PHYS-739: Conformal Field theory and Gravity

Summary

This course is an introduction to the non-perturbative bootstrap approach to Conformal Field Theory and to the Gauge/Gravity duality, emphasizing the fruitful interplay between these two ideas.

Official source

https://edu.epfl.ch/coursebook/en/conformal-field-theory-and-gravity-PHYS-739

Moodle Page

http://go.epfl.ch/PHYS-739

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Lectures in this course (74)

Related concepts (985)

Related courses (320)

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Semiclassical gravity

Semiclassical gravity is the approximation to the theory of quantum gravity in which one treats matter fields as being quantum and the gravitational field as being classical. In semiclassical gravity, matter is represented by quantum matter fields that propagate according to the theory of quantum fields in curved spacetime. The spacetime in which the fields propagate is classical but dynamical.

Unitarity (physics)

In quantum physics, unitarity is (or a unitary process has) the condition that the time evolution of a quantum state according to the Schrödinger equation is mathematically represented by a unitary operator. This is typically taken as an axiom or basic postulate of quantum mechanics, while generalizations of or departures from unitarity are part of speculations about theories that may go beyond quantum mechanics. A unitarity bound is any inequality that follows from the unitarity of the evolution operator, i.

Anti-de Sitter space

In mathematics and physics, n-dimensional anti-de Sitter space (AdSn) is a maximally symmetric Lorentzian manifold with constant negative scalar curvature. Anti-de Sitter space and de Sitter space are named after Willem de Sitter (1872–1934), professor of astronomy at Leiden University and director of the Leiden Observatory. Willem de Sitter and Albert Einstein worked together closely in Leiden in the 1920s on the spacetime structure of the universe.

Entropy of entanglement

The entropy of entanglement (or entanglement entropy) is a measure of the degree of quantum entanglement between two subsystems constituting a two-part composite quantum system. Given a pure bipartite quantum state of the composite system, it is possible to obtain a reduced density matrix describing knowledge of the state of a subsystem. The entropy of entanglement is the Von Neumann entropy of the reduced density matrix for any of the subsystems. If it is non-zero, i.e.

Correlation function (quantum field theory)

In quantum field theory, correlation functions, often referred to as correlators or Green's functions, are vacuum expectation values of time-ordered products of field operators. They are a key object of study in quantum field theory where they can be used to calculate various observables such as S-matrix elements. They are closely related to correlation functions between random variables, although they are nonetheless different objects, being defined in Minkowski spacetime and on quantum operators.