About me:
I am currently a PhD student at the University of Minnesota working with Aleksey Cherman. Broadly speaking I am interested in nonperturbative aspects of quantum field theory, with a focus on confining gauge theories which mimic features of QCD. Much of my research revolves around understanding and uncovering generalized symmetries and anomalies, which can provide powerful constraints on the phase diagrams of gauge theories. I think about theories in various spacetime dimensions using both continuum and lattice approaches.
Seminar Title:
Vortices and Higgs-confinement phase transitions
Seminar Date:
Feb. 21st, 2023
Abstract:
We give evidence for phase boundaries between the Higgs and confining regimes of a class of confining gauge theories with fundamental matter. The defining feature of the theories we consider is the presence of a spontaneously broken U(1) global symmetry, whose order parameter can fractionalize into charged constituents in the fundamental representation of the gauge group. First we consider a 2+1 dimensional abelian gauge theory in the continuum and on the lattice, and argue that a phase boundary is detected by the behavior of a non-local order parameter. We then discuss implications for the Schafer-Wilczek conjecture of quark-hadron continuity.