High Energy Physics - Theory
Warped compactifications of massive type IIA supergravity on a 3-sphere with spacetime-filling O6/D6 sources are known to admit a half-maximal gauged supergravity description in 7D. We study the effect of introducing open string degrees of…
We present a combined analytical and numerical study of the effective action of field theory cosmic strings in the Abelian-Higgs model in flat space. Starting directly from the underlying solitonic field theory description, we provide a…
Using canonical quantisation, and eschewing the Schwinger-Keldysh path integral, we derive a version of the Worldline Quantum Field Theory (WQFT) formalism suitable for both scattering and bound configurations of the classical two-body…
We realize a homological block of a knot complement in $S^3$ for $G_{\mathbb{C}}=SL(2,\mathbb{C})$ as a half-index of a 3d $\mathcal{N}=2$ theory via an expression of the homological block as an inverted Habiro series by working out some…
We address the strong CP problem: why the physical QCD angle theta-bar must be extraordinarily small given the stringent bounds on the neutron electric dipole moment. Peccei-Quinn axion models can relax theta-bar dynamically, but rely on an…
These are course notes for the 'Introduction to holography' Master level course at University of Cologne. The goal of the course is to give a pedogogical introduction to holography. Holography is a popular approach to quantum gravity, in…
Classical tensor network and hybrid quantum-classical algorithms are promising candidates for the investigation of real-time properties of lattice gauge theories. We develop here a novel framework which enforces gauge symmetry via a…
We test exact marginality of the deformation describing the resolution of a $\mathbb{Z}_2$ orbifold by analyzing the closed superstring equations of motion to third order in the size, including $\alpha'$ corrections. We find that the third…
We present a data-driven investigation of the exhaustive ensemble of no-scale type IIB flux vacua constructed in \cite{Chauhan:2025rdj}. Using a combination of linear and non-linear dimensionality-reduction techniques, we analyse both flux…
This MSc dissertation is based on the papers arXiv:2502.12694 and arXiv:2408.14813. The AdS/CFT correspondence provides a powerful framework for modeling strongly coupled gauge theories and, as a consequence, investigating non-perturbative…
The method of resurgent continuation of transseries reveals a new correspondence between the $q$-series for enumerating degeneracies of quarter-BPS states in supersymmetric black holes and $\hat{Z}$ invariants of Chern-Simons theory on a…
We construct new families of solutions for General Relativity coupled to a general class of non-linear sigma models, some of which can be embedded in supergravity. The solutions include neutral, charged and magnetized black holes with bumpy…
We study the strong coupling expansion of large $N$ QCD in various dimensions, reformulating the Kogut-Susskind Hamiltonian on a square lattice in terms of (constrained) one dimensional spin chain models. We study the integrability…
We analyze how the geodesic motion in the 3- and 4-vortex sectors of the Abelian-Higgs model at critical coupling is deformed by the excitation of a massive bound mode. We find that the geodesics corresponding to BPS solutions with enhanced…
Within the known landscape of quantum gravity, most theories satisfy the Lattice Weak Gravity Conjecture (LWGC), which requires a superextremal particle at every site in the electric charge lattice $\Gamma$. However, counterexamples to the…
We employ multiparticle factorization to constrain deformations of tree-level open string amplitudes. Assuming minimal degeneracy among intermediate states of the same spin up through the second excited level, we find that the Regge…
The large-$N$ quantum field theories provide a window into the regime of strongly-coupled physics. Our principal object of study in this thesis is the large-$N$ family of melonic QFTs, which contain the Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev-like models, tensor…
There might exist non-rational Virasoro CFTs in two dimensions with a $(\text{Fib} \boxtimes \text{Fib}) \rtimes S_2$ categorical symmetry. We calculate the necessary ingredients for a modular conformal bootstrap analysis of these theories.…
We study the stability of $d$-dimensional ($d=3,4,5$) de Sitter and Minkowski spacetimes within the framework of semiclassical gravity sourced by a strongly coupled quantum field with a gravity dual. Our stability results are derived from a…
The Hawking radiation spectrum from a collapsing null shell can be derived via the double copy of a simpler gauge theory calculation. Analyzing the non-abelian Yang-Mills root of this process, we demonstrate that the radiation spectrum is…