## Directions

Imperial College has its own detailed information on general directions and on getting to the theoretical physics group. The College is located on Prince Consort Road, south of Hyde Park (map). The most convenient access is via tube (South Kensington, Gloucester Road) or buses. The Theoretical Physics group resides on the 5th floor of the Huxley Building. The group also possesses its own description.

## Seminars at Imperial College

Found at least 20 result(s)

### 08.06.2015 (Monday)

#### Warped Conformal Field Theory as Lower Spin Gravity

Regular Seminar Diego Hofman (UVA)

 at: 15:00 ICroom H503 abstract: Two dimensional Warped Conformal Field Theories (WCFTs) may represent the simplest examples of field theories without Lorentz invariance that can be described holographically. As such they constitute a natural window into holography in non AdS space-times, including the near horizon geometry of generic extremal black holes. I’ll explain that WCFTs posses a type of boost symmetry. Using this insight, I’ll discuss how to couple these theories to background geometry. This geometry is not Riemannian. We call it Warped Geometry and it turns out to be a variant of a Newton-Cartan structure with additional scaling symmetries. With this formalism the equivalent of Weyl invariance in these theories will be discussed as well as examples of WCFTs. Lastly I’ll present a systematic description of the holographic duals of WCFTs. I’ll argue that the minimal setup is not Einstein gravity but an SL(2,R) x U(1) Chern-Simons Theory, which we call Lower Spin Gravity.

### 03.06.2015 (Wednesday)

#### Reconstructing holography as a RG flow

Regular Seminar Ayan Mukhopadhyay (CCTP and CCQCN, University of Crete)

 at: 14:00 ICroom H503 abstract: I will argue that the holographic correspondence can be reconstructed in the large N and strongly interacting limit as a specific generalisation of Wilsonian RG flow, which can be defined via three simple principles. I will also give an explicit example for such a reconstruction, where dual non-linear classical gravity equations in the long wavelength approximation will emerge from specific kinds of coarse graining of hydrodynamics in the field theory.

### 27.05.2015 (Wednesday)

#### Entanglement Entropy in Massive Quantum Field Theories

Regular Seminar Olalla Castro Alvaredo (City U.)

 at: 14:00 ICroom B1004 abstract: In this talk I will review some of the main results of my research in this area, which stated in 2007 in collaboration with John L. Cardy and Benjamin Doyon. I will emphasise how a special type of field we have named branch point twist field has become an essential tool for performing computations of the entanglement entropy in non-critical systems. I will show how the relationship between correlators of twist fields and entanglement entropy allows us to recover well-known results for critical systems but also to predict new results for theories with a finite correlation length. Time permitting, I will mention some more recent results extending our understanding to non-unitary critical and non-critical systems.

### 19.05.2015 (Tuesday)

#### Extremal chiral ring states in AdS/CFT are described by free fermions

Regular Seminar David Berenstein (UCSB)

 at: 13:30 ICroom B1004 abstract: Half BPS states (operators) in N=4 SYM are famously described by free fermions both at weak and strong coupling. I describe a set of conjectures for a preferred class of states in more general conformal field theories that can be tested in supergravity for when such a free fermion description might arise and some motivation for it applying generally. The states in question belong to the chiral ring of a supersymmetric conformal field theory that extremize an additional U(1) charge for fixed dimension and can be reduced to multi-traces of a composite matrix field, which is equivalent to using Young tableaux (Schur polynomials) as a basis. The main conjecture asserts that if the Young tableaux are orthogonal, then the set of extremal three point functions of traces to order 1/N are determined up to a single constant. The conjecture is extended further by providing an exact norm for the Schur basis and this norm arises from a set of free fermions for a generalized oscillator algebra.

### 12.05.2015 (Tuesday)

#### Entanglement entropy in a holographic model of the Kondo effect

Regular Seminar Mario Flory (Max-Planck Institute)

 at: 15:30 ICroom H503 abstract: My starting point is a holographic model of the Kondo effect recently proposed by Erdmenger et. al., i.e. of a magnetic impurity interacting with a strongly coupled system. Specifically, I focus on the challenges of computing gravitational backreaction in this model, which demands a study of the Israel junction conditions. I present general results on these junction conditions, including analytical solutions for certain toy models, that may be relevant also more generally in the AdS/boundary CFT correspondence. Furthermore, similar junction conditions for a bulk Chern-Simons field appearing in the holographic Kondo model are discussed. I then focus on the computation and interpretation of entanglement entropy in this holographic model.

### 30.04.2015 (Thursday)

#### Correlation functions of conserved currents in 3-dimensional superconformal theories

Exceptional Seminar Evgeny Buchbinder (University of Western Australia)

 at: 14:00 ICroom H503 abstract:

### 29.04.2015 (Wednesday)

#### Supersymmetric gauge theories on five-manifolds

Regular Seminar Paul Richmond (Oxford)

 at: 14:00 ICroom B1004 abstract: I will discuss how to construct rigid supersymmetric gauge theories on Riemannian five-manifolds following a holographic approach. This approach realises the five-manifold as the conformal boundary of a six-dimensional bulk supergravity solution and leads to a systematic classification of five-dimensional supersymmetric backgrounds with gravity duals. The background metric is furnished with a conformal Killing vector, which generates a transversely holomorphic foliation with a transverse Hermitian structure. Finally, I’ll also construct supersymmetric Lagrangians for gauge theories coupled to arbitrary matter on such backgrounds.

### 18.03.2015 (Wednesday)

#### Partition function on Hopf surfaces and Casimir energy

Regular Seminar Benjamin Assel (Kings College)

 at: 14:00 ICroom H503 abstract: I will discuss the partition function of 4d N=1 theories on Hopf surfaces. These are diffeomorphic to S^1 x S^3 and the partition function provides a path integral realization of the supersymmetric index. Its large S^1 limit exhibits a universal behaviour associated to the existence of a Casimir energy. I will argue that, contrarily to the non-supersymmetric case, this Casimir energy is a physical (non-ambiguous) quantity in supersymmetric theories.

### 04.03.2015 (Wednesday)

#### Lessons from crossing symmetry at large N

Regular Seminar Tomasz Lukowski (Oxford)

 at: 14:00 ICroom H503 abstract: In this talk I will discuss how to construct all solutions consistent with crossing symmetry in the limit of large central charge c ~ N^2, starting from the four-point correlator of the stress tensor multiplet in N=4 SYM. Unitarity forces the introduction of a scale \Delta_{gap} and these solutions organize as a double expansion in 1/c and 1/\Delta_{gap}. These solutions are valid to leading order in 1/c and to all orders in 1/\Delta_{gap} and reproduce, in particular, instanton corrections previously found. Comparison with such instanton computations allows to fix \Delta_{gap}. Using this gap scale one can explain the upper bounds for the scaling dimension of unprotected operators observed in the numerical superconformal bootstrap at large central charge.

### 25.02.2015 (Wednesday)

#### Supergravity as a Consistent Quantum Theory?

Regular Seminar Tristan Dennen (NBI)

 at: 14:00 ICroom H503 abstract: Supergravity theories were once hoped to provide ultraviolet finite theories of quantum gravity without requiring profoundly new physical frameworks. These hopes faded in the 1980s, but renewed efforts in recent years have uncovered some surprising ultraviolet behaviour. In this talk, I will give an overview of the explicit scattering amplitude calculations in perturbative supergravity over the last few years. In particular cases, there are indications of ultraviolet cancellations not accounted for by known symmetry arguments. I will highlight these cases and give some reasons to be optimistic and some reasons to be pessimistic about supergravity as a contender for a quantum theory of gravity.

### 18.02.2015 (Wednesday)

#### lambda-deformations

Regular Seminar Kostas Sfetsos (University of Athens)

 at: 14:00 ICroom H503 abstract: We review the construction of the so-called λ-deformations of WZW and gauged WZW models. We discuss their integrability and algebraic properties, their behavior under RG flows as well as their embeddings to type-II supergravity.

### 12.02.2015 (Thursday)

#### Constraining Asymptotically Safe Inflation with cosmological observations

Exceptional Seminar Alfio Bonanno (INAF/INFN)

 at: 12:00 ICroom H503 abstract:

### 04.02.2015 (Wednesday)

#### New AdS/CFT duals through non-Abelian T-duality

Regular Seminar Yolanda Lozano (Oviedo)

 at: 14:00 ICroom H503 abstract: We will present new AdS_6 and AdS_4 backgrounds constructed using non-Abelian T-duality on known solutions and discuss some properties of the dual CFTs associated to these backgrounds.

### 28.01.2015 (Wednesday)

#### Euclidean Quantum Supergravity

Regular Seminar David Tong (Cambridge)

 at: 14:00 ICroom H503 abstract: I'll revisit some old of ideas of Euclidean quantum gravity, in which manifolds of different topology are summed in the path integral. I'll show that, in certain circumstances, gravitational instantons can destabilise supersymmetric Kaluza-Klein compactifications. We'll also see how one-loop divergences in quantum gravity can be subsumed into a new RG-invariant topological scale.

### 14.01.2015 (Wednesday)

#### Deforming the AdS(5)xS(5) superstring inspired by Pohlmeyer reduction

Regular Seminar Luis Miramontes (Santiago)

 at: 14:00 ICroom H503 abstract: The S-matrix of the world-sheet theory of the string in AdS(5)xS(5) is known to admit a deformation where the original symmetry algebra is replaced by the associated quantum group. The case where q, the deformation parameter, is real has been identified as a particular deformation of the Green-Schwarz sigma model known as the "eta-deformation". The case with q a root of unity interpolates between the AdS(5)xS(5) world-sheet theory and its Pohlmeyer reduction. However, an interpretation of this case is still lacking. We will summarize recent work aimed to show that sigma models on (semi-)symmetric spaces F/G admit discrete integrable deformations that can be viewed as deformations of the F/F gauged WZW model. For the AdS(5)xS(5) world-sheet theory, F=PSU(2,2|4) and the resulting theory has just the right amount of kappa-symmetries, which points to the existence of a new fully consistent deformed string background.

### 17.12.2014 (Wednesday)

#### Local Poisson brackets in classical field theory

Regular Seminar Ezra Getzler (Northwestern)

 at: 14:00 ICroom H503 abstract:

### 16.12.2014 (Tuesday)

#### Gravity as gauge theory squared: from amplitudes to black holes

Regular Seminar Ricardo Monteiro (Oxford U., Inst. Math.)

 at: 13:30 ICroom Huxley 503 abstract: We will discuss the relation between perturbative gauge theory and perturbative gravity, and look at how this relation extends to some exact classical solutions. First, we will review the double copy prescription that takes gauge theory amplitudes into gravity amplitudes, which has been crucial to progress in perturbative studies of supergravity. Then, we will see that the self-dual sectors provide an important insight into the relation between the theories. A key role is played by a kinematic algebraic structure mirroring the colour structure. Finally, we will see how these ideas extend to some exact classical solutions, namely black holes and plane waves. This leads to a relation of the type Schwarzschild as Coulomb charge squared.

### 10.12.2014 (Wednesday)

#### Localization and quantum AdS_4/CFT_3 holography

Regular Seminar Nadav Drukker (King's College)

 at: 14:00 ICroom H139 abstract: I will review the calculation of the partition function of 3d supersymmetric field theories on S^3 using the fermi-gas approach to solve the matrix integral. The resulting expression is an Airy function and is valid perturbatively to all orders in 1/N for a wide class of theories (including ABJM). This suggests that a similar formula can be derived by studying quantum gravity on AdS_4. I will explain several of the steps needed to implement this idea and some intriguing results.

### 09.12.2014 (Tuesday)

#### TBA

Regular Seminar James Lidsey (Queen Mary University of London)

 at: 13:30 ICroom H503 abstract: TBA

### 03.12.2014 (Wednesday)

#### Entanglement entropy: some recent developments

Regular Seminar Solodukhin Sergey (Tours)

 at: 14:00 ICroom H503 abstract: In my talk I will give a brief review on entanglement entropy and discuss some recent developments which include relations to the geometric Willmore conjecture and the role of total derivatives in the trace anomaly.