Research

Research papers: [ INSPIRE | Google scholar | Mathscinet ]

My current research interests include: conformal and quantum field theory, the conformal bootstrap and the renormalization group, both perturbative and nonperturbative (e.g. tensor network renormalization). 

You can get an idea about my recent research activities from "What's new" blog on the home page, and from the annual IHES activity reports: 2020, 2021, 2022.

Various other areas of theoretical physics and mathematics I worked on in the past:

• Models of Electroweak Symmetry Breaking (SUSY, Higgs as a PGB, composite Higgs, Higgsless models)

• Standard Model Electroweak vacuum decay

• Phenomenology of gravitino (thermal production in post-inflationary universe)

• Dark Matter candidates (inert doublet model)

• Transplanckian scattering

I was active in the above topics in the years leading to the LHC, until 2011 or so (see e.g. this experimentally outdated non-technical review of EWSB or my last paper on the transplanckian scattering). However, since LHC did not turn up any spectacular Beyond the Standard Model result, I'm currently maintaining only casual interest in these subjects.

• Quantum black holes (Mathur's 'fuzzball' conjecture, counting of black hole microstates from supergravity)

• Semiclassical approximation in quantum gravity (minisuperspace quantization of families of (super)gravity solutions)

• TeV-scale black holes (black hole production in elementary particle collisions)

• Gauge theories and AdS/CFT correspondence (Wilson loop in gauge/string duality)

• Harmonic analysis (function spaces of differentiable functions, oscillatory integral operators)

A collection of links to the recordings or slides of some talks (pre-2016, more talks linked from my Home page):

• • Hamiltonian truncation methods for strongly coupled QFT (Talk at Strings 2016, Beijing)

  • Bootstrap approach to CFT in D dimensions (Talk at Strings 2013, Seoul)

  • Quantum Field Theory without Lagrangians (Talk at the Conference in honor of Riccardo Barbieri, Scuola Normaler Superiore, Dec 2013)

  • Overview: Conformal Bootstrap (Talk at the Conference "Quantum Fields Beyond Perturbation Theory", KITP, Spring 2014)

  • Conformal Symmetry and the 3d Ising Model (KITP Blackboard lunch)

  • Conformal symmetry of critical fluctuations in D=3 (Colloquium at the Physics Department of École Normale Supérieure, March 2014)