Research in String Theory and Field Theory

The projects will explore quantum aspects of gravity and non-perturbative aspects of quantum field theory. These are key foundational problems in contemporary physics. Results in these areas will serve the national interest by advancing fundamental science. This is the main intellectual merit of this project. The PI will involve graduate students and postdoctoral scholars in this research, thus providing them valuable training necessary to develop into independent scientists and educators. In addition, the results will be used to enhance classroom education both at the graduate and undergraduate levels. The PI also plans to give public talks about the subject in various forums and lectures at “Osher Lifelong Learning Institute” which offers courses and enrichment programs to members of the community. The PI also plans to engage in “Science for Everyone, KY” which is an outreach program based in Lexington with an aim to increase scientific awareness in the community. More technically, Das will study aspects of the Holographic Correspondence which relates gravitational physics to non-gravitational theories of the type which describe electro-weak and strong interactions, albeit in lower number of space-time dimensions. This correspondence shows that our usual notions of continuous space are approximate concepts which emerge out of more fundamental entities. It is also becoming increasingly clear that quantum entanglement plays a key role in this emergence. At the same time, this correspondence has helped us understand many aspects of strongly coupled field theories, particularly when they are away from equilibrium. A main goal of the set of projects in this proposal is to understand in a precise way how the degrees of freedom of non-gravitational theories metamorphose into spatial dimensions of the gravitational theory, and how the entanglement structure in the former manifests in the latter. This will be done by analyzing solvable models, and setups in String Theory. Another goal is to use the insight of holographic correspondence to uncover universal features in systems out of equilibrium which appear in many areas of physics, ranging from nuclear physics to the physics of cold atoms.