Special Niels Bohr Lecture by Zvi Bern, University of California, Los Angeles
Title: The harmony of quantum scattering amplitudes
On the occasion of the award of the NIELS BOHR INSTITUTE MEDAL OF HONOUR 2024 to Zvi Bern
Abstract: Scattering amplitudes lie at the heart of quantum field theory, serving as an essential link between the deep structure of fundamental physics and the practical demands of high-precision experiments. I will present highlights of our understanding of quantum scattering amplitudes, starting with the early days when I was a postdoc at the Niels Bohr Institute.
Scattering amplitudes have remarkable hidden structures and surprising simplicity, far beyond what traditional Feynman diagram techniques suggest. I will present various illustrative examples and applications of this, with a particular emphasis on the deep connections between gravity and gauge theories which describe the other fundamental forces. In this context, I will explain a scattering amplitudes approach to gravity, known as the double copy, which builds on Richard Feynman's observation that Einstein's general relativity follows from the notion that a massless spin-2 graviton mediates gravity.
I will finish by briefly summarizing recent applications of these ideas for obtaining state-of-the-art precision predictions for interacting black holes and other compact astrophysical objects.
About Zvi Bern
Zvi Bern studied mathematics and physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. is a professor of theoretical elementary particle physics at UCLA. His primary research area is in scattering amplitudes.
He received an Outstanding Young Investigator Award. In 1993, he was a Sloan Fellow. In 2014, he won the American Physical Society J. J. Sakurai Prize in Theoretical Particle Physics. He is director of the Mani L. Bhaumik Institute for Theoretical Physics