Mathematical Physics
This series consists of talks in the area of Mathematical Physics.
Seminar Series Events/Videos
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Lundi avr 08, 2019Speaker(s):
In a synthetic approach to geometry and physics, one attempts to formulate an axiomatic system in purely logical terms, abstracting away from irrelevant "implementation details". In this talk, I will explain how intuitionistic logic and topos theory provide a synthetic theory of space, and then consider a (naive version of) Euclidean QFTs in terms of a conjectural elegant synthetic reformulation: a Euclidean QFT is nothing but a probability space in intuitionistic logic, extended by suitable modalities formalizing compact regions of space.
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Lundi mar 25, 2019Speaker(s):
The Heisenberg algebra plays a vital role in many areas of mathematics and physics. We will describe a family of quantum Heisenberg categories, depending on a choice of central charge, that categorify this algebra. When the central charge is nonzero, these categories act on modules for cyclotomic quotients of the affine Hecke algebra. In central charge zero, we obtain an affinization of the HOMFLY-PT skein category, which acts on modules for $U_q(\mathfrak{gl}_n)$. We will also discuss how the categories can be generalized by adding a Frobenius superalgebra into the construction. This
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Lundi mar 18, 2019Speaker(s):
Principal bundles and their moduli have been important in various aspects of physics and geometry for many decades. It is perhaps not so well-known that a substantial portion of the original motivation for studying them came from number theory, namely the study of Diophantine equations. I will describe a bit of this history and some recent developments.
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Lundi mar 18, 2019
I discuss a geometric interpretation of the twisted indexes of 3d (softly broken) $\cN=4$ gauge theories on $S^1 \times \Sigma$ where $\Sigma$ is a closed genus $g$ Riemann surface, mainly focussing on quivers with unitary gauge groups. The path integral localises to a moduli space of solutions to generalised vortex equations on $\Sigma$, which can be understood algebraically as quasi-maps to the Higgs branch. I demonstrate that the twisted indexes computed in previous work reproduce the virtual Euler characteristic of the moduli spaces of twisted quasi-maps.
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Mercredi fév 20, 2019Speaker(s):
I will review the geometric approach to the description of Coulomb branches and Chern-Simons terms of gauge theories coming from compactifications of M-theory on elliptically fibered Calabi-Yau threefolds. Mathematically, this involves finding all the crepant resolutions of a given Weierstrass model and understanding the network of flops connecting them together with computing certain topological invariants. I will further check that the uplifted theory in 6d is anomaly-free using Green-Schwartz mechanism.
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Lundi fév 11, 2019Speaker(s):
Continued discussion to the two informal talks given by Dylan Butson on January 21st and 28th.
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Lundi fév 04, 2019Speaker(s):
The Heisenberg algebra plays an important role in many areas of mathematics and physics. Khovanov constructed a categorical analogue of this algebra which emphasizes its connections to representation theory and combinatorics. Recently, Brundan, Savage, and Webster have shown that the Grothendieck group of this category is isomorphic to the Heisenberg algebra. However, applying an alternative decategorification functor called the trace to the Heisenberg category yields a richer structure: a W-algebra, an infinite-dimensional Lie algebra related to conformal field theory.
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Lundi jan 28, 2019Speaker(s):
This seminar will be a continued discussion on the topic of last week's seminar:
I will describe some general mathematical structures expected to arise from field theories with boundary conditions in terms of factorization algebras, and outline some results and future directions in the study of boundary chiral algebras for 3d N=4 theories following the work of Costello and Gaiotto.
Given by Dylan Butson.
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Lundi jan 21, 2019Speaker(s):
I will describe some general mathematical structures expected to arise from field theories with boundary conditions in terms of factorization algebras, and outline some results and future directions in the study of boundary chiral algebras for 3d N=4 theories following the work of Costello and Gaiotto.
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Jeudi jan 17, 2019Speaker(s):
Bernstein operators are vertex operators that create and annihilate Schur polynomials. These operators play a significant role in the mathematical formulation of the Boson-Fermion correspondence due to Kac and Frenkel. The role of this correspondence in mathematical physics has been widely studied as it bridges the actions of the infinite Heisenberg and Clifford algebras on Fock space. Cautis and Sussan conjectured a categorification of this correspondence within the framework of Khovanov's Heisenberg category.
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