Non-Perturbative Methods in Field Theory and Many-Body Physics

This award funds the research activities of Professor Zohar Komargodski at the Simons Center for Geometry and Physics at SUNY Stony Brook. The elementary building blocks of nature are quite simple. These could be single atoms, or single elementary particles. Emergent phenomena are phenomena that arise from the interactions of many such simple components. However, the most interesting emergent phenomena cannot be easily explained by the properties of those elementary components alone. It is therefore important to develop new methodologies which can bridge the conceptual gap between the properties of the elementary building blocks in nature and the resulting marvelous emergent phenomena. Such new methodologies will influence several areas in modern physics, including systems in condensed matter physics and also systems of elementary particles. In addition, there are interesting connections with advances in pure mathematics. As part of his research, Professor Komargodski will involve graduate students and postdocs and thereby provide critical training for junior physicists beginning research in this field. Professor Komargodski will also give public lectures on his research results and develop new course curricula based on his research results. More technically, Professor Komargodski aims to study the phases of strongly interacting quantum systems using novel methods ranging from topology to the irreversibility of the renormalization group. A particularly interesting problem is that of the ground state of strongly interacting systems with defects (impurities) and boundaries. Recent advances in the understanding of symmetries and the notion of zero-temperature entropy of defects and boundaries allow us to make progress on old and new problems in the field and open the way to various questions that will be explored. Such new theoretical tools are proving indispensable across several fields of physics that are grappling with the problem of strong interactions. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.