On October 4th and October 5th, 2021, Harvard CMSA hosted the annual Math Science Lectures in Honor of Raoul Bott. This year’s speaker was Michael Freedman (Microsoft). The lectures took place on Zoom. This will be the third annual lecture series held in honor of Raoul Bott. Lecture 1 October 4th, 11:00am (Boston time) Title: The Universe from a […]
Speaker: David Jordan (U Edinburgh) Title: Langlands duality for 3 manifolds Abstract: Langlands duality began as a deep and still mysterious conjecture in number theory, before branching into a similarly deep and mysterious conjecture of Beilinson and Drinfeld concerning the algebraic geometry of Riemann surfaces. In this guise it was given a physical explanation in the framework of 4-dimensional super […]
Title: Oscillations in the thermal conductivity of a spin liquid* Abstract: The layered honeycomb magnet alpha-RuCl3 orders below 7 K in a zigzag phase in zero field. An in-plane magnetic field H||a suppresses the zigzag order at 7 Tesla, leaving a spin-disordered phase widely believed to be a quantum spin liquid (QSL) that extends to […]
Title: Applications of instantons, sphalerons and instanton-dyons in QCD Abstract: I start with a general map of gauge topology, including monopoles, instantons and instanton-dyons. Then comes reminder of the “topological landscape”, the minimal energy gauge field configurations, as a function of Chern-Simons number Ncs and r.m.s. size. It includes “valleys” at integer Ncs separated by […]
Speaker: Michael Simkin, Harvard CMSA Title: The number of n-queens configurations Abstract: The n-queens problem is to determine Q(n), the number of ways to place n mutually non-threatening queens on an n x n board. The problem has a storied history and was studied by such eminent mathematicians as Gauss and Polya. The problem has also […]
Title: Symmetry types in QFT and the CRT theorem Abstract: I will discuss ideas around symmetry and Wick rotation contained in joint work with Mike Hopkins (https://arxiv.org/abs/1604.06527). This includes general symmetry types for relativistic field theories and their Wick rotation. I will then indicate how the basic CRT theorem works for general symmetry types, focusing […]
Speaker: Nima Arkani-Hamed, IAS Title: Surfacehedra and the Binary Positive Geometry of Particle and “String” Amplitudes
Title: Strong Coupling Theory of Magic-Angle Graphene: A Pedagogical Introduction Abstract: In this talk, I will review a recently developed strong coupling theory of magic-angle twisted bilayer graphene. An advantage of this approach is that a single formulation can capture both the insulating and superconducting states, and with a few simplifying assumptions, can be treated […]
Title: The Hilbert Space of large N Chern-Simons matter theories Abstract: We demonstrate that all known formulae for the thermal partition function for large N Chern Simons matter theory admit a simple Hilbert Space interpretation. In each case this quantity equals the partition function of an associated ungauged large $N$ matter theory with a particular […]
Title: Three-particle mechanism for pairing and superconductivity Abstract: I will present a new mechanism and an exact theory of electron pairing due to repulsive interaction in doped insulators. When the kinetic energy is small, the dynamics of adjacent electrons on the lattice is strongly correlated. By developing a controlled kinetic energy expansion, I will show […]
Speaker: Tian Yang (Texas A&M University) Title: Hyperbolic Geometry and Quantum Invariants Abstract: There are two very different approaches to 3-dimensional topology, the hyperbolic geometry following the work of Thurston and the quantum invariants following the work of Jones and Witten. These two approaches are related by a sequence of problems called the Volume Conjectures. In this talk, I […]
Title: More Exact Results in Gauge Theories: Confinement and Chiral Symmetry Breaking Abstract: In this follow-up to Hitoshi Murayama’s talk “Some Exact Results in QCD-like and Chiral Gauge Theories”, I present a detailed analysis of the phases of $SO(N_c)$ gauge theory. Starting with supersymmetric $SO(N_c)$ with $N_F$ flavors, we extrapolate to the non-supersymmetric limit using […]