Marina Huerta

Last updated
Marina Huerta
Born
Alma mater Universidad de Buenos Aires, Instituto Balseiro, Universidad Nacional de Cuyo
Awards New Horizons
Scientific career
Fields Theoretical physics, Quantum Information, Quantum Field physics
Institutions Instituto Balseiro, CNEA and CONICET
Thesis  (2000)
Doctoral advisor Guillermo Zemba and Rafael Montemayor

Marina Huerta (born 1968) is an Argentinian theoretical physicist and a physics professor. She is known for her work on quantum entropy in quantum field theory. She has provided a new interpretation of the Bekenstein bound. As of 2020, she has 29 peer-reviewed publications with more than 2000 citations. [1]

Contents

In 2014 she won the New Horizons in Physics - Breakthrough Prize [2] for "fundamental ideas about entropy in quantum field theory and quantum gravity". [3] [4] [5] [6] [7]

She researches quantum field theory and quantum information at the Centro Atómico Bariloche and the Argentinian research organization: CONICET. [8] She is a professor at the Instituto Balseiro of the Universidad Nacional de Cuyo in Argentina where her lectures on special relativity [9] have been filmed and are offered free of charge (in Spanish). The Strings School has published her lectures on entanglement entropy [10] (in English).

Biography

Marina Huerta was born in 1968 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. She studied at the Universidad de Buenos Aires (UBA) and then moved to the Instituto Balseiro. She obtained her Ph.D. in physics in the year 2000 after completing a doctoral dissertation on an effective description of the Quantum Hall Effect under the supervision of Guillermo Zemba and Rafael Montemayor. [11]
In 2005 and then in 2014, she spent some time at Princeton's Institute for Advanced Study. [12] On the 2014 visit, Huerta researched entanglement entropy which enlightens aspects of quantum field theory inaccessible with any other approach. [13]

She was one of the organizers of the workshop 'Quantum Gravity in the Southern Cone' in 2019. [14]

Contributions to physics

Huerta main contribution in theoretical physics is in geometric entropy in quantum field theory, holography, quantum gravity and quantum information theory. She uses interlacing entropy as an indicator of confinement and phase transitions. It is considered the natural order parameter for systems with topological order. Relative entropy's properties give rise to the Bekenstein dimension, energy levels in field theories and the generalized second law. She has provided a new interpretation of the Bekenstein bound using relative entropy and distinguishability of states.

Interlacing entropy is essential in holography, which relates quantum gravity theories to non-gravitational field theories with one less dimension. Interlacing is necessary to explain the connectivity of space and to describe physics beyond the event horizon.

Selected publications

Related Research Articles

The holographic principle is a property of string theories and a supposed property of quantum gravity that states that the description of a volume of space can be thought of as encoded on a lower-dimensional boundary to the region — such as a light-like boundary like a gravitational horizon. First proposed by Gerard 't Hooft, it was given a precise string theoretic interpretation by Leonard Susskind, who combined his ideas with previous ones of 't Hooft and Charles Thorn. Leonard Susskind said, “The three-dimensional world of ordinary experience––the universe filled with galaxies, stars, planets, houses, boulders, and people––is a hologram, an image of reality coded on a distant two-dimensional surface." As pointed out by Raphael Bousso, Thorn observed in 1978 that string theory admits a lower-dimensional description in which gravity emerges from it in what would now be called a holographic way. The prime example of holography is the AdS/CFT correspondence.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Black hole thermodynamics</span> Area of study

In physics, black hole thermodynamics is the area of study that seeks to reconcile the laws of thermodynamics with the existence of black hole event horizons. As the study of the statistical mechanics of black-body radiation led to the development of the theory of quantum mechanics, the effort to understand the statistical mechanics of black holes has had a deep impact upon the understanding of quantum gravity, leading to the formulation of the holographic principle.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jacob Bekenstein</span> Mexican-Israeli physicist

Jacob David Bekenstein was a Mexican, USA and Israeli theoretical physicist who made fundamental contributions to the foundation of black hole thermodynamics and to other aspects of the connections between information and gravitation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Juan Maldacena</span> Argentine physicist (born 1968)

Juan Martín Maldacena is an Argentine theoretical physicist and the Carl P. Feinberg Professor in the School of Natural Sciences at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton. He has made significant contributions to the foundations of string theory and quantum gravity. His most famous discovery is the AdS/CFT correspondence, a realization of the holographic principle in string theory.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Andrew Strominger</span> American physicist

Andrew Eben Strominger is an American theoretical physicist who is the director of Harvard's Center for the Fundamental Laws of Nature. He has made significant contributions to quantum gravity and string theory. These include his work on Calabi–Yau compactification and topology change in string theory, and on the stringy origin of black hole entropy. He is a senior fellow at the Society of Fellows, and is the Gwill E. York Professor of Physics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Shiraz Minwalla</span> Indian physicist

Shiraz Naval Minwalla is an Indian theoretical physicist and string theorist. He is a faculty member in the Department of Theoretical Physics at Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai. Prior to his present position, Minwalla was a Harvard Junior Fellow and subsequently an assistant professor at Harvard University.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Erik Verlinde</span> Dutch theoretical physicist

Erik Peter Verlinde is a Dutch theoretical physicist and string theorist. He is the identical twin brother of physicist Herman Verlinde. The Verlinde formula, which is important in conformal field theory and topological field theory, is named after him. His research deals with string theory, gravity, black holes and cosmology. Currently, he works at the Institute for Theoretical Physics at the University of Amsterdam.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bekenstein bound</span> Upper limit on entropy in physics

In physics, the Bekenstein bound is an upper limit on the thermodynamic entropy S, or Shannon entropy H, that can be contained within a given finite region of space which has a finite amount of energy—or conversely, the maximal amount of information required to perfectly describe a given physical system down to the quantum level. It implies that the information of a physical system, or the information necessary to perfectly describe that system, must be finite if the region of space and the energy are finite. In computer science this implies that non-finite models such as Turing machines are not realizable as finite devices.

Balseiro Institute is an Argentine academic institution that belongs partially to the National University of Cuyo and partially to the National Atomic Energy Commission. It is located in Bariloche, Río Negro province, Argentina. Notable alumni of this institute include Marcela Carena, Juan Maldacena, Juan Ignacio Galvan and Jorge Pullin.

The MIT Center for Theoretical Physics (CTP) is the hub of theoretical nuclear physics, particle physics, and quantum information research at MIT. It is a subdivision of MIT Laboratory for Nuclear Science and Department of Physics.

The Stanford Institute for Theoretical Physics (SITP) is a research institute within the Physics Department at Stanford University. Led by 16 physics faculty members, the institute conducts research in High Energy and Condensed Matter theoretical physics.

Sergio Ferrara is an Italian physicist working on theoretical physics of elementary particles and mathematical physics. He is renowned for the discovery of theories introducing supersymmetry as a symmetry of elementary particles and of supergravity, the first significant extension of Einstein's general relativity, based on the principle of "local supersymmetry". He is an emeritus staff member at CERN and a professor emeritus at the University of California, Los Angeles.

John Lawrence CardyFRS is a British–American theoretical physicist. He is best known for his work in theoretical condensed matter physics and statistical mechanics, and in particular for research on critical phenomena and two-dimensional conformal field theory.

Alexei Yurievich Kitaev is a Russian–American professor of physics at the California Institute of Technology and permanent member of the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics. He is best known for introducing the quantum phase estimation algorithm and the concept of the topological quantum computer while working at the Landau Institute for Theoretical Physics. He is also known for introducing the complexity class QMA and showing the 2-local Hamiltonian problem is QMA-complete, the most complete result for k-local Hamiltonians. Kitaev is also known for contributions to research on a model relevant to researchers of the AdS/CFT correspondence started by Subir Sachdev and Jinwu Ye; this model is known as the Sachdev–Ye–Kitaev (SYK) model.

The Bousso bound captures a fundamental relation between quantum information and the geometry of space and time. It appears to be an imprint of a unified theory that combines quantum mechanics with Einstein's general relativity. The study of black hole thermodynamics and the information paradox led to the idea of the holographic principle: the entropy of matter and radiation in a spatial region cannot exceed the Bekenstein–Hawking entropy of the boundary of the region, which is proportional to the boundary area. However, this "spacelike" entropy bound fails in cosmology; for example, it does not hold true in our universe.

The Breakthrough Prize in Mathematics is an annual award of the Breakthrough Prize series announced in 2013.

The Ryu–Takayanagi conjecture is a conjecture within holography that posits a quantitative relationship between the entanglement entropy of a conformal field theory and the geometry of an associated anti-de Sitter spacetime. The formula characterizes "holographic screens" in the bulk; that is, it specifies which regions of the bulk geometry are "responsible to particular information in the dual CFT". The conjecture is named after Shinsei Ryu and Tadashi Takayanagi, who jointly published the result in 2006. As a result, the authors were awarded the 2015 New Horizons in Physics Prize for "fundamental ideas about entropy in quantum field theory and quantum gravity". The formula was generalized to a covariant form in 2007.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Karen Hallberg</span> Argentine physicist

Karen Astrid Hallberg is an Argentine scientist and professor of physics at the Balseiro Institute. and at the Bariloche Atomic Centre. Se was awarded the 2019 L'Oreal-UNESCO Award for Women in Science Laureate.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carlos Mallmann</span> Argentine physicist (1928–2020)

Carlos Alberto Mallmann was an Argentine mathematical physicist, professor and researcher, considered one of the pioneers of physics and nuclear energy in Argentina.

Daniel Harlow is the Jerrold R. Zacharias Career Development Associate Professor of Physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

References

  1. "Scopus preview - Huerta, M. - Author details - Scopus".
  2. "Breakthrough Prize". breakthroughprize.org. Retrieved 2020-05-11.
  3. The Breakthrough Prize. "Recipients Of The 2015 Breakthrough Prizes In Fundamental Physics And Life Sciences Announced".
  4. "Físicos galardonados volvieron a Bariloche con su premio". Diario Río Negro (in European Spanish). 2014-11-14. Retrieved 2020-05-11.
  5. Overbye, Dennis (2014-11-09). "Scientists, and Universe's Odd Behavior, Are Recognized With $3 Million Prizes". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 2020-05-18.
  6. "Breakthrough Prize – Fundamental Physics Breakthrough Prize Laureates – Marina Huerta". breakthroughprize.org. Retrieved 2020-05-12.
  7. "Docentes del Balseiro recibieron una importante distinción internacional".
  8. "Staff". fisica.cab.cnea.gov.ar. Retrieved 2020-05-22.
  9. "Instituto Balseiro - Clases en linea".
  10. Entanglement Entropy - I by Marina Huerta. YouTube . Archived from the original on 2021-12-10.
  11. "RRHH". fisica.cab.cnea.gov.ar. Retrieved 2020-05-22.
  12. "IAS". Archived from the original on 2015-11-21. Retrieved 2020-05-18.
  13. "Marina Huerta". Institute for Advanced Study. 9 December 2019. Retrieved 2020-05-22.
  14. "Home - VIII Quantum Gravity in the Southern Cone". fisica.cab.cnea.gov.ar. Retrieved 2020-05-18.