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Charting the Space of Superconformal Field Theories -- The Power of Quantum Consistency
Special Events| Speaker: | Leonardo Rastelli, Yang Institute for Theoretical Physics, Stony Brook |
| Location: | 432 Physics |
| Start time: | Tue, Mar 17 2015, 1:10PM |
Superconformal field theories (SCFTs) provide the perfect beachhead for a full-scale attack on the space of all quantum field theories. I will argue that an abstract algebraic language is more suited to their study than the conventional framework of QFT, which is based on semiclassical expansions of explicit path integrals. Algebraic consistency is in fact surprisingly powerful, leading both to exact results for supersymmetric observables, and to an effective numerical strategy to determine non-supersymmetric ones. I will emphasize the ideas of theory space and the central role of the six-dimensional (2,0) theory and the four-dimensional non-perturbative dualities tied to its existence.