Physics Colloquium: Alex Maloney

The Syracuse University Physics Department is pleased to welcome Dr. Alex Maloney, Professor of Physics at McGill University.

Alex Maloney is a theoretical physicist with broad interests in fundamental physics, with a particular focus on emerging relationships between quantum information theory and quantum gravity.  Alex received his PhD from Harvard University, and did postdoctoral work at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center and the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton before joining the faculty of McGill University, where he is currently a James McGill Professor of Physics.  He is a member of the Simons foundation “It From Qubit” Collaboration on Quantum Fields, Gravity and Information.

Abstract:

“Quantum Information Theory and Space-time”

This talk will describe recent progress on the relationship between quantum information theory and quantum gravity and a review on the theoretical evidence that classical space-time geometry emerges from the entanglement of more fundamental quantum mechanical degrees of freedom, and that–in a sense–space-time is entanglement.  This has led to a fascinating interplay between black hole physics, field theory and many aspects of quantum information/quantum computing, including the theory of error correcting codes and entanglement measures. It will also detail the sense in which black holes are the fastest scramblers of information in nature, which leads to an intriguing relationship between black hole physics, quantum chaos, and the physics of disordered systems.  This will be an expository talk: no advanced background beyond quantum mechanics and relativity will be assumed.