A moduli space problem in condensed matter physics
SEMINARS: OPEN NEIGHBORHOOD
When: September 20, 2023
4:30 pm - 5:30 pm
Where: Science Center 507
Address:
1 Oxford Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, United States
Speaker: Dan Freed - Harvard University
This talk is an elementary account of what is at first a surprising application of stable homotopy theory to theoretical physics. No specialized background is required; the storyline is the focus, not technical details. The main result is a classification of invertible gapped phases in quantum mechanical systems. We will take a journey to get there, along the way meeting moduli problems in geometry and topological field theory. This is joint work with Mike Hopkins.
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https://people.math.harvard.edu/~gammage/ons/