Exact results in quantum field theory from differential systems

Speaker: Raphaël Belliard

Date: Wed, May 18, 2022

Location: Online

Conference: Emergent Research: The PIMS Postdoctoral Fellow Seminar

Subject: Mathematics, Particle Physics and Quantum Field Theory

Class: Scientific

Abstract:

Despite being the most efficient set of computational techniques available to the theoretical physicist, quantum field theory (QFT) does not describe all the observed features of the quantum interactions of our universe. At the same time, its mathematical formulation beyond the approximation scheme of perturbation theory is yet to be understood as a whole. I am following a path that tries to solve these two parallel problems at once and I will tell the story of how that way is paved by the study of equivariant differential systems and homology with local coefficients. More precisely, I will introduce these main characters in two space-time dimensions and describe how their symplectic geometry contains the data of correlation functions in conformally invariant QFT. If time allows, I will discuss how the Lax formulation of integrable systems in terms of Higgs bundles gives us hints as per how to extend the method to cases with four space-time dimensions.