journal club on aspects of information, quantum theory, and gravity
26 Feb 2026
The infrared sector of field theories exhibits a universal structure that appears to be inherently classical and is closely connected to the phenomenon of memory in asymptotic radiation. Gravitational and electromagnetic memory encode permanent imprints within the radiation carrying gauge fields and are intimately related to asymptotic symmetries and soft theorems. Despite their ubiquity and theoretical robustness, however, these effects have not yet been experimentally verified. In the context of gravitational radiation, frequency-band-limited detectors are not directly sensitive to the defining net memory offset, but only to the associated time-dependent transition. On the other hand, the amplitude of the memory offset in electromagnetic radiation appears too small to be detectable in realistic experiments.
In this talk, I will present recent progress on both these fronts. First, I will discuss a proper theoretical modelling of gravitational memory that enables a confident detection claim with next-generation gravitational-wave detectors. Second, I will present a new and realistically realizable Poincaré symmetry-breaking mechanism that can amplify the amplitude of electromagnetic memory by several orders of magnitude.