STEM Speaker Series: News from the Cosmos: The Unsettling Universe by Dr. Luis Alvarez-Gaume, Director of Simons Center for Geometry and Physics

Posted on September 14, 2021 by Clara Tran

Date: 09/14/2021

Time: 1:00 pm - 2:00 pm

Location
Special Collections Seminar Room

Description

Abstract

Over the last few decades we have learned a large amount of fundamental information about the structure and properties of the Universe, at the microscopic and macroscopic levels, and we have also learned of the deep interconnection between the very large and the very small. The study of black holes, the early universe and inflationary scenarios, the stability of the current state of the universe have become accessible to observation. The universe has given us a shock therapy: There is so much we do not understand… Sometimes it is akin to what happened to physics at the end of the XIX century. When they thought they had all the answers, Nature changed all the questions. In this presentation we will go over part of the vast landscape of fundamental open questions, and how we were led to address them.

Bio

Luis Álvarez-Gaumé has joined the SCGP in September 2016 as the Center’s Director. Dr. Álvarez-Gaumé did his graduate work at the Department of Physics and the Institute for Theoretical Physics at Stony Brook and at MIT and received his PhD from Stony Brook in 1981. After being a Junior Fellow at Harvard and then having faculty positions at Harvard and at Boston University, in1988 Luis became a senior staff member of the Theory Group at CERN, a position he has held ever since. He was long-time Department Head of the Theory Group and is currently its Deputy Head. His position at CERN has brought Luis into contact with virtually the entire community of theoretical and experimental high energy physicists and has given him a vast knowledge and understanding of contemporary theoretical physics and cosmology.

Luis’ own work includes groundbreaking contributions to string theory and quantum field theory, especially supersymmetric theories. He studied gravitational anomalies that arise in quantum field theories; he gave a proof using supersymmetry of the Atiyah-Singer index theorem in the context of physical theories. More recently he has studied cosmology, in particular inflation and black holes. He has written introductory lectures on Quantum Field Theory and a pedagogical introduction to Seiberg-Witten theory. He is a Corresponding Member of the Spanish Royal Academy of Sciences.

If you have a disability and are requesting accommodations in order to fully participate in this event, please email libraryevents@stonybrook.edu or call 631-632-7100.