My second semester at the MSc in Mathematical Physics at the University of Edinburgh is almost done (2 weeks) and I'm getting ready for examinations. The assessment scheme is a pretty tough one: I've attended twelve courses since September -some of which ended up being much harder and workload intense than I thought (e.g. linear analysis, advanced QFT, QCD, Lie groups/algebras, standard model)- and 9 of my examinations will count between 80% and 100% towards my final mark; furthermore, I need an average of above 50% with no more than 3 marks below 50% in order to get the degree.
So yes, it's crazy. And I shouldn't be wasting time writing here I guess, but at least I've started by (kind of) blocking my access to facebook, which is a huge distraction.
It's a bit ironic, but throughout the year I became uninspired to follow the path of mathematical physics and even the academic one (completely the opposite to what I expected). The reasons are varied but I guess I can just put it simply as a feeling of not belonging. It's not that I suddenly found that I don't like mathematical physics, I obviously love it, but considering it a full time job in Academia is a somewhat different matter. I'm still considering the pursuit of a PhD in Quantum Information, though, but I think I'll narrow my options to the U.S/Canada and Mexico, if I decide otherwise, God knows (whatever that means) what I'll end up doing.
In other news, one of the courses I'm taking concerns giving two 25 minute talks related to the dissertation topic that one has chosen. My dissertation will be about the so-called colour-kinematics duality: to design and implement Mathematica code which creates the relevant (loop-level) diagrams, determines the Jacobi relations among them, and allows for these objects to be manipulated.
There is a whole other world -unknown to me until now- about this and the most surprising aspect of this colour-kinematics duality is that it enables to obtain a gravity theory scattering amplitudes very easily as (prop to) the square of a gauge theory amplitudes. This then connects with another set of relations between scattering amplitudes in string theory known as the KLT-relations, which so happen to reduce to this gravity = gauge theory squared relations in the low-energy (point-like) limit.
There are two very nice popular-science level stories about this:
For anyone really serious about the topic, this paper looks like a really good review:
These are my slides about string amplitudes and the KLT relations (handout mode):
So yes, it's crazy. And I shouldn't be wasting time writing here I guess, but at least I've started by (kind of) blocking my access to facebook, which is a huge distraction.
It's a bit ironic, but throughout the year I became uninspired to follow the path of mathematical physics and even the academic one (completely the opposite to what I expected). The reasons are varied but I guess I can just put it simply as a feeling of not belonging. It's not that I suddenly found that I don't like mathematical physics, I obviously love it, but considering it a full time job in Academia is a somewhat different matter. I'm still considering the pursuit of a PhD in Quantum Information, though, but I think I'll narrow my options to the U.S/Canada and Mexico, if I decide otherwise, God knows (whatever that means) what I'll end up doing.
In other news, one of the courses I'm taking concerns giving two 25 minute talks related to the dissertation topic that one has chosen. My dissertation will be about the so-called colour-kinematics duality: to design and implement Mathematica code which creates the relevant (loop-level) diagrams, determines the Jacobi relations among them, and allows for these objects to be manipulated.
There is a whole other world -unknown to me until now- about this and the most surprising aspect of this colour-kinematics duality is that it enables to obtain a gravity theory scattering amplitudes very easily as (prop to) the square of a gauge theory amplitudes. This then connects with another set of relations between scattering amplitudes in string theory known as the KLT-relations, which so happen to reduce to this gravity = gauge theory squared relations in the low-energy (point-like) limit.
There are two very nice popular-science level stories about this:
What I did for my first presentation was to talk about string amplitudes and KLT: what does these things mean and how to interpret what the KLT relations are saying. It was a bit of a detour because I won't really be working with string theory, however I wanted to find out at least the basics of where this thing come from. For anyone who knows string theory well, I didn't say anything new and most of the slides are contained merely in the introduction of Superstring Theory by Witten, Green and Schwarz.
- Gravity is Yang-Mills Squared at the blog 4 gravitons
- Betting on the Future of Quantum Gravity at Quanta Magazine
For anyone really serious about the topic, this paper looks like a really good review:
Perturbative Gravity and Gauge Theory Relations -- A ReviewIn my second talk I'll look in a bit of a detail (as time allows me to prepare) to colour-kinematics (BCJ duality, the Kleiss-Kuijf relations, the double copy and other such words) and probably I'll share something about it here.
Thomas Sondergaard
arXiv:1106.0033 [hep-th]
These are my slides about string amplitudes and the KLT relations (handout mode):
