Exact results in gauge/gravity dualities

我的研究与理论物理中两个尚未解决的主要问题密切相关：第一个问题涉及量子色动力学(QCD)，这是一种最好地描述构成原子核中质子和中子的粒子的性质的物理理论。我们目前的技术显然不足以在“日常”能量上研究这一理论；我们迫切需要新的理论和数学工具来理解QCD。考虑到即将到来的加速器实验，例如欧洲核子研究中心大型强子对撞机上的实验，将对物质的成分进行实验研究，并有望探测到新的粒子和作用力，这一点更加重要。第二个问题让理论物理学家争论了更长时间，它涉及支配亚原子世界的相对论量子场论和使用时空几何概念描述大规模天体物理现象(包括引力)的广义相对论似乎不可调和的问题。当我们试图解决关于宇宙起源的宇宙学问题时，或者当我们研究黑洞奇点时，我们需要同时处理量子力学和引力，而我们目前的模型崩溃了。弦理论是统一描述量子力学和引力--或称量子引力--的最有希望的候选者。

My research is tightly connected to two major unsolved questions in theoretical physics: the first concerns quantum chromodynamics (QCD), the physical theory which best describes the properties of the particles which make up protons and neutrons in atomic nuclei. Our current techniques are manifestly insufficient to study this theory at "everyday" energies; new theoretical and mathematical tools are urgently needed to understand QCD. This is even more important given that upcoming accelerator experiments, such as those at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, will conduct experimental investigations into the constituents of matter, and are expected to detect new particles and forces. The second question, which has vexed theoretical physicists for even longer, concerns the seeming irreconcilability of relativistic quantum field theory, which governs the subatomic world, and the theory of general relativity, which describes large-scale astrophysical phenomena (including gravity) by using the concept of space-time geometry. When we try to address cosmological questions about the origin of the universe, or when we study black hole singularities, we need to deal with both quantum mechanics and gravity at the same time, and our current models break down. String theory is the most promising candidate for a unified description of quantum mechanics and gravity - or quantum gravity.