PHYSICS PHD DISSERTATION DEFENSE: Jordan Cotler

Ph.D. Candidate:  Jordan Cotler

Research Advisor:  Patrick Hayden

Date: Friday, April 3rd, 2020
Time: 12:00 noon
Zoom Meeting Link: https://stanford.zoom.us/j/251357954

Password:  Email maria.frank [at] stanford.edu (subject: PASSWORD%20FOR%20COTLER%20DEFENSE, body: Please%20send%20me%20the%20password%20for%20Jordan%20Cotler%27s%20Ph.D.%20Dissertation%20Defense.) (maria[dot]frank[at]stanford[dot]edu) for password

Title: Toward the Emergence of Time in Quantum Gravity

Abstract: Space and time are fundamental to our description and understanding of physical laws.  But are space and time themselves only approximations to an even more fundamental description of reality?  Recent developments in quantum gravity have shown how space can be emergent from more fundamental principles.  In this defense, I review tools and results developed with my collaborators which shed light on a more fundamental description of time.    I will first discuss a way of understanding time using quantum information theoretic techniques.  We will use the techniques to study how causality and the arrow of time can emerge from the pattern of entanglement in tensor networks.  Next I will discuss concrete models of emergent time in quantum gravity, culminating in a non-perturbative model in which both space and time are emergent from random matrices.  This model describes low-dimensional de Sitter quantum gravity, which has a positive cosmological constant.