General Relativity in the limit of very many dimensions
General Relativity in the limit of very many dimensions
- Event time: 1:00pm until 2:00pm
- Event date: 5th February 2016
- Speaker: Roberto Emparan (University of Barcelona)
- Location: Higgs Centre Seminar Room, Room 4305, James Clerk Maxwell Building (JCMB) James Clerk Maxwell Building Peter Guthrie Tait Road Edinburgh EH9 3FD GB
Event details
Abstract
One hundred years after Einstein formulated General Relativity, the pivotal role of its most fundamental and fascinating objects – the black holes – is nowadays recognized in many areas of physics, even beyond astrophysics and cosmology. Still, solving the theory that governs their dynamics remains a formidable challenge that demands innovative ideas.
I will argue that, from many points of view, it is natural to consider the number of spacetime dimensions, D, as an adjustable parameter in the theory. Then we can use it for a perturbative expansion of the theory around the limit of very many dimensions, that is, considering 1/D as a small number. We will see that in this limit the gravitational field of a black hole simplifies greatly and its equations often turn out to be analytically tractable. A simple picture emerges in which, among other things, the shape of the black hole is determined by the same equations that are used for describing soap bubbles.
About Higgs Centre colloquia
The Higgs Centre Colloquia are a fortnightly series of talks aimed at a wide-range of topical Theoretical Physics issues..