Scanning New Horizons: Entanglement, Holography & Gravity

扫描新视野：纠缠、全息术

• 批准号: SAPIN-2019-00031
• 负责人: Myers, Robert
• 金额: $ 5.32万
• 依托单位: University of Waterloo
• 依托单位国家: 加拿大
• 项目类别: Subatomic Physics Envelope - Individual
• 财政年份: 2021
• 资助国家: 加拿大
• 起止时间: 2021-01-01 至 2022-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/Details-Detailles_eng.asp?id=739413
• 关键词: Scanning; New; Horizons; Entanglement; Holography

Our understanding of the physical universe rests on two cornerstones: quantum mechanics and general relativity. Quantum mechanics describes subatomic particles using statistical notions to predict their behavior. In contrast, general relativity, Einstein's theory of gravity, provides a elegant description of physics on astronomical scales using spacetime geometry. Unifying these two theories and their remarkably dissimilar views of nature in a single framework  (usually called "quantum gravity") remains the outstanding fundamental question for theoretical physicists in the twenty-first century. We are now in the midst of a revolution in our thinking about this problem. Over the past six years, it has become clear that quantum information science provides a powerful set of new tools with which to make progress on the conundrums of quantum gravity. In particular, quantum entanglement, which had previously been seen as an esoteric topic better left for philosophical debates, has moved to center stage as being responsible for a wide range of physical phenomena, including the emergence of spacetime itself. Rapid progress is being sparked by a fruitful cross-pollination of ideas between quantum field theory, quantum gravity, condensed matter, computer science and quantum information. The engine driving the ongoing paradigm shift is the holographic description of quantum gravity. One can think of the latter as a dictionary which translates between two languages describing one set of physical phenomena, the first language is the language of quantum gravity while the second is that of a standard quantum field theory, in one less dimension! Clearly this remarkable equivalence provides a radical new perspective on both quantum gravity and quantum field theory, which certainly has the potential to teach us fundamental new lessons about both. My research develops new holographic translations for a variety of measures of entanglement from quantum information science. The properties known to be satisfied by these measures imply remarkable new insights for quantum gravity. For example, simple principles governing variations of the entanglement entropy in the quantum field theory correspond precisely to Einstein's equations controlling the analogous variations of the bulk geometry. My aim is to fully capitalize on the new tools and perspectives which quantum information has to offer high energy theory. Further, my research will deepen the connections between particle physics and quantum information science, and may open new avenues of research, possibly producing spin-offs for condensed matter theory and quantum information. This research attracts excellent students and trains them with a multidisciplinary outlook combining subatomic physics with quantum information science. In turn, they will contribute to Canada's burgeoning knowledge economy across the academic, public and private sectors.

我们对物理宇宙的理解依赖于两个基石：量子力学和广义相对论。量子力学描述亚原子粒子使用统计概念来预测它们的行为。相比之下，广义相对论，爱因斯坦的引力理论，提供了一个优雅的描述物理学天文尺度上使用时空几何。将这两种理论以及它们对自然界截然不同的观点统一到一个单一的框架（通常称为“量子引力”）中，仍然是世纪理论物理学家面临的一个突出的基本问题。我们现在正处于对这个问题的思考的革命之中。在过去的六年里，人们已经清楚，量子信息科学提供了一套强大的新工具，可以在量子引力难题上取得进展。特别是，量子纠缠，以前被视为一个深奥的话题，最好留给哲学辩论，已经成为一个中心舞台，负责广泛的物理现象，包括时空本身的出现。量子场论、量子引力、凝聚态物质、计算机科学和量子信息之间富有成效的思想交叉授粉正在引发快速的进展。驱动正在进行的范式转变的引擎是量子引力的全息描述。人们可以把后者看作是一本字典，它在描述一组物理现象的两种语言之间进行翻译，第一种语言是量子引力的语言，而第二种语言是标准量子场论的语言，在一个更少的维度上！很明显，这个显著的等价性为量子引力和量子场论提供了一个全新的视角，这无疑有可能给我们带来关于这两者的新的基本教训。我的研究为量子信息科学中的各种纠缠度量开发了新的全息翻译。这些测量所满足的性质意味着对量子引力的新认识。例如，在量子场论中，控制纠缠熵变化的简单原理与控制体几何类似变化的爱因斯坦方程精确对应。我的目标是充分利用量子信息提供高能理论的新工具和新观点。此外，我的研究将加深粒子物理学和量子信息科学之间的联系，并可能开辟新的研究途径，可能为凝聚态理论和量子信息产生副产品。这项研究吸引了优秀的学生，并培养他们与亚原子物理学与量子信息科学相结合的多学科前景。反过来，他们将为加拿大学术、公共和私营部门蓬勃发展的知识经济做出贡献。