Symmetry Webinar | Solving Quantum Field Theory

Quantum field theory provides a very successful description of natural phenomena, working from the largest to the smallest scales. It has broad applications from Standard Model of particle interactions to cosmology, to condensed matter and so on. Although so many successes, much is still left to be understood, especially in regimes where theories are strongly coupled and ordinary perturbative methods fail. The speakers presented two intersting, broad and original approaches.

On Wednesday, 4 May 2022, MDPI and the Journal Symmetry organized the 2nd webinar on Symmetry, entitled "Solving Quantum Field Theory".

The introduction was held by the Chair of the webinar, Prof. Dr. Giulia Ricciardi, a Professor of Theoretical Physics at the University of Napoli Federico II, Italy. Her research field is theoretical physics at high energies, with a focus on flavor physics.

The first speaker to kick off this webinar was Professor Francesco Sannino, with the presentation titled “Solving Quantum Field Theory: From Gravity to Pandemics”. Prof. Francesco Sannino showed how to classify quantum field theories according to their short and large distance dynamics and then discussed how to resolve their dynamics by exploiting different regimes. In the discussion session he showed how to use symmetry and scale invariance to describe the diffusion and dynamics of infectious diseases such as COVID-19.

The second presentation with the title "Gravity as a QFT”, presented by Professor Roberto Percacci. Prof. Roberto Percacci presented a somewhat unconventional view of gravity as a spontaneously broken gauge theory, that has features of both strong and electroweak interactions below the respective characteristic scales. The emphasis was on the use of quantum field theory, which is very well established at low energy, but may work also in the UV limit.

The presentations were followed by a Q&A and a discussion, moderated by the Chair. The webinar was offered via Zoom and required registration to attend. The full recording can be found here on Sciforum website. In order to stay updated on the next webinars on Symmetry, be sure to sign up for our newsletter by clicking on “Subscribe” at the top of the page.