About Me
I am a third-year Ph.D. student in the Department of Physics at the University of Michigan. I work with Henriette Elvang and Leopoldo Pando-Zayas on various topics in particle theory and quantum gravity. Originally from Virginia, I obtained my undergraduate degree from Princeton University in 2022. I wrote my undergraduate thesis under the supervision of Silviu Pufu and Igor Klebanov. After graduating, I took a gap year to teach middle- and high-school math in New Jersey before beginning my Ph.D. at Michigan. Outside of physics I enjoy playing piano, taking photos, and hanging out with my cats.
Research
- S-matrix bootstrap: Using UV consistency conditions like unitarity, Lorentz invariance, and locality, we are able to constrain the low-energy data of effective field theories. Such bounds can be used to corner string theory in the space of possible UV completions of field theory, or to make phenomenological predictions for physics beyond the Standard Model.
- Low-dimensional holography: We search for a simple quantum mechanical description of black holes via holography. As higher dimensional extremal black holes near the horizon are described by JT gravity, one can use the SYK/JT duality to provide a microscopic description of extremal black holes. We aim to construct other models that have SYK-like behavior in the IR, but which do not have disorder.
Papers
- A. Biggs, L. L. Lin, J. Maldacena, "A Melonic Quantum Mechanical Model Without Disorder," pre-print, 2026. link
- J. Berman, H. Elvang, N. Geiser, L. L. Lin, "Bootstrapping Extremal Scalar Amplitudes With and Without Supersymmetry," pre-print, 2024. link slides from my prelim exam
- R. Dempsey, I. R. Klebanov, L. L. Lin, S. S. Pufu, "Adjoint Majorana QCD2 at Finite N," JHEP, 2022. link
Contact
- Email: lokilin@umich.edu
- inspire
What are my pronouns?
Great question! The answer has been lost to time.
Call me whatever you want as long as it's not a slur.