Particles, Fields and Strings

被称为标准模型的量子场论使我们对基本粒子物理学有了非常成功的理解。弦理论是在尽可能小的距离尺度上的一种推测性的物理模型，也是一种迷人的动力系统，它已被发现具有某些规范场理论的对偶解。本研究旨在探讨量子场论与弦论的结构，以增进对两者的了解。本文主要研究了超对称规范场理论与弦理论的某些解之间的AdS/CFT对偶性，目的是更好地理解规范理论在其自由度强耦合时的行为。这项研究的潜在应用范围从理解基本粒子物理在标准模型内外的潜在新结构到检查凝聚态物理中强相关系统的行为模式。第二个研究方向是探索拓扑特征在不同环境下量子场论中的作用，以及它们在决定系统物理性质方面的可能作用。这项工作应该在凝聚态物理中有最直接的应用，在凝聚态物理中，对拓扑绝缘体等材料的理解已经取得了迅速的进展，拓扑数据已经被用来表征物质的其他奇异相。它在粒子物理学中也有潜在的应用，在粒子物理学中，标准模型的希格斯凝聚态的各种拓扑结构提出了有趣的问题。我是欧洲核子研究中心大型强子对撞机MOEDAL实验合作项目的成员。MOEDAL实验旨在寻找由高能质子束和反质子束碰撞产生的单极子。它还可以寻找其他奇异的东西，例如，r重子，重子的超级伴侣，如果超对称与TEV能量尺度的物理有关的话。发现单极子的可能性很小，因为理论上没有它们在电弱尺度上存在的期望。然而，其他奇异现象，如q球和假真空气泡，在理论上很难排除，事实上，考虑到标准模型中观察到的质量尺度的异常巧合，很可能存在。了解它们存在或不存在的原因是很重要的。拓扑学在量子场论中的另一个作用，我们最近参与了它的发现，是在创造场理论子系统的奇异量子纠缠可以自然发生的场景。这个想法还处于起步阶段，尽管我已经有了初步的结果，这种拓扑驱动的纠缠可以用来实现简单的量子过程，如经典信息的密集包装或量子信息在电子系统中的隐形传态，具有最小的退相干。

The quantum field theory called the standard model has given us a remarkably successful understanding of elementary particle physics. String theory is a speculative model of physics at the smallest possible distance scales and a fascinating dynamical system which has been found to have solutions dual to some gauge field theories. The proposed research explores the structures of quantum field theory and string theory with the goal of improving the understanding of both subjects. It concentrates on the AdS/CFT duality between certain solutions of string theory and certain supersymmetric gauge field theories with the goal of obtaining a better understanding of the behaviour of gauge theory when its degrees of freedom are strongly coupled. Potential applications of this research range from understanding potential new structures of elementary particle physics within and beyond the standard model to examining the modes of behaviour of strongly correlated systems in condensed matter physics. A second research direction explores the role of topological features in quantum field theory in various environments and their possible role in determining the physical properties of the system. This work should have its most immediate applications in condensed matter physics where the understanding of materials such as topological insulators has seen rapid advances and where topological data has been used to characterize other exotic phases of matter. It also has potential applications in particle physics where various topological configurations of the Higgs condensate of the standard model pose intriguing questions. I am a member of the MOEDAL experimental collaboration at the Large Hadron Collider in CERN. The MOEDAL experiment is intended to look for monopoles produced by the collision of high energy proton and anti-proton beams. It can also look for other exotics, for example, R-baryons, the super-partners of baryons, should supersymmetry be relevant for physics at the TEV energy scale. The likelihood of finding monopoles is small, as there is no theoretical expectation for their existence at the electroweak scale. However, other exotics, such as Q-balls and false vacuum bubbles are harder to rule out theoretically and, in fact, given an extraordinary coincidence of mass scales observed in the standard model, could well exist. Gaining some understanding of why they are or are not there is important. Another role of topology in quantum field theory, in whose discovery we have recently participated, is in creating scenarios where exotic quantum entanglement of subsystems of the field theory can occur naturally. This idea is in its infancy, although I have preliminary results where such topologically driven entanglement can be used to implement simple quantum processes such as dense packing of classical information or teleportation of quantum information in an electronic system, with minimal decoherence.