The successful applicant will work under the supervision of Sebastian De Haro and Erik Verlinde and will have the opportunity to collaborate with Niels Martens (Utrecht University) and Jeroen van Dongen (University of Amsterdam). The position is integrated in the national consortium Emergence at All Scales and within this context we invite interested candidates to apply for a 4-year PhD position in the foundations of physics.
You will investigate the philosophical and theoretical aspects of the emergence of time and laws of gravitation in the context of quantum cosmology, black holes, dark matter and dark energy. Your research will be on the recent uses of algebraic methods in quantum field theory, especially von Neumann algebras, for the notions of time and laws. You will investigate the interpretation and physical salience of the derivation of time in algebraic approaches to quantum gravity, and the possible observer-dependence and emergence of the laws of gravitation in cosmological scenarios like de Sitter spacetime. You will use tools from both philosophy and theoretical physics to address these questions, and their consequences for physics-based accounts of emergence. PhD candidates furthermore, are expected to contribute to the institute’s educational mission, e.g., by working as teaching assistants for courses in their area of expertise and by assisting with the supervision of student research projects. In addition, PhD candidates hired from the EAAS project have responsibilities within the EAAS consortium.