Higher Geometry and Quantum Field Theory-Graduate Students from US Institutions to Participate in GAP 2013, a Summer School in Pittsburgh, PA, in August 2013

University Of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh PA

Investigators

Abstract

This award is for support of graduate students from US institutions to participate in GAP 2013, a summer school in Pittsburgh, PA, in August 2013. The "Geometry and Physics" (GAP) summer school series has been running successfully for over ten years in various locations around the world. The organizers are planning to host this school in the USA for the first time. The theme of this school will be higher geometry involving some notion of higher categories. Such structures have started to become central in the description of various objects in quantum field theory, string theory and M-theory. For example, stacks and higher gerbes, higher differential characters, and n-bundles, all require categorical notions. The goal of the summer school is to expose students to new and hot ideas of research and provide them the tools needed to attack problems in this area. The main lecturers are leading experts in this area and are excellent expositors. The broader impacts of the activity include training a new generation of students in this interesting and fast-growing area of research. The school has been running outside the US for ten years and the organizers would like to bring it back to the US, thus making it easier for US-based students to benefit from such a useful meeting. The interactions among participants often lead to new collaborations as well as continuation of existing ones. The meeting will be interdisciplinary and the list of speakers will include researchers in various areas such as algebraic topology, differential geometry, algebraic geometry, mathematical physics, and theoretical physics. This will help make more connections among such areas.