Fundamental Problems in Quantum Physics

Session

Quantum gravity

26 Mar 2015, 09:30

Erice (Sicily) - Italy

20. String Theory and Quantum Gravity

Luis Alday (University of Oxford)

26/03/2015, 09:30

Well known problems arise when trying to construct a quantum theory of gravity. After introducing string theory, we will review how string theory addresses these problems (and other problems in theoretical physics), and at which cost.

21. The AdS/CFT duality

Agnese Bissi (University of Oxford)

26/03/2015, 10:15

The AdS/CFT duality brought the holographic principle to center stage in string theory. This correspondence relates theories of gravity on curved spaces to ordinary quantum field theories on the boundaries of those spaces. Due to its nature, it provides a tool for studying strongly interacting field theories, where perturbative methods are not applicable. In this talk I will discuss this...

22. Lessons for Quantum Foundations from Quantum Gravity

Fay Dowker (Imperial College London)

26/03/2015, 11:30

My title could seem like a joke: what could quantum theory -- with its 90 years of success covering a huge range of scales and an enormous variety of phenomena -- possibly learn from quantum gravity, a theory that doesn't exist yet? I will argue that one approach to the problem of quantum gravity, in which spacetime is postulated to be fundamentally discrete or atomic, points in a direction...

23. Cosmological and Dynamical Aspects of Quantum Gravity with Torsion

Nick Mavromatos (Kings College London)

26/03/2015, 12:15

In the context of concrete models of torsionful geometries of quantum gravity, in particular the ones inspired from string theory, I discuss the role of torsionful backgrounds in the early Universe in providing scenarios for the observed matter/antimatter asymmetry. In particular, within the context of Kalb-Ramond torsion that arises due to the antisymmetric tensor field in the spectrum of...