Archive of IAS Friday High Energy Theory Seminars

We describe the coupling of holomorphic Chern-Simons theory at large N with Kodaira-Spencer gravity. This gives a complete description of open-closed string field theory in the topological B-model. We explain an anomaly cancellation mechanism at all...

We analyze modular invariance drawing inspiration from tauberian
theorems. Given a modular invariant partition function with a positive
spectral density, we derive lower and upper bounds on the number of
operators within a given energy interval. They...

Recently, an exact AdS3/CFT2 duality was proposed. String theory on AdS3xS3xT4 with one unit of pure NS-NS background flux was conjectured to be dual to the symmetric product orbifold of T4. This is established at the level of the full spectrum of...

This talk will review the structure of closed superstring scattering amplitudes with particular emphasis on the constraints imposed by various dualities. This leads to precise determination of the coefficients of low order terms in the low energy...

We review a recent geometric formulation of the tree-level S-matrix of various quantum field theories, including gauge and gravity theories, in terms of intersection numbers of twisted cohomology groups on the moduli space of genus-zero curves with...

Anomalies are invariants under renormalization group flow which lead to powerful constraints on the phases of quantum field theories. I will explain how these ideas can be generalized to families of theories labelled by coupling constants like the...

My talk will aim to be a friendly introduction for condensed matter friends, mathematicians, and QFT theorists alike --- I shall quickly review and warm up the use of higher symmetries and anomalies of gauge theories and condensed matter systems...

Charge transport near quantum critical points partly occur in phases with spontaneously broken symmetries. In an effective field theory approach, this transport can be described in a hydrodynamic theory with Goldstone modes encoding the broken...

I will discuss the contribution of higher-genus surfaces in JT gravity. In work with Saad and Shenker, we use Mirzakhani's recursion and work of Eynard and Orantin to show that these contributions exactly coincide with the genus expansion of a...

Every (2+1) dimensional lattice model with an energy gap is believed to be described by a topological quantum field theory (TQFT) in the low energy, long wavelength limit. What this means concretely is that every lattice model of this kind is...