Publications

Order by: publication date number of citations

• Cosmic censorship of trans-Planckian field ranges in gravitational collapse

  Himanshu Chaudhary, Chethan Krishnan

  SciPost Phys. 9, 036 (2020) · published 11 September 2020 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  A classical solution where the (scalar) field value moves by an ${\cal O}(1)$ range in Planck units is believed to signal the breakdown of Effective Field Theory (EFT). One heuristic argument for this is that such a field will have enough energy to be inside its own Schwarzschild radius, and will result in collapse. In this paper, we consider an inverse problem: what kind of field ranges arise during the gravitational collapse of a classical field? Despite the fact that collapse has been studied for almost a hundred years, most of the discussion is phrased in terms of fluid stress tensors, and not fields. An exception is the scalar collapse made famous by Choptuik. We re-consider Choptuik-like systems, but with the emphasis now on the evolution of the scalar. We give strong evidence that generic spherically symmetric collapse of a massless scalar field leads to super-Planckian field movement. But we also note that in every such supercritical collapse scenario, the large field range is hidden behind an apparent horizon. We also discuss how the familiar perfect fluid models for collapse like Oppenheimer-Snyder and Vaidya should be viewed in light of our results.

• Phases of cold holographic QCD: Baryons, pions and rho mesons

  Nicolas Kovensky, Aaron Poole, Andreas Schmitt

  SciPost Phys. 15, 162 (2023) · published 13 October 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We improve the holographic description of isospin-asymmetric baryonic matter within the Witten-Sakai-Sugimoto model by accounting for a realistic pion mass, computing the pion condensate dynamically, and including rho meson condensation by allowing the gauge field in the bulk to be anisotropic. This description takes into account the coexistence of baryonic matter with pion and rho meson condensates. Our main result is the zero-temperature phase diagram in the plane of baryon and isospin chemical potentials. We find that the effective pion mass in the baryonic medium increases with baryon density and that, as a consequence, there is no pion condensation in neutron-star matter. Our improved description also predicts that baryons are disfavored at low baryon chemical potentials even for arbitrarily large isospin chemical potential. Instead, rho meson condensation sets in on top of the pion condensate at an isospin chemical potential of about $9.4 m_\pi$. We further observe a highly non-monotonic phase boundary regarding the disappearance of pion condensation.

• A differential-geometry approach to operator mixing in massless QCD-like theories and Poincaré-Dulac theorem

  Matteo Becchetti

  SciPost Phys. Proc. 7, 032 (2022) · published 21 June 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We review recent progress on operator mixing in the light of the theory of canonical forms for linear systems of differential equations and, in particular, of the Poincar\'e-Dulac theorem. We show that the matrix $A(g) = -\frac{\gamma(g)}{\beta(g)} =\frac{\gamma_0}{\beta_0}\frac{1}{g} + \cdots $ determines which different cases of operator mixing can occur, and we review their classification. We derive a sufficient condition for $A(g)$ to be set in the one-loop exact form $A(g) = \frac{\gamma_0}{\beta_0}\frac{1}{g}$. Finally, we discuss the consequences of the unitarity requirement in massless QCD-like theories, and we demonstrate that $\gamma_0$ is always diagonalizable if the theory is conformal invariant and unitary in its free limit at $g =0$.

• Classical boundary field theory of Jacobi sigma models by Poissonization

  Ion V. Vancea

  SciPost Phys. Proc. 4, 011 (2021) · published 13 August 2021 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  In this paper, we are going to construct the classical field theory on the boundary of the embedding of $\mathbb{R} \times S^{1}$ into the manifold $M$ by the Jacobi sigma model. By applying the poissonization procedure and by generalizing the known method for Poisson sigma models, we express the fields of the model as perturbative expansions in terms of the reduced phase space of the boundary. We calculate these fields up to the second order and illustrate the procedure for contact manifolds.

• Quasi-characters in $\widehat{su(2)}$ current algebra at fractional levels

  Sachin Grover

  SciPost Phys. Core 6, 068 (2023) · published 18 October 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We study the even characters of $\widehat{su(2)}$ conformal field theories (CFTs) at admissible fractional levels obtained from the difference of the highest weight characters in the unflavoured limit. We show that admissible even character vectors arise only in three special classes of admissible fractional levels which include the threshold levels, the positive half-odd integer levels, and the isolated level at -$5/4$. Among them, we show that the even characters of the half-odd integer levels map to the difference of characters of $\widehat{su(2)}_{4N+4}$, with $N\in\mathbb{Z}_{>0}$, although we prove that they do not correspond to rational CFTs. The isolated level characters maps to characters of two subsectors with $\widehat{so(5)}_1$ and $\widehat{su(2)}_1$ current algebras. Furthermore, for the $\widehat{su(2)}_1$ subsector of the isolated level, we introduce discrete flavour fugacities. The threshold levels saturate the admissibility bound and their even characters have previously been shown to be proportional to the unflavoured characters of integrable representations in $\widehat{su(2)}_{4N}$ CFTs, where $N\in\mathbb{Z}_{> 0}$ and we reaffirm this result. Except at the three classes of fractional levels, we find special inadmissible characters called quasi-characters which are nice vector valued modular functions but with $q$-series coefficients violating positivity but not integrality.

• NLO finite system size corrections to $2\to2$ scattering in $\phi^4$ theory using newly derived sum of sinc functions

  Jean F. Du Plessis, William A. Horowitz

  SciPost Phys. Proc. 15, 002 (2024) · published 2 April 2024 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Previously an equation of state for the relativistic hydrodynamics encountered in heavy-ion collisions at the LHC and RHIC has been calculated using lattice gauge theory methods. This leads to a prediction of very low viscosity, due to the calculated trace anomaly. Finite system corrections to this trace anomaly could challenge this calculation, since the lattice calculation was done in an effectively infinite system. In order to verify this trace anomaly it is sensible to add phenomenologically relevant finite system corrections. We investigate massive $\phi^4$ theory with periodic boundary conditions on $n$ of the 3 spatial dimensions. $2\to2$ NLO scattering is then computed. Using a newly derived formula for an arbitrary dimensional sum of sinc functions, we show that the NLO finite size corrections preserve unitarity.

• Towards the computation of inclusive decay rates using lattice QCD

  Paolo Gambino, Shoji Hashimoto, Sandro Mächler, Marco Panero, Francesco Sanfilippo, Silvano Simula, Antonio Smecca, Nazario Tantalo

  SciPost Phys. Proc. 15, 004 (2024) · published 2 April 2024 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We present a non-perturbative computation of inclusive rates of semileptonic decays of heavy mesons from lattice QCD simulations. The calculation is based on the extraction of smeared spectral functions obtained from four-point Euclidean correlation functions computed on configuration ensembles of the JLQCD and ETM collaborations. We compare our results for the inclusive decay rates with analytical predictions from the operator-product expansion, finding a good agreement for the calculation of the inclusive decay rate. This opens the path to the theoretical determination of the magnitude of the Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa matrix element $V_{cb}$ to a level of precision competitive with the present experimental uncertainty.

• Position-dependent mass quantum systems and ADM formalism

  Davood Momeni

  SciPost Phys. Proc. 4, 009 (2021) · published 13 August 2021 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  The classical Einstein-Hilbert (EH) action for general relativity (GR) is shown to be formally analogous to the classical system with position-dependent mass (PDM) models. The analogy is developed and used to build the covariant classical Hamiltonian as well as defining an alternative phase portrait for GR. The set of associated Hamilton's equations in the phase space is presented as a first-order system dual to the Einstein field equations. Following the principles of quantum mechanics, I build a canonical theory for the classical general. A fully consistent quantum Hamiltonian for GR is constructed based on adopting a high dimensional phase space. It is observed that the functional wave equation is timeless. As a direct application, I present an alternative wave equation for quantum cosmology. In comparison to the standard Arnowitt-Deser-Misner(ADM) decomposition and quantum gravity proposals, I extended my analysis beyond the covariant regime when the metric is decomposed into the 3+1 dimensional ADM decomposition. I showed that an equal dimensional phase space can be obtained if one applies ADM decomposed metric.

• Superradiant instability and black resonators in AdS

  Takaaki Ishii

  SciPost Phys. Proc. 4, 008 (2021) · published 13 August 2021 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Rapidly rotating Myers-Perry-AdS black holes are unstable against rotational superradiance. From the onset of the instability, cohomogeneity-1 black resonators are constructed in five-dimensional asymptotically AdS space. By using the cohomogeneity-1 metric, perturbations of the cohomogeneity-1 black resonators are also studied.

• $N^3LO$ calculations for $2 \to 2$ processes using simplified differential equations

  Dhimiter D. Canko, Federico Gasparotto, Luca Mattiazzi, Costas G. Papadopoulos, Nikolaos Syrrakos

  SciPost Phys. Proc. 7, 028 (2022) · published 21 June 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We present the computation of the massless three-loop ladder-box family with one external off-shell leg using the Simplified Differential Equations (SDE) approach. We also discuss the methods we used for finding a canonical differential equation for the two tennis-court families with one off-shell leg, and the application of the SDE approach on these two families.