MIT Center for Theoretical Physics — a Leinweber Institute Publications

The observation of hybrid mesons in photoproduction experiments can provide essential insight into the inner workings of quantum chromodynamics in the strong coupling regime. In particular, the study of final $η^{(\prime)}π$ states is of great interest due to the presence of the lowest lying hybrid candidate with manifestly exotic quantum numbers, the $π_1(1600)$. In this work, a double-vector exchange model with Reggeized $ρ$ and $ω$ trajectories is developed to describe the photoproduction of $η^{(\prime)}π$ in the high-mass region. Results are presented for the differential cross sections and forward-backward asymmetries in the energy region of interest to the GlueX experiment. The model contains no free parameters, and reproduces the magnitude and $t$-dependence of existing CLAS data at $E_γ=5$\gev. The model predicts a stronger asymmetry in the $η^\prime π$ channel than in the $ηπ$ channel, consistent with what has previously been observed in pion beam experiments. This suggests that the sizeable production of exotic odd waves in $η’π$ is not necessarily related to the presence of gluon-rich environments. Confirmation of these predicted asymmetries from forthcoming GlueX data would enable further predictions of the low-energy spectrum.

We study heat conduction and momentum transport in the context of stochastic fluid dynamics. We consider a fluid described by model H in the classification of Hohenberg and Halperin. We study both non-critical and critical fluids, and we investigate transport properties in two as well as three dimensions. Our results are based on numerical simulations of model H using a Metropolis algorithm, and we employ Kubo relations to extract transport coefficients. We observe the expected logarithmic divergence of the shear viscosity in a two-dimensional non-critical fluid. At a critical point, we find that the transport coefficients exhibit power-law scaling with the system size $L$. The strongest divergence is seen for the thermal conductivity $κ$ in two dimensions. We find $κ\sim L^{x_κ}$ with $x_κ=1.6\pm 0.1$. The divergence is weaker in three dimensions, $x_κ=1.25 \pm 0.3$, and the scaling exponent for the shear viscosity, $x_η$, is significantly smaller than $x_κ$ in both two and three dimensions.

Gauge theories describe the fundamental forces of nature. However, high-energy dynamics, such as the formation of quark-gluon plasmas, is notoriously difficult to model with classical methods. Quantum simulation offers a promising alternative in this regime, yet experiments have mainly probed low energies. Here, we observe the formation of a ballistic plasma and long-time memory effects in high-energy gauge theory dynamics on a high-precision quantum simulator. Both observations are unexpected, as the initial state – fully filled with particle-antiparticle pairs – was thought to rapidly thermalize. Instead, we find correlations spreading ballistically to long distances and a memory of charge clusters. Our observations cannot be explained by many-body scars, but are captured by a new theory of plasma oscillations between electric field and current operators, persisting all the way to the continuum limit of the (1+1)D Schwinger model, of which we simulate a lattice version. Adapting techniques from quantum optics, we visualize plasma oscillations as rotations of Wigner distributions, leading to a novel set of predictions which we test in experiment and numerics. The new framework encompasses both our scenario and scars, which show up as coherent states of the plasma. The experimental surprises we observe in the high-energy dynamics of a simple gauge theory point to the potential of high-precision quantum simulations of gauge theories for general scientific discovery.

Benchmarking quantum devices is a foundational task for the sustained development of quantum technologies. However, accurate in situ characterization of large-scale quantum devices remains a formidable challenge: such systems experience many different sources of errors, and cannot be simulated on classical computers. Here, we introduce new benchmarking methods based on random circuit sampling (RCS), that substantially extend the scope of conventional approaches. Unlike existing benchmarks that report only a single quantity–the circuit fidelity–our framework extracts rich diagnostic information, including spatiotemporal error profiles, correlated and contextual errors, and biased readout errors, without requiring any modifications of the experiment. Furthermore, we develop techniques that achieve this task without classically intractable simulations of the quantum circuit, by leveraging side information, in the form of bitstring samples obtained from reference quantum devices. Our approach is based on advanced high-dimensional statistical modeling of RCS data. We sharply characterize the information-theoretic limits of error estimation, deriving matching upper and lower bounds on the sample complexity across all regimes of side information. We identify surprising phase transitions in learnability as the amount of side information varies. We demonstrate our methods using publicly available RCS data from a state-of-the-art superconducting processor, obtaining in situ characterizations that are qualitatively consistent yet quantitatively distinct from component-level calibrations. Our results establish both practical benchmarking protocols for current and future quantum computers and fundamental information-theoretic limits on how much can be learned from RCS data.

A fundamental task in quantum information is to approximate a pure quantum state in terms of sparse states or, for a bipartite system, states of bounded Schmidt rank. The optimal deterministic approximation in each case is straightforward, and maximizes the fidelity: keep the largest entries or singular values. On the other hand, random mixtures of sparse states can achieve quadratically improved trace distances, and yield nontrivial bounds on other distance measures like the robustness. In this work, we give efficient algorithms for finding mixtures of sparse states that optimally approximate a given pure state in either trace distance or robustness. These algorithms also yield descriptions of efficiently samplable ensembles of sparse, or less-entangled, states that correspond to these optimal mixed approximations. This can be used for the truncation step of algorithms for matrix product states, improving their accuracy while using no extra memory, and we demonstrate this improvement numerically. Our proofs use basic facts about convex optimization and zero-sum games, as well as rigorous guarantees for computing maximum-entropy distributions.

In this Letter, we initiate a systematic study of the $n$-point correlation functions (CF) in gauge theories in the sequential light-cone (SLC) limit. Focusing on QCD, we formulate a factorization theorem for the CF of four vector currents in this limit using tools from soft-collinear effective field theory (SCET). This result unveils a duality between CF and Wilson loops in non-conformal field theories, according to which the singular structure of the CF is described by a null polygonal Wilson loop dressed by universal jet functions and current form factors, directly related to well-known ingredients in collider physics. We employ this new factorization theorem to obtain the singular terms of the four-point CF in QCD in the SLC limit up to three loops. This constitutes the first determination of terms beyond one loop and in particular determines, for the first time, conformal-symmetry-breaking terms induced by the non-vanishing $β$-function of QCD. As a stringent check, we verify that our result satisfies the anomalous conformal Ward identities and its leading-transcendental term reproduces the known correlation function in $\mathcal{N}=4$ SYM to three loops. Our results are easily generalized to the multi-point case, offering a powerful tool for future applications of SCET to the study of the fundamental structure of gauge theories.

We review recent developments in the use of von Neumann algebras to analyze the entanglement structure of quantum gravity and the emergence of spacetime in the semi-classical limit. Von Neumann algebras provide a natural framework for describing quantum subsystems when standard tensor factorizations are unavailable, capturing both kinematic and dynamical aspects of entanglement. The first part of the review introduces the fundamentals of von Neumann algebras, including their classification, and explains how they can be applied to characterize entanglement. Topics covered include modular and half-sided modular flows and their role in the emergence of time, as well as the crossed-product construction of von Neumann algebras. The second part turns to applications in quantum gravity, including an algebraic formulation of AdS/CFT in the large-$N$ limit, the emergence of bulk spacetime structure through subregion-subalgebra duality, and an operator-algebraic perspective on gravitational entropy. It also discusses simple operator-algebraic models of quantum gravity, which provide concrete settings in which to explore these ideas. In addition, several original conceptual contributions are presented, including a diagnostic of firewalls and an algebraic formulation of entanglement islands. The review concludes with some speculative remarks on the mathematical structures underlying quantum gravity.

We report on our investigation in arXiv:2509.08881 of how recent jet substructure measurements constrain the resolution length $L_{\rm res}$ of the quark-gluon plasma formed in heavy-ion collisions. $L_{\rm res}$ is defined such that high-energy partons within a jet shower are resolved by the medium if and only if they are separated by a distance greater than $L_{\rm res}$. Using the Hybrid Model, we reproduce ALICE data on the scaled Soft Drop angle $θ_g$ for $R=0.2$ charged-particle jets and ATLAS data on the Hard Group angle $ΔR_{12}$ for $R=1$ jets reclustered from skinny $R = 0.2$ inclusive subjets. We find that the narrowing of the $θ_g$-distribution in PbPb collisions observed by ALICE and the suppression of $R=1$ jets with multiple skinny subjets in PbPb collisions observed by ATLAS rule out $L_{\rm res} = \infty$, where each entire parton shower loses energy to the plasma coherently as if it were a single colored object. We then compare Hybrid Model calculations to ATLAS measurements of $R_{\rm AA}$ of $R=1$ jets reclustered from $R=0.2$ subjets, as a function of the Soft Drop angle $dR_{12}$ obtained by grooming all charged-particle tracks associated with each $R=1$ jet. We demonstrate, for the first time, that the ATLAS data is inconsistent with $L_{\rm res} = 0$, where the plasma resolves every splitting in a parton shower. Our results agree best with the data when QGP possesses a finite, nonzero $L_{\rm res}\sim (1-2)/(πT)$.

The effective kinetic theory (EKT) of QCD provides a possible picture of various non-equilibrium processes in heavy- and light-ion collisions. While there have been substantial advances in simulating the EKT in simple systems with enhanced symmetry, eventually, event-by-event simulations will be required for a comprehensive phenomenological modeling. As of now, these simulations are prohibitively expensive due to the numerical complexity of the Monte Carlo evaluation of the collision kernels. In this talk, we show how the evaluation of the collision kernels can be performed using neural networks paving the way to full event-by-event simulations.

We obtain the collision kernel and related dipole cross section during the initial nonequilibrium stages in heavy-ion collisions. These quantities are a crucial input for jet quenching calculations. We further compute the gluon splitting rates in the AMY formalism resulting from this nonequilibrium kernel. Comparing with thermal and commonly used forms, we find that particularly the gluon splitting rate for parton energies of the order of the hard effective temperature significantly differs from these approximations.

In this paper, we present a framework for the analytic bootstrap of three-point energy correlators, a crucial observable in $\mathcal{N}=4$ super Yang-Mills theory and quantum chromodynamics (QCD). Our approach combines spherical contour techniques, general physical constraints such as pole cancellations, and power correction data in the singular limits to determine its analytic expression. In contrast to previous bootstrap studies restricted to scattering amplitudes for supersymmetric theories, our framework makes use of the properties of Feynman integrals, marking a significant step toward bootstrapping realistic QCD observables. Using this method, we derive analytic expressions for leading-order three-point energy correlators with equal and unequal energy weights, where the latter are crucial ingredients for projected $N$-point energy correlators. We also apply the recently developed technique of analytic regression with lattice reduction as a way to bypass needing explicit expressions for the singular limits. Bridging theoretical advances in scattering amplitudes with the renewed interest in weighted cross-sections, our work opens the door to precision tests of QCD dynamics through analytic event-shape predictions.

We study novel conformal twist defects in 4d Maxwell theory, around which electric and magnetic fields are exchanged. These are codimension-2 defects living at the end of topological defects for certain non-invertible global symmetries. We determine the operator spectrum of the twist defect by solving classical electromagnetic wave equations subject to a twisted boundary condition. Using techniques from defect CFT, we show that correlation functions of these defect operators factorize into two sectors: a universal generalized free-field sector, and a chiral current sector analogous to edge modes in Chern-Simons theory. In a similar setup, we also revisit the twist fields attached to non-invertible line defects in the 2d compact boson CFT. We discuss a defect ‘t Hooft anomaly involving a chiral $O(2)$ symmetry, highlighting its dynamical implications.

Classifying hadronic jets using their constituents’ kinematic information is a critical task in modern high-energy collider physics. Often, classifiers are designed by targeting the best performance using metrics such as accuracy, AUC, or rejection rates. However, the use of a single metric can lead to the use of architectures that are more model-dependent than competitive alternatives, leading to potential uncertainty and bias in analysis. We explore such trade-offs and demonstrate the consequences of using networks with high performance metrics but low resilience.

In this paper we propose a two-field model of warm inflation motivated from a heterotic string construction. The model contains an axion and a dilaton-like field. We show that while warm inflation can take place in the axion-field direction, thermal corrections coming from the radiation gauge fields, which couples to both the axion and the dilaton, prevent warm inflation to happen in the dilaton-field direction. We explore the background dynamics for different parameters, and identify a diversity of dynamical behaviors allowed in this model, denoting different regimes of warm inflation.

Public outreach in quantum science and technologies has many goals, ranging from generating interest and dampening hype to making the fascinating and complex topic more accessible. In this work, we present a play on quantum science and technologies aimed at a science-curious audience, which aims to lift the curtains on different researchers’ perspectives on this rapidly evolving field. These notes expand on the ideas presented in the play and provide additional sources that may be useful for educators and directors in future productions. In “A Quantum of Hope”, the end of the world has never looked so bureaucratic. When an alien civilization announces that Earth will be demolished to make way for a research station, humanity is given five years to prove its value. The evaluation criteria? Randomly chosen to be quantum science and technologies. Five experts, sampled from quantum academia and industry, are locked in a room to select a single project proposal to unite global efforts. Douglas Adams meets 12 Angry Men in a galactic-grade grant review committee, where scientific ideas, moral convictions, and unruly egos clash.

We study baby closed universes in AdS, focusing on the Antonini-Sasieta-Swingle (AS$^2$) cosmology, which arises in the gravitational description of partially entangled thermal states (PETS), as well as the classical example of Maldacena-Maoz (MM). We show that the algebraic formulation of AdS/CFT–and in particular the subregion-subalgebra duality–provides a natural framework for describing such universes within the standard AdS/CFT setting, phrased in terms of an operator algebra ${\cal M}$ and a state $ω$ on that algebra, with no need to introduce observers. The algebra encodes all physical operations in the closed universe, and, in principle, all physical observables are obtainable from the pair $({\cal M},ω)$. Along the way, we propose a resolution to a puzzle raised by Antonini and Rath (AR) and reinforced by recent arguments of Engelhardt and Gesteau and a no-go theorem of Gesteau: that a semiclassical baby universe in the AS$^2$ cosmology cannot be understood from the boundary in the usual manner. Our analysis motivates an averaged large-$N$ limit as part of the AdS/CFT dictionary and points toward a unified treatment of spacetimes of all asymptotics in terms of operator algebras. Finally, our boundary descriptions of closed universes indicate that for small but finite $G_N$ there should exist a semiclassical description of a macroscopic closed universe, rather than a one-dimensional Hilbert space, and we discuss weaknesses in arguments favoring the latter.

Under conservative assumptions, it is established at a mathematical level of rigor that if correlation functions of single trace operators in a sequence of states of $O(N^0)$ energy of a two-sided holographic conformal field theory admit a large $N$ limit, then they must be described a pure state in the large $N$ Hilbert space of free field theory on two copies of vacuum AdS. This result clarifies recent discussions concerning the possible emergence of a semiclassical baby universe in the large $N$ limit of a low-energy partially entangled thermal state. The proof heavily relies on dominated convergence arguments from mathematical analysis. Some comments are also offered on the relationship between various recently proposed ways of restoring the emergence of the baby universe and the relaxation of different assumptions of the theorem.

We propose a new statistical ensemble of toric bases for elliptic Calabi-Yaus used in F-theory models, by focusing on only the convex hull of the base, i.e., the base polytope. This physically motivated coarse-graining greatly simplifies the combinatorial complexity of the part of the 4D F-theory landscape with toric bases. We develop a Monte Carlo approach that randomly samples the base polytopes within fixed boxes, with proper statistical weights. We first apply the algorithm to the set of 2d base polytopes, generating an enlarged set of toric 2d bases that include certain types of codimension-two (4,6) points, and we validate our approach against exact numbers. We then explore the set of 3d base polytopes which fit in a set of “maximal” 3d boxes, and estimate the total number of inequivalent 3d base polytopes to be $\sim 10^{85}$–$10^{90}$. We provide statistical data such as the distribution of non-Higgsable gauge groups on these bases. Amusingly, a similar method can also be applied to generate reflexive polytopes in various dimensions. In both the reflexive and base polytope cases, the number of relevant polytopes obeys a Gaussian distribution as a function of the number of vertices, which can be understood in terms of other results on random polytopes in the math literature.

Recent measurements of baryon acoustic oscillations (BAO) from the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) have been interpreted to suggest that dark energy may be evolving. In this work, we examine how prior choices affect such conclusions. Specifically, we study the biases introduced by the customary use of uniform priors on the Chevallier-Polarski-Linder (CPL) parameters, $w_0$ and $w_a$, when assessing evidence for evolving dark energy. To do so, we construct theory-informed priors on $(w_0, w_a)$ using a normalizing flow (NF), trained on two representative quintessence models, which learns the distribution of these parameters conditional on the underlying $Λ$CDM parameters. In the combined $\textit{Planck}$ CMB + DESI BAO analysis we find that the apparent tension with a cosmological constant in the CPL framework can be reduced from $\sim 3.1σ$ to $\sim 1.3σ$ once theory-informed priors are applied, rendering the result effectively consistent with $Λ$CDM. For completeness, we also analyze combinations that include Type Ia supernova data, showing similar shifts toward the $Λ$CDM limit. Taken together, the observed sensitivity to prior choices in these analyses arises because uniform priors – often mischaracterized as “uninformative” – can actually bias inferences toward unphysical parameter regions. Consequently, our results underscore the importance of adopting physically motivated priors to ensure robust cosmological inferences, especially when evaluating new hypotheses with only marginal statistical support. Lastly, our NF-based framework achieves these results by post-processing existing MCMC chains, requiring $\approx 1$ hour of additional CPU compute time on top of the base analysis – a dramatic speedup over direct model sampling that highlights the scalability of this approach for testing diverse theoretical models.

We introduce a novel numerical method to obtain the gluon splitting rates in an anisotropic QCD plasma in the AMY formalism, suitable for an anisotropic collision kernel. The method extends previous works by decomposing the additional angular information into Fourier modes, resulting in a significantly larger system of differential equations to solve numerically. It is then tested by calculating the rates for a simple anisotropic model for the collision kernel, which is compared to a thermal system. Remarkably, the obtained rates can be well-approximated by the rates calculated from an angular-averaged collision kernel, while still deviating significantly from equilibrium. An isotropic model for the collision kernel that is commonly used in QCD kinetic theory simulations, and which relies on the infrared temperature $T_*$ and an effective Debye mass, leads to rates that significantly deviate from the nonequilibrium rate, particularly at smaller parton energies.