24th Geometry and Physics Colloquia
- Date: 18 September 2024, 13:30–16:00
- Location: Ångström Laboratory, 80101
- Type: Seminar
- Lecturer: Clay Cordova and Nick Sheridan
- Web page
- Organiser: Centre for Geometry and Physics
- Contact person: Maxim Zabzine
At this colloquia we have two distinguished speakers: Prof. Clay Cordova (Chicago U.) and Prof. Nick Sheridan (Edinburgh U). The Colloquia aim at increasing the interaction between physics and mathematics. Both mathematicians and physicists will speak at the Colloquia, and the talks will hopefully be understandable by both communities.
Programme
13:30-14:30 Lecture by Clay Cordova (Chicago U., USA)
Title: Symmetry in Quantum Field Theory
Abstract: Symmetry is a powerful mathematical tool for organizing physical phenomena and anchors our understanding of the laws of nature. Over the past century, the theory of symmetry has evolved in parallel with quantum physics and has become fundamentally intertwined with quantum field theory and topology. Recently, new generalized concepts of symmetry have been developed and rekindled a longstanding hope for a classification of phases of field theories based on patterns of symmetry realization in the vacuum. These novel symmetries may also play a role in addressing long-standing mysteries of particle physics, such as hierarchies in the masses and couplings of elementary particles. I will survey these developments and applications.
14:30-15:00 Coffee and tea
15:00-16:00 Lecture by Nick Sheridan (Edinburgh U, UK)
Title: Quantum cohomology as a deformation of symplectic cohomology
Abstract: When M is a Fano variety and D is an anticanonical divisor in M, mirror symmetry suggests that the quantum cohomology of M should be a deformation of the symplectic cohomology of M \ D. We prove that this holds under even weaker hypotheses on D (although not in general), and explain the consequences for mirror symmetry. We also explain how our methods give rise to interesting symplectic rigidity results for subsets of M. Along the way we hope to give a brief introduction to Varolgunes' `relative symplectic cohomology', which is the key technical tool used to prove our symplectic rigidity results, but which is of far broader significance in symplectic topology and mirror symmetry as it makes the computation of quantum cohomology `local'. This is joint work with Strom Borman, Mohamed El Alami, and Umut Varolgunes.