Aspects of quantum information in quantum field theory and holography

Abstract

The main goal of this PhD project is to study aspects of Gauge/gravity dualities and, more specifically, of holographic entanglement entropy. This has been one of the main areas of investigation in Theoretical Physics in the past few years, where concepts and techniques from diverse areas (string theory, quantum field theory, condensed matter theory and quantum information theory to name a few) have converged into a very fertile, interdisciplinary approach to attack problems such as: "Is spacetime an emergent phenomenon?", "What is the role of entanglement in this phenomenon?", "How can we reconstruct the bulk geometry from boundary data?", "What is the interior of black holes?", and so on. We propose a few possible research projects on aspects of holographic entanglement entropy and of `bulk-reconstruction'. A second, but intimately related, focus of the project will be to study `toy models' of Gauge/gravity dualities (such as the Kitaev model or various matrix models introduced in the literature), where important features of holography are retained while at the same time having ample computational control. (AU)