Luis Apolo

I'm an assistant professor at the Beijing Institute of Mathematical Sciences and Applications (BIMSA) working on quantum gravity, conformal field theory, and string theory.

apolo@bimsa.cn INSPIRE Google Scholar

Research

I study quantum gravity through holography: the relationship between gravitational theories and quantum field theories in fewer dimensions. My work focuses on extending this relationship beyond anti-de Sitter (AdS) spacetimes and on understanding which field theories admit a gravitational description.

Research directions

Deformations and holography beyond AdS

I investigate solvable deformations of two-dimensional conformal field theories and their realizations in gravity and string theory. My recent work relates the supergravity action and stress tensor of a class of TsT-generated backgrounds to the partition function and energies of TT-deformed theories.

Conformal field theories with gravity duals

I study the structure of two-dimensional conformal field theories that admit gravitational descriptions. With collaborators, I have investigated how single-trace deformations lift higher-spin currents in symmetric product orbifolds and how multi-trace deformations affect strongly coupled AdS matter.

Black hole microstates and modular forms

With collaborators, I use weak Jacobi forms to connect microscopic state counting with black hole entropy. Our work studies how constraints on light states affect subleading asymptotics and provides a microscopic interpretation of logarithmic corrections to BPS black hole entropy.

AI and machine learning projects

AI-assisted research in quantum gravity

I am using AI to find evidence for new theories of quantum gravity. The goal is to use the supercharge cohomology and anomalous dimensions of a class of superconformal field theories to constrain their holographic duals.

Machine learning conformal field theories

I plan to use neural networks to search for new compact irrational two-dimensional conformal field theories. The project will first test whether networks can recover the operator dimensions and interaction coefficients of known theories before seeking new candidates that satisfy modular invariance and crossing symmetry.

Selected publications

A full list of my publications can be found in INSPIRE, the arXiv, and Google Scholar.

Teaching

Lectures

Short CV