Aidan Reill (SLAC) “Astrophysical Signals of Asymmetric Dark Matter “
Abstract: Our limited understanding of dark matter motivates exploring a wide range of masses and interaction strengths, independent of specific mediators or production mechanisms. Astrophysical systems, with their high energies and long lifetimes, provide unique laboratories for this pursuit. I will discuss two mechanisms by which dark matter can leave measurable imprints on astrophysical systems, even without annihilations. In the first, … Read More
Qiuyu Ren (UCB) “Khovanov skein lasagna modules of 4-manifolds, II”
Abstract: This is a continuation of the previous talk about skein lasagna modules. We review some features of the Khovanov homology and its Lee deformation. We examine the resulting skein lasagna modules with these two theories as inputs, extract a lasagna version of Rasmussen’s s-invariant, and state some formal properties. We then show that Khovanov/Lee skein lasagna modules and lasagna … Read More
Elba Alonso-Monsalve (MIT) “Phase space of JT gravity with positive cosmological constant”
Abstract: We construct the classical phase space of Jackiw-Teitelboim (JT) gravity with positive cosmological constant on spatial slices with circle topology. We identify solutions not previously discussed in the literature, and find the phase space has many singular points and is not even Hausdorff. Nonetheless, it admits a group-theoretic description which is quite amenable to quantization. We comment on next … Read More
Ian Sullivan (UC Davis) “Skein lasagna modules and Khovanov homology for $S^1 \times S^2$”
Abstract: Skein lasagna modules are invariants of smooth 4-dimensional manifolds capable of detecting exotic phenomena. Wall-type stabilization problems ask about the behavior of exotic phenomena under various topological operations. In this talk, we will describe the invariants we use and the necessary properties. We describe, with Wall-type external stabilization problems as motivation, a method for computing the Khovanov skein lasagna module of $S^2 … Read More
Martin Sasieta (UCB) “Exploring the black hole Hilbert space”
Abstract: In this talk, I will construct families of semiclassical black hole interiors and show that they form quantitatively generic ensembles of black hole microstates. I will then talk about ongoing work where we use these families to examine the robustness of state-counting derivations of black hole entropy using the gravitational path integral.
Pankaj Munbodh (UCSC) “tba”
“Part I : Lepton flavor violating processes are highly suppressed in the Standard Model. Therefore, if observed, lepton flavor violation would be a clear indication of new physics beyond the Standard Model. We study the process $e^+e^-\to\tau\mu$ at tree-level in the Standard Model Effective Field Theory allowing for arbitrary $e^+e^-$ beam polarizations. The estimated sensitivities derived from the future circular … Read More