Research
There is nothing like looking, if you want to find something. You certainly usually find something, if you look, but it is not always quite the something you were after.
- J.R.R. Tolkien
The Hobbit
As a researcher, I worked in theoretical high-energy physics, focusing on quantum field theory and (quantum) gravitational physics.
An up-to-date list of my publications can be accessed either via inSPIRE, or Google Scholar.
Some of my talks can also be accessed via YouTube.
More details:
Most of my work is focused on a conjectured duality called the Holographic Principle. This duality relates theories of (quantum) gravity in a given number of dimensions with quantum field theories that are formulated in one dimension less.Â
One explicit example of such a correspondence is the Anti-de Sitter/Conformal field theory (AdS/CFT) correspondence that is realized in the context of string theory. This correspondence is of particular interest as it allows one to learn something about strongly coupled quantum systems as well as gravity in a regime where also quantum effects should play a role. Thus it opens a possible window to learn something about quantum gravity.
Since the AdS/CFT correspondence is a very specific setup a very natural question to ask is:
How general is holography?
As such most of my current work is related to finding evidence for new holographic correspondences beyond the well known AdS/CFT correspondence. During the past few years I worked quite a lot on trying to establish a holographic correspondence in asymptotically flat spacetimes in three dimensional gravity theories first. Reason being that this setup allows for a very high degree of control and as such provides an excellent toy model as preparation for extensions to four (and higher) dimensions.
Furthermore these kind of toy models also allow for a tractable study of so called higher-spin extensions of gravity theories that also play a prominent role in string theory.