Triangle Seminars

Week of 22 Mar 2010 - 28 Mar 2010

Wednesday, 24 Mar 2010

Extremal black holes: a status report
Joan Simon (Edinburgh)
Venue: IC ยท Room: H503 ยท Time: 14:00 ยท Type: Regular Seminar
Abstract:
I will review some recent attempts at providing a microscopic description
for extremal black holes. First, I will explain a constituent model for extremal non-rotating non-BPS asymptoticaly flat black holes. Second, I will summarise the main claims in the so called extremal BH/CFT correspondence, pointing out how a chiral CFT can emerge as a limit of a non-chiral CFT. Finally, I will use R-charge AdS black holes to derive the existence of emergent IR CFTs, similar to the ones that have been argued to capture some interesting quantum criticality phenomena in some strongly coupled condensed matter systems.
Posted by: IC

Thursday, 25 Mar 2010

M2-branes at hypersurface singularities and their deformations
James Sparks (Oxford)
Venue: QMW ยท Room: E303 Queens Building ยท Time: 14:00 ยท Type: Regular Seminar
Abstract:
I will introduce a family of supersymmetric Chern-Simons-matter theories in d=2+1 dimensions, labelled by a positive integer n, and argue using a number of different dual descriptions that these describe the worldvolume dynamics of M2-branes at a corresponding family of four-fold hypersurface singularities (the n=1 theory being the ABJM theory). The IR properties of these theories and their deformations are also studied.
Posted by: QMW

Week of 22 Mar 2010 - 28 Mar 2010