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Project

Holography in String Theory

Gravity is one of the fundamental forces that controls our everyday life. For such an important force there are still many unanswered questions. Why is it so weak compared to the other fundamental forces? What is dark matter and what is dark energy? The other fundamental forces are described well by a framework called gauge theory. However, a unifying description of all fundamental forces is still missing. Recently, remarkable insights from string theory shine new light on this predicament by relating gauge theories and theories of gravity to each other at a deep level. The fact that these theories are related is highly non-trivial, which allows for new and exciting discoveries. This interesting field of research goes by the name of holography and has already led to deep insights in strongly correlated systems and black hole physics. Still, there are many directions that deserve to be explored further, which is one of the aims of this project. For example, the class of gauge theories to which holography has been applied is still limited to cases with large amounts of symmetry. We will focus on a holographic description of gauge theories with defects and interfaces, which break parts of these symmetries. Furthermore, holography for gauge theories with conformal symmetry is currently quite well understood and we will extend to non-conformal theories. Additionally, a main part of the project will be to understand the gravity dual of these new gauge theories.

Date:1 Sep 2015 →  30 Sep 2020
Keywords:String, Theory
Disciplines:Applied mathematics in specific fields, Elementary particle and high energy physics, Quantum physics, Astronomy and space sciences, Classical physics, Materials physics, Mathematical physics, Atomic and molecular physics, Algebra
Project type:PhD project