Particles, Strings and Gravity in a Dynamical Universe

动态宇宙中的粒子、弦和引力

• 批准号: 2112880
• 负责人: Petr Horava
• 金额: $ 133万
• 依托单位: University of California-Berkeley
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2021
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2021-09-15 至 2024-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2112880&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Particles; Strings; Gravity; Dynamical; Universe

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.

该奖项资助了加州大学伯克利分校的Mina Aganagic、Raphael Bousso和Petr Horava教授的研究活动。 在本世纪的头20年里，我们见证了我们对宇宙基本定律的理解从最短尺度到最大尺度的巨大进步，这些基本定律是以量子力学（描述亚原子世界）和广义相对论（描述作用在大距离尺度上的引力）的原理为坚实基础的。 虽然弦理论可能代表了统一这两个原理的主导范式，但仍然存在许多重要的难题和悬而未决的问题。 Aganagic、Bousso和Horava教授将试图为其中一些悬而未决的问题和谜题提供答案，目标是加深我们对量子力学宇宙的理解。 具体来说，这些教授将研究引力的量子力学理论的性质，通过使用这些理论和称为“量子信息理论”的科学的快速发展的跨学科领域之间的新发现的连接，以及通过使用更传统的方法，已经成功地描述了所有的非引力的性质。 这项研究的结果预计将对与黑洞的量子力学行为，爱因斯坦广义相对论的可能的短距离概括以及最大距离处演化宇宙的结构相关的谜题产生影响。 此外，Aganagic，Bousso和Horava教授将致力于弦理论和量子引力与纯数学的关系。 这些研究预计不仅会对粒子物理学和宇宙学产生广泛的影响，而且会对物理学的邻近领域和其他领域产生广泛的影响。因此，这项研究通过促进最基本形式的科学进步来促进国家利益。 这项研究的普遍性也是支持年轻研究人员（学生和博士后学者）教育的一个很好的工具，并为进一步增加科学的多样性和包容性提供了一个天然的平台。更具体地说，Aganagic教授将发展她的计划，使用六维小弦理论及其低能极限（称为X理论）对量子结不变量进行分类。 她还将追求陈-西蒙斯规范理论的分类一般三流形。 Bousso教授将通过研究扭结变换来扩展AdS/CFT全息字典。 他将研究欧几里德路径积分在半经典量子引力，使用他最近提出的重力/合奏对偶。 此外，他将尝试加强量子聚焦条件，并将重新审视弦理论景观宇宙学中臭名昭著的测量问题。 Horava教授将把相对论量子场论的非相对论性完善应用于技术自然性的难题（如希格斯质量等级问题和宇宙学常数问题）。他将致力于确定在更高维度的相对论性超对称杨-米尔斯规范理论的新的短距离完成类，使用非相对论性的超对称性在短距离。 他将使用最近发现的Perelman的Ricci流的拓扑非相对论量子引力来研究量子引力的难题，例如拓扑变化的跃迁和量子完备性。 他将在远离平衡的新状态下研究弦理论的协变公式，如Schwinger-Keldysh形式主义所描述的。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。