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Title : Nuclear Forces from Gravitational Physics : A String Theory
connection.
Abstract:
"The strong nuclear force binding the nucleus is described very well by Quantum
Chromo-Dynamics (QCD) which has been directly tested in high energy collisions of
elementary particles. However, extracting quantitative predictions from QCD for low
energy or macroscopic phenomena is one of the outstanding challenges of theoretical
physics. String theory, originally developed as a fundamental unified theory of particle
physics and gravity, has also emerged as a tool for tackling QCD by using a {\em
duality} between QCD-like theories in our 4-dimensional world and string theory living
in curved 10-dimensional spaces. In this talk I will describe some of the progress made in
understanding nuclear physics (via QCD) from gravitational physics (via string theory).
We will see how relativistic strings and black holes appear from nuclear physics, and
how we can understand nucleons from string theory. I will explain what this implies for
high energy experiments at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) and the Relativistic Heavy
Ion Collider (RHIC)."
Time and Place : July 10, 5 p.m., Art Lecture Theatre, Arts Building
Speaker :
Prof. Horatiu Nastase has done ground-breaking work on dualities between quantum
gravity and the gauge theories which describe quarks and gluons. These novel relations
between theories for apparently very different physical phenomena have been emerging
from string theory in the last 15 years.
In 2002, with collaborators at the Institute of Advanced Study in Princeton, Prof. Nastase
identified a plane wave limit of the celebrated AdS-CFT correspondence, where explicit
comparisons between string theory and gauge theory are possible. In 2005, he pioneered
a study of connections between quantum gravity and particle collisions at the world's
largest heavy ion accelerator RHIC. This topic has been a subject of active and fruitful
investigations since.
He is currently Assistant Professor at the Tokyo Institute of Technology.
Expected Audience: First 1/2 hour should be accessible to a general audience with
interest in science and theoretical physics. Second half will give an overview of some
recent research.
Refreshments will be served after the lecture.
Hosted by:
Centre for Research in String Theory
http://www.strings.ph.qmul.ac.uk/ and The
http://www.maths.qmul.ac.uk/epstar/
[CREST]
EPSTAR
of QMUL
Consortium