Physical Math Seminar @ MPIM
Organized by David Aretz, Peter Teichner and myself. Contact: {aretz, prinz, teichner}@mpim-bonn.mpg.de
A seminar about different topics in Mathematical Physics, broadly around Quantum Field Theory, Algebraic Topology and Differential Geometry. Our meetings are hosted by an assigned speaker, who gives an informal introduction to his topic. Alongside, we will have questions from the audience, which typically lead to a lively discussion.
Official MPIM seminar webpage and program overview.
If not stated otherwise, we meet Thursdays at 12:00 a.m. in the MPIM Lecture Hall (see the exceptions below).
Summer Term 2024
This term, we start by discussion the following Preprint.
Talks
May 2:
- Organizational Meeting for the Summer Term
May 9:
- Public Holiday
May 16:
- No meeting, as most of us are traveling
May 23:
- Stephan Stolz: “Quantum Observables for Free Fermions With Boundary Conditions” -> Abstract
May 31 (special online talk):
- Simone Noja: “The Geometry of Forms on Supermanifolds” -> Abstract -> Zoom
June 6:
- Luuk Stehouwer: “A K-Theoretic Framework for Neutral Fermionic Topological Phases” -> Abstract
June 13:
- Alessandro Nanto: “Spectra, Complex Oriented Cohomology Theories, and Formal Group Laws” -> Abstract -> Notes
June 20:
- Paolo Tomasini: “A Soft Introduction to TMF” -> Abstract -> Notes
June 27:
- Jonah Epstein: “The Witten Index”
July 4:
- Peter Teichner: “How geometric field theories represent (generalized, twisted, equivariant) cohomology classes, part 1” -> Abstract
July 11:
- No talk! I suggest going to the talk by Ilya Chevyrev on “Stochastic quantisation of gauge theories” in the Hausdorff-Kolloquium of the university on Wednesday, July 10, at 15:15.
July 18:
- Peter Teichner: “How geometric field theories represent (generalized, twisted, equivariant) cohomology classes, part 2”
Spring Term 2024
Organized by David Aretz and myself. Contact: {aretz, prinz}@mpim-bonn.mpg.de
Official MPIM seminar webpage and program overview.
Topics
We have decided on the following three main topics, with some additional points that we would like to cover:
Supersymmetric Quantum Field Theories:
Conformal Field Theories:
(Perturbative) Chern–Simons Theory:
- BV formalism
- Knot theory
- Kontsevich integral (with link to supersymmetry)
Talks
February 1:
- Clarifying organizational issues, setting up schedule
- David Aretz: “Supersymmetric Quantum Mechanics”
February 8:
- No meeting due to carneval
February 15:
- David Aretz: “Supersymmetric Quantum Mechanics, Part 2”
February 22:
- David Prinz: “Supersymmetric Quantum Field Theory”
February 29:
- Jonah Epstein: “The Atiyah–Singer Index Theorem, Revisited From Supersymmetry”
March 6 (Wednesday, 11:30 a.m.) in MPIM Lecture Hall:
- Daniel Bermudez: “Conformal Field Theory and Conformal Blocks”
March 14 in MPIM Lecture Hall:
- Werner Nahm: “Euclidean Quantum Field Theory in One Axiom” -> Abstract
March 20 (Wednesday, 12:00 a.m.) in MPIM Lecture Hall:
- Paolo Tomasini: “Some Aspects of Vertex Algebras” -> Abstract
March 28:
- Jiadong Han: “Conformal Blocks and Generalized Theta Functions”
April 4:
- Sid Maibach: “Fundamental Aspects of Conformal Field Theory and their Mathematical Formulations” -> Abstract
April 11:
- Peter Moody: “Little Group Method” -> Abstract
April 18:
- Philip Schwartz: “Teleparallel Newton—Cartan Gravity” -> Abstract
April 26 (Friday, 11:30 a.m.) in MPIM Lecture Hall:
- Bernd Sturmfels: “Minimal Kinematics on $\mathcal{M}_{0,n}$” -> Abstract