Welcome! You have reached the webpage for the UNC / Duke joint String seminar.
In the fall semester 2016, we host the following seminars:
- Thursday, September 15, 2016, 04:00 pm, String Theory Seminar at UNC-CH , Phillips Hall 277
- Dmitri Khveshchenko (UNC-CH),
Demystifying the holographic mystique [abstract]Thus far, in spite of many interesting developments, the overall progress towards a systematic study and classification of the different states of strongly interacting quantum matter has been rather limited. To that end, it was argued that a recent proliferation of the ideas of holographic correspondence originating from string theory might offer a possible way out of the stalemate. However, after almost a decade of intensive attempts to extend the holographic conjecture into a variety of condensed matter problems, the validity of this intriguing approach remains largely unknown. This discussion aims at ascertaining its true (as opposed to the desired) status and elucidating the conditions under which some of its predictions might indeed be right (albeit, possibly, for a wrong reason).
- Thursday, September 22, 2016, 03:00 pm, String Theory Seminar at Duke, Physics 119
- Aron Wall (IAS),
Negative Energy and the Focussing of Light Rays
[abstract, slides]In any quantum field theory, the energy flux at a point of
spacetime can be negative. This would produce a repulsive
gravitational field causing nearby light rays to defocus. This in
turn threatens to produce a variety of exotic phenomena including
traversable wormholes, warp drives, time machines, and evasion of
singularity theorems. I will describe a new "quantum focussing
conjecture" that prevents* such pathologies. In the flat spacetime
limit it reduces to a novel lower bound on the energy density, which
can be proven for several classes of field theories.
*if I have time, I'll explain a loophole which allows traversable
wormholes after all, and explain why it isn't useful for faster then
light travel...
- Thursday, September 29, 2016, 04:00 pm, String Theory Seminar at UNC-CH , Chapman 435
- Tom Hartman (Cornell),
Causality and Null Energy in Strongly Interacting QFTs
- Thursday, October 6, 2016, 03:00 pm, String Theory Seminar at Duke, Physics 119
- Abhijit Gadde (IAS),
Conformal constraints on defects
- Thursday, October 13, 2016, 04:00 pm, String Theory Seminar at UNC-CH , Phillips Hall 277
- Daniel Park (Rutgers),
Application of supersymmetric localization to dualities [abstract]I will review some recent developments in localization techniques of supersymmetric gauge theories, focusing on localization on the omega-deformed A-twisted sphere. I will verify the two-dimensional Seiberg-like dualities of U(N), USp(N) and O(N)/SO(N) gauge theories proposed by Hori by computing correlators on the A-twisted sphere. Based on work with Cyril Closset, Stefano Cremonesi and Noppadol Mekareeya.
- Thursday, November 3, 2016, 04:00 pm, String Theory Seminar at UNC-CH , Phillips Hall 277
- Thursday, November 17, 2016, 04:00 pm, String Theory Seminar at UNC-CH , Phillips Hall 277
- Matthew Baumgart (Rutgers)
Seminar Archive (Videos of archived talks can be played on PCs with Real Player.
For Macs, you will need to download this
file.)
This page is maintained by
Falk Hassler
