There are no events at the Simons Center today. Here are the events for this week
Wednesday, December 3rd, 2025
YITP Event: YITP Seminar: Bowen Shi (UIUC)
Time: 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Location:
Title: Entanglement bootstrap: phases of matter, chirality and beyond
Abstract: The entanglement bootstrap framework provides simple but powerful axioms that characterize gapped phases on local patches, offering a reformulation of phase equivalence and revealing how topological features—such as anyons and quantized responses—are encoded directly in a single wave function. Unlike the recent paradigm based on circuit invariants, the entanglement bootstrap—with a homogeneity condition implied by the entanglement area law—implements a softer and more flexible notion of invariance. I will then focus on modular flow and its ability to probe the chiral central charge directly from a bulk vacuum state, leading to a strengthened vector form of the modular commutator formula. Finally, I will discuss what lies beyond gapped phases, including applications to chiral edges, conformal field theories, and topological mixed states. These examples collectively suggest a unified picture in which entanglement—rather than symmetry—organizes our understanding of phases of matter and their associated chiral or gapless behavior. If you'd like to chat with Bowen, please use this sign up sheet:https://docs.google.com/
Title: Entanglement bootstrap: phases of matter, chirality and beyond
Abstract: The entanglement bootstrap framework provides simple but powerful axioms that characterize gapped phases on local patches, offering a reformulation of phase equivalence and revealing how topological features—such as anyons and quantized responses—are encoded directly in a single wave function. Unlike the recent paradigm based on circuit invariants, the entanglement bootstrap—with a homogeneity condition implied by the entanglement area law—implements a softer and more flexible notion of invariance. I will then focus on modular flow and its ability to probe the chiral central charge directly from a bulk vacuum state, leading to a strengthened vector form of the modular commutator formula. Finally, I will discuss what lies beyond gapped phases, including applications to chiral edges, conformal field theories, and topological mixed states. These examples collectively suggest a unified picture in which entanglement—rather than symmetry—organizes our understanding of phases of matter and their associated chiral or gapless behavior. If you'd like to chat with Bowen, please use this sign up sheet:https://docs.google.com/
Physics Seminar: Jinwei Chu
Time: 2:00 PM - 3:00 PM
Location: 313
Title: A new approach to small black holes in string theory
Abstract: In this talk, I will introduce a new approach for studying $d+1$ dimensional Euclidean Schwarzschild black holes with Hawking temperature near the Hagedorn temperature, as well as the Horowitz-Polchinski (HP) solutions. The worldsheet theory that describes some of these backgrounds is strongly coupled. We use its underlying affine $SU(2)_L\times SU(2)_R$ symmetry to continue to weak coupling, by varying the level of the current algebra from the small value relevant for black holes and HP solutions to a large value. In this limit, the dynamics can be captured by a solvable effective field theory, closely related to previous work on the non-abelian Thirring model. I will also discuss several interesting properties of the resulting solutions that have implications for the black hole/fundamental string transition.
Title: A new approach to small black holes in string theory
Abstract: In this talk, I will introduce a new approach for studying $d+1$ dimensional Euclidean Schwarzschild black holes with Hawking temperature near the Hagedorn temperature, as well as the Horowitz-Polchinski (HP) solutions. The worldsheet theory that describes some of these backgrounds is strongly coupled. We use its underlying affine $SU(2)_L\times SU(2)_R$ symmetry to continue to weak coupling, by varying the level of the current algebra from the small value relevant for black holes and HP solutions to a large value. In this limit, the dynamics can be captured by a solvable effective field theory, closely related to previous work on the non-abelian Thirring model. I will also discuss several interesting properties of the resulting solutions that have implications for the black hole/fundamental string transition.
Thursday, December 4th, 2025