Theory HEP Seminar

Causality, Null Energy, and the Length Operator

Thomas Hartman

Cornell

Causality in quantum field theory is encoded in the averaged null energy condition. I will describe how this energy condition links the IR to the UV in CFTs, effective field theories, and holography. In holographic theories, it becomes a constraint on the spectrum of an emergent length operator, and helps to understand why Einstein gravity governs the universal, infrared dynamics.