Quantum Field Theory: A Universal Language by Prof Dam Son

Join us in the IAS STEM Graduate Colloquium by Prof Dam Son (2018 Dirac Medal) from the University of Chicago.

About the talk

Quantum field theory was originally invented as a theory of elementary particles and their interactions. Unifying quantum mechanics and special relativity, it provides the most accurate description of nature at the smallest scales. It was soon discovered that quantum field theory also provides a powerful language to describe phenomena occurring in condensed matter. I will describe how quantum field theory is used in different subfields of physics, focusing on a few common ideas: symmetry breaking, renormalization group, and duality.

About Our Speaker

Prof Dam Tanh Son is currently the University Professor at the physics department of University of Chicago. From 1999 to 2002 he was a professor at Columbia University and a RIKEN-BNL fellow. He moved to Seattle in 2002 when he became a Senior Fellow at the Institute for Nuclear Theory and a professor at University of Washington until 2012. He was awarded the Dirac Medal of the ICTP in 2018, and the Bogolyubov Prize in 2019. His work spans high energy physics, nuclear physics and condensed-matter physics, with notable contributions to the theory of strongly correlated quantum fluids, gauge-gravity duality, color superconductors of the dense dark matter, and applications of quantum field theory techniques.