Worldline effective theories and gravitational dynamicsWorldline effective theories are incredibly useful tools for studying the dynamics of spatially compact systems, with gravitational binaries being a perfect example. In particular they allow for the import of many tools from quantum field theory, eg. Feynman diagrams, loop integration techniques, dimensional regularization, renormalization group, etc. Work in recent […]

Early Galaxies from Rare Inflationary Processes Rare Poisson processes during cosmic inflation can generically lead to rare, high-redshift (z) galaxies. Focusing on inflationary heavy particle production as one example of a Poisson process, I will derive the redshift distribution, masses, and number densities of such early galaxies. The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is a powerful probe […]