Seminars of interest to string theorists in Oxford this week


  1. On Monday 27th May at noon in L3, the String seminar

    Volker Braun (Oxford)

    F-Theory Geometric Engineering



  2. On Monday 27th May at 2:15 in L3, the Geometry and Analysis seminar

    Martin Bridgeman (Boston College)

    The Pressure metric for convex Anosov representations

    Abstract: Using thermodynamic formalism we introduce a notion of intersection for convex Anosov representations. We produce an Out-invariant Riemannian metric on the smooth points of the deformation space of convex, irreducible representations of a word hyperbolic group G into SL(m,R) whose Zariski closure contains a generic element. In particular, we produce a mapping class group invariant Riemannian metric on Hitchin components which restricts to the Weil-Petersson metric on the Fuchsian locus. This is joint work with R. Canary, F. Labourie and A. Sambarino.


  3. On Tuesday 28th May at noon in L3, the QFT seminar

    Kai Groh (Nottingham)

    Duality properties of 3-form fields in N=1 supersymmetric models



  4. On Tuesday 28th May, two Algebraic and Symplectic Geometry seminars

    at 2:00 in L1: Kevin McGerty (Oxford)

    Derived equivalences for quantisations of symplectic resolutions


    at 3:45 in L3: Tom Nevins (Illinois)

    Hamiltonian reduction and t-structures in (quantum) symplectic geometry

    Abstract: Many interesting examples of singular symplectic algebraic varieties and their symplectic resolutions are built by Hamiltonian reduction. There is a corresponding construction of "quantum Hamiltonian reduction" which is of substantial interest to representation theorists. It starts from a twisted-equivariant D-module, an analogue of an algebraic vector bundle (or coherent sheaf) on a moment map fiber, and produces an object on the quantum analogue of the symplectic resolution. In order to understand how far apart the quantisation of the singular symplectic variety and its symplectic resolution can be, one wants to know "what gets killed by quantum Hamiltonian reduction?" I will give a precise answer to this question in terms of effective combinatorics. The answer has consequences for exactness of direct images, and thus for t-structures, which I will also explain. The beautiful geometry behind the combinatorics is that of a stratification of a GIT-unstable locus called the "Kirwan-Ness stratification." The lecture will not assume familiarity with D-modules, nor with any previous talks by the speaker or McGerty in this series. The new results are joint work with McGerty.


  5. On Wednesday 29th May at noon in RI0.48, the String Theory bag lunch

    Arthur Lipstein (Oxford)

    Higher spin theories



  6. On Thursday 30th May at 1:00 in the Dalitz Center of DWB, the Particle Theory Journal Club

    Benjamin Niedner (Oxford)

    TBA



  7. On Thursday 30th May at 4:00 in L3, the Number Theory seminar

    Eugen Keil (Bristol)

    On translation invariant quadratic forms

    Abstract: Solutions to translation invariant linear forms in dense sets (for example: k-term arithmetic progressions), have been studied extensively in additive combinatorics and number theory. Finding solutions to translation invariant quadratic forms is a natural generalization and at the same time a simple instance of the hard general problem of solving diophantine equations in unstructured sets. In this talk I will explain how to modify the classical circle method approach to obtain quantitative results for quadratic forms with at least 17 variables.


  8. On Thursday 30th May at 4:15 in the Dennis Sciama Lecture Theatre of DWB, the Thursday Particle and Fields seminar

    Daniel Baumann (Cambridge)

    TBC: Probing high-scale physics with the Planck satellite



  9. On Friday 31st May at 2:00 in the Dennis Sciama Lecture Theatre of DWB, the Theoretical Physics Colloquium

    No Colloquium: even week



  10. On Friday 31st May at 4:15 in the Martin Wood Lecture Theatre of the Clarendon Laboratory, the Physics Colloquium

    No Colloquium



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