Entropic g Theorem in General Spacetime Dimensions.

We establish the irreversibility of renormalization group flows on a pointlike defect inserted in a d-dimensional Lorentzian conformal field theory. We identify the impurity entropy g with the quantum relative entropy in two equivalent ways. One involves a null deformation of the Cauchy surface, and the other is given in terms of a local quench protocol. Positivity and monotonicity of the relative entropy imply that g decreases monotonically along renormalization group flows, and provides a clear information-theoretic meaning for this irreversibility.

Two-Dimensional Non-Fermi-Liquid Metals: A Solvable Large-N Limit.

Significant effort has been devoted to the study of "non-Fermi-liquid" (NFL) metals: gapless conducting systems that lack a quasiparticle description. One class of NFL metals involves a finite density of fermions interacting with soft order parameter fluctuations near a quantum critical point. The problem has been extensively studied in a large-N limit (N corresponding to the number of fermion flavors) where universal behavior can be obtained by solving a set of coupled saddle-point equations. However, a remarkable study by Lee revealed the breakdown of such approximations in two spatial dimensions. We show that an alternate approach, in which the fermions belong to the fundamental representation of a global SU(N) flavor symmetry, while the order parameter fields transform under the adjoint representation (a "matrix large-N" theory), yields a tractable large N limit. At low energies, the system consists of an overdamped boson with dynamical exponent z=3 coupled to a non-Fermi-liquid with self-energy Σ(ω)∼ω^{2/3}, consistent with previous studies.

Markov Property of the Conformal Field Theory Vacuum and the a Theorem.

We use strong subadditivity of entanglement entropy, Lorentz invariance, and the Markov property of the vacuum state of a conformal field theory to give new proof of the irreversibility of the renormalization group in d=4 space-time dimensions-the a theorem. This extends the proofs of the c and F theorems in dimensions d=2 and d=3 based on vacuum entanglement entropy, and gives a unified picture of all known irreversibility theorems in relativistic quantum field theory.

Nonsupersymmetric Dualities from Mirror Symmetry.

We study supersymmetry breaking perturbations of the simplest dual pair of (2+1)-dimensional N=2 supersymmetric field theories-the free chiral multiplet and N=2 super QED with a single flavor. We find dual descriptions of a phase diagram containing four distinct massive phases. The equivalence of the intervening critical theories gives rise to several nonsupersymmetric avatars of mirror symmetry: we find dualities relating scalar QED to a free fermion and Wilson-Fisher theories to both scalar and fermionic QED. Thus, mirror symmetry can be viewed as the multicritical parent duality from which these nonsupersymmetric dualities directly descend.