GP Seminar: Symmetries of string-constructed QFTs

Abstract: Symmetry considerations are key to understanding quantum field theories (QFTs). Many QFTs admit extra-dimensional constructions in string theory and recent work has focussed on characterizing their symmetries directly from this extra-dimensional data. In this talk we will consider QFTs realized via purely geometric string theory backgrounds. We discuss how to characterize symmetries via topological field theories (TFTs) in higher dimensions, whose topological operators admit direct string constructions. For d-dimensional QFTs these TFTs are at least (d+1)-dimensional and are glued together according to the orbifold data of the string background. This will for example result in structures known as SymTrees. We discuss applications of these symmetry considerations.

This is a seminar in our seminar series on Geometry and Physics (GP).