Théorie

In this talk I will discuss cosmological first-order phase transitions. These phase transitions which proceed through the nucleation and merger of bubbles on the new phase are known to source gravitational waves. If one of these events occurred in the early universe then upcoming space based gravitational wave detectors like LISA may be able to detect the resulting gravitational wave background that remains today. In this talk I will focus on transitions in which the bubble wall accelerates until collision.

I will start with the overview of principles used in detecting gravitational waves with millisecond pulsars, then
describe the main challenges. Finally, I will review the current status of the search focusing on the latest
results by NanoGrav and EPTA collaborations.

Magnetic fields are observed on virtually all astrophysical scales of the modern Universe, from planets and stars to galaxies and galaxy clusters. Observations of blazars suggest that even the intergalactic medium is permeated by magnetic fields. Such large-scale fields were most likely generated very shortly after the Big Bang and therefore are a unique window into the physics of the very early Universe.

Understanding gravity in the framework of quantum mechanics is one of the great challenges in modern physics. Along this line, a prime question is to find whether gravity is a quantum entity subject to the rules of quantum mechanics. It is fair to say that there are no feasible ideas yet to test the quantum coherent behaviour of gravity directly in a laboratory experiment. Here, I will introduce an idea for such a test based on the principle that two objects cannot be entangled without a quantum mediator.

Wormholes are exotic solutions of General Relativity that still challenge our physical intuition. In this talk I will first review and distinguish various types of wormholes along with their expected physical properties. I will then focus on asymptotically AdS wormhole solutions in the context of holography. I will explain how to compute correlation functions of local operators as well as non local observables such as correlation functions of Wilson loops on the distinct boundaries and discuss their behavior.

Theory group virtual seminar by Alberto Roper Pol on Tuesday 22nd of September at 14:00h.

Title: Numerical Simulations of Gravitational Waves from Early-Universe Turbulence

Dear friends and colleagues,

It is my pleasure to invite you to my habilitation defense, which will take place on the 30th of June at 3pm. 

I will present my work on the stochastic formalism of cosmic inflation, with applications to the physics of primordial black holes (a short description follows below).

Due to the current covid-19 restrictions, unfortunately, only members of the jury will be allowed to be physically present. The defense will however be broadcasted online, via the BlackBoard Collaborate platform:

Joint seminar organized by APC (University of Paris) and Service de Physique Théorique (ULB, Brussels)

Joint seminar organized by APC (University of Paris) and Service de Physique Théorique (ULB, Brussels)