RUI: Field Theories and Holography

该奖项资助纽约理工学院教授索菲亚·多莫科斯的研究活动。当成群的微小粒子相互作用非常强烈且频繁时，新的现象就会出现：电子海合谋让电流永远流动；被称为夸克和胶子的基本粒子聚集在一起，形成每个原子中心的质子和中子。预测在这种强相互作用的系统中会出现什么样的结构，仍然是物理学中的一个基本谜团。它的分辨率将促进我们对一系列巨大的物理系统的理解，从原子核到中子星的核心，再到我们宇宙最早时刻存在的高密度等离子体。在她的研究中，多莫科斯教授将使用弦理论中出现的一种现象，即被称为“全息对偶”的现象，对出现在强相互作用系统中的基本粒子(如质子和中子)进行分类和分类。她的工作不仅有助于更好地理解这些物体，还将对我们以前从未见过的新结构做出预测。这一领域的研究推动了我们对强相互作用系统的科学理解的前沿，并通过发展新的数学来描述它们，从而促进了国家利益。该项目还将产生重大的更广泛的影响。多莫科斯教授将让一群不同的本科生参与她的研究活动，为STEM历史上代表性不足的学生提供关键的研究培训，并帮助他们开始科学生涯。多莫科斯教授还将给本科生和普通观众讲课，以培养公众对尖端物理研究的了解，在新一代学生中激发对物理学的兴趣，并招收新学生在本科水平学习物理。更严格地说，这项拟议的工作在两个重要方向上扩展了全息二元性。第一条工作路线是解决二元性中极其重要但具有挑战性的非扰动部分。使用超对称玩具模型将阐明非平凡的经典背景如何增强孤子对象的光谱。它还将导致对最近发现的单极子的扩展Bogomolny方程系统的新见解。第二个项目推动了强子物理全息模型的边界，增强了对应关系对现实世界问题的适用性，并提供了一套有意义的本科生项目。它还将产生新的技术来推动全息模型超越常用但严格限制的近似值，并将识别超出这一限制的新效应-例如介子和胶球状态的混合。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 RUI award funds the research activities of Professor Sophia Domokos at the New York Institute of Technology. When swarms of tiny particles interact very forcefully and often, new phenomena emerge: electron seas conspire to let currents flow forever; and elementary particles called quarks and gluons clump together into the protons and neutrons at the center of every atom. Predicting what kind of structure emerges in such strongly interacting systems remains a fundamental mystery in physics. Its resolution will advance our understanding of a huge array of physical systems, from atomic nuclei to the cores of neutron stars and to the dense plasma present in the earliest moments of our universe. In her research, Professor Domokos will use a phenomenon which emerges within string theory and which is known as "holographic duality" to categorize and classify clumps of elementary particles (like protons and neutrons) that emerge in strongly interacting systems. Her work will not only help to understand these objects better, but it will also make predictions for new structures we have never seen before. Research in this area advances the national interest by pushing the frontier of our scientific understanding of strongly interacting systems, and by developing new mathematics to describe them. This project will also yield significant broader impacts. Professor Domokos will involve a diverse group of undergraduate students in her research activities, providing key research training for students from groups historically underrepresented in STEM, and helping to launch their scientific careers. Professor Domokos will also give undergraduate and general-audience lectures to foster public understanding of cutting-edge physics research, to spark a fascination with physics in a new generation of students, and to recruit new students to study physics at the undergraduate level.More technically, the proposed work expands holographic duality in two important directions. The first line of work addresses the critically important but challenging non-perturbative sector of the duality. Using a supersymmetric toy model will shed light on how non-trivial classical backgrounds enhance the spectrum of solitonic objects. It will also lead to new insights into recently identified systems of extended Bogomolny equations for monopoles. The second program pushes the boundaries of holographic models for hadron physics, enhancing the applicability of the correspondence to real-world problems, and providing a set of meaningful undergraduate projects. It will also generate novel techniques for pushing holographic models beyond commonly-used but severely limiting approximations, and will identify new effects --- such as the mixing of meson and glueball states --- that appear beyond this limit.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.