The Journal Club is a series of student led talks and discussions that happen every week, typically in the PRC 201 conference room. There is usuallty a fun collection of topics covered each quarter. The mailing list can be found here.
Topic: Turbulence
Meeting Time: Thursdays 2:00 pm
Following the review Turbulence for (and by) Amateurs (arXiv:cond-mat/0007106)
• 10/5 - Harvey: The Navier-Stokes Equation (in PRC 440)
• 10/12 - Alex: Onset of turbulence (in PRC 440)
• 10/19 - Kyle: Cascades and Kolmogorov Theory,statistical turbulence and the 4/5 law (in PRC 215)
• 10/26 - Harvey: Cascade Phenomenology in 3 and 2 Dimensional Turbulence
• 11/02 - Siyuan: The MSR formalism
Topic: Machine Learning
• 11/09-Brandon: Introduction of Neural Network and Machine Learning
• 11/16-Ian: Application of ML to Physics (I)
• 11/30-Joao: Application of ML to Physics (II)
Topic: Aspects of Chaos
Meeting Time: Thursdays 12:30 pm
1. Introduction
• 4/06-Harvey: Introduction to classical chaos
• 4/13-Shuoguang: Introduction to quantum chaos
• 4/20-Alex: More on quantum chaos-Gutzwiller and Selberg trace formula
2. Random matrix theory
• 4/27-Joao
• 5/04-XuCheng
3. Larkin and Aleiner papers: Correction to weak localization from divergence of trajectories in classical chaos
• 5/11-Harvey
4. Out-of-time ordered correlation and related topics
• 5/18-Chih-Kai
5. SYK model
• 6/01-Dung
• 6/08-Weishun
Topic: Topological Quantum Field Theories.
Meeting time: Thursdays 1:30 PM
1.Jan 12th, arXiv: 1606.01989 continued
2. Jan 19th, application of duality: nu = 1/2 state in quantum Hall physics
3. Jan 26th, E. Witten, Topological Quantum Field Theory, Commun. Math. Phys. 117, 353 (1988) I
4. Feb 2nd, E. Witten, Topological Quantum Field Theory, Commun. Math. Phys. 117, 353 (1988) II
5. Feb 9th, X.-L. Qi, E. Witten, and S.-C. Zhang, Axion Topological Field Theory of Topological Superconductors, Phys. Rev. B. 87, 134519 (2013)
6. Feb 16th, E. Witten, Quantum Field Theory and the Jones Polynomial, Commun. Math. Phys. 121, 351 (1989) I
7. Feb 23rd, E. Witten, Quantum Field Theory and the Jones Polynomial, Commun. Math. Phys. 121, 351 (1989) II
8. Mar 2nd, K-Matrix Formulation of Quantum Hall physics mainly based on works by X.-G. Wen
9. Mar 9th, E. Witten, 2+1 Dimensional Gravity as an Exactly Soluble System, Nucl. Phys. B 311, 46 (1988)
Topic: Duality in condensed matter physics and Composite Fermions.
Meeting time: Thursdays 1:30 PM
1. Ising model 1 (Introduction) (Tan)
Suggested reference:
- Feynmann’s lectures on Statistical Mechanic
- Review of Modern physics reviews here and here
- Fradkin’s book
2. Ising model 2 (Duality of Ising model) (Bogatskii)
Suggested reference:
- High T low T duality (Kramers-Wannier)
- Boson-fermion duality in 1+1 related to Ising model (Polchinski’s String theory books, CFT book http://www.springer.com/us/book/9780387947853, Emil’s lecture note )
- Sine-Goron duality here and here
3. Bosonization (Chang)
Suggested reference:
- Lecture by Kane about bosonization and references
- Bosonization for Fermi-liquid (Castro Nesto and Fradkin, Haldane)
4. Bosonic particle/vortex duality (MacCormack)
Suggested reference:
PRL's here and here, and a good review
- Karch and Tong Partilce/Vortex Duality https://arxiv.org/abs/1606.01893
5. S-duality (electric-magnetic duality) (Chris)
Suggested reference:
- T-Duality Polchinski’s books on String theory
- 4D- Maxwell theory lecture note by Jeff https://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/9603086
6. Witten’s paper on duality 1 (Harvey)
Suggested reference:
- Karch and Tong paper on the same topic
7. Witten’s paper on duality 2 (Travis or Joao)
Suggested reference:
8. Witten’s paper on duality 3 (Travis or Joao)
Suggested reference:
9. ½ state and particle vortex duality (Dung)
Suggested reference:
PR X paper and review paper by Son
Topic: Scattering Amplitudes. We will be covering the book by Elvang and Huang, "Scattering Amplitudes in Gauge theory and Gravity".
Meeting time: Thursday 1:00 PM
Week 1 (Apr 21) Yu-Xiao Wu Chapter 2&3 of the book
Week 2 (Apr 28) João Caldeira Chapter 2&3 of the book
Week 3 (May 05) Yi-Kun Wang Chapter 2&3 of the book
Week 4 (May 12) Jing-Yuan Chen Chapter 6&7&8 of the book, can skip N=4 SYM
Week 5 (May 19) Wei-Han Hsiao Chapter 6&7&8 of the book, can skip N=4 SYM
Week 6 (May 26) * Special: We are happy to have Jaroslav Trnka, who will present a review of the subject. On the same week he will give another seminar about his own research.
Week 7 (June 02) Travis Maxfield Twistor and recent extensions 1412.3479
Week 8 (June 09) Caner Nazaroglu Twistor and recent extensions 1412.3479
Topic: Quantum Information in AdS/CFT. Meeting time: Tuesday 12:30 PM
1. 01/19 Introduction to Quantum Computation – Dung Nguyen
2. 01/26 Classical Information Theory/Von Neumann Entropy/Entropy Inequalities – Caner Nazaroglu
3. 02/02 Quantum Error Correction – Jingyuan Chen
4. 02/09 Introduction to AdS/CFT – Franklin Wu
5. 02/16 Ryu Takayanagi - Travis Maxfield
6. 02/23 QFT In Curved Spacetimes – Michael Geracie
8. 03/01 Emergent Spacetime – Chris Heinrich
9. 03/08 Tensor Networks – Wei Han
7. 03/15 Tensor Networks and Holography – Joao Caldeira
10. 03/29 Holographic Quantum Error Correcting Codes – Michael Geracie
This quarter students will present a topic relevant to their own research. Meetings will be held weekly at 1:30 PM on Thursdays with the first talk on 4/16/15.
1. Caner – Conformal Bootstrap
2. Chris – SPT phases
3. Jingyuan – Chiral Kinetic Theory
4. Tommy – SCFT and Elliptic Genus
5. Hridesh – Knotted Light
6. Franklin
7. Travis
8. Chien-Hung
This quarter we will be covering the phases of QCD and symmetry protected topological (SPT) Phases. Talks will be held each week at 12:00 Thursday.
QCD:
1. Perturbative QCD at high T (Gross, Pisarski, Yaffe 1981) – Alex
2. Polyakov loops and deconfinement – (Polyakov 1976, Svetitsky, Yaffe 1982) – Joao
3. Chiral phase transitions (Pisarski, Wilczek 1984) – Travis
4. Color superconductivity (Alford, Rajagopal, Wilczek 1998/1999, Alford, Schmitt, Rajagopal, Schafer 2008) – Mike
5. QCD Critical Point (Sthephanov, Rajagopal, Shuryak 1999, Stephanov 2004) - Jingyuan
SPT:
1. 1D spin models: Haldane spin chain and generalizations – Misha
2. Group cohomological classification in 1D – Dung
3. Analyzing bulk statistics in 2D – Chris
4. Analyzing edge states in 2D – Chien-Hung
This quarter’s journal club is concerned with anomalies and their applications. Please see Professor Harvey’s 2003 TASI lectures for a good source of references. The topics covered this quarter are
1. Introduction/Motivation/Phenomenology - Jeff Harvey
2. Spectral Flow and 1 Loop Amplitudes - Michael
3. Fujikawa path-integral analysis - Chris
4. Anomalies and transport (chiral magnetic and vortical effect) - Siavash
5. Anomaly inflow - João
6. Descent Equations - Jingyuan
7. Index Theory - Franklin
8. Anomaly matching / Examples - Caner
9. Conformal Anomaly - Travis
Week 1: Entanglement Entropy - Density Matrix Renormalization Group
Week 2: Entanglement Entropy - Multiscale Entanglement Renormalization Ansatz (Vidal)
Week 3: Anyonic Physics - Introduction to Chern Simons (Witten)
Week 4: Anyonic Physics - Introduction to Chern Simons -- Knot/Link Invariants
Week 5: Anyonic Physics - Wilson lines/non-local operators/ Laughlin Wavefunction
Week 6: Anyonic Physics - Algebraic Theory of Anyons (Preskill Lecture Notes)
Week 7: Anyonic Physics - Algebraic Theory of Anyons (Preskill Lecture Notes)
Week 8: Anyonic Physics - Edge States Theory
Week 9: Anyonic Physics - Edge States Experiment
This quarter's series is mostly concerned with a pedagogical introduction to the subject of quantum entanglement; the discussion may spill over into the next quarter. A summary with refereances is the set of lectures by Takayanagi. A collection of review articles from 2009 may be found here.
1. Intro to Entanglement Entropy. Finite dimensional systems, spin chains. Von-Neumann entropy and its properties (e.g. Strong subadditivity, inequalities etc.), mutual information, relative entropy, etc.
2. Area law of entanglement entropy. Srednicki (hep-th/9303048)
3. Review of CFT, Anomalies, Boundary CFT, C/g theorems.
4, 5. Entanglement entropy in 2D CFTs (first lecture and continuation into a second lecture) (Callan-Wilczek, Calabrese-Cardy, Kitaev, Calabrese-Cardy review)
6. Non-equil dynamics of EE Quench, time development (Calabrese-Cardy, Bernard-Bauer)
7. Topological EE (Kitaev-Preskill, Levin-Wen, Ludwig et. al)
8. Intro to holography and Holographic EE (Ryu-Takayanagi)
9. Black holes and Entanglement CFT thermal field duals and AdS Blackholes (Maldacena)
10. Entanglement and Hawking radiation (aka information paradox and firewalls)
11. Relation between topological EE and edge states (Entanglement spectrum)
12. Entanglement renormalization MERA (Multiscale Entanglement Renormalization Ansatz; Vidal), Swingle, DMRG (density matrix RG) + Numerics
This quarter's series is mostly concerned with a pedagogical introduction to the subject of topological states of matter. We are mostly follow the ordering of the topics in the short review of
Hasan and Kane, Rev. Mod. Phys. 82, 3045 (2010).
0. Review of band structure and the tight binding method.
1. Integer quantum Hall effect
Physical picture of gap, edge states, Hall conductivity
2. TKNN paper: connection between sigma_xy and Chern number
Refs: Thouless et al. PRL 49, 405 (1982)
Haldane PRL 61, 2015 (1988).
3. High-energy perspective
Jackiw and Rebbi, Phys. Rev. D 13, 3398 (1976).
Nielsen and Ninomiya, Phys Lett 130B, 389 (1983)
4. Z2 topological insulator
Kane and Mele PRL 95, 226801 (2005)
explain Eqs. (11), (12) of the review. Explain Eq.(10) of the review
5. Proposal for topological insulator and experiments
Benevig, Hughes and Zhang, Science 314, 1757 (2006).
Koenig et al, Science 318, 766 (2007).
6. 3D toplogical insulator
strong and weak TI
weak TI as a stack of 2D TI
surface modes
Ref: Fu, Kane and Mele, PRL 98, 106803 (2007).
7 Experiments with 3D TIs
Hsieh et al., Nature 452, 970 (2008)
The review itself
8. Axion electrodynamics
Refs: Wilczek PRL 58, 1799 (1987)
Essin, Moore and Vanderbilt, PRL 102, 146805 (2009)
Qi, Hughes and Zhang, Phys. Rev. B 9, 195424 (2008)
9a. Periodic table
Refs.: Stone, Chiu and Roy, arXiv:1005.3213
Kitaev http://arxiv.org/abs/0901.2686
9b. Topological superconductors