单的数学谜题来展示物理的深层原理，吸引了越来越多的物理专业学生。此外，瓦法教授正计划将这门课程编成一本书，以便让更多对物理和数学感兴趣的学生可以阅读。最后，瓦法教授计划继续在石溪大学举办西蒙斯几何和物理中心夏季研讨会。这些年度研讨会继续在教育一些对理论物理学感兴趣的最优秀的年轻人方面产生深远的影响，特别是在弦理论和附近的凝聚态物理和数学领域。

This award funds the research activities of Professor Cumrun Vafa at Harvard University. How does the world work at the deepest levels, and why does the it work in the way that it does? These are some of the questions that have fascinated humankind since the beginning of time, and our search for answers has contributed enormously to the development of mathematics and physics as well as technology. Professor Vafa's research, motivated by deep puzzles such as the nature and strength of gravity and the nature of the recently-discovered Higgs boson, will continue to develop the boundaries between physics and mathematics. This work will also develop new analytical tools which may find applications far from theoretical particle physics and string theory. Thus, this research advances the national interest by promoting the progress of fundamental science. As part of this project, Professor Vafa will also continue to inspire talented young people to follow the difficult but crucial discipline of science.More technically, Professor Vafa will extend his previous results by considering compactifying six-dimensional theories on various manifolds of diverse dimensions with suitable background fields turned on, with the goal of developing a classification of lower-dimensional CFT's. Professor Vafa will also revisit and expand upon an old conjecture of his. About 10 years ago Vafa proposed that most of the naively consistent-looking quantum-gravitational theories are actually inconsistent and do not arise in a consistent string compactification. Since then, considerable evidence has accumulated for this viewpoint. A notable example of this is the "weak gravity conjecture" (WGC) which was proposed by Vafa and collaborators and which states that in any consistent theory of quantum gravity, gravity must always be the weakest force. Evidence for the WGC has grown over the years, and recently Ooguri and Vafa proposed that a sharpened version of the WGC implies that supersymmetry is a key ingredient in the AdS/CFT duality. If true, this would have dramatic implications about the models of holography being pursued in condensed-matter systems and in heavy-ion collisions, as these systems do not typically exhibit supersymmetry. As part of the broader impacts of his research, Professor Vafa hopes to continue developing his freshman seminar course, "Physics, Math and Puzzles". This course aims to showcase deep principles of physics through simple mathematical puzzles, and has attracted an increased number of physics majors. Furthermore Professor Vafa is planning to convert the course to a book so that it will be accessible to a wider audience of potentially interested students of physics and mathematics. Finally, Professor Vafa plans to continue running the Simons Center for Geometry and Physics summer workshops at Stony Brook University. These annual workshops continue to have a deep impact in educating some of the best young minds interested in theoretical physics, especially in questions related to string theory and the nearby areas of condensed-matter physics and mathematics.