Many Body Seminar: Replica trick : The good, the bad and the ugly

Albert Gasull (MPQ)
I will present the replica trick and go over its main strengths and criticism.

Albert Gasull (MPQ)
Group seminar (hybrid format: online/seminar room B2.46)
Thu, 16 December 2021, 11:00 am (MEZ)

*Abstract:*

I will present the replica trick and go over its main strengths and criticism. It has found applications for many highly non-trivial problems in statistical physics as well as tackled the question of entanglement in QFTs and as Tommaso presented, it was present in the Nobel prize for this year. Regardless of its success, it also finds a lot of criticism within the mathematics community, and I will present some of its main challenges that would restrict its applicability and reliability. Afterwards, I will shortly show how one can use it to compute the celebrated logarithmic scaling of the entanglement entropy for a 1+1D system at a critical point.

We meet at 11h in the Theory seminar room starting with an informal
discussion, the talk begins at 11:20. Please don't forget to do a corona self test before.