CRM 2015 Thematic Semester: AdS/CFT, Holography, Integrability

Indiana University, Bloomington IN

Investigators

Abstract

This award supports participation by US-based researchers in two workshops that are parts of a Thematic Semester on the Anti-de-Sitter/Conformal Field Theory (AdS/CFT) correspondence. The Thematic Semester will be held at the Centre de Recherches Mathématiques (CRM) in Montreal, Canada. The term "AdS/CFT correspondence" refers to a remarkable connection between two major directions in modern theoretical physics, string theory and Yang-Mills theory. The study of this correspondence is intimately related to some of the most fundamental questions in contemporary theoretical physics, such as the formation of black holes and early-universe cosmology. The topic also has applications to quantum chromodynamics and condensed matter physics. The objective of this project is to support the participation of junior US researchers in two workshops organized within this thematic semester: "Positive Grassmannians: Applications to integrable systems and super Yang-Mills scattering amplitudes," held July 27 - 31, 2015, and "Module spaces, integrable systems, and topological recursion," held January 9 - 13, 2016. The planned semester at the Centre de Recherches Mathématiques will represent the state of the art in the studies of the Anti-de-Sitter/Conformal Field Theory (AdS/CFT) correspondence. A special focus will be those aspects of the AdS/CFT correspondence that allow for exact solutions, such as the appearance of integrability in the planar limit of super-Yang-Mills theory, lower dimensional models, higher-spin theories, as well as topological field and topological string theories. The semester will be a unique forum that brings researchers with expertise in the AdS/CFT correspondence together with experts in integrability. This interdisciplinary activity will involve participation of many distinguished mathematicians, physicists, and mathematical physicists. The semester will provide training in these very important domains for a significant number of junior US researchers (postdocs, junior faculty, and graduate students) who participate. More detailed description of the workshops supported by this award can be found in the webpages: http://www.crm.umontreal.ca/2015/Amplitudes15/index_e.php http://www.crm.umontreal.ca/2016/Moduli16/index_e.php The description of the entire thematic semester is presented in the webpage: http://www.crm.umontreal.ca/Holography2015/