Abstract: What does a collection of interacting rigid tops have in common with the gauge theories that describe our fundamental theories of nature? The answer is: their Hilbert space! In this talk I will go over a basic exercise in quantum mechanics, which is finding the energies and eigenfunctions of a free rigid top. This alone is of interest in … Read More

Abstract: It has long been conjectured that global symmetries can only be approximate in a theory of quantum gravity. In this talk, I discuss two pieces of work to quantify this statement, putting lower bounds on the amount of violation. In the first calculation, I discuss the global symmetry violation in a black hole evaporation process. The degree to which … Read More