Theoretical Physics - From Outer Space to Plasma

Dr Rahil Valani provides an introduction to active matter (a field focusing on active particles' nonlinear dynamical behaviors) exploring the active system of superwalking droplets that can exhibit hydrodynamic quantum analogs. Active particles are non-equilibrium entities that consume energy from their environment and convert it into directed motion. They can be living organisms such as cells, ba...

Dr Dumitru Călugăru explores the main strategies for engineering flat band materials, discusses band topology concepts and their relevance to flat band physics, and highlights the role of strong interactions in these materials. Landau’s Fermi liquid theory, a cornerstone of condensed matter physics, explains why electrons in most metallic crystalline solids behave as free fermions with renormalize...

Dr Dominik Hahn explains how a quantum computer is built, discusses how quantum operations are programmed in a way similar to classical computing, and showcases examples of quantum programs running on superconducting devices. Quantum computers have the potential to solve certain problems much faster than classical computers, including simulating quantum systems and optimizing complex processes. In...

Prof Sid Parameswaran discusses how quantum condensed matter physics has been revolutionized by “moiré materials”, made by stacking individual atomically thin layers such as graphene with a relative twist/offset between layers. The world of quantum condensed matter physics has recently been revolutionized by the advent of “moiré materials”, made by stacking individual atomically thin layers such a...

While it was originally believed that only bosons and fermions were allowed by quantum mechanics, in fact, when objects are restricted to move on a two-dimensional plane, new types of particles called "anyons" can emerge. For much of the last century it was believed that the only types of particles allowed by quantum mechanics are bosons (such as photons, phonons, pions, Higgs, etc.) and fermions...

Prof Shivaji Sondhi explains how topology is applied to understanding properties of condensed matter systems, providing an introduction to topics including defects & solitons, the quantum Hall effect, and topological insulators. The mathematics of topology has been applied with increasing success to understanding the properties of condensed matter systems. Indeed, it is fair to say that over t...

Professor Prateek Agrawal discusses the ongoing crisis in cosmology regarding the measurement of the Hubble parameter by two separate probes in this Morning of Theoretical Physics talk from 9th November, 2024 Professor Prateek Agrawal discusses the Hubble tension. Cosmology has matured into a precision science over the last couple of decades. We are now in a position to test cosmological models to...

Professor Edward Hardy discusses how the network of cosmic strings that occurs in some theories of the early Universe evolves and emits gravitational waves in this Morning of Theoretical Physics talk from 9th November, 2024. Professor Edward Hardy discusses cosmic strings and gravitational waves from the early Universe. Cosmic strings are one-dimensional objects that often arise if a symmetry is s...

Prof Alexander Mietke discusses recent findings in this field that have linked chirality in living systems to the formation of a left-right body axis in organisms and to a new kind of elasticity that is found in crystals formed by starfish embryos. Chirality describes objects and features that are distinct from their mirror image, a property that can be found in many biological systems ranging fro...

Dr Adrien Hallou presents a new methodology called 'spatial mechano-transcriptomics', which allows the simultaneous measurement of the mechanical and transcriptional states of cells in a multicellular tissue at single cell resolution. Over the last 10 years, advances in microscopy and genome sequencing have revolutionised our understanding of how molecular programmes contained in the genome contro...

Professor Julia Yeomans describes how mechanical models are being extended to incorporate the unique properties of living systems Epithelial tissues cover the outer surfaces of the body and line the body’s internal cavities. The motion of epithelial cells is key to many life processes: turnover of skin cells, embryogenesis, the spread of cancer and wound healing. Much remains to be understood abou...

In this talk, Benedikt Placke introduces QEC and explains how the unique interplay between the classical and the quantum world enables us to efficiently correct errors effecting such systems. Quantum computing is a new model of computation that holds the promise of significantly improved performance over classical computing for some problems of interest. However, by its very nature quantum compute...

In this talk Alessio Lerose discusses the seminal idea of simulating Nature via a controllable quantum system rather than a classical computer. He discusses recent advances that brought us closer to the ultimate goal of a universal quantum simulator. Since their birth computers proved invaluable tools for physics research. Quantum mechanics, however, fundamentally challenges the possibility for co...

Jasmine Brewer covers recent progress on studying the properties of the quark-gluon plasma, and describe how we can capitalize on lessons learned from high-energy physics to provide new insights on this novel material. Quarks and gluons are the fundamental constituents of all matter in the universe, but they have the unique property that they are always confined inside hadrons. The only situation...

Dr Yonadav Barry Ginat - Possible sources for the gravitational wave background The detection of gravitational waves from the coalescence of black holes has opened a new window for astronomy. Besides individual mergers, one can study the stochastic gravitational-wave background, i.e. the sum of all gravitational waves arriving at Earth, which are not from resolved sources. In this talk I will give...

Prof Bence Kocsis - Searching for the origin of black hole mergers in the Universe with gravitational waves The direct detection of gravitational waves by LIGO and VIRGO and pulsar timing arrays has recently opened a new window to observe the Universe. We can now detect objects which are completely invisible in traditional electromagnetic surveys including black holes and possibly dark matter. The...

Prof Steven Balbus - Gravitational radiation: an overview General Relativity, Einstein’s relativistic theory of gravity, predicts that the effects of gravitational fields propagate across the Universe at the speed of light. This is very much in the spirit of Maxwell’s theory of electrodynamics, the first fully relativistic theory to enter physics. Einstein’s theory is more complicated, however, be...

Archie Bott explains how a promising scheme for fusion relies on a novel feature of hot laser-plasmas: introducing a magnetic field of the correct strength alters the plasma’s fundamental properties in a highly counterintuitive yet beneficial manner. One key scientific breakthrough of 2022 was the achievement of fusion ignition; using the world’s largest laser facility, physicists created a plasma...

Georgia Acton introduces stellarators, discusses the features that distinguish them from tokamaks, highlight the challenges we currently face, and discusses how we might overcome them. Tokamaks have been at the forefront of fusion research for the last 50 years. Despite significant improvements over this time we have yet to produce a device that is a sustainable, reliable power source capable of n...

Michael Barnes introduces the basic concepts behind magnetic confinement fusion, he describes why it is so challenging and discusses possibilities for the future. One gram of hydrogen at 100 million degrees for 1 second: This is (roughly) what is needed to produce net energy from magnetic confinement fusion. Scientists have been working towards this goal for over half a century, applying strong ma...

The spaghettification of stars by supermassive black holes: understanding one of nature’s most extreme events - Andrew Mummery On a rare occasion an unfortunate star will be perturbed onto a near-radial orbit about the supermassive black hole in its galactic centre. Upon venturing too close to the black hole the star is destroyed, in its entirety, by the black hole’s gravitational tidal force, a p...

Extreme value statistics and the theory of rare events - Francesco Mori Rare extreme events tend to play a major role in a wide range of contexts, from finance to climate. Hence, understanding their statistical properties is a relevant task, which opens the way to many applications. In this talk, I will first introduce extreme value statistics and how this theory allows to identify universal featu...

Inflation and the Very Early Universe - Georges Obied The universe we observe seems to have come from surprisingly fine-tuned initial conditions. This observation is at the heart of two of the most important puzzles in cosmology, called the horizon and flatness problems. To explain these puzzles, cosmologists invoke a period of accelerated expansion in the early universe (called inflation). As a b...

Professor John March-Russell talks about the search possibilities for axions including many current and near future ultra-precise quantum `table top' experiments in the Beecroft basement. The QCD-axion, and its `axion-like-particle' generalisations, lead to new physical effects in an extraordinarily diverse range of settings including cosmology, astrophysical objects like stars and black holes, el...

Professor Siddharth Parameswaran gives the second talk on Axions. Over the past decade, topological ideas have played an increasingly important role in a surprising setting: the problem of understanding the properties of insulating crystals. This has led to the identification of “topological insulators”, bulk insulating materials which are characterised by unusual surface phenomena, unconventional...