MIT Center for Theoretical Physics — a Leinweber Institute Publications

The abundance of massive primordial black holes has historically been constrained by dynamical probes. Since these objects can participate in hard few-body scattering processes, they can readily transfer energy to stellar systems and, in particular, disrupt wide binaries. However, disruption is not the only possible outcome of such few-body processes. Primordial black holes could also participate in exchange processes, in which one component of a binary system is ejected and replaced by the black hole itself. In this case, the remaining object in the binary would dynamically appear to have an invisible companion. We study the rate of exchange processes for primordial black holes as a component of dark matter and evaluate possible mechanisms for detecting such binaries. We find that many such binaries plausibly exist in the Solar neighborhood and show that this process can account for observed binary systems whose properties run counter to the predictions of isolated binary evolution.

The black hole entropy has been observed to generically turn negative at exponentially low temperatures \(T\sim e^{-S_0}\) in the extremal Bekenstein-Hawking entropy \(S_0\), a seeming pathology often attributed to missing non-perturbative effects. In fact, we show that this negativity must happen for any effective theory of quantum gravity with an ensemble description. To do so, we identify the usual gravitational entropy as an annealed entropy \(S_a\), and prove that this quantity gives \(S_0\) at extremality if and only if the ground-state energy is protected by supersymmetry, and diverges negatively otherwise. The actual thermodynamically-behaved quantity is the average or quenched entropy \(S_q\), whose calculation is poorly understood in gravity: it involves replica wormholes in a regime where the topological expansion breaks down. Using matrix integrals we find new instanton saddles that dominate gravitational correlators at \(T\sim e^{-S_0}\) and are dual to semiclassical wormholes involving dynamical branes. These brane solutions give the leading contribution to any black hole very near extremality, and a duality with matrix ensembles would not make sense without them. In the non-BPS case, they are required to make \(S_q\) non-negative and also enhance the negativity of \(S_a\), both effects consistent with matrix integrals evaluated exactly. Our instanton results are tested against the on-shell action of D3-branes dual to multiply wrapped Wilson loops in \(\mathcal{N}=4\) super-YM, and a precise match is found. Our analysis of low-energy random matrix spectra also explains the origin of spectral gaps in supersymmetric theories, not only when there are BPS states at zero energy, but also for purely non-BPS supermultiplets. In the former, our prediction for the gap in terms of the degeneracy of BPS states agrees with the R-charge scaling in gapped multiplets of \(\mathcal{N}=2\) super-JT gravity.

As the partons in a jet propagate through the quark-gluon plasma (QGP) produced in a heavy-ion collision, they lose energy to, kick, and are kicked by the medium. The resulting modifications to the parton shower encode information about the microscopic nature of QGP. The momentum and energy lost by the parton shower are gained by the medium and, since QGP is a strongly coupled liquid, this means that the jet excites a wake in the droplet of QGP. After freezeout, this wake becomes soft hadrons with net momentum in the jet direction meaning that reconstructed jets include hadrons originating from both the modified parton shower and its wake. This makes it challenging to find an unambiguous experimental view of the response of a droplet of QGP to a jet. Recent years have seen significant advances in the understanding of the substructure of jets using correlation functions of the energy flux operator. So far, such studies have focused primarily on the two-point correlator, which serves to identify the angular scale of the underlying dynamics. Higher-point correlators hold the promise of mapping out the dynamics themselves. We perform the first study of the shape-dependent three-point energy-energy-energy correlator in heavy-ion collisions. Using the Hybrid Model to simulate the interactions of high energy jets with QGP, we show that hadrons originating from wakes are the dominant contribution to the three-point correlator in the regime where the three points are well-separated in angle, forming a roughly equilateral triangle. This equilateral region of the correlator is far from the region populated by collinear vacuum emissions, making it a canvas on which jet wakes can be imaged. Our work is a key step towards the systematic use of energy correlators to image and unravel the dynamical response of a droplet of QGP to a passing jet, and motivates many experimental and theoretical studies.

Deconvolving (“unfolding”) detector distortions is a critical step in the comparison of cross section measurements with theoretical predictions in particle and nuclear physics. However, most existing approaches require histogram binning while many theoretical predictions are at the level of statistical moments. We develop a new approach to directly unfold distribution moments as a function of another observable without having to first discretize the data. Our Moment Unfolding technique uses machine learning and is inspired by Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs). We demonstrate the performance of this approach using jet substructure measurements in collider physics. With this illustrative example, we find that our Moment Unfolding protocol is more precise than bin-based approaches and is as or more precise than completely unbinned methods.

Quantum dynamics can be analyzed via the structure of energy eigenstates. However, in the many-body setting, preparing eigenstates associated with finite temperatures requires time scaling exponentially with system size. In this work we present an efficient quantum search algorithm which produces quasi-stationary states, having energies supported within narrow windows of a dense many-body spectrum. In time scaling polynomially with system size, the algorithm produces states with inverse polynomial energy width, which can in turn be used to analyze many-body dynamics out to polynomial times. The algorithm is based on quantum singular value transformations and quantum signal processing, and provides a quadratic speedup over measurement-based approaches. We discuss how this algorithm can be used as a primitive to investigate the mechanisms underlying thermalization and hydrodynamics in many-body quantum systems.

We present an exact solution for the linearized junction array modes of the superconducting qubit fluxonium in the absence of array disorder. This solution holds for arrays of any length and ground capacitance, and for both differential and grounded devices. Array mode energies are determined by roots of convex combinations of Chebyshev polynomials, and their spatial profiles are plane waves. We also provide a simple, approximate solution, which estimates array mode properties over a wide range of circuit parameters, and an accompanying Mathematica file that implements both the exact and approximate solutions.

Modulated symmetries are internal symmetries that act in a non-uniform, spatially modulated way and are generalizations of, for example, dipole symmetries. In this paper, we systematically study the gauging of finite Abelian modulated symmetries in \({1+1}\) dimensions. Working with local Hamiltonians of spin chains, we explore the dual symmetries after gauging and their potential new spatial modulations. We establish sufficient conditions for the existence of an isomorphism between the modulated symmetries and their dual, naturally implemented by lattice reflections. For instance, in systems of prime qudits, translation invariance guarantees this isomorphism. For non-prime qudits, we show using techniques from ring theory that this isomorphism can also exist, although it is not guaranteed by lattice translation symmetry alone. From this isomorphism, we identify new Kramers-Wannier dualities and construct related non-invertible reflection symmetry operators using sequential quantum circuits. Notably, this non-invertible reflection symmetry exists even when the system lacks ordinary reflection symmetry. Throughout the paper, we illustrate these results using various simple toy models.

Understanding the behavior of dense hadronic matter is a central goal in nuclear physics as it governs the nature and dynamics of astrophysical objects such as supernovae and neutron stars. Because of the non-perturbative nature of quantum chromodynamics (QCD), little is known rigorously about hadronic matter in these extreme conditions. Here, lattice QCD calculations are used to compute thermodynamic quantities and the equation of state of QCD over a wide range of isospin chemical potentials. Agreement is seen with chiral perturbation theory predictions when the chemical potential is small. Comparison to perturbative QCD calculations at large chemical potential allows for an estimate of the gap in the superconducting phase, and this quantity is seen to agree with perturbative determinations. Since the partition function for an isospin chemical potential, \(\mu_I\), bounds the partition function for a baryon chemical potential \(\mu_B=3/2\mu_I\), these calculations also provide rigorous non-perturbative QCD bounds on the nuclear equation of state over a wide range of baryon densities for the first time.

Gravitational lensing data is frequently collected at low resolution due to instrumental limitations and observing conditions. Machine learning-based super-resolution techniques offer a method to enhance the resolution of these images, enabling more precise measurements of lensing effects and a better understanding of the matter distribution in the lensing system. This enhancement can significantly improve our knowledge of the distribution of mass within the lensing galaxy and its environment, as well as the properties of the background source being lensed. Traditional super-resolution techniques typically learn a mapping function from lower-resolution to higher-resolution samples. However, these methods are often constrained by their dependence on optimizing a fixed distance function, which can result in the loss of intricate details crucial for astrophysical analysis. In this work, we introduce \(\texttt{DiffLense}\), a novel super-resolution pipeline based on a conditional diffusion model specifically designed to enhance the resolution of gravitational lensing images obtained from the Hyper Suprime-Cam Subaru Strategic Program (HSC-SSP). Our approach adopts a generative model, leveraging the detailed structural information present in Hubble Space Telescope (HST) counterparts. The diffusion model, trained to generate HST data, is conditioned on HSC data pre-processed with denoising techniques and thresholding to significantly reduce noise and background interference. This process leads to a more distinct and less overlapping conditional distribution during the model’s training phase. We demonstrate that \(\texttt{DiffLense}\) outperforms existing state-of-the-art single-image super-resolution techniques, particularly in retaining the fine details necessary for astrophysical analyses.

As of today there exist consistent, gauge-invariant string field theories describing all string theories: bosonic open and closed strings, open superstrings, heterotic strings and type II strings. The construction of these theories require algebraic ingredients, such as \(A_\infty\) and \(L_\infty\) homotopy algebras, geometric ingredients, relevant to the building of moduli spaces of Riemann surfaces and the distribution of picture changing operators, and field-theoretic ingredients, involving two-dimensional CFT’s and BCFT’s and Batalin-Vilkovisky quantization. Applications of string field theory include the description of non-perturbative phenomena such as tachyon condensation and classical solutions, and the resolution of a number of ambiguities that bedevil the world-sheet formulation of perturbative string theory. It also allows, given a proper definition of contours of integration for momenta, for a proof of unitarity and a clear understanding of the ultraviolet finiteness of the theory. In this article we review these developments. This is an expanded version of the review written for the “Handbook of Quantum Gravity”, eds. C. Bambi, L. Modesto and I.Shapiro.

Energy correlators provide a powerful observable to study fragmentation dynamics in QCD. We demonstrate that the leading nonperturbative corrections for projected \(N\)-point energy correlators are described by the same universal parameter for any \(N\), which has already been determined from other event shape fits. Including renormalon-free nonperturbative corrections substantially improves theoretical predictions of energy correlators, notably the transition into the confining region at small angles. Nonperturbative corrections are shown to have a significant impact on \(\alpha_s\) extractions.

“Attractor” solutions for the pre-hydrodynamic, far-from-equilibrium, evolution of the matter produced in relativistic heavy ion collisions have emerged as crucial descriptors of the rapid hydrodynamization of quark-gluon plasma (QGP). Adiabatic Hydrodynamization (AH) has been proposed as a framework with which to describe, explain, and predict attractor behavior that draws upon an analogy to the adiabatic approximation in quantum mechanics. In this work, we systematize the description of pre-hydrodynamic attractors in kinetic theory by showing how to use the AH framework to identify these long-lived solutions to which varied initial conditions rapidly evolve, demonstrating the robustness of this framework. In a simplified QCD kinetic theory in the small-angle scattering limit, we use AH to explain both the early- and late-time scaling behavior of a longitudinally expanding gluon gas in a unified framework. In this context, we show that AH provides a unified description of, and intuition for, all the stages of what in QCD would be bottom-up thermalization, starting from a pre-hydrodynamic attractor and ending with hydrodynamization. We additionally discuss the connection between the notions of scaling behavior and adiabaticity and the crucial role of time-dependent coordinate redefinitions in identifying the degrees of freedom of kinetic theories that give rise to attractor solutions. The tools we present open a path to the intuitive explanation of how attractor behavior arises and how the attractor evolves in all stages of the hydrodynamization of QGP in heavy ion collisions.

Extracting scientific understanding from particle-physics experiments requires solving diverse learning problems with high precision and good data efficiency. We propose the Lorentz Geometric Algebra Transformer (L-GATr), a new multi-purpose architecture for high-energy physics. L-GATr represents high-energy data in a geometric algebra over four-dimensional space-time and is equivariant under Lorentz transformations, the symmetry group of relativistic kinematics. At the same time, the architecture is a Transformer, which makes it versatile and scalable to large systems. L-GATr is first demonstrated on regression and classification tasks from particle physics. We then construct the first Lorentz-equivariant generative model: a continuous normalizing flow based on an L-GATr network, trained with Riemannian flow matching. Across our experiments, L-GATr is on par with or outperforms strong domain-specific baselines.

We update and extend a previous N\(^3\)LL\(^\prime\)+\({\cal O}(\alpha_s^3)\) strong coupling determination from thrust data. In particular, we carry out a fit with data fully restricted to the dijet region seeking to minimize the potential impact of power corrections that go beyond dijet configurations. In addition, we parametrize deviations from the dijet power correction in order to add an additional source of uncertainty in the result for \(\alpha_s(m_Z)\). We also show that the inclusion of resummation is important to achieve stability with respect to varying the fit region.

We demonstrate that “natural inflation”, also known as “axion inflation”, can be compatible with Planck 2018 measurements of the cosmic microwave background, while predicting an exponentially small tensor-to-scalar ratio, e.g., \(r\sim 10^{-15}\). The strong suppression of \(r\) arises from dynamics of the radial component of the complex scalar field, whose phase is the axion. Such tiny values of \(r\) remain well below the threshold for detection by CMB-S4 or Simons Observatory B-mode searches. The model is testable with the running \(\alpha_s\) of the spectral index, which is within reach of next-generation CMB and large-scale structure experiments, motivating the running as a primary science goal for future experiments.

We present an effective field theory (EFT) approach to extract fundamental cosmological parameters from the Lyman-alpha forest flux fluctuations as an alternative to the standard simulation-based techniques. As a first application, we re-analyze the publicly available one-dimensional Lyman-alpha flux power spectrum (FPS) data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). Our analysis relies on informative priors on EFT parameters which we extract from a combination of public hydrodynamic simulation and emulator data. Assuming the concordance cosmological model, our one-parameter analysis yields a \(2\%\) measurement of the late time mass fluctuation amplitude \(\sigma_8 = 0.841\pm 0.017\), or equivalently,the structure growth parameter \(S_8 = 0.852\pm 0.017\), consistent with the standard cosmology. Combining our EFT likelihood with Planck + baryon acoustic oscillation data, we find a new constraint on the total neutrino mass, \(\sum m_\nu<\) 0.08 eV (at 95% CL). Our study defines priorities for the development of EFT methods and sets the benchmark for cosmological analyses of the Lyman-alpha forest data from the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument.

Sen’s formalism is a mechanism for eliminating constraints on the dynamical fields that are imposed independently from equations of motion by employing spurious free fields. In this note a cyclic homotopy associative algebra underlying Sen’s formalism is developed. The novelty lies in the construction of a symplectic form and cyclic \(A_\infty\) maps on an extended algebra that combines the dynamical and spurious fields. This algebraic presentation makes the gauge invariance of theories using Sen’s formulation manifest.

We use the factorization constraints of open-closed string field theory to determine the signs and normalizations of general string amplitudes with both open and closed string external states. The normalization of all amplitudes is controlled by the genus, the number of boundaries, the number of open and closed string insertions, the string coupling and the D-brane tension. The challenge with signs arises because the relevant moduli spaces are not complex manifolds and have no obvious orientation. We deal with this by fixing a specific convention for the sign of the integration measure over the moduli space and adopting a consistent prescription for the ordering of operators and ghost insertions inside correlators.

The properties of the Higgs potential are determined by three parameters: the mass parameter, the quartic self-coupling, and a constant term. Remarkably, all three of these parameters seem subject to a significant amount of fine-tuning. All these tunings can be seen as their corresponding parameters being close to critical values marking quantum phase transitions. While such behavior is surprising from a conventional particle physics perspective, it is a common feature of dynamical systems. This has motivated the conjecture that the values of the Higgs’ parameters are the result of some dynamical mechanism. This possibility suggests the construction of mechanisms dynamically choosing sets of Higgs parameters. In these notes, I discuss a complementary approach. Taking seriously that such a mechanism could exist in nature, it is plausible to assume that it also influences Beyond-Standard-Model physics. This suggests considering near-criticality in any model of interest and investigating its consequences more generally, in particular independent of a concrete mechanism responsible for it. I first explain what it means for the parameters of the Higgs potential to be near-critical. This includes a discussion of the recently discovered “metastability bound” on the Higgs mass, which can be understood through a critical point. I then review two concrete examples of mechanisms in which the parameters of the Higgs potential are dynamically driven towards critical values. These mechanisms also serve as an important proof on concept for the feasibility of the assumptions at the foundation of these notes. Using a simple example for concreteness, the final part of these notes then explicitly demonstrates how to approach a given model in the light of the near-criticality conjecture.