802 publications from this institution
Geometric Langlands duality is usually formulated as a statement about Riemann surfaces, but it can be naturally understood as a consequence of electric-magnetic duality of four-dimensional gauge theory. This duality in turn is naturally understood as a consequence of the existence of a certain exotic supersymmetric conformal field theory in six dimensions. The same six-dimensional theory also gives a useful framework for understanding some recent mathematical results involving a counterpart of geometric Langlands duality for complex surfaces. (This article is based on a lecture at the Raoul Bott celebration, Montreal, June 2008.)
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Surface operators in gauge theory are analogous to Wilson and 't Hooft line operators except that they are supported on a two-dimensional surface rather than a one-dimensional curve. In a previous paper, we constructed a certain class of half-BPS surface operators in N=4 super Yang-Mills theory, and determined how they transform under S-duality. Those surface operators depend on a relatively large number of freely adjustable parameters. In the present paper, we consider the opposite case of half-BPS surface operators that are ``rigid'' in the sense that they do not depend on any parameters at all. We present some simple constructions of rigid half-BPS surface operators and attempt to determine how they transform under duality. This attempt is only partially successful, suggesting that our constructions are not the whole story. The partial match suggests interesting connections with quantization. We discuss some possible refinements and some string theory constructions which might lead to a more complete picture.
The Nahm pole boundary condition for certain gauge theory equations in four and five dimensions is defined by requiring that a solution should have a specified singularity along the boundary. In the present paper, we show that this boundary condition is elliptic and has regularity properties analogous to more standard elliptic boundary conditions. We also establish a uniqueness theorem for the solution of the relevant equations on a half-space with Nahm pole boundary conditions. These results are expected to have a generalization involving knots, with applications to the Jones polynomial and Khovanov homology.
This paper is devoted to a systematic discussion of the supersymmetric index Tr (-1)^F for the minimal supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory -- with any simple gauge group G -- primarily in four spacetime dimensions. The index has refinements that probe confinement and oblique confinement and the possible spontaneous breaking of chiral symmetry and of global symmetries, such as charge conjugation, that are derived from outer automorphisms of the gauge group. Predictions for the index and its refinements are obtained on the basis of standard hypotheses about the infrared behavior of gauge theories. The predictions are confirmed via microscopic calculations which involve a Born-Oppenheimer computation of the spectrum as well as mathematical formulas involving triples of commuting elements of G and the Chern-Simons invariants of flat bundles on the three-torus.
Let $G$ be a simple and simply connected complex Lie group. We discuss the moduli space of holomorphic semistable principal $G$ bundles over an elliptic curve $E$. In particular we give a new proof of a theorem of Looijenga and Bernshtein-Shvartsman, that the moduli space is a weighted projective space. The method of proof is to study the deformations of certain unstable bundles coming from special maximal parabolic subgroups of $G$. We also discuss the associated automorphism sheaves and universal bundles, as well as the relation between various universal bundles and spectral covers.
Von Neumann entropy has a natural extension to the case of an arbitrary semifinite von Neumann algebra, as was considered by I. E. Segal. We relate this entropy to the relative entropy and show that the entropy increase for an inclusion of von Neumann factors is bounded by the logarithm of the Jones index. The bound is optimal if the factors are infinite dimensional.
These notes are based on lectures at the PSSCMP/PiTP summer school that was held at Princeton University and the Institute for Advanced Study in July, 2015. They are devoted largely to topological phases of matter that can be understood in terms of free fermions and band theory. They also contain an introduction to the fractional quantum Hall effect from the point of view of effective field theory.
The 1/N expansion in atomic physics is explained in order to motivate consideration of the 1/N expansion in QCD. Some comments are made concerning possible future development of the 1/N expansion in QCD.
We re-examine quantization via branes with the goal of understanding its relation to geometric quantization. If a symplectic manifold $M$ can be quantized in geometric quantization using a polarization ${\mathcal P}$, and in brane quantization using a complexification $Y$, then the two quantizations agree if ${\mathcal P}$ can be analytically continued to a holomorphic polarization of $Y$. We also show, roughly, that the automorphism group of $M$ that is realized as a group of symmetries in brane quantization of $M$ is the group of symplectomorphisms of $M$ that can be analytically continued to holomorphic symplectomorphisms of $Y$. We describe from the point of view of brane quantization several examples in which geometric quantization with different polarizations gives equivalent results.
No abstract is provided for this article.
These are notes on the theory of super Riemann surfaces and their moduli spaces, aiming to collect results that are useful for a better understanding of superstring perturbation theory in the RNS formalism.
A bstract In the AdS/CFT correspondence, amplitudes associated to connected bulk manifolds with disconnected boundaries have presented a longstanding mystery. A possible interpretation is that they reflect the effects of averaging over an ensemble of boundary theories. But in examples in dimension D ≥ 3, an appropriate ensemble of boundary theories does not exist. Here we sharpen the puzzle by identifying a class of “fixed energy” or “sub-threshold” observables that we claim do not show effects of ensemble averaging. These are amplitudes that involve states that are above the ground state by only a fixed amount in the large N limit, and in particular are far from being black hole states. To support our claim, we explore the example of D = 3, and show that connected solutions of Einstein’s equations with disconnected boundary never contribute to these observables. To demonstrate this requires some novel results about the renormalized volume of a hyperbolic three-manifold, which we prove using modern methods in hyperbolic geometry. Why then do any observables show apparent ensemble averaging? We propose that this reflects the chaotic nature of black hole physics and the fact that the Hilbert space describing a black hole does not have a large N limit.
We study four dimensional $N=2$ supersymmetric gauge theories on $R^3 \times S^1$ with a circle of radius $R$. They interpolate between four dimensional gauge theories ($R=\infty$) and $N=4$ supersymmetric gauge theories in three dimensions ($R=0$). The vacuum structure can be determined quite precisely as a function of $R$, agreeing with three and four-dimensional results in the two limits.
No abstract is provided for this article.
Knowing that a four-dimensional theory with gauge group G0 is unified in a theory with gauge group G puts restrictions on what global symmetries are possible in the low-energy world. Here we analyze those restrictions assuming that unification in G occurs in four dimensions and assuming that unification occurs only in a higher-dimensional theory. There are possibilities for global symmetries which are not possible in the former case, so in principle indirect evidence for higher dimensions might be found by finding peculiar global symmetries in the low-energy world.
