Scanning New Horizons: Entanglement, Holography & Gravity

我们对物理宇宙的理解建立在两个基石上：量子力学和广义相对论。量子力学使用统计概念来描述亚原子粒子，以预测它们的行为。相比之下，爱因斯坦的引力理论广义相对论使用时空几何对天文尺度上的物理学进行了优雅的描述。将这两种理论及其截然不同的自然观统一在一个单一的框架(通常称为“量子引力”)中仍然是21世纪理论物理学家面临的突出的基本问题。我们现在正处于对这个问题的思考的一场革命之中。在过去的六年里，很明显，量子信息科学提供了一套强大的新工具，可以用来在量子引力的难题上取得进展。特别是，量子纠缠之前被视为一个深奥的话题，更好地留给哲学辩论，但由于它对一系列物理现象负有责任，包括时空本身的出现，它已经转移到了中心舞台。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卓有成效的交叉授粉正在推动着快速的进步。推动正在进行的范式转变的引擎是对量子引力的全息描述。人们可以把后者想象成一本词典，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，第二种语言是标准量子场论的语言，维度减少了一维！显然，这种非凡的等价性为量子引力和量子场论提供了一个全新的视角，这当然有可能教会我们关于这两者的基本新教训。*我的研究为量子信息科学中的各种纠缠测量开发了新的全息翻译。已知的这些测量所满足的性质意味着对量子引力的非凡的新见解。例如，量子场论中控制纠缠熵变化的简单原理恰好对应于控制体几何类似变化的爱因斯坦方程。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视角。此外，我的研究将加深粒子物理和量子信息科学之间的联系，并可能开辟新的研究途径，可能产生凝聚态理论和量子信息的副产品。这项研究吸引了优秀的学生，并培养他们结合亚原子物理和量子信息科学的多学科视野。反过来，他们将在学术、公共和私营部门为加拿大蓬勃发展的知识经济做出贡献。

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.**