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Misha Smolkin

Portrait de Misha Smolkin
University of California - Berkeley - Department of Physics

Areas of Research:
Cosmology,
Quantum Fields and Strings,
Strong Gravity
Phone: x7582

Research Interests

My research field is theoretical high energy physics, in particular, my major interest rests on two areas of physics: quantum field theory (QFT) and general relativity (GR). In GR I pursue to apply and develop the ideas of effective field theory techniques proposed by W.Goldberger and I.Rothstein for various classical setups, whereas on the QFT side my efforts are concentrated on studying the models in the region of parameter space where presumably the theory is not well-posed and a natural question arises: is there a loophole to make sense of such a theory? Apart from the theoretical perspectives, the answer to this question implies robust cosmological outcomes and opens a wide door towards better understanding of the cosmology in general and the long standing problem of the singularity in particular. Moreover, nowadays one of the most natural interplays between GR and QFT manifests itself in the AdS/CFT conjecture and currently I am also trying my hand in various holographic aspects of the entanglement entropy and related issues.

Positions Held

  • April 2010 - present: Postdoctoral Researcher, Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics

Awards

  • Goodman prize, Hebrew University
  • Rosenblum prize, Hebrew University
  • Nehemiah Levzion scholarship for outstanding PhD students from peripheries

Recent Publications

  • Ling-Yan Hung, Michael Smolkin, Evgeny Sorkin, Modification of late time phase structure by quantum quenches, accepted to PRL, arXiv: 1206.2685[cond-mat.str-el]
  • Barak Kol, Michael Smolkin, Black hole stereotyping: Induced gravito-static polarization, JHEP 1202:010,2012, e-Print: arXiv: 1110.3764[hep-th].
  • Ling-Yan Hung, Robert C. Myers, Michael Smolkin, Alexandre Yale, Holographic calculations of Renyi entropy JHEP 1112:047,2011, e-Print: arXiv: 1110.1084[hep-th].
  • Ling-Yan Hung, Robert C. Myers, Michael Smolkin, Some calculable contributions to holographic entanglement entropy, JHEP 1108:039,2011, e-Print: arXiv: 1105.6055[hep-th].
  • Eliezer Rabinovici, Michael Smolkin, On the dynamical generation of the Maxwell term and scale invariance, JHEP 1107:040,2011, e-Print: arXiv: 1102.5035 [hep-th].
  • Ling-Yan Hung, Robert C. Myers, Michael Smolkin, On Holographic Entanglement Entropy and Higher Curvature Gravity, JHEP 1104:025,2011, e-Print: arXiv: 1101.5813 [hep-th].
  • Barak Kol, Michele Levi, Michael Smolkin, Comparing space+time decompositions in the post-Newtonian limit, Class.Quant.Grav.28:145021,2011, e-Print: arXiv: 1011.6024 [gr-qc].
  • Barak Kol, Michael Smolkin, Einstein's action and the harmonic gauge in terms of Newtonian fields, Phys.Rev.D85:044029,2012, e-Print: arXiv: 1009.1876 [hep-th].
  • Alex Buchel, Jorge Escobedo, Robert C. Myers, Miguel F. Paulos, Aninda Sinha, Michael Smolkin, Holographic GB gravity in arbitrary dimensions, JHEP 1003:111,2010, arXiv: 0911.4257 [hep-th].
  • Barak Kol, Michael Smolkin, Dressing the Post-Newtonian two-body problem and Classical Effective Field Theory, Phys.Rev.D80:124044,2009, e-Print: arXiv: 0910.5222 [hep-th].
  • James B. Gilmore, Andreas Ross, Michael Smolkin, Caged black hole thermodynamics: Charge, the extremal limit, and finite size effects, JHEP 0909:104,2009, e-Print: arXiv: 0908.3490 [hep-th].
  • Vadim Asnin, Eliezer Rabinovici, Michael Smolkin, On rolling, tunneling and decaying in some large N vector models, JHEP 0908:001,2009, e-Print: arXiv: 0905.3526 [hep-th].
  • Barak Kol, Michael Smolkin, Non-Relativistic Gravitation: From Newton to Einstein and Back, Class.Quant.Grav.25:145011,2008, e-Print: arXiv: 0712.4116 [hep-th].
  • Barak Kol, Michael Smolkin, Classical Effective Field Theory and Caged Black Holes, Phys.Rev.D77:064033,2008, e-Print: arXiv: 0712.2822 [hep-th].
  • Vadim Asnin, Barak Kol, Michael Smolkin, Analytic evidence for continuous self similarity of the critical merger solution, Class.Quant.Grav.23:6805-6827,2006, e-Print: arXiv:0607129 [hep-th].
  • J. Feinberg, M.Moshe, Michael Smolkin, J.Zinn-Justin, Spontaneous breaking of scale invariance and supersymmetric models at finite temperature, Int.J.Mod.Phys.A20:4475-4483, 2005.

Seminars

  • Time-like AdS/CFT approach to singularity resolution, BIRS, Banff, AB, Canada.
  • The Black Hole Dynamics from the Perspective of an Effective Field Theory, Grenfell Campus, Corner Brook, NF, Canada.
  • Quantum Field Theory Methods in Classical General Relativity,Humboldt University of Berlin
  • PIRSA:11110132, Tidal deformations of a Schwarzschild black hole via effective field theory approach., 2011-11-28, Effective Field Theory and Gravitational Physics Conference
  • PIRSA:09120099, Effective Field Theory Approach to the Post-Newtonian Physics, 2009-12-03, Strong Gravity
  • PIRSA:09110117, The Worldline Approach to Black Hole Dynamics, 2009-11-26, Strong Gravity