More is Universal: An Introduction to Conformal Field Theory

yzj5306@psu.edu (Yiyang Jiang) — Mon, 17 Aug 2026 15:30:00 -0400


Presenter	You-Chiuan (Andy) Chen (Prof. Ribhu Kaul’s group, Penn State)
Date	August 17, 2026 · 5:00–6:00 PM
Location	Davey 339
Topic	An introduction to conformal field theory — Lecture I

Lecture I of a two-part introduction to conformal field theory, told from the condensed-matter side. The organising question: a critical $\phi^4$ theory is strongly interacting and we cannot solve it — so what can symmetry alone tell us? The answer runs from the emergent scale invariance at a fixed point, through the conformal group and the correlators it fixes, to the operator product expansion and the bootstrap, where crossing symmetry plus unitarity pin the 3D Ising critical exponents to six digits without ever evaluating a path integral. A preview of radial quantization closes the session.

Dynamical Phase Transition in Droplet Dynamics

yzj5306@psu.edu (Yiyang Jiang) — Wed, 15 Jul 2026 14:00:00 -0400


Presenter	Xiao Wang (Prof. Eun-Ah Kim’s group, Cornell University)
Date	July 15, 2026 · 2:00–3:00 PM
Location	Davey 339
Topic	Dynamical phase transition in droplet dynamics

Xiao Wang (Cornell, Eun-Ah Kim group) introduces droplet dynamics — a compact spatial block of local excitations or defect insertions embedded in a much larger quantum background — and shows how it realizes a universal class of unconventional dynamical transitions, identified as dynamical Gross–Witten–Wadia transitions, in both the XX/free-fermion and transverse-field Ising chains.

Transverse Field Ising Model on Condensed Matter🍩 + AI🤖 Journal Club🎓

More is Universal: An Introduction to Conformal Field Theory

Dynamical Phase Transition in Droplet Dynamics