Igor Klebanov
Princeton University, NJ·Physics
Quantum field theory merges quantum mechanics with special relativity and is often called the universal language of theoretical physics. It describes elementary particles.
- Fields
Physics
Astronomy & Astrophysics
Mathematics & Statistics
- Topics
quantum field theory
conformal field theory
holography
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Jul 2028
What they work on
- Develop new methods for quantum field theories with defects or boundaries, where interactions are confined to a surface or edge, and identify the new critical phenomena and renormalization group flows they produce.
- Study critical phenomena that arise when PT symmetry breaks in field theory and lattice models with non-Hermitian Hamiltonians, described by non-unitary conformal field theories.
- Explore the AdS/CFT correspondence and large N matrix quantum mechanics, a simpler form of holography, to learn how strings emerge from quantum systems with many components.
- Use holographic correspondences to study black holes and cosmological spacetimes in lower-dimensional models of quantum gravity.
More about the research
It also describes critical phenomena, the behavior of matter near continuous phase transitions, such as a magnet losing its magnetism at a critical temperature. Many of these theories have an extra symmetry called conformal symmetry and are known as conformal field theories (CFTs). Some CFTs have an equivalent "holographic" description in terms of gravity in a higher-dimensional space. That link has given insight into quantum gravity and string theory. This group project, shared with Simone Giombi and Herman Verlinde, uses these tools to study new kinds of critical behavior, quantum models of black holes, and cosmology.
Why it matters
This is basic theoretical physics aimed at discovering and understanding new physical laws. It could clarify how gravity and spacetime arise from quantum systems, what happens inside black holes and in the early universe, and how unusual phase transitions behave. It may eventually connect quantum gravity to quantum information theory.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Claire Zukowski
Case Western Reserve University, OH·Physics
Compute new quantum observables for de Sitter spacetime, an expanding universe like ours, building on recent advances in Chern-Simons gravity, a simplified formulation of gravity, as a route around past obstacles in dS/CFT holography.
Morris Ang
University of California-San Diego, CA·Mathematics & Statistics
Determine the probability law of the random modulus, a number describing conformal shape, of Brownian surfaces for each topology, verifying a conjecture from bosonic string theory using Liouville quantum gravity (LQG).
Massimo Porrati
New York University, NY·Physics
Develop new methods for defining quantities that separate signal from noise in gravitational-wave data.
The school
Princeton University: 26 labs on PI Pages, $559M a year on research, 403 research doctorates a year.
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