Dipartimento di Fisica

Descrizione del progetto

The bootstrap program leverages self-consistency conditions, which follow from locality and unitarity, to estimate observables in physical theories, even in the absence of small parameters. This project aims at developing and applying the bootstrap to observables extended in space and time, sometimes called defects, and to observables defined at the asymptotic boundaries of flat or curved spacetime. Notable examples of defects include Wilson lines in gauge theories, which encode the effect of heavy charged particles on the vacuum, and Rényi entropies, which measure entanglement between regions of space. Among the asymptotic observables, scattering amplitudes of photons and gravitons will be a primary objective, together with correlation functions of operators located at the boundary of Anti-de Sitter (AdS) space. AdS acts as a box for any quantum field theory (QFT), regulating infrared divergences and providing a scale, its radius. Studying QFT in AdS is equivalent to studying renormalization group flows, and as the radius becomes large, one can make contact with strongly coupled physics in flat space.