CMSA Member Seminar Speaker: Robert Moscrop, Harvard CMSA Title: On the landscape of 4d N=2 SCFTs Abstract: Four-dimensional conformal field theories with sufficient (N = 2) supersymmetry are highly constrained. So much so, there has been an ongoing effort to classify them using only information about their moduli space of vacua. In this talk, I will review […]
General Relativity Seminar Speaker: Mikhail Molodyk, Stanford Title: An analogue of non-interacting quantum field theory in Riemannian signature Abstract: Recent advances using microlocal tools have led to constructions, for wave operators on various classes of spacetimes, of four distinguished Fredholm inverses which have the singular behavior required of retarded, advanced, Feynman, and anti-Feynman propagators in QFT. Vasy […]
Quantum Matter in Mathematics and Physics Seminar Speaker: Junyi Zhang, Johns Hopkins University Title: Improving Mean-Field Theory for Quantum Magnets Abstract: Frustrated magnets have garnered significant attention because of their potential to host exotic spin liquids, while many real material candidates exhibit magnetic orders. Due to their proximity to spin liquid phases, the semiclassical descriptions […]
Colloquium Speaker: Madhu Sudan, Harvard University Title: Errors and Correction in Cumulative Knowledge Abstract: Societal accumulation of knowledge is a complex, and arguably error-prone, process. The correctness of new units of knowledge depends not only on the correctness of the new reasoning, but also on the correctness of old units that the new one builds […]
CMSA Member Seminar Speaker: Jue Liu Title: Quasilocal mass for general domains in space Abstract: Diffeomorphism-invariant quasilocal mass in classical general relativity has been studied for decades, but it is still an open problem how to define quasi-local mass for general domains with multiple boundaries in space. Using the Hamiltonian formulation, we will provide a new way […]
Mathematical Aspects of Scattering Amplitudes Lecture Speaker: James Drummond, University of Southampton Title: Multiple light-like Wilson loops in N=4 super Yang-Mills theory
Mathematical Aspects of Scattering Amplitudes Lecture Speaker: Matteo Parisi, Harvard CMSA Title: The amplituhedron and cluster algebras
Algebraic Geometry in String Theory Seminar Speaker: Franco Rota, University of Glasgow Title: Mirror symmetry and log del Pezzo surfaces Abstract: The homological mirror symmetry conjecture predicts a duality, expressed in terms of categorical equivalences, between the complex geometry of a variety X (the B side) and the symplectic geometry of its mirror object Y (the A side). Motivated […]
Active Matter Seminar Speaker: Kevin Mitchell, University of California, Merced Title: Controlling chaotic advection in 2D active nematics Abstract: Recent years have seen a surge of interest in active materials, in which energy injected at the microscale gives rise to mesoscale coherent motion. One prominent example is an active 2D "liquid crystal" composed of microtubules in […]
Speaker: Partha Guha, Khalifa University, Abu Dhabi Title: Geometry of Generalized Lienard Equations, Contact Geometry and Metriplectic Structure Abstract: We start with a self-contained brief review of the construction of non-standard Lagrangian and Hamiltonian structures using the Jacobi Last Multiplier for the (generalized) reduced Lienard equations satisfying Chiellini integrability condition, we then explore its connection […]
Quantum Matter in Mathematics and Physics Seminar Speaker: Mikhail Ivanov (MIT) Title: Love and Naturalness Abstract: Recent progress in gravitational wave astronomy has spurred the development of efficient tools to describe gravitational binary dynamics. One such tool is classical worldline effective field theory (EFT). In the first part of my talk, I will show how to […]
Mathematical Aspects of Scattering Amplitudes Lecture Speaker: Michael Borinsky, ETH Zurich Title: On the Euler characteristic of the commutative graph complex and the top-weight cohomology of the moduli space of curves