New Frontiers in Theoretical Physics - XXXV Convegno Nazionale di Fisica Teorica and GGI 10th anniversary

Session

Plenary 18 am

May 18, 2016, 9:00 AM

Galileo Galilei Institute, Firenze

62. A curious story of quantum gravity in the ultraviolet

Zvi Bern (UCLA)

5/18/16, 9:00 AM

For the past 30 years nearly all theoretical physicists have believed that quantum field theories based on Einstein's general relativity necessarily must be ill-defined in the ultraviolet. This is the well known nonrenormalizability problem of gravity. But is it actually true in general? We describe recent calculations that cast doubt on this simple picture and show that quantum gravity is...

69. Observations on Conformal Field Theories

Zohar Komargodski (Weizmann Institute of Science)

5/18/16, 9:40 AM

We review some recent progress on the long-standing problem of characterizing second-order phase transitions. The symmetries of second-order transitions are now better understood. In addition, there are new general results about critical exponents, a better control of what happens when relevant operators are turned on, and some constraints on higher correlation functions. These new ideas...