Archive of IAS Physics Group Meetings

We will prove a conjecture [1] on upper bound of asymptotic gap in dimension in unitary compact 2D CFT, proving it to be 1 using a "extremal" function [2]. The notion of asymptotic gap can be generalized to (h, \bar{h}) plane [3]. We will discuss...

Suggested reading:
Marc Mars, Present Status of the Penrose Inequality, arXiv:0906.5566
Netta Engelhardt and Gary Horowitz, A Holographic Argument for the Penrose Inequality in AdS, arXiv:1903.00555
Quantum Penrose Inequality, arXiv:1908.02755

The physics of systems with quenched random disorder reveals behavior qualitatively different from that found in systems with translational symmetry, continuous or discrete. The seminal work by Anderson over six decades back [1] established the...

We consider supersymmetric twist and omega deformation of a type IIB brane setup involving N D3 and K D5 branes. In the large N limit, this leads to a holographic duality between two topological/holomorphic theories. We compute certain operator...

We review some infinite dimensional symmetries that appear in dimensionally reduced classical general relativity. Reducing from d=4 to d=2 gives a two dimensional nonlinear sigma model with an infinite dimensional affine Kac-Moody symmetry called...

I will review some old ideas about the duality between matrix models and Liouville theory coupled to a (p,q) minimal model. In this approach t'Hooft diagrams of the matrix model are thought of as a discretization of a 2d surface. Fine-tuning of the...

The EHT Collaboration has recently published images of the supermassive black hole in M87. The images are dominated by a bright ring-like structure with an angular brightness asymmetry. While the diameter of this ring is resolved by the EHT, its...

Gauge/gravity duality relates certain strongly coupled CFTs with large effective central charge to semi-classical gravitational theories with AdS asymptotics. I will describe recent progress in understanding gravity duals for CFTs on non-trivial...

I will discuss recent progress about the Cardy-like asymptotics of 4d supersymmetric index on S^3, also known as superconformal index. The main observation is that Bose-Fermi cancellation that trivializes the asymptotic expression of the index can...