Office: 202, 2a| Phone: +49 (0)40 8994 2412| Email: georgios.papathanasiou[at]desy.de

Welcome

I am a theoretical physicist working at the Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron since April 2017. Before coming here, I held postdoctoral positions at SLAC, LAPTh Annecy (also visiting scientist at CERN), and the University of Florida. I originally got my PhD from Brown University in 2011.

More on my academic path can be found on my CV.

Research

My research focuses on Quantum Field Theory, String Theory, the relation between the two, and their fruitful interplay with contemporary mathematics. Performing explicit computations of important physical quantities at weak and strong coupling, and exploring their results to establish and exploit connections with new mathematical structures, lies at the core of my approach.

In particular, I have achieved significant contributions in the study of quantities such as anomalous dimensions, string state energies, Wilson loops, and more recently scattering amplitudes, which form a bridge between theory and experiment. To this end, I have employed and continue to further develop a wealth of complementary methods, ranging from gauge/string duality and integrability, to lattice discretization, and the exploitation of the expected analytic behavior of the relevant physical quantity.

Ultimately, my research aims towards an all-loop solution of an interacting, four-dimensional gauge theory, for the simplest example of planar, maximally supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory. It is very likely that along the way, the new insights gained and computational tools built, will also find applications to the real world of elementary particles, and their interactions.

Publications

Also available on INSPIRE.

• "Heptagons from the Steinmann Cluster Bootstrap", with L.J.Dixon, J.Drummond, T.Harrington, A.J.McLeod, and M.Spradlin, JHEP 1702, 137 (2017) , arXiv:1612.08976 [hep-th].
• "Multi-Regge kinematics and the moduli space of Riemann spheres with marked points", with V.Del Duca, S.Druc, J.Drummond, C.Duhr, F.Dulat, R.Marzucca and B.Verbeek, JHEP 1608, 152 (2016), arXiv:1606.08807 [hep-th].
• "The Two-Loop Symbol of all Multi-Regge Regions", with T.Bargheer and V.Schomerus, JHEP 1605, 012 (2016), arXiv:1512.07620 [hep-th].
• "Hexagon OPE Resummation and Multi-Regge Kinematics", with J.M.Drummond, JHEP 1602,185 (2016), arXiv:1507.08982 [hep-th].
• "A Symbol of Uniqueness: The Cluster Bootstrap for the 3-Loop MHV Heptagon", with J.M.Drummond and M.Spradlin, JHEP 1503, 072 (2015), arXiv:1412.3763.
• "Evaluating the 6-point Remainder Function Near the Collinear Limit", Int.J.Mod.Phys. A29 (2014) 27, 1450154, arXiv:1406.1123.
• "Hexagon Wilson Loop OPE and Harmonic Polylogarithms", JHEP 1311, 150 (2013), arXiv:1310.5735.
• "Open String Self-energy on the Lightcone Worldsheet Lattice", with C.Thorn, Phys.Rev.D 88, 026014 (2013), arXiv:1305.5850.
• "Worldsheet Propagator on the Lightcone Worldsheet Lattice", with C.Thorn, Phys.Rev.D 87, 066005 (2013), arXiv:1212.2900.
• "Closed String Self-energy on the Lightcone Worldsheet Lattice", with C.Thorn, Phys.Rev.D 86, 066002 (2012), arXiv:1206.5554.
• "Pohlmeyer reduction and Darboux transformations in Euclidean worldsheet AdS_3", JHEP 1208, 105 (2012), arXiv:1203.3460.
• "Giant Magnons in Symmetric Spaces: Explicit N-soliton solutions for CP^n, SU(n) and S^n", with C.Kalousios, JHEP 1007, 068 (2010), arXiv: 1005.1066.
• "Two-Loop Spectroscopy of Short ABJM Operators", with M.Spradlin, JHEP 1002, 072 (2010), arXiv: 0911.2220.
• "The Morphology of N=6 Chern-Simons Theory", with M.Spradlin, JHEP 0907 036 (2009), arXiv: 0903.2548.
• "Exact solutions for N-magnon scattering", with C.Kalousios and A.Volovich, JHEP 0808, 095 (2008), arXiv: 0806.2466.
• "Semiclassical Quantization of the Giant Magnon", with M.Spradlin, JHEP 0706, 032 (2007), arXiv: 0704.2389.

Selected Presentations

• The Steinmann Cluster Bootstrap for N=4 SYM amplitudes: Talk
• A Symbol of Uniqueness: The Cluster Bootstrap for the 3-Loop MHV Heptagon: Talk
• N=4 Super Yang-Mills Amplitudes and Integrability: Talk
• String Self-energies on the Lightcone Worldsheet Lattice: Talk
• Dicretizing String Theory: Non-technical Talk
• Evaluating the Hexagon Wilson Loop OPE: Mathematica Presentation
• Giant Magnons on Symmetric Spaces: Talk Poster
• Two-loop Spectroscopy of Short ABJM Operators: Talk
• The Morphology of N=6 Chern-Simons Theory: Poster
• Semiclassical Quantization of the Giant Magnon: Talk

Awards & Grants

• Miami Conference 2012 Software Award
• Dissertation Fellowship at Brown University, 2009-2010
• Award for Excellence as a Graduate Teaching Assistant at Brown University, 2008
• Summer research grant under Professor Chung-I Tan at Brown University, 2006
• Scholarship from Ioannis Varykas Foundation for undergraduate studies at the University of Athens, 1999-2003

Teaching

I greatly enjoy transferring knowledge, and during my PhD I had the chance to be a teaching assistant for many undergraduate courses ranging from Modern Physics to Classical Mechanics or Electromagnetism. The experience that shaped my teaching philosophy was my collaboration with Professor Leon Cooper on the design and teaching of an interdisciplinary course exploring the relation of physics and art.

My interest in teaching has also led me to attend the Teaching Certificate I & III programmes at Brown University's Sheridan Center for Teaching & Learning. After my PhD, I had the opportunity to give a specialized course on Amplitudes & Symbols, and also give guest lectures in graduate Quantum Mechanics I, Quantum Field Theory, II and Introduction to Supersymmetry and Supergravity.