This CAREER award funds the research activities of Professor Jared Kaplan at Johns Hopkins University. Strikingly diverse topics in physics, ranging from the study of magnets to the dynamics of the strong force to the mysteries of quantum gravity, have been unified within a single framework: Conformal Field Theory (CFT). Roughly speaking, CFTs are quantum theories that combine special relativity with scale invariance, or invariance under the uniform stretching of space and time. The research funded by this award will use foundational principles to study CFTs and apply these discoveries to phenomenology, quantum gravity, and black hole physics.
By applying the bottom-up methodology of effective field theory (EFT)and the CFT Bootstrap to the study of holography, the PI will uncover the robust features of quantum gravity. He will expand on nascent programs characterizing general holographic dualities in terms of bulk EFT, and universal long-distance Anti de-Sitter (AdS) physics in terms of the large spin CFT bootstrap. He will adapt his expertise from the study of scattering amplitudes and the bootstrap to make previously intractable computations simple. The relationship between CFT and canonical gravity in AdS will be investigated to develop a deeper understanding of the emergence of bulk dynamics. New discoveries will also have significant payoffs for phenomenological models and for the broader understanding of Quantum Field Theory (QFT). The study of EFT in AdS has motivated new techniques for the solution of approximately conformal QFTs, and these methods will be deployed in order to study theories of relevance to phenomenology and condensed matter.
Specific goals are to understand the space of well-defined local quantum theories of gravity in AdS, to perform new non-perturbative studies of physically interesting CFTs, to study the robustness of black hole thermality and the CFT data that encode non-thermal corrections, and to build concrete connections between the holographic CFT and older descriptions of canonical quantum gravity, such as the Wheeler-DeWitt equation, in order to understand the interior of black holes.
Broader Impacts: With help and input from students, the PI will develop his materials on the "AdS/CFT from the Bottom-Up" into extensive published course notes. The PI will also develop footage leftover from the documentary "Particle Fever" into short films for the education of high school students and the general public. This will provide the public and STEM teachers with pedagogical videos that convey the excitement and complexity of the scientific enterprise.
