### Status of EXO-200

Searches for neutrinoless double beta decays could determine if neutrinos are Majorana particles and could measure their absolute mass scale. The initial stage of the Enriched Xenon Observatory project, EXO-200, will look for two-neutrino and neutrinoless double-beta decays of Xe-136 in a liquid-xenon time-projection chamber. By combining the ionization signal with detection of the scintillation light collected in Large Area Avalanche Photodiodes (LAAPDs), an energy resolution of about 1.4% at the decay energy can be...

### The anthropic solution to the strong CP problem and its cosmological implications.

We point out that the strong CP problem can be resolved by the anthropic principle. The key ideas are to allow explicit breaking(s) of the Peccei-Quinn symmetry which connects the problem to the cosmological constant problem, and to conjecture that the probability distribution of the vacuum energy in the landscape is hierarchical. The axion acquires a large mass from the explicit breaking, and does not contribute to the dark matter abundance. The axion may dominate...

### Positive Representations of Split Real Quantum Groups

The notion of Positive Representations is a new research program devoted to the representation theory of split real quantum groups, initiated in a joint work with Igor Frenkel. It is a generalization of the special class of representations considered by J. Teschner for Uq(sl(2,R)) in Liouville theory, where it exhibits a strong parallel to the finite-dimensional representation theory of compact quantum groups, but at the same time also serves some new properties that are not...

### Universal quantum computation in thermal equilibrium

Adiabatic quantum computation (AQC) is a method for performing universal quantum computation in the ground state of a slowly evolving local Hamiltonian, and in an ideal setting AQC is known to capture all of the computational power of the  quantum circuit model.  However, despite having an inherent robustness to noise as a result of the adiabatic theorem and the spectral gap of the Hamiltonian, it has...

### Searches for ALPs with Current and Future X-ray Satellites

Galaxy clusters represent excellent laboratories to search for Axion-Like Particles (ALPs). They contain magnetic fields which can induce quasi-sinusoidal oscillations in the X-ray spectra of AGNs situated in or behind them. Ultra-deep Chandra observations of the Perseus cluster contain over 5 x 105 counts from the central NGC1275 AGN, and represent an extraordinary dataset for ALP searches. In this talk I will describe how we used these to search for spectral irregularities from the AGN....

### The Hidden Phase Space of our Universe

By combining insights from black holes and string theory we argue for the existence of a hidden phase space associated with an underlying fast dynamical system, which is largely invisible from a macroscopic point of view. The dynamical system is influenced by slow macroscopic observables, such as positions of objects. This leads to a collection of reaction forces, whose leading order Born Oppenheimer force is determined by the general principle that the phase space volume...

### The Wheeler-De Witt equation for brane gravity

We consider the gravity in the system consisting of the BPS D3-brane embedded in the flat background geometry, produced by the solutions of the supergravity. The effective action for this system is represented by the sum of the Hilbert-Einstein and DBI actions. We derive the Wheeler-De Witt equation for this system and obtain analytical solutions in some special cases. We also calculate tunneling probability from Planckian size of D3-brane to the classical regime. This paper...

### The lessons from the running of the tensor-to-scalar ratio

We derive a simple consistency relation from the running of the tensor-to-scalar ratio. This new relation is first order in the slow-roll approximation. While for single field models we can obtain what can be found by using other observables, multi-field cases in general give non-trivial contributions dependent on the geometry of the field space and the inflationary dynamics, which can be probed observationally from this relation.

### Probing the primordial helium abundance and the effective number of neutrino species with CMB

We point out that light scalar fields with symmetries generically generate non-Gaussianity in the density fluctuations. Our observation makes the presence of the non-Gaussianity ubiquitous. When the inflationary scale and the properties of the scalar fields satisfy a certain relation, the non-Gaussianity becomes large enough to be observed by the ongoing and planned observations. We name such a particle responsible for a large non-Gaussianity as an \'ungaussiton\', and give explicit examples to realize the ungaussiton...

### Progress and Challenges for Canadian Female Physicists

In recent years there has been an increase in the number of women in all academic levels in physical and applied sciences in Canada. Despite the modern feminist movement the number of women in physics continues to be less than the number of men, particularly in higher and leadership positions. As there is no rational reason for women to trail men in achieving new scientific discoveries or excel in academic teaching, the cause of this...

### Exploring Dark Matter in a Leptophilic Two-Higgs-Doublet Model

A recent analysis of gamma rays from the centre of our galaxy has provided possible evidence for a dark matter annihilation signal, with the dark matter taking the form of low-mass WIMPs annihilating predominantly to taus. We study an extended Higgs model proposed to yield such a dark matter candidate. Scanning over parameter space in this model, we find suitable areas that feature fairly little fine-tuning. In favoured areas, the cross-sections for invisible decays of...

### An Update on AdS/CFT: Sasaki-Einstein Metrics, Toric Quivers and Z-Minimisation

In this talk I will summarise the recent progress in AdS/CFT due to the construction of the new infinite family of Sasaki-Einstein metrics Y^{p,q}, and their dual superconformal gauge theories. I will review some aspects of Sasaki-Einstein geometry and the main features of the Y^{p,q} metrics. I will then discuss the use of toric geometry to obtain a description of the corresponding Y^{p,q} Calabi-Yau singularities. I will explain how the AdS/CFT dual N=1 supersymmetric gauge...

### Topological String Theory I

In these two lectures I will present on overview of topological string theory, starting with the basic concepts and continuing to the most recent developments. Aspects that will be covered are: closed and open strings, Gromov-Witten theory, matrix models, quantum crystals, and special holonomy manifolds. I will end with some more speculative thoughts about the non-perturbative definition of (topological) string theory and quantum geometry.

### Quantum Gravity from one-loop Super-Yang-Mills Theory

It has been conjectured that maximally supersymmetric SU(N) Yang-Mills theory is dual to a String Theory on asymptotically AdS_5 times S^5 backgrounds. This is known as the AdS/CFT correspondence. In this talk I will show how using one-loop calculations in the gauge theory, one can study the emergence of the dual String Theory. We will see, quite explicitly, the emergence of closed strings, D-branes, open strings and space-time itself. This is done in a reduced...

### The Arrow of Time, Black Holes, and Quantum Mixing of Large N Yang-Mills Theories

Quantum gravity in an AdS space-time is described by an SU(N) Yang-Mills theory on a sphere, a bounded many-body system. We argue that in the high temperature phase the theory is intrinsically non-perturbative in the large N limit. At any nonzero value of the \\\'t Hooft coupling $lambda$, an exponentially large (in N^2) number of free theory states of wide energy range (of order N) mix under the interaction. As a result the planar perturbation...

### Quantum key distribution protocols with and without rotational

We explore the role of rotational symmetry of quantum key distribution (QKD) protocols in their security. Specifically, in the first part of the talk, we consider a generalized QKD protocol with discrete rotational symmetry. Note that, before our work, each QKD protocol seems to have a different security proof. Given that the techniques of those proofs are similar, it will be interesting to have a unified proof for QKD protocols with symmetry (e.g., the BB84...

### Poster Previews

3:15PM Arnab Adhikary 3:18PM Anjishnu Bose 3:21PM Matthew Duschenes 3:24PM SangEun Han & Daniel Schultz 3:27PM Andrew Hardy 3:30PM Daniel Huerga 3:33PM Vedangi Pathak 3:36PM Shengqi Sang 3:39PM Joseph Tindall 3:42PM Tarun Tummuru 3:45PM Ryohei Weil 3:48PM Rui Wen 3:51PM Ye Weicheng 3:54PM Emily Zhang

• 2022
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• Audiovisual
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#### Affiliations

• Perimeter Institute
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