Mathematics and Physics in Heidelberg Fakultät für Mathematik und Informatik Fakultät für Mathematik und Informatik Mathematisches Institut Karl-Theodor-Brücke Surprise Fakultät für Physik und Astronomie Fakultät für Physik und Astronomie Institut für Theoretische Physik Universität Heidelberg Universität Heidelberg Universität Heidelberg
While our web site has relocated, these pages will be left in the status quo April 2023 for future perusal.

Seminar in the Summer Term 2016

Supersymmetry in Geometry and Quantum Physics (bis)


News

Interested students are asked to contact one of the organizers as soon as possible to register their topic. If necessary, an organizational meeting will be held in early April.

Administration: The LSF entry for this course is 11BMASE164. It can be taken for credit in the Mathematics and Physics Bachelor and Masters programs. We will not use Müsli for registration.

Meeting time and place: Our regular meeting time is Wednesday 16h s.t., INF 205 SR3.
The first meeting will be on April 20.

Instructors

Dr. Richard Eager, eager@mathi.uni-heidelberg.de
Prof. J. Walcher, walcher@uni-heidelberg.de

Description

This seminar aims to trace the interactions between quantum field/string theory and geometry/topology that have taken place over the past 25 years on the backbone of supersymmetry and its cohomological features. In the Winter, we studied Witten's papers on supersymmetric quantum mechanics that started the whole story in the early 1980's. This term, we will venture into the realm of higher-(but mostly two-)dimensional quantum field theories. We will endeavour to study both their dynamics and their applications to geometry.

Prerequisites: The seminar is aimed at Masters students and advanced Bachelor students of mathematics and physics, and is accessible with a good knowledge of undergraduate quantum mechanics of finite-dimensional systems and basic notions of differential geometry. Textbook knowledge of quantum field theory is not a prerequisite, as QFT plays a somewhat different role in our story than in standard physics applications. The material from the Winter is available here, and will also be reviewed at the beginning of the semester. We welcome new participants!


Schedule of Talks

Schedule still subject to change.

Date Speaker TitleAbstractNotes
April 20 Richard E. Review of Supersymmetric Quantum Mechanics
You may provide an abstract.
April 27 NN no class
May 4 Sascha L. The Coleman-Mandula Theorem
Thomas 2d SUSY Introduction
May 11 Robert S. Topological Twist of 2d field theories
Fabio S. The Chiral Ring
May 18 Oskar R. Symmetry Breaking
Menelaos Kosterlitz-Thouless Transition
May 25 Moritz S. Anomalies in QFT and Index Theory
Fabian K. Atiyah-Patodi-Singer Index Theorem
June 1 Lukas H. Sigma models into spheres
Ade A. Integrability
June 8 Sebastian N. Gromov-Witten Theory and Singularity Theory
Fengjun Instantons and the \({\mathbb{CP}^n}\) \(\sigma\)-model
You may provide an abstract.
June 15 Lukas B. Sigma model beta function
June 22 Daniel S. Solitons with fractional fermion number
June 29 Ricardo W. Quantum cohomology of \(\mathbb{CP}^n\)
Some other time everything else everything else