Title: Quantum physics through the lens of discrete holography

Speaker: Dr. Sarthak Parikh, Caltech, USA

Abstract: Holography is a profound principle in theoretical physics which states that certain theories of gravity in the presence of a negative cosmological constant should be conjecturally equivalent to certain Conformal Field Theories in one fewer spacetime dimension. This principle has served as a useful guide to some outstanding open problems in physics such as the unification of quantum mechanics and general relativity and the description of strongly interacting dynamics well outside the regime of perturbation theory. However, the origins of holography are not fully understood and a proof has remained elusive. In this talk, I will review the principle of holography and why it is useful. I will then describe a new, discretized approach which leads to dramatic simplifications and sheds new light on its mathematical origins by uncovering surprising connections with number theory.