Tsung-Dao Lee Institute/N6F-N600 - Lecture Room (Tsung-Dao Lee Institute)
Tsung-Dao Lee Institute/N6F-N600 - Lecture Room
Tsung-Dao Lee Institute
40
Description
Abstract:
Ghosts have been a stumbling block in the development of a UV complete quantum field theory for gravity. We discuss how difficulties associated with ghosts are overcome in the context of 0+1d dimensional QFT. Obtaining a probability interpretation is the key issue, and for this we discuss the construction of a suitable inner product. Ghost theories are unitary and we obtain nonperturbative results through a numerical study. We show spectra and wave functions at both weak and strong coupling and compare to PT symmetric quantum mechanics.
Bio:
Bob Holdom is currently Professor Emeritus at the University of Toronto. He earned his PhD from Harvard University in 1981 and joined the faculty at the University of Toronto in 1984. He spent most of his career as a particle theorist focussed on beyond the standard model physics. He is known for proposing kinetic mixing - hidden photon - millicharges, and before that for walking technicolor. More recently, he shifted to thinking about a QFT for gravity when nothing beyond the Higgs was found.
