Mon, 19 Oct 2020
16:00
Virtual

The Universe from a single particle (apologies to William Blake)

Michael Freedman
(Microsoft Research)
Abstract

In Joint work with Modj Shokrian-Zini we study (numerically) our proposal that interacting physics can arise from single particle quantum Mechanics through spontaneous symmetry breaking SSB. The staring point is the claim the difference between single and many particle physics amounts to the probability distribution on the space of Hamiltonians. Hamiltonians for interacting systems seem to know about some local, say qubit, structure, on the Hilbert space, whereas typical QM systems need not have such internal structure. I will discuss how the former might arise from the latter in a toy model. This story is intended as a “prequel” to the decades old reductionist story in which low energy standard model physics is supposed to arise from something quite different at high energy. We ask the question: Can interacting physics itself can arise from something simpler.

Subscribe to Microsoft Research