12.11.2014 (Wednesday)

The quantum theory of fluids

Triangular Seminar Ben Gripaios (Cambridge Cavendish)

at:
15:00 KCL
room SMinus2.23
abstract:

I discuss the quantization of a perfect fluid. This differs from textbook QFT, because of the presence of vortex modes, which map to an infinite collection of quantum mechanical free particles rather than harmonic oscillators. As a result, there is no Fock space and no S-matrix. I argue that there exists, nevertheless, a consistent effective field theory description, valid at large distances and times.