A basic tenet of quantum theory is that all elementary particles are either bosons or fermions. Ensembles of bosons or fermions behave differently due to differences in their underlying quantum statistics. Starting in the late 1970’s it was theoretically conjectured that excitations that are neither bosons nor fermions may exist under special…

The Fractional Quantum Hall effect is one of the most fundamental phenomena of quantum physics. Under a very large magnetic field, and at fractional filling of a Landau level, when electrons are “supposed” (by simple band theory) to form a metal, one finds a gapped insulating state that is “topologically ordered” and hosts a huge array of…

The accelerated expansion of the universe leads to a horizon beyond which we cannot see.   Structure arises from the quantum variance of early universe fields stretched across the horizon, according to the simplest theory fitting observations.  In concrete new models in string- (or `M-’) theory, the accelerating universe itself…

More than twenty years ago, in an experiment at Brookhaven National Laboratory, physicists detected what seemed to be a discrepancy between measurements of the muon’s magnetic moment and theoretical calculations of what that measurement should be, raising the tantalizing possibility of physical particles or forces as yet undiscovered. Two years…

The Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer (BCS) theory of superconductivity described all superconductors until the 1986 discovery of the high-temperature counterpart in the cuprate ceramic materials.  This discovery has challenged conventional wisdom as these materials are well known to violate the basic tenets of the  Landau Fermi liquid theory…

Over the last four decades, the axion has gone from being an elegant but undetectable dark matter candidate to becoming one of the primary targets of dedicated searches around the globe.  Many of these searches have been catalysts for the development of new technology to improve the sensitivity and effectiveness…

The existence of an event horizon is the defining property of a black hole. I shall review the properties of event horizons and discuss various examples demonstrating that event horizons are not smooth in dynamical processes such as black hole formation or merger. I shall explain how non-smooth features of an event horizon can be classified…

Both physics and neuroscience seek to understand how the edges and nodes of a network dictate its function. But until recently, it was not possible to quantitatively explore the relation between the structure and function of a biological neural network at brain scale and cellular resolution because no single brain had both a complete…

40 years ago, Richard Feynman outlined his vision of a quantum simulator for carrying out complex calculations of physical problems. Today, his dream has become a reality and a highly active field of resarch across different platforms ranging from ultracold atoms and ions, to superconducting qubits and photons. In my…

For the last 10 years, we have seen a rapid adoption of deep learning techniques across many disciplines, ranging from self-driving vehicles, credit card rating to biomedicine. Along with this wave, we have seen rapid adoption and rejection in the nascent field of Machine Learning and…

There has been exciting recent progress in the study of the quantum nature of black holes through the use of certain exactly solvable models. This work shows how to realize, in concrete terms, various long-held expectations about quantum gravity, such as the transition from describing physics in terms of…

Holography relates quantum many-body systems to gravitational theories. Quantum entanglement plays a key role to explain how the spacetime geometries in gravity emerge from quantum systems. A new class of holography can be found by introducing so called end-of-the-world branes and has been actively studied recently. Such holographic models…

 In this talk, I’ll survey some of the major open questions in particle physics and make the case that they can best be addressed by a qualitatively new type of particle accelerator: a high-energy muon collider.  Recent progress on long-standing accelerator and detector challenges make such a collider a compelling…

Intestinal organoids capture essential features of the intestinal epithelium such as crypt folding, spatial compartmentalization of different cell types, and cellular movements from crypt to villus. Each of these processes and their coordination in time and space requires patterned physical forces. I will present maps of the three-dimensional…

At the center of our Milky Way Galaxy lives a compact massive object called Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*) which is believed to be a black hole. Its mass, as inferred from the orbits of gravitationally bound stars as well as from direct images obtained by the Event Horizon Telescope, is 4 million solar masses. Gas accreting gravitationally on Sgr A*…

A new era in astrophysics was inaugurated with the 2015 discovery of gravitational waves from the collision of two black holes in data from the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO). Since then, LIGO and its sister project Virgo have observed several more gravitational waves from the collision of black holes and neutron…

Liquid crystal elastomers are rubbery solids with liquid crystal mesogens incorporated into their polymer chains.  These solids combine the entropic elasticity of rubber with the orientational phase transitions of liquid crystals.  The deformation and orientational order are coupled, giving rise to a rich variety of phenomena…

The bootstrap program leverages symmetry and positivity to carve out the space of consistent quantum theories. In this talk I will highlight some of its recent successes, ranging from the numerical solution of statistical models at criticality to universal constraints on quantum gravity.

Recording of Talk:…