Algebraic geometry at the limits of perturbative QFT and dark matter in moduli spaces
- Michael Borinsky, ETH Zurich
Feynman diagrams and the associated integrals are crucial in perturbative quantum field theory for translating theory input into concrete, observable quantities. I will talk about the fascinating interplay of physics and mathematics that emerges from the ensemble of these diagrams. From linear algebra to quantum mechanics or wave phenomena to Fourier analysis - physics and mathematics tend to regularly exchange ideas that often lead to breakthroughs on the other side. I will illustrate two new examples of such exchanges I contributed to. One exchange is from the mathematical theory of tropical geometry to evaluating intricate, physically relevant Feynman integrals that have been inaccessible before. In the second exchange, we used ensembles of Feynman diagrams and their renormalization to prove a long-standing conjecture in geometric group theory. The results give new insights into the 'dark matter'-problem in the moduli spaces of graphs and curves' cohomology. Both these moduli spaces' cohomologies are of fundamental interest in algebraic geometry, topology and geometric group theory.
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