Uploaded December 2025 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Dirac Medallists Horacio Casini and Marina Huerta are interviewed by ICTP Director Atish Dabholkar and by Pasquale Calabrese, a theoretical physicist and a professor at the International School of Advances Studies (SISSA).
Casini and Huerta were awarded the 2024 Dirac Medal alongside Shinsei Ryu and Tadashi Takayanagi for their insights on quantum entropy in quantum gravity and quantum field theories.
Casini and Huerta studied aspects of quantum entropy for quantum field theories, focusing on the entropy of subregions, and then applied these results to the study of renormalization group flows. In 1+1 dimensions they showed that the entropy of an interval decreases monotonically under the renormalization group flow, providing an alternative proof of the well-known c-theorem. They extended this reasoning to 2+1 dimensional field theories, where they showed that the entropy of a circular subregion in 2+1 dimensional subregion decreases under renormalization group flow. Casini and collaborators further extended these ideas to 3+1 dimensions. Casini also used properties of quantum relative entropy to provide a precise formulation and an elegant proof of a version of the Bekenstein bound.
Horacio Casini is a researcher with the National Scientific and Technical Council (CONICET), and the Bariloche Atomic Centre, in Argentina. He is a recipient of the 2015 New Horizons in Physics Prize.
Marina Huerta is a researcher with CONICET and the Bariloche Atomic Centre, in Argentina. She is a recipient of the 2015 New Horizons in Physics Prize.
00:07 Introduction
02:46 c-Theorem at ICTP
07:39 Irreversibility theorems
14:05 ICTP
16:26 Holography
23:38 Algebraic Quantum Field Theory
31:05 Life partners
33:58 Women in Science
40:10 Bekenstein bound
48:12 Entanglement entropy of free fields
50:47 The role of ICTP in Argentina
Dirac Medallists Horacio Casini and Marina Huerta are interviewed by ICTP Director Atish Dabholkar and by Pasquale Calabrese, a theoretical physicist and a professor at the International School of Advances Studies (SISSA).
Casini and Huerta were awarded the 2024 Dirac Medal alongside Shinsei Ryu and Tadashi Takayanagi for their insights on quantum entropy in quantum gravity and quantum field theories.
Casini and Huerta studied aspects of quantum entropy for quantum field theories, focusing on the entropy of subregions, and then applied these results to the study of renormalization group flows. In 1+1 dimensions they showed that the entropy of an interval decreases monotonically under the renormalization group flow, providing an alternative proof of the well-known c-theorem. They extended this reasoning to 2+1 dimensional field theories, where they showed that the entropy of a circular subregion in 2+1 dimensional subregion decreases under renormalization group flow. Casini and collaborators further extended these ideas to 3+1 dimensions. Casini also used properties of quantum relative entropy to provide a precise formulation and an elegant proof of a version of the Bekenstein bound.
Horacio Casini is a researcher with the National Scientific and Technical Council (CONICET), and the Bariloche Atomic Centre, in Argentina. He is a recipient of the 2015 New Horizons in Physics Prize.
Marina Huerta is a researcher with CONICET and the Bariloche Atomic Centre, in Argentina. She is a recipient of the 2015 New Horizons in Physics Prize.
00:07 Introduction
02:46 c-Theorem at ICTP
07:39 Irreversibility theorems
14:05 ICTP
16:26 Holography
23:38 Algebraic Quantum Field Theory
31:05 Life partners
33:58 Women in Science
40:10 Bekenstein bound
48:12 Entanglement entropy of free fields
50:47 The role of ICTP in Argentina
