Alex Maloney, McGill University
Monday, February 25, 2013 - 4:00pm to 5:00pm
PAA A-102
The holographic correspondence provides a powerful tool to analyze quantum gravity. Its simplest implementation - the AdS/CFT correspondence - relates theories of quantum gravity with a negative cosmological constant to certain quantum field theories (CFTs) in one less dimension. In many cases this correspondance can be made explicit.
For example, the two dimensional Ising model appears to be dual to three dimensional general relativity with a certain (Planckian) value of the cosmological constant. This allows us to address basic questions involving the quantum mechanics of black holes. It also provides a calculable framework for the computation of the "wave function of the universe" in quantum cosmology.