Talks

I will describe some general mathematical structures expected to arise from field theories with boundary conditions in terms of factorization algebras, and outline some results and future directions in the study of boundary chiral algebras for 3d N=4 theories following the work of Costello and Gaiotto.

In crystals, quantum electrons can be spatially distributed in a way that the bulk solid supports macroscopic electric multipole moments, which are deeply 

related with emergence of topology insulators in condensed matter systems. However, unlike the classical electric multipoles in open space, 

defining electric multipoles in crystals is a non-trivial task. So far, only the dipolar moment, namely polarization, has been successfully defined and served as a classic example of topological insulators. 

In this talk, we propose the general definition, i.e., many-body invariants, for electric multipoles in crystals, which are related with recently-discovererd higher-order topological insulators. 

Our invariants are designed to measure the distribution of electron charge in unit cells and thus can detect multipole moments purely from the bulk ground state wavefunctions. 

We provide analytic as well as numerical proofs for our invariants. Application of our invariants to spin systems as well as various other aspects of the many-body invariants will be briefly discussed.

I argue that we do not understand gauge theory as well as we think when boundaries are present. I will briefly explain the conceptual and technical issues that arise at the boundary.  I will then propose a tentative resolution, which requires us to think of theories not in spacetime, but in field-space. 

There is observational evidence that the X-ray continuum source that creates the broad fluorescent emission lines in some Seyfert Galaxies may be compact and located at a few gravitational radii above the black hole. We consider two scenarios for the X-ray emission. The first possibility is that the X-rays may be produced by particles accelerated in an electrostatic gap at the base of a putative jet. However, our detailed study of the gap kinetic physics and scaling suggests that the energetics is not enough in these environments. The second possibility is that the compact X-ray emitting source may be powered by small scale flux tubes near the black hole that are attached to the orbiting accretion disk. Our force-free simulations show that the field linking the black hole and the disk can get twisted up by the differential rotation to form a magnetic tower. When the confinement provided by the field from the outer disk is strong, the built-up magnetic tower can quickly become kink unstable, which leads to continuous reconnection and dissipates most of the energy extracted from the rotating black hole. This could in principle power a hot X-ray emitting region above the black hole.

Bernstein operators are vertex operators that create and annihilate Schur polynomials. These operators play a significant role in the mathematical formulation of the Boson-Fermion correspondence due to Kac and Frenkel. The role of this correspondence in mathematical physics has been widely studied as it bridges the actions of the infinite Heisenberg and Clifford algebras on Fock space. Cautis and Sussan conjectured a categorification of this correspondence within the framework of Khovanov's Heisenberg category. I will discuss how to categorify the Bernstein operators and settle the Cautis-Sussan conjecture, thus proving a categorical Boson-Fermion correspondence.