New Techniques for Holography from Supergravity

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This award funds the research activities of Professor Oscar Varela at Utah State University.General relativity (the theoretical language for understanding gravity) and quantum field theory (the theoretical language for understanding the elementary particles of nature) have traditionally been thought to be irreconcilable theories. The former governs the large-scale structure of the universe, while the latter describes the fundamental interactions —-- electromagnetic, weak, and strong —-- that operate at a subatomic level. More importantly, only the latter is consistent with the probabilistic expectations of quantum mechanics. However, is it possible that these two seemingly different theories are actually two different sides of the same coin? Could they be regarded as dual manifestations of an overarching set of physical principles? If this were the case, general relativity and quantum field theory would complement rather than conflict with each other, as they would be equivalent, differing only in their regimes of applicability. In his research, Professor Varela will further develop this idea within the framework of an equivalence called "the AdS/CFT correspondence". As such, this research advances the national interest by promoting the development of science in a fundamental direction, by developing relations among the laws of physics at deeper and deeper levels. This research will also have broader impacts by providing training for junior physicists. The results of this research will also be disseminated to the general public, with an emphasis on reaching members of under-represented groups.More technically, aspects of the AdS/CFT correspondence will be studied, with a focus in the supergravity regime where tighter control of the correspondence is attained. New tools will be introduced and developed to construct solutions to the supergravity equations that contain anti-de Sitter space. These methods will exploit the reformulations of higher-dimensional supergravities that make exceptional symmetries manifest, and will provide new efficient tools to compute observables in the dual field theories.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.