Date: Monday, January 21, 2013
Location: 4088 East Hall (4:00 PM to 6:00 PM)
Title: 3-Manifolds and 3d Gauge Theories
Abstract: By starting with the 6d (2,0) superconformal field theory on a space-time of the form M x R^3, where M is a 3-manifold, one obtains an effective 3-dimensional field theory on R^3 --- thus establishing a correspondence between 3-manifolds M and 3d theories T[M]. The correspondence encodes many beautiful relations between geometry and physics, which I will discuss in the first part of the talk. Ultimately, T[M] should provide a categorification of Chern-Simons theory (i.e. quantum topological invariants) on M.
In the second part of the talk, I will discuss how T[M] (and its partition functions) can actually be computed from ideal triangulations of a large class of 3-manifolds with boundary. Mathematically, this involves studying moduli spaces of framed flat SL(K) connections on tetrahedra and how they glue together.
Speaker: Tudor Dimofte
Institution: IAS
Event Organizer:
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