Particles, Strings and Gravity in a Dynamical Universe

该奖项资助加州大学伯克利分校的米娜·阿加纳奇教授、拉斐尔·布索教授和皮特·霍拉瓦教授的研究活动。在本世纪的头二十年里，我们见证了我们对宇宙从最短尺度到最大尺度的基本定律的理解取得了巨大进步，这些基本定律牢固地基于量子力学(描述亚原子世界)和广义相对论(描述大距离作用的引力)的原理。虽然弦理论可能代表了统一这两个原则的主导范式，但许多重要的谜题和悬而未决的问题仍然存在。阿加纳奇、布索和霍拉瓦教授将试图为这些开放的问题和谜题提供一些答案，目的是加深我们对量子力学宇宙的理解。具体地说，这些教授将利用新发现的量子力学引力理论与迅速发展的交叉学科领域--量子信息理论--之间的联系，以及通过使用更传统的方法来研究这种引力理论的性质，这些方法已经成功地描述了自然界中所有的非引力。这项研究的结果有望对与黑洞的量子力学行为相关的谜题、可能的爱因斯坦广义相对论的短距离推广，以及最大距离演化宇宙的结构产生影响。此外，阿加纳奇教授、布索教授和霍拉瓦教授将致力于弦理论和量子引力与纯数学的关系。这样的研究预计将不仅在粒子物理学和宇宙学方面产生广泛影响，而且还将在邻近的物理学领域乃至更远的领域产生影响。因此，这项研究通过促进科学最基本形式的进步来促进国家利益。这项研究的普适性也是支持年轻研究人员(学生和博士后学者)教育的极好工具，并为进一步增加科学的多样性和包容性提供了一个自然的平台。更具体地说，阿加纳吉奇教授将开发她的程序，使用六维的小弦理论及其被称为X理论的低能量限制来对量子结不变量进行分类。她还将在一般的三维流形上追求Chern-Simons规范理论的分类。Bousso教授将通过研究扭结变换来扩展ADS/CFT全息词典。他将利用他最近提出的引力/系综二象性，研究半经典量子引力中的欧几里得路径积分。此外，他将尝试加强量子聚焦条件，并将重新讨论弦理论的景观宇宙学中臭名昭著的测量问题。霍拉瓦教授将把相对论量子场理论的非相对论成果应用于技术自然性的谜题(如希格斯质量等级问题和宇宙常数问题)。他将致力于利用短距离的非相对论性亚里士多德超对称，在更高的维度上识别相对论超对称杨-米尔斯规范理论的新的短距离完成。他将使用最近发现的Perelman Ricci流的拓扑非相对论量子引力来研究量子引力的谜题，如拓扑变化跃迁和量子完备性。他将在远离平衡的新制度下研究弦理论的协变公式，正如Schwinger-Keldysh形式主义所描述的那样。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This award funds the research activities of Professors Mina Aganagic, Raphael Bousso, and Petr Horava at the University of California at Berkeley. In the first two decades of this century, we have witnessed dramatic progress in our understanding of the fundamental laws of the Universe from the shortest to the largest scales, firmly based on the principles of quantum mechanics (which describes the subatomic world) and general relativity (which describes gravitational forces acting at large distance scales). While string theory may represent the dominant paradigm for unifying these two principles, many important puzzles and open questions still remain. Professors Aganagic, Bousso, and Horava will attempt to provide answers to some of these open questions and puzzles, with the goal of deepening our understanding of the quantum-mechanical Universe. Specifically, these professors will investigate the properties of quantum-mechanical theories of gravity by using the newly found connection between such theories and the rapidly developing interdisciplinary field of science known as "quantum information theory", as well as by using more traditional methods that have been successful in describing all the non-gravitational forces in nature. The results of this research are expected to have implications for the puzzles associated with the quantum-mechanical behavior of black holes, possible short-distance generalizations of Einstein's general theory of relativity, and the structure of the evolving Universe at largest distances. In addition, Professors Aganagic, Bousso, and Horava will work on the relations of string theory and quantum gravity to pure mathematics. Such research is expected to have a broad impact not only in particle physics and cosmology, but also in neighboring areas of physics and beyond. This research thereby advances the national interest by promoting the progress of science in its most fundamental form. The universal nature of this research also serves as an excellent vehicle for supporting the education of young researchers (students and postdoctoral scholars), and provides a natural platform for further increasing diversity and inclusion in science.More specifically, Professor Aganagic will develop her program of categorifying quantum knot invariants using little string theory in six dimensions and its low-energy limit known as Theory X. She will also pursue categorification of Chern-Simons gauge theory on general three-manifolds. Professor Bousso will expand the AdS/CFT holographic dictionary by studying the kink transform. He will examine the Euclidean path integral in semiclassical quantum gravity, using his recently proposed gravity/ensemble duality. In addition, he will attempt to strengthen the Quantum Focussing Condition, and will revisit the notorious measure problem in the landscape cosmology of string theory. Professor Horava will apply nonrelativistic completions of relativistic quantum field theories to the puzzles of technical naturalness (such as the Higgs mass hierarchy problem and the cosmological constant problem). He will work to identify new classes of short-distance completions of relativistic supersymmetric Yang-Mills gauge theories in higher dimensions, using nonrelativistic Aristotelian supersymmetry at short distances. He will use the recently discovered topological nonrelativistic quantum gravity of Perelman's Ricci flow to study puzzles of quantum gravity, such as topology-changing transitions and quantum completeness. He will study string theory in its covariant formulation in the novel regime far from equilibrium, as described by the Schwinger-Keldysh formalism.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.