Symmetry and the AdS/CFT correspondence

Quantum field theory (QFT) is a mathematical framework used to describe phenomena at the most different length scales: from elementary particles interacting at CERN to the expansion of the Universe. When the interactions are weak, QFT is incredibly successful and provides the most accurate predictions in the history of physics. Nevertheless, there are instances in which the behaviour of one particle has a large effect on its neighbours, and the interaction cannot be considered weak. In these cases, it’s necessary to modify our approach and use more innovative methods.

The purpose of the project is to study QFT in strongly-interacting regimes using two complementary approaches. The first one originates from the theoretical study of condensed matter, and is centred on the role of symmetries, introducing a notion of symmetry wider than that used until now. The second one, instead, starts from an equivalence between the description of strongly-interacting QFT and gravity in spaces with negative curvature. This second approach allows us to also study some properties of black holes.

This project analyses strongly interacting QFT, which usually appears in the study of elementary particles physics, using approaches from different research areas. Because of this, thanks to its results, this project is going to increase our understanding of the relation between these research areas.