Physics Department Colloquia |
Events During the Week of January 28th through February 4th, 2024
Monday, January 29th, 2024
- No events scheduled
Tuesday, January 30th, 2024
- No events scheduled
Wednesday, January 31st, 2024
- No events scheduled
Thursday, February 1st, 2024
- No events scheduled
Friday, February 2nd, 2024
- Effective field theories of thermalizing systems
- Time: 3:30 pm - 5:00 pm
- Place: Chamberlin 2241
- Speaker: Luca Delacretaz, University of Chicago
- Abstract: Hydrodynamics – broadly understood as the late-time dynamics of conserved densities – is distinguished by its sparing assumption: thermalization. Its applications are therefore widespread, ranging from spin chains to galaxies. I will argue that hydrodynamics should be viewed as an effective field theory, similar to chiral perturbation theory in particle physics. This perspective allows for precision tests of thermalization in many-body systems, offers guidance and benchmarks for costly quantum simulations, and leads to surprising predictions including "diffusion cascades" and large density fluctuations in quantum Hall edges. I will end by showing how these effective field theory techniques can be used to prove a conjectured "Planckian bound" on thermalization: the equilibration time of many-body systems cannot be shorter than the quantum limit \hbar/T.
- Host: Ilya Esterlis