Michal P. Heller

My interests lie in broadly-understood emergent phenomena in quantum field theories. I am using tools from quantum information science to understand how dynamical spacetime emerges from quantum field theory within holography. I am also studying universal behaviors arising in thermalization processes of quantum fields, such as relativistic hydrodynamics and non-thermal fixed points.

Thomas Mertens

My research interests are in quantum gravity, black hole physics, holography and string theory. In particular, I am driven by the mysteries surrounding black holes and their horizons in quantum gravity. The concrete approach I am pursuing is that of exactly solvable lower-dimensional holographic gravity models (such as Jackiw-Teitelboim (JT) gravity and its cousins), where explicit quantum gravitational calculations can be done and interpreted. This research program is supported by the ERC Starting Grant BHHQG.

My earlier work focused on other aspects of black hole quantum physics, including string theoretic descriptions of the stretched horizon and black hole entropy, and the role of edge states in the entanglement entropy of bulk fields across the black hole horizon.

Ben Page

My research focuses on understanding fundamental interactions in quantum field theory and how these interactions are mathematically encoded in sums of Feynman diagrams, or "scattering amplitudes". I understand the physical and mathematical structures that hide behind the Feynman diagram, with the goal of developing new methods to study the dynamics of the Standard Model of particle physics at colliders.

Xin An

My current research focuses on the physics of strongly interacting systems, such as quark-gluon plasma produced in heavy-ion collisions and governed by quantum chromodynamics, and cold trapped atoms in many-body systems described by quantum electrodynamics.

I am committed to advancing our understanding of these systems by developing novel concepts and techniques across various frameworks, including statistical mechanics, relativistic hydrodynamics and kinetic theories, gauge-gravity duality, as well as non-equilibrium quantum field theories, with a particular emphasis on fluctuations and far-from-equilibrium dynamics.

Panos Betzios

My research interests revolve around the general theme of gauge/gravity dualities, matrix models and the emergence of spacetime. I am trying to understand the physics of black holes, wormholes and cosmological spacetimes using string-theoretic, holographic and other mathematical techniques such as those of random matrices.

Currently I am exploring lower dimensional models of black hole spacetimes using variants of matrix quantum mechanics and in parallel the connection between Euclidean wormholes and inflationary cosmologies in higher dimensions.

Federico Coro

My research interests focus on the calculation of higher‑order scattering amplitudes for processes relevant to phenomenological studies at colliders. My work lies at the interface between mathematics and theoretical physics, with a particular interest in the mathematical structures that arise in the context of scattering amplitudes.

My aim is to use state-of-the-art methods from active research areas in mathematics to obtain results for relevant physical processes that require more legs and loops to enable an accurate comparison with experimental data.

Bruno de Souza Leão Torres

Most of my work in the past has focused on the intersection between quantum information and quantum field theory. I am particularly interested in understanding how to connect abstract concepts from quantum information theory with the experience of local observers from an operational perspective, and what that can teach us about quantum information and QFT in relativistic settings.

My goal in the near future is to extend this approach to quantum gravity, and understand how fundamental concepts in quantum information such as locality and entanglement are impacted by quantum-gravitational effects.

Simone Devoto

My scientific interest is the phenomenology of high-energy particle physics, with a particular focus on higher-order corrections and amplitude calculations. The ongoing precision physics program at hadron collider experiments requires theoretical predictions that match the impressive level of experimental accuracy.

The goal of my research is to provide such predictions for various processes taking place in hadron colliders and, in particular, to provide the corresponding amplitudes, one of the main bottlenecks in their computation. The two main lines of research I am currently exploring are associated top-quark production at the LHC and the inclusion of higher-order electroweak corrections in precision studies

Pavel Novichkov

My research focuses on exploring scattering amplitudes and Feynman integrals in quantum field theory, with applications to collider and gravitational-wave physics. I am particularly interested in developing new, efficient methods for precision amplitude calculations through understanding of the underlying analytic structures and leveraging modern mathematical tools such as computational algebraic geometry, tropical geometry, and hypergeometric systems.

In earlier work, I investigated how modular symmetry can shed light on the origin of fermion mass hierarchies and their mixing patterns.

Qian Song

My research focuses on computing higher-order corrections to scattering amplitudes in quantum field theory, especially for physics related to the Large Hadron Collider and future electron-positron colliders. Comparing theoretical predictions with experimental results from collider measurements can deepen our understanding of fundamental physics. The intricate mathematical structures involved make these calculations highly nontrivial.

I am particularly interested in developing new tools for amplitude computations and in uncovering the underlying mathematical structures.

Jacopo Papalini

My research is centered on exploring lower-dimensional models of quantum gravity, aiming to extract crucial insights into black hole physics and the quantum characteristics of spacetime beyond the semiclassical realm. One particularly promising avenue is the investigation of JT gravity, which provides an unparalleled level of control, due to the exact solvability of partition functions on diverse topologies and correlators.

Furthermore, my focus extends to understanding the interplay between the first-order formulation of these gravity models and lower-dimensional gauge theories, where intriguing nonperturbative effects can be detected and the computation of interesting observables, such as Wilson lines, can be tackled using diverse techniques, including the application of supersymmetric localization.

Alexandre Serantes

My research explores the non-equilibrium physics of strongly interacting quantum matter, combining modern ab initio theoretical approaches—such as holography and the bootstrap—with powerful tools from effective field theory, including relativistic hydrodynamics.

Most recently, my focus has been on novel complex-valued measures of quantum information known as pseudoentropies, particularly within the framework of holography. I am also investigating how holography’s unique ability to evade the sign problem can be leveraged to probe non-equilibrium phenomena in extreme environments, such as those found in astrophysical and cosmological contexts.

Clemens Werthmann

Broadly speaking, my research deals with collective phenomena in quantum systems, mostly in heavy and light ion collisions and recently also ultracold quantum gases. In the former, I have examined the applicability of hydrodynamics on a phenomenological basis by comparing to descriptions in kinetic theory.

My current focus is the emergence of hydrodynamic attractor behaviour, referring to a phenomenon that can be observed in rapidly expanding systems, where the time evolution quickly converges to a universal curve across various initial conditions, interaction strengths and dynamical descriptions.

Andreas Belaey

Technical and conceptual problems regarding a quantum theory of gravity and a microscopic description of black holes have been solved in the lower-dimensional setting of 2d Jackiw-Teitelboim (JT) gravity. I aim to understand whether the lessons of JT gravity generalize to other related models of lower-dimensional gravity, and to eventually go up in the number of dimensions, starting with 3d first. A unifying approach is to exploit the underlying gauge symmetries.

Robbe Brants

My aim is to improve the understanding of thermalization in hydrodynamic systems through their mode structure. This fundamental description allows differentiating the processes that contribute to equilibration. For studying these structures I focus on kinetic theory, mainly in the relaxation time approximation, but also the quasinormal modes of black holes in holographic systems.

I am also interested in applying this understanding to investigate the causality of relativistic fluids. Taking it to the limit allows looking at the most extreme transport phenomena a relativistic system can possess.

Zhi Cong Chan

I am interested in the mathematical structures that arise in high-energy physics and how they manifest the symmetries of the underlying theories. In the context of scattering amplitudes, Feynman diagrams represent an intuitive picture of particle interactions but rapidly grow to an intractable number of terms at higher loop orders; the “physics” is hidden by the combinatorics of the computation.

My research aims to find structure in scattering amplitudes using algebraic geometry, on-shell methods, and infrared factorization. I am currently studying the four-dimensional limit of the two-loop integrand for n-gluon fusion in pure Yang-Mills.

Matisse De Lescluze

I am focused on the dynamics of quantum field theories in out-of-equilibrium settings, with a particular interest in the emergence of universal behavior. My current work involves developing a method to calculate the system's response to perturbations around (quasi-)stationary solutions of the equations of motion.

This approach will aid me in studying how systems evolve toward non-thermal fixed points—self-similar solutions that appear in a wide range of physical phenomena, including heavy-ion collisions, ultracold quantum gases, and early-universe cosmology.

Francesca Mariani

My research focuses on lower-dimensional models of quantum gravity and their connections with higher-dimensional solutions. In this context, 2d Jackiw-Teitelboim (JT) Gravity is an extremely useful tool at our disposal. This 2-dimensional model is fully solvable and captures the near-horizon dynamics of higher-dimensional near-extremal black hole solutions.

Fabio Ori

My research interests concern applications of holography to describe how strongly coupled quantum field theories evolve when starting from out-of-equilibrium initial conditions, as in heavy-ion collisions and ultracold quantum gases.

The aims are to uncover the conditions leading to the emergence of self-similar solutions, and to investigate the role of holographic timelike non-local probes in describing real time evolution.

Daniel Schieber

My research interests lie in theoretical particle physics, particularly in scattering amplitudes and particle phenomenology. I focus on developing techniques for precision calculations relevant to LHC experiments, especially those involving higher-order corrections at the Next-to-Next-to-Leading Order (NNLO). A central aspect of my work involves computing master integrals, the key building blocks, necessary for the evaluation of two-loop amplitudes.

Specifically, I am working on the NNLO contributions to 6-particle scattering involving massive fermions at the LHC.

吴奇峰 (Qi-Feng Wu)

My interests are mainly focused on quantum gravity and quantum information. I am trying to use ideas from information theory to understand how gravity emerges from quantum mechanics. In order to achieve this goal, the key is to understand the gravitational correspondence of some information theoretic concepts, including entanglement, complexity, quantum error correction, etc.

Tim Schumann

To learn about the intricate behavior of quantum gravity is the most interesting and exciting question in physics for me. My research focuses on quantum information aspects of quantum gravity in the context of holographic theories where the bulk spacetime emerges as a geometrization of the quantum-information structure of the boundary state.

Currently I am investigating complexity, a quantity that originates from quantifying the difficulty of carrying out a task in quantum information science using limited resources, which has been of recent interest in characterizing the volume of the black hole interior and quantum chaos.

Thomas Tappeiner

My research interests are centered on the exploration of lower-dimensional models of quantum gravity and their application to black hole systems. Due to the large amount of control, we have over these systems, models like JT-gravity and double-scaled SYK offer a unique opportunity to catch glimpses of gravitational physics far beyond the classical regime.

I am explicitly trying to see how we can better understand the mathematical structures underlying these models and how the lessons learned can be applied to operational questions exploring physics near the black hole horizon.