# String Seminars

This series consists of talks in the area of Superstring Theory.

## Seminar Series Events/Videos

Currently there are no upcoming talks in this series.

## Emergent supersymmetry and holographic non-Fermi liquid

Wednesday Dec 03, 2008
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Understanding dynamics of strongly coupled quantum field theories is an important problem in both condensed matter physics and high energy physics. In condensed matter systems, interacting quantum field theories can arise either at a critical point, or in a finite region of a parameter space. In the former case, massless modes arise as a result of fine tuning of external parameters, while, in the latter case, massless modes are protected by topology and/or symmetry.

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## Meson widths from string worldsheet instantons.

Tuesday Nov 25, 2008
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We discuss various properties of holographic mesons in a deconfined strongly coupled plasma. We show that such mesons obtain a width from a non-perturbative effect. On the string theory side this is due to open string modes on a D-brane tunneling into a black hole through worldsheet instantons. On the field theory side these instantons have the simple interpretation as heavy thermal quarks. We also comment on how this non-perturbative effect has important consequences for the phase structure of the Yang-Mills theory obtained in the classical gravity limit.

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## Non-conformal holography

Tuesday Nov 18, 2008
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We discuss holography for geometries that are asymptotic to non-conformal brane backgrounds. The near-horizon limit of all non-conformal branes, including D-branes and the fundamental string but excluding five-branes, is conformal to $AdS_{p+2} imes S^{8-p}$ with a linear dilaton. They exhibit a generalized conformal structure, both on the QFT and on the gravitational side. We develop holographic renormalization for all these cases and discuss a number of applications.

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## Generating Tree Amplitudes in N=4 SYM and N=8 Super-Gravity

Tuesday Nov 11, 2008
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TBA

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## Torsion and the Holography of Parity Breaking

Thursday Nov 06, 2008
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TBA

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## SUSY breaking and gauge mediation in G-Theory GUTs

Tuesday Nov 04, 2008

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Tuesday Oct 28, 2008
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TBA

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## Reflecting magnons from D-branes

Tuesday Oct 21, 2008
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The discovery of integrability in the large N limit of the prototypical realization of the AdS/CFT correspondence has raised the hope that the spectrum of scale dimensions in N=4 SYM (and strings in AdS_5 x S^5) might be known exactly, i.e. to all orders in the coupling constant. So far, most of the efforts focused on closed strings and periodic boundary conditions. In this talk I will discuss how these ideas are extended to open string and open boundary conditions.

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## Q7-branes in type IIB string theory

Tuesday Oct 14, 2008
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We review basic properties of effective worldvolume theory describing the dynamics of Dirichlet branes in type II supergravity backgrounds and then show that the SL(2,R) symmetry of IIB supergravity allows for the existence of new supersymmetric 7-brane configurations called Q7-branes. The Q7-branes differ from the D7-branes, in particular, by their coupling to the dilaton, axion and to `magnetic\' gauge field duals thereof.

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## Anthropic explanation of the dark matter abundance in models with high-scale axions

Tuesday Oct 07, 2008
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## RECENT PUBLIC LECTURE

### Mario Livio: Brilliant Blunders

Speaker: Mario Livio