Project IV 2024-25


Scattering Amplitudes and Flat Space Holograms

Arthur Lipstein

Description

Combining quantum mechanics and general relativity to form a theory of quantum gravity is one of the most challenging and important questions in modern theoretical physics. A very promising approach is the holographic principle, which postulates that quantum gravity can be described using quantum field theory in one lower dimension. This framework is best understood in spacetime backgrounds with negative curvature but the real world is not negatively curved and for many applications our universe is well-approximated by flat spacetime. To understand quantum gravity in Nature, it is thus important to construct the holographic principle in flat background, where the main observables are scattering amplitudes. The goal of this project will be to develop modern methods for computing scattering amplitudes and to learn about how to describe them holographically in the framework of Carrollian conformal field theory. In more detail, students will learn about

  • the spinor-helicity and BCFW methods for amplitudes (see this book for an introduction)
  • Carrollian holography (see this paper for an overview)
  • There are many directions to explore depending on the interests of the student, such as studying the mathematical structure of amplitudes in greater depth or constructing explicit examples of Carrollian conformal field theories and computing their correlation functions.

    Suggested Pre-requisites

    Quantum Mechanics III

    Suggested Co-requisites

    Advanced Quantum Theory IV