802 publications from this institution
These notes provide an introduction to recent work by Kevin Costello in which integrable lattice models of classical statistical mechanics in two dimensions are understood in terms of quantum gauge theory in four dimensions. This construction will be compared to the more familiar relationship between quantum knot invariants in three dimensions and Chern-Simons gauge theory. (Based on a Whittaker Colloquium at the University of Edinburgh and a lecture at Strings 2016 in Beijing.)
Certain perturbative aspects of two-dimensional sigma models with (0, 2) supersymmetry are investigated. The main goal is to understand in physical terms how the mathematical theory of “chiral differential operators” is related to sigma models. In the process, we obtain, for example, an understanding of the one-loop beta function in terms of holomorphic data. A companion paper will study nonperturbative behavior of these theories.
Twistor Geometry And Field Theory. By R. S. Ward. and Raymond O. Wells Jr. Cambridge University Press: 1990. Pp.520. £50, $79.50.
No abstract is provided for this article.
A new mathematical framework for the Wess-Zumino chiral effective action is described. It is shown that this action obeys an a priori quantization law, analogous to Dirac's quantization of magnetic change. It incorporates in current algebra both perturbative and non-perturbative anomalies.
It has been shown recently that by turning on a large noncommutativity parameter, the description of tachyon condensation in string theory can be drastically simplified. We reconsider these issues from the standpoint of string field theory, showing that, from this point of view, the key fact is that in the limit of a large B-field, the string field algebra factors as the product of an algebra that acts on the string center of mass only and an algebra that acts on all other degrees of freedom carried by the string.
Most particle physicists now believe that protons, neutrons, and other strongly interacting particles are built from more basic constituents known as “quarks” and “gluons,” which interact according to the rules of a relativistic quantum field theory known as “quantum chromodynamics.”
No abstract is provided for this article.
The partition function of Ramond-Ramond p-form fields in Type IIA supergravity on a ten-manifold X contains subtle phase factors that are associated with T-duality, self-duality, and the relation of the RR fields to K-theory.The analogous partition function of M-theory on X x S 1 contains subtle phases that are similarly associated with E% gauge theory.We analyze the detailed phase factors on the two sides and show that they agree, thereby testing M-theory/Type IIA duality as well as the Jf-theory formalism in an interesting way.We also show that certain .D-brane states wrapped on nontrivial homology cycles are actually unstable, that (-1) FL symmetry in Type IIA superstring theory depends in general on a cancellation between a fermion anomaly and an anomaly of RR fields, and that Type IIA superstring theory with no wrapped branes is well-defined only on a spacetime with W*? = 0.
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It has been shown that the N matrix model two-dimensional gravity is related to certain topological field theories obtained by twisting the N = 2 minimal models. In this paper, the latter theories are studied by realizing them as gauged WZW models. This leads to an algebrogeometric description of the topological correlation functions from which many of their standard properties can be recovered. We find that in a certain sense the model at level k, with k analytically continued to −3, is equivalent to the Penner model (which computes the Euler characteristic of the moduli space of Riemann surfaces). We also gain better understanding of formulas of Lerche, Vafa, and Warner; Gepner; and Spiegelglas.
This article aims to explain some of the basic facts about the questions raised in the title, without the technical details that are available in the literature. We provide a gentle introduction to some rather classical results about quantum field theory in curved spacetime and about the thermodynamic limit of quantum statistical mechanics. We also briefly explain that these results have an analog in the large N limit of gauge theory.
We analyze the conformal invariance of submanifold observables associated with k-branes in the AdS/CFT correspondence. For odd k, the resulting obsrvables are conformally invariant, and for even k, they transform with a conformal anomaly that is given by a local expression which we analyze in detail for k = 2.
No abstract is provided for this article.
These notes aim to provide an introduction to the basics of black hole thermodynamics. After explaining Bekenstein's original proposal that black holes have entropy, we discuss Hawking's discovery of black hole radiation, its analog for Rindler space in the Unruh effect, the Euclidean approach to black hole thermodynamics, some basics about von Neumann entropy and its applications, the Ryu-Takayanagi formula, and the nature of a white hole.
No abstract is provided for this article.
We study effects associated with the chiral anomaly for a cascading $\mathrm{SU}(N+M)\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}\mathrm{SU}(N)$ gauge theory using gauge/gravity duality. In the gravity dual the anomaly is a classical feature of the supergravity solution, and the breaking of the $U(1) R$ symmetry down to ${\mathbf{Z}}_{2M}$ proceeds via the Higgs mechanism.
