Research
We study string theory as a theory of quantum gravity, using holographic duality as the main tool.
Themes
Quantum gravity & string theory
Quantum gravity explores gravitational physics at length scales where quantum effects become significant — a regime that neither general relativity nor quantum field theory describes on its own. String theory is currently the most promising candidate for such a theory, so understanding its physical implications is the starting point of our work.
Holographic duality
Holography states that a string theory on a (d+1)-dimensional anti-de Sitter space, together with a (9−d)-dimensional internal manifold, is equivalent to a d-dimensional conformal field theory living on the conformal boundary — the AdS/CFT correspondence. It gives one of the most concrete routes to string theory as a theory of quantum gravity: the physics of strings in AdS can be read off from the dual CFT.
Topics
Within those two themes the group pursues precision holography: computing an observable exactly on the field-theory side, expanding it at large N, and identifying every term with a specific effect in the bulk.
Supersymmetric partition functions
Supersymmetric localization turns path integrals of superconformal field theories into finite-dimensional matrix integrals. We evaluate these partition functions and superconformal indices exactly, then push their large-N expansions well beyond the leading order — including the non-perturbative completions that resum them, such as the Airy-function form of the M2-brane free energy.
Black holes & quantum corrections
Every subleading term in that expansion should correspond to a specific effect in the bulk. Matching logarithmic corrections, higher-derivative contributions and subdominant saddles against gauged and ten- or eleven-dimensional supergravity turns black hole entropy in AdS into a precision test of the microscopic counting.