IAS Program on Particle Theory - Think Emergent -- What If We Abandon the Fundamentality of (Quantum) Gravity?

Abstract

In this talk, the speaker will present a published and an ongoing work in the direction of emergent gravity. The first is what she dubbed as the generalized Unruh effect, a mapping from arbitrary states in the Fock space of positive Minkowski (Kruskal) modes to Rindler (Schwarzschild) modes obtained by Bogoliubov transformation. The special case of vacuum state -- thermal bath mapping has been well known in the textbooks, the original Unruh effect. The speaker will discuss the interesting physical implications of the generalized Unruh effect on the black hole information paradox. In the second part, she will give a novel conjecture of the dark energy when considering the spacetime as a 4d volume-conserved fluid. Einstein's equation with an always-positive metric term (Lambda, but not necessarily constant) can be interpreted as the differential version of this assumed conservation of 4d volume at linear order. The rich phenomenology of this theory will be discussed, including its solution to the anthropic problem of our currently dark-energy-dominated universe, and high-redshift over-evolved astrophysical objects that have been recently popping up in the JWST survey.

About the Speaker

Dr. Angela Chen obtained her BSc from Wuhan University in 2015. She then went on to complete her PhD in physics at University of Michigan in 2021. She was on Kavli IPMU fellowship 2021-2024.

About the Program

For more information, please refer to the program website at http://iasprogram.ust.hk/particle_theory.

For Attendees' Attention

• Seating is on a first come, first served basis.